"Judith Curry on ‘dogma’ and ideology" and the IPCC - thoughts to consider

I came across this article by Chris Colose, a PhD student in an Atmospheric Science program.  It's two years old, but than Judith Curry has been attacking the IPCC for a while now.  The article does a excellent job of outlining the flaws in Judith's assertion and anyone interested in a clearer understanding of the real story behind the IPCC would benefit from reading: "Judith Curry on ‘dogma’ and ideology"  

Chris Colose has given me permission to reprint his entire article.  

I have added some web links, highlights and sentence breaks where I thought they were appropriate - text remains unaltered.   {11/23/12}

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Judith Curry on ‘dogma’ and ideology
http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/934/
Posted on November 9, 2010 | by Chris Colose

What's Up With That IPCC... no consensus on consensus ???

I'm confounded by the way people swallow Curry, Anthony et al. slanders of the IPCC.   You see, it's one thing to take issue with a study or statement but to misrepresent and then paint this organization into that villainous characterature they have done is ridiculous... no, it's plain dishonest.  Chris Colose wrote a good two-thousand word essay a couple years back that remains as valid today as it was then, here's an except:

". . . I think there’s a lot of misconception on this issue and I see no evidence that Judith is thinking clearly with respect to her claims about the IPCC. Much of the debate has centered around semantics and definitions, so I want to start off with what many people take as “sides” to the debate, particularly when saying things like “the IPCC view” or identifying what a “skeptic” means. Much of the confusion is centered directly on how the scientific community comes to acquire knowledge on a specific topic, or how knowledge of global climate change has evolved. 

The fourth assessment report of the IPCC consisted of three volumes of work, on the scale of ~1000 pages each, with the goal of summarizing research in the areas of the physical science, impacts, and policy of climate change. The AR4 does not represent original research, and so to begin with what Judith and other commenter’s refer to as the “IPCC view” is in reality the aggregate work done by the community in whatever sub-topic is being discussed, expressed as a summary of the “balance of evidence.”