Publications like Science & Nature are awash in bias

[Bob Enyart]

From today's Wall Street Journal:

A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that [global warming] science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.)

Initially, one might imagine that weather patterns would be a topic that evolution publications could cover without emotional bias. But that would be naive, no?

Excerpts from that WSJ article:

The Climate Change Climate Change
The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere.

Poland: the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming.

Czech Republic: In the Czech Republic, where President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of the population believes humans play a role.

France: President Nicolas Sarkozy wants Claude Allegre to lead the country's new ministry of industry [in part because the global warming alarmist] geochemist has since recanted.

New Zealand: last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-and-trade program.

Japan: Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history."

Norway: Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries global warming as the "new religion."

Australia: the Parliament is preparing to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme.

America: Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief.

And a group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.)​

Enjoy the entire report...

My friend and government scientist Ed Holroyd is one of the 9,000 Ph.Ds who have signed the anti-global warming petition (along with 22,000 other U.S. scientists). If you search you'll find Ed's name listed there (and... don't spread this around but... he was on ARTL's site selection committe for the world's largest... well... it's a secret).

Weather or Whether? If Nature and Science can't even be intellectually fair to 54 noted physicists about the weather, of all things, what makes our evolutionist friends here at TOL doubt the intense opportunity for bias among professional Darwinist journalists about something as far-reaching as whether there is evidence that we were recently created?

-Bob Enyart
KGOV.com

 

[koban]

You better be careful or manbearpig will getcha!

 

[chatmaggot]

You better be careful or manbearpig will getcha!

What does this even mean? Does it have any relevance about the opening post?

 

[koban]

:doh: Ya know, there's this thing called the internet....

 

[Bob Enyart]

Koban's got you on this one Chatmaggot...

Koban's got you on this one Chatmaggot...

What does this even mean? Does it have any relevance about the opening post?

Well CM, Koban's got you on this one...

-Bob Enyart
KGOV.com

 

[koban]

seriously though Bob - it's good to see this get some press. I wonder if it will make any difference on the policy makers in DC?

 

[Bob Enyart]

It WILL get solved, whether it needs to or not...

It WILL get solved, whether it needs to or not...

seriously though Bob - it's good to see this get some press. I wonder if it will make any difference on the policy makers in DC?

Let's see: Obama's worldview (as best he could describe it if he tried being honest) is that he ascended to power by attacking George Bush and the evil Republicans. So whatever raw intellect he may have he has subordinated to his opposition to Republicans, and since Republicans were promoted socialism, government health care, abortion, homosexuality, global warming hysteria, he'll continue on autopilot promoting the same Republican agenda, only more aggressively.

That's his worldview as he could describe it if he were to try to be honest. His actual worldview is based on his part in the long war against God. His superficial anti-Republican worldview was generated by his naive acceptance of the absurdity that George W. Bush and the Republican Party are trying to implement Christianity through public policy.

So, perhaps soon the scientific community will agree there is no global warming problem. But I would think that would have little impact on Obama and the Democrats solving it.

-Bob Enyart
KGOV.com

 

[Gerald]

And here I was thinking this was going to be an indictment of the natualistic bias that permeates mainstream science publications, where everybody who attempts to present alternatives is mocked and reviled as a crank or a crazy.

 

[chatmaggot]

:doh: Ya know, there's this thing called the internet....

I guess you're right. After reading about it I know why I never heard of it. It's from SouthPark. There are certain things that I do not watch.

 

[Bob Enyart]

natualistic bias

natualistic bias

...natualistic bias that permeates mainstream science publications...

Yeah, like life came from the sea... (search for Nemo)

-Bob Enyart
KGOV.com

 

[fool]

Here's your problem Bob, you only get things half right, this is a great example.
The scientists you mentioned signed a petition about man made global warming.
Then you say this;

So, perhaps soon the scientific community will agree there is no global warming problem. But I would think that would have little impact on Obama and the Democrats solving it.

-Bob Enyart
KGOV.com

That the Earth is warming isn't the debate, the debate is man's role in that warming.

 

[Gerald]

Yeah, like life came from the sea... (search for Nemo)

-Bob Enyart
KGOV.com

Actually, I was thinking more of Alvin Plantinga's views that automatically ruling out supernatural explanations for events is unjustified: "f you exclude the supernatural from science, then if the world or some phenomena within it are supernaturally caused – as most of the world's people believe – you won't be able to reach that truth scientifically."

In other words, if one doesn't seek the supernatural, it's a certainty that one won't find it.

 

[Flipper]

Yeah, gotta second that, Bob - I don't think there are many scientific skeptics regarding the overall general trend of the earth currently warming.

The questions tend to be around how much of it we humans can be blamed for, how long it will go on for and how severe will it be, and what the consequences to man and the planet will be.

As I'm sure you know, these are all difficult multivariable questions. I believe that the majority of scientists in the relevant fields support the current dominant paradigm because they either believe manmade global warming to be true or that they believe it is better to be safe (and green) than sorry.

I think it is quite unwise, whether you believe in mankind's role in it or not, for us not to prepare coastal regions and flood defenses for global warming.

I also feel that there's a good argument to be made for us to be conscientious stewards of the earth by endeavoring to be conservation and ecologically-minded.

 

[Granite]

Yeah, gotta second that, Bob - I don't think there are many scientific skeptics regarding the overall general trend of the earth currently warming.

The questions tend to be around how much of it we humans can be blamed for, how long it will go on for and how severe will it be, and what the consequences to man and the planet will be.

