User talk:Reefdiver

Welcome

Welcome!

Hello, Reefdiver, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions, especially what you did for Ecological forecasting. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! Geronimo20 (talk) 01:01, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ecological forecasting and POV

There is a mainstream scientific opinion about greenhouse gasses, but there is no "scientific consensus", as you asserted in ecological forecasting. Please do not cherrypick sources to reflect a POV. See here, here and here. --Geronimo20 (talk) 20:21, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, that is not correct (trust me, I do this for a living). Please read the article cited by Oreskes 2004, which surveyed all peer-reviewed literature on climate change, and was published in Science. The Wiki definition of "POV" states that "The article should represent the POVs of the main scholars and specialists who have produced reliable sources on the issue. Wikipedia's official "Neutral Point of View" (NPOV) policy does not mean that all the POVs of all the Wikipedia editors have to be represented." The Oreskes article makes clear what the consensus is amongst scientists in this field.

The issue is whether you can categorically assert, from an encyclopaediac position, what is really behind climate change. Wikipedia is, after all, an encyclopaedia, and when you write an article here you have to put your personal views to one side, and present the overall position. You cannot assert there is "scientific consensus", when in fact there is controversy. And even if you find scientific articles supporting your assertion, there are others that do not, and you can't just cherrypick in that way. There are in fact a number of scientists who do not agree. Anyway, I have replaced your assertion that "there is scientific consensus..." with "the mainstream scientific opinion is that there is..." --Geronimo20 (talk) 23:30, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps I'm nitpicking, so I've asked William M. Connolley to give a third opinion. --Geronimo20 (talk) 05:51, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure the difference matters too much. Global warming says "The scientific consensus[14][15] is that the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases due to human activity caused most of the warming observed since the start of the industrial era" and thats survived a lot of argument William M. Connolley (talk) 08:25, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I've reworded it accordingly :O) --Geronimo20 (talk) 08:44, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]