I don't believe that I have ever said that "the vast majority of the experts on the subject are wrong", my point is their predictions are far from accurate and since climate science is a long way from absolute that is hardly surprising. I also strongly believe that when it comes to climate change there is a lot of argumentum ad verecundiam (argument from authority) which has let to even more argumentum ad populum (where individuals analyse, edit and modify their beliefs and behaviors based on majority opinion).
An example, just one, there are countless,
Theophilus Painter published a paper stating that humans had 24 pairs of
chromosomes. For almost 36 years (1920 to 1956) scientists propagated this "fact" based on Painter's authority. This established number generated
confirmation bias among researchers with most expecting to detect Painter's number always did so. Painter's influence was so great that many scientists preferred to believe his count over the actual evidence and scientists who obtained the accurate number (which BTW is 23 pairs) modified or discarded their data to agree with Painter.
On the error factor, the 1990 IPCC predicted temp increase to 2007 was 0.8 degrees and the actual increase was 0.4 degrees, that's a 100% error. I have tried and I can not find in the millions of pages spewed out by the IPCC where they adequately explain a 100% error in their published predictions.
"The sources of this data is research from 100's of thousands of research groups. So when you say that you don't trust the conclusions. You are saying that you don't trust the conclusions of 100's of thousands of research groups, all of which have members that have spent their lives studying the subject."
I have quoted the above as it warrants a separate response.
That's not what I am saying, where I am at today is that the "100's of thousands of pieces of data" is what I refer to (not literally of course), the numbers themselves, not the interpretations that others apply to their selection of that data. I have absolutely no doubt that there is an element of expectation bias at work, it would be impossible to believe otherwise. Then I have even more scepticism in regards to the predictions (proven to be inaccurate) that they make based on that selection of data.
I also have trouble imagining the outrage if one scientist dared to go against the popular opinion and I do not for one second believe that his/her funding would not be cut immediately and they would be escorted off the university premises. What would their recourse be to pay the rent and feed their families? I'm pretty sure that they could obtain funding from, say, an oil company but that would immediately discredit any work they would produce, no matter how accurate it was. "Oh you can't believe him/her, they work for big oil".
On your last point about debating the subject, I am very open minded and I'm not a climate scientist, but I am OK with numbers.
Always a Bulldog
Painter's Number wasn't a case of group think. He used a method of measurement to count 24. A crude method of measurement but the best they had at the time. Others repeated the same measurement and came to the same number (24). It wasn't until a new method of measurement was developed in 1955 that they could figure out that the count of 24 was wrong. That's how science works. New, better techniques are developed to correct past errors.
Also, group think isn't really a thing in the scientific community. It's often used by people who don't agree with the vast majority of experts. People get into science because they find it interesting. It pays bugger all. But they do it because they love it and they hope that one day they will publish something that changes the world. You don't change the world or become famous by agreeing with everyone else. You do it by proving everyone else wrong. Scientists don't like agreeing on things. They want to prove that they are better than their peers and they do that by proving their peers wrong.
And science is never going to be 100% accurate. Especially climate change. There's way too many systems to give full accuracy. But you can get close enough.
As for the 1990 IPCC report, it was off but I'm not sure where you get those stats from. It estimated an average increase of 3 degrees per decade based on a business as usual scenario. That means a small temperature increase at the start, big toward the end (2100). Business as usual predicted a constant increase in CO2 emissions and roughly 420ppm by 2007 (we were much lower than that due to restrictions on CO2 emissions). They then used a number of scenarios that resulted in reduced emissions and they based this on the temperature rise since the start of the industrial revolution.
Here's the projection chart from the 1990 report
Business as usual would have resulted in 420ppm CO2 by 2007. At 2020 we were at 412ppm, so we never got near that. Instead we were closer to scenarios B, C and D, which estimated around 1.3 - 1.6 degree increase since the industrial revolution by 2020. We ended up with a 1.3 degree increase by 2020, and this is before the IPCC started incorporating margins of error. So the report average wasn't accurate, but the temperature increase wasn't that far off, and definitely not a 100% difference.
I think the biggest issue with the IPCC 1990 report was that it wasn't highly descriptive. It was a large report and covered many things, but as far as temperature rises goes, it was never very descriptive. It never says what temperature it will be at what year. That's why future reports were more descriptive.
This is all in comparison to Hansen's projections that predicted lower warming than seen, but based on trends may end up accurate in the long run
To me it just seems like you're creating points to backup your argument then suggesting that you are unbiased.
For example:
"
I have absolutely no doubt that there is an element of expectation bias at work" - If you make that claim and don't back it up with evidence then it's just a biased claim to support your pre-conceived beliefs. It's not looking at the data. There may be bias involved but you can't automatically jump to wide spread bias as a base point when there's no data to support your claim
"
I also have trouble imagining the outrage if one scientist dared to go against the popular opinion and I do not for one second believe that his/her funding would not be cut immediately and they would be escorted off the university premises" - Again, another claim that you're going to need to backup with evidence. There have been very few incidents where this has happened. People like to reference Peter Ridd, but Peter Ridd won his case against the University, and he never provided opposing research. He made claims he couldn't backup with evidence, and taught these claims to his students. And these were claims of things that he wasn't technically an expert on. They were just anecdotal claims sold as actual science. Even if it happened on mass, Universities aren't the only source of research. There's think tanks and scientific organisations, many primarily funded by groups that hope the researchers will find evidence that climate projections are false. Not to mention that if you proved the projections wrong, you don't get disowned by the community. You end up being nominated for a Nobel prize
Look, there's definitely corruption in the scientific community. I have personally seen peer reviews passed because the board of reviewers were friends with the researchers. And there's vested interest at the personal level and higher. Just look at something like vaping. The US government constantly moved to block vaping until the Tobacco companies introduced their own vapes. Then government officials tried to legalise only the Tobacco industry vapes. This stuff happens.
But, the rule of conspiracy comes in. The more involved, then less likely the conspiracy is to be true. When you have so many scientific organisations, universities, think tanks, research groups, all over the world with hundreds of thousands of scientists all researching these topics. The idea that the scientists will not do their work, but instead just nod and agree with what the masses say. That's not only ridiculous, it's insulting to anyone who ever got into science.