Marc Morano Eviscerates Bill Nye the Science Guy on Climate Change

Here is a partial transcript of Marc’s statements that have links to info (via NewsBusters), Marc IS Climate Depot:

MARC MORANO, CLIMATE DEPOT: We followed the evidence. There are quite literally hundreds of factors that influence global temperature, everything from tilt of the earth’s axis to ocean cycles to water vapor, methane, solar system, the sun, cloud feedback, volcanic dust. The idea that CO2 is the tail that wags the dog is not supportable.

And if you go down and look at the scientific literature, we are finding reams of data. And new peer-reviewed study showing the Medieval and Roman warming periods as warm or warmer than today without our CO2 emissions. So what’s happened here is the whole movement, because now we’ve gone 16 years without global warming, according to the U.N. data [from UK Met Office], and they’ve now morphed into extreme weather.

And we have the absurd spectacle of people claiming that acts of Congress and United Nations can control the weather and make hurricanes less nasty and make tornadoes less frequent, which by the way none of them are showing any trends at all that are unusual.

[….]

(Note on overpopulation claims: see Fred Pearce on ‘The overpopulation myth’: Population growth is slowing…The idea that growing human numbers will destroy the planet is nonsense‘ and ‘Grist Mag. Going Down: Is too few people the new ‘population problem?‘) 

MORGAN: Well, so Marc Morano, if there is a massively increased acceleration in CO2 in the atmosphere at the same time that there’s been a bigger than double the sizing of the population of the planet, why would that not be inexorably linked? Explain to me.

MORANO: CO2 is rising. No one is disputing that. What Bill and I just did was waste everyone’s time explaining that CO2 is rising. The question is what impact does CO2 have on the weather, what impact the CO2 have on climate change. And that, as we you look at the geologic records, we’ve had warmer periods where it’s been — with higher — with lower CO2 and we’ve had colder periods with higher CO2. And you have to go way back for some of that but the bottom line is hundreds of factors are dictating our climate.

The Medieval Warm Period was both southern and northern hemisphere. On my Web site there’s literally [scores of studies] — it demolishes the idea of a hockey stick, new peer-reviewed study, so the idea that Bill Nye is just going around saying CO2 is up, therefore global warming is dangerous, we should be concerned, it’s not. It’s not dangerous. The bottom line is all these factors —

[….]

MORANO: No. You go to the peer-reviewed literature. You’re looking at anecdotal evidence. This is now the level of your daily horoscope. Basically global warmists like Bill Nye say global warming will cause many bad weather events and guess what? Bad weather events happen all the time so people look and they say look, there’s more proof, there’s a bad weather event.

Bottom line, big tornadoes, F-3 and larger since 1950s have dropped dramatically. Bottom line, we’ve gone the longest period without a major U.S. category 3 or larger hurricane hitting the U.S. since 1900, maybe the civil war.

Bottom line, new study in the “Journal Nature,” peer-reviewed, no change in U.S. drought in the last 60 years. Bottom line, a new study out shows that drought has not changed in 85 to —

[….]

MORANO: Why it’s the wrong argument? Because every proposal ever done including the United Nations Kyoto Protocol would not even detectibly impact the temperatures assuming you buy into their science. What we’re talking about —

NYE: We’re not talking about the temperature. MORANO: We’re talking about a climate bill in the United States. President Obama was going around telling people it will keep the planet four or five degrees cooler for our grandchildren. His own EPA said it wouldn’t affect global CO2 levels let alone temperature. And if you actually do —

NYE: CO2 —

(CROSSTALK)

MORANO: Right now the developing world is getting 1,000 plus coal plants, there are 1.3 billion people don’t have running water and electricity. If we actually go the route of trying to stop carbon- based energy which has been their lifeline, which would lower infant mortality and long life expectancy, it would be the most immoral position you can take. So the bottom line is even if the skeptics are wrong the solutions that the global warming alarmists have proposed would have no detectible impact on climate.

[….]

MORANO: … that violate 81 one out of 87 of the basic principles of forecasting.

NYE: So —

MORGAN: Marc Morano, do you accept that the ocean levels are rising, that the planet is getting hotter, that CO2 emissions have dramatically increased in the last 50 years, and —

NYE: And ice sheets are shrinking.

