He Otto Know Better; Science Loses Influence because of It's Misuse
Timothy Birdnow
The Left loves to admire themselves as the intellectuals, the smart guys. It has been this way at least since Darwin and going back to the Englightenment. In point of fact, that is the secret to their power; Liberalism appeals to vanity, recruiting young people with promises of adulation and worship as they join the holy priesthood of the Intelligentsia. (It doesn't hurt that Liberalism embraces the sexual revolution; liberal girls are easy, except the feminists who keep rodent traps in their britches.) Anyone who wants to be a part of a brotherhood of the self-worshipping will gravitate to leftism, because then you can smugly claim to be a brainiac - even though empirical evidence is staunchly against the assertion.
Here is a classic example.
http://www.minnpost.com/mnblogcabin/2011/12/13/33783/neorenaissance_science_loses_status_as_a_climate_arbiter_in_durban
Author Shawn Otto has this to say about the negotiations at Durban;
"Perhaps most concerning for future negotiations is the apparent erosion of the status of science as an arbiter of the reality of climate change and the basis for public policy decisions. Future agreements will no longer be based on the scientific advice of the IPCC but instead decisions will only be informed by the science.
What this means is unclear but the motives are not. Science is the only even-handed basis for public policy decisions in a non-authoritarian government. The only alternative basis to the knowledge created by science, which is based on measurements of the real world, is the assertion of authority based on either belief or opinion, but neither of them are knowledge-based.
This new language appears to be carving out a further erosion of science's status as the fairest basis for public policy and leaving more room for authoritarian and denialist arguments to gain a foothold in future treaty negotiations. This is the opposite of the direction democracy needs to go to sustain its forward progress, and is troubling evidence of the growing science gap between science and science-themed policy challenges and a largely science-illiterate voting public."
End excerpt.
As I started to read the first paragraph I thought I was going to agree with Otto; the status of science HAS eroded, replaced by a political agenda masquerading as scientific research. I thought he was going to mention the failure of climate models. I thought he would mention the missing heat, the fact that the tropical troposphere has not warmed (in violation of all climate models), the failure of the oceans to warm, the failure of the Antarctic to melt, the lack of increase in precipitation worldwide. I thought he was going to mention that it has not warmed statistically since 1995, in violation of all climate models. I believed he would mention the failure of malaria to appear in Missouri. I thought he would mention the failure of the climate models to predict current conditions based on past data. I thought he would mention the experiments showing that cosmic rays do indeed generate clouds, which would explain why a period with high solar wind would naturally lead to warming of the planet.
But I was wrong; by science Mr. Otto means the IPCC, an organization run by a power-hungry United Nations, whose purpose at places like Durban is to get wealthy countries to restrict industrial productivity and give money to poorer nations, while empowering international organizations. The purpose seems clear enough; more money and power to the U.N., less to the nation-states, and redistribute wealth in the socialist model. Yet Otto holds the IPCC in highest regard where science is concerned (even though there have been huge problems with the IPCC, such as that business about the Himalayan glaciers being gone by 2035, a number gleaned from a magazine article and transposed from 2350, or the fact that students and environmental activists have written large swaths of the IPCC reports, or that the newest Climategate e-mails illustrate the IPCC lead authors have indeed been changing the conclusions and leaving out parts of the work of member scientists). No; Otto means that anyone questioning the IPCC is questioning SCIENCE itself. In short, anyone who wants more data is a flat-Earther.
He, like so many liberals, bandies about the term science without defining it, and without explaining whose science we assume is accurate. This is critical. Is Phrenology a science? If one assumes it is, then studying the bumps on people's heads makes perfect sense, and public policy could be set by assessing people through noggin shape. People could - and should - be steered towards careers based on their head shape. We would know who is likely a criminal based on head shape, and thus keep such people on a short leash. Of course, Phrenology was not and is not a real science, but many believed it to be true. In the old days astrology was considered a science, not superstition. Was it rational to use the stars to make decisions on public policy? For that matter, we have conducted this exact experiment with Eugenics, which was based on Darwinian theory. How was Hitler wrong? He was wrong because his science was at the service of his prejudices, not the other way around. Eugenics wasn't about science, but about putting a scientific veneer on a hateful worldview. The modern Global Warming theory works in a similar vein.
And who decides what is accurate in science? There is no one thing we point to and say "aha! Science!" Science is the human mind at work trying to explain the natural world. People can and do disagree about a great many things, and particularly about science. Science can only be settled by careful observation and experimentation which correlates quite well with what is predicted by the theory being tested. In the case of Global Warming there are no actual experiments to test the theory, and the predictions are so vague that almost anything can be fit to "prove" the theory. But the big ones, the important predictions of AGW theory, are almost entirely failures. Oh, there are always storms, or heat waves, and the Climate Change crowd triumphantly crowes, but there have ALWAYS been storms and heat waves. What is needed is something more precise, something that proves the theory. For example, the rate of sea level rise should be increasing exponentially. It's not, but sea levels are rising, just as they have since the end of the last ice age over ten thousand years ago. Since sea levels are rising the AGW people say "see!" even though most of the rise happened long before carbon dioxide emissions could possibly have had any bearing.
