I also think the ground rules should be enforced. As I said before, the venue is not conducive to hearing everyone well, and side conversations make it even more difficult. Again, I'm interested in how the group's leadership feels about enforcing the ground rules.

Hello All,
As the leader of the group, I would like to express my sincere apology for any unwanted and out of place comment targeted to any individual or their profession. The group was started to facilitate friendship and mutual respect rather than deliberate personal attacks. I would like to assure you all that I will deal this matter strongly and I will make sure such thing does not repeat in the future.
Thanks for understanding.
-Indy

Thanks, Indie, for agreeing to address the inappropriate comments made to a valuable member of this group. I would love to see this group continue hosting intelligent and controversial discussions, without any nastiness or pettiness.

Also, Anne, please do NOT consult a taxidermist if your appendix is inflamed! I prefer the live version of you to the stuffed and mounted variety. (As usual, nice colorful way of making your point.)

Hello All,
Anne misquoted me when she said I wrote that people "who work in the field should disqualify themselves." In fact what I said was that I would raise the point of "whether members who work directly in a field we are discussing should voluntarily disqualify themselves." The operative word is "voluntarily." It was never meant to be compulsory.
Finally, again, let's all go back and re-read Anor's intro/description of the event. The event was organised to question the science.

Since it was not in quotation marks, it was not a quote. It was paraphrasing. But I stand corrected if the paraphrasing was not accurate to what you were expressing. And for the last time -- no one was against questioning the science; we simply wanted a more reasoned, well-cited and attributed argument. Please don't try to make this into a situation where opposing views were shut down. You and Jim had ample opportunity to counter the points being raised by others. Out loud. To everyone.

Hello Again,
As for me personally, I did not speak throughout the entire 2 hours expect at the end to take a poll about how many people had a car and how they heated their homes. How a person who listens to other people's opinions without saying a critical word to anyone can be considered rude or disrespectful is truly unfathomable. (I did chat quietly and very briefly with Jim re: some docs he had and Jim and I both greeted Indie when he came over to us to chat. That was it). Time to chill.

As a good example, at one point I asked the crowd to provide an example of a reason why a scientist would falsify data. Gal responded with an apt example of someone who wants to keep his/her job as the head of a research facility. No one attacked him -- his point was accurate. You were either not present or not listening at that time.

Michael, that is simply untrue and I cannot allow that to go unchallenged. You and Jim whispered to each other throughout. I asked you once to stop. You did briefly, then continued again a short time later. Evan asked you the second time, with me chiming in more loudly. At that point you said, and I quote, "You're not my mother. You're not the moderator. Behave yourself." Others can verify this.

I would like to verify that Michael was whispering with Jim throughout the session and that they were asked to stop more than once but did not. That, along with Michael's rude comment to Anne, was definitely out of order with how we were asked to behave (the ground rules).

Hi Anne, I'm pleased that calmer heads seem to be prevailing. You may be correct that there was not the most "reasoned, well-cited and attributed argument" that could have been made. But in Anor and Jim's defence, it's the nature of the meetup beast. Things seldom go the way the moderator hoped.
To try to rectify this situation, may I offer a link to a peer-reviewed paper which clearly does NOT support AGW but is jammed with science and endnotes:
http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm

Hi Anne,
Actually, what said to you was "Anne, you are not the moderator, nor are you my mother." Both of these statement were true at the time and remain true. The second part was obviously tongue-in-cheek. I thought we were friends. I was hoping to see you, Marion, and Evan at Orleans after the event, but you guys never showed.

Michael -- you said that this paper:
http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm
-- was peer-reviewed -- can you tell us where it was published? I might have missed it, but I don't see a citation anywhere on the page.

I want to point that on the bottom of the 'peer reviewed' paper it shows it was published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.
However, I checked a little about this journal and also the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM).
It seems that out of about 6 members, 3 are Robinsons. So it is almost a "family operation". The journal is not recognized by any of the major databases.

You can read about it in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Institute_of_Science_...
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_American_Physicia...

