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The Forum > Article Comments > Make a stand for good science > Comments

Make a stand for good science : Comments

By Barry Brook, published 8/5/2008

Scientists must work harder at making the public aware of the stark difference between good science and denialist spin.

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anti-green you're missing the point of the article. brook is not making a scientific argument about AGW, he's making a political plea about how to respond to the perversion of public debates on science. for this purpose here, he is simply assuming that such perversion exists in the debates over evolution and AGW. he's not pretending to provide here evidence of such perversion.

you apparently don't agree that this is occurring in the debate over AGW. but do you believe it occurs in other scientific debates? if so, it is perhaps interesting to ask why some debates are prone to such perversion and others are not.

it is also worth noting that brook is not in any way attacking people's democratic rights. he is only appealing to scientists to actively respond, with scientific argument, to others exercising those rights.
Posted by bushbasher, Thursday, 8 May 2008 1:07:26 PM
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History also teaches us to be cautious of deductive processes like relying on a particular starting point and only pursuing an outcome ends based approach. Very often this deductive mindset tries to impatiently solve but makes things worse because it doesn’t comprehend that it's creating problems, and the more it thinks, the more problems it creates.

Isn't honest science all about ..... discovery and the HOW as we comprehend everything coherently and harmoniously in an overall whole, that is undivided, unbroken and without border. AND isn't this the way to discover what is NOT expected to be seen?
e.g. Rather than mind over matter it needs to be mind out of matter.

For this reason I've never regarded myself as a "denialist" on climate and feel I need to make this point quite clearly. The true denialists are the alarmist AGWers who, just for starters, ignore the bigger picture selectively DENYING ....
(1) the full solar/cosmic connection that drives earth's climate
(2) CO2 as essential to life describing it as a dangerous pollutant and likening it with the Ebola virus.
(3) just about everything outside the earth's troposphere
(4) convection as the dominant way heat is exchanged
(5) importantly all manner of experienced historic knowledge and our place in the universe.
Posted by Keiran, Thursday, 8 May 2008 1:12:43 PM
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Mercurius,

'As for runner who thinks 'evolution is crap' - care to explain how bacteria acquire genetic resistance to antibiotics?

Read for yourself and try not to be so dogmatic. Open your mind as this Doctor in Biology has done and see there are other ways to interpret data. Stop doing what Creationist are accused of by building your story and then fitting the data around it.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v2/n3/antibiotic-resistance-of-bacteria

http:www.apologeticspress.org/articles/439
Posted by runner, Thursday, 8 May 2008 1:13:28 PM
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You say that those who question the IPCC line "are all cut of the same anti-intellectual cloth.

"Their business is the dissemination of disinformation, doubt and unscientific nonsense. One of their most regular ploys is to leverage the widespread lack of public appreciation of how science operates. The scientific process of theoretical postulates, hypothesis testing, critical evaluation (and re-evaluation) of ever accumulating empirical evidence, model validation and peer review is inherently complex and often technical."

This is nonsense. The sceptics I know or whose work I have read are intellectuals who fully comprehend the scientific process. The validity of the IPCC's econometric modelling (the climate change scenarios are all based on models of economic growth and assumed relationships with emissions) were discredited by two world leaders in this field, former Australian Statistician Ian Castles and former OECD chief economist David Henderson. Any reading of their correspondence with and meetings with the IPCC will show that the denial comes from the AGW camp. While some IPCC researchers welcomed the C-H critique as helping them to get to the truth, the hierarchy refused to budge from their discredited models. It appeared to me that if the IPCC's most likely scenario was corrected in the light of the C-H work, that the figure for warming by 2100 would not be significantly different from zero. This would be a very "inconvenient truth" indeed for those on the AGW bandwagon.

I was originally briefed on this 18-19 years ago by the then head of the IPCC's scientific research, a genuine seeker of truth like those I know in the sceptical camp. Would that all were in that mould.
Posted by Faustino, Thursday, 8 May 2008 1:17:44 PM
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I agree with Mr Right, observing:

“Global Warming” (if it does exist) has an holistic origin and consequence, not simply a scientific origin and consequence.

Industrialisation and economic development are claimed as contributory causes, neither is ‘scientific’ in origin.

“Anthropogenic warming” (if it is a cause) is not caused, controlled or regulated exclusively by scientists.

Scientists cannot demand exclusive right to debate matters which are supposedly an effect all humanity, the rest of humanity, beyond the cloistered environs of professional scientists, are equal stake-holders in the debate and in determining the solutions.

Castigating those who some retarded souls label as “trolls” reflects on the intolerance and arrogance of so called “scientists” and is no different to any other ad hominine attack.

I see Gecko has started with miss addressing “Mr Right” as “Mr Right Wing”. A blatant ad hominine attack, intended to discourage and denigrate Mr Rights eligibility to comment. Another example of calling someone a troll? I will leave you to decide.

The role of “real science” is to determine the truth and nothing but the truth.

So called “climate science” seems to have substituted “theoretical opinion”, supported by ad hominine attack and dubious climate models for “truth”.

That is a poor substitution.

It is the product of those more interested in ego, self promotion, government grants and aggrandisement than in "true science".

William McBride was lauded as a “scientist” but his attention to “the truth” was found wanting.

When we get some “truth” into the so called “science”, the other stake-holders in the debate (the rest of us) will no longer fear being called a “Troll” for speaking out. The so called “troll’s” view will be easily proved false, by the strength of the scientific evidence. I am still awaiting for that day, yet fear it is a long way off.

In the mean time anti-greens question “Is the theory of anthropogenic global warming good (AGW) science or not? Or is AGW a quasi religion?”

I suspect is going to find the answer lies more in the dogma which underpins religious power than in the truth of science.
Posted by Col Rouge, Thursday, 8 May 2008 1:26:40 PM
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The natural biosphere has an infinite capacity to absorb all the pollutants we put into it.

We can keep on pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere without constraint for as long as we wish, and this will have no ill effects on atmospheric weather patterns.

Simple-minded people who say that fossil fuel emissions are harmful to the atmosphere are just like those alarmist scientists who try to persuade us that smoking causes cancer. They have a vested interest in making such outrageous claims. In time they will be disproved.

The human body has an infinite capacity to absorb pollutants, just as the planet we live on does.

So, there!
Posted by gecko, Thursday, 8 May 2008 1:54:42 PM
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