As I'm sure you know, these are all difficult multivariable questions. I believe that the majority of scientists in the relevant fields support the current dominant paradigm because they either believe manmade global warming to be true or that they believe it is better to be safe (and green) than sorry.

I think it is quite unwise, whether you believe in mankind's role in it or not, for us not to prepare coastal regions and flood defenses for global warming.

I also feel that there's a good argument to be made for us to be conscientious stewards of the earth by endeavoring to be conservation and ecologically-minded.

There seems to be a willful recklessness coming from these skeptics of climate change that I simply do not understand at all.

 

[Stripe]

Yeah, gotta second that, Bob - I don't think there are many scientific skeptics regarding the overall general trend of the earth currently warming.

That's not news. The Earth warms up and cools down occasionally.

As I'm sure you know, these are all difficult multivariable questions. I believe that the majority of scientists in the relevant fields support the current dominant paradigm because they either believe manmade global warming to be true or that they believe it is better to be safe (and green) than sorry.

Unfortunately being "safe" and "green" costs people their livelihoods.

I think it is quite unwise, whether you believe in mankind's role in it or not, for us not to prepare coastal regions and flood defenses for global warming.

Why? What possible use would there be for building a defence when it would make just as much economic sense to move inland? Why spend trillions of dollars now on a hunch solving a problem that probably will not eventuate where, if it did happen, could just as easily (and probably more cheaply) be solved at the time?

I also feel that there's a good argument to be made for us to be conscientious stewards of the earth by endeavoring to be conservation and ecologically-minded.

Science, my friend, is supposed to be unemotional. There is nothing scientific about the global change movement that demands a response from people based on the fear that sections of the earth might become arid, flooded or generally less hospitable than they are.

What you are promoting is a social-welfare program, not good science.

 

[chair]

... His actual worldview is based on his part in the long war against God...

Ah. I see. Everybody picks sides. You are either with God, or against Him (and presumably with Satan in that case). And guess what? There is someone here who can tell us who is on which side! Neato!

 

[Flipper]

That's not news. The Earth warms up and cools down occasionally.

Unfortunately being "safe" and "green" costs people their livelihoods.

Why? What possible use would there be for building a defence when it would make just as much economic sense to move inland? Why spend trillions of dollars now on a hunch solving a problem that probably will not eventuate where, if it did happen, could just as easily (and probably more cheaply) be solved at the time?

LOL yeah, we should move the whole of Holland inland. And London. And New York. That's got to be cheaper than bolstering flood defenses.

Science, my friend, is supposed to be unemotional. There is nothing scientific about the global change movement that demands a response from people based on the fear that sections of the earth might become arid, flooded or generally less hospitable than they are.

What you are promoting is a social-welfare program, not good science.

I guess you haven't heard that melting polar ice will increase the overall volume of water in the oceans. The effect of this can be effectively estimated.

I don't know why it seems so hard for people to believe that humans can affect the climate. Acid rain is now a well-established phenomenon. Desertification due to poorly-planned deforestation is well established. If you hunt enough apex predators or introduce non-natural species, you change the local ecology. All of these things have been well demonstrated. Man already has the power to change his environment.

And, whether you like it or not, our affect on certain aspects will also affect people's livelihood. In Canada, cod stocks were overfished with little regulation and collapsed, and the effective absence of catchable fish forced the industry to collapse. In the North Sea, strong regulations were put in place earlier - regulations that put fishermen out of work. The difference is that the North Sea stocks are now starting to recover whereas the Canadian stocks have not. Link

Which of these two outcomes would you prefer to see? I, personally, prefer a world that has sustainable fish stocks, tigers, rhinos, etc in it. Because in an unregulated world, it seems clear that we should soon have none of those things due to short-sightedness and an unwillingness to take action in the shorter term because 'it might cost people's jobs'.

What we are figuring out is what the longer term affects of these changes (and many others) will be. But even natural processes (assuming all global warming to be part of a natural trend) will affect how we live. I find things like this to be a rather depressing consequence of our current lack of interest in stewardship.

 

[Bob Enyart]

Fool and Flipper, you think most scientists will continue warming worry?

Fool and Flipper, you think most scientists will continue warming worry?

Gerald, of course, you made a great point, and I agreed with it. I was only punning with the misspelling

Here's your problem Bob, you only get things half right, this is a great example. The scientists you mentioned signed a petition about man made global warming.
Then you say... [BE: yadayadayda] That the Earth is warming isn't the debate, the debate is man's role in that warming.

This in the Wall Street Journal Article from the OP:

The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans.

Flipper and Fool, I know this is crazy, but... I'm on record claiming that global warming comes from the sun. In addition to steady temps for the last 8 years, aren't we in for a 12-year period of calm on the sun? Man-made or not, scientists are moving away from fear over melting ice caps, warming-induced hurricanes (MIA last couple of years, man-made or not), rising oceans, etc.

Thanks for your thoughts!

-Bob Enyart
KGOV.com

 

[Bob Enyart]

Ah. I see. Everybody picks sides. You are either with God, or against Him (and presumably with Satan in that case). And guess what? There is someone here who can tell us who is on which side! Neato!

Yes chair, and you should ask where you fall...

-Bob Enyart
KGOV.com

 

[chair]

Yes chair, and you should ask where you fall...

-Bob Enyart
KGOV.com

No need to ask.

By the way, can you give me God's cell phone number? I assume you have it. I want to ask Him something by SMS.