AGW BELIEVERS REPLACE SCIENTIFIC METHOD WITH DOGMA :SUPPRESSING DISSENT
So-called consensus climate science reaches new lows nearly every day, with many researchers resembling dogmatic, religious zealots, the kind of people who burned heretics at the stake during the middle ages and suppressed scientific discovery, rather than scientists engaged in the free pursuit of knowledge.
Recently, an intolerant rump of scientists who believe humans are definitely causing dangerous climate change, proponents of the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), wrote an open letter to the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) urging the organization to remove philanthropist Rebekah Mercer from its board of trustees. This despite the fact Mercer and her family’s foundation have donated generously to the museum over the years, and I suspect she has convinced friends and business relations to give as well.
Mercer’s supposed crime is not that she interfered with the AMNH’s policies or dictated exhibits. She didn’t. Nor did Mercer tamper with the museum’s management or influence its displays or purchases. According to these AGW fanatics, the reason Mercer should be booted unceremoniously from AMNH’s board after years of helping it thrive is because she “and her family were important backers of President Trump … and the family foundation has contributed millions of dollars to climate-change-denying politicians and organizations like the Heartland Institute, which says, ‘Global warming is not a crisis… .’”
Mercer has to go because she disputes AGW dogma. Hypocritically, the authors of the letter claim the call to remove Mercer from the board is not a partisan issue, yet they list her family’s support of Trump as one reason to remove her. It doesn’t get much more partisan than that.
Full disclosure: Though, like all Heartland researchers and writers, I do not have access to donor information, it is possible Mercer or her family has given as much to The Heartland Institute, my employer, as their letter claims.
So what? Working with the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, The Heartland Institute is actively engaged in the scientific debate over the causes and consequences of climate change, having published volumes of peer-reviewed climate research and hosted 12 international climate change conferences. We are also involved in an educational effort to get accurate, balanced portrayals of the state of climate science into our nation’s schools. As with her support of the AMNH, Mercer’s donations to The Heartland Institute and other groups improve and advance the dissemination of knowledge. The Heartland Institute is part of the climate debate, but for the AGW crowd there is no room for debate. No dissent will be tolerated.
The letter says:
“We are concerned that the vital role of science education institutions will be eroded by a loss of public trust if museums are associated with individuals and organizations [in this case, Mercer] known for rejecting climate science, opposing environmental regulation and clean energy initiatives, and blocking efforts to reduce pollutants and greenhouse gases.”
To my knowledge, Mercer does not reject climate science, and based on her support for a variety of high-quality organizations, she appears to have a more complete and honest view of what we can say about climate change than the letter’s signatories do. They assume all environmental regulations are worthwhile, even though many clearly are not and many violate the Constitution and existing law and impose huge costs for little or no benefit. One should expect anybody—other than a radical, partisan, environmentalist, of course—to reject such foolish regulations.
Concerning clean energy initiatives: They harm the poor by raising energy prices and often impose greater environmental harms than the fossil fuels they are meant to replace.
Finally, while I don’t know whether Mercer and her family have fought against rational efforts to restrict legitimate pollutants, carbon dioxide is in fact not a pollutant. It is a naturally occurring gas necessary to all life on Earth. Historically, when it has been more abundant, life has thrived. Fighting against restrictions on carbon dioxide is literally fighting for human well-being and environmental flourishing.
Ironically, if anyone is putting AMNH’s credibility at risk, it is the AGW true believers demanding the museum drop Mercer from its board. Before their letter and the op-ed The New York Times published calling for Mercer’s removal, few people if any who visited the museum or admired its work could have named a single member of the museum’s board of trustees. That’s probably still true, as the average museum goer attends simply to be amazed and learn and doesn’t care a whit about the politics of its trustees. If the museum caves to the anti-Mercer crowd, however, it will indeed spark mistrust: from those who recognize the AGW crowd is further polarizing society and bringing partisanship into yet another area of life that should be beyond politics.
If Mercer is shown the door, who else on the board or among the museum’s list of donors might be targeted for ostracism next because of their political beliefs?
Fortunately, not all scientists have abandoned their fealty to the scientific method in favor of authoritarian climate dogma. More than 300 researchers, scientists, and scholars responded to the AGW letter with their own letter advising AMNH not to cave in and accede to AGW agitators’ demands to ouster Mercer. They write, “the agitators are not defending science from quackery—quite the contrary! They demand that the Museum support a party line, thinly disguised as science.” In addition, the signatories of the letter defending Mercer’s continued association with the museum add the original letter “is itself anti-science and ideologically-driven.” A succinct, accurate assessment.
