ClimateGate and Undermining of Science

By Bob Ellis on December 3rd, 2009

j0262624Daniel Henninger from the Wall Street Journal  examines ClimateGate and how he sees that undermining the objectivity of science.

The title of the video below is “Climategate: Science is Dying.”  Of course science isn’t really dying. Science is what it is, meaning the mechanics of our universe.

What IS dying, however, is our faith in the scientific community as objective seekers of scientific truth. As the whole global warming nonsense proves, and politically correct “science” concerning things like abortion and homosexuality, and the religion of evolution which passes itself off as “science”…these things all remind us that scientists are human, too. Scientists are subject to the same biases, prejudices, preconceptions and agendas as the rest of us.

Some of us have known this for a long time.  But many others tend to place blind faith in professionals and educated people, especially those who work in the realm of what we think of as science.  Many people place this faith in men and women of science because at some level they understand that science itself really is objective; something is or it isn’t, though our understanding of which state a particular subject is in is sometimes lacking.

Yet we sometimes forget that people must interpret science, and we must not accept blindly everything we’re told–especially when it, as is the case with the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming, doesn’t even pass the smell-test of credibility.

While some scientists are dedicated to providing an analysis of science that is as objective as possible, still others are not quite so diligent in this area.  Human nature being what it is, if we’re not very careful, it becomes easy to taint our analysis with our own presuppositions–even virtually replacing objective scientific analysis with our personal philosophy sometimes.

Unfortunately that is rampant in the climate science universe, and the recently leaked emails and documents from the Climate Research Unit in England are the tip-of-the-iceberg proof of that.

Unfortunately when scientists in their arrogance pull this kind of bait-and-switch on us, supplanting their bias for objective science because they think the rest of us are too stupid to see their truth, it undermines overall confidence in authority.

We’ve all heard the story about the boy who cried wolf.  What may turn out to be the most unfortunate consequence of the anthropogenic global warming hoax is that if a real global disaster does someday come upon us, we may not listen because the scientific community has cried “Wolf!” one time too many.

Note: Reader comments are reviewed before publishing, and only salient comments that add to the topic will be published. Profanity is absolutely not allowed and will be summarily deleted. Spam, copied statements and other material not comprised of the reader’s own opinion will also be deleted.

  • Digg
  • Yahoo Buzz
  • Reddit
  • Yahoo Bookmarks
  • Delicious
  • StumbleUpon
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Windows Live Favorites
  • Technorati Favorites
  • NewsVine
  • Share/Bookmark

Categories: Commentary
Tags: , , ,

  • kansas farmer
    1. The BBC had these e-mails for about a month and did nothing.

    2. Gavin Schmidt at NASA is also linked with this scandal

    3. Tom Karl at NOAA National Climatic Data Center is also linked in this scandal

    4. James Hansen at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and advisor to AL GORE is also linked with this scandal

    5. Multiple professors at numerous colleges are also linked with this scandal

    It sounds to me that the government has bought and paid for a crisis to implement their solution.
  • Jeff
    Climate changes all the time. Sometimes colder, sometimes warmer, all without Man's influence. IIt is the height of arrogance to believe Man can influence his environment to this degree! Where do these Scientests get the gal to define what the environment should look like? Those that have enabled them, should pay the price! By the way, CO2 represents a microscopic portion of our atmosphere, but they claim it has the impossible property of being able to let heat in one way, but trap it from going out the other way (inside the Earth's atmosphere). If that is true, why aren't the Window Manufacturers putting pure CO2 between the panes of glass in our homes? Because it can't do that!!!!
  • itstrue
    Salient comments - the truth is that the data was faked - AND ironically the only thing the scientists ending up proving was that their theory is false - WHY else would they be compelled to change the data? If their data supported their theory, they would never have even thought about changing it.


    Ironically, again, the scientists ended up being experts not in global warming, but in covering up fake data, and making it appear to support their theory.


    Again, ironically, these scientists DID advance science - we know now their theory is wrong, and real science can now explore other ideas and investigate whether the data support those ideas.



    Warm is good - it is really good.


    The scientists were clever - they had to create a theory which not only showed the warming, but showed run-away warming.

    That's because a moderate warming is probably really beneficial for mankind, so they needed a theory which showed horrible heat.


    It appears that there has been substantial tension between these warmists and the branch of science of Geology - see Geologist for decades have studied the temperature swings of the Earth through its history. I would imagine the geologists never thought there was anything unusual about the warming the alarmists were talking about.


    THIS IS WHY THE ALARMISTS WERE MESSING AROUND WITH TREE RINGS - The Geologists KNEW what the truth was, they had the evidence - the alarmists thought ahead of time and decided they did not want to go up against the better science of Geology.


    The tree rings never really worked out either - turns out the alarmists manipulated that data sample as well.


    Global Warming never made sense - it was always a stretch to focus in on one variable in the atmosphere in any event.


    It is absolutely amazing to see alarmists continue to cling to this theory - INSISTING without any basis at all that warming is still at run-away levels.


    Once a reasonable person reviews where we stand, the Earth is in good shape today.




    .
  • DCC
    Don't throw out the baby with the wash. Look at each proposition individually. As a geologist, I am also very skeptical of anthropogenic global warming, but it's a far cry from evolution.
  • dcm
    Not sure what you mean by the "far cry from evolution" part, but be assured that evolutionism is another area where "science" has not been honest.

    Came across a good article on the subject today at: http://creation.com/evolutionists-retreat-from-...

    The bottom line of the article is that evolutionism has ended up not being genuinely supported by evidence, but rather increasingly protected from testability (that it would be sure to fail).
  • I became dissillusioned with science as a young grad student in the 70s. It became clear to me that, at least in the biological sciences, that research was under the nearly total control of government agencies via research grants. In those years "cancer" was the buzz word and any proposals that could remotely be connected to cancer research got funded while other research efforts begged and scraped for leftovers.

    The problem has only worsened over the years to what we see now: corruption of the whole enterprise, overseen by corrupt bureaucrats and government agencies. I hold all of science suspect and especially if there is a potential political motive, in which case, you can be certain all is not as it seems.
  • DCC
    Point well taken. Science was once self-supporting. That usually meant that only the rich could indulge. But we absolutely need additional funding models. The last thing we need is a UN panel that exerts the absolute last word.
  • Lies, damned lies, and statistics

    The falsification of data and the conspiracy to commit same etc, constitutes serious criminal activity. Further, the granting of public funds for research warrants a federal investigation. I’m hoping the perpetrators, including possibly Professor Michael Mann, director of Pennsylvania State University’s Earth System Science Centre and a regular contributor to the popular climate science blog Real Climate, and their facilitators will be tracked down and prosecuted to the fullest extent the law allows. — Michael Santomauro
  • dcm
    The 3rd paragraph says it all. Those who use & abuse the name of "science" have gotten far too accustomed to the blind, unthinking public acceptance of everything they say. It's going to backfire on them in the form of their losing all credibility.
blog comments powered by Disqus
« »