CONCLUSIONS - PROCEDURE
REACHING A CONCLUSION:
With an understanding of the limitations of any answer provided by this exercise, the following question now may be addressed:

IS THE HYPOTHESIS OF ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING CORRECT?

The answer chosen will rest upon the twin pillars of 'trustworthiness' and 'consensus'. Follow these instructions:

  1. To arrive at a judgment of 'trustworthiness', click on the blue button to interpret the Trust-Position Graph using the Trust-Position Matching Table.

  2. Record your results in the 'Results Table' located in the upper part of theTrust-Position Interpretation Worksheet (CP-1). Make sure to use the answer-check. .
  3. Match your Trust-Position Graph plot (RP-3) with the one that most closely resembles it on the Trust-Position Matching Table. Then fill out the 'Interpretation Table' located on the lower part of Worksheet CP-1.

  4. To arrive at a judgment of 'consensus', refer to your Global Warming Consensus Index Table (PP-4).

  5. Use these two judgments to arrive at an answer to the question: "Is the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming correct?":

    1. Click on the pink button marked "P" to print out the Conclusions Worksheet (CP-2).

    2. On the Conclusions Worksheet, indicate whether the statements in the 'Trustworthiness' and 'Consensus' columns are correct or incorrect by marking the appropriate boxes.

    3. Indicate whether you agree or disagree with the statements in the 'Answer' column by marking the appropriate boxes.

    4. CONSISTENCY: Make sure that for each row and each column, the responses indicated by the boxes you have marked are consistent with each other. For example,
      • in the 'TRUSTWORTHINESS' column, at most only one of the choices may be marked 'Correct'.
      • in the 'ANSWER' column, you must 'AGREE' with one of the statements (but no more than one).

    5. EXAMPLE (see below): The person filling out the worksheet example shown below concludes that:
      1. Because all of those who strongly reject the Hypothesis merit the highest trust rating and all of those with the highest trust rating strongly reject the Hypothesis, and
      2. Because the 'Consensus Average' description ('high for "no"') indicates that there is great consensus that the answers to the four questions are "No",
      3. Therefore it is agreed that the Hypothesis is incorrect.


© 2003, David J. Leveson