That's pretty much 100% business marketing and engineering. One of the concerns I have is that Americans seem to have a very hard time determining what scinece even is. So, we get cigarette companies, oil companies and others cliaming to be science, and a populace that is baffled by crap like that.
Exactly, so we must be on guard for agenda driven "science" be it money or political (pretty much the latter encompasses the former, $ + power = control)
What we face today is just not that hard. Maybe it's harder that figuring out that cigarette companies are the best source of science on cigarettes! But, it's not some impossible to figure out question. We have Trump and the GOP denying our entire system of medical science (and that of the world) on COVID. This is a HUGE deal as thousands of Americans are dying. And you can't seriously claim that it is a difficult call to make. With energy policy, we're told by GOP, Trump and coal interests that clean energy will damage our whole way of LIFE!! But, in red state Iowa they found clean energy to be the cheapest form of energy, have a huge clean energy industry, are making it easier for corporations that need electricity to move there, and in the end are producing more electricity by wind than by any of their other single fuel. We're supposed to notice this stuff.
And yet wind and solar has a dirty side, like E cars, all that lithium batteries? Strip mined in giant mines.
OK, here's why I'm a little confused about what you are proposing here. I don't believe it was hard to figure out that cigarette companies are selling cigarettes and aren't actually the best source of medical science on their product. It SOUNDS like you are suggesting that we need to reject anything that seems to come from science and education. Do you think that ignornace is likely to be wiser and less self serving that science is when making public policy decisions? Do you ever go to a doctor for medical help?
Building wind turbines doesn't do that. And, I fully agree that we need to be funding serious investigation of battery technology and recycling. As I've said earlier, electric cars are coming. Every manufacturer knows that and they are building full lines of electric vehicles. Companies from Ford to Porsche are staking their futures on that. These cars offer features that people absolutely do want. It's not just the green party that buys electric cars - not by a country mile. My wife would pay money not to have to go to another gas station again. It's way beyond rational - it is just the way it is.
You aren't drawing any lines. And, you are pretending that it is hard to figure out that cigarette science is a marketing ploy. Where does your hate for science stop?
They have a downside too, no free lunch Wind Turbine Blades Will Continue to Pile Up at U.S. Landfills ... www.instituteforenergyresearch.org › renewable › wind... Mar 6, 2020 — Wind turbines are designed to last approximately 20 to 25 years. ... feet and weigh an average of 36 tons, posing a difficult disposal problem. Wind Turbine Blades Can't Be Recycled, So They're Piling Up ... www.bloomberg.com › news › features › wind-turbine-... Feb 5, 2020 — Fragments of wind turbine blades await burial at the Casper Regional Landfill in Wyoming. Photographer: Benjamin Rasmussen for Bloomberg ...
OK, I'll write off the above posts that used cigarette companies as an argument AGAINST science. I'll point ot COVID, where this administration has totally rejected and even assaulted our medical sccience (which is world leading) and has also attacked the Food and Drug Administration and has neutered OSHA - all founded on a rejection of scinece. And, I'll point out that this administration touts coal and continues to give fossil fuel tax breaks (as I've itemized on this board), assaulted CA for its energy direction, has claimed that clean energy would negatively impact our lives (which is proven 100% TOTALLY false by red state Iowa and others). These are two VERY important issues where this administration has not just rejected science, but has attacked those who do actually listen.
This is where we need to get smarter. The Institute for Energy Research is a company founded by Charles Koch and funded by Exxon. It's essentially a fossil fuel lobby just like cigareet "science" was a cigarette company lobby. They don't just promote fossil fuel. They also attack science on climate change. And, claiming that wind is inherently worse than oil and coal due to parts that can't be reused is just plain nutty. In fact, we probably need nuclear power, too - and talk about recycling problems!!
From the same link: ". . . Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2 . Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way. . . ." Aliens Cause Global Warming Thursday, January 31st, 2019
Then I misunderstood the thread topic. I don't care much about the public policy debate, except insofar as it is mislead by mistaken science. I care about the debate in science.
Sometimes the denial of a scientific claim can be rational and justified. I would not call a person a "science denier" for objecting to some scientific claims. However, one should always have a good reason for objecting to any particular scientific claim. Often, people object to AGW based on politics and simply dismiss it as nonsense without ever spending any time studying the matter.