The public loses when science and its institutions of learning are politicized. The anti-Mercer campaign is just one more instance of AGW true believers demeaning the institution—science in the pursuit of knowledge—they claim to be defending. Shame on them, and shame on AMNH if it caves in to this pressure.
People caught in the grips of the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), the idea that human activities, primarily fossil fuel use, are causing catastrophic change in the world’s climate, seem to live with blinders on, unable to admit evidence to the contrary.
I don’t begrudge the opinion of scientists who believe their own research shows, or who believe the dominant number of peer-reviewed papers indicates, humans are causing dangerous climate change. But I do disagree with many of the assumptions made by proponents of AGW. So far, evidence shows most of their projections concerning temperatures, ice, hurricanes, species extinction, etc. have failed. As a result, their projections of future climate conditions are not nearly trustworthy enough to make the kind of fundamental, wrenching, and costly changes to our economy and systems of government AGW proponents have proposed to fight climate change. I don’t think climate scientists can foretell the future any better than the average palm reader.
Making matters worse, AGW proponents discount, or ignore entirely, powerful studies that seem to undermine many of their assumptions and refute most of their conclusions.
Admittedly, I start with a position of skepticism, and indeed suspicion, when well-known researchers release a new study purporting to reinforce or provide further evidence AGW is true. This isn’t because I don’t want to hear what those who disagree with my assessment have to say. Rather, it’s based on my understanding of the lengths to which AGW true believers have gone to manipulate temperature data and try to shoehorn or force this and other data to match their dire projections.
It is reasonable, and even expected, for educated people to disagree with one another on this issue. This back-and-forth exchange of points and counterpoints shows the scientific method functioning as it should.
Many AGW believers, however, have seemingly abandoned the scientific method.
Progress is made in science by proposing a hypothesis, and developing a theory, to explain or understand certain phenomena, and then testing the hypothesis against reality. A particular hypothesis is considered superior to others when, through testing, it is shown to have more explanatory power than competing theories or hypotheses and when other scientists running the same testing regime can reproduce the results of the original test. Every theory or hypothesis must be disconfirmable in principle, such that if the theory predicts ‘A’ will occur under certain conditions, but instead sometimes ‘B’ or ‘C’ results, then the theory has problems. The more a hypothesis’ predictions prove inconsistent with results that occur during testing or real-world data, the less likely the hypothesis is to be correct.
AGW theory does not work this way. No matter what the climate phenomenon, if it can in some way be presented as being unusual by AGW proponents, it is argued to be “further evidence of global warming,” even if it contradicts earlier phenomena pointed to by the same people as evidence of global warming.
What effects AGW will have seem to depend on which scientist one consults and which model they use. In realm of climate change research, different models looking at the same phenomenon applying the same laws of physics with the same inputs produce dramatically varied results.
Another indication AGW advocates have thrown over the scientific method is how they revert to various logical fallacies to manipulate peoples’ emotions in order to have the public dismiss climate realists’ arguments and research. AGW advocates commit the fallacy of ad hominem when they call researchers who disagree with their assessment of the strength of the case for AGW “deniers”—an obvious attempt to link them in the public’s mind with despicable Holocaust deniers. That is not science, it’s rhetoric. I know of no one who denies the fact climate changes, but there are significant uncertainties and legitimate disagreements regarding the extent of humanity’s role in recent climate changes and whether these will be disastrous. Those who refuse to acknowledge highly regarded scientists disagree with AGW are the real “deniers,” and they should suffer the opprobrium rightfully attached to that label.
AGW proponents commit the fallacy of appeal to numbers when they say the case for dangerous human-caused climate change is settled because some high percentage of a subset of scholars agrees humans are causing dangerous climate change. Consensus is a political, not a scientific, term. People once thought Earth was flat. Galileo disagreed, saying he believed it was round—and he was persecuted for saying so. And you know what? Galileo was right, and the consensus of the time was wrong. At one time, people, including the intellectual elite, believed Earth was the center of the universe and the Sun revolved around it. Copernicus said just the opposite. He was right, and everyone else was wrong.
Knowledge acquisition succeeds not through bowing to some purported consensus in thought and opinion, but through questioning previously received wisdom and continuously testing scientific theories against data. “Because the vast majority of us said so,” is not a legitimate scientific response to research raising questions about all or some part of AGW.
