When Science (and media) Becomes Ideology We All Lose
This blog doesn't deal with global warming per se, but it does worry about the corrupting influences on science and media exerted by ideology. Mostly, we have deconstructed this problem in the area of biotechnology. But the corruption has permeated the physical sciences, too, most particularly the supposed "fact" of catastrophic, human-caused climate change.
As Secondhand Smokette pointed out in a column earlier this week, not only is the issue not beyond debate, but the attempt to stack the deck is becoming all too obvious by following the money trail. From her column:
Media is a willing accomplice to this news blockade by not reporting, under reporting, or spinning stories that might promote heterodox views about global warming.Over 10 years, not one study challenged the orthodoxy [of global warming] - does that sound right to you? If that were true, it would strongly suggest that, despite conflicting evidence in this wide and changing world, no scientist dares challenge the politically correct position on the issue.
No wonder David Bellamy--an Australian botanist who was involved in some 400 TV productions, only to see his TV career go south after he questioned global warming orthodoxy - wrote in the Australian last week, "It's not even science any more; it's anti-science." Bellamy notes that official data show that "in every year since 1998, world temperatures have been getting colder, and in 2002, Arctic ice actually increased." Exhibit B: MIT Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences Richard S. Lindzen recently wrote, "There has been no warming since 1997 and no statistically significant warming since 1995."
Case in point: It turns out that 2008 will be the coolest year of the decade. If the story was that 2008 was the warmest of the decade, we all know that it would make huge headlines. But the mini cooling trend we are apparently experiencing will not be reported in most outlets, or if it is, it will be in the back pages. Or, it will be spun as meaningless, like in the Guardian's report in which only "experts" from one side were allowed to comment. From the story:
Prof Myles Allen at Oxford University who runs the climateprediction.net website, said he feared climate sceptics would over interpret the figure."You can bet your life there will be a lot of fuss about what a cold year it is. Actually no, its not been that cold a year, but the human memory is not very long, we are used to warm years," he said, "Even in the 80s [this year] would have felt like a warm year."And what do these skeptics thinks this interesting climate variation means? We don't know. Their perspectives were not presented in the story.
All of this is aided and abetted by the mindless purveyors of popular culture, such as the very clever Piraro, author of Bizarro,who has swallowed more than one glass of Kool Aid--as the cartoon reproduced above illustrates.
Labels: Scientism. Politicalized Science. Global Warming. Media Bias.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 8:20 AM
15 Comments
15 Comments:
I would say that the University I attended, U of Houston, is fairly liberal. Most major universities are. Well, as an English Lit major with a side order of History, one of my areas of focus was folklore, and for that I took several courses in anthropology. And my very liberal-minded anthropology teachers were all convinced that there was no such thing as global warming, except the natural, cyclical sort, and that the warmer weather was *better* for us than colder weather would be. During these warm-ups, they said, crop production is better, food is more plentiful, and general health improves. And I'm talking about one goddess-worshiping woman, a gay man, and a man who is convinced that cannibalism is a natural part of the human experience. So, it's a matter of where the science is, not a matter of where the ideology is. I admit, I was taken aback to hear them so dismissive of global warming, but they've colored my perception significantly.
When a Science supposes a certain state is going to be arrived at ,they should be checking every tangent that might bring their supposition into question. Much evidence exists which taints the evolving Science of Global Warming. Stuff like certain folks pushing the concept have vested interest in promotion of the concept of Global warming. Thus the authors of the Scientific parameters within the disciplines of climate change are not looking at the real vectors. Instead many are either, unwilling to weigh the natural flow of Earth's evidence with regards to the past cooling or warming because more money and accolades come from running with the crowd. In some cases the fear mongering is directly linked to vested interests of the salesmen. They make the claims so they can harvest big money on sale of other alternate energies which upon inspection are more threatening and costly. I want more investigation on both sides of this issue. The last thing I want is a verdict presented without the input from folks within the Climate Change discipline who have contrary views. Without that input and the silencing of one group by the other proves nothing to me. Unfortunately if the issues were weighed with Scientific integrity both groups should arrive with the right answers but there is much more money to be made by out-voicing the other group. How sad is that??
Sorry. In my comments above I meant to note that some folks also have vested interest in maintaining the present methods of energy which taints their position to. The net result being that we become complacent as Earthlings or we are having the crap scared out of us by the other group.Circles within circles?
Donnie, I wish that the hospital and doctors who insisted upon my mother's death and that she "could not get well" and went on about her age (knowing nothing about her" and kept saying from day one (in her hearing, and deliberately in her hearing, no less) that she was apt to die that night despite every one of their prognoses in any direction always having turned out the opposite, had understood the wisdom of your first sentence in your first post above. Science and medicine assume that because they are science and medicine, they are right; the first rule of logical reasoning is never to assume anything.
I remember overhearing in a coffeeshop some social-service type broads (their ilk is very tied in with the hospital referred to above, by the way, and they are sort of a cottage industry around here) wailing about how "upset" they were that someone had questioned the "reality" of global warming. How that person's intellectual independence affected their individual lives adversely, or how the nonexistence of global warming would, are good questions. But they were so invested in the doctrine of global warming that it "upset" them that anyone would not accept it. That's because liberals of their type are so lacking in sense of self that they feel a need to define themselves by the doctrines they swallow whole, and feel threatened when those doctrines are questioned, because they lack the ability to reason things out for themselves and thus create genuine identities. Similarly, people swallow "science" whole, and science itself is unable to reason.
