Capitol Ideas
A Disgrace to Science
For about a generation, the Western world has been coping with a politicized attack on science by the very people who should have been guarding its integrity.
I planned to write something about nuclear power—about how the U.S., after a 30-year delay, had better hurry up and restart nuclear power. Then came Climategate. It involved the release—it has been called a theft but more likely it was a deliberate leak—of e-mails from a “university” in Britain that has been promoting climate change fears in the guise of collecting climate data.
With that, a new public understanding of the realities of science today may begin to dawn. The new reality is this. For about a generation, the Western world has been coping with a politicized attack on science by the very people who should have been guarding its integrity.
The obstruction of further developments in nuclear power was only the beginning. In 1979, an accident at Three Mile Island, in which no one was hurt, brought the nuclear power enterprise in the U.S. to a halt. Fears were deliberately inflated. China was not intimidated, however, and today it is adding nuclear power on a large scale; 25 new reactors are under construction. Plainly, if this continues much longer, China will develop an unstoppable economic lead over the U.S. And it will be our fault.
China’s former catastrophe (Communist rule) now works to its advantage. In 1949, the nation’s intelligentsia seized power—for that is what Communism entails. They became socialist planners for 40 years and impoverished the country with famine and ruin. Since the late 1960s, our homegrown intelligentsia have felt deprived because they never had the same opportunity. They never could seize the power they believe is rightfully theirs. The amazing result? China is now immunized against the socialist disease, whereas the U.S. has still not been fully exposed. We remain susceptible, and keep on experiencing its maladies.
Europe has already succumbed, and the near-socialist structure of its economies is not sustainable for much longer. It will have to be reformed or ended. Possibly Islam will finish the job. I would give Europe’s present political structure another 10 years. In Britain, the conservatives under the feckless David Cameron promise no improvement.
Here, the betrayers of science have found that public opinion is easily manipulated, especially with press cooperation. The principles that, starting in the 17th century, turned science into one of the great human enterprises can be subverted. Most Americans—most people in the world—know so little about these things that the methods of science can be twisted with hardly anyone noticing.
Today, many scientists and opinion leaders think that if an elite consensus in favor of certain “policies” can be generated, the underlying science must be right. The corrupt system of “peer review” will reliably exclude dissenters, and if the naysayers continue making themselves heard they will be called denialists, tools of right-wing talk radio, etc.
This is where climate science has been heading. It is also where other major fields of science stand today—at the mercy of a contrived consensus. “Climate change” has attracted major attention not because its methods of subversion are much different from now-standard practice, but because literally trillions of dollars are at stake.
Those who promoted the bogus certainties of global warming not only sought to upend a whole way of life but came close to doing so. They have been aided by hundreds of well-known politicians, writers, reporters, and politicized scientists. Among politicians, Al Gore is only the best known. In the last category, James Hansen and Michael Mann are among the major U.S. culprits.
Christopher Booker, who has long covered these issues for the Sunday Telegraph and is one of the few British journalists to have done so, calls climate fraud “the greatest scientific scandal of our age.” He notes that the Royal Society, a once great institution founded in 1662, has become “a shameless propagandist for the warmist cause.”
Government funding has been the major subversive force. If you read Science, as I do, you see that the issue the magazine cares about above all others, and editorializes about week after week, is funding. Government funding. The constant concern about money means that Science and other journals feel obliged to keep up a drumbeat of articles that sustain the mood of crisis surrounding a given issue. Climate change is the leading illustration today, but there are others.
One example—a comparatively innocent one as these things go—is the flu-scare industry. It comes around like clockwork. SARS (’03) was replaced by avian flu (’05), then by swine flu (’09). Don’t panic but do worry (is the message), because it’s pandemic time. The key point is that death from infectious disease is way down compared to what it was in earlier centuries, and yet these agencies exist and need to keep puffing up their budgets.
So a scientific-seeming scare emerges from the World Health Organization and is magnified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The media, hungry for viewers, lavish uncritical attention. More cautious newsroom voices, should they exist, will be frightened off: “Be responsible! You could cause the deaths of millions of people!” Budgets for WHO and CDC are duly fattened. Infectious disease boss Anthony Fauci appears on TV on schedule. He tells us to stay calm, take our shots, and be alert for news bulletins. Laurie Garrett publishes another scary tome and Michael Fumento remains the lone dissenter. Within two or three years it’s time for another cycle.
The scientists who promote these self-serving scares are employed by government agencies or by universities. The latter are under constant pressure to attract grants, whether from the NIH, NASA, the National Science Foundation, or other government agencies. For more than 20 years the leading manipulator of climate science has been an ideologue named James Hansen, with NASA’s Goddard Institute since 1981. He played a major role in promoting the global warming deception, and has done so with impunity despite almost 30 years’ employment by a government agency.
