The Great Global Warming Swindle
A year ago BBC Channel Four aired "The Great Global Warming Swindle" which claimed that man-made global warming is "a lie" and "the biggest scam of modern times." The challenges the program presented were nontrivial and well-made, highlighting legitimate anomalies in the data. This was a good thing. Discovering legitimately anomalous data shows us that there's a problem, usually with methodology or the underlying theory, and legitimate scientists should always very keen to find and fix such problems. In the months following "Swindle" the scientific community reexamined their data to see what was wrong.
At an unconference last year I heard that one of my colleagues intended to lead a discussion about "Swindle", presenting it as an effective rebuke of climate change. 90 minutes before the presentation I prepared this set of slides summarizing the challenges presented in "Swindle" and whether those challenges have been accepted and verified or explained in another way.
http://tongodeon.com/lj/08.03.22-Global_Warming_Swindle.pdf
This is a good lesson in how scientific progress is made. No single experiment proves that a theory is true, no single anomalous data point proves that a theory is false, all data is verified by independent observers using improved methods. New experiments and observations are performed and replicated, better theories and observations are replicated, pass peer review, and find concensus. Dealing with critics can be frustrating, bad faith critics doubly so, but evidence-based criticisms always make legitimate science stronger in the end.
At an unconference last year I heard that one of my colleagues intended to lead a discussion about "Swindle", presenting it as an effective rebuke of climate change. 90 minutes before the presentation I prepared this set of slides summarizing the challenges presented in "Swindle" and whether those challenges have been accepted and verified or explained in another way.
http://tongodeon.com/lj/08.03.22-Global_Warming_Swindle.pdf
This is a good lesson in how scientific progress is made. No single experiment proves that a theory is true, no single anomalous data point proves that a theory is false, all data is verified by independent observers using improved methods. New experiments and observations are performed and replicated, better theories and observations are replicated, pass peer review, and find concensus. Dealing with critics can be frustrating, bad faith critics doubly so, but evidence-based criticisms always make legitimate science stronger in the end.