Yachtie
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Joined: 1/18/2012
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This is quite interesting. The vehement AGW folks, intolerant of anything that opposes their orthodoxy, being rationally confronted by no other than CERN's research director, Pierre Darriulat.
A third category of posts found in the climate science blogs is from people interested in the economical and political dimension of the debate and from people interested in its social and human dimension. Those having financial, economical or political interests are among the most passionate and biased participants and their contributions are not very constructive – except in a few instances – and usually do not help much in raising the level of the debate.
Those who find an interest in the sociological dimension of the debate are much more interesting to me. It is indeed something new, and likely to be of unprecedented importance, to have a public debate on science-related questions that are of major relevance to our future on such a large scale. It seems to me to be overlooked – or at least insufficiently appreciated – by the establishment, such as academies of sciences, learned societies, editorial boards of major science journals, mass media, etc. The so-called “skeptics” often claim that they are better scientifically minded, meaning having a better sense of scientific ethic than the so-called “warmists” and I think that any neutral observer must recognize that they have a point there.
After having sorted the wheat from the chaff – which is relatively easy but obviously considered as criminal by the chaff – one is left with a very respectable and informative set of statements, which simply cannot be ignored. The politization of the debate has undeniably resulted in unscientific practices. The difficulty to publish a case that dissents from orthodoxy is real. I have refereed many articles for several journals and I know that there is always some unconscious subjectivity in our judgement, well-known authors obviously enjoying a favourable prejudice.
I have also experienced myself, when having changed field from a domain where I was well known to a new one where I was unknown, that it takes time to be accepted by the new community and by the referee who evaluates your article – one to two years. The present machinery of our system of social interactions is not prepared to properly handle the new situation. How to depart from the black and white segregation of clans such as warmists, activists, alarmists, deniers, skeptics, etc, some publishing in Internet, some in traditional scientific journals, some in popular mass media? Sociologists are rightly delighted to witness what is happening and to see there a very rich ground for their investigations.
"warmists, activists, alarmists, deniers, skeptics" The most dangerous to any discussion are those adhering to orthodoxy. Their claim is that the most dangerous are the skeptics and deniers, as the orthodoxy is.
I doubt much will ever change between the various camps.
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“We all know it’s going to end badly, but in the meantime we can make some money.” - Jim Cramer, CNBC
“Those who ‘abjure’ violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf.” - George Orwell
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The CC entertainment continues - 
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