Wonk Room » The ‘Climate Change Debate’ Is Science Versus Snake Oil

The ‘Climate Change Debate’ Is Science Versus Snake Oil

By Brad Johnson on Mar 1st, 2010 at 1:43 pm

The ‘Climate Change Debate’ Is Science Versus Snake Oil

According to the mainstream media, there is a controversy over the validity of climate science, in particular the conclusion that the warming of the planet by greenhouse gas emissions poses a risk to the public:

“Iceberg Ahead: Climate scientists who play fast and loose with the facts are imperiling not just their profession but the planet” — Newsweek, 2/19/10

“Controversies Create Opening for Critics” — Wall Street Journal, 2/17/10

“Series of missteps by climate scientists threatens climate-change agenda” — Washington Post, 2/14/10

“Climate-Change Debate Is Heating Up in Deep Freeze” — The New York Times, 2/11/10

Let’s take a look at who is on either side of this so-called climate-change debate:

These Groups Say The Danger Of Manmade Global Warming Is A . . .
FACT	FRAUD
U.S. Agency for International Development United States Department of Agriculture National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration National Institute of Standards and Technology United States Department of Defense United States Department of Energy National Institutes of Health United States Department of State United States Department of Transportation U.S. Geological Survey U.S. Environmental Protection Agency University Corporation for Atmospheric Research National Center for Atmospheric Research National Aeronautics & Space Administration National Science Foundation Smithsonian Institution International Arctic Science Committee Arctic Council African Academy of Sciences Australian Academy of Sciences Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and the Arts Academia Brasileira de Ciéncias Cameroon Academy of Sciences Royal Society of Canada Caribbean Academy of Sciences Chinese Academy of Sciences Académie des Sciences, France Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina of Germany Indonesian Academy of Sciences Royal Irish Academy Accademia nazionale delle scienze of Italy Indian National Science Academy Science Council of Japan Kenya National Academy of Sciences Madagascar’s National Academy of Arts, Letters and Sciences Academy of Sciences Malaysia Academia Mexicana de Ciencias Nigerian Academy of Sciences Royal Society of New Zealand Polish Academy of Sciences Russian Academy of Sciences l’Académie des Sciences et Techniques du Sénégal Academy of Science of South Africa Sudan Academy of Sciences Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Tanzania Academy of Sciences Turkish Academy of Sciences Uganda National Academy of Sciences The Royal Society of the United Kingdom National Academy of Sciences, United States Zambia Academy of Sciences Zimbabwe Academy of Science American Academy of Pediatrics American Association for the Advancement of Science American Association of Wildlife Veterinarians American Astronomical Society American Chemical Society American College of Preventive Medicine American Geophysical Union American Institute of Physics American Medical Association American Meteorological Society American Physical Society American Public Health Association American Quaternary Association American Institute of Biological Sciences American Society of Agronomy American Society for Microbiology American Society of Plant Biologists American Statistical Association Association of Ecosystem Research Centers Botanical Society of America Crop Science Society of America Ecological Society of America Federation of American Scientists Geological Society of America National Association of Geoscience Teachers Natural Science Collections Alliance Organization of Biological Field Stations Society of American Foresters Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Society of Systematic Biologists Soil Science Society of America Australian Coral Reef Society Australian Medical Association Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Engineers Australia Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies Geological Society of Australia British Antarctic Survey Institute of Biology, UK Royal Meteorological Society, UK Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society European Federation of Geologists European Geosciences Union European Physical Society European Science Foundation International Association for Great Lakes Research International Union for Quaternary Research International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change World Federation of Public Health Associations World Health Organization World Meteorological Organization	American Petroleum Institute US Chamber of Commerce National Association of Manufacturers Competitive Enterprise Institute Industrial Minerals Association National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Great Northern Project Development Rosebud Mining Massey Energy Alpha Natural Resources Southeastern Legal Foundation Georgia Agribusiness Council Georgia Motor Trucking Association Corn Refiners Association National Association of Home Builders National Oilseed Processors Association National Petrochemical and Refiners Association Western States Petroleum Association
“FACT” organizations from Is There a Scientific Consensus on Global Warming?, SkepticalScience.com. “FRAUD” organizations are petitioners v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act.

