Prediction, Retrodiction, Warmism and the Demon Haunted Dark

We are far more impressed by a scientific theory that predicts, than a supposedly scientific theory that retrodicts, even though from the Bayesian point of view they are the same.

Successful prediction tells us that this is an actual theory, rather than a slippery and ambiguous pile of vague fudge factors subject to post hoc reinterpretation.

As you probably know, Global Warming models are 100% successful at precisely “predicting” (retrodicting) the alleged past, even though past climate is not in fact known very accurately.  They are totally unsuccessful at predicting.

By and large, Warmism is not incorrect science, but anti science. Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming is an attempt by skeptics to make sense out of the Warmist position, to construct a plausible scientific theory that makes the predictions that Warmists predict, but Warmists are not much interested in making sense.

The theory attributed to the Warmists by the skeptics is that water vapor provides positive feedback, clouds also provide postive feedback, so any small nudge tends to have large effects on the climate.

Do Warmists believe the theory that skeptics attribute to them?

Perhaps.  To find out, you would have to sue the model builders under the freedom of information act, and the model builders would stone wall, the courts would favor them, and the model builders would complain they are being persecuted by big oil.

The term “multiplier” in the sense that skeptics use it never appears in Warmist works, only in critiques of Warmism. The term “climate sensitivity” does appear in Warmist works, but it does not seem to be used in the same meaning as in skeptic works. It is not a ratio that can be larger or smaller than unity, not a number, but more like sin and purity, not the kind of thing where one might say the “the climate sensitivity is 2.7” To a Warmist, to assert that the climate sensitivity is 2.7 would be as ridiculous as if a Roman Catholic priest were to say that that the sinfulness of adultery is 2.7 A Warmist paper will say that climate sensitivity is greater than we thought, but will not give a number for what we supposedly used to think it was, nor a number for what we now supposedly think it is – which does not stop them from deducing from this unspecified change in this unspecified number that the temperature in 2100 will be precisely six degrees hotter.

I have not read much of the Warmist literature.  Perhaps there is some that understands the theory of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming attributed to the Warmists by the skeptics, but what I have read seems to me more like inspiration by the spirit of Gaia decorated almost at random by scientific sounding words.  It could be that the author understands and believes a scientific theory that makes the required doomful predictions, but there is no very clear indication that he does.

Steve McIntyre argued that it is likely that clouds create negative feedback. Do Warmists attempt to argue with him? Do Warmists say “no, clouds create positive feedback”? Do Warmists even know the difference between positive and negative feedback?  Nasa discussing clouds sound like they use the terms correctly, but then fail to apply them when discussing the stability of temperatures between the wet season and dry season in the tropics, even though this is an obvious case of negative feedback.

Rather, Warmism is a revival of the old demon worshiping cults. The priests announce the gods are angry, any unusual weather event being evidence of the wrath of the demon gods, and that to appease these hostile and wrathful beings sacrifices shall be made, which sacrifices the priests get to administer.