Greetings from New Mexico, where I selflessly rise early to share a couple of items on the fight-to-save-honest-science front:
- At Daily Kos, DarkSyde has an interview with Representative Brad Miller (D-NC) about his efforts to ferret out instances of the overt politicization of science within the administration (as we mentioned before). He wants to gather enough evidence to hold an investigation by the House Science Committee.
- Phil Plait points us to Defend Science, a group that is holding protests and circulating a petition decrying attacks on objective scientific thinking within the U.S. I personally wasn’t that fond of the way the petition itself was written — a little too overheated, with a lot of capital letters — but it’s absolutely a worthy cause, and I am happy to go along.
Lubos, you are being nonsensical to assume that human-induced climate change via excessive carbon emissions is incapable of playing a significant role in over-straining the vitality of the planet’s “imperfect” carbon cycle. As long as the planet’s “imperfect” carbon cycle maintains its dynamics, the “imperfect” carbon cycle will continue to function in its rather dynamically “imperfect” fashion. If the “imperfect” carbon cycle loses its dynamics, then the dynamics of the “imperfect” carbon cycle will collapse into one of two possible extreme states. If the “imperfect” carbon cycle becomes trapped in the earth’s atmosphere, then the extreme state of a Venusian Inferno will ensue. If the “imperfect” carbon cycle becomes trapped inside the earth’s terrestrial matter, then the extreme state of a Snowball Earth will ensue. If the “imperfect” carbon cycle becomes overly stressed, then one of these two extreme forms of “carbon entrapment” might possibly become permanent. Furthermore, as the planet increases in age, the level of intrinsic radioactivity decreases, in turn, the heating of the iron-nickel core dwindles, in turn, the flexibility of plate tectonics subsides. Therefore, as our living, breathing planet succumbs to further age, the ability of the planet to recover from a Snowball Earth/Venusian Inferno becomes greatly diminished. You are in Climate Change Denial! Please seek help! Best Wishes!
Man, why are you guys arguing with the psycho?
Lubos,
I think that it is pretty clear that the study that you cite about abstinence is itself rather politicized. Just read the completely one-sided description of sexual relationships before marriage under the heading “Emotional and Psychological Injury.” I could equally well write something about how sexual relationships before marriage are good, because it gives you a better idea about what to expect, how to choose your partner, and so on. Neither text would be science, of course. Or what about the sentence under the heading “The Silent Scandal: Promoting Teen Sex” claiming that viewing erotic photographs carries risks for youth, without giving an explanation or reference at all. Also, look at the topics and links at the main page of the foundation which apparently supported the research. IMHO, one should think twice before believing this research. I would say the same if it was published by an openly feminist organization and obviously politicized in the other direction. In any case, the conclusion that you cite, “Abstinence education programs for youth have been proven to be effective in reducing early sexual activity. Abstinence programs also can provide the foundation for personal responsibility and enduring marital commitment” is not really enough to recommend the policy – what needs to be done is of course to make a comparative study of contraceptives and abstinence and which reaches some figures about the rate of unwanted pregnancies, sexual abuse experienced by men and women, and many other issues. It is in principle possible to do this in a scientific way: science can answer what will lead to the most unwanted pregnancies without saying telling us if an unwanted pregnancy is good or bad. It is in precisely this way that science needs to inform policy, i. e. by getting the facts straight before moral/political decisions are made.
Lubos is absolutely right on this one. Science is not an opinion but a collection of facts, evidence and theory. Hitler’s Nazis defended one particular ‘science’ of genetics from criticism. I feel this is tragic, so was the defence of the ‘science’ of Ptolemy. Modern historians dress up the story as religion versus science, but you can substitute ‘authoritive extablished scientific speculation’ for ‘religion’. Lubos wrote:
‘It’s kind of entertaining – although admittedly the humor is black – that DailyKos, the most politicized web blog in the world whose atmosphere is dictated by hundreds of radical far left-wing lunatics, wants to pretend that they fight against politicization of science.’
If people want to disbelieve global warming or string theory, then they are hardly being heretics. Science is about constantly holding doubt and being prepared to re-examine foundations. Those who defend evolution like an orthodox religion are simpletons because evolution is not, or should not become, a religion.
You don’t need to religiously defend a fact, just to state the evidence. If the other side refuses to see the logic of 1 + 1 = 2, that’s life in a free world. I’d prefer to live in a free world where you get heretics, than one in which facts are turned into a religious ideology and ‘defended’ against inspection. Although evolution has plenty of evidence, other areas of science have less evidence, as Lubos often points out. Religious style orthodoxy is a danger in other sciences.
Let me just point out that outside the US global warming is much less controversial, the alleged link between abortus and cancer receives no attention, and creationism is virtually non-existent. Why is that, do you think?
Lubos seems aiming to be the Peter Woit of climate science. I expect him to set up a web site called “Not Even Warm” soon.
On the other hand Peter Woit is a physicist, whereas Lubos has no qualifications as a climatologist as far as I know..