But to people like Mr. Otto, the formal organization's pronouncements are enough, because he WANTS to believe in this. It is the key to fundamentally transforming the world. Take these two quotes from the Climategate II e-mails:
"We need to get some broad based support,
to capture the public's imagination...
So we have to offer up scary scenarios,
make simplified, dramatic statements
and make little mention of any doubts...
Each of us has to decide what the right balance
is between being effective and being honest."
- Prof. Stephen Schneider,
Stanford Professor of Climatology,
lead author of several IPCC reports
"We've got to ride this global warming issue.
Even if the theory of global warming is wrong,
we will be doing the right thing in terms of
economic and environmental policy."
- Timothy Wirth,
Does Mr. Otto see this as science? These are the very gatekeepers, the portal through which the "science" that Otto bemoans must pass.
But the Left has created the narrative that they are the bright ones, the ones pursuing Truth, and that those who oppose them are anti-rationalists, so people like Otto must cling to this ridiculous farce of an argument. Otto really has nothing else to defend his own position with. And that position is informed by pseudo-science to uphold his BELIEFS, and his political dreams. This is not about seeing the world as it is but about changing the political and economic landscape, of advancing socialism, social justice, and utopianism. His is the most anti-rational view imaginable. He is the anti-science guy.
In the comment section Otto mentions the "independent" reviews that exonerated the Team, those involved in Climategate. Here is a classic left-wing trick; don't believe your lying eyes, but believe us "experts". That all of these commissions had as their purpose the exoneration of the CRU crowd should be obvious, as none bothered to interview the skeptics involved, or even the principals. You had Penn State investigating Mann, for instance; now THAT is really impartial.
The purpose of these commissions was to act as the women who accused Herman Cain; to pile on and hope to make the impression that nothing really happened. There had to be numerous investigations, otherwise they would be dismissed. That all of these groups have profited handsomely from the AGW gravy train is beyond dispute, yet people like Otto try to act as if they were impartial. Ri-ight! How about actually reading the e-mails? Oh, but do not believe your lying eyes! ignore the man behind the curtain!
The alarmists are no longer even skim milk masquerading as cream, but rather represent the fluids tapped from the male of the cattle species. It's no longer even in the same category.
Science? Science has nothing to do with it.
The Left loves to admire themselves as the intellectuals, the smart guys. It has been this way at least since Darwin and going back to the Englightenment. In point of fact, that is the secret to their power; Liberalism appeals to vanity, recruiting young people with promises of adulation and worship as they join the holy priesthood of the Intelligentsia. (It doesn't hurt that Liberalism embraces the sexual revolution; liberal girls are easy, except the feminists who keep rodent traps in their britches.) Anyone who wants to be a part of a brotherhood of the self-worshipping will gravitate to leftism, because then you can smugly claim to be a brainiac - even though empirical evidence is staunchly against the assertion.
Here is a classic example.
http://www.minnpost.com/mnblogcabin/2011/12/13/33783/neorenaissance_science_loses_status_as_a_climate_arbiter_in_durban
Author Shawn Otto has this to say about the negotiations at Durban;
"Perhaps most concerning for future negotiations is the apparent erosion of the status of science as an arbiter of the reality of climate change and the basis for public policy decisions. Future agreements will no longer be based on the scientific advice of the IPCC but instead decisions will only be informed by the science.
What this means is unclear but the motives are not. Science is the only even-handed basis for public policy decisions in a non-authoritarian government. The only alternative basis to the knowledge created by science, which is based on measurements of the real world, is the assertion of authority based on either belief or opinion, but neither of them are knowledge-based.
This new language appears to be carving out a further erosion of science's status as the fairest basis for public policy and leaving more room for authoritarian and denialist arguments to gain a foothold in future treaty negotiations. This is the opposite of the direction democracy needs to go to sustain its forward progress, and is troubling evidence of the growing science gap between science and science-themed policy challenges and a largely science-illiterate voting public."
End excerpt.
As I started to read the first paragraph I thought I was going to agree with Otto; the status of science HAS eroded, replaced by a political agenda masquerading as scientific research. I thought he was going to mention the failure of climate models. I thought he would mention the missing heat, the fact that the tropical troposphere has not warmed (in violation of all climate models), the failure of the oceans to warm, the failure of the Antarctic to melt, the lack of increase in precipitation worldwide. I thought he was going to mention that it has not warmed statistically since 1995, in violation of all climate models. I believed he would mention the failure of malaria to appear in Missouri. I thought he would mention the failure of the climate models to predict current conditions based on past data. I thought he would mention the experiments showing that cosmic rays do indeed generate clouds, which would explain why a period with high solar wind would naturally lead to warming of the planet.
