The big buzzwords being bandied about with regards to climate change is Scientific Consensus. I understand what this mean, although I don’t think a lot of the global warming alarmists do.
In every article I write about this, I feel the need to explain - so bear with me.
- According to the science available to us today, there is irrefutable evidence the earth has been warming over the past few decades.
- We have assumed carbon dioxide is the most important contributor to global warming.
The first statement is based upon the results of Science. There have been highly accurate measurements of temperature change since 1978 and quite accurate research of the natural record going back a very long time. The earth warms and cools in a somewhat cyclical manner.
The second statement is based upon Scientific Consensus, but only a bastardized form if that. Scientific Consensus is a judgment or opinion, which is based significantly on peer review of other people’s research. Scientific Consensus is supposed to be open for criticism, but it is not now - nor has it been historically. Scientific Consensus is supposed to be perishable, changing over time as new science emerges on a specific topic, but that is not happening in the global warming debate either.
Our ability to understand global warming and whether we should worry should be based upon the results of science. The scientific community should be encouraging researchers to try to prove them wrong. That is the strength of science.
The truth is, proponents of anthropogenic global warming don’t want to hear anything contrary to their long-adopted consensus. It is more important to be important and right, than it is to allow your consensus to be proven incorrect, or even just potentially flawed.
It is interesting to note that the IPCC hailed 900-odd reports which came to exactly the same conclusion - that global warming is human caused. Yet, this same body reportedly ignored another 1100 studies which refuted one or more of the measures, models, or methods used by the IPCC. It is also interesting that many of the IPCC’s own reviewers have been ignored in their criticism of the IPCC information. Additionally, it is interesting how many scientists who are not skeptics at all are ignored when their research contradicts the scientific consensus.
Before I let you go, think about a few other instances in history, where the scientific consensus was different than the research posed by a minority of scientists.
Thomas Kuhn in his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions discussed this problem in detail. Several examples of this are present in the relatively recent history of science. For example:
- the theory of continental drift proposed by Alfred Wegener and supported by Alexander Du Toit and Arthur Holmes but soundly rejected by most geologists until indisputable evidence and an acceptable mechanism was presented after 50 years of rejection.
- the theory of symbiogenesis presented by Lynn Margulis and initially rejected by biologists but now generally accepted.
- the theory of punctuated equilibria proposed by Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge which is still debated but becoming more accepted in evolutionary theory.
- the theory of prions -proteinaceous infectious particles causing transmissible spongiform encephalopathy diseases- proposed by Stanley B. Prusiner and at first rejected because pathogenicity was believed to depend on nucleic acids now widely accepted due to accumulating evidence.
- the theory of Helicobacter pylori as the cause of stomach ulcers. This theory was first postulated in 1982 by Barry Marshall and Robin Warren however it was widely rejected by the medical community believing that no bacterium could survive for long in the acidic environment of the stomach. Marshall demonstrated his findings by drinking a brew of the bacteria and consequently developing ulcers. In 2005, Warren and Marshall were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their work on H. pylori
There are also examples of new ideas that were shown to be wrong. Two of the classics are N rays and polywater. Although some believers still exist, cold fusion is generally considered to belong to this class. [Source]
So, my point here is we should be frantically accepting all criticism in an effort to disprove it, rather than rejecting all criticism in an effort to ignore it. Why? In order to ensure survival from these predicted cataclysmic results of global warming, we are talking about impacting the entire global society as we know it - unless it is just our survival we care about. Before we attempt to lead the world in an effort so drastic and so forceful, we are obliged to find the truth. Consensus is not truth.