AGW researchers commit the fallacy of appeal to motive when they say a particular study or the work of a particular scientist or group of scientists should not be taken seriously because of who funded them. Both sides commit this fallacy, with climate skeptics often arguing AGW research is biased based on the fact it was funded by government, which history shows is predisposed toward finding reasons grow and exert ever more control over people.
Research should be judged based on the validity of its assumptions, whether its premises are true, and whether its conclusions follow from its premises, not on who funded the research. Data, evidence, and logic are the hallmarks of science, not motives.
Beyond the routine data manipulation and logical fallacies, AGW advocates’ own e-mails show they have tried to suppress the publication of research skeptical toward AGW. And they have routinely attempted to interfere with the career advancement of scholars who refuse to completely toe the AGW line, even stooping on occasion to try to get scholars fired for producing research undermining AGW.
AGW fanatics also try to suppress the teaching of a balanced, accurate understanding of the current state of climate science, with all it uncertainties, in the nation’s schools. This is the tool of the propagandist, not the scientist seeking the truth.
All these reflections came to a head in recent years, as AGW true believers have fought in court to prevent the release of the data underpinning their own research, attempted to suppress free speech by accusing those with whom they disagree of committing libel, and even on occasion called for the prosecution and incarceration of climate skeptics for daring to question AGW orthodoxy. Some AGW proponents have openly admired various authoritarian regimes for their ability to “get things done” without the interference of democratic institutions. Real scientists know truths do not bloom under authoritarianism.
When a theory does not comport with the facts, data, and evidence, it is the theory that should be questioned, not the data or the motives of those bringing such evidence to the world’s attention. Consider this my plea for AGW true believers to embrace, once again, the scientific method, to follow the evidence in the field of climate research where it leads even if it proves inconvenient or inconsistent with their earlier beliefs. To the extent I myself have failed to live up to this ideal, I will try and do the same, approaching AGW arguments with an open mind.
— H. Sterling Burnett
SOURCES: Human Events; Breitbart; Science and Public Policy Institute https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/replacing-scientific-method-with-dogma-pt-1-attacking-museum-donors https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/agw-believers-replace-scientific-method-with-dogma-pt-2-suppressing-dissent
Article is LOCKED by author/seeder
Yeah, because demonizing scientists is the hallmark of all successful civilizations. And that bitch this article talks about happily backs many positions that are antithetical to the scientific method.
Climate change theocracy relies on pseudo-science and the spinning of tall tales of scary "end of life as we know it" scenarios. Data is cherry picked and models are formulated to give the desired predictions. Anyone who challenges the climate change clergy is deemed to be a heretical denier rather than a skeptic, as is commonly done in all other branches of science. It's all based on liberal politics. They are fooling no one.
Do you actually expect me to take anything you say seriously after opening with that? Comment removed for CoC violation [ph]
It is totally a belief in a higher power called government. Climate is a belief system, a religion if you will. The devout are afraid to challenge the high priests of global warming for fear being cast into the fires of a burning planet. To repent, they need to say three "Hail Al Gore's" and pray that other countries take them seriously.
Then don't start out with something incredibly stupid.
Then find some scientific way to refute it, or better yet, ignore it.
A scientific way to refute the fact that you apparently do no know what the first three words of your post actually mean? Your use of those words is evidence in and of itself. I quite literally stopped reading at theocracy.
There is nothing to refute because your claims are incoherent.
Not to the educated and intelligent class. If you can't make sense of it, it shows that you're not mentally prepared to do so. Perhaps you need more schooling?
You must be projecting.
I'm playing with you and having fun. Sounds like you're not.
Holy fuck dude, learn what words mean before you use them.... Theory is the highest level a hypothesis can reach in the world of science. Theories are above all else, when something becomes a theory that means the evidence behind it is so rock solid that the chances of anything overturning or otherwise drastically altering it are slim to none.
As far as AGW goes, I will listen to the governments and businesses that are investing hundreds of billions of $s around the world in preparation for the effects of AGW before I listen to anyone else. Follow the money.
The ignorance is deliberately self-imposed and cemented in place. No matter how many times they're told what a scientific theory means they will always come back with the stupidity. It is, after all, their second most potent weapon behind the outright lying.*
*see Norman 1.3 immediately below
"...when something becomes a theory that means the evidence behind it is so rock solid that..."
You have been miseducated.
It's called math.
Big Bang IS a theory.
God is a myth.
This is a common theme of the science-ignorant.