MORGAN: Ice sheets are shrinking and the planet population is doubling and accelerating at a terrifying rate, and that the combination of all these things is likely to be a major problem for the next two or three generations, and therefore, doing nothing shouldn’t really be a sensible responsible option. MORANO: Doing nothing — first of all the United States did nothing, our CO2 emissions are dropping as we move to fracking away from coal through technology so the idea of nothing — there’s nothing to do. The idea of — there’s no way you can solve a nonproblem. Sea level has been rising since the end of the last ice age. There’s no acceleration. The Dutch Meteorological Institute said there’s no acceleration. You can look at the data, the land base data.

NYE: Boy, I just —

MORANO: There’s no acceleration of the sea level.

NYE: We just don’t agree on the facts. So we’re not going to get anywhere.

MORANO: Where it goes — the scary and where the horror story is in all these predictions. And they come out and say it’s worse than we thought. Why —

The Left (in this case Bill Nye and Piers Morgan) are referencing a religious eschatology that use to reside only with the religious… now the professional, secular Left has their own ideology of Armageddon. I would rather depend on more sound — and less eschatological — decisions made on these matters:

▼ “We’re not scientifically there yet. Despite what you may have heard in the media, there is nothing like a consensus of scientific opinion that this is a problem. Because there is natural variability in the weather, you cannot statistically know for another 150 years.” — UN IPCC’s Tom Tripp, a member of the UN IPCC since 2004 and listed as one of the lead authors and serves as the Director of Technical Services & Development for U.S. Magnesium.

▼ “Any reasonable scientific analysis must conclude the basic theory wrong!!” — NASA Scientist Dr. Leonard Weinstein who worked 35 years at the NASA Langley Research Center and finished his career there as a Senior Research Scientist. Weinstein is presently a Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute of Aerospace.

▼ “Please remain calm: The Earth will heal itself — Climate is beyond our power to control…Earth doesn’t care about governments or their legislation. You can’t find much actual global warming in present-day weather observations. Climate change is a matter of geologic time, something that the earth routinely does on its own without asking anyone’s permission or explaining itself.” — Nobel Prize-Winning Stanford University Physicist Dr. Robert B. Laughlin, who won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1998, and was formerly a research scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

(From: SPECIAL REPORT: More Than 1000 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims)

Remember, we have had most of the Co2 produced in world history since 1998, and we have had no warming for 16-years. So the connection Bill Nye tries to make is fictitious so far.

Mouse Over Graph

(From a PREVIOUS post) In case you are out of the loop, no warming has occurred in 16-years:

Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released… and here is the chart to prove it

✦ The figures reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012 there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures

✦ This means that the ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996

The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week. 

The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.

This means that the ‘plateau’ or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years.

…read more…

Skeptical Science`s Shenanigans Catching Up With Them

The actions of Skeptical Science as of late have gotten it and its affiliates into a bit of trouble, even having a paper pulled from a reputable journals site! Why? This quote from Climate Resistance (via Australian Climate Madness)

Readers will no doubt remember climate change psychologist, Stephan Lewandowsky and his attempt to connect climate change denial and scepticism to conspiracy theories.

Lewandowsky et al’s paper, NASA faked the moon landing|Therefore (Climate) Science is a Hoax: An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science was published on the author’s university web site, though it was presented as ‘in press’, shortly to be published by the Journal of Psychological Science. However, in spite of being ‘in press’, the article never made it to hard copy.

We might reasonably be allowed to speculate what the reasons for the paper not making it to print were. One reason may be that it was, as has been widely observed, utter BS. Even Lewandowsky’s own colleagues pointed out its many flaws in methodology, and its naked attempt to diminish Lewandowsky’s opposites in the climate debate — climate bloggers.

[….]

But what is remarkable, however, is that seemingly academic research should have fallen to this level. Lewandowsky reduces academia to a silly blog comment war. He drags journals, and research organisations into this war, undermining the value of research in general and trust in it. The thrust of Lewandowsky’s paper is ‘I picked a fight on the Internet, and this is what people said about me’, which, of course, omits any criticism of his work that may enable him to develop a better argument.

