Which is a combination of the No True Scotsman fallacy and trying to claim something by shifting the definition (here, from the usual definition of "authoritative" to "evidence-based").

Pathetic! You are getting weaker and weaker by the comment khallow. Your homespun philosophy of science and your awkward attempts to reduce my points to handy well known fallacies, rather than constructively engaging in them,* don't cut it in this company. At least the "argument from authority" line had some merit, but the "No True Scotsman" fallacy?! Please! Shifting the meaning of authority?! Come off it, I'm using 'authority' in exactly the sense I did when I began this conversation.

Let me repeat: Without authority there is no science. What distinguishes scientific authority, is that unlike (many) other systems of authority, (e.g religious authority), scientific authority is grounded in empirical evidence.

Tell you what, I'll let you save face, I promise not to read any reply, and you write a brilliant (in your own mind) refutation in reply. You can have the last word. Deal?

[*On second thoughts and to be fair, you did give it your best shot earlier.]

They are proposing carbon emission reductions of up to 80% globally without an inkling of how that's going to be achieved. That massive, uninformed manipulation of societies easily departs from the "pure alarmism" space.

That is the longer term aim; there is much more than an inklink of how this will be achieved (it's either ignorant or ridiculous of you to claim otherwise) and do not underestimate human ingenuity (or engineering).

What makes you think we're basing this on the best available science? I think it's just another lazy assertion.

It clearly is. To claim otherwise, I think is just another delusional assertion.

It's based on evidence and models that explain that evidence well. ...

Which is probably what I was getting at when I wrote, "ultimately all authoritative statements in science are evidence based." Surely any High School child who has ever heard the phrase "the scientific method" could tell us that.

There is no due authority. I think this profound misunderstanding of science is a key part of the problem with human thought today.

As you fail to appreciate the role of authority in the practice of science, it is you who are suffering a profound misunderstanding of science. And while we're at it, a key problem with human thought today is the sense of entitlement which leads people to believe their ignorance exactly as valuable as someone else's knowledge.

The very instrumentation we must rely on is crystalised authority. Take that instrument most immediate to you: Perhaps your skills exceed mine, but I cannot easily (or perhaps at all) calculate in my head what 124.66 times 10 to the power of 1.73 might be. So I ask my computer. It tells me 3611.991601 give or take a place or two. The nature of fp calculations notwithstanding, that's close enough for me. And if I were to use a calculation such as this, I would be relying on authority.

The same applies in pharmacology (the science discipline in which I was trained), when we power up our gas-liquid chromatograph, or when a virologist "looks through" an electon microscope, or ... I was going to mention the large hadron collider, but that is probably the exceptional situation where the bods using it understand it better than anyone else :)(that alone doesn't make it free from scientific authority of course). There is immense amount of authority contained with the very tools of the trade.

Moreover, as I pointed out any citation to previous work, where it is not minded to contradict that work, is literally an appeal to authority and indeed often referred to by that name (ie. 'authority').

And an important subset of this is where a scientist in one field needs to make use of the work (other than instruments) of another. You are given two choices: a) do the hard yards become and expert yourself and publish OR b) defer to the orthodox opinion in the field. Now determining exactly what is the orthodoxy may not be unproblematic. And consensus in science (though I do not generally like the term) is useful at least as it makes this task trivial.

What would remain of science without authority? No use of instrumentation you yourself have not devised. No co-operation across disciplines. No reliance on any previous work, not even to disprove it. Nothing. Without authority there is no science.

That's a pretty dishonest way to characterize their work since they instead have provided reasons to distrust its robustness.

Don't be impertient!

In any discipline which, like science, must necessarily rely upon authority, the danger that this authority will overwhelm it naturally exists. This is the danger which you quite correctly apprehend, though I think hold you mistaken to have discovered it here. The history of science is replete with cases when undue personal authority perpetuated error for longer than it should. And this is precisely why, in a field where a minority of vocal sceptics are active, were a blowtorch criticism has been applied, we have greater cause for confidence.