Recently, Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University has been the leading promoter of bogus global temperature claims. He manufactured the misleading “hockey stick” temperature graph that eliminated the Medieval Warm Period by cherry-picking tree-ring data. He accuses dissenters of being funded by oil companies and has garnered $6 million in government grants for Penn State. As a climate dissenter rather than a distorter, he would have been vilified, not remunerated. He’s an enemy of science.
About the Author
Tom Bethell is a senior editor of The American Spectator and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science, The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity Through the Ages, and most recently Questioning Einstein: Is Relativity Necessary? (2009).
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Richard Baker| 2.16.10 @ 7:04AM
As I've said before, I used to be a Math/Science teacher here in Florida. If any of my students tried what these "scientists" did, I'd have failed them at minimum and would have tried to have them expelled from my class. At the University level, they would have, hopefully, been expelled, as well. Grant whores are the scourge of science and the author is correct in saying that what is needed is an undermining, or I'd say a purge, of Science.
Alan Brooks| 2.16.10 @ 6:24PM
We will probably end up with an Ice Age, eventually.
Jon B| 3.8.10 @ 10:44AM
Or the CO2 age...
http://www.miamiherald.com/201.....ceans.html
Torquemeda| 2.16.10 @ 7:42AM
Mr. Bethell - excellent article but you totally overlook the massive support of the global warming scam by major computer and information technology companies. Every one of the largest companies spend millions if not hundreds of millions in advertising and pushing carbon scares and have flooded Washington as well as state capitals with lobbyists to push for legislation to force monitoring and control to force 'green' behavior. 'Scientists' at all of the major industry owned technology labs contribute to the hysteria, flooding journals with 'green' fiction.
Alan Brooks| 2.25.10 @ 6:16PM
JP's post is so good, can't help replying.
Of all priorities Math is what higher ed Freshmen need most; without math, what is science?
Without calculus you cannot be really educated.
JP'| 2.16.10 @ 7:45AM
The Boomers are now reaping what they've sown. The very idea of studying science for science sake began to decay during the 1960s. First to go were the Humanities. Feminism, Marxism with a smattering of multi-culti drove out the serious thinker. In the late 1950s, students use to study 1 or more foreign languages (on top of thier core subjects). It use to be a given that a graduate of a university in 1960 could speak 1 or more foreign language regardless of his/her major. Taking foreign languages seriously opened up a true platform of liberation -the liberation of the mind. But along with literature, history, philosophy, and theology, foreign requirements were thrown out.
The Hard Sciences thought they were immune. But, like the Humanities, the sciences now have to bow to the intelligentsia. Dr Larry Summers found this out painfully when he let slip that women do not do as well as men in things like Math and the Hard Sciences. Whether it is nuclear energy, climate science, biology, or advanced math, the modern day, the hard sciences are becoming increasingly politicized. The University, once believed to be the incubator of our civic life is now fully immersed in the political battles of today.
Any professor who thinks he can simply immerse himself in the study of microbes, Milton, or Tensor Calculus is mistaken. The Ivory Tower was crushed in 1968. In today's world, a Mr Chips is a fool - besides everyone knows that the study Greek and Latin is in the realm of the Dead White European Males. And Newton was a mysogonist, and Pascal was a religious fanatic.
MOS was 71331| 2.16.10 @ 11:16AM
I got a BS in math (really computer science) from Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1967. I took courses in German and French, but I can't reasonably claim to speak either language. If JP's foreign language experience "opened up a true platform of liberation" for him (or her), JP got a lot more out of the language courses than I did.
JP| 2.16.10 @ 1:53PM
Funny things can happen when a person can read Goethe or Pascal in the original text. Einstein and people in his class at the Swiss Polytechnical University had to master 3 languages; Euler could recite the Aenid from the original Latin; Leibnitz could read and write French, English and Latin.
The liberation they get is to expose themselves to the thoughts and ideas of other societies, and not have to depend upon the ability of a translator to do it. Technical skillsets are about the only thing universities offer today. We are all skilled technicians entombed in Plato's metphoric cave.
Extremely Extreme Extremist| 2.17.10 @ 12:09AM
Students today are trained, not educated.
What's the difference? One receives training in matters that are settled, or at any rate which are treated as settled--i.e. matters which are simply assumed from the outset to be true and are never questioned.
One receives an education in order to be equipped to make judgments about which matters are settled, or ought to be--i.e. about what is objectively true and what is objectively false.
The trained student is at the mercy of his trainer. He may be a supremely well-trained Marxist, for instance, but never having been acquainted with the principles of competing economic/social theories, he is both unable to understand and judge those theories fairly. If, in addition, Marxism is in fact objectively erroneous, he ends up trapped in a hell of sin and error that he can never escape from.