Reckless reporting from senior journalists is giving credence to a laughable concept — that there is a global conspiracy by the world’s scientific organizations to deceive the public about the threat of global warming. In reality, industrial polluters are promoting baseless conspiracy theories to overturn the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific finding that greenhouse gases endanger the public health and welfare. Despite the smoke and snake oil from these polluters, the threat of manmade global warming is a fact.

Comments
39

39 Responses to “The ‘Climate Change Debate’ Is Science Versus Snake Oil”

Marvin Says:

Mainstream journalism is so incredibly poor… It’s just pathetic… It’s so frustrating to me to think of all of the people who don’t realize that the “news” they are watching and reading is garbage.
March 1st, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Jim Melton Says:

But, but, but…we must have “fair and balanced” reporting that gives equal time to scientifically-supported, well-researched data and every crackpot with a jillion bucks at stake (or not). Right? Even if there are, say, 10 million scientists on one side and about 7 on other? Those positions are equally valid, obviously. Right? Huh?

(My tongue just burst through my cheek…)
March 1st, 2010 at 7:40 pm
DC Says:

Excellent analysis.

I’ve pretty much given up on the MSM for credible coverage – even somewhere like the Guardian is getting sucked in by the propaganda and hysteria. Or are they just too dependent on producing ‘entertainment’ that sells instead of analysis that ‘merely’ informs?

Thanks for seeing past the lies, Brad. Keep sticking it to the bastards.
March 1st, 2010 at 9:59 pm
Michael Salvatico Says:

Brilliant! This is a clear message to all those who want to believe that the debate over global warming is just as well supported by the sceptics. There is no debate!

Listen to Dr Phil McFadden’s 90 second message in the “Act Now” video on the Climakind home page.

The message from science is clear. We urgently need to act now to reduce global carbon emissions and help stop damaging climate change.
March 1st, 2010 at 10:32 pm
The Owners Manual Says:

Nonetheless, science isn’t a majority rule thing. One part reality and 99 parts faked, cherry-picked data remains one part reality.
March 2nd, 2010 at 1:49 am
Michael Meadon Says:

Excellent, thanks for this.

If there is a conspiracy behind AGW – it’s a massive conspiracy indeed. And you know those scientists, so easily led, such lack of individualistic values…
March 2nd, 2010 at 3:57 am
ninad Says:

would love comments on the website.

http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/international/the-hottest-hoax-in-the-world

cheers
ninad
March 2nd, 2010 at 7:09 am
Michael Reynolds Says:

The right-hand list does not include many organizations I would expect to see such as the Heritage Foundation, CATO Institute, National Center for Public Policy Research, and the other conservative think tanks. Of course these are supported by many of the organizations you have listed.
March 2nd, 2010 at 8:08 am
Brian Kenyon Says:

Great list! Id like to see this chart expanded to follow the money trail even further. Both sides have their jobs and livelihoods at stake as well as the entire human population. We also need to evaluate the actual cost to the human population as a whole and not just the government / corporations / media behind both sides of the issue.

http://www.ted.com/talks/bjorn_lomborg_sets_global_priorities.html
March 2nd, 2010 at 9:38 am
Cali Swain Says:

I don’t really care that much about which organizations are on either side. What if the fraud side had twice as many as the Fact side and the information available were the same? Of course you could answer that would be impossible or at least improbable, but my point is that the ‘positions’ of organizations is not overly compelling in my opinion and it does not solve any argument related to climate change, or man-made climate change.

Making sweeping judgments about the honesty, diligence, or credibility of any of these organizations either way is not very compelling either. Perhaps some of them did everything they could to get to ‘the facts’ as they see them… perhaps some of them did not…. for many reasons… who knows.

Of course sometimes the positions of the ‘experts’ is most if not all of what we have to go on, but sometimes there is information available that we can attempt to discern and interpret as well.

This rabid attempt to proclaim the debate as ‘being over’ is asinine…. just continue to try and hunt down facts and solid interpretations of them and you’ll render the debate being ‘over’ faster than any other method.
March 2nd, 2010 at 11:02 am
DC Says:

Brian Kenyon,

> We also need to evaluate the actual cost…

If you want to make an informed decision about costs, you do not listen to anything Bjorn ‘The Disinformer’ Lomborg has to say on the subject.