I began my freshman year of college as a general sciences major, both out of genuine interest and because I felt I should balance out the education I'd received up to then, which had been humanities-oriented. I noticed immediately that the way the courses were taught was antithetical to the ability to reason I'd been taught up to then, and thought I'd better get out of here before this destroys my ability to think; I also concluded, correctly, on day one that if this was how they were trained, no wonder scientists and doctors are not able to be logical. The very best of them are but only because they have the ability to overcome the "scientific" training they have received, which engenders arrogance as well as lack of logic, reasoning ability, and humanity. The rest are a much worse threat to the human race, and all life forms, than global warming ever could be.
In fact, according to their own doctrine, they're the ones who caused it.
Being a Canadian I have a real concern. How are we supposed to survive without energy sources that we must tap in order to keep our homes operational. I figure we have impacted the earth but no where near the range that the earth has been impacted by other natural disasters. Yet when we show that using the old methods of clothing or building through natural renewable resources such as leather , fur ,silk & wool or using trees to build homes the Anarchists in the ARA or ELF movements go ballistic in favor of environmentally unsound choices such as Polymere chemicals which waste our finite resources such as oil.
I like what George Carlin said about the Earth having created humans so that it could have plastic. There isn't anything we've created that didn't come out of what was already in "the environment." The Earth in its own time, will know what to do with it. It's our own interests and convenience that the "recycle" maniacs are really concerned about. I think a good rule of thumb is don't do it if the results are not aesthetic. As for oil, it seems to have been, in one form or another, the driving force of economics and civilization throughout the history of western civilization, whether olive oil, spices (which yield oil), whale blubber, coal, or petroleum, and on that point I speak also as an astrologer; Neptune, the planet which rules, among other things (including the ocean, and water in general, and chemicals) is with us always. I don't like the idea of using up all the oil we can pump out of the earth either, and I do believe that we can figure out a way to find a form of oil currency for these times that does not rely on it at all.
In the science of anthropogenic global warming, just like the science of evolution (as opposed to intelligent design), there are no "two sides" - no scientific controversy. There is the scientific consensus, and then there is everyone else. Saying that the media, schools etc should show both sides is ridiculous.
Well, I believe in the theory evolution. I don't even know what "intelligent design" means, or why people are all het up about this stuff when all we need to do is use our ability to look around us to see what's what, which is not at all in conflict with our ability to have reverence. It does seem to me that if we are God's creation, every other species, and "nature" and "the environment" itself, are, too, and that we should respect them as we do ourselves, and don't need to waste time theorizing. In other words, "human exceptionalism," "animal rights," and "environmentalism" are not in conflict with one another, and if we really are different in terms of being able to have ethics and morality, because we alone are capable of evil, then we are obliged to be even more respectful of the non-human forms of life, and are making a logical error if we claim to have superior entitlement; opposing "utilitarianism" is properly a matter of getting our own house in order, not of throwing out the baby with the bathwater and doing as "utilitarians" do by getting onto the wrong track, e.g. by regarding as "inferior" to ourselves what God also has created.
Joshua:"Scientific consensus" isn't science. It is anti science. Nothing in science is a sacred cow.
At December 07, 2008 , Blogger Joshua said...
"In the science of anthropogenic global warming, just like the science of evolution (as opposed to intelligent design), there are no "two sides" - no scientific controversy. There is the scientific consensus, and then there is everyone else. Saying that the media, schools etc should show both sides is ridiculous'."
Using your measuring stick Evolution would have no right in the classroom either Joshua as it is still catagerized as a "THEORY."
However it is a reality that opening minds to question or support a theory, is more important then SILENCE.
Wesley, I never meant that you can't say anything against a scientific consensus. You can, and probably should. Just don't expect your position to be a valid 'side' on a scientific 'controversy' until you have some real scientific evidence.
Donnie, the word 'theory' means something different in science than it does in layspeak. Nothing in science can be categorised as more valid, more supported or more explanatory than a theory. It's the top of the rank.
"Cept that in the case of this "theory" they haven't found the missing link between man and monkey let alone between man a living moving entity and a tree a living unmoving entity. Thus the Theory isn't always seen as an absolute which is the point of widening the scope of education .
Joshua: Precisely. And there is plenty of evidence against man-made catastrophic global warming. In fact, a lot of the predictive "evidence" for it are computer models that may or may not ever materialize. That is a legitimate tool, but it should not be determinitive.
That's when we hear about the precautionary principle. But that doesn't settle a debate.
I don't know why the liberals are worried about "catastrophic" global warming when their death culture is going to grant their wish of killing us all long before "catastrophic global warming" could, if it even did come to pass. It's just one more aspect of the death culture, and a red herring to distract from the death culture's agenda. "We're all going to die, the Earth is going to die..." from the same ones who promote utilitarian medical murder. Which they should realize is part of the same technological culture that has caused the "global warming" they are worried about. In fact, they want that technological culture to profit now by "having" to "fix" and "prevcent further" "global warming."
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