The global warming hockey stick is bad science

The hockey stick does not predict exponential temperature rise. How can you believe temperature are rising and falling at the same time? Traceable references mean nothing. PhD means nothing. Harvard http://www.nytimes.com... means nothing Arguments are not true of false depending on who made them or what their academic credentials are. or what their traceable references are. or whether they are writing for Wikipedia or the New England Journal of Medicine In fact it often takes many years for things to sort themselves out. According to my opponent's line of reasoning: The question of whether or not The question of whether or not Mann applied the correct procedures in processing the data input to the hockey stick algorithms is definitely a question to be judged by experts in statistics, not by climate scientists is therefore a question to be judged by those as expert or more expert than those expert enough to judge whether or not Mann applied the correct procedures in processing the data input to the hockey stick algorithms since they have to be at least as smart. Once again, this is a logical consequence of my opponent's line of thought, not mine. My argument has already stated that measuring expertness of a scientist is folly Measuring expertness of a scientist according to what field they are in is worse than folly. Apparently my opponent feels there is a systemic problem with statistical computer programs. Then that is the situation that needs to be addressed. But my opponent is not addressing it. My opponent is addressing cambial dieback and temperature proxies and CO2 fertilization of tree growth and high-altitude bristlecone pine tree-ring chronologies And Donald Graybill and Sherwood Idso and whether the anomalous twentieth century growth was unrelated to the temperature from nearby weather stations. or not. My opponent is: Pro Global Warming Except for the cooling part. Against gay marriage. Pro Border "Fence" Wall http://narcosphere.narconews.com... Pro Tobacco Rights Pro War on Terrorism Pro Waterboarding http://www.newser.com... Pro WTO Why don't we debate these topics? What does it add up to? Even Fox News Syndrome cannot account for such confusion. My opponent has suffered a blow to the head. Recently, since this debate topic represents a sharp departure from previous debates. There is only one person in the world who uses the term "confirmation fallacy" but if I understand it it means that just because you have a lot of dead dinosaurs does not mean there are no live ones because studying the past is not relevant to predicting the future. I need to know more about this cooling trend. If I understand my opponent's position correctly: It is bad science to use statistical programs unless you are a statistician because no one else can understand them, and in fact only statisticians should be allowed to publish at all because what field does not use statistical analysis? On and on but you get the idea. It would be difficult to find a position more ludicrous. We must look to psychiatry for the answer. Why has the entire world gone nuts over a non-issue? Ad Hominem? http://en.wikipedia.org... It's the tactic nutcases use. Republican nutcases especially. http://www.factcheck.org... The rules again. http://wiki.idebate.org... First the Instigator takes a position and elaborates. Then, and this is crucial: The negative debater must disagree with the resolution's statement. not necessarily oppose in its entirety as is commonly supposed but disagree. This is a good rule. My position, then is that it is better to address the problem than to seek to place blame. And academic credentials are not as important as I'll finish that one later. This is clearly a disagreemennt. It should not be difficult to assert superior values than my opponent once he posits any. and it is a good application of the "disagreement" rule. It motivates the Instigator to exercise a little more care in selecting topics. and makes for better and more relevant debates. and is a good solution to mutual irrelevance. Of course it is better to address any problem than to seek to place blame but let's not go overboard all at once. After all my opponent is so set on restricting the scope of the debate. Let's just go with It is better to address whatever systemic problem it is that gives rise to cases similar to the single case my opponent is describing than to seek to place blame for that single case. God agrees.