Here’s a couple of explanations why Lomborg is not to be trusted:

* http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/
* http://www.newsweek.com/id/233942
March 2nd, 2010 at 12:38 pm
Texas Aggie Says:

While it is true, as Cali Swain says, that the truth value of a statement weighs more than the organizations which support it, the position of these particular organizations is one more data point in favor of global warming. Those on the left hand side have a history of being driven by fact and reality while those on the right hand side have a history of being driven by monetary gains.

But the debate is indeed over. There is much more than enough data available to show that global warming caused in large part by human behavior exists and is a real threat. Now the search is for information on the DETAILS of how the process works. Anyone not already convinced by the available data will not be convinced by anything, even the disappearance of the Greenland and Antarctica ice caps with resultant submergence of most of Louisiana and Florida below the waves. To them it would just be another natural cycle.
March 2nd, 2010 at 1:45 pm
McKay Says:

You people all make me laugh. Name period in the world where “science” and “scientific consensus” not been proven wrong. That’s what science is. Furthermore, THERE IS NO scientific consensus on this issue. It is the same media that you are lambasting that is responsible for making this claim. A little food for thought for those of you who proclaim the debate “over”. One of your leaders, Dr. Phil Jones just admitted in an interview that there has been no statistically significant warming for the past 15 years and that there is a possibility that the earth was warmer in the medieval time period. Now why would he do an about face if the debate was over, because it’s not. You all just hide behind the science, when in fact you don’t understand any of it at all. Have any of you actually read the IPCC’s report? I have and many of their outrageous claims are being proven false and they have admitted so! But you are the blind who refuse to see it.
March 2nd, 2010 at 1:52 pm
Adam Says:

This would be be interesting if the top scientists ADMITTED to forging facts and misguiding thier research. It doesn’t matter how many people say there is global warming. The lead guys admitted to deleting emails to support their hypothesis. On top of that there isn’t a a consensus on global warming anyways. You could give me a list a a billion people that “support” global warming but it doesn’t change the fact that it doesn’t exist. It’s snowing everywhere in America execpt Hawaii. “That’s because the heat stuck in the atmosphere from heat waves…” save it. People aren’t stupid. This is all a scam just to get funding. Where is Jobba the Hut, I mean Al Gore when you need him?
March 2nd, 2010 at 1:59 pm
harmil2 Says:

With just a bit of financial backing and political support, think of the ideas that MSM could frame as debates with two reasonable sides. I can see the CNN and Fox specials now.Child abuse, is it really a problem or just another way to raise kids? Gravity: how can it be real when people in the Northeast can jump as high as 3 feet. Wife beating: Could it improve your marriage? Brown vs The Board of Education: Should we take another look?
March 2nd, 2010 at 2:21 pm
foosh Says:

Ok, see this chart is the kind of thing that weakens arguments.

Look at where this data is gathered from. The “FACT” list is from a website (skeptical science) and includes world wide organizations based on a survey.

The “FRAUD” organizations “are petitioners v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act.”

Isn’t a direct comparison of these two lists kind of invalid? I mean I guess it makes the point, but by comparing two completely different sets of data, it kind of blurs the point and raises questions. Isn’t this what the whole mess started with?
March 2nd, 2010 at 3:10 pm
Ryan T Says:

Interesting how a scientific issue of decades is still boiled down to political whipping boy Al Gore. And there are apparently still many people who don’t see (or don’t want to see) the distinction between trends in the global averages and fluctuation related to heat movement within the climate system. Or realize that you can still have heavy regional snow events despite the ongoing trend, and that moisture availability is often the key in how severe those events are. It’s a bit myopic to assume that conditions in a given week or month in our neck of the woods are representative of what’s happening with Earth’s energy budget.

McKay, some representation of consensus is necessary when you’re talking about an issue with socio-political implications. All the world’s scientific academies and Earth science institutions, and the vast majority of the professional literature is the equivalent of consensus in my book. Cases in which the key underpinnings of a major scientific field have been overturned seem few and far between in modern times. Bad science today tends to be more quickly corrected. If humanity never acted on a scientific preponderance of evidence because there’s remaining uncertainty on some aspect (as there always is), I suspect we wouldn’t have today’s level of civilization.
March 2nd, 2010 at 3:16 pm
Texas Liberal Says:

Adam,

Actually, people are that stupid and you just proved it by confusing a precipitation event (snow) with temperature. The only requirement for snow is that the temperature be at or below freezing in the clouds. The ammount of snow is determined by the ammount of moisture in the clouds. I live in the Dallas area and we had a foot of snow lat month. Unusual? Sure. Temperatures at or below freezing in the month of Feb? Not unusual at all.

