Chris Mooney [author of "The Republican War on Science"] in Mother Jones: There's No Such Thing As the Liberal War on Science
In general, I'm no fan of intellectual whack-a-mole. Nevertheless, there's one bad idea that circulates and recirculates with such frequency that once in a while, you just have to dust off your mallet.
I'm talking about the idea that when it comes to misusing or abusing science, both sides do it-a pox on both their houses-and the left is really just as bad as the right.
This idea is currently being championed by the generally clear thinking (but also ideologically libertarian) Michael Shermer, who wrote in Scientific American recently about the "Liberal War on Science." I just appeared in an hour-long discussion of this subject on the Canadian public affairs program The Agenda With Steve Paikin, which also featured Shermer and Mark Lynas, the British environmentalist and author who recently gained great attention for his resounding defense of genetically modified foods:
Shermer begins his article by conceding that conservatives have a bad scientific track record, noting their global warming denial and evolution denial in particular. The latter, he writes, springs from the "erroneous belief that the theory of evolution leads to a breakdown of morality." But then he goes on to argue that since some Democrats also doubt these scientific verities-or more particularly, a recent Gallup poll found that 41 percent of Democrats are Young Earth Creationists, and 19 percent doubt the Earth is warming-science denial is a problem on the left too.
Yes, but considerably fewer Democrats than Republicans get the science wrong on these issues, as the very polls that Shermer cites demonstrate. Nobody ever said Democrats were perfect on science. But Republicans today are majority creationist (58 percent, according to Gallup) and majority climate denier.
And polls alone don't tell enough of the story. Evolution denial and climate denial on the right are much more politically problematic-because conservatives, not liberals, are going around trying to force these wrongheaded views on children in schools. Oh, and by the way: By denying global warming, they also jeopardize the planet and the well-being of humanity. In my view, not all wrong beliefs are equally harmful-rather, wrong beliefs are harmful in proportion to their bad consequences.."
Rubbish.
So because there isn’t, as they claim, a sufficient alternate theory, their poorly sculpted and botched theory has to be right by default? That’s not scientific.
There is no consistent alternative theory to the Easter Bunny either.
Correlation does not equal causation. If the start of a rise in mean global temperature occurs simultaneously with increased emissions of CO2 from industrialization, it does not mean that the latter caused the former.
The burden of proof is on the supporters of AGW to demonstrate the validity of their model, not on the skeptics to prove them wrong.
in the current debate on climate, the AGW hypothesis is unfalsifiable -- if the mean global temperature rises, it's AGW; if it cools, it's AGW. Any observation can be accommodated to AGW. A model that can be expanded to explain everything explains nothing.
CO2 levels in the geological past have exceeded several thousand parts per million, long before humans even existed. So clearly, a natural mechanism for an increase in CO2 content must exist.
The most dire predictions of AGW come not from any observation, but from extrapolation of computer models. Chaotic behavior makes reliance on such models questionable.
In contrast to the claims of this article, there are multiple alternatives to AGW for climate change, including variations in solar radiation, the role of cosmic rays in nucleating cloud formation and global cloud cover, wobbles in the Earth's obliquity over geological time, volcanic pulses that inject massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere and other geological effects, such as meteorite impact. None of these factors are accounted for in climate modeling because we cannot estimate the magnitude of their influence.
Finally, there is the social aspect of all this. Science in this country is largely funded by the federal government, with grants and contracts being distributed on the basis of peer review. Go against your peers at your peril; it is simply much easier and politically savvy to find errors and faults with the grant proposals of the naysayers and skeptics than it is with those of members of the "consensus." Money makes the world go around.
In my lifetime, I have never seen such a poorly justified, scientifically barren, morally corrupt episode as the current campaign of climate change panic, screeching and idiocy. It's a real psychological case study. Future generations will laugh at our credulity.
The author admits - hurrah! - that consensus is irrelevant in science, but proceeds to invoke it anyway. The only proper emotional reaction on the part of the reader is pity. "It may be crap, but it's the best we have" is not an argument for veracity.
Good Lord! How do you disprove something that’s made up on falsified evidence? Every time you disprove it, they falsify the evidence to show you’re “wrong”.
Is the earth still flat?
“Salon”
Stopped reading right there. That’s the same POS publication that blamed “right wing politics” for the terror attack in San Bernardino.
“41 percent of Democrats are Young Earth Creationists [and most non-democrats]...”
I would be sad to hear that, but I assume that people who believe in Intelligent Design are being lumped together with the ‘Six Day Wonder’ guys.
To all ‘Six Day Wonders’, the sun was created on the Third Day. The ‘days’ of Genisis were not 24 hour solar cycles. The ‘days’ of Genisis are flawed interpretations of ancient oral traditions.
I am not a scientist, nor do I play one on TV,however...
If you start with the wrong premise, you get the wrong answer.
Few would doubt that earth’s climate changes. That is not not what those that oppose to “Global Warming” are against.
It is the idea that the cause of climate change is man made, and that only by redistribution of wealth and bringing all industrial nations down to third world level is the answer.
Once again, as with all socialist lies, it is not about “climate change”, it is about social engineering.
There is no consistent alternative theory that can line ones pocket better than Human Caused Global Warming. And the potential for power is better than the electricity generated by coal. Power over people has such a warming effect.
Psst, Salon, here’s a cohesive, consistent alternative theory: “The Sun did it, and what you knotheads call ‘climate change’ is natural climate variability, caused mostly by that huge yellow ball 93 million miles away.”
That there is a consensus on AGW is an unsupported assertion. There is no scientific basis to the claim that man-made carbon dioxide emissions are the cause of global warming. The "science" is nonsense. The data, assumptions, and methodology are fatally flawed.
Citing that thousands of "scientists" agree that man is causing global warming is an empty claim.
Climate change is caused by the Sun, not by money given to people to prove the mankind is no good.
“There is no cohesive, alternate theory”
All depends by what you call cohesive - apparently these folks value a limited social cohesiveness over a scientific one: solar variability provides a scientifically-consistent and rational alternate explanation for historical changes in climate (http://myweb.wwu.edu/dbunny/pdfs/solar-variability&climate-change.pdf), although of course the warming alarmists do their best to discredit it (hence the lame-o “hockey stick” business).
And even their efforts to evaluate a human cohesiveness are bogus. That oft-repeated “97%” agreement is actually based on the subjective assessment by a couple of individuals of about 100 papers of almost 12,000 evaluated:
The judgment that there is an absence of any agreement on any alternative theory is similarly based on a subjective evaluation of a small collection of papers of already distorted representation due to corruption in the peer review system in the climatology community, as illustrated in the commentary found in the emails leaked from the folks at East Anglia.
Finally, what Republicans and Democrats think about the book of Genesis is completely irrelevant to whether the trends in global temperature are more affected by the solar flux or by how many miles I put on my SUV - it’s a scientific question, and it has a scientific explanation which either stands up to critical analysis (provided criticism is allowed) irrespective of whether one believes in Isaac Newton, the Easter Bunny, neither, or both.
The Left are the “bitter clingers” to bad science and to socialism.
Arrogant Atheists!!
Solar output and sunspots.
When solar activity is low, the temps go down.
This web site presents actual data to refute the global warming alarmists: http://wattsupwiththat.com/
Climate? Not skeptical at all. There will always be climate. When the sun gets hotter we will get hotter. When the sun gets cooler we will get cooler.
I recommend going to Weather Bell and listening to Joe Bastardi. Or the fact based novel State Of Fear by Dr Michael Crichton
Here’s the alternative, except it isn’t a theory. It’s the observed fact: There has been no global warming since 1994.