And that’s the point. Lewandowsky’s research is intended to reduce the phenomenon of ‘scepticism’ and ‘denial’ without taking any notice of what sceptics say, except when it confirms to the stereotype Lewandowsky wants to demonstrate the existence of. No doubt that’s a ‘conspiracy theory’ on his view, but the truth is much simpler: either his mediocre talents aren’t sufficient for the critical self-reflection necessary to produce robust research, or an inflated ego precludes critical self-reflection.

The Conspiracy Crew of Skeptical Science

…[John Cook] and his psych sidekick Dr. Stephan Levandowsky are big on conspiracy theory studies as a tool to smear skeptics, quite certain that climate skeptics are mentally aberrant, even though they never gave the readers of this blog a chance to vote in their horridly self serving and skewed survey. Given that, I think a case could easily be made for psychological projection in Cook’s thinking. That flawed sampling of actual skeptic websites could be why Lewandowsky’s paper was recently pulled from publication by the scientific journal…. But, this behavior is pretty much par for the course given the juvenile antics we’ve seen from the cartoonist turned conspiracy theory publisher and the whole crew at SkS… (WUWT)

Who runs Skeptical Science? Popular Technology Blog explains:

Skeptical Science is a climate alarmist website created by a self-employed cartoonist, John Cook. It is moderated by zealots who ruthlessly censor any and all form of dissent from their alarmist position. This way they can pretend to win arguments, when in reality they have all been refuted. The abuse and censorship does not pertain to simply any dissenting commentator there but to highly credentialed and respected climate scientists as well; Dr. Pielke Sr. has unsuccessfully attempted to engage in discussions there only to be childishly taunted and censored while Dr. Michaels has been dishonestly quoted and smeared. The irony of the site’s oxymoronic name “Skeptical Science” is that the site is not skeptical of even the most extreme alarmist positions.

John Cook is now desperately trying to cover up his background that he was employed as a cartoonist for over a decade with no prior employment history in academia or climate science.

Thanks to the Wayback Machine we can reveal what his website originally said,

I’m not a climatologist or a scientist but a self employed cartoonist” – John Cook, Skeptical Science (mouse over pic below to see it)

On the same expose of Skeptical “Science” we find two bios of skeptics:

Patrick J. Michaels, A.B. Biological Sciences, University of Chicago (1971); S.M. Biology, University of Chicago (1975); Ph.D. Ecological Climatology, University of Wisconsin-Madison (1979); Research and Project Assistant, Center for Climatic Research, University of Wisconsin (1976-1979); Assistant Professor of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia (1980-1986); Virginia State Climatologist (1980-2007); President, Central Virginia Chapter, American Meteorological Society (1986-1987); Executive Board, American Association of State Climatologists (1986-1989); Associate Professor of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia (1986-1995); President, American Association of State Climatologists (1987-1988); Chair, Committee on Applied Climatology, American Meteorological Society (1988-1999); Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies, Cato Institute (1992-Present); Visiting Scientist, Marshall Institute (1996-Present); Member, American Association for the Advancement of Science; Member, Association of American Geographers; Member, Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society; Professor of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia (1996-Present); Contributor and Expert Reviewer, IPCC (1990, 1992, 1995, 2001, 2007)

Roger A. Pielke Sr., B.A. Mathematics, Towson State College (1968); M.S. Meteorology, Pennsylvania State University (1969); Ph.D. Meteorology, Pennsylvania State University (1973); Research Assistant, Pennsylvania State University (1968); National Science Foundation Trainee, Pennsylvania State University (1968-1971); Research Meteorologist, Experimental Meteorology Laboratory, NOAA (1971-1974); Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia (1974-1977); Distinguished Authorship Award, NOAA (1974); Leroy Meisinger Award, American Meteorological Society (1977); Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia (1978-1981); Chief Editor, Monthly Weather Review (1981-1985); Fellow, American Meteorological Society (1982); Associate Professor of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University (1982-1985); Abell New Faculty Research and Graduate Program Award (1984); Deputy Director, Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (1985-1988); Professor of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University (1985-2000), Abell Research Faculty Award (1987/1988); Researcher of the Year, Colorado State University Research Foundation (1993), Pennsylvania State Centennial Fellow (1996); Alumni of the Year, Pennsylvania State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences (1999); Colorado State Climatologist (1999-2006); Engineering Dean’s Council Award, Colorado State University (2000); Adjunct Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Duke University (2003-2006); Fellow, American Geophysical Union (2004); Visiting Professor, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Arizona (2004); Senior Research Scientist, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado-Boulder (2005-Present); Senior Research Associate, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Colorado-Boulder (2005-Present); Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University (2007-Present)