Consider Lindzen. While almost always ended up being shown wrong, his fulfilling the role of devil's advocate, from the urban heat island effect onward, no matter the animosity it may have generated, forced the mainstream to go back re-evaluate, incorporate his objections and thus improve the science. Or consider Landsea. His work actually refuted an emerging "consensus" on hurricane frequency. We know thanks to him that there is at least one less inaccuracy in the current science than there would have been. Far from giving us reasons to distrust the robustness of the science, they have greatly contributed to it.

But not only does science itself rely on authority, science is itself social system of authority, and one, given its instrumentality, that sets it above many other systems of authority. It is for this reason that serious people must necessarily work from the findings of the IPCC as a starting point and that those of you who, --not being prepared to publish in the scientific literature, --who do not, place yourselves beyond the boundaries of serious discussion. At least in those parts of the world not suffering serious political malaise.

It's great instrumentality would suggest it foolish to abandon modern science ...

They do

They don't. As we have agreed, I thought, 0 != 3.

It doesn't. It is not too late to make significant changes without most people even being aware of the impact. Take the recently demised "carbon tax" (it wasn't) in Australia. But for the puerility of politics, most of the population would scarcely have noticed. Moreover whatever pain there will be can only be exacerbated by delay.

... basically meaning the sacrifice of a considerable portion of humanity's other priorities and they advocate doing this.

Pure alarmism.

An assertion which is not based on evidence.

Don't be absurd. While projections (in any field) will inevitably be inaccurate (as all predictions of the future are bound to be), they, or these, are clearly evidence based. We are trapped in history and can only ever base our policy, if we base our policy on science, upon the best available science. There is no ambiguity as to what that is as pertains to this topic.

This is the argument from authority fallacy. It keeps happening again and again with any climate-related discussion.

That is because climate-related discussion is science based and reliance upon due authority is a central tenet of the methodology of science. On matters of science one ought be more concerned about appeals to inappropriate authority.

To be perfectly pedantic it is not a argumentum ab auctoritate because that pertains to a logical argument, while this is a matter of scientific method. However, granting you this is perhaps too fine a distinction: It's great instrumentality of modern science would suggest it foolish to abandon modern science, based only on the suspicion its methodology is founded upon an invalid argument. The better view is that authority in science is deferred to (by scientists outside a particular field), and that previous work is cited (any citation being an appeal to authority), not only because not doing so would make science impossible, but because ultimately all authoritative statements in science are evidence based, and because our system of publication has proven, given sufficient time, to weed out even the too long accepted falsities.

As regards the science of global warming, the work of scientists such as Lindzen, Landsea and Pielke, gives us reason to trust its robustness.

It's hardly non sequitur to observe that the proposals actually being put, --which, as you put it, amount to limiting warming to ca. 3C above an 1850 baseline (which, given inter-annual variation, I read, in your favour, as the decade(s) surrounding that date), --do not amount to an "assumption" that humanity's sole purpose is "to keep the climate the same as it was in 1850." Rather the proposal is not to allow warming, which in the opinion of recognised experts in the field, would seriously begin to impact upon the habitability of the planet. With all due respect, allow me the conservatism to defer to orthodox opinion in preference to your (or indeed my) own.

Obviously, I disagree.

Now "modest" is a slippery as any relative term, but that the climate as it was in the decade(s) surrounding 1850 included a mean global temperature some 3C above the global mean temperature in the decade(s) surrounding 1850 does not seem a matter about which it is possible reasonably to disagree.

Yes, because actual scientists have no ideological motivations.

Of course individuals have ideological positions. Scientists are no exception. That is why the methods of modern science, which is to say publication of results under strict conditions of peer review, replication, exposure to critical scrutiny --and there can scarcely be any field of science in history exposed to a greater degree of critical scrutiny --are designed to eliminate the personality of scientists from science. The Cato Institute OTOH is explicitly and unapologetically an ideologically motivated think tank (which is fine). What distinguishes their methods is that they are designed to produce a result which accords with that ideological position. Again we should expect no less of a lobby group.

