Forgive me if I was unclear; I was not talking about one paper. I was talking about any one paper: Does any paper's presence in a high-profile journal mean anything in and of itself? i.e. It got past the first peer review process. RPSr was only enumerating the papers, identified as "peer-reviewed". Well, sure. They were reviewed by the--what--three or so reviewers and the editor to get into Nature (I'm by no means diminishing this achievement, btw). Then the real fun begins, as the rest of the field reads and comments on the work, perhaps tries to reproduce the results, suggests changes, refinements, etc. My point was the RPSr was only counting papers, not weighing their importance. Remember your accusation of me "counting scientists" when I said that I generally trust a consensus to even out the "quirkiness" of individual scientists?
The problem is - who decides how to "weigh the importance" of a paper? You criticise the fact that nature may only have three reviewers, but the IPCC process effectively determines the "weight" of a paper through perhaps just two lead authors. And, as noted by CapelDodger, the IPCC is not in the job of doing primary research, so the analysis by the two lead authors will be no more stringent than those of the three nature reviewers.
Furthermore, in a thorough and comprehensive review, if there was three dozen papers on a subject by a dozen different scientists - yes I'm counting scientists here - and even if those papers were subsequently discredited - yes I'm recognising counting scientists is not the be all and end all - it seems to me to be a serious omission to ignore what must have been a significant debate.
I have never said that any of these papers were discredited; please do not misrepresent me. I said that the papers enumerated by RPSr were identified only as "peer-reviewed", which says nothing about how they survived in the wild. I am curious about what has happened to them out there--I made no speculation. What happened to these papers? Were they accepted? repeated? verified? met with the sound of crickets?
The reason for the three dozen or so papers RPSr listed was not that they are individual papers, but a major back-and-forth debate on just a couple of topics (RPSr's topics of choice are: issues with the instrumental record and consequence of land use changes on global and regional climate). RPSr lists both papers that agree and disagree with his views - his list, at any rate, has some balance to it. So certainly not met with the sound of crickets. I would summarise the topic as saying they were accepted, repeated, hypotheses have been formed to explain the evidence, but there are unresolved issues between teams of scientists. I hope that summary is useful.
Ok. I'll accept that he is asking for balance. I never actually held the position that he was "demanding his view as truth", but I can see how my exchange with CapelDodger might give that impression. I have, however, held (and still do) that he is demanding that his view be included. The articles that you linked read to me like a child not picked for the team. Yes, that was an ad hom.
To stretch your analogy a little bit
he was picked for the team, he felt the team was not playing a fair game, so he quit the team.
Yes, I should argue his message, not his voice. His voice, however, in these articles at least, was a bit strident and accusatory. He might persuade more people to his point of view if he did not preach so loudly to his choir. He certainly didn't persuade me (for what
that's worth!
)
It is worth noting I presented three cases (although I did not make all the links particularly clear): Roger Pielke Sr, Paul Reiter and Steve McIntyre. Interestingly, all three put their arguments forward in very different ways, and in isolation, are insufficient to form a claim of bias. Whilst all three are quite different in perspective, all stem from a common problem: a weak authoring and review process in the IPCC. You really need to take all three accounts together to justify the claim.
Again, I never accused these articles of being discredited. I stated that identifying them only as "peer-reviewed", as RPSr does, says nothing about their veracity or weight. I asked the question to you and other working scientists if their mere publication made them more important than I am giving them credit for. I still contend (please correct me if I'm wrong) that a paper is not verified or considered relevant to a discussion until it has undergone some degree of vetting by other independent groups, either by repeating, or otherwise corroborating the experiments and results.
I hope my comments above clarify (my opinion) of the status of the papers. I would ask a question back: why do you think (say) two IPCC lead authors are a better basis for weighing importance than three nature reviewers?
Easy tiger
There is a fine line between believing that the IPCC WG1 writers all got together and decided to exclude RPSr's (and others') work (conspiracy) and all of the writers independently deciding to exclude RPSr's (and others') work (bias). I will however retract the word "conspiracy". He is not, however, doing himself any favors by writing in the tone of the articles you linked.
Ha ha - the "easy tiger" comment is well made, the conspiracy word is one which I bite at (having had enough arguments with conspiracy theorists / moon hoaxers / 911 truthers etc in the past). I think it is worth elaborating on your view of how the IPCC report writing works though. Whilst there are circa 30 lead authors, the chapters are written quite independently by a small number of people - I don't know the exact number in the chapter RPSr refers to (IPCC WG1 Chapter 3), I will try to look these up, but this is all it takes to impose a slant on a chapter. Note I used the number two above as an exampli gratia rather than the actual number.
I forgot to mention: I flatly disagree with the framing of this point. To suggest that if I am "bright" I will align with your logic rather than CapelDodger's suggests that you hold your opinion with much greater certainty than is ever warranted in a scientific discussion.
Interestingly, you make the same logical error here. I suggested that you did not adopt CapelDodger's illogical stance. This does not require you to adopt my position - you could always counter my position with a logical argument, but still fulfil my recommendation. Your argument creates a false dichotomy between CapelDodger's position and my position.
I do not always agree with you, but you have earned my respect in this discussion. CapelDodger also has earned my respect, so please do not use me to insult him.
My criticism was of CapelDodger's illogical argument, not him. CapelDodger might have some valid input elsewhere, but not yet in this debate. His net contribution is an ad hom on RPSr ("hissy fit"), an appeal to motive on RPSr ("What he seems to mean is that the IPCC does not come to the conclusions expressed in these papers"), and now an appeal to motive on me ("Again with the fixation on the IPCC"). Whilst you have also made an ad hom on RPSr (poor form btw - if you don't like his writing, just say so, don't attack the individual), you have at least backed this up with solid debating points.
