Human activity is clearly the main cause of the warming seen over the past century. 0.50 Agree Disagree

Argument TreesHow arguments are scored →

Weight for 0.00 · weight against 0.00 · net +0.00

Each reason is a claim with its own page. Score = sign x (2 x Truth - 1) x Conf x Link x Imp x Uniq, and every column is here so the row can be multiplied out and checked. A reason argued false scores negative and counts against the side it is filed on; a reason nobody has argued yet scores exactly 0, and so does one whose own page has no work behind it.

What Would Change the AnswerTruth scores →

Every claim beneath this page held at false and then at true, one at a time, with the whole graph recomputed each time. "If false" and "if true" are where this page’s truth score lands; "Move" is how far apart they are. "If settled" is that same distance with the input’s confidence held at 1, which is what it would be worth once the work behind it is finished, so the gap between Move and If settled is the value of doing that work. This is one input at a time and finds single points of failure; it does not test several inputs moving together, which is how correlated assumptions actually fail.

Related Beliefs

1. Scientists and agencies who publish regional and local climate forecasts generally present them with more confidence than the climate models behind them have earned. 0.50
2. Human activity is clearly the main cause of the warming seen over the past century. (this page)

The other beliefs filed under Climate; this one is listed unlinked.

Not filled in yet

Parts of the template nobody has filled in here. They are named rather than shown, because an empty table is not a finding, and each one is a reason the confidence above is not higher. A part that takes rows has a form for its first one.

What this page needs right now

Named gaps, read off the tables above, so a newcomer can see exactly where a contribution goes. None of them requires agreeing with the page, and each one links to the form it goes in.

What the numbers are made of

Share on the agree side

no scored weight either way

Confidence

32%. Weakest parts: scrutiny 0% · grounding 0%

Depended on

ReasonRank 0.0033, 92 of 2173

Strongest reason for

Global warming over the past century closely tracks the rise in heat-trapping gases from burning coal, oil and gas, and no natural cause matches its timing. +0.00

Strongest reason against

Earth's climate has swung between warm and cold periods long before industry, so a warm stretch on its own is not proof of a human cause. -0.00

What would move this most

Settling Global warming over the past century closely tracks the rise in heat-…: 0.50 if false, 0.50 if true

Coverage

Of 6 scored rows, 6 have no linkage page, 6 have no importance page, 6 have no uniqueness page. This page reads 6 other pages. 6 of them are one-sided or empty: Global warming over the past century closely tracks the rise in heat-trapping gases from burning coal, oil and gas, and no natural cause matches its timing.; Scientists have measured in laboratories for generations how carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases absorb heat, so warming from adding more of them to the air is expected, not a surprise.; The pattern of recent warming, with Earth's lower atmosphere warming while its upper atmosphere cools, is the signature of heat trapped by gases and not of a brighter sun.; Earth's climate has swung between warm and cold periods long before industry, so a warm stretch on its own is not proof of a human cause.; Temperature records need large adjustments for station moves, instrument changes and gaps, so the close match between rising gases and rising temperatures may be sensitive to those adjustment choices.; Ocean cycles run for decades and can add to or hide warming, making it hard to separate the human share of recent global warming from natural swings..

Bottom line

It turns on whether the match between rising gases and rising temperatures rules out natural swings that are known to occur.

Structural Checks

Faults the shape of the argument can show without reading a word of it: a claim used to support itself, a conclusion listed among its own premises, the same page counted twice. None of these changes a score. The wiki also specifies pattern-matching the prose for ten named fallacies; that is deliberately not done here, because a matcher looking for “attacking the person rather than the argument” would fire on the central legitimate argument on this whole site, and a score moved by a regular expression has no page to appeal to.

Scoring EngineTruth scores →

Cite this page Human activity is clearly the main cause of the warming seen over the past century. Idea Stock Exchange, belief page human-activity-clearly-main, truth 0.50, confidence 32%, revision 42c8344 of 2026-10-04. The revision is what makes this quotable: these numbers move as the argument is worked on, and rebuilding that revision reproduces them exactly.

Every number on this page as data: human-activity-clearly-main.json. Constants: K = 1 · UNARG = 0.5 · DEFLINK = 1 · DEFIMP = 0.5 · DEFUNIQ = 1. A reason placed under a conclusion is presumed relevant until a linkage page says otherwise; the burden is on the challenger. The neutral start for importance, the wiki's own rule.

Every value here is computed from the tables above at build time. Nothing is typed.