Those who continue to deny the effects man has had on this planet are much like those on the deck of the Titanic refusing to accept that the ship could sink. "It's preposterous!" They shouted. "It's outrageous!" they proclaimed. "This ship is the pinnacle of human technology and there is NO WAY bumping an iceberg could sink the unsinkable!" they said.
The scientists are in the engine rooms of our planet examining the damage and warning us of the rising water. Rejecting what 97% of climate scientists who have ZERO reason to fabricate their work, they'd get paid just the same if their data didn't show consistent signs of AGW, is just insane. None of them work for manufacturers of green products like the fossil fuel industry scientists who are the only ones in the industry casting any doubt on the findings simply because they have a financial interest to do so.
Fools will never accept a narrative that forces them to change their ways, and those pushing back against the overwhelming evidence of AGW are going to be the first casualties of our rapidly changing climate. Just like those idiots lounging having drinks belittling the other passengers who accepted the crews warnings and boarded the life boats, the deniers will be laughing all the way to the bottom of the ocean.
You keep losing the argument because you keep getting all angry and emotional. Try a more temperate approach, and remember,knowledge, logic, and reason are your friends, if you so chose to use them.
Where did I lose the argument? I know I'm on the right side of this debate, I have no problem watching the sad deniers wallow in ignorance.
Don't feed the trolls.
Besides, conservatism has no memory, honor or soul.
Projection is a standard practice of these science-ignorant, science-denying knuckledraggers. With absolutely no facts on their side they think they can play a sort of game of tag by just saying something stupid like that, run away and claim "WIN!" Very Trumpian.
Thanks to a growing concern and the creation of the EPA several of these predictions have not come to pass...yet.
Now that we have a science denier for president who has effectively destroyed the EPA, all bets are off.
"They" never said that. The guy who designed the ship thought so, but he made a big mistake about those bulkheads.
“On the night the Titanic sank,” Nourney recalled, “I was playing bridge in the smoking salon. The passengers were dancing and having fun. The sea was calm, like a lake. I said to my bridge partner “I wonder when there will be some waves.” At that moment, the ship was shaken slightly. We continued to play but something, perhaps instinct, caused me to go to the upper deck by the captain’s staircase. There were huge chunks on the hatches."
"I raced down to the tennis hall. The water was already three feet high there. Still nobody would believe the Titanic was in any danger. Someone said to me “It doesn’t matter because the Titanic cannot sink.” The music was still playing and couples continued to dance without knowing what happened.”
"Whatever the origin of the belief, there is no doubt that people did believe Titanic to be unsinkable.
Passenger Margaret Devaney said “I took passage on the Titanic for I thought it would be a safe steamship and I had heard it could not sink.”
Another passenger, Thomson Beattie, wrote home “We are changing ships and coming home in a new unsinkable boat.”
It was the beginning of the twentieth century and people had absolute faith in new science and technology. They believed that science in the twentieth century could and would provide answers to solve all problems."
The 'God said it, I believe it and that settles it' crowd, walk in The Shadow of The Deceiver. Their faith lies with Lucifer. Religion has not only failed itself, it has failed.
And many worship at the alter of lies and deceit in the Church of Climate Change. They are terrified of doubting the holy ones and being ostracized by the orthodoxy. I thought that a large part of the liberal mindset was to challenge authority. Why are they so weak and sheep like when it comes to global warming?
Weak? Sheep? Church of Climate Change?
Pardon me, but I think your slip is showing.
Now that I've got them warmed up, it's time for bed. They know I'm right. It amusing that they are so easily led.
Comment removed for CoC violation [ph]
It’s hard to be classy on the most classless and ignorant topic in the world. Remember when you were a child, and multiple forest fires raged for weeks at a time, reservoirs dried up completely, the arctic got above freezing, hurricanes happened in the winter, island nations started looking to relocate because they were sinking, emaciated polar bears drowned because they couldn’t swim the increased distance between ice sheets, and actual climatologists were concerned about the shocking and unprecedented changes in our climate? Neither do I.
I don’t remember the ice age either but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t real. Maybe a couple here are old enough to remember the dust bowl.
Oh dear, another name call, no self restraint I see.
All the things you mention are hysterical predictions gleaned off of AGW cultists websites....which are not being caused by "climate change". Your lack of scientific expertise is amazing. Many scientists think another ice age, perhaps a "little one", could happen at any time since we seem to be at another "Maunder Minimum" when it comes to solar activity.
Lol. I’m being schooled by a guy who thinks an ice age can occur over a few generations. No concept is too stupid for a line toeing conservative.
Ah you are right, my apologies. I'll try to be a bit better.