What is done then is summed up well by a forum post after quoting a doctorate holding climatologist who is skeptical of the claims that man is driving the climate change we see (or don’t see):

So, what John Cook has done with his various statements is to draw a cartoon version of what skeptics like Professor Lindzen have said and then debunks it. The end result is about as accurate as a bugs bunny cartoon explaining quantum physics. But then, what would anyone expect of a website ran by a self employed cartoonist?

And as Popular Technology Blog points out those who are more serious about climate have concluded through critique or obfuscation the cartoon’ish character of Skeptical Science:

`Warmist` Goes To Antarctica To Draw Attention To Global Warming, Gets Severe Frostbite, Abandons Mission

This comes by way of Climate Depot, who links to Tom Nelson’s short post on the matter:

Ranulph Fiennes pulls out of Antarctic trek after suffering severe frostbite – The Washington Post

LONDON — British explorer Ranulph Fiennes on Monday pulled out of an expedition to cross Antarctica during the region’s winter after developing frostbite — a bitter disappointment for an adventurer who had spent years preparing for one of the last great polar challenges.

Sir Ranulph Fiennes to Attempt First Wintertime Trans-Antarctic Trek

…the expedition team hopes ‘The Coldest Journey’ will draw attention to global warming — namely, the effect that climate change has wrought upon the polar ice cap.  [Via The Reference Frame]

One comment on Nelson’s post is as follows:

Unfortunately, with all the extra ice in Antarctica they had to go further than they thought. Still, as global warmists, they will have refused to believe that there could possibly have been an increase in sea ice.

One explanation of why Global Warming has not been happening for the past decade[+] is explained by the University of Colorado (Via WUWT):

According to a press release from the University of Colorado Boulder:

A team led by the University of Colorado Boulder looking for clues about why Earth did not warm as much as scientists expected between 2000 and 2010 now thinks the culprits are hiding in plain sight — dozens of volcanoes spewing sulfur dioxide.

The study results essentially exonerate Asia, including India and China, two countries that are estimated to have increased their industrial sulfur dioxide emissions by about 60 percent from 2000 to 2010 through coal burning, said lead study author Ryan Neely, who led the research as part of his CU-Boulder doctoral thesis. Small amounts of sulfur dioxide emissions from Earth’s surface eventually rise 12 to 20 miles into the stratospheric aerosol layer of the atmosphere, where chemical reactions create sulfuric acid and water particles that reflect sunlight back to space, cooling the planet.

Bob ends the WUWT post with:

Bottom line: There’s still no consensus from climate scientists about the cause of the slowdown in the warming rate of global surface temperatures.

And of course, the sea surface temperature and ocean heat content reveal another reason: there hadn’t been a strong El Niño to release monumental volumes of warm water from below the surface of the tropical Pacific and shift up the sea surface temperatures of the Atlantic, Indian and West Pacific Oceans. Refer to my essay “The Manmade Global Warming Challenge” and my ebook Who Turned on the Heat?

In case you are out of the loop, no warming has occurred in 16-years:

Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released… and here is the chart to prove it

The figures reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012 there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures

This means that the ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996

The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week. 

The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.

This means that the ‘plateau’ or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years.

…read more…

There will always be those who cannot admit the obvious, for obvious reasons (CFACT):

And this denial is political, not evidential, as David Mamet points out in his book:

* “The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders. . . . Dr. Lal’s admission will only add to the mounting furor over the melting glaciers assertion, which the IPCC was last week forced to withdraw because it has no scientific foundation.” (David Rose, The Daily Mail, January 24, 2010)

Finally! One Of Gore`s Trained Presenters Debates A Climate Skeptic (h/t `What’s Up With That`)