And, BTW, if snow in Dallas means Global Warming is a hoax, what does the fact that they had to truck snow into the Winter Olympics due to a warmer than usual winter in the Pacific Northwest mean?
March 2nd, 2010 at 3:17 pm
Ryan T Says:

Adam, you’d need to be more specific about this so-called “forging” and supposedly nefarious deletion. Accusations of scientific malfeasance are a dime a dozen these days. More often than not, it turns out that what the scientists “admitted” was thoroughly taken out of context and spun like there’s no tomorrow. The examples linked here (especially the “Update 2″ summary) give some indication of where the fudging has been:
http://understandit.ml1.net/climategate.html
March 2nd, 2010 at 3:29 pm
Doug Drenkow Says:

Thank you for this excellent compilation and analysis.

Even if one knew nothing about the facts of this “debate” — and those commentors above who say the jury is still out, until more data is gathered, would never be satisfied — it becomes obvious which “side of the debate” is correct: On one side are those with their reputations on the line for factual correctness (witness the few whose actual or perceived errors have been magnified by the other “side” to the point where their small contributions to the overwhelming body of scientific evidence are assumed to be the rule not the exception); on the other side are those with blatant conflicts of interest, profiting from the status quo and standing to be taxed or fined for their “spillover costs” (as economists term it), i.e., pollution affecting us all.

If this “debate” were about something the Right found palatable, with the nearly unanimous weight of international scientific opinion on their “side” and only those with vested financial interests against change on the other, you can just see Glenn Beck scribbling furiously on his infamous chalkboard … although in that (rare) instance on the “side” of truth.

What came first to my mind when reading this (obviously stimulating) article is the Republicans in the recent health care summit repeatedly touting polls showing the majority of Americans opposed to the current health reform bills — even though, as the president and congressional Democrats rightly pointed out, most of the elements of the plans are favored by most of the public, confused (as other polls have shown) by the size and complexity of the overall plans and repulsed by the typical “sausage-making” and deal-making it took to get that legislation, like any legislation, through Congress. In the end, about the only argument that the GOP had that could stand on its own — unlike the “one-legged stools” (as Paul Krugman so wisely puts it) that they offered as “incremental change” — was that factual claim that most Americans don’t, or didn’t, favor the bills overall. Just like the increasing numbers of Americans now disbelieving in human-induced climate change, this is evidence not of any truth other than the truth that the “Right-wing noise machine” has been more effective than the progressive, or mainstream, media in communicating the facts, and the analyses most in keeping with the facts, to the majority of Americans.

And now that the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court has unleashed the unmatched spending power of corporate “persons” — including those in the right-hand list of your article — one can expect even greater potential support for their “side of the debate.”

At least in the short term. Because in the long term there is one “side of the debate” that is more powerful in its ability to convince than even the sum-total of Right-wing propaganda: reality, including the “inconvenient truth” of global warming.

Let’s hope that sometime before the inevitable catclysms — in the environment, the health care system, the economy, etc. — become fully inevitable we who support the “side” of truth in this and like “debates” will be better able to leverage the weight of facts, as evidenced by the preponderance of scientific opinion, in shifting public opinion to our “side.” If we will fail in that, we will all fail in fact.
March 2nd, 2010 at 5:08 pm
Special K (NJ) Says:

It’s a matter of trust–climate science has lost it..

From another site:
“The IPCC needs to change and switch to shorter, more targeted reports
A handful of errors does not mean that human-induced climate change is an illusion or that CO2 emissions do not need to be cut, writes the former chairman of the IPCC. From Yale Environment 360, part of the Guardian Environment Network”

The IPCC could begin its shorter, more clearly targeted reporting, auspiciously,
By computing and reporting daily a mean global temperature (e.g.,mean of locally observed mean surface temps /high+low/2/ world-wide)
Along with corresponding regional means; a step designed to assure that folks generally speaking, by and large, on the whole will have some idea of what it’s talking about–
At least those who attend daily weather reports;
Something re: which, at present, there’s considerable, quite reasonable doubt.
***
March 2nd, 2010 at 6:31 pm
T. Smith Says:

It is very simple. Whether or not global warming is actual, the left side of the chart gets money if it is true, the right side gets money if it is false. HELLO?! I’m sure there are people on both sides who are passionate about what they believe but it doesn’t matter when millions/billions of monetary units are involved. When that is the case I cannot believe either one. What happens now?
March 3rd, 2010 at 3:00 am
Brad Says:

What? The American Medical Association gets money if global warming is true? The American Chemical Society?

