The issue of global warming has
been around for over two decades now. And the research has shown, for over two
decades, that the science is anything but settled.
Among the most important
scientists in the field is Richard Lindzen, who held a chair in meteorology
from MIT. Yes, that MIT.
For your edification, here’s a
link to an important paper that Lindzen wrote in 1995. I am citing the summary.
The rest is up to you.
Science and Politics: Global Warming and
Eugenics
Richard S. Lindzen Sloan Professor of
Meteorology M.I.T.
August 31, 1995
The issue of global warming has been one of the
more confusing and misleading issues to be presented to the public. Despite the
absence of a significant scientific basis for most predictions, the public has
been led to believe that there is an overwhelming scientific consensus that the
issue is a matter of immediate urgency requiring massive control of energy
usage. The first part of this paper will briefly describe this situation. The
thought that scientists would allow such an abuse of science is difficult for
most laymen to believe. However, I suggest that what is happening may, in fact,
be the normal behavior to be expected from the interaction of science, advocacy
groups, and politics. A study of an earlier example of such an interaction, the
interaction of genetics, eugenics and immigration law during the early part of
this century, reveals almost analogous behavior.
I spent a working lifetime doing scientific research. I'd like to think, in the autumn of my life, that the phrase "I believe in science" means "I believe the cosmos is governed by laws iteratively discoverable through careful, public, and methodical testing and retesting of ideas about these laws."
ReplyDeleteNot so, in many cases. All too often, "I believe in science" is a refrain parroted by gullible individuals who fail to appreciate the inherently and inescapably provisional nature of all scientific "truth" and the staggering complexity of all but the most tightly controlled experimental environments, or individuals infected by the disease of presentism and, all too often, lust for power, money, and/or influence.
"[W]hat is happening may, in fact, be the normal behavior to be expected from the interaction of science, advocacy groups, and politics...", or, more bluntly stated, "follow the money".
I'm sure Vannevar Bush was an honorable man with good intentions. But his success in getting the Federal government and Congress, the least trusted institution in America and deservedly so, ever more deeply involved with directing the scientific process with a spigot of money has surely been the Road to Hell.
Give Lindzen credit for consistency. I see he'll be turning 80 next winter, god willing. As Max Planck once said: 'Science changes funeral by funeral'.
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree with TW, "I believe in science" is most often expressed by people who don't understand science as always provisional. OTOH, science. without ethics or politics, is passive, its only duty to dispassionately document our road to hell. Probably fatalism of any sort is worse than the actual future and it won't be so bad, or even if it is, we're powerless to change course, so our descendants will adapt by necessity.
AlGore has convinced(?) the Left. Climate changes, We're used to it. After all, how old is our Earth? Been changing all these years.
ReplyDelete"OTOH, science. without ethics or politics, is passive..."
ReplyDeleteActive science: "Hey, why don't we cover the state of Arizona with solar panels, run superconducting high-voltage lines to Maine, repave our roads with exotic materials that will generate electricity from passing traffic, inflate our tires properly, buy everybody a free bicycle, depopulate the exurbs, paint all the roofs in America white, and inject the upper atmosphere with countless tons of sulfate aerosols? Think of the polar bears and corrrrrrals!!! Imagineer the Green Economy! What could possibly go wrong??? Our motives are pure."
--- Mx. Moral Political Activist, PhD - Science Studies
:-D