“Truth? You can't handle the truth!”

[TordelBack]

NM

[Matt Timson]

Wasn't Albert Einstein a lowly clerk in a patent office?

After graduating in physics and maths, and to support his family while working towards his doctorate in physics at the University of Zurich, having fled military service in Germany, yes indeed he was, but did his contribution to science at the time consist of posting on internet forums* and writing to the Daily Mail?  Or did it consist of (initially) the completion of his doctoral thesis, and the publication, in respected peer-reviewed scientific journals, of his theory of Special Relativity, the photoelectric effect, brownian motion etc. (all in the one year, BTW)?

Rather than complaining that the scientific establishment was conspiring to maintain the fiction of the luminiferous ether through debate, Einstein mathematically proved the damn thing was a needless nonsense, and he did it through traditional establishment channels and norms.  And did 'they' hush him up and suppress his work?  No.  Within three years he was a senior lecturer at the University of Zurich, and 3 years after that a full professor in Prague.

This is not the same thing as pulling bits of papers out of context and asserting the sky is (isn't?) falling, and no-one is listening to you because they're all in cahoots with big business and/or the goddamn hippies.





*I am absolutely NOT referring to TLS here, to be clear.  TLS is an intelligent and articulate gentleman, and a unbowed challenger of received orthodoxies, for all that I seldom agree with him.

Nobody understands the value of a comedy rhetorical question these days...

[TordelBack]

Nobody understands the value of a comedy rhetorical question these days...

It's the way you tell 'em!

Nah, sorry, I misread it as an 'regular outsider folk should get equal recognition in science' comment - sense of humour reboot needed on my part.

[Proudhuff]

Does nobody understands the value of a comedy rhetorical question these days?

Fixed that for you?

[The Legendary Shark]

Very cleverly done, TLS.  I spent a good while looking through that, nice one.

That's very kind of you to say, thanks

As to the covering up of science thing, I think that it does indeed go on. As soon as David Bellamy (remember him, gwubbing awound in the undergwowth?) started questioning the prevailing view of climate change he couldn't get back on telly for love nor money. Which may be a coincidence or he may have run into politics.

Science is being done into climate change that is outside the accepted focus, as with the cosmic ray theory - it's just that the results have a hard time getting through the political and media barriers and into the public eye. Those results and interpretations that do get out tend to be belittled and derided, the scientists undertaking the work characterised as fringe or kooks. For many years, the climate argument was presented as essentially settled and I'm sure even TB would concede that this was never likely to be the case given the sheer complexity of the systems involved.

I have sensed a slight back-pedalling in the global warming assault of late. For one, the very phrase "global warming" has fallen from Apocalyptic grace. It was once on everyone's lips, the same way that "nuclear war" was on everyone's lips when I was a kid, but now I think more and more people accept that the more accurate term for what's happening is the much more friendly "climate change". Changing climate is certainly a challenge the human race has to deal with - but it's a challenge the human race has always been dealing with and probably always will be. Cave men would either kill a particularly furry beast when it's cold or learn how to spin cotton when it gets warmer. Modern man has to figure out how to get around the inconveniences of having built cities in difficult places or managing the water cycle better. In the future, we may be figuring out how to deal with all those unexpected hurricanes and tornadoes plaguing a terraformed Mars.

So you see, I really don't think that all scientists investigating the accepted fields within the climate change issue are in cahoots with big business or politicians. At least, no more than the rest of us. A handful certainly will be political animals. A few will be mavericks. Most will just turn up and do their work to the best of their ability. Politicians and the media have been picking the bits they like from the data, the dramatic bits that make people scared, and also fostered a climate where those bits receive the most focus to the exclusion (in political and media terms) of all other theories. It's not the scientists who are at fault and it's not necessarily the science - it's the politicians, money men and media.

I posted a link to a scientific study of Dutch Birch trees earlier in this thread that seemed to show that rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere may not be as big a problem as we thought. In itself, of course, it was just one study and didn't prove anything. That site, though, is replete with examples of studies showing that the CO2 problem really may not be a problem at all. Of course, that's only one website with a limited number of studies on it - but stuff like this is largely ignored by politicians and the media because it does not support the argument for us needing them to fix things. It is, in my humble opinion, up to us to flag these anomalies wherever we perceive them.

This does not mean that by pointing out such things as CO2 being beneficial to crop yields I am entitled to the same recognition or standing as a proper scientist or researcher. All I am is a single voice in a supposedly free country shouting about the hard work done by other people.

One only has to watch the egregious "An Inconvenient Truth", which is basically an advert for carbon tax, to see how the most extreme and alarmist climate research results can be presented as pure propaganda. I read that this horrid little movie is being shown in schools all over the place - talk about getting to 'em young!