C’mon. Also ask yourself — how many millionaires and billionaires are on the scientist side, and how many are on the corporate polluter side?

The reality is scientists get moderate amounts of money no matter what the reality is, whereas corporate polluter stand to lose billions of undeserved revenues.

But hey, maybe people go into science and orchestrate a global conspiracy and melt icecaps and change migration patterns and heat up the ocean for the money.

It just seems a tiny bit far-fetched.
March 3rd, 2010 at 9:06 am
Gabriel B. Atega Says:

Personally, my issue with scientists is not whether the climate is changing or not; evidently it is. The climate has been changing since after the peak of the last ice age. After the peak of the last ice age, the ice sheets have been in constant retreat up to the present. The attribution and focus on CO2 is what is doubtful and questionable. CO2 emission is not the only human activity that is disrupting the climate. There is deforestation which we should be more worried about than CO2 emissions. CO2 is heavier than air, therefore, we cannot expect much of it to stay in the atmosphere. On the other hand, water vapor is lighter than air, this is the element that is increasing in quantity in the atmosphere. The heavy flooding or heavy snowfall that follow after hurricanes and snowstorms is the evidence.

The focus on CO2 over other climate variables is what is evidently out of place. What is the effect of the Earth’s wobble on the climate? What is the effect of deforestation on the climate? What is the effect of the increase in water vapor on the climate? Why is it that these other climate variables are not factored into the analysis? Why is it that scientists are not showing graphs that would illustrate the influence of these other variables on the climate?
March 3rd, 2010 at 9:24 am
Thay Guy Says:

Cherry picking much to set up a straw man argument? Please…

Try citing some ACTUAL AGW CRITICS…

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2158072E-802A-23AD-45F0-274616DB87E6

(How NOT to measure temperature; AKA Industrial Heat Islands [UHIs] taint taint the surface temperature record)
http://tinyurl.com/yhlk5af

Then kindly piss off, ya wonk. Stop peddling the alarmist party line nonsense.

At least try doing a little research and see exactly who is ACTUALLY making the claims and counter-claims, and what those claims are, rather than setting up a nonsensical straw-man argument about AGW skeptics being “in the pocket of business.” Pfft! Please…

Legitimate scientists have legitimate concerns and have conducted legitimate studies that require legitimate redress. Your over-simplified hand-waving nonsense above aside.
March 3rd, 2010 at 9:46 pm
ajkurki Says:

It was also a “fact” that the stock market was undervalued in 1999, and it was a “fact” that home prices could never go down. Bad ideas can spread like wildfire when people don’t do their own thinking and simply point to “experts” who say it’s so to justify their own pre-conceived notions. Brilliant, just brilliant.
March 3rd, 2010 at 11:15 pm
Brad Says:

Ajkuri: I’m pretty sure the National Academies of Science never claimed it was a fact that the stock market was undervalued or that home prices could never go down.

I wouldn’t trust an economist as far as I could throw him. But I would trust a physicist’s calculation of where the economist is going to land.

In fact — there’s a good experiment for those who believe that the global warming consensus is a conspiracy or a fraud — check the track record of the organizations on the left on predictions / warnings / assessments / assertions of fact.

Gabriel: Climate scientists, unsurprisingly, have studied all the various forcings. I have no idea why you believe they haven’t.

Thay Guy: I’m not sure who you’re quoting about skeptics being “in the pocket of business.” That’s not what was discussed in this post. Rather, essentially every single scientific organization on the planet recognizes that manmade global warming is a threat. I’m asserting it’s because it *is* a threat. You think there’s a conspiracy. I just have trouble believing that’s the case.
March 4th, 2010 at 1:42 am
ajkurki Says:

Human nature cuts across all fields of study. The point wasn’t to discredit NAS or any other scientist organization, but to question the way in which widespread ideas form in the first place. Just because an idea is embraced by many reputable organizations in a certain field doesn’t make it a “fact.”
March 4th, 2010 at 7:49 am
Brad Says:

ajkurki: It’s true that just because essentially every professional scientific organization says something is a “fact,” it doesn’t mean it’s a fact.

