“I did this for about 30 haphazardly selected names followed by PhDs and not one of them had a degree even tangentially related to climate science (the closest I found was a mathematician).”
A mathematician would be good – since he deals with PROOFS!
Most skeptics are REAL scientists (engineers, chemists, physicists, statisticians, etc.) who use established scientific methods to do research with unaltered data (fudge factors are used sparingly and with great reluctance). They use computer models as tools, not as proofs.
They expect all who call themselves scientists to do likewise. They call unknowns unknown. They don’t make up values for unknowns to get the desired answer, then claim the made up value represents the unknown value in reality. They know you can’t make absolute claims when you don’t know even one of the variables.
They refuse to give “byes” to climatologists just because it’s difficult to gather comparative data and make sense of it and because “it’s the best we can do”. A guess is still a guess. If that’s the best you can do – then fine. But don’t dress it up LIKE YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT’S GOING ON. That’s what skeptics (scientists and laymen) are saying in plain English.
I have as much respect for phrenologists as I do for climatologists. I’m sure they also spent years studying their craft and no one was better able to read lumps on heads than they were. But I’m sure that they also claimed that no one but a fellow phrenologist was qualified to critique their work.
To say that only climatologists should review climate work is indeed dangerous. We might still be looking for interstellar ether, phlogiston, and studying alchemy, if disciplines barred others from reviewing their work. BTW of the 1500 (2500?) consensus scientists from the IPCC reports, the majority were NOT climate related either. Look that up!
As you AGW people have said “too much is at stake”, and I’ll add “to let the scorcerer’s apprentice be calling the shots”.