[Richmond Clements]

but did his contribution to science at the time consist of posting on internet forums* and writing to the Daily Mail?  Or did it consist of (initially) the completion of his doctoral thesis, and the publication, in respected peer-reviewed scientific journals, of his theory of Special Relativity, the photoelectric effect, brownian motion etc. (all in the one year, BTW)?

Dunno... I'm going to take a guess at the first one.

[Mikey]

I think that anthropogenic global warming is a scam by the global elite to hoover up more of the Earth's wealth using global carbon taxes as the weapon of choice. I have thought for a long time that the sun is far more likely to affect our climate than a gas that only makes up about one half of one percent of our atmosphere. Some scientists are willing to entertain and investigate this theory and some are not...

I was taking a break from the board there and now I'm back...

Well ISTR last time it was mentioned you weren't sure it was a scam, plus you didn't think the causes of the Pleistocene glacial episodes were understood. What's convinced you it's a scam then?

I've said this before, but I'll repeat it more strenuously this time. Who in the name of good fuck doesn't think that our Sun is a significant climate forcing factor? Perhaps people who don't understand a fuckin thing about Earth sciences, but no Earth scientist, chemist, oceanographer, geologist, planetary, atmospheric or environmental scientist etc, etc thinks that. Read a fuckin textbook!

And carbon dioxide helps plants grow? Fuck me! A revelation!

I'm off again. See ye anon.

M.
Quaternary Science researcher

[Dandontdare]

As soon as David Bellamy (remember him, gwubbing awound in the undergwowth?) started questioning the prevailing view of climate change he couldn't get back on telly for love nor money. Which may be a coincidence or he may have run into politics.

Actually, as Mr Bellamy later admitted, he'd read some dodgy "facts" about glaciers expanding rather than shrinking, took it at face value, drew erroneous conclusions which he then dissemintaed widely. To be fair to him, when the data was proved to be false, he publicly admitted he was wrong, but I don't think his credibility as a scientist has ever really recovered.

There's a lesson there for all armchair experts!

[JOE SOAP]

Didn't he also advertise aerosol sprays?

[JOE SOAP]

There's a lesson there for all armchair experts!

...as in don't become a scientist, it's too serious and they're not allowed to post frivolously then backtrack andchange their minds as soon as a new thread comes up they like better.

[Matt Timson]

Nobody understands the value of a comedy rhetorical question these days...

It's the way you tell 'em!

Nah, sorry, I misread it as an 'regular outsider folk should get equal recognition in science' comment - sense of humour reboot needed on my part.

To be fair, I am only half joking.  There are plenty of people able to do things that might not have a piece of paper that says they can do them- but I don't want to get drawn into a pongos vs scientists argument, because I largely agree with what you're saying.

[TordelBack]

There are plenty of people able to do things that might not have a piece of paper that says they can do them-...

No arguments there.  There are also plenty that have a piece of paper that says they can do things that they blatantly can't, as I've discovered to my cost over the years in hiring MAs and PhDs who could neither spell nor count nor turn on a computer.

I suppose ultimately I'm not remotely concerned about people without formal qualifications doing the work as well or better than those that have (some of the very best guys in my line of work have had no formal training or relevant education whatsoever) - it's more the widespread self-deception of people who think that they are doing the work, when all 99.9% are doing is flapping on the surface of things, misinterpreting and misunderstanding and re-inventing the wheel, and claiming that they're being 'excluded' by a jealous elite.  All it does is muddy the waters and make for dangerous headlines, as per the old chestnut of MMR. 

There's a lot of unpleasant and unscientific shenanigans involved in the allocation of funds for research and its dissemination, of that I have no doubt since actual humans are involved, but it still seems a far better model for pursuing expensive time-consuming science than a blog and sense of purpose.

[The Legendary Shark]

As soon as David Bellamy (remember him, gwubbing awound in the undergwowth?) started questioning the prevailing view of climate change he couldn't get back on telly for love nor money. Which may be a coincidence or he may have run into politics.

Actually, as Mr Bellamy later admitted, he'd read some dodgy "facts" about glaciers expanding rather than shrinking, took it at face value, drew erroneous conclusions which he then dissemintaed widely. To be fair to him, when the data was proved to be false, he publicly admitted he was wrong, but I don't think his credibility as a scientist has ever really recovered.

There's a lesson there for all armchair experts!