Of course, that does not prove that they are not right.
It just reduces my confidence in their claims, somewhat.

Re OISM -- found this (socialist communist misinformation) interesting:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Oregon_Institu...

It occurs to me that one area in which there seems to many to be scientific consensus, but there is actually a huge amount of debate, is in the area of what's good for you, food-wise and supplement-wise.
There are a huge number of splinter groups out there that seem to have reasonable scientific evidence that saturated fat might be fine, or dairy might be poison, or meat is horrible, or starving yourself leads to a longer life, or whole grains are actually bad, etc. etc. . . . (continued)

-- or, as Mr. OISM founder claims, that sugars are *really* bad for you. (I actually might be with him on this one.) Between the paleodieters and the vegans and the nutritarians and the fruitarians and the pescetarians and the forces of Big Corn, Big Dairy, Big Genetically Modified Seed, and so on . . . lot of confusing and conflicting material out there to discuss. (Preferably while eating a pizza and a box of donuts, of course.)

I think diet is a great example not just of scientific disagreements, but also of common-sense responses: The exact formulas vary, but "eat only the calories you need" is universally embraced, and all agree that heavily processed foods, Pepperoni pizza and Big Macs are unhealthy. So while they fight it out, we can safely eat less, eat more fresh foods, and let our values guide the rest. With climate change, though, I see a lot of what I'd equate to "enjoy McDonald's till the science is settled."

Marion and Kyle, I concur. And as I was trying to say on Friday, how seriously we take all of this depends on what is at stake. If dying at 58 of a heart attack is not a huge deal to you, eat McDonald's every day. Like with smoking, one cannot say for sure that smoking will definitely give you lung cancer, but there is enough evidence to suggest it does AND death by lung cancer is awful enough that we choose to not smoke.

Marion, not do we see disagreements, but we see how over time science has improved our knowledge of diet and biology. Where once margirine was promoted over butter, we now have a better understanding inflamation and other problems with consumption of transfats. We understand better fats like DHA, and their benefits.

That should read "not only..."

One of the fantastic benefits of the age we live in is the broad access to information. Anyone who wishes can learn lots of healthy diet information.

I agree, Jim. Look at all the data about climate science that is out there with just the click of a mouse. Like this:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/

I find it fascinating that the original notion that climate scientists everywhere should be doubted because of hacked emails of a few (who were cleared in an independent investigation, BTW) does not seem to apply to the organization in the link that Michael provided, especially in light of this fact about OISM: (see next post)

"In reality, neither Robinson's paper nor OISM's petition drive had anything to do with the National Academy of Sciences, which first heard about the petition when its members began calling to ask if the NAS had taken a stand against the Kyoto treaty. Robinson was not even a climate scientist. He was a biochemist with no published research in the field of climatology, and his paper had never been subjected to peer review by anyone with training in the field."

And this one: (see next post)

"The mailing is clearly designed to be deceptive by giving people the impression that the article, which is full of half-truths, is a reprint and has passed peer review," complained Raymond Pierrehumbert, a meteorlogist at the University of Chicago. NAS foreign secretary F. Sherwood Rowland, an atmospheric chemist, said researchers "are wondering if someone is trying to hoodwink them."

There's a really good new Web site combining climate change-related reporting from The Atlantic, Slate, Wired, Mother Jones, Grist and a couple of others: http://theclimatedesk.org. Today's lead story notes how smart businesses are already finding ways to profit from climate change, with everything from insurance and financial products, to drought-resistant grains, to new Arctic cargo-ship routes.

Nobel Intent at Arstechnica is another good site for science news and analysis. http://arstechnica.com/science/

Interesting site, Jim. I found this article (roughly 2/3 of the way down) of particular interest:

Latest climate hack inquiry clears the CRU (again)
by John Timmer | Last updated April 14, 2010 11:50 AM

And the one about the fallacy of the "medieval warming period" is also interesting...