(Varying audio levels) From video description: “Heartland Institute Senior Fellow James Taylor debates Ray Bellamy, M.D., a Tallahassee Orthopedic Surgeon at the Elks Club Lodge at 276 North Magnolia Drive in Tallahassee, Florida on Jan. 8, 2013.” (Posted by: Religio-Political Talk) One commentator said this of the debate:

  • Thanks Anthony. No wonder the alarmists don’t like debating. In the closing remarks, after Taylor summarises the science, Bellamy just engages in a series of ad homs against Dr Soon and Dr Singer, and then admits what he had just claimed was a direct quote was ‘paraphrased’, to a chorus of boos from the audience. Epic fail! A shame the bootlegged video ends at that point, but we may look forward to many more such debates in future. /sarc

Another said, “As an Orthopaedic surgeon myself, I am embarrassed.” Still another, “No wonder Gore sold out and cashed in…” All I have to say is thatthe only thing Gore’s student learned was to be boring.

From What’s Up With That:

————————————-
Finally, one of Gore’s trained presenters debates a climate skeptic

Finally … finally! … a person trained by Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project agreed to face off in a public debate on global warming.  As WUWT readers may know, trying to get one of these folks to debate a skeptic has been an impossible task…until now. Full video follows, running about 59 minutes.

While I don’t know the details, I suspect the video quality has to do with an apparent long standing policy of Gore’s presenters refusing to allow their presentations to be video taped. My impression is that this appears to be a clandestine recording made by an audience member.

From an email I [http://wattsupwiththat.com/] received:

======================================

Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project squared off against The Heartland Institute in a global warming debate January 8 in Tallahassee, Florida. More than 260 people attended the hour-long debate, which resulted in standing room only at the Tallahassee Elks Club Lodge, which hosted the debate.

Ray Bellamy, a Florida State University faculty member who gives public presentations on behalf of Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project, argued humans are causing a global warming crisis. Taylor countered that global warming activists have proven none of four important factors they need to show in order to demonstrate a human-induced global warming crisis.

“I am very happy that this debate is now available on the Internet so people can see the for themselves, without having to wade through media filters, who possesses and presents the best evidence in a fair and balanced debate,” said Taylor.

“I encourage people to watch the debate and then share it with friends, family and acquaintances. So long as people have access to the truth, I believe the truth will always prevail,” said Taylor.

California’s War on Cars and Single Family Homes ~ e.g., eco-fascism

In the above presentation, Bill Whittle mentions Burt Rutan. His critique is here: PDF. I found it via a small bio done by Right Fan-Girl:

Burt Rutan, in case any of my readers are unaware is the guy that designed and built the Spaceship one spacecraft, and designed and built the voyager airplane that flew nonstop around the world. He is an absolute genius, pioneer, and generally a hero of the mind. So when I heard that he had taken a stance on a thing, I am inclined to pay attention, this is a guy that does things that work.

I started reading, and the first thing that jumped out at me is the title. “An Engineer’s Critique of Global Warming, Science” Now, this is something that I have been struggling with for decades. As many of you know, I am a civil engineer. In engineering, things have to work, so we are far far more parsimonious with what we accept as valid. We do not have the luxury of simply saying “well, the science should work out”, no, people die when engineers do that, so we accept only theories that have survived extensive testing, models that have proven exhaustively that they predict accurately, etcetera.

Anyway, this powerpoint is worth the perusing if anyone’s interested in why a well-educated intelligent person remains a skeptic on AGW.

The WSJ article about this war shows just how “fascistic” this movement is:

My April 9 Cross Country column commentary in The Wall Street Journal (California Declares War on Suburbia) outlined California’s determination to virtually outlaw new detached housing. The goal is clear: force most new residents into multi-family buildings at 20 and 30 or more to the acre. California’s overly harsh land use regulations had already driven housing affordability from fairly typical levels to twice and even three times higher than that of much of the nation. California’s more recent tightening of the land use restrictions (under Assembly Bill 32 and Senate Bill 375) has been justified as necessary for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

…read more…

It is funny that a friend of mine loves classic cars but wholly endorses this movement:

…”68 percent of new housing in Southern California by 2035 would be condos and apartments,” despite the fact that census data shows that 80 percent of that region’s housing increase between 2000 and 2010 were single-family homes, indicating a clear preference for less dense housing. Planners believe that forcing people into a high-density housing will alleviate global warming by reducing the use of cars (Tulsa beacon)