The educated man, on the other hand, having been adequately acquainted with the best that has been thought in every discipline, and encouraged to pursue truth simply for truth's sake, finds himself freed from dependence upon other men and able to judge things well for himself. He knows the foundations both Marxism and, say, capitalism rest upon, and is able to judge between them wisely.
The latter kind of man is what was produced by Western universities up until midway through the last century. The former is what is being turned out by the leftist ideologues who have taken over since then. What a pity...and what a colossal, colossal waste.
richard Irby| 2.17.10 @ 12:41AM
Even the notion that objective truth exits apart from our ability to grasp it is a basic worldview premise that was commonly shared - But not anymore! The concept that something can be true is often denigrated and despised ....
Copyleft| 2.17.10 @ 10:02AM
Good point--for example, the pernicious notion that "objective reporting" doesn't exist, and that all media except Fox News are biased.
Alan Brooks| 2.25.10 @ 6:27PM
""objective reporting" doesn't exist, and that all media except Fox News are biased."
Copyleft, you buttboy.
Fox is "Fair and Balanced", not unbiased. You take things A little too seriously and you will end up a victim of rough- trade guys. Knowing you, you'd probably ENJOY it.
How old are you fer chrissakes, Copy? 30? Look, it's all about one person losing so another can win.
Kto kto. Economics isn't a science.
Alan Brooks| 2.25.10 @ 6:18PM
How would this be for an elective:
"Postmodernism, Pro & CON"
Gregory Olsen| 2.16.10 @ 9:30AM
Thank you for your excellent article and for summing up the foolishness that has masqueraded as Science. Climatology (Man-Made-Global-Warming) is a religion, a belief system, with hugely destructive policy prescriptions. It is absolutely astounding to me the lack of American MSM coverage of Climategate and the unveiling of the flimsy evidence that above mentioned policy prescriptions are based on. Shame on Newsweek, Time, and Scientific American to name just a few of the propaganda organs that were at one time practitioners of free-speech in a pursuit of truth. Keep up the good work and I will be ever alert and pass on the good word to everyone I can.
logok| 2.16.10 @ 9:36AM
intelligentsia? how about misinformationsia. This site should be called the Puppeteer. where are your facts? you are doing a disservice to the web. this is just rubbish prognostication without a single relevant disputing study. Nice to know I've found another website worth a good laugh.
MOS was 71331| 2.16.10 @ 11:22AM
Are you criticizing Tom Bethel or one of the other commenters in this discussion? If it's Bethel, why should he have to cite a "relevant disputing study." It's abundantly clear that the AGW "studies" are in dispute, and that's pretty much all Bethel said.
Joe| 2.16.10 @ 1:25PM
I'd have to agree with logok. There isn't a single shred of evidence here. The truth is, no one knows for certain whether global warming is occuring or not, or even whether it is due to human activities. However, the fact remains that we have to reduce our fossil fuel use to eliminate our dependence on Middle Eastern oil and to prevent acid rain, strip mining, and other damage to the ecosystem. Global warming is irrelevant in this issue.
MikeD| 2.16.10 @ 2:58PM
I'm not quite sure what, or who either of you are citing or disputing. Regardless, the purpose of the article is to illlustrate the misuse of science for political and economic purposes. This isn't new; it's been going on since Galileo and Newton. What bothers me is the venom with which the practitioners on the political left excoriate anybody who disagrees with them, as indicated by "Logok", whomever he/she may be.
I actually am a scientist, and I actually have a degree in Meteorology. Climate studies are in their infancy; and nowhere near enough data has been collected or interpreted to make any judgements; especially when those judgements affect the lives of millions of people.
It's usually easy to gauge the degree of untruth by the volume of the responses to questioning of their conclusions. Global warming, like cap and trade, and healthcare legislation is all based on power; the attainment of power, and the use of power to control the masses and remake our country into some image desired by a certain element of the society. Should they be critically questioned? Absolutely. Check out Algore's bank account id you want to determine the truth of HIS assertions.
uncle curmudgeon| 2.16.10 @ 4:16PM
It is the same thing in the construction industry. There are certainly many new and useful products out there that claim to be "green". There are also many areas of the business where billions of dollars have been and will be wasted "saving" the planet. Think of it as the huckster tax. Aquisistion and compliace costs, to say nothing of litigation, are significant parts of every project's budget. Then there are the specs, where "green" is being codified, and increasingly mandated. The LEED building standards is a good example of this. Depending on what gets specified, I can sell you a pile of sand for $ X, but if you need a pile of "sustainable" sand (and you just might) that's going to cost you $ X+. Who's to say that the sand is "sustainable"? That would be the Certification Board (read: pinko nonprof) or celebrity architect hired by the owner of the sand pit to do the certifying. You know, "At Scoopengrynde Sand caring for the Earth is job number one." And, no, it's not a kick-back; it's a consulting fee.
