Judith Curry had two students make presentations in her class discussion, a while ago. The first student is a 2nd year graduate student, slightly older and with a mature and broad perspective.

Here is how he generalize CA’s discussion:

1. attacking a paper on global warming, before reading it very carefully or understanding the context of the paper, assuming that the author is either dumb or has an “agenda”

2. a plethora of statistical activity of a fairly rudimentary nature

3. realization that the issues are complex

4. some attempts at trying to gain physical understanding of what is going on

5. realization that the issues are even more complex

6. give up and move onto something else

This analysis makes my day.

Source: http://climateaudit.org/2006/09/22/more-bender-on-emanuel/#comment-64366

Reposted there: http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=4431#comment-183045