Thursday, February 18, 2010

Trust In Science

David Harsanyi has a column where he observes that the tables have turned.  It was formerly the case that those of us skeptical of theories suggesting the climate change was the result of human activities were questioned regarding our commitment to science.  It was alleged that we were uneducated, anti-science and perhaps even anti-intellectual.

With the recent revelations regarding the scientifically unsupported conclusions in the IPCC's 2007 report on climate change.....as well as the discovery of scientific malfeasance at the CRU and other centers of climate study.....we now see that the shoe is on the other foot.

Real science demands transparency.  Yet the people advocating on behalf of human induced climate change hide their data and all of their manipulations of that data.

Real science demands an independent review and verifiable results.  Yet we now know that half a dozen of the most explosive conclusions made by the IPCC were based on non-peer reviewed publications and sources.

In my experience, real science thrives on conflict.  It is only through a process of public vetting, testing, and review that we eventually arrive at theories that accurately describe our world.  Inaccurate theories are of little use to almost everyone except those that promote them.

These people have abandoned science.  We need them to return to science and leave the politics and public policy to the public.

A parallel thought that I've seen expressed elsewhere is that given that all these people considered anthropogenic climate change to be such a crisis, why aren't they relieved to learn that the data doesn't support that conclusion?  You would think that avoiding the dire circumstances they described would bring relief rather than frustration.

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