You see you are changing your own words now. You have gone from "discounted" to "ignored", it's a common practice, make the other guy look radical.
I find it not at all necessary to try to make the MMGW crowd look like radicals. However, from an English thesaurus…
Discount (verb): Disregard, overlook,
ignore, disbelieve, pass over, write off
You are gonna have a real hard time finding any posts by me supporting Al Gore on anything.
Nor did I say you have. I have never tried to hide my own disdain for Gore. My point is that I do not disbelieve him on this issue because of my personal feelings about his character, but rather because after careful consideration of the evidence I find his arguments and conclusions unjustified. Singer and other dissenting scientists have made counter arguments that I find more in sync with the evidence.
There are plenty of scientist's with gold plated credentials who do not take cash from either side in this debate, I think I will put more credence in what they have to say if you don't mind.
No, I don’t mind; however, you state this as fact, but provide no evidence. The most recent study (discussed in previous GW threads), which shows that belief in MMGW is not in fact the majority opinion among climate scientists does not disclose funding sources. So, who are these gold-plated
climate scientists, from whom and how do they receive funding, and what are their conclusions. And what crystal ball do we use to determine their motive and agendas? You see, everyone has an agenda, and it is not always to make money. The former president of France once stated (paraphrasing here) that whether CO2 was truly causing global warming, he supported Kyoto because it was the first step towards a true global government. So you see, we’re back to examining the evidence and arguments, rather then the source. Is it okay to be skeptical, to question motives and agendas? Of course. It is not a reason by itself to a priori discount what they say.
But if you want to search for an expert to validate your position and then hard sell it, be my guest, I see it done with "experts" in court all the time.
I agree. Which is why we should always look first to the evidence. The problems is, a majority of people (in and out of government) don’t bother.
I have been accused above of making the “appeal to authority” logical fallacy. I find that rather humorous considering that the GW alarmists like Al Gore and the IPCC are doing exactly that when they speak of the “consensus view” and declare that the debate is over. Singer’s views (and others like Gray of the National Hurricane Centers) is offered here not as a stand alone appeal to authority, but to highlight that there are reputable scientists who do not support the concept of man-made global warming.
Let me ask the MMGW believers a simple question (well, three, really): Why do you believe man is causing global warming, what do you believe is/are the mechanism(s), and why do you believe these things?