But to believe that it isn’t a fact requires a global conspiracy of unprecedented corruption of the world’s scientists.

Or that physics and chemistry are fictions.

That just doesn’t seem likely.
March 4th, 2010 at 9:42 am
Michael Tobis Says:

Thay Guy: “Legitimate scientists have legitimate concerns and have conducted legitimate studies that require legitimate redress. Your over-simplified hand-waving nonsense above aside.”

You are moving goal posts.

There are legitimate scientists who ask legitimate scientific questions, some challenging the status quo, and a few arguably challenging it somewhat effectively. That is our job, after all. Truth emerges from challenges of just this sort.

Of late, though, there are claims that climate science is fraudulent. This is not a scientific claim, it’s a social one. And it has nothing to do with Thay Guy’s point.

Someone making the accusation has to explain how and why the fraud came into the field, and how and why all the world’s leading scientific bodies went along with it and continue to do so.

Since the claim is so grandiose and improbable, they will need some very hard evidence.

And that, not legitimate scientific debate, is what this piece is about. How could a fraud build consensus like this? It really couldn’t.
March 4th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
ajkurki Says:

The conspiracy doesn’t need to be that huge, since 99.999999999999% of the people that believe global warming is a “fact” have never actually dealt with the collection and analysis of the data and are just lemmings in the debate. That vast majority rely on the work of a powerful few, all of whom have an incentive to make sure the man-made global warming side of the debate wins. Fame, fortune, and accolades come along with being a scientist credited with “saving” the earth. There are no rewards, grants, IPOs, or lasting fame in the scientific community for publishing boring claims.
March 4th, 2010 at 5:39 pm
Brad Says:

I’m pretty sure there aren’t 100 trillion people who believe global warming is a fact.

Any scientist who could show that manmade global warming is not happening would win the Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Physics. And would get a lifetime annuity from every oil and coal company on the planet.

I’m not sure how measuring the effect of warming and acidification on oysters gets someone fame and fortune. But hey, maybe scientists are all in it for the sweet swag at AGU.
March 4th, 2010 at 6:04 pm
ajkurki Says:

Yeah I’m sure the scientific community would allow that knowledge to become public… That would be so devastating to their reputations that they would never allow evidence that doesn’t support global warming to see the light of day. I think that’s already been shown with the CRU email controversy. To backtrack on all the bold claims they’ve been making for years would be suicide. There’s no incentive for them to entertain contrary opinions!
March 4th, 2010 at 8:06 pm
vanderleun Says:

Lists are not arguments.
March 5th, 2010 at 12:19 am
Donna Maher Says:

I think it’s interesting that this has become a “debate”.

You debate when you don’t have solid scientific evidence one way or another. In this case, anthropogenically induced climate change is NOT debatable. There is clear evidence of it.
March 5th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
Jim Says:

Thanks for this useful compilation.

20.Doug Drenkow – nice observation about reputations vs. profits.

25.Thay Guy – cites the ‘700 scientists dissent’ Senate Minority Report. An excellent commentary on this report’s huge flaws (including NON-dispute of global warming!) is
‘The spin in the claim that more than 700 scientists dissent regarding global warming’
[www.examiner.com/examiner/x-5738-St-Louis-Political-Buzz-Examiner~y2009m6d30-700-scientists-dissent-regarding-global-warmingbut-what-does-that-really-mean]

Instead of trusting folks like the Lyndon LaRouche organization, the general public needs to consider how science (such as Dentistry) is worthy of a certain trust (at the link).
March 6th, 2010 at 7:39 am
donjoe Says:

To the title: no it’s not.

Moving along now.
March 7th, 2010 at 4:38 am
Scyldking Says:

re: 31 by ajkurki

Ajkurki, I’m not sure how many scientists you know, nor how much of their work you’ve seen. In my experience, after years of knowing quite a few at multiple universities and institutes, I can’t believe any of them are in it for the hope of fame fortune, or accolades. Being an academic research scientist is a risky career move for almost the entire profession. It takes years of training and study to become accredited, and then there is no guarantee of funding. Even the supposed “security” of tenure at a research university that those of us in humanities have traditionally enjoyed is an illusion to scientists, who are expected to bring in external grants to offset the university’s costs. Private or public research institutes are generally doing better for endowment, but the professional expectation remains similar: Do good, unimpeachable work that satisfies journals’ peer review process and gets published, or go look for another job.