Here is a 6-part presentation by Burt:


Fossil Flatulence ~ Exciting the AGW Crowd with Scientism and Fuzzy Math

Another culprit in the many theories of how the dinosaurs died has entered the arena, flatulence. I have two technical books arguing that global warming was the cause, and another says global cooling was the cause. Here again, politics is playing a part in this idea of dinosaur extinction. In fact, What’s Up With That says that “something smells alright – the stench of extrapolation is overpowering.”  Some of these fuzzy ideas are pointed out by Creation Today:

Like huge cows, the mighty sauropods would have generated enormous quantities of methane (emphasis added to indicate fuzzy words).

A simple mathematical model suggests that the microbes living in sauropod dinosaurs may have produced enough methane to have an important effect on the Mesozoic climate.

A Mesozoic methane mixing ratio of six to eight ppm seems very plausible.

CT continues:

The overwhelming majority of the article contains such examples of fuzzy words. Two additional sentences in the article give assumptions which are unprovable.

Medium-sized sauropods weighed about 20 tonnes and lived in herds of up to a few tens of individuals per square kilometre.

This quote suggests a degree of knowledge about the behavior of sauropods. How can it possibly be known whether or not the sauropods lived in herds, or how big or dense those herds were?

Gateway Pundit includes the Telegraph’s inclusion of the math formula:

“A simple mathematical model suggests that the microbes living in sauropod dinosaurs may have produced enough methane to have an important effect on the Mesozoic climate,” said study leader Dr Dave Wilkinson, from Liverpool John Moores University. Indeed, our calculations suggest that these dinosaurs could have produced more methane than all modern sources – both natural and man-made – put together.”

This is why the Global Warming crowd loves this stuff — it includes scientism and fuzzy math, and historical revisionism created ad-hoc, all based on the theory — not the evidence.

Dr. Zubrin interviewed About His Book, `Merchants of Despair`

From Audio Description:

Dennis Prager begins the conversation by asking Dr. Zubrin about the NASA scientists and directors coming out and asking NASA to not push politicized science (see: http://tiny.cc/wjjqcw). This release is perfect, especially since a recent study supposedly shows conservatives less supportive of science than their liberal counter-parts (yeah, right: http://tiny.cc/dnjqcw — and — http://tiny.cc/cojqcw), to wit, Dr. Zubrin’s book is highly recommended:

Merchants of Despair: Radical Environmentalists, Criminal Pseudo-Scientists, and the Fatal Cult of Antihumanism

For more clear thinking like this from Dennis Prager… I invite you to visit: http://www.dennisprager.com/

Do Conservative Distrust `Science` or the `Politicized Scientific Community` ~ Study by Gordon Gauchat Uses Slight-of-Hand

NY POST:
…Gauchat points out, correctly, that you can’t lay the blame at the feet of biblical creationists and anti-evolutionists, who were no less common in 1974. Nor is sheer ignorance responsible, as the decline in trust rose with education. Instead, he suggests that it’s the increasing use of science as ammunition for big-government schemes that has led to more skepticism…. So when fewer people answered “a great deal” and more answered “hardly any” with regard to “the scientific community,” they were demonstrating more skepticism not toward science but toward the people running scientific institutions…. (NY POST
A recent article sure to get press is this one that says conservatives do not trust science as much as they did in the past. A great response to this study is found at Protein Wisdom, and says in part:

The headline is a Left-liberal’s wetdream Study: Trust in science among educated conservatives plunges

Conservatives, particularly those with college educations, have become dramatically more skeptical of science over the past four decades, according to a study published in the April issue of the American Sociological Review. Fewer than 35 percent of conservatives say they have a “great deal” of trust in the scientific community now, compared to nearly half in 1974.

“The scientific community … has been concerned about this growing distrust in the public with science. And what I found in the study is basically that’s really not the problem. The growing distrust of science is entirely focused in two groups—conservatives and people who frequently attend church,” says the study’s author, University of North Carolina postdoctoral fellow Gordon Gauchat. […]

Gauchat attributes the changes to two forces: Both science and conservatives have changed a lot in 40 years. In the post-WWII period, research was largely wedded to the Defense Department and NASA—think the space race and the development of the atomic bomb. Now the scientific institution “has come out from behind those institutions and been its own cultural force.” That has meant it is increasingly viewed as a catalyst of government regulation, as in the failed Democratic proposal to institute cap-and-trade as a way to reduce carbon emissions and stave off climate change.

