Unacceptable To Challenge Incorrect Forecasts

While there is much room for debate, challenging the complex science or its conclusions from any one dimension is unacceptable, whether by focusing on one variable, a limited time window, or via anecdotes, or limited personal observation. I, for one, accept the peer-reviewed science but would not be surprised if forecasts shift a great deal in the years ahead. In view of all of the above, policy makers need to be careful.

Ziggy Switkowski is chancellor of RMIT University

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/

About Tony Heller

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9 Responses to Unacceptable To Challenge Incorrect Forecasts

  1. J Calvert N says:

    I see he was appointed Chancellor only this year. You don’t get these appointments if you don’t say the right things to the right people.

    • Latitude says:

      Developing information and management tools needed to build the resilience of Australia’s seaports to climate change (Prof Darryn McEvoy, RMIT University – $578,000).

  2. The only way we’ll ever stop these people is by carefully and respectfully debating with them in a calm and understanding manner with plenty of give-and-take. After all, when someone is being so generous as to say that challenging their ideas is unacceptable, you simply have to respect them and never say anything that might decrease their funding or hurt their little feelings. You have to understand that even though they’re trying to enact policies that will result in a few million deaths here and there they’re really just as deserving of respect as anybody else. People, fellow humans on the journey of discovery we call life, can’t be called names like, “Malthusian” or “Eugenicist” even if they outright state their beliefs as such in black and white.

    When the democratically elected leader of a modern, European state declares that he needs a little room to breathe, and has to donate all of his hard-working party-members’s accrued vacation time to a certain class of people, & send them to fun summer camps, you can’t go pretending that his National Socialist party is up to no good: He has clearly stated his intentions, there’s nothing evil about it.

    Did I get it right, Mr. Watts?

  3. Jimash says:

    “*There are many additional factors that shape computations of the global climate and they require the biggest of today’s supercomputers, which calculate algorithms beyond the comprehension of mere mortals or our intuition”

    The appeal of authority. Nevermind your lyin’ eyes, stuff you cannot understand is happening in places where you cannot verify it, and models that you are not allowed to check for accuracy or veracity, confirm these things . Since I do not understand it , it must be true.
    Oy.

  4. Kaboom says:

    He’d probably happily chew on a turd and not be upset if someone told him it wasn’t really chocolate as predicted a few hours later with that mindset.

  5. dmmcmah says:

    “The fact that Arrhenius produced numbers that still are in the ball park today is curious”

    I wonder what “ball park” he is talking about. This graph shows the Arrhenius numbers don’t stand up that well against real temperature data.

    http://reasonabledoubtclimate.wordpress.com/2011/08/07/how-settled-is-climate-change/

  6. Bruce of Newcastle says:

    Dr Switkowski is a nuclear physicist by training and a past CEO of the biggest Aussie telco. He’s been tireless in advocating nuclear power, but still has managed to keep on side with the politicians, even of the ALP which has an anti nuclear stance written into their genes.

    So I welcome Dr Switkowski starting to open up to the science: if he actually reads some of the the recent papers like Spencer & Braswell 2011 or Enghoff et al 2011 he just may start to see the science is actually very good and very persuasive. After all a nuclear physicist is in good stead to review the Uni of Aarhus results.

    All you can ask is that guys like Dr Switkowski actually read the papers instead of blindly ignoring anything the Team says is bad. Then the wall will come down, one chip at a time.

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