I don't like to use the consensus argument for climate science but I believe that it is significant when the overwhelming majority of scientists have formed a consensus. Scientists are by nature skeptics and don't readily form conclusions on a particular subject until there is very strong evidence. The idea that climate scientists are incapable of independent thought and just fall into line around what the majority believe is, IMO, ridiculous. Human caused global warming had its share of skeptics during the 20th century and the consensus developed slowly.- after the case for it grew stronger over time. It is true that what matters is the evidence and if the evidence is either weak or doubtful, a strong consensus will not form.
Gunnar Myrdal found differently. "Generally speaking, we can observe that the scientists in any particular institutional and political setting move as a flock, reserving their controversies and particular originalities for matters that do not call into question the fundamental system of biases they share." —Gunnar Myrdal, Objectivity in Social Research
Of course they do. Scientists arrive at a consensus when the majority of scientists agree that the science IS settled. With Einstein, General Relativity was published in 1915 but it wasn't generally accepted until it was experimentally verified by Author Eddington, in 1919. And it wasn't fully accepted as a theory until other aspects and predictions could be tested, such as time dilation. This didn't occur until the early 1960s. In order to achieve the status of a scientific theory, a hypothesis must make one or more unique predictions that would only be true if the theory is correct. And then it must be tested time after time by myriads of scientists who all agree that they get the expected result. Only then do we find a consensus and the hypothesis is elevated to a theory. Oh yes, and when we triggered the first atomic bomb, we didn't know with absolute certainty that it would work. That too was a test of Einstein's theory. And indeed we get the expected amount of energy out of a nuclear explosion.
What you are talking about is a paradigm. It has been said that when it comes to scientific paradigms, no one ever really changes their minds. But the old scientists eventually die and new ones who have grown up with the new paradigm take their place. Einstein never fully accepted Quantum Mechanics. And then he died and the world of science moved on. But this speaks to the fundamental nature of the universe. It isn't a disagreement one can resolve over a cup of coffee or some brandy by the fire. These are highly complex issues that often cannot yet be tested. Physics moves painfully slowly; often in ticks of a century at a time. In fact, the first confirmation of Relativity was 101 years ago.
Climate science is not the same as social research. I don't disagree that social scientists of the mid-twentieth century moved as a flock. Climate science is based on physics primarily and the intellectual requirements to be a successful physicist are beyond what it takes to be a successful sociologist.
Myrdal was referring to his social research into scientific disciplines generally. Neither physicists nor climate scientists get a pass. And Myrdal, btw, was a Nobel laureate.
Glad you brought up paradigms. The anthropogenic global warming (AGW) paradigm has dominated climate science in recent decades, certainly since about 1995. See Bernie Lewin, Searching for the Catastrophe Signal. In a nutshell, the AGW paradigm holds that greenhouse gases are the vastly predominant driver of climate change in our time. The paradigm has however failed its test, as we shall see. I recently re-read Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, within which the following passage is found (p.144, University of Chicago Press, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition): "In so far as he is engaged in normal science, the research worker is a solver of puzzles, not a tester of paradigms. . . . Therefore, paradigm-testing occurs only after persistent failure to solve a noteworthy puzzle has given rise to crisis. And even then it occurs only after the sense of crisis has evoked an alternate candidate for paradigm." The noteworthy puzzle is the specification of equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS), and the failure to solve it presents the crisis of the AGW paradigm. Professor Nir Shaviv put it well. Climate debate at the Cambridge Union - a 10 minute summary of the main problems with the standard alarmist polemic "The most important question in climate science is climate sensitivity, by how much will the average global temperature increase if you say double the amount of CO2. Oddly enough, the range quoted by the IPCC, which is 1.5 to 4.5°C per CO2 doubling was set, are you ready for this, in a federal committee in 1979! (Google the Charney report). All the IPCC scientific reports from 1990 to 2013 state that the range is the same. The only exception is the penultimate report which stated it is 2 to 4.5. The reason they returned to the 1.5 to 4.5 range is because there was virtually no global warming since 2000 (the so called “hiatus”), which is embarrassingly inconsistent with a large climate sensitivity. What’s more embarrassing is that over almost 4 decades of research and billions of dollars (and pounds) invested in climate research we don’t know the answer to the most important question any better? This is simply amazing I think."
Great! Maybe I should have been clearer. Or, maybe my take on the OP was off. I don't view differences between scientists as "science denial". And given the level of agreement throuhout the field of scientists contributing to climate, I think the refusal to allow public policy to be informed by science seems like the huge issue. Even your guy, who is a clear outlier, seems to fall within the range of warming supported by the IPCC. So, at least to that level HE is being denied, too.