“People are now viewing science as part of government regulation,” Gauchat says.

Not that Gauchat views that as problematic on its face. The published study is here and is revealing in its language. Look at what Gauchat bases his study on:

Pg 6: Data for this analysis come from the General Social Survey (GSS), 1972 to 2010 (Smith et al. 2011). […]

The GSS asked respondents the following question: “I am going to name some institutions in this country. As far as the people running these institutions are concerned, would you say you have a great deal of confidence, only some confidence, or hardly any confidence at all in them [the Scientific Community]?”

Note the sleight of hand here. The question is specifically about scientists not science. Yet this paper uses the word SCIENCE!!1!

…READ MORE…

What conservatives reject are leftist scientists politicizing science (scientism), where they say the argument is over — for instance — on anthropogenic global warming. Then using government to run businesses out of business by “carbon credits.” Not science. It is when “scientists” bow down to political pressure that erks conservatives, like this candid admission noted in MailOnline:

The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders.

Dr Murari Lal also said he was well aware the statement, in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research.

In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the report’s chapter on Asia, said: ‘It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.

…READ MORE…

Much like liberals see government as a catalyst for changing societal norms, so to, do they see “science” — or a political step-child of it — for societal change. Left Coast Rebel also notes the following political bias embedded in Gauchat’s work:

Gordon Gauchat calls his objectivity into question by agitating for Barack Obama starting with the first sentence of his article:

In the first months of his presidency, Barack Obama addressed the National Academy of Sciences to speak about U.S. science policy and a renewed commitment to fund scientific research. In this speech he charged: “We have watched as scientific integrity has been undermined and scientific research politicized in an effort to advance predetermined ideological agendas” (White House 2010). The previous administration under George W. Bush was widely seen as unfriendly toward the scientific community. As a consequence, many scientific organizations and advocacy groups became concerned that political and ideological interests were threatening the cultural authority of science.

Gauchat then draws sloppy connections between conservative distrust for the scientific community and the policies of recent Republican administrations while labeling skepticism about the integrity of the scientific community and debate about the proper role of government in funding science as “anti-science.” Moreover, as commenters at Hot Air are quick to note, Gauchat conflates distrust for the “scientific community” with distrust for “science.”

…READ MORE…

Protein Wisdom explains well an example from his above mentioned  post why incentives have caused some to over express the importance of their work in order to keep funding/jobs:

Conservatives have absolutely no reason to mistrust publicly-funded scientists, do they?

A former researcher at Amgen Inc has found that many basic studies on cancer — a high proportion of them from university labs — are unreliable, with grim consequences for producing new medicines in the future.

During a decade as head of global cancer research at Amgen, C. Glenn Begley identified 53 “landmark” publications — papers in top journals, from reputable labs — for his team to reproduce. Begley sought to double-check the findings before trying to build on them for drug development.

Result: 47 of the 53 could not be replicated. He described his findings in a commentary piece published on Wednesday in the journal Nature. […]

Begley’s experience echoes a report from scientists at Bayer AG last year. Neither group of researchers alleges fraud, nor would they identify the research they had tried to replicate.

But they and others fear the phenomenon is the product of a skewed system of incentives that has academics cutting corners to further their careers.

George Robertson of Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia previously worked at Merck on neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s. While at Merck, he also found many academic studies that did not hold up. […]

When the Amgen replication team of about 100 scientists could not confirm reported results, they contacted the authors. Those who cooperated discussed what might account for the inability of Amgen to confirm the results. Some let Amgen borrow antibodies and other materials used in the original study or even repeat experiments under the original authors’ direction.

Some authors required the Amgen scientists sign a confidentiality agreement barring them from disclosing data at odds with the original findings. “The world will never know” which 47 studies — many of them highly cited — are apparently wrong, Begley said. […]

For one thing, basic science studies are rarely “blinded” the way clinical trials are. That is, researchers know which cell line or mouse got a treatment or had cancer. That can be a problem when data are subject to interpretation, as a researcher who is intellectually invested in a theory is more likely to interpret ambiguous evidence in its favor.