If your community recently put a grass roof on a school, courthouse, or city hall consider yourself hosed.
Mrs. V.| 2.16.10 @ 5:43PM
Thanks, curmudgeon, you said it well.
Copyleft| 2.17.10 @ 10:03AM
It's funny that it's always "conservatives" who are so outraged at the idea of CONSERVING anything.
FTM| 2.16.10 @ 10:18PM
Typical leftist ccountermeasure to being caught in a lie, change the arguement.
FTM| 2.17.10 @ 3:28AM
Disputing study? What do you call the revelations in regards to the CRU and NOAA being busted falsifying their research? What do you call the work published by the guy that busted the "Hockey Stick" graph? What do you call the busting of the two con artists with their "research" in New Zeland? What do you call the fun and games that the IPCC got busted with in regards to the glaciers in the Himilayas and the Amazon rain forest becoming a savannah? How much contradictory information do you want?
Look, Pax, OK. (Pax is Latin for "peace".)
Really, if you were in the market for a good used car. Say that you have a daughter that is getting ready to go off to college and you need a good, low cost second hand car. Suppose that you go to the used car lot and find a car that you think might work. You gain the attention of a salesman and the salesman immediately starts into some kind of a sales line that goes along the lines of, "This is the best car on the lot and we'll sell you the car at thus and such a price but you have to act right now, this offer won't be available in fifteen minutes." How would you react to such a pitch?
Now consider the warmist camp. You have to act now, the science is settled, no you can't see the data, trust me on this one.
One simply has to realize when snake oil is being sold. You're being hearded.
Anthony| 2.16.10 @ 9:43AM
Don't forget how the American MSM have been completely silent on the hoax of the century. They should be excoriated every day for their complicity in this scandal.
This is what happens when political groupthink results in intellectual bankruptcy within groups that should be immune from politics, such as the media and academia. The Left has infected so many sectors of America; it's time for action.
Pete| 2.16.10 @ 10:45AM
Silence? I wish. They actively promote AGW...you can't get through a night of Olympics without NBC pushing it in some fashion...that is, when GE (Obama pet) isn't advocating its ways of capitalizing on a government healthcare takeover. Network TV is almost all propaganda these days.
Michael Tomlinson| 2.16.10 @ 10:08AM
I'm sure the liberal bureaucrats in DC wish there was some global warming this year.
From 800-1300 AD the earth was warmer than it has been in the last 500 years. We're actually due for some balmy weather. Sadly, the hoaxers like Al Gore have done incredible damage not only to science, but nature in their headlong rush to increase the size of their bank accounts in the name of pseudo-science.
Dein| 2.16.10 @ 10:23AM
misinformation?Where are the facts? Have u been living in a cave?Have u heard of the Oregon project?/Phil Jones' retractions?/distortions,exaggerations,outright lies by Gore,Pachauri,IPCC,Mann,etc.?Not asingle disputing study?r u kidding?What interests do u have promoting agw climate change?Propoganda is afunny thing,it will supress your ability to ? the real agenda behind this scam.
Larry C. Roberts, MD, MA| 2.16.10 @ 10:43AM
I used to love reading National Geographic when it fired the imagination and opened the eyes to strange, wild places and people. Now it is just another moralizing propaganda instrument of the left, and as a result, worthless. What a loss!
Copyleft| 2.16.10 @ 11:39AM
Science hasn't changed, Larry. You have. You've decided that any scientific findings that are inconvenient to your political agenda--acid rain, global warming, even evolution itself--MUST be false.
And by wishing hard enough, you hope to make that belief a reality. Sorry, but science doesn't work that way. The facts remain facts, even after you attempt to dismiss them as "lefist propaganda."
Ryan| 2.16.10 @ 11:49AM
Which is exactly why it's a political problem - what we are seeing now is that, at a minimum, the "facts" that support anthropomorphic climate change (the proper terminology) aren't as hard and fast as we were led to believe by government-sponsored scientists with a political agenda.
There are no good guys. Simply because someone has an agenda doesn't make them wrong, even large corporations.
MikeD| 2.16.10 @ 3:10PM
COPYLEFT! You're back! Nice to hear from you, even if this post makes no sense. At the end of the day, it is the AGW believers who are dreaming. They made up their collective minds the minute it was explained to them how much money there was in it...if they could just shut up those inconvenient truths about their falsifying data and criminal manipulation of government grant $$.
I especially remember the heartbreaking shot of the poor polar bear sitting forlornly on the shrinking ice floe. The problem was: It was staged! The AGW gang tried screaming that the 'science was settled", so shut up and go away! But, it ISN'T settled, and probably won't be for many, many years.
