Anthropogenic Global Warming-
the greatest fraud in history?
Principles of real science that are being
consistently violated
in current Climate "Science"
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Scientists and politicians are launching headline upon headline
to claim yet another disaster in the name of global warming.
But... as scientific skeptics are finally discovering the
courage to speak out, the hype machine is faltering just a
little.
But the credibility of science may never recover —
and perhaps it shouldn’t. Credibility has to be earned,
and once it’s squandered may never be recovered. By
now far too many scientists have knowingly colluded in an
historic fraud, one that would put Bernie Madoff to shame.
We are seeing political larceny here on a truly planetary
scale. Why should scientists who’ve gambled their own
reputations on this fakery ever be trusted again? They shouldn’t.
Would you entrust your life savings to Bernie Madoff? Right.
Most scientists are not climatologists. Most scientists rarely
judge what others do in their fields. And yet it’s been
flamingly obvious for years now that the hypothesis of human-caused
global warming violates all the basic rules and safeguards
that protect the integrity of normal, healthy science. That’s
why AGW (anthropogenic global warming) looks like a massive
fraud, the biggest fraud ever in the history of science.
If that’s true, anybody who cares about science should
be outraged. Even if you don’t care about that ask yourself
if you want your next medical exam to be honest. Or the next
time you drive across a traffic bridge, do you want the engineering
tests to be falsified? If scientific corruption becomes endemic,
we risk losing one of the great jewels of our culture.
So here are some fundamental violations of scientific integrity
that any thoughtful person should recognize. I’m not
going to touch on climatology — the case against the
warming hypothesis has already been made very well by experts.
I just want to talk scientific common sense.
Threatening the skeptics
Scientists get seduced by enticing ideas and bits of evidence
all the time. That’s why every real scientist is a thorough-going
skeptic, even about his or her own data. Especially about
one’s own data, because one’s career is on the
line if it doesn’t check out. So we need skepticism
in ourselves and others. Good science honors the rational
skeptic.
Which is why it’s beyond outrageous that AGW believers
are publicly attacking thoughtful skeptics — not on
the facts, but on their sheer temerity in doubting their precious
orthodoxy.
According to the Guardian: "James Hansen, one of the
world’s leading climate scientists, will today call
for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to
be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature,
accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming..."
That is Stalinism; it is never, ever done in real science.
Stalin shot real scientists and promoted scientific frauds
who helped to kill Soviet food production. Right there we
know we’re looking at political corruption and not real
science.
Today’s public attack on skeptics should trigger loud
alarm bells in the minds of scientists. It is indecent as
well as dangerous.
Popular media hype
AGW is heavily promoted through the popular media. But the
pop media are utterly incompetent when it comes to any scientific
or technical question. An English or journalism degree just
doesn’t prepare you; nor do news editors want you to
tell the truth. In the media a good story always beats out
technical facts.
But in reputable science nothing is published without careful
peer review, and the more spectacular the hypothesis, the
more intensive the reviews are going to be. That’s why
peer-reviewed journals are so vital to a healthy science,
and why the constant evasion and corruption of peer review
by global warming fanatics is a sign of their scientific weakness.
If the evidence was solid, they would not have to run to the
nearest headline-hunting journalist.
Bad data without apology
In AGW bad data has been very widespread. Thermometers are
placed in areas exposed to increasing city warmth, and the
data is generalized, without due correction, to the whole
world. The infamous “hockey stick” temperature
diagram has been exposed as worthless, yet this expose is
never acknowledged. James Hansen has brought NASA to its lowest
point ever by repeatedly endorsing false data. His own ex-superior
has now publicly disowned his bad science.
In any healthy field of science, that disastrous empirical
record would have discredited the hypothesis. But while the
data seems to crash periodically, the models don’t change
in their catastrophism.
Read the headlines in SCIENCE magazine any week, and you
can see that grinding process of doubt, clarification, and
constant revision going on. In real science, researchers can
be forgiven for making a few errors, but not many known or
suspected frauds are denied tenure or fired. They are essentially
blacklisted for the rest of their careers. The process is
utterly Darwinian, and it works.
Except for the global warming hype. Here, we’re supposed
to accept the word of media types who know nothing about science,
and care only about the next big headline.
Eight fundamentals of scientific integrity
in real science, that are being violated in Climate "Science"
1. Never confuse lab results with nature.
Richard Feynman said that the physics we know is the simple
part; natural physics in the real world is far too simple
for blind generalization.
2. Never label a speculative idea to be true by fiat.
Ordinary scientists would lose their reputations simply by
mislabeling a wild hypothesis as the truth. They would be
isolated like a cyst in the human body, blocked from spreading
the infection.
3. The burden of proof is always on the proposer,
never on the skeptics.
4. “Data surrogates” are never accepted
without long-term testing.
Until a decade or two ago we didn’t have satellites
to measure global temperatures. Before that time we had to
rely on very spotty and locally distorted surface thermometers,
or even worse, ice core surrogates for real world temperatures.
But those core samples take decades of testing and open debate
before we know what they really measure. It took centuries
for the mercury thermometer to be adopted. Can we really believe
the story that ice cores and tree cores tell us the truth
about global temperatures eons ago? I don’t know, but
in a toxified field of research, I don’t trust it.
5. Never import untested premises into the words
we use.
The very term “greenhouse gas” is an unproven
assumption. Don’t even use it unless you are prepared
to prove that C02 and methane actually raise world temperatures.
So far the evidence doesn’t look good.
6. Never corrupt the integrity of research by slanting
grants toward any preconceived idea. Nor do we allow
ourselves to be rushed into making huge claims without adequate
testing and debate. Political deadlines mean nothing in real
science.
7. In the real world, much less real science, we
never, never believe politicians when they claim to know a
scientific truth; they are unqualified, and they
are professional liars.
Scientists are as corruptible as anybody else. Good scientists
do have a conscience, but it’s the double-checking mechanisms
of science that makes it trustworthy. We routinely see corrupt
accountants and clergy in the news, and the news business
itself is deeply corrupted and untrustworthy. The question
is, do you build in checks and balances? Reporters are always
rushed and deadline-driven, and they always trade off their
integrity against the daily pressure for headlines.
All this affects you personally. Don’t doubt that your
life and mine depend upon healthy science and medicine, and
yes, even on honest journalism.
8. Finally, in real science we never confuse an infant
research effort with a mature science that has been
checked and triple-checked over decades.
Climate modeling is just a toddler science, barely able to
waddle around the living room. It’s a nice idea to try
modeling the earth’s atmosphere. But nature is inconceivably
more complex than what we ever see in a laboratory jar. There
are no proven “greenhouse gases” in the real atmosphere.
AGW looks to be the biggest fraud in the history of science.
The AGW hype machine may signal the worst breakdown ever in
the normal, healthy process of open debate and endless testing
that makes for good science. It’s pathological science
— which is not science at all.
What’s happening today is very dangerous. It can infect
other parts of the sciences, medicine, and technology. If
honest scientists cannot stand up to the pressure we are in
deep, deep trouble as a society. Bad science kills people.
Ultimately the only solution may be to cauterize the proliferating
mass of corruption. And all we can do is keep telling the
truth, and listen to honest debate. Keep on doing that, and
this sickness may yet pass, without killing the patient.
Quoted from James
Lewis with a little editing and thanks.
Page built 30th January 2009
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