Is "The Consensus" the new Oracle?

Question

Is "The Consensus" the new Oracle? After all, both are mystic entities who's words need to be properly "interpreted" to come to the right conclusion. If you don't believe in "The Consensus" or the Oracle, then you can't understand the message, as only true believers can see the light.

And If your interpretation of the Oracle, "The Consensus" is different, then you are just not smart enough to see the wisdom of the Oracle and must be removed from "The Consensus".

All must bow to "The Consensus" and give alms to insure the word of the Oracle is always true! And pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.......

Answer 1

A "Consensus" is simply a majority opinion. Why are so many accepting a consensus as "The Gospel Truth"?

Answer 2

You are confusing "consensus scientific opinion" with the more common political definition. The IPCC assessment reports, of which there are now four, produces a consensus scientific opinion, which means they evaluate the data, consider the veracity of that data, and arrive at a determination of the likelihood that any data represents real trends or is contaminated by artifact. They then report on that probability that the data represents some measure of what is actually happening. The "consensus" in this is not that the majority agree on something, but that they provide the probability estimate. That is a subtle, but very important distinction.

The second thing the IPCC working groups do is to examine the theories explaining the observed changes, and determine whether predictions from the theories are supported by the data. In the case of climate change, this would mean going through the literature and sorting out the different climate forcing mechanisms, the climate feedbacks, and determining if they are being incorporated into climate models appropriately, and whether when they are there is any improvement in how the models simulate past climatic fluctuations or the current increase in global mean temperature and current shifts in regional climate.

Finally, the IPCC scientific assessment working group (WG1) then studies what the likelihood is that the observed data showing the increase in global mean temperature over the last 25 years can be explained by anthropogenic activity. Their conclusion, which is the consensus opinion, is expressed as a probability, if that there is something like a 90% chance that the radiative forcing from the anthropogenic atmospheric CO2 is responsible. But it is not that 90% of the scientists believe that, it is that in their estimate, there is a 90% chance that the increase in temperature is mainly caused by CO2. That difference is critical, because these are the people who understand climate to the current level of scientific knowledge, and the current level of climate knowledge is extraordinarily high.

As I said before, this use of "scientific consensus opinion" appears to be a particular bug-a-boo for the right-wing, probably because they read into the term what they want to, not what it means. The scientific consensus opinion of the IPCC represents a very large group of experts coming together and producing what is the best assessment of the science. It is not them taking a vote and then saying: "well, 56% of us believe it so it must be true." It is them saying something more along the lines: "all of us believe that there is a 9/10 chance it is true."

What I do not understand is why most people who argue that the "consensus scientific opinion" is false, or at best politically motivated, do not believe the experts know more than they do and are better capable of producing a scientific consensus opinion (using the definition I have provided, not the political one). I suspect the reason is related to the Dunning-Kruger effect, where incompetent people are incapable of judging competency in themselves or others.

At nine out of ten, I dunno, those are short odds on the experts being wrong. Would you play Russian roulette with 5 chambers out of six loaded?

Answer 3

You don't understand. The consensus is not the proof. The consensus is there BECAUSE there is proof.

Here's proof, in the unlikely event you actually want it:

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html
summarized at:
http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

"I wasn’t convinced by a person or any interest group—it was the data that got me. I was utterly convinced of this connection between the burning of fossil fuels and climate change. And I was convinced that if we didn’t do something about this, we would be in deep trouble.”

Vice Admiral Richard H. Truly, USN (Ret.)
Former NASA Administrator, Shuttle Astronaut and the first Commander of the Naval Space Command

Good websites for more info:

http://profend.com/global-warming/
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/
http://www.realclimate.org
"climate science from climate scientists"

Answer 4

It is a quantity (of scientists) that have reviewed data, and agreed on it. You are hiding from the same data, and doing anything to not bring any data of your own. This is just a petty excuse.

Answer 5

Apparently you are.