With all due respect (something you haven't given me) ...
I beg to differ.
... I think you cannot, as a non-scientist, grasp the importance of validation.
You may well think that.
But, without validating the models, everything that comes thereafter is tantamount to speculation. A validated study means, among other things, that the observations have been reproduced in a controlled setting and the results are then both meaningful and predictive, having controlled for other possible confounding factors.
Which is tantamount to saying we
can't validate climate models, so your "the models are unvalidated" comfort-blanket will never get old. Whatever actually happens.
What comes after a model run are known technically as
real-world events. I'm sure we can all agree that it's those that are actually important. They've matched the models pretty well over the last couple of decades, but that, of course, can never count as "validation" to you.
"Unvalidated" will remain prominent in the GWS lexicon for quite some time, I think.
As much as the pro-AGW camp now wants to assert, the current state-of-science in the Global Climate Change arguments have not been validated. And, when they have been attempted to be validated (such as in dendrochronology) by controlling and prospectively looking at variables, the error ranges are far greater than what's openly disclosed after independent review.
"Unvalidated" is the buzz-word, not "validated". It's the
uncertainty you want to get across.
Here's a thing : AGW theory predicted a warming effect with increased CO2-load and a warming is what we've been seeing, along with increased CO2-load. That's a good step on the road to validation, don't you think? The next two-to-seven years should confirm the theory or not.
The problem is that a large part of the pro-AGW argument rests on the assumed validity of science that has not yet been proven to be consistent, reproducible, and verified independently. This is a major problem. This essentially renders the current state-of-science to be nothing more than interesting supposition and possibly "guilt by association" rather than rigorous, fundamental, proven fact.
Thermo-dynamics, fluid dynamics, radiative science - are they to be considered "unvalidated" now?
That's the part I object to. For all I know, they could be spot on. They just haven't proven it yet, to the level required to implement and mandate broad, sweeping changes.
A rather subjective definition of "unvalidated", don't you think? I got the impression you were rather stricter than that.
Yet, some people have concluded that it is beyond reproach or further questioning.
It's was real-world events that brought us the Bali Conference, and will (absent massive and abrupt sea-level rise) the Copenhagen Conference. The decision-makers, many with their own scientific advisers and native scientific institutions, have concluded (reluctantly) that there really is something in it.
I have a big problem with that, and it scares me that this is how we now undertake science: once a body of knowledge is developed, it shoudn't be questioned.
Straw-man; nobody's suggesting that. Look at the list in the OP. How much of that is actually about science?
Why is that so hard to understand?
-Dr. Imago
You're pretty transparent yourself. Your prose could do with some tightening up (that bit about dendrochronology is completely opaque), but then it wouldn't reveal so much about you. Given the context of this thread, the latter is more relevant.