No no no, just no respect.
It's like you're channeling your Mar-a-Lago Shitbag's magical childish thinking: If I say I'm right, I'm right. Bizarre but all too common on the extreme right nowadays.
The goal seems to be to create even more stupid "concepts" as global warming scientific evidence becomes more settled.
Last Ice Age took just SIX months to arrive
It took just six months for a warm and sunny Europe to be engulfed in ice, according to new research.
Previous studies have suggested the arrival of the last Ice Age nearly 13,000 years ago took about a decade - but now scientists believe the process was up to 20 times as fast.
In scenes reminiscent of the Hollywood blockbuster The day After Tomorrow, the Northern Hemisphere was frozen by a sudden slowdown of the Gulf Stream, which allowed ice to spread hundreds of miles southwards from the Arctic.
Geological sciences professor William Patterson, who led the research, said: 'It would have been very sudden for those alive at the time. It would be the equivalent of taking Britain and moving it to the Arctic over the space of a few months.'
Professor Patterson's findings emerged from one of the most painstaking studies of climate changes ever attempted and reinforce the theory that the earth's climate is unstable and can switch between warm and cold incredibly quickly.
His conclusions, published in New Scientist, are based on a study of mud deposits extracted from a lake in Western Ireland, Lough Monreagh - a region he describes as having the 'best mud in the world in scientific terms'.
Professor Patterson used a precision robotic scalpel to scrape off layers of mud just 0.5mm thick. Each layer represented three months of sediment deposition, so variations between them could be used to measure changes in temperature over very short periods.
:
Do some research. These turnarounds can happen in just a few decades, as the geological record shows.
Problem being that William Patterson never had any scientific training so his methodology was highly suspect.
Big Lie Alert!!!
The one redeeming thing about your sort is that you really don't care how idiotic your claims are.
You got that right. He's now claiming the "geologic record" shows that the last ice age came on in just 6 months. They really don't care how stupid their claims get.
I asked Normie if he'd ever try to use a non-pukefunnel source for anything and his unsurprising response is to triple down on the bullshit.
I wonder if there are any climate-change deniers who aren't bible-babblers who oppose science? In any event they're free to submit their "LOL research" to a credible and relevant peer-reviewed academic journal. There must be a reason they generally refuse to do so and instead post their nonsense on social media.
Climate change deniers probably also deny evolution or the Big Bang, despite overwhelming evidence. it takes the same level of willful ignorance. I wonder how many of them also agree with creationism and/or a young earth?
It is rather odd how there doesn't appear to be any. The best I've seen is mere opinion.
Because it's all a conspiracy. Didn't you know that? LOL
This will be fun in the same way that the Big Tobacco trials, Prop h8 trial and the Dover trial about Cretinism were fun, merely by a court holding a trial of fact where the bad guys have to try to prove their moronic claims in court:
God told me to tell you to destroy your computer and cellphone. They are tools of the devil!
As well as indoor plumbing, medicine, electricity, T.V., radio, blended cloth, and automobiles. Books and tractors, by the way, are WAY out there. If god had wanted you to have any of those evil things, he'd have given them to you 3000 years ago.
Don't ya'll want to go straight to heaven at the end times? Only room for just over 4000 according to the bible, so you won't make the rapture if you don't give it all up, and you won't be able to get a good seat to watch over 6 billion people die horrible deaths from the 4 horseman.
SWEET! Sign me up /s...
Have you ever noticed that the most rabid anti-Muslims evangelical small c christian fundies only discernible motives are to provoke holy war with Islam to justify them tearing down the Dome of the Rock and replacing it with a brand new third Jewish Temple in order that prophesy be fulfilled so that Christ can finally return? The whole plot is so convoluted within the realm of reality it seems fantastically unbelievable yet that is a summary of the evangelical fundies motivation regarding both Judaism and Islam. They do not really give one hoot about the Jewish People or Israel so never mind that pretty much all the Jews and Muslims must die and suffer eternally along with billions of other Christians because, "It is written". One thing is for sure, they do not desire peace in the Middle East. What they want is a holy war. A Crusade against Islam wherein the destruction of Israel as we know it is merely a tribulation we must all suffer just to move things along. It is pure madness.
Fundamentalist are a plague upon all our houses no matter their colors or their stripes. Damn them all...
Right, because a religiously biased source is credible. >sarc<
With sources like that, it's no wonder YEC's and/or other science deniers the like lack any scientific acumen or credibility!
Such arguments will be comical to say the least.
I hear he works in mysterious ways.