Global Warming Revelations
A physical oceanographer has written an article that shows clearly how science, in this case climate change science, is not a dispassionate, objective process, but is instead a political game where those who have other scientific theories are shouted down, regardless of the evidence.

Writing about the Australian Geophysics Union's 13,000 strong meeting, he makes some quite damning admissions.

We tried for years - decades - to get them to listen to us about climate change. To do that we had to ramp up our rhetoric. We had to figure out ways to tone down our natural skepticism (we are scientists, after all) in order to put on a united face. We knew it would mean pushing the science harder than it should be. We knew it would mean allowing the boundary-pushers on the "it's happening" side free reign while stifling the boundary-pushers on the other side.

Whoa! Think about it. The prestige of 'science' used to push a particular agenda, whether or not it was supportable. Contrary evidence and views suppressed. The ends justifies the means. No wonder so many scientific papers are fraudulant.

The author continues

But knowing the science, we knew the stakes to humanity were high and that the opposition to the truth would be fierce, so we knew we had to dig in.

Think about the mentality that went through this process. We silenced scientific critics of our views. We ignored the manifest uncertainty of our predictions and claims, BUT he could still use the phrase 'opposition to the truth'.

But now they are listening. Now they do believe us. Now they say they're ready to take action. And now we're wondering if we didn't create a monster. We're wondering if they realize how uncertain our projections of future climate are. We wonder if we've oversold the science. We're wondering what happened to our community, that individuals caveat even the most minor questionings of barely-proven climate change evidence, lest they be tagged as "skeptics." We're wondering if we've let our alarm at the problem trickle to the public sphere, missing all the caveats in translation that we have internalized. And we're wondering if we've let some of our scientists take the science too far, promise too much knowledge, and promote more certainty in ourselves than is warranted.

I guess the author has realised that they have stiffled science by their propaganda. Sounds all too familiar. Power corrupts. Faith exists whether you believe God or atheism. Human nature is human nature. We need to remember that scientists are human. That we can't check their evidence.

We can however, understand what can be known and can't be known with science. We can realise that scientists test theories using reproducible experiments. The problem is, climate change isn't reproducible. We don't have another planet which we can fast forward to see what happens. All we do have is horribly insufficient computer models. You only need to look at the inability to accurately forecast tomorrows weather to see how insufficient these models are (Just look at boxing day, which was supposed to be around 38 degrees here, and yet turned out to be around 23).

You see, it isn't that they don't have any good evidence, it is that they can't have any good evidence. They haven't run an experiment on our climate system. The real experiment is what they are trying to get us to do, at massive expense.

(HT: Tim Blair)
- posted by Alan Grey @ Thursday, December 28, 2006