That’s a matter of opinion but also some fact as this paper clearly shows
http://www.springerlink.com/content/g1l56241734kq743/
Scientists are shown to “herd” together to defend the status quo, their “beliefs” and careers against new or different views that threaten them.
That is not what the abstract states.
Publication Prejudices: An Experimental Study of Confirmatory Bias in the Peer Review System
...
In addition to showing poor interrater agreement, reviewers were strongly biased against manuscripts which reported results contrary to their theoretical perspective. The implications of these findings for epistemology and the peer review system are briefly addressed.
There are no "beliefs" mentioned.
There are no careers mentioned.
There is no mention of different views that threaten them (but that could be "theoretical perspective").
The only thing you got right is "status quo" - assuming that none of the 75 reviewers was a maverick whose theoretical perspective was anti-status quo.
Everybody knows that there is some
confirmation bias in the peer-review system. Scientists hope that the indoctrination that they undergo in post graduate school to question everything minimizes this bias.
NASA think exactly what climate scientists think - the TSI has a effect on global temperatures . Climate scientists know what this effect is, i.e. much less than that of GHGs. This is from the sceintific evidence.
Seems like “groupthink” to me
Seems like “science” to me

!
Let see
- The majority of scientists think that there is strong evidence for special relativity - is this “groupthink”?
- The majority of scientists think that there is strong evidence for general relativity - is this “groupthink”?
- The majority of scientists think that there is strong evidence for evolution - is this “groupthink”?
- The majority of scientists think that there is strong evidence for the Standard Model - is this “groupthink”?
- The majority of scientists think that there is strong evidence for quantum mechanics - is this “groupthink”?
The evidence that global warming exists, is mostly due to GHG's and we caused the increase in GHG's is not as strong as the evidence for the above theories but is strong enough to convince the majority of climate sceintists.
This approach hasn’t taken into account GCR and their affect on our climate or even acknowledge it’s possible impact that CLOUD math show it’s equivalent to any GHG’s effect. The Greenland ice cores confirm the 15% to 20% (approx) reduction in GCR’s during the last 100 years of warming.
This approach fits the existing temperature data without GCR. This is evidence that the effect of GCR is small.
Interestingly, you are still obsessed with the ad-homs on this astrophysicist with expertise in climate science. Can you explain why the, peer-reviewed, climate scientist at the Met Office, who use the latest computer climate models, based on AGW, can’t get their long range forecasts right! but PC can?
Interestingly, you are still obsessed with this astrophysicist with no known expertise in climate science and his advertising.
Piers Corbyn has no proven track record of predicting weather.
Consensus has no place in science. Science is not democratic. The small number have often been shown to be right against the majority, time and evidence will decide.
Since you did not unbderstand what I said here it is again in terms you might understand
- Consensus has no place in science
- Science is not democratic
- The small number have sometimes been shown to be right against the majority, time and evidence will decide.
- The majority have often been shown to be right against the minority, time and evidence will decide.
- So how are we as layman to judge the results of current climate research?
The real answer is to become climate scientists!

The more practical answer is to learn science and apply that knowledge to the evidence. This means at least a university education. This is the situation that I am in.
The most practical answer is to to combine applying what knowledge you have to evaluating the evidence (and realize that you will make mistakes) and trust the majority of experts, i.e. the scientific consensus. This means of course that sometimes you (and these experts) will be wrong.
The worst answer is to just trust the minority of experts.
This means that you (and these experts) will be wrong most of the time.
As a layman I can see the demarcation in Science can lead to “turf wars” but do you really think the CERN CLOUD Astrophysists don’t know all about GHG’s?
I know that the CERN scientists know about GHG's. Their research has nothing to do with GHG's.
You make no comment on the political nature of the paper reading like one from the IPCC, why not? They don’t even mention GCR’s as a possible cause of climate change, why not?
Beacuse is it not a paper! It is a
NASA statement on Global Warming.
James Lovelock doesn’t agree with that view: “They have kept us from regarding the science of climate change as a religion. It had gone too far that way”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/com...cle7061020.ece
Your link is broken:
Grandaddy of green, James Lovelock, warms to eco-sceptics
“I think you have to accept that the sceptics have kept us sane — some of them, anyway,” he said. “They have been a breath of fresh air. They have kept us from regarding the science of climate change as a religion. It had gone too far that way. There is a role for sceptics in science. They shouldn’t be brushed aside. It is clear that the angel side wasn’t without sin.”
Nothin to do with what I said: "There is no failth. “believe” = the scientific evidence has convinced them.", i.e. there is no religious kind of faith (blind trust in a dogma without evidence) involved which you implied.
Of course what James Lovelock is stating that that skeptics have prevented the science of climate change from becoming a religion.
By their evidence and results. Also, is the climate doing what they predicted it would do? If not, why not? Can it explain past climate change? Like the LIA, MWP and the regular Ice Ages.
Climate is doing what they predicted.
- Climate models are tested against existing data. If they do not fit that then they are thrown away.
- Climate models are tested agains future predictions. The global warmiing that has been measured over the past decades fits what the models predicted.
Read the IPCC reports for the full picture.
I do not know about the fits to the LIA, MWP and the regular Ice Ages.
Mmmm by that strategy we would still have the Sun circling the Earth.
Mmmm by that strategy we would have the Earth circling the Sun as the evidence for the consensus did not hold up and the evidence for the dissenting views did.
Why not look at evidence and theories that can explain our climate past, present and predicted future? AGW doesn’t do that in my DA view.
AGW is about what is happening to the climate since basically the Industrial Revolution. It does do it in my view based on simple science:
- GHG's increase the temperature of the Earth according to basic physics.
- There are lots of other factors that drive climate. These should include cosmic rays but there are doubts, e.g. the expected correlation between low clouds and cosmic rays broke down in 1991 (Could cosmic rays be causing global warming?).
- Scientists have measured that GHG's are a major driver of climate.
- GHG's have increased.
- We caused this increase.
- The temperature of the Earth has increased.
- Thus AGW.
Your wrong, I stated my actual position (DA off) in my post #222 I don’t “ignore” or “blindly believe” anything! (DA on) Piers Corbyn makes more sense than the IPCC, the Climategate sientists and most of the AGW alarmist views I’ve heard to date, put together.
That is a really bad reason: "makes more sense" just means that Piers Corbyn has a better brand of snake oil!

