“That’s not very clever given the preponderance of evidence to the contrary”
Sorry, with comments like “revival tent histronics”, I thought you were the one who was trying to be clever.
I get that you want the best argument in an AGW skeptic (or as I call them, rational scientists who are still seeking to test an unproven theory, or hypothesis, actually). For good reason as we all know, because a lot depends on the ability of these wonderful, genuine folks to gain sufficient traction to inform the masses that AGW may in fact reasonably be suspected to be possibly a hoax, and that this is not a sign of mental instability.
But buying off on your prospect that we know affirmatively that humans are affecting climate, a lot or a very little, seems to require that we all acknowledge that the AGW religion proceeds from a kernel of truth, and on data that is consistent and cannot be manipulated. I disagree. Humans might not be. I think they are, personally. But they might not be. I think it might be that AGW is exactly what it appears to be: a religion that proceeds from the naturally occurring hubris of intellectuals who over-estimate their own capacity to attain knowledge.
It seems to me, a layman (and perhaps I’m wrong here because I often am about many things as I’m sure you will be pointing out using very clever language), that the real argument here, the one that matters, the one that is chiefly between scientists in the know rather than politically motivated hacks or randoms like me, is about a) what the evidence actually is (i.e., data collection methods and how consistent and accurate they may or may not be); and b) what the evidence signifies. You seem to skip part A, perhaps I’m wrong about that. And as you well know, data can certainly be sufficient to prove certain things (i.e., relative numbers using consistent sampling techniques), but garbage (and properly diagnosed as such) if it is fraudulently used to address more than it can. I think the stronger the perceived fraud, the stronger the language employed by its skeptics should be. And garbage really isn’t all that strong.