Not sure when Mr Bellamy recanted - do you have a date for that? Here's a link to an interview with Bellamy from Wednesday November 5, 2008: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/69623  in which he says things like "...there is absolutely no proof that carbon dioxide is anything to do with any impending catastrophe" and "...since I said I didn't believe human beings caused global warming I've not been allowed to make a TV programme." I also found an interview with him from 19 Nov 2009 at  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/6598056/Eco-hero-David-Bellamy-botanist-and-campaigner.html in which he adds "I'm sceptical about man-made climate change. There's absolutely no proof that carbon dioxide will kill us all. It's not a poison, it's the most important gas in the world. Carbon dioxide is an airborne fertiliser. How can farmers grow increasing amounts of food without a rise in CO2?" Those are the two most up to date interviews with the man I can find and it seems to me that even if he has come to accept that certain facts were incorrect (something I think we've all done) he still isn't convinced about carbon driving climate change - and neither am I.

I was taking a break from the board there and now I'm back...

Well ISTR last time it was mentioned you weren't sure it was a scam, plus you didn't think the causes of the Pleistocene glacial episodes were understood. What's convinced you it's a scam then?

I've said this before, but I'll repeat it more strenuously this time. Who in the name of good fuck doesn't think that our Sun is a significant climate forcing factor? Perhaps people who don't understand a fuckin thing about Earth sciences, but no Earth scientist, chemist, oceanographer, geologist, planetary, atmospheric or environmental scientist etc, etc thinks that. Read a fuckin textbook!

And carbon dioxide helps plants grow? Fuck me! A revelation!

I'm off again. See ye anon.

M.
Quaternary Science researcher

You seem to think that I believe science is a scam, which I do not. Certain climate evidence is being held up as Gospel by politicians, media and the corporate world. They are using science to cement their power and make a profit. What's the point of a carbon tax if carbon dioxide isn't the problem? And if carbon dioxide isn't the problem, don't you think we should be investigating that theory as vigorously as the opposite so that we can get some proper data on what is going on?

Much is assumed. I remember being told that we could tell what CO2 does to an atmosphere by looking at Venus. Earth's atmosphere has only about 0.05% CO2 and has a mean temperature 14.6 °C whilst Venus' atmosphere is 96.5% CO2 and has a mean temperature of 467°C - therefore more CO2 = higher temperatures, which seems to me to be unsound reasoning. Venus is also closer to the sun and an atmosphere composed almost entirely of carbon dioxide probably behaves much differently to an atmosphere composed chiefly of nitrogen and oxygen. Yes, at a certain point the levels of CO2 in an atmosphere will start keeping in solar radiation, but by the time that's happened we'd all have suffocated anyway. So far as we know, Venus also has no natural carbon sinks (life) to expand and contract with CO2 levels.

I'm not saying that climate change isn't a problem, but I don't believe that carbon dioxide is.

Who doesn't think that our sun is a contributing factor to climate? The people who stand to make money out of the CO2 based argument, that's who. How do you make money out of it being the sun's fault? Solar tax? You gonna' buy that? No, but you might be just taken in enough to pay a man-made-carbon tax.

TLS

A nobody with a questioning mind.

[Proudhuff]

While I disagree with Shark I defend his right to say it , even on a comic furum 

All I ask is he does some reseach into who sponsors the 'secptics' and who pays the timewasters who ask for endless FOI requests.

a recent tabacco industry example of this: http://www.heraldscotland.com/mobile/news/home-news/university-says-tobacco-giant-is-harassing-staff-1.1112518

[The Legendary Shark]

All I ask is he does some reseach into who sponsors the 'secptics' and who pays the timewasters who ask for endless FOI requests.

a recent tabacco industry example of this: http://www.heraldscotland.com/mobile/news/home-news/university-says-tobacco-giant-is-harassing-staff-1.1112518

I'm sorry, I don't get what you mean. Lots of different institutions sponsor science, skeptics and supporters. Some sponsors are public and some private. It depends on their goals.

And why are people who submit FoI requests "timewasters"?  (FOI request reveals lack of care home record checks: http://www.ftadviser.com/FinancialAdviser/Insurance/HealthcareAndProtection/News/article/20110714/cfc83d96-ac8c-11e0-8fe1-00144f2af8e8/FOI-request-reveals-lack-of-care-home-record-checks.jsp  Mayor under fire after FOI request reveals £37K cost of reception:  http://insidethem60.journallocal.co.uk/2011/06/09/mayor-under-fire-after-foi-request-reveals-37k-cost-of-reception/  FOI Request Reveals Hidden Research Findings :  http://www.thegwpf.org/science-news/2751-foi-request-reveals-hidden-research-findings.html  These are all timewasters?)

I also don't get what you're trying to say with the university/tobacco company. Sorry.