jmw
Industrial
- Jun 27, 2001
- 7,435
Actually, my real point is that it is in the nature of scientists to disagree, especially since they deal so much in theory and it is the disagreements that help bring out the next level of "truth".
Take any four scientists and you'll probably get five opposed viewpoints.
So my suspicions are most aroused when I am told that Scientists are "unanimous" where "unanimous" is media speak for the fact that disenting voices are supressed. In this case the media, regretably, includes some leading scientific journals who are proving more media like than scientific. One peer reviewer notes that his unpopular viewpoint has caused him to be excluded from the peer review process.
I am not a climatologist. So for me to try and make an "informed" decision about global warming on the evidence is futile since even climatologists, or aat least, "scientists" appear to disagree. SO the best i can do is to apply some logic.
My own observations are that meteorologists (sp? aka weathermen) seem to be moderately successful predicting that it will rain tommmorow, less successful at predicting sunshine tommorow (it will probable still rain, unles syou live in the desert in which case this should be reversed) and increasingly less accurate at forcasting the weather as we go forward a day or two.
Despite a long long history of military investment in weather forcasting they aren't that much better than the guy who looks to see how far up the hill his cattle are.
Weather prediction is notoriously complex because the weather is complex.
Now we have scientists predicting that the earth is warming up and that man is to blame. Now since we don't have a decent computer model to tell us if it will rain tommorow, just how much more reliance are we expected to place on a global warming computer model?
The problem is that once the media siezes hold of a scientists utterings (especially with the contrivance of the scientists who now have to chase the big bucks more than ever before) we can expect that good news is no news, good news is, paradoxically, bad news. World ends tommorrow is headline news. World does not end tommorrow doesn't even mak e it as a filler, they'd rather publish a jiss and tell from Dilbert.
Of course, once the public is thoroughly panicked, enter the baby kissers.
I find it ironic that all the "scary" hollywood films are of the "Jaws" variety where society (the Mayor) won't listen to the solitary scientists doom and gloom while the reality is that the worse the doom and gloom is and the least verifiable it is the more the baby kissers get involved.
The thing is, like most everything else, the only way we will ever know if the scientists are right is if it happens.
The closest analgy to this is the story of the man who every evening got on his comuter train and proceded to tear up his newspaper into tiny squares and arrange them all around himself on the floor. Finally another passenger, having watched him do this day in and day out for several months (he was British and hadn't been introduced) asked him why he did it?
"Oh," said the man, "It's to keep the elephants away"
"But there are no Elephants"
"I know, effective, isn't it?"
In other words the baby kissers are quite comfortable getting on this sort of bandwagon. If they invest millions and nothing happens it's because those were wisely spent millions(the first in political history) and if it all goes pear shaped anyway, it's because it was too little and too late and blame the oponents. It's a win win situation and the media can sell more papers.
JMW
Take any four scientists and you'll probably get five opposed viewpoints.
So my suspicions are most aroused when I am told that Scientists are "unanimous" where "unanimous" is media speak for the fact that disenting voices are supressed. In this case the media, regretably, includes some leading scientific journals who are proving more media like than scientific. One peer reviewer notes that his unpopular viewpoint has caused him to be excluded from the peer review process.
I am not a climatologist. So for me to try and make an "informed" decision about global warming on the evidence is futile since even climatologists, or aat least, "scientists" appear to disagree. SO the best i can do is to apply some logic.
My own observations are that meteorologists (sp? aka weathermen) seem to be moderately successful predicting that it will rain tommmorow, less successful at predicting sunshine tommorow (it will probable still rain, unles syou live in the desert in which case this should be reversed) and increasingly less accurate at forcasting the weather as we go forward a day or two.
Despite a long long history of military investment in weather forcasting they aren't that much better than the guy who looks to see how far up the hill his cattle are.
Weather prediction is notoriously complex because the weather is complex.
Now we have scientists predicting that the earth is warming up and that man is to blame. Now since we don't have a decent computer model to tell us if it will rain tommorow, just how much more reliance are we expected to place on a global warming computer model?
The problem is that once the media siezes hold of a scientists utterings (especially with the contrivance of the scientists who now have to chase the big bucks more than ever before) we can expect that good news is no news, good news is, paradoxically, bad news. World ends tommorrow is headline news. World does not end tommorrow doesn't even mak e it as a filler, they'd rather publish a jiss and tell from Dilbert.
Of course, once the public is thoroughly panicked, enter the baby kissers.
I find it ironic that all the "scary" hollywood films are of the "Jaws" variety where society (the Mayor) won't listen to the solitary scientists doom and gloom while the reality is that the worse the doom and gloom is and the least verifiable it is the more the baby kissers get involved.
The thing is, like most everything else, the only way we will ever know if the scientists are right is if it happens.
The closest analgy to this is the story of the man who every evening got on his comuter train and proceded to tear up his newspaper into tiny squares and arrange them all around himself on the floor. Finally another passenger, having watched him do this day in and day out for several months (he was British and hadn't been introduced) asked him why he did it?
"Oh," said the man, "It's to keep the elephants away"
"But there are no Elephants"
"I know, effective, isn't it?"
In other words the baby kissers are quite comfortable getting on this sort of bandwagon. If they invest millions and nothing happens it's because those were wisely spent millions(the first in political history) and if it all goes pear shaped anyway, it's because it was too little and too late and blame the oponents. It's a win win situation and the media can sell more papers.
JMW