Science is based on the ability to produce actual evidence and convince your peers that the evidence is correct. Piers Corbyn has produced none. He has convinced few (if any) peers.
You need to learn more about the scientific community and how it works - a presentation at a symposium is not peer reviewed.
I do not know "Kinematics and Physics of Celestial Bodies" but I guess it is peer reviewed. However you obviously never read the paper - it says nothing about climate.
I don’t lie, that’s my interpretation of what it says in the 2000 paper as can be judged in these few quotes:
One more time:.
- It is not a peer-reviewed scientific paper. It is not a paper of any kind. It is an interal document for use within CERN. It is not even the complete document set (see CLOUD Proposal Documents).
- As an internal proposal document to CERN by scientists who want to do the experiment you would expect them to put possible results in the best light.
Your quotes from the document merely confirms this.
- The link between cosmic rays and global warming mentioned in the document have been overtaken by later results as detailed in Could cosmic rays be causing global warming? which cites scientific papers published in 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2007.
Maybe, maybe not! They seems to suggest that GCR’s modulated by the Sun can explain most, maybe all, of the climate change.
They only do this in your mind: compariable does not mean "most, maybe all".
Compariable means of the same order of magnitude. It means that the authors have no actual numbers but are estimating from their experience (and hopefully from consulting actual climate scientists) to impress the budget managers in order to get funding for the experiment.
I had my doubts about you but glad to hear you’re ….. a “believer”? Wonder why NASA or the IPCC don’t acknowledge the CERN CLOUD experiment?
Why should they "acknowledge" an experiment that has not even started yet (just a pilot study so far)?
Can you give a source for that claim? And explain in what way you think it has broken down?
Could cosmic rays be causing global warming?
Something’s to consider:
...
Something’s to to completely derail this thread into yet anbother AGW thread
Guess what - there are plenty of papers out there that state that AGW is not happening. They are outnumbered by the ones that say AGW exists. I assume you do not want me to start citing those since you will lose a "citation war".
But...
I have no idea why you cited:
Oceanic influences on recent continental warming
Evidence is presented that the recent worldwide land warming has occurred largely in response to a worldwide warming of the oceans rather than as a direct response to increasing greenhouse gases (GHGs) over land. Atmospheric model simulations of the last half-century with prescribed observed ocean temperature changes, but without prescribed GHG changes, account for most of the land warming. The oceanic influence has occurred through hydrodynamic-radiative teleconnections, primarily by moistening and warming the air over land and increasing the downward longwave radiation at the surface. The oceans may themselves have warmed from a combination of natural and anthropogenic influences.
(my emphasis added)
Evidence that oceans warm land and a mention of every possible cause of ocean's warming (natural and anthropogenic pretty well covers everything).
Climate scientists are quite well aware of ENSO and it effects on global termperatures.
Global Cooling in 2009 is a really bad blog entry. Everyone knows that if you cherry pick your start and end dates you can impose any trend you like on global temeratures because they vary. The Earth did cool down from 1998 to 2009. But 1998 was an unusually hot year.
The Earth has heated up over the longer periods usually considered for climate research. These periods have to be long enough so that trends are statistically significantly different from natural variations. This is multiple decades - see
Phil Jones says no global warming since 1995.
As for the web page by By Gregory F. Fegel,
CO2 lags temperature - what does it mean?