A couple of interesting tweets from Simon Singh this morning. Taken to task by a correspondent for a lack of scepticism on AGW, Simon replies as follows:
I'm applying skepticism to the question is AGW significant or not? With my limited tools, my answers is it's happening. [Link]
...and then...
The vast majority of folk smarter & more informed than me come to same answer, which is partly how I arrive at my conclusion. [Link]
Both these points are interesting. Firstly, it's a surprise to see someone with "limited tools" describing people who arrive at a different conclusion to him as "numpties", particularly as many of those people have tools that are considerably less limited.
But secondly, it also appears to me that Singh is an "interpreter of interpretations" as regards climate change, an approach which apparently is reprehensible in the circles in which he moves. To be clear, I have no problem with interpreters of interpretations - as I've noted elsewhere, most people get their opinions like this and it is an entirely respectable way to go about forming an opinion on something. But when one's opinions are formed in this way, I would have thought a little reticence about the name-calling might not go amiss.
(Afterthough: I wonder if Dyson/Happer/the 43 rebels from the Royal Society are included among the numpties?)