Now if their critique had any scientific merit (as opposed to the rhetorical merit it no doubt possesses, after all you yourself have been taken in), it should have appeared in the actual scientific literature. It hasn't and thus forms no part of the scientific debate.

You need to learn to exercise some scepticism. And that starts with a rational assessment of your sources. Really if you were interested in the science of climate, what possible failure of intellect would lead you read anything from the Cato Institute?! [I'm being disingenuous here, I know the failure of intellect that leads into that error: tribalism. I even had some dickhead American liberal presume I was one because I don't deny science just last week. As though that should even be relevant.]

And science is defined by the majority of other scientists.

The science is defined by the ensemble of published papers in the literature.

We can't start letting statisticians and people who understand math start analyzing science!

You can not seriously believe there is no maths or statistics in climate science?! Wow. In fact some climate scientists, most notably perhaps Gavin Schmidt were mathematicians first and became climate scientists because of the overwhelming demand for mathematical expertise in that field. If you think the sum of stats and maths smarts at the Cato Institute approaches anything near that to be found in the climate science community you need institutionalisation. Srsly!

And if you take your science from ideological think tanks, (who don't even make any secret that they are) rather than from the bona fide science literature it is little wonder that you are so wildly disinformed. Don't be a sucker your entire life.

We went from discussing global warming ...

You went from discussing global warming the moment you posted the clause "although there has yet to be any empiracle [sic] evidence of such"

After that the rest of your post was rendered illegible and only response you deserved was mockery. AC's put down showed a lot more class than your thrashing about accusing everyone of being "morons" and "imbeciles." More class than even my telling you that you are literally some dumass with "a massive sense of entitlement" I have to admit. But then don't suffer fools so gladly.

That's only roughly 3 C over the 1850 climate baseline

Now you are being unreasonable. A 3C average increase is neither "modest" nor would it be "to keep the climate the same as it was in 1850."

And even chess has chance.....what move do you make when you can't calculate far enough to know which move is good?

Good point, chance arises by virtue of the complexity of choices made both by you and your opponent, instead, for instance, of the incomprehensible complexity of the physics which determines how a die will roll. And games such as Go, which are also touted as not having the element of luck, being even more complex involve even more chance. I believe OP was looking for Noughts and Crosses.

Sub specie aeternitatis Chess, Go or the roll of dice are as predictable as Tic-Tac-Toe. Chance is merely the horizon of human anticipation.

Chess players pray to the godess Cassia.

The goddess Caïssa of course.

My opinion is that these climate risks are greatly overstated as is, but that doesn't mean that I don't recognize the potential moral hazard in geoengineering approaches.

Well I'm in no position to assess the accuracy of any stated risks, however I think risks should always be overstated. Which is a cheeky way of saying the worst-case scenario has proper place in risk assessment. After all, it is "better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions ..." Whatever the accuracy of your assessment of the risks, the above statement does not seem unreasonable per se.

I'm sorry that I misunderstood you point about moral hazard, you were quite right. I should have been on stronger ground to challenge the Straw Man that the "assumption" that humanity's sole purpose is "to keep the climate the same as it was in 1850" is seriously entertained (by serious people). ;)

Nonsense ... pointlessly trying to convince me ... [t]he brainless child ... suffering the same illogical symptoms ... a moron ... you should get out of your realm of intellectual dishonesty and join the real world more often ... the church of global warming ... if you made an attempt at cognitive dissonance, you could achieve a mental state ... your beliefs ...

Yup, just logic, facts and reasoned debate.

I see, you have no logic or facts capable of countering the post

Your post reveals you to be impervious to facts (I'm not sure about logic). Why would anyone waste their time trying responding to someone with an obvious allergy to reality by giving them facts? Seriously? If you want facts go read the IPCC WG1 report.

I am not surprised as this is what "scientific debate" devolves to

Scientific debate takes place within the serious scientific literature. Slashdot is not it. You are not in a scientific debate, you are literaly some dumass with a massive sense of entitlement, ideologically devoted to deny science. AC's reply to you was spot on.

That It is simply impossible to have any serious conversation on this subject is your choice alone.