The problem goes beyond cancer.

On Tuesday, a committee of the National Academy of Sciences heard testimony that the number of scientific papers that had to be retracted increased more than tenfold over the last decade; the number of journal articles published rose only 44 percent.

Yessiree, those Conservatives and their War on Science!

Whats Up With That points out that distinguished astronomer Theodore White agrees with conservatives on their view of politicized science:

…When Al Gore rose to the vice-presidency by 1993 – Wirth and Hansen were already well out in front of the ‘man-made’ global warming pack – extending the ‘man-made’ ideology to other federal agencies and the university-level climate community – with federal dollars.

Follow the money pushing the ideological AGW lie. If one examines climate science funding from 1986 to 1996 and then from 1996 to the present – you may find some amazing numbers.

Incredible amounts – increasing yearly and wasted on every bigger and more expensive computers to run models. Careerists who cannot forecast seasonal weather were making things up (and began to alter weather data on purpose) while spending lavishly on computers pushing the AGW ideology – all at the public’s great expense.

But the media was not on board. Most journalists are ignorant of climate and weather science. I was fortunate in that I was not, so my editors passed on to me the great amount of work – and I was busy enough as it was a police reporter as it was! Since my beat included covering the climate science community in the heart of it in Colorado, I was well-attuned to how events were shaping up by 1989.

Since the mid-1980s, what I saw were articles like the one Anthony posted from 1986 were becoming more common. What I observed as professional reporter was that the ozone-layer press releases from NOAA and NCAR and other climate centers were beginning to use the same talking points in their different releases to news desks. Sometimes, these went out on the wire which were then placed into newspapers across the country without the resources to assign reporters to cover the climate.

I did not have that problem since this was part of my beat. In interviews with the particular scientists (including Hansen) what I observed was that they were heavy on the ideology, yet not sure if it was strong enough because the global weather data in the late 1980s did not strongly support their case that the world was warming because of man.

Still, by 1989, the AGW science did not make sense to me in light that it would violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Which I remind everyone – remains in effect to this very day.

Anyhow, it did not seem to matter to Wirth’s office, Hansen, or the growing careerists at NCAR and NOAA; because whomever was pushing ‘man-made global warming’ on the United States, were also doing it at the international level too.

My view was that it was a conspiracy right from the start to bamboozle the world on the lie of anthropogenic global warming sandbagging much of the mainstream media, the markets and the educational system to not believe their own eyes and ears.

Events have since proven that I was right.

All this – while AGW ideologists reaped untold profits convincing populations that carbon (the very stuff we are made of) is bad and so we all have to pay for carbon to a global mafia.

In short, the careerist climate AGW scientists and their political insiders conspired to convince the world that humans had to pay dearly for exhaling the carbon gases that the natural world and our trees inhales to flourish.

…READ MORE…

American Thinker sums up the issue well:

A new study just released by a sociologist at the University of North Carolina provides two pieces of interesting information.  The study finds that conservatives, particularly college-educated conservatives, are losing confidence in the scientific community.

The study also provides an unexpected and surely unplanned bonus:  it serves as a perfect example of the intellectual dishonesty that has led educated conservatives to lose their faith in the scientific community.

Just check out the story about the study in the well-respected Scientific American.  The headline reads, “Conservatives Lose Faith in Science over Last 40 Years.”

The subtitle adds detail, saying “a new academic analysis finds conservatives expressing more and more distrust in science in recent decades, particularly educated conservatives.”

Unfortunately for the reputation of Scientific American, the study says no such thing.  In fact it reports that educated conservatives have lost faith in the “scientific community.”  The two — science and the scientific community — are without basis simply assumed to be one and the same.

…read more…

Nobel Prize Winner’s Treatment Prime Example of “Scientism”

On this episode of ID the Future, host David Boze examines the plight of Dr. Daniel Shechtman, recent winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of quasicrystals, who had previously suffered much rejection and ridicule for threatening the consensus of the scientific establishment. Listen in and consider the parallels between Shechtman’s once-heretical science and the modern-day rejection and scorn of the ID movement. http://www.idthefuture.com/