We need the best science has to offer. Any thing less …

I think this is what roger is working for.

Thanks,

Jim

No, it is not. I have umpteen times emphasized the distinction between actions and motives, and I have umpteen times stated that I believe it is *outcomes* that trump *motives*. I have umpteen times disavowed the notion that outcomes trump actions.

I have a very difficult time maintaining the assumption that I am not being intentionally misrepresented.

On to the next thread for me…

Coby said “I guess this is just people holding the correct opinion for the wrong reasons and let’s accept it with gratitude.”

Subsequently, Gavin has stated “there is no issue here”

Gavin runs Realclimate, along with Michael Mann who used poor science in his “how” of this discussion, so I think it can be said Coby pretty much reflects the “company line” of the Realclimate site.

Plus, since we really don’t know how much of warming is related to increased CO2 (or even how “bad” it will be) and there is some benefit to increased atmospheric concentration thereof, compared to the fact that there may end up being some benefit gained by removing Saddam Hussein from power (we may not know for decades) the comparison is not that far off.

Elimination of CO2 gains may starve magnitudes more than the problem we appear to have created in Iraq.

Not an unfair comparison.

Colby on the other hand had no part in propagating the misunderstanding about the link between Katrina and Global warming, has never misrepresented the link and does correct it when the opportunity arises.

It is bad reasoning to imply that there is a moral equivalence between these two. Even if it in support of a good point!

Nosmo

I think we’re coming at this from different perspectives, and perhaps that is where the conflict is.

First, I am in agreement that why speaks to motives and how speaks to tactics. I think they both matter, in terms of being honest and transparent about them. Disingenuousness with either tactics or motives is a problem, especially if the person using the tactics or operating on motives (either theirs or someone else’s) is reliant on some conception of the special standing accorded to scientists/researchers due to their fealty to certain processes and methods.

For me, mitigation of or adaptation to climate change is a policy choice, much in the same way that reliance on the free market is a conscious choice, even if it is constructed as letting other forces decide.

Trusty Wikipedia provides some clarity here. Under “Do the Ends Justify the Means?” it includes the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_ends_justify_the_means

“”The ends justify the means” is a phrase encompassing two beliefs:

1. Morally wrong actions are sometimes necessary to achieve morally right outcomes.

2. Actions can only be considered morally right or wrong by virtue of the morality of the outcome.

Conversely, people who believe that the consequences of an immoral action are greater than those of the expected outcome will often say that the ends do not justify the means.”

As I understand this thread Andrew and Gavin have eschewed #1 in the context of policy arguments in support of action on climate change. In other words, they have said that it is wrong for scientists to make “bad” policy arguments in support of desired policies, even if those scientists in fact believe that those policies are worth pursuing. Fair enough?

Coby, as I understand this thread, has expressed an endorsement for the views in #2 above via his ranking system which has outcomes trumping actions. Fair enough?

I think it brings up the question of honesty. If:

1) Projections of the future must be falsifiable to be science, and

2) The IPCC TAR projections are not falsifiable…

…then they are not science.

However, if the IPCC TAR projections are not science, how many commenters in this discussion have ever made that point? Wouldn’t that be both an important and policy-relevant point?

Is it because stating that the IPCC TAR projections are not science would be, “An Inconvenient Truth?”

“I’ll confess to having no idea to what you mean by this, and how/why it is relevant to our discussion”

about my statement:

“”how” does not equal “why”"

I’m sorry I am having such a hard time expressing what feels like it should be a simple point. ‘Why’ is about motives, ‘how’ is about actions. The “ends do not justify the means” principal is not about motives, it is about choosing actions, specifically prohibiting choosing to do wrong regardless of how good the result may be in the end. You have not found a utilitarian dilema in what Andrew or I have said.

Thank you for your example of a bad policy for good reasons being better than a good policy for bad reasons, but I’m not certain of how you map that to the question. Is it bad policy to forbid human experimentation? I rather think it is good policy for good reasons that we don’t allow this (well, most of the time:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/05/1357230
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/26/1354259

Thanks for your patience.

Seems kind of esoteric, but brings up the question of whether modelers are scientists or technicians…