My concern is that along with that knowledge they didn't implant a questioning attitude. That can be a terrible problem for a scientist.

You see, I don't claim any special expertise, just an engineering background... used to call myself one but I opted for the sales side and that was so long ago I hate to think about it.

And I have been around long enough to know that using models to prove anything is problematic, and that a model's result is easy to fudge.

So just consider me a hard headed ROF who started out believeing in Global Cooling. Remember that? And to a degree, Global Warming. After all, with my background and the fact that I love science fiction, I was an easy mark.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the altar. I started asking questions.

And that's why I like Crichton. He asks questions, and he makes some points that I haven't seen answered:

For a person with a medical background, accustomed to this degree of rigor in research, the protocols of climate science appear considerably more relaxed. In climate science, it's permissible for raw data to be "touched," or modified, by many hands. Gaps in temperature and proxy records are filled in. Suspect values are deleted because a scientist deems them erroneous. A researcher may elect to use parts of existing records, ignoring other parts. But the fact that the data has been modified in so many ways inevitably raises the question of whether the results of a given study are wholly or partially caused by the modifications themselves.

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Crichton has also exhibited a remarkable grasp of trends, and what the future will hold. The following comes from a speech he made at the National Press Club on April 7, 1993.

.. To my mind, it is likely that what we now understand as the mass media will be gone within ten years. Vanished, without a trace.

That tells me that he is a guy who may not be a "scientist," but one who understands science, technology and the associated societal and political changes that are coming.

So, want to talk about the hockey stick? Isn't a pretty picture, eh? The same "stick" was used to sell Internet demand and the need to purchase infrastructure by the telcos. It wsa wrong there, too.

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After all we have these 60 scientists that think we should. And just glancing at the list, they seem very qualified. BTW - Is your name on a list supporting the UN's theory?"

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Want to get a second opinon of Algore's technical abilities?

"The man is an embarrassment to US science and its many fine practitioners, a lot of whom know (but feel unable to state publicly) that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science." - Bob Carter as quoted in the Canadian Free Press, June 12, 2006

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Greenhouse effect??

Since you seem to not understand it yourself, the above will give you an overview...

Are you saying that we don't have larger cities, have lost more trees???

Similarly, the fact that water vapour constitutes 95% of greenhouse gases by volume is conveniently ignored by Gore. While humanity's three billion tonnes (gigatonnes, or GT) per year net contribution to the atmosphere's CO2 load appears large on a human scale, it is actually less than half of 1% of the atmosphere's total CO2 content (750-830 GT). The CO2 emissions of our civilization are also dwarfed by the 210 GT/year emissions of the gas from Earth's oceans and land. Perhaps even more significant is the fact that the uncertainty in the measurement of atmospheric CO2 content is 80 GT -- making three GT seem hardly worth mentioning.

Do you get the point that we have a +/- variance of 80GT, yet we are concerned over 3GT?

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Crichton's point was, since you want to snark and won't take a look at he said, is that he doesn't think we have looked at these items, instead concentrating almost entirely on carbon dixode..

BTW - Can you explain the Little Ice Age and before that the Mediaeval Warm Period?

BTW - Do you ignore the sun? Do you think that the sun is playing a part in this?

If  not, can you explain the warming noticed on Mars? I mean, we closer to the sun than Mars is.

BTW - Does an increase in carbon dioxide follow sunspot activity, or lead it?

I could go on and on with links and questions, but I think I have proved my point.

And this article sums it up rather nicely.

The truth is that this being pushed by two groups. First scientists who see it as a means to obtain more funding for their various studies. Secondly, the politicians who see it as a means to transfer wealth from the West to the third world. They go together like pilot fish and sharks.

There is also a third group which is not noticed in this country, but has in Europe. That is the communists and hard line socialists who found natural allies in the greens. They share a mutal hatred of the west.

Leftists have problems with Christianity.  Christians believe that they are flawed and seek grace through repentance.  Leftists believe everyone else is flawed and seek resolution through imposition.

matt-sanchez.com

I started with Crichton, so I'll end with him. he wrote:

N=N*fp ne fl fi fc fL

Where N is the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy; fp is the fraction with planets; ne is the number of planets per star capable of supporting life; fl is the fraction of planets where life evolves; fi is the fraction where intelligent life evolves; and fc is the fraction that communicates; and fL is the fraction of the planet's life during which the communicating civilizations live.

This serious-looking equation gave SETI an serious footing as a legitimate intellectual inquiry. The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the equation is to fill in with guesses. And guesses-just so we're clear-are merely expressions of prejudice. Nor can there be "informed guesses." If you need to state how many planets with life choose to communicate, there is simply no way to make an informed guess. It's simply prejudice.

When you can plug in some absolutes into the formula, come back and see me. Until then I think neither of us knows for sure what's happening.

A while?  He lasted more than two weeks in his position?

I can only commend his fortitude, his intelligence and experience hopefully were improved after being in contact with you.

His defense was always that some small detail had prevented him for doing whatever.

Well, you probably would've subjected him to merciless criticism if he had actually did whatever, so I'm already on this guys' side, although why you think we'd be interested in a HR story is beyond moi.

He also shared the same traits you do, claiming things others said when invstigations always proved  him untrue

Gee, PPJ, how many investigations did you need before you took some sort of corrective action?

So prove my statement about your knowledge of science untrue, answer the question I posed in 15, so that we can see how well you understand thermodynamics on a basic scale.  I mean I got a B- in Physics at University, so I'm not setting myself up like I'm an elitist in Phi Beta Kappa or something like that.

Carry on:

I'll give you one example. I never claimed MC was an expert on I merely referenced him as stating what I considered to be close to my position.

And I did give Al, Roy Spencer..

Then he's a proponent, advocate, etc, but you quibble over little details, a trait that probably drove your underling a bit nutty, if your style was the same when you were gainfully employed as it is now.

I did note that he had a MD from Harvard. Something I think is a fair indication of intellect, talent and logical thinking.

I've known Stanford MBA's and graduates of "The Harvard of the West" who had some expertise in their chosen fields but were dumber than a bag of hammers otherwise in their personal/professional lives, so your attempt to use the excuse of "authority" has failed again.

Here's a quote from an 'authority':

Nor, for that matter, were all those concerned certain that the bomb would work at all, on the ground or in the air. Of these doubters, the greatest was Admiral Leahy, who until the end remained unconvinced. "This is the biggest fool thing we have ever done," he told Truman after Vannevar Bush had explained to the President how the bomb worked. "The bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives." [30]