MarkI-ZeroPoint <[email protected]> wrote: Here’s the real issue Jed… > > > > Didn’t you once argue vociferously, that science is NOT done by > consensus??? >
As Damon Runyon said, "The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet." What I am saying is that when you are an outsider to a field, and especially when the issue is highly technical and takes years to master, your best bet is to assume that the consensus is correct. This sometimes leads you to make an error of judgement, especially a Fallacious Appeal to Authority. http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html For example if you assume that the people at the DoE are experts on cold fusion, you will incorrectly conclude their opinion on the subject is valid. If you know little or nothing about a subject, it is safest to say: "I assume the experts are right, but it is possible they are wrong. I cannot judge." Some technical issues are not difficult to judge. For example, most well educated people have enough knowledge of statistics to see that vaccinating children is safer than not vaccinating them even though in very rare cases children die from vaccinations. Climate change, on the other hand is very complex. I have read enough about it to confirm that. I have written technical manuals and papers for the general public on cold fusion. I am usually pretty good at judging when an area of science or technology can be grasped by ordinary laymen -- or even a Georgia politician -- and when it is likely to be far over their heads. Climate change is one of these things that most people do not have the background to understand. You can see that, for example, in two claims often made: 1. We cannot even predict the weather beyond a few days, so how can anyone predict the distant future? 2. It is cold here this winter where I am in Washington DC, so there is no global warming. (This is particularly ignorant when the southern hemisphere happens to be experiencing record high heat.) It is also a highly politicized issue, and politicized science attracts a large numbers of irrational, angry people -- as you see the Wikipedia war on cold fusion. It also attracts conspiracy theorists. In the case of cold fusion, these are nutty people who think the oil companies have suppressed it, and in the case of global warming they are equally nutty people who think that large numbers of climatologists are gulling the public so they can . . . live the high life of a researcher, with the hot tub, the babes, the free booze, the 4 hour optional workday, the 7 figure income. > And, > > I want to know what % of the ‘consensus’ (proponents), who are > knowledgeable about the issue, AND, AND, AND, are NOT receiving some of > their funding for climate-related research??? > Probably not many. How can you do climate research without being funded by some agency that funds climate-related research? This is like asking how many cancer researchers are not funded by medically related organizations such as the NIH, the CDC or the drug companies. Who else is there? Nobody else funds cancer research as far as I know. Some of the anti-global warming experts are paid for by fossil fuel companies. I suspect that influences their judgement. Or perhaps their judgement came first and that influenced the fossil fuel company to pay them. I do not think that NOAA has quite so large a financial stake in the outcome, because I am sure that we will continue studying the climate even if it turns out global warming is not happening. NOAA will not be disbanded if global warming is not happening, whereas the coal and oil companies will be disbanded if it *is* happening. The motivations are unequal. > > I want to know exactly where each person is getting funding . . . > You can always find that out. All scientific papers published in the last several decades always list the source of funding, in any legit journal or web site. > , or who’s ‘soft’ research position is being funded by climate-change > related research, so their ‘opinion’ can be weighted appropriately. > That does not work. You cannot magically "weigh" people's judgement. That's a logical fallacy. You cannot read minds. You might suspect that people funded by coal companies have an ulterior motive to reach a conclusion, but the only way you can prove that is to find a technical error in it. If you do not have the knowledge to find a technical error, you cannot tell whether it is valid or not. > The internet and social media makes it soooo much easier to spread > propaganda, to ‘manage the perception’, that I need to know how one’s > livelihood is being funded… PERIOD. FOLLOW THE $. > That may be a good way to decide whether there is reason to be suspicious, but you cannot judge something as complex as climate change on that basis alone. You have understand the technical issue in depth. To take an easier case -- It was recently revealed that the Coca Cola Company has been funding obesity research, and the researchers they fund were downplaying the effect of drinking sugary drinks, and saying that the major cause of obesity is lack of exercise. I suspect that is not true. I have seen other research that disagrees. This is a lot easier to judge than climate change. I suspect the research conclusions were influenced by the millions of dollars paid by Coca Cola. I suspect that, but unless I were to read the papers carefully, I would not know it for sure. As it happens, everyone knows that looks bad, so Coca Cola withdrew support. I do not see how funding from the NOAA could be considered as potentially biased as obesity research money from Coca Cola, or global warming research funding from the Greening Earth Society. (That is run by the coal companies and it tries to show that global warming is desirable, and we should hope for more of it.) The NOAA is part of the Federal Government, and the Federal Government is highly in favor of capitalism, U.S. corporations, banks, and so on. It often leans over backward to assist them, for example in the 2008 TARP "bailout" (which actually made a profit for Uncle Sam). People who think the government has it in for big business, for coal companies and oil companies do not much about the Federal Government or agencies such as the DoE. - Jed