Alex, this argument is vacuous. Peter Woit has a PhD in particle physics (which he says has yet to make any real physics connection with string theory). Lubos Motl similarly has a PhD in string theory and yet claims climatology is not a hard science. (It gets messy when you realise that water vapour causes heating, not just CO2, and there are uncertainties in how the ocean will deal with increased CO2 and temperature rises in the long term. It could easily cause large areas to cool for example if ocean plankton blooms and then sealife absorbs too much CO2, or if the increased convection due to ocean warming diverts the gulf stream, which would cool Europe.)
Well, he’s entitled to have an opinion on any topic. It’s just that he’s wrong about this one, at least according to the vast majority of climatologists.
As to whether they are “hard scientists” or not..
It seems to me that what you mean by “hard science” is something that can be reduced to easily manageable, predictive numerical models.
This is hard for weather and climate, but the computer simulations are getting closer to the observed conditions and predicitions about climate change can be made with some degree of scientific accuracy, unlike the famous Time article about a new Ice Age in the mid 70’s.
“Climate change” is a superficial term that has been picked up by the news media, but I remember talking about the Green House effect in my Biology A Level class at school in the late 60’s. It’s certainly a valid term and certainly closely related to C02 levels. If anything the evidence about Ocean acidification levels indicates that there’s a danger that the oceans will soon become less effective at absorbing this C02.
Finally science is not political per se, but the uses to which science has been put have always been, particularly in the area of technology.
Edward Teller was an extreme right winger on whom the character of Dr Strangelove was modelled.
Einstein on the other hand was always a socialist and his political views are often ignored by those who write about him
Who cares about what the majority say?
You start by saying that the majority disagree with Motl, then you finish your comment by saying science is not political!
Tony Smith has quoted Carl Sagan’s view in his book Cosmos, 1980: “The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and politics, but it is not the path to knowledge; it has no place in the endeavor of science.”
Sagan was constantly coming up with radical ideas. I think in 1983 he thought of “nuclear winter” (which eventually turned out to only have a chance of working if oil refineries are the primary targets). But if you don’t challenge orthodoxy, you’re not likely to achieve a radical advance. You learn more by trying things and making mistakes than by locking yourself into an orthodoxy.
Once again I will point out the obvious: this is not a forum for debating Lubos’s sanity or lack thereof. Please confine that to his blog.
The big outstanding question on climate change is not if humans are affecting the composition of gases in the atmosphere (they are) but if the oceans can absorb enough heat/CO2 to offset that effect.
That is an open question.
My presonal bias is to err on the side of caution and reduce greenhouse emissions. The conclusion I have come to, means increased nuclear energy to meet world energy needs over the next 30-50 years with hopefully a better long term solution.
Dear Elliot,
I respect the Heritage Foundation as an important think tank, and if I needed some scientific info about a topic they study, I would probably prefer Heritage Foundation over Concerned Scientists. You don’t need to explain me that people on the far Left prefer Concerned Scientists over Heritage Foundation.
Dear Invcit, similar comments apply to you. Whether or not abstinence or abortion is good for the society or morally good or not is a political question and every opinion about it a political opinion, not a scientific one. Thanks, Science, for giving this important idea a boost.
Dear Cynthia,
all of us know that you are very efficient in producing various bizarre catastrophic scenarios and combining words so that they sound hysterical, but what you have failed to offer was a rational argument that the processes that are parts of the “carbon cycle” are threatened by increased CO2 concentrations. While you provided us with zero of evidence, you would need a rather strong set of arguments to support your extraordinary statement. Extraordinary statements require extraordinary evidence. If you call my position “Climate Change Denial”, then it would be a good idea for everyone who is not in Climate Change Denial to call her psychiatrist and ask for help.
Dear Alex,
Peter Woit is not a physicist, while climate science, if done properly, is a part of physics and is within my qualification. But formal qualification is not as important as the fact that while Peter Woit has no idea about the technical content of our field, I have a pretty good idea about climate science, although there are of course much better people in this particular field.
Dear Sean,
you may succeed to make people discuss about more interesting things than me once you succeed to create a posting that is more interesting which quite clearly was not the case of this file that you created. 😉
All the best
Lubos
Lubos,
“Whether or not abstinence or abortion is good for the society or morally good or not is a political question and every opinion about it a political opinion, not a scientific one. Thanks, Science, for giving this important idea a boost.”
I think you are being too general. It is very useful to analyze where precisely science enters politics. IMHO, politics often starts with something most people agree with like “we want to avoid unwanted pregnancies and the spread of STDs” or “we want the economy to grow” – it is simple to decide whether these are good or bad for society as a whole. Have you not noticed that a lot of the disagreement is about how these goals that most people agree with (except of course various extremists) should be reached? Science has a very big role to play here, because it can inform us what routes to take, what will work. Let’s put it this way: we don’t need political science – we need scientific politics.
http://www.heritage.org/about/staff/experts.cfm
not a single person with a Phd. in a scientific area.
nuff said.
A person who makes such a claim is hardly making an argument based on science.