Hi Gal,
Thanks for doing the research on the OISM. I don't honestly recall where I came across their paper relating to global warming, but I saved it as a file (I save just about everything I come across that I think might be of future usefulness--in fact probably too much!). Due to its very nature as an editable encyclopedia I don't put much stock in what is written in Wikipedia. However, you raise some good (and fairly-stated) points. I will look into OISM and perhaps deep-six them. Thanks.

IPCC's conflict of interest...

http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2007/09/01/the-2007...

"IPCC studies only peer-review science. Let someone publish the data in a decent credible publication. I am sure IPCC would then accept it, otherwise we can just throw it into the dustbin.
~ Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC"

False.

http://www.examiner.com/x-25061-Climate-Change-Examiner~y...

Unethical scientists.
And, perhaps most reprehensibly, a long series of communications discussing how best to squeeze dissenting scientists out of the peer review process. How, in other words, to create a scientific climate in which anyone who disagrees with AGW can be written off as a crank, whose views do not have a scrap of authority.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/1000173...

"This is the story of how I spent 2 years trying to publish a paper that refutes an important claim in the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The claim in question is not just
wrong, but based on fabricated evidence.... That is when the runaround began. Having published several against-the-flow papers in
climatology journals I did not expect a smooth ride, but the process eventually became surreal.
"

"I am taking this story public because of what it reveals about the journal peer review process in the field
of climatology. Whether climatologists like it or not, the general public has taken a large and legitimate
interest in how the peer review process for climatology journals works, because they have been told for
years that they will have to face lots of new taxes and charges and fees and regulations because of what
has been printed in climatology journals."

"Because of the policy stakes, a bent peer review process is no
longer a private matter to be sorted out among academic specialists. And to the extent the specialists are
unable or unwilling to fix the process, they cannot complain that the public credibility of their discipline
suffers. "

from Circling the Bandwagons:My Adventures Correcting the IPCC? by Ross McKitrick

"One of the famous leaked e-mails from the former head of the Climatic Research Unit at Britain's University of East Anglia sheds light on what really happens behind the scenes. "I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report," professor Phil Jones wrote in reference to a 2004 journal article by Mr. McKitrick. "Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!" "

Honest ethical scientists?

If Phil Jones did say and do that, he is the opposite of honest and ethical. I would like to respond to some of this, but I'd like to first suggest that we take the rest of this to the discussion board, where we have a greater character limit per post. Sound good?

Okay, I am going to start a discussion topic and respond to your points, Jim. I'll just call it "Global Warming Debate." Clearly, all are welcome to participate.

Himalayan glaciers saved from doom! Another bogus climate report caught.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article...

A scientist writes about the sorry state of climate science papers: 
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2007/08/31/adocacy-...

 Showing how sensational and alarmist AGW scientist advocates, this title is from a science journal paper: ?Planet Earth today: imminent peril?

"Nowhere does Mr. Gore tell his audience that all of the phenomena that he describes fall within the natural range of environmental change on our planet. Nor does he present any evidence that climate during the 20th century departed discernibly from its historical pattern of constant change.? -Robert M. Carter, a marine geologist at James 
Cook University in Australia

Lets do this again, going around the table to briefly introduce ourselves and our opinion pro or con. Also make sure everybody gets a place to sit and speaks up. I don't have a problem with several conversations going on at once. I had a printout about the local ice harvesting business in the last century to pass around. Obviously the ponds around here don't freeze up much anymore.

A discussion was started on the group's message boards, titled "Global Warming Debate". The character limit is much higher, allowing for real depth of discussion, versus mere sound bytes. It is open for all to participate in.

I second Anne's suggestion. But also... since clearly there's a lot to talk about here... any chance I can coax enough of you to want to go to this event on 4/30 that we can turn it into a meetup?
http://www.inquisitiveminds.org/ideas/194425/
It might lend itself well to following up with conversations in groups of 6-10.

(Full disclosure: The guy most certainly believes in man-made climate change, and that we should be pretty worried.)

Hi Duncan, thanks for the feedback. Several AOs, including myself, are investigating quieter venues. In the meantime we'll set a lower RSVP limit.

Folks who want learn more about the author can check out his web site: http://www.billmckibben.com/