re: #60 LudwigVanQuixote

A person like Inhofe thinks that science is something to be believed in rather than accepted based on evidence. In fact, ID types and climate deniers share this misconception about science.

Since they think that there is a choice to believe in it or not based on faith, then any other scientific argument becomes an article of faith. This is why they so bitterly talk about a religion of Darwin and a religion of global warming.

OTOH it seems to me that basing scientific conclusions on historical data collected from poorly controlled settings, over very short periods of time, does require a bit of faith. I mean a mere 30 years of satellite data just seems a bit thin to permit extrapolation with such scientific certainty and to conclude with such certainty that the observed changes are man made.
To me it is easy to see that anyone who argues that we are definitely in a cooling trend based on the last 2 or 3 years of data is a huckster. But having said that, are those who have concluded that we are definitely in a predictable and catastrophic man-made warming trend based on only 30 years data, necessarily on much firmer ground?
This, and not religion, is what feeds my own lingering reluctance to accept these newly announced AGW findings as the “gospel truth” or as scientifically proven fact.