The Earth's climate is a volatile thing, affected by more variables that any computer model has been able to even roughly approximate. But, in general, our climate boils down to a combination of a few major variables and a multitude of minor ones. The sun is the originator of the vast majority of the energy that flows through the climatic engine called our atmosphere. Much of the energy that we use came from the sun in the form of hydrocarbons that formed when plants grew in the Carboniferous Period, died, and were changed into coal and oil. Now, all we're doing is releasing that energy that fell to earth as sunlight long ago. It's that 'Conservation of energy and matter' thing. Energy can neither be created or destroyed, it just changes form. So, other than the net increase from volcanoes and other geophysical sources, mankind isn't adding a single bit of energy to the mix with the possible exception of a tiny addition from nuclear power plants. We're not that powerful.
The whole thing, like healthcare,is just another power grab where one group of people is trying to take control of how another group lives their lives. 'Nuff said.
FTM| 2.16.10 @ 10:24PM
You got that right. I actually wrote a letter to the editorial board at National Geographic when my subscription bill came and explained to them why I was dropping their magazine. Complewte waste of my time, their mind is made up, no more facts required.
Joseph Harriss | 2.16.10 @ 11:29AM
The science of global warming is phony, of course, but you don't have to do the math to suspect there's something fishy afoot when there are so many interests involved. Who profits from the scare? Government-funded scientists, activists in search of an issue, "green" industry, ad agencies, and the media, for a short list. QED.
Copyleft| 2.16.10 @ 11:40AM
And who benefits from trying to stall any responsible action on climate change?
The usual suspects--oil and gas interests, big business, lobbyists, and other plutocrats who want to protect their short-term profits at the expense of poisoning the world. QED.
Ray| 2.16.10 @ 1:55PM
And who suffers when envromentalists forstall real science and use their ideology to force policy changes? The taxpayers, the homeowners, the truck drives, the plumbers, the electricians the carpenters, the factory workers, and anyone else who is dependent upon cheap, reliable energy in which to power their business. QED.
Mark| 2.20.10 @ 1:11PM
They're not environmentalists; many environmentalists are firm believers in solid science, proper research and the purity of the scientific method, and we're just as annoyed as you are, not only at the debasement of science but also because the eco-marxist "climate clowns" are diverting funds away from real issues like toxic waste pollution, overpopulation and developing affordable renewable technologies.
Not all environmentalists spout AGW doctrine.
Try here for a real environmentalist site, it's well worth exploring :
http://www.ecowho.com/articles.....g_on?.html
Klem| 2.16.10 @ 11:44AM
Dear richard Baker
I agree with your comment. When I went through undergrad science, they would have tossed me out on my ear had I tried to pull the tricks that some of these world class climate PhD's have been getting away with. I've heard some of these studies called 'breakthrough studies' when they would have been called fraud back 30 years ago. Once I read the UN IPCCs AR4 report back in 2007, I realized that something ominous had occured in science and over the past 3 years I've observed some outrageous and sad scientific outcomes.
Drew | 2.16.10 @ 11:49AM
Strange that the same people blathering about the integrity of science (when it comes to climate change) are the same fools who aggressively promote Creationism as a credible subject to be taught in our public schools.
Yeah, right, along with Sarah Palin, I'm quite sure that lots of scientists are convinced that dinosaurs and man walked the earth together a few thousand years ago.
WJ| 2.16.10 @ 12:11PM
Drew, you're funny. Excellent logic.
Why don't you call people you don't agree with a poopy head and be done with it.
Drew| 2.16.10 @ 12:37PM
No, you know what, I'll leave the childish name-calling to people like you.
Reasonable people can make a scientifically valid argument about the strength of the link between human activity and global warming. But to deny that the climate is not, in fact, changing seems to be idiocy beyond belief. And when Rush Limbaugh, and the sort of cretins who listen to him, point to extreme weather as an example that climate change is NOT occuring, literally defies all understanding.
Every single climate change model, and every climate scientist out there (regardless of their position on anthropgenic global warming) agrees that more extreme weather (hotter summers, colder winters, larger storms, etc.) IS A SYMPTOM of a changing climate.
But no. It snowed in Florida. And, rather than ask WHY this sort of (almost unprecedented) event takes place - the conservative idiocracy decides its more evidence of a shadowy worldwide conspiracy against them. It would truly be funny, if it wasn't so sad.
Always Question| 2.16.10 @ 12:59PM
Interesting. "I'll leave the childish name-calling to people like you." Then, a short paragraph later, "Rush Limbaugh, and the sort of cretins who listen to him".
