[puckhog]

Alright, I guess I'll start with Flip. I actually have a very good idea what I'm talking about, as I've read much of the material you indicated. In your reply you say that arctic ice is melting at a faster rate than models predicted, and I'm not arguing with that at all, but it still says absolutely nothing about what will happen in 10-15 years. Anyone who says with certainty that they know how things will be in 10-15 years, no matter what issue they're discussing, is full of crap, and I don't care how 'qualified' they are.

On to Bagor, my "junior high lab" comment was meant to illustrate that we're all taught at a very early age that in the Scientific Process you form a hypothesis about what will happen, and then objectively obtain results that will either confirm or refute your original hypothesis. Under no circumstances should you cherry pick or treat data in a manner that will prove your hypothesis simply because you want to be right. Also, I never said current data wasn't useful, in fact it's the only thing we can say that we know with 100% certainty. What I said was that current data is limited in what it can tell us about the future. My post wasn't a knock on data that is known, but using that data to make conclusions about future events.

As for the Ovechkin example, I'm not sure where the confusion is coming from, but allow me to clarify; I'm well aware that a projection such as I indicated is flawed, in fact, that was the whole point of the example. I'll re-word the point I was trying to make: the given data available at any point in time is limited in what it can tell us about future events.