Still very inferior to hard evidence. but still better than your crappy opinions.

In the absence of better evidence, invoking authority is still a (weak) form of evidence. Compared to what you have, my claim is more robust.

And if now you are willing to call this contention ‘outstanding’, perhaps you can pull back all that other earlier crap to the level of ‘outstanding’??

“[I]t looks like my claim has more veracity than yours.”

No, but it is the more ‘officially’ accepted at the moment.

Veracity isn’t relative, and in this arena still outstanding.

And I wouldn’t call it an appeal to pop., the genuine skeptical movement is probably well informed enough to know the definition of ‘skeptic’, so it is more aptly deemed a (non fallacious) appeal to authority. Of course, they could be wrong about deniers. perhaps you are genuine skeptics, but you have no evidence for such.

If I’m not mistaken, it looks like my claim has more veracity than yours.

The rest of your historical analogues and science-bashing remains unsubstantiated dribble.

Your appeal to popularity avails you nothing, at least with regard to the veracity of your claims. In fact resort to such suggests quite the contrary.

Well that might be how you deniers see it but I’m afraid you are on your own. As I said earlier, even most (every?) skeptic groups around the world, peeps who care most about the definition of skepticism, regard your stance as denialist. And it may seem that peeps just use ‘denier’ to avoid criticism, but you’ll probably find it is because that criticism is the same old rubbish that gets continuously raised since ten years ago.

Your commentary on science and history is still pretty hypocritical coming from someone who is not happy with the level of science in AGW. You even hint at the inadequacy of social science when your surrounding comments are trying to be exactly that, but…

You say: ‘Scientists make terrible policy makers because science must be morally and ethically neutral.’

No they don’t they must be morally and ethically astute.

You say: ‘Policy cannot be adhere to these dictates, because it is driven by Values judgments’

Those value judgements and policies would ideally be derived from reasoned discourse, something that scientists do. What value judgements do you think science would screw up?

You seem to suggest that scientists are rigid and too conditioned for the real world. I don’t know why you have this idea. Most scientists are just ordinary peeps too, who probably don’t think that much differently to the rest of us.

You say: ‘The greatest threat from ’science based government’ is the credibility they possess…allows them more easily to secure the people’s deference’

It is one thing to be more credible, but to abuse it is another. The foundation of science is sound, open reasoning, not manipulation and the kind of persuasion you are suggesting.

The word “denier” is used PURELY to try to conflate dissimilar cases (i.e. those who argue against the solidity of current AGW theory or dispute the case that observed warming and its affects constitute any substantial danger or threat, or that warming is amenable to alternation by taxes, or energy policy, or attempted restrictions on emissions…and folks who refuse to accept perfectly sound evidence for the moon landings, the safety of vaccinations, the holocaust and so forth). Your dissimulation attempts to evade the use of that purely ad hominem attack, which only purpose is to try to discredit critics without actually having to address the evidence they bring to bear.

The case has not been made that CO2 is the principle, or even the most significant, driver of the overall warming observed since the late 19th Century. This is in spite of the fact that there has been some, significant but not unprecedented (in spite of alarmist claims to the contrary, not helped by obviously passionate attempts to ‘spin’ data to that end on the part of some of them) warming over the past couple hundred years. We experienced, according to the best interpretations of the data available, a rather faster warming in the years prior to WWII, then a cooling period for the next 20-30 years, then a warming period for the next couple decades, which now appears to have ended. Where climate goes from there is still ambiguous. Citing questionable studies as if they were conclusive, and passionately demanding huge investments and tremendous sacrifices on that basis deserves to be contested. And when such contentions are forwarded with propaganda efforts, such as Hansen’s and Gore’s scare-tactics, largely based on mis-representations or exaggerations, they deserve contempt too.

The point is a “denier” refuses to admit or accept EVIDENCE. It is not denial to call a hypothesis into question on the basis of contrary evidence. It is not denial to argue that evidence does not justify policy. And to try to characterize these arguments as ‘denialism’ is itself intellectually dishonest and destructive of both science and polity.

Scientists make terrible policy makers because science must be morally and ethically neutral. In science nothing must trump objective accuracy and correct physical results. Policy cannot be adhere to these dictates, because it is driven by Values judgments, where accuracy and objective truth must take second place to policy ends. Scientists make terrible policy makers to whatever extent they are good scientists, and terrible scientists to whatever extent they are good policy makers (i.e politicians, to call the thing what it is in practice). When scientists decide to become policy advocates they are faced with the dilemma of ultimately either sacrificing good policy decisions to Science, or good Science to effective policy decisions. The Wiemar Constitution was a case in point. In the attempt to create a sound, logical and rational intellectual construct, the social scientists (leaving aside any questions as to whether or not the Social Sciences really are ‘science’ at all) created a document that was terribly ineffective in the policy arena and that ultimately crippled the government on which it was based and provided the means for the alternative (the NSDAP) to seize power. The greatest threat from ‘science based government’ is the credibility they possess (although we’re seeing that’s dissipation now) allows them more easily to secure the people’s deference, which actors and athletes would not see so forthcoming.

No…we’d be MUCH better off with a football team at the helm than a bunch of physicists…by far.

Firstly, the word ‘denier’ is useful to differentiate between honest, genuine skeptics and those who won’t listen to reason, in a constant state of denial. Skeptical groups all around the world, peeps who embody the definition of skepticism (go look em up) do not want their title sullied by the so called ‘climate skeptics’, so it is out of respect to them that I, and many others, use ‘denier’ to describe you folk.

I have made no ad hominem attack. Where is it?

Secondly, How the hell can you still blabber on so confidently about parallels between the present day and German history, without any kind of evidence approaching the scientific standard seen with AGW/DAGW, which you readily condemn? Don’t you see the huge double standard you have going there?

Thirdly, you dread that policy decisions might be made by scientists. What? No one is suggesting that.

Fourthly, and this is just as hypocritically unsubstantiated as your earlier crap, why do you think scientists are terrible decision makers? The philosophy of science flows though out all good decision making in any field. Why would they suck so bad? And why the hell would pop. stars or athletes do better????

Policy decisions must NEVER be handed to ‘scientists’….EVER. It’s the worst mistake a society could make, destructive to society and science alike. If you liked the Wiemar Republic then you’ll LOVE ‘science based government’…which will end up pretty much the same. Far better to give policy to professional athletes or popular entertainers than to Scientists…the former may be stupid and arrogant, but at least they don’t think they know it all and have a lot harder time convincing folks they do.