The broad sweeping statement "Every single climate change model, and evey climate scientist out there..." underlines the absurdity of your comments. Please - by definition, climate changes. Statistically, there will be some extreme weather in all periods. The issue here was a pre-conceived conclusion that increases in carbon dioxide were resulting in an unnatural forcing affect that was causing long-term increases in average global temperatures. Now, valid questions are being asked by some climate scientists about the validity of the data, the credibility of conclusions drawn, and by implication, whether the scientists and organizations proposing this "theory" had less than altruistic motives.
Seems like a fair question to me. What I find funny is your hypocrisy.
JP| 2.16.10 @ 1:44PM
Drew,
Nice dodge. The question doesn't have to do with "climate change", but anthropogenic global warming. And no, extreme weather (which has occured since time immemorial) is not a signature of AGW. And no, not every climate scientist agrees that extreme weather events are a signature of "climate change" (whatever that is).
Curtis Rasmussen| 2.16.10 @ 3:26PM
Thousands of years ago the Sahara was a verdant grassland with rivers and lakes. Within one to 2 generations, it dried into the desert we see today, forcing the populace to migrate to the Nile delta and forge the great Egyptian empire.
Drew, explain to me when and where the time machine was used to transport pollutants en masse to ancient times to create this global catastrophe.
Copy;eft| 2.17.10 @ 8:33AM
Another typical dodge of the denialist industry is stuff like this... claiming that, if human activity CAN cause global warming, it must be proven to HAVE caused every climate shift throughout history, which could not possibly have had any other causes.
In other words, there's no such thing as arson because fires can start naturally, from lightning strikes.
Transparently silly when you state it clearly, isn't it? But a lot of talk-radio listeners (obviously not the brightest bulbs in the store) fall for it.
Mark| 3.5.10 @ 2:06PM
Another typical dodge of the carbon-alarmist conspiracy is stuff like this. They think that if they can show any weakness in a single sceptical argument then everyone will think that the questionable AGW hypothesis must be true.
In other words if your argument about tree ring data is false, this proves mankind is causing a climate catastrophe.
Transparently silly when you state it clearly, isn't it? That's why there are very few people who still fall for it, except for the gullible (who aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer).
jd| 2.16.10 @ 1:27PM
Sounds to me that you have pre-conceived prejudices when it comes to creationism. The latest science by the way debunks Darwinism and whether it's mathematics, probability, advances in our understanding of molecular biology and biochemistry, science is proving that the randomness of the origins of life is absurd. You need to have more faith in the theory of creating something out of nothing then faith in a God.
Copyleft| 2.16.10 @ 2:49PM
Speaking of disgraces to science...
Still trying to disprove evolution, despite overwhelming evidence that continues to pile up every day? That's just sad.
Always Question| 2.16.10 @ 3:52PM
One question - how do you explain DNA? How did the first life come into being? Why isn't there an extensive fossil record that clearly supports the millions of transitional mutated organisms that must have existed to support the theory of macro-evolution.
I agree that micro-evolution is observable and can be replicated. On the other hand, it takes a huge leap in faith to subscribe to macro-evolution.
jd| 2.16.10 @ 5:16PM
Exactly my point. Microevolution can explain variation within species but macroevolution cannot explain how species originated. Not surprised that copyleft cannot comprehend that simple fact. What is sad is that in his orbit outcome determine the "science" behind his bias.
John Navratil| 2.17.10 @ 5:22AM
Have you ever wondered how a species can be reduced to extinction by merely reducing a population below a minimum level (think Dodo or passenger pigeon), but a random variation in a single specimen can create a new species?
Microevolution does not explain macro evolution.
Copyleft| 2.17.10 @ 7:52AM
Seriously? You're saying it's ludicrous to believe that small changes, added up over time, can result in big changes? THAT's the pinpoint of faith you cling to in the surging sea of fossil, genetic, and anatomical evidence to the contrary?
That's like arguing that adding 1+1+1+1... will never reach 1,000. Pathetic, the state of science education today.
John Navratil| 2.17.10 @ 2:53PM
Copyleft,
Of course small changes can ADD to big changes. But it isn't addition, is it. A glass of water may spontaneously turn into a sculpture of an ice maiden according to the laws of thermodynamics, but it isn't the way to bet.
Each random mutation has a chance of 1 in X. Two successive are 1 in X-squared. How many small changes to you wish to "add" together to get something as useful as a knee designed for bipeds or the proverbial eye in the back of the head?
We see the Australopithecine, Homo Erectus, and Neanderthal. Neanderthal lived for 100,000 years as recently as 30,000 years ago. So why in a statistically comparable period and a population of, now, 6 billion or so are we no seeing any of these random mutations "adding" up?
You can make the statistical counter-argument (like that glass of water), but we don't see it anywhere?
I suppose the Cambrian explosion was a manifestation of that "Ice Maiden".