But I was wrong; by science Mr. Otto means the IPCC, an organization run by a power-hungry United Nations, whose purpose at places like Durban is to get wealthy countries to restrict industrial productivity and give money to poorer nations, while empowering international organizations. The purpose seems clear enough; more money and power to the U.N., less to the nation-states, and redistribute wealth in the socialist model. Yet Otto holds the IPCC in highest regard where science is concerned (even though there have been huge problems with the IPCC, such as that business about the Himalayan glaciers being gone by 2035, a number gleaned from a magazine article and transposed from 2350, or the fact that students and environmental activists have written large swaths of the IPCC reports, or that the newest Climategate e-mails illustrate the IPCC lead authors have indeed been changing the conclusions and leaving out parts of the work of member scientists). No; Otto means that anyone questioning the IPCC is questioning SCIENCE itself. In short, anyone who wants more data is a flat-Earther.
He, like so many liberals, bandies about the term science without defining it, and without explaining whose science we assume is accurate. This is critical. Is Phrenology a science? If one assumes it is, then studying the bumps on people's heads makes perfect sense, and public policy could be set by assessing people through noggin shape. People could - and should - be steered towards careers based on their head shape. We would know who is likely a criminal based on head shape, and thus keep such people on a short leash. Of course, Phrenology was not and is not a real science, but many believed it to be true. In the old days astrology was considered a science, not superstition. Was it rational to use the stars to make decisions on public policy? For that matter, we have conducted this exact experiment with Eugenics, which was based on Darwinian theory. How was Hitler wrong? He was wrong because his science was at the service of his prejudices, not the other way around. Eugenics wasn't about science, but about putting a scientific veneer on a hateful worldview. The modern Global Warming theory works in a similar vein.
And who decides what is accurate in science? There is no one thing we point to and say "aha! Science!" Science is the human mind at work trying to explain the natural world. People can and do disagree about a great many things, and particularly about science. Science can only be settled by careful observation and experimentation which correlates quite well with what is predicted by the theory being tested. In the case of Global Warming there are no actual experiments to test the theory, and the predictions are so vague that almost anything can be fit to "prove" the theory. But the big ones, the important predictions of AGW theory, are almost entirely failures. Oh, there are always storms, or heat waves, and the Climate Change crowd triumphantly crowes, but there have ALWAYS been storms and heat waves. What is needed is something more precise, something that proves the theory. For example, the rate of sea level rise should be increasing exponentially. It's not, but sea levels are rising, just as they have since the end of the last ice age over ten thousand years ago. Since sea levels are rising the AGW people say "see!" even though most of the rise happened long before carbon dioxide emissions could possibly have had any bearing.
But to people like Mr. Otto, the formal organization's pronouncements are enough, because he WANTS to believe in this. It is the key to fundamentally transforming the world. Take these two quotes from the Climategate II e-mails:
"We need to get some broad based support,
to capture the public's imagination...
So we have to offer up scary scenarios,
make simplified, dramatic statements
and make little mention of any doubts...
Each of us has to decide what the right balance
is between being effective and being honest."
- Prof. Stephen Schneider,
Stanford Professor of Climatology,
lead author of several IPCC reports
"We've got to ride this global warming issue.
Even if the theory of global warming is wrong,
we will be doing the right thing in terms of
economic and environmental policy."
- Timothy Wirth,
Does Mr. Otto see this as science? These are the very gatekeepers, the portal through which the "science" that Otto bemoans must pass.
But the Left has created the narrative that they are the bright ones, the ones pursuing Truth, and that those who oppose them are anti-rationalists, so people like Otto must cling to this ridiculous farce of an argument. Otto really has nothing else to defend his own position with. And that position is informed by pseudo-science to uphold his BELIEFS, and his political dreams. This is not about seeing the world as it is but about changing the political and economic landscape, of advancing socialism, social justice, and utopianism. His is the most anti-rational view imaginable. He is the anti-science guy.
In the comment section Otto mentions the "independent" reviews that exonerated the Team, those involved in Climategate. Here is a classic left-wing trick; don't believe your lying eyes, but believe us "experts". That all of these commissions had as their purpose the exoneration of the CRU crowd should be obvious, as none bothered to interview the skeptics involved, or even the principals. You had Penn State investigating Mann, for instance; now THAT is really impartial.
The purpose of these commissions was to act as the women who accused Herman Cain; to pile on and hope to make the impression that nothing really happened. There had to be numerous investigations, otherwise they would be dismissed. That all of these groups have profited handsomely from the AGW gravy train is beyond dispute, yet people like Otto try to act as if they were impartial. Ri-ight! How about actually reading the e-mails? Oh, but do not believe your lying eyes! ignore the man behind the curtain!
The alarmists are no longer even skim milk masquerading as cream, but rather represent the fluids tapped from the male of the cattle species. It's no longer even in the same category.
Science? Science has nothing to do with it.
posted by Timothy Birdnow | 6:13 AM
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