Remember, no principles.

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"A theory that explains everything, explains nothing"

The film you linked? I gotta admit I didn't see any links to any films (nor would I spend my time watching a film when all I really want is some basic data).

How come you don't understand the difference between CHANGE IN TEMPERATURE, and the actual temperature? How warm was 1800? How warm was 1900? How warm was 2000? And the years in between. That's all I want to know

1.) They don't even have real numbers for the "actual temperature" of this year. It's a guess. Expecting to find real, and accurate, numbers from 100 years ago when there was no significant planetary communication is just begging for disappointment.

2.) They've changed how they measure temperature so, even if you had numbers, they'd be inconsistent.

I'd buy that.
Imagine how skewed the record of temperature would be in 1900? How many measurements would have been taken from places in Western Europe and the US vs. Africa or Brazil?

There can't be any useful numbers for "average" global temperatures prior to the middle of the 20th century (guessing). To get a good average, you'd have to have a sample of temps from an evenly distributed, geographically comprehensive set of locations, right? How could you leave Sub-saharan Africa or Borneo out? - not to mention the polar regions.

Consider that circumference of the world was precisely measured about 300 years ago. Consider the first accurate maps of the world were created 500 years ago. Consider that the accomplishments of people like Newton, Galieo, Pythagoreus, are well over the head of people even today. (Can you prove the world is round?) I think humans have always found a way to get the information they need, and there's often a written record from explorers, sailors, diariests, farmers, etc.

I am reading a book on Africa, and the method that archaeologists used to predict ancient climate in order to determine likely sites for human remains is very complex, but apparently works. It relies on such things as the motions of the earth, solar energy, measuring isotope ratios on ancient sea shells; it's truly amazing, and much this approach to understanding ancient weather came about well before the global warming controversy. The Skeptics are revisiting largely settled questions that have by and large worked for archaeologists, historians, and others who rely on this information to solve their own puzzles.

My point is that scientists have many ways to collect and verify information, but it is the hard part of their job, and it's open to controversy. Even today there are those who don't accept Relativity or Quantum Theory. Even today there are those who don't accept Darwinism. Certainly, it's possible that some of our fundamental theories about ancient temperature are wrong, but in general most of them have been widely vetted well before the global warming controversy arose.

Absolutely correct. Take Massachusetts. How would get an accurate average temperture over the last 100 years? LEt say in 1907 they measured it in 10 cities, at 10 specific spots. Is that accurate? Yes, but only if it is measured in 2007 if taken in the same 10 cities at the same spots. If the cities changed, or even the locations (nevermind the means used to derive said temperatures), then your figures are guestimated. That's just Massachusetts. We're talking the world now. Very good point fellas, which I don't think most people talk about or understand.

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"A theory that explains everything, explains nothing"

That's all guestimation. They can figure out a climate range, but cannot tell you what the average temperature actually was. They can assume through those means whether or not a climate was warm, tropical, rainy, snowy, etc. However, when people start running reports and citing that the "global" temperature has risen .33 degrees since Santa Claus, that guestimation doesn't jive.

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"A theory that explains everything, explains nothing"

It's no more guesstimation than much of science. You could say the distance from here to the sun is a guesstimate, but the methods used have been widely vetted and are accepted. When they send a ship to moon, they have to calculate precisely all the different gravitational forces and to what degree they cancel each other out. You could call it a guesstimate, but scientists have been awesome is getting it right. For years scientists have made estimates that the continents float apart and merge together every 20 million years; that comets had visited earth at specific dates in the past; scientists estimated circumstance of the earth, determined where ancient humans dwelled by analyzing past climate, and even determined the lifespans of ancient species. From one perspective it's all guesstimates, but then our whole world is built on a house of cards and it's amazing anything works. It's too bad you put politics ahead of science, and call the hundreds of years of research that led to today's scientific measurements, "guesstimates."

Right, every 20 million years. They don't say in the year 20 million and 6. Why? Cuz they can't say specifically. Use your brain and think about what we are saying here. There is no way to accurately conclude the average temp of the world, let alone the average over a couple of hundred years. I think that's an important piece of information when someone is trying to tell me that the globe has warmed/cooled down to the hundreth of a degree. That's what we're saying.

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"A theory that explains everything, explains nothing"

How in the world do you know that? Sure it's theoretical, but if a model is developed that can explain animal migration (based on bones), number of CO2 particles captured in ancient ice from different years, sizes of tree rings, and so on, you can solve the problem. There are all sorts of traces of time that can be used to test different theories: particles trapped in ice, size of tree rings, written information from sailors, etc. In a book I'm reading about Africa, the author writes (and this book has nothing to do with the global warming issue):

"In 1948 it was observed that the ratio of the oxygon 18 isotope to the oxygen 16 isotope in a sample of calcium carbonate varies according to the temperature at which the chemical had crystallized. Chalk is calcium carbonate formed from the shells of plankton, the marine organisms which have inhabited the surface waters of the oceans since the beginnings of life itself. Billions upon billions of these tiny shells sank to the bottom of ancient seas, creating ocean floor deposits that are, in effect, a thermometer from which can be read the temperature of the oceans when the plankton was alive.

More than two decades passed before the difficulties of retrieving and reading the thermometer were overcome, but in 1976 results from the analysis of cores recovered from depths of over 3000 meters in the southern Indian Ocean were published showing conclusively (things about the water temperature)." A Biography of Africa, by John Reader.

Conservatives have generally been wrong for underestimating the capabilities of science, whether we're talking about Galileo, Darwin, or the scientists involved in global warming. Scientists today can do amazing things, things that you can't even fathom. For thousands of scientists to believe in global warming and you to come out and imply temperature estimates of the past are mere guesstimates that are impossible to make makes you the ridiculous one. For a history of climates, I would much sooner trust a scientist who has studied the matter than you. Sorry.