You pathos is misplaced.
axbucxdu| 2.19.10 @ 1:25PM
John,
Allow me to save you the trouble of arguing the details. From its own definition, natural selection is constructed as a tautology. As such, the premise can be absolutely true yet remain empirically unfalsifiable. For this reason alone, the theory is unscientific.
We're not dealing here with an expression like say, F = ma, but rather a = a.
How can a = a be untrue? This is the logical position that darwin's muts have cut out for themselves. I have to say that I'm envious of their salesmanship.
But don't take my word for it; you can read about it here:
http://us.macmillan.com/whatdarwingotwrong
Ray| 2.16.10 @ 2:05PM
Drewm, you seem to m miss the obvious, and this is that AGW promotion has reached religious proportions, much like any Creatiionalism. Just like Religion , AGW is promoted, on faith, by those who seek to gain, and maintain control over a given population. AGW has about as much credibility, stands up to rigorous scientific study, as the Bible, and the supporters of AGW reverently believe any and all conclusions this pseudoscience as any religious fanatic.
Instead of using the current "settled science" of "climate change" as a means to compare the differences between science and religion, your example actually highlights the similarities. Not a winning argument by anyone's estimation.
richard Irby| 2.17.10 @ 1:00AM
As if what is presently taught in our public school
curriculum is science and not a materialist superstition. The problem with deception and propaganda is you don't realize you have been indoctrinated/deceived. The "facts" that have been taught in the public school curriculum have wild and contradictory variations that change every 5-10 years. There should at least be some kind of caveat about these "facts" being a current belief.
Dean| 2.16.10 @ 12:46PM
When I hear about all of the scientific hacks today, I recall Sigourney Weaver's remark to Bill Murray in "Ghostbusters" : "You know, you don't act like a scientist. . . .You're more like a game show host." It seems to fit many people appropriately!
Pingback| 2.16.10 @ 1:33PM
Follow the money: Science links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
ncatty| 2.16.10 @ 1:45PM
What I never see discussed by either side is what do we suppose the "ideal" climate should be. Today's climate, or last week's, or millennia ago?
Once we know that ideal, then we have something to work towards. Ok, AGW proponents, give us your ideal climate and remember it has to be ideal for all areas of the globe!
Copyleft| 2.16.10 @ 2:51PM
You get no answer because it's a meaningless question. What's the ideal length of time? What's the ideal mass of a rock? There isn't one.
There's only recognition of what's going on and understanding of the forces at work... with an eye toward what the likely consequences will be if we ignore the factors that are under our control.
ncatty| 2.16.10 @ 3:16PM
C'mon, it is a simple question. How much cooler do you want it to be?
Copyleft| 2.17.10 @ 7:53AM
Read the above. Your question is as meaningless as "What existed before time?" And just as irrelevant.
ncatty| 2.17.10 @ 10:02AM
If you answer the question, you realize the intellectual inconsistency in your belief in AGW. I understand why you won't answer, it shakes your "belief."
Copyleft| 2.17.10 @ 10:07AM
I already did answer: there isn't one. Your "gotcha" game isn't working.
You might as well ask "If evolution is true, why are there still monkeys?" It's a meaningless question that only demonstrates your ignorance of the topic, not exposing a fallacy in the theory.
Richard Baker| 2.16.10 @ 2:49PM
Drew:
As Casey Stengel used to say, "You could look it up." It has snowed before in Florida. May not have happened often but it has occurred. Which means exactly WHAT? Creationism or a God-centered view of the origins of the universe is not mindless, as your ilk claim. Would Einstein have said that "God does not play dice with the Cosmos" if he didn't consider that as a possibility?
Copyleft| 2.16.10 @ 2:52PM
You'll note Einstein made that remark as a denial of quantum mechanics... one of his most profound blunders, and one that he candidly admitted to be his most serious mistake in later years.
Richard Baker| 2.16.10 @ 2:57PM
But he didn't recant on the sentiment in the quote, now did he? And in fact, he repeated same throughout his life.
Copyleft| 2.17.10 @ 7:56AM
"The word 'god' is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this."
--Albert Einstein, January 3, 1954--
"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings."
--Albert Einstein--
"I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied, this but have expressed it clearly."
--Albert Einstein--
You were saying...?
Marc Jeric| 2.16.10 @ 5:40PM
This conspiracy against freedom is of long standing - consider:
1) It started in the 1970's with global cooling scam The remedy: disarm our bombers, fill them with soot and cover the poles with it to prevent new glaciers from crushing New York skycrapers;
2) It continued with the global warming hoax in the 1990's; nationalize oil & gas companies;
3) After 15 years of cooling falsify data and change the discussion into climate change flimflam; so whatever happens nationalize everything and call for world government with government-paid "scientists" in charge of everything; and finally the present Cap & trade power grab - tax, confiscate, nationalize, under UN world government led by the same government-paid "scientists" (really rejects of private enterprise).
