The Death of Science

[Danno 1,228]

While I am not entirely familiar with the theories of your tin foil hat crowd, I would expect that foil would have little effect on a peer-reviewed study. The journals I receive usually come in clear plastic, though it wouldn't shock me to find that the ones you read come wrapped in tin foil. Your journals, I'm sure, are foil proof. The studies that relate to climate science are obviously not "foolproof" since every fool and his brother who flunked high school science banter about them as if they have an inkling of what the science actually shows. If you really want to know if they are foil proof, I would take a few and stick them under your hat then observe them at some interval and notice any effect that the foil might be having on the study. I hope, once you've compiled that data, that you'll present it here and let us know whether foil has any effect on peer reviewed studies.

If you honestly believe that there was some info uncovered by "climategate" that calls the peer reviewed literature into question then you are a sucker of the first order. There is no doubt that James Inhofe is the new P.T. Barnum. Maybe the new L. Ron Hubbard is a more apt analogy.

More generally to the "true-believers" of denialism:

One of the glaring mistakes in the material in the original post is that "real" science dealt with certainty and now that has changed. In fact, scientists are much more comfortable with uncertainty than the general population. Science deals in probabilities and there is a level of probability above which an outcome is referred to as a certainty, with the caveat that it is actually a very high probability. It is most notably the religious/ideological thinking style that is prone to extreme discomfort with uncertainty. So great is the discomfort that any gap in knowledge gets filled in with a supernatural being or a conspiracy theory. Those entities share the characteristic of being put forth not with positive evidence for their existence but with arguments that they "must" exist in order to fill some gap in one's own knowledge that creates discomfort or to counter some aspect of reality that exposes the ridiculous nature of one's religious beliefs, whether they be about a god or about climate, or to explain some level of complexity that one personally and arrogantly decides couldn't possibly be consistent with the natural world.

It is, in fact, the addiction to certainty that evokes the paranoid streak that informs the right-wing thinking style. I'm sure you've read about the "sieze and freeze" tendency in that style of thinking. This is also the reason that, as science refines it's probabilities, those prone to this more tribal thinking style point to that process out as science being "wrong" or 'changing its mind." In your world, one sticks to one's opinion no matter how reality may contradict it and no matter how many times it is refuted because you have faith in your keepers and their "special knowledge" as opposed to scientists and their "ordinary knowledge." Science is open to NEW DATA. Science changes in a positive way and is refined by new data that is reproducible and models that are shown to be predictive of reality.

I put "NEW DATA" in capitals because members of your cult often betray your ignorance by accusing scientist of being unscientific or closed-minded because they don't listen to every dimwits opinion on climate. What none of the dimwits have to offer is NEW DATA. It is clear that if the game is to pull 3 words out of a 10 year old email exchange and insert your favorite conspiracy theory onto it and pretend that you have found something relevant about climate science in 2010, then you guys have got the game down well and you play it to perfection. However, if the game is to actually present some evidence that is reproducible in this reality by other evidence seekers, you know, that science game, then you are on the sidelines with absolutely nothing to get you in the game. I'd be pissed off too. The saddest thing is that you lose either way. You can't change the realities of climate with your silly "climategate" games, so you lose in the end either way and the best you can hope for is what every religious zealot hopes for and that is to change a few minds to my way of thinking before I die.

You and your cohorts splash around the info you are being fed by ideologues and create your conspiracy theories to explain why your ideas don't reality test well and to give you the illusion that James Inhofe and Fox news know the truth and have no agenda, while the geeks who've studied global temperatures and tree rings and ice cores all of their life got together to conspire against you and your pals who've spent so much time refining those foil hats. Why you folks even bring up the negative impact of the papacy in the 17th century when that is EXACTLY the negative impact that denialist "true believers" are attempted to insert into the dialogue now. And you folks seem to point out things like how popular your thinking style was in the 17th century and how it interfered with progress toward the truth without any sense of embarrassment or shame. You must have some inkling of how unbelievable that is to reality based people. "Yea, well people like us fought against science in the 17th century and we still haven't learned! So there!" That is your winning argument. Great.

THE most amazing accomplishment of the past 20 years is that Fox news convinced a very vocal minority that "fair and balanced" meant every fool's lies get equal standing with verifiable facts. You now expect that to be the standard in science, that every fool's lie, no matter how inconsistent with reality, no matter how lacking in verifiable evidence has to be given equal weight with the verifiable, reproducible data or else scientists are being closed minded. If you had any data to bring to the table, I'm sure you all would have played that card a long time ago but you don't have it. So you scream like the clergy of the 17th century that your fantasy MUST be true, you attack the modern equivalents of Galileo as undoubtedly fomenting a conspiracy for which you have no evidence because their DATA threatens your doctrine and you guys have the BALLS to pull that out as an example in your argument for false beliefs. Hint: One should probably not be acting like a 17th century clergyman if one is going to attack science by noting the effects of 17th century clergyman on hindering the acceptance of scientific data, at least from the reality based perspective.

So, as Galileo might have done so long ago, I'd say show us the data. Show us good science that refutes the data already collected. Don't you think that some 17th century clergyman walked outside and said "look there is the sun right there going around us" just as you boobs point to winter snowstorms as proof of your backward beliefs? (I never done seen it snow in winter before, did you Mr. Inhofe?) Don't you think that some scientist "loyal" to the church didn't step up and express doubt that Galileo's data was real? Don't you think some robed miscreant didn't make some suggestion to his "flock" that Galileo was "following the position of Copernicus, which is contrary to the true sense and authority of Holy Scripture," (From the Inquisition's sentence of June 22, 1633) and suggest that Galileo was part of a conspiracy to promote this new-fangled "Copernican revolution" and call all our cherished beliefs into question? Don't you think they debated philosophy and the effect on the power of the hierarchy rather than debate the facts of Galileo's data? Don't you think they attempted to shame him and mock him for sticking to the data? If they found a 10 year old letter of his that said "hide the rotation", don't you think they would have waved it about claiming that he meant the rotation of the sun around the Earth, even if he was discussing his curveball delivery? And what would all that get them as far as the reality of planetary motion and solar system organization? Nothing.

What they didn't do, and what the priests and followers of denialism will not do, is abandon all of the BS and challenge Galileo's or climate science's data directly. They didn't produce any good science that refuted the claims and neither has the denialist movement in this century. Now because you are unable to produce any good data you blame the peer review process for not letting your ####### data through. Boo Hoo! And if the peer review let ####### through, well either way it's evidence for your belief system isn't it. Nice how that works with conspiracy thinking. Reality based thinking doesn't have that kind of win-win built into it.

So now you all can enlighten us. Why do you choose to refute the enormous body of data only with conspiracy theories? Why do you choose the tactics of 17th century clergy over rational debate about real data. The church saw the data as a threat to its power and its income stream. What threat do you perceive in climate data that makes you attack it like 17th century theists rather than 21st century rationalists?

Wow, bit sensitive?

From what I read of your long-winded post you seem to be taking things a little personal, almost like some religious Order which attacks those who doubt your All knowing status.

You did make one true, if not redundant point, I am not in a position to know or judge if the Global Warming is really happening and if it is caused by man, I depend on other, qualified people who don't have a "personal stake" in it (seems to exempt you)

But lets play the "smell test game" I like to give all -true believers, in GW.

What kind of car do you drive?

Do you use AC in your house or car?

What is the sq footage of your house?

These answers will tell me how much you really believe in GW.

If the world were really on a rapid course of destruction, you would be doing more than changing lightbulbs and car pooling.

Sorry, I don't respect nor take serious fat fitness instructors.

Edited March 5, 2010 by Danno