Maybe Al Gore should make another movie?

lol my position shouldn't matter - I don't want to get in this argument. It all too reminds me closely to the debates between religious apologetics and atheists. "Even if faith and god turn out to be wrong, which is impossible - what's the matter with it? - it only leads to good morals, ethics and better outcomes" - quote a defender of religion.

i found it interesting that there's a footnote qualifying the 'fact'...in the first sentence of the report! lol I believe you are incorrect about the 'qualifier' idea in dominant- quit with the arguing sir/ madam - you sound to be like so many angry creeps who argue for the sake of arguing - and then skewing a debate via your obsession with wanting to win the argument.

<“It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid 20th century.">

This makes the claim even more incredible, curtkram doesn't it? What if they said " ... It is extremely likely that human influence has been A cause.... Language can be powerful. This example I've raised reveals how a "fact" can be deceiving.

my bad.  i read the footnote as just another claim; they're two different statements referring to what degree human influence has on global warming.  you're saying the footnote doesn't support the statement, which i agree with.  i suppose if you're making two different statements about the degree and likelihood of human involvement in climate change, a footnote is not the correct place to do that.

to be fair, i've already stated there is no point in arguing whether global warming exists or not.  that's not the point i'm trying to make.  i'd like to know why someone would pick a side and ignore all evidence contrary to that, and what is it that encourages them to pick the side they did.

if on one hand you have a) real data supporting global warming exists, and on the other hand you have b) real data showing global warming doesn't exist, then what you have is a) global warming exists, and b) something else.  to put it another way, if you have a, and you have !a (or 'not a'), then you have a && !a (or a and 'not a'), not a || !a (a or 'not a').  it's difficult to prove a negative.  as in your religious analogy, you can't really prove god doesn't exist. 

in that sense, i'm not trying to prove myself right, i'm trying to prove gwharton wrong.  but again, proving gwharton wrong is pointless.  i'm hoping to push him to explaining the process that leads him to his conclusion, as i don't understand why people do that.

^ dats just logic !  And also why this whole argument is pointless. 

curtkram,

You're trying to "prove me wrong" and yet you clearly don't even understand what my position is in the first place. That seems odd.

For instance, you keep saying that I'm "denying" that global warming exists, when I haven't. So if your goal is to prove that my denial of global warming is wrong, you've succeeded, but only because the thing you're trying to prove wrong wasn't the case in the first place.

I have explained my position at great length and in detail. But you don't seem to understand that either.

Fundamentally, my position on this is about the epistemology of science and the rigorous application of the scientific method. I don't accept arguments from authority or social proof because they are irrelevant and unscientific. That's pretty simple, and yet you seem to struggle to understand it.

As I said, your position is pointless.  I'm interested in how you arrived at your position

gwharton, how do you reconcile the need for rigorous science and it's inherent limitations?