Pingback| 2.16.10 @ 8:07PM
You Have Extreme Possibility links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
aurfcitybob| 2.16.10 @ 8:42PM
"Science" has now become a man made religion. Just read the Believers hatred for the deniers! When judging something look at the power, money or sex and you will find the true motive behind it. BTW did you know that the sun revolves around the earth? It is settled science!
Copyleft| 2.17.10 @ 8:34AM
There's a key difference between science and religion, bob...
Science actually WORKS. Whether you believe in it or not.
Does science have 'all the answers'? No (and it never claimed to), but science is the only thing that gets ANY right answers at all.
Pingback| 2.16.10 @ 8:56PM
The American Spectator : A Disgrace to Science Mobile links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
JeffT| 2.16.10 @ 9:16PM
Follow the money. Every 25-30 years the scare-mongers get revved up. Cooling, warming, cooling, warming, yada, yada, yada. Go back and read old copies of the "trustworthy" NYT, of Walter Duranty infamy, and see how they just rotate the scare-du-jour. This is nothing new. Just more pernicious and there's a lot more money involved in keeping the panic going.
Copyleft| 2.17.10 @ 9:12AM
"Follow the money" indeed... right to Exxon's back door.
http://www.ucsusa.org/news/pre.....bacco.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/envi.....l.business
FTM| 2.16.10 @ 10:34PM
It all just shows to go you (sic) that there are a lot of people out there that are educated well in excess of their intellectual capacity.
Pingback| 2.17.10 @ 1:33AM
Jobs in Montreal, QC (02/17/10) | Naval Engineering Addict links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Franks| 2.17.10 @ 3:48AM
Gregory Olsen wrote that "Climatology (Man-Made-Global-Warming) is a religion"
As a result of a court case between a disgruntled employee and his employer here in the UK, those carrying out actions to "save the planet" now have the same rights as religious organizations.
jo| 2.17.10 @ 4:39AM
"...very old 1990 Australian documentary exposing the many fallacies of the Anthropogenic Global Warming Religion. Anyone wonder why this documentary went unseen in the United States?"
http://ragingdebate.com/economy/greenhouse-not
Pingback| 2.17.10 @ 6:55AM
Western Waves Community radio recruitment fair | IrishDigest.com | Broadcast Engineer links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Russell Seitz| 2.17.10 @ 4:13PM
No one this side of the former Soviet Academy has done more to undermine my trust in science
than messers Singer and Bethell, who have spectacularly wasted what few reserves of credibility remain to them.
Richard Baker| 2.17.10 @ 6:15PM
But he didn't recant the quote, now did he?
Pingback| 2.18.10 @ 10:01PM
Do You React? What a Waste of Energy links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 2.19.10 @ 4:58AM
Not Getting What You Want in Life? Your Thoughts Could Be the Culprit links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Mike| 2.19.10 @ 12:27PM
Readers here should forward stories like this to PBS and ask WHY the NEWSHOUR is so one-sided on AGW.
The PBS Ombudsman is here:
http://www.pbs.org/ombudsman/feedback.html
In the run-up to Copenhagen, the PBS NewsHour stated that ”this huge team of scientists from all over the globe issued these unanimous warnings about the really extreme danger to the planet.”
Kell Brigan| 2.26.10 @ 1:21PM
All of the above also applies to the so-called "Obesity Epidemic":
"First, an arbitrary line through the bell curve was drawn and everyone to the right of the line was called ‘overweight’ or ‘obese’. The line used to be drawn to the right of the main peak on the curve (BMI 27), but that changed in 1998, when the line was moved to the left, to cut directly through what is average for most of the population (BMI 25). Instantly, 30.5 million more people found themselves added to the rosters of the ‘overweight’ and the arbitrary change increased the numbers who fell into that category by nearly 50% — without a single person gaining a single pound...Over the time period that you’ve heard that the obesity rates have quote “doubled” or gone up by 70 percent, the average weight gain is 7 to 10 pounds."
Start here (http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/08/jfs-special-report-obesity.html), and spend the rest of this year reading the rest of the articles cited on this site, and then spend the next few years reading what's listed in the footnotes. I have, over the past twenty-five years, been researching fatness, and I can say with absolute certaintly that EVERYTHING most people think about fat people is wrong.
Pingback| 3.2.10 @ 1:31AM
Al Gore ClimateGate: Mistakes – Not Just a Few « Daily News links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 3.18.10 @ 7:18PM
Truth And Common Sense − Why I think Global warming is a crime and should be prosecut links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
سوريا | 6.25.11 @ 1:30AM
thank you
http://www.soryh.com
Puma x Alexander McQueen | 8.13.11 @ 12:02AM
is good