I know little of scientists working in chemical corporations for R&D, but outside of that group, the vast majority of professional scientists won’t have their name anywhere but in conference proceedings and journals that are only read by other scientists, and that’s a basic job requirement, not any kind of “glory”. If the work is bad, they don’t get published, and they go back on the job market.

Like Brad suggested in 32., the work of scientists is almost always far from glorious. The few I have talked to about their “purpose” in the scientific career generally see it as doing something that (1) they have a talent and passion for, and (2) will hopefully contribute a miniscule, but necessary, step to the incredibly daunting task of understanding the functioning of our world in all its micro- and macrocosmic aspects.

When it comes down to it, how many of us could stand to spend *years* living our lives governed by tide tables and lunar cycles to study marine life, or trying to set up the right equations and environment to create an elemntal metal that disintegrates within seconds, or according the hatching cycle of drosophyla fruit flies in order to catch them hatching before they mate, only so you can crossbreed them and later count the number of a particular line of brain cells in 15 nearly identical specimens from their descendants?

For me as a humanities researcher in a relatively smaller and more specific field (linguistics), I tend to feel for scientists, since it seems that the majority of their work will hardly get any attention at all (and that’s not even mentioning how often experiments have to be redone because something went wrong). In general, most of scientific research is failed attempts to tease out a detail from a very delicate jumble of physical systems. Climate science is no different, and is arguably one of the most complex interactive systems one could choose to study. We have to expect some mistaken predictions now and then, but we also have to expect that subsequent work will uncover such mistakes and succeed at getting to the facts. If you can deal with that and still feel that your life has sufficient purpose, then more power to you. The wonder is that these scientists living this life, your “powerful few”, actually number in the 10s and 100s of thousand of people working on earth. You might consider how hard it would be to keep such a loaded conspiracy intact among 100s of 1000s of people in hundreds of nations and of dozens of religions and cultural ethical backgrounds who don’t get their funding from the same sources.

But glory…. not really on the table for most. This is the real world not I am Legend or The Day After Tomorrow.
March 7th, 2010 at 4:04 pm
mainah22 Says:

There’s no incentive to have contrary opinions? On the contrary, one of our favorite things to do as scientists is to trash each others work, happily declare how interpretations aren’t adequately supported by results, etc. Getting scientists to agree on something is like herding cats. Mostly we just want to discover some true facts about the world & don’t care much what others think about our work, especially all of society outside of science. Ok we have to care a bit about meeting the quality standards of scientific journals, but those are all about methods, not about what the conclusions are. The main reason things don’t get published is that they’re too boring- too much just a repetition of results someone else has already published, not that they’re too controversial. Most of this poster’s opinion about what scientists are like just have no basis in reality. Fame? (can you name a famous living scientist?) Fortune? (anyone smart enough to be a scientist could have made a lot more as a lawyer or surgeon) Accolades? (what accolades? again can you name a living scientist society’s made a big fuss over?) Power? (most research is actually done by grad students & postdocs, trust me, we’re not powerful).

Ajurki makes a valid point that few scientists -only the ones directly in the climate field — are the ones that actually did the research and know the data intimately themselves. I’m a neuroscientist and I’ve only read a couple of original climate papers for fun. By his definition, everyone is a lemming, just about all of the time. We don’t have time to know everything there is to know in detail, so we have to choose what to trust for our information. I was a lemming when I bought my Honda based on a website’s little star crash test ratings, rather than reading the technical reports myself. I’m a lemming in my suspicions of the motives & effectiveness of World Bank policy because I’ve read a book or two, not because I’ve worked there myself or seen results firsthand. Why do you trust who you trust? Personally I tend to trust climate scientists on this issue for two reasons. First because they are the firsthand experts- everyone else is farther removed from the data. And second because I am one & know so many folks dedicated enough to discovery of truth that they’re willing to put up with the grinding work hours, poverty and job insecurity to find out something real and interesting.
March 7th, 2010 at 5:46 pm