

Why Climate Science Is On Trial - BearOfNH
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2010/02/05/why-climate-science-is-on-trial/

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pyre
> _and scientists are just as arrogant, dogmatic and condescending when they
> are wrong as when they are right. Look at the many conflicting ideas that
> economists have brought forward over the last two hundred years._

Economists are _not_ scientists.

> _Trans-fats were made into margarine and promoted on scientific grounds as
> healthier than butter._

Scientists don't create products and promote them. Entrepreneurs and marketers
do.

> _Look at the science of ‘eugenics’ in the light of whose findings judges
> once condemned people to involuntary sterilization._

Was 'eugenics' ever an agreed-upon scientific consensus? According to
Wikipedia: "Eugenics is the study and practice of selective breeding applied
to humans, with the aim of improving the species." How does that definition
include the "involuntary sterilization" of people? I'm thinking this reference
is less about 'science' and more about trying to slip a Nazi reference in
through the back door.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_Economists are not scientists._

Economists create models of the world and attempt to test those models against
reality. Isn't that what makes someone a scientist?

Why do you feel economists are not scientists?

 _Was 'eugenics' ever an agreed-upon scientific consensus?_

Eugenics was and still is part of the agreed-upon scientific consensus.

It has even had some practical success, most notably the creation of very tall
athletes (including Yao Ming) and the elimination of Tay-Sachs disease among
Ashkenazi Jews.

~~~
Eliezer
> Eugenics was and still is part of the agreed-upon scientific consensus.

WTF? Eugenics is a _policy proposal_ , not a fact. How could it possibly be
part of the scientific consensus?

~~~
yummyfajitas
Eugenics is not a policy proposal, it's an engineering discipline. Eugenics is
the practice of using selective breeding to cause future generations to
display desired genetic traits.

So, to be more precise in my language, the scientific fact is this: eugenics
can be used to alter future genotypes (with high probability) and to alter
phenotypes to the extent that phenotypes are caused by genetics.

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nazgulnarsil
the populist attention to AGW is irrelevant from a science standpoint. that is
a political issue and should stay as such. a scientists job shouldn't become
half scientist half PR relations just because the general public happens to
show some interest. but alas, scientists need funding, and are all too human.
public attention is one way to generate grants.

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alecco
_Some_ climate _scientists_ are on trial. It's just the weakest link of the
chain and big interests against global control of pollution abuses are
throwing all their PR propaganda resources at it. These groups include
governments and corporations from US, China, EU, and Russia. The hacking
attacks on those scientists were not performed by some loner script kiddie.
And the story got pushed strongly by media groups related to interests all too
timely.

[http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2008/08/evidence-
mounts-...](http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2008/08/evidence-mounts-that-
were-in-midst-of-mass-extinction-event.ars)

    
    
      Over 90 percent of large predatory fish have been wiped out, the coral
      reefs that are home to areas of biodiversity that rivals the Amazon
      are dying, and the North Sea has been practically denuded of life.
      Shellfish populations that were already heavily fished have been
      unable to recover thanks to eutrophication and the spread of dead
      zones, not to mention seabed trawling.
    

Those are hard facts. Since the biosphere is a very complex system it's
impossible to prove without doubt any theory of causes. But you have to be
incredibly insane to deny it's related to humanity's irresponsible pollution.

[I expect, yet again, a rain of down-votes of disagreement from HN's army of
right-wingers who cant write a good argument. Go ahead.]

~~~
dantheman
Climate science has nothing to do with pollution -- CO2 is not a pollutant,
any more than water vapor is.

If you read the article you linked it talks about overfishing,
trash,fertilizer, etc -- these have nothing to do with CO2. Yes, acidification
is caused be CO2, but there has been lower Ph levels in the past (due to
volcanic eruptions etc). Now is this a problem that should be discussed, it
certaintly is, but if we are talking about CO2 then only talk about it. Don't
mix in all sorts of unrelated claims.

If you want to talk about pollution and over harvesting then talk about each
one separately. Muddying issues by combining them in no way makes them easier
to solve or easier to understand.

~~~
Alex3917
"CO2 is not a pollutant, any more than water vapor is."

CO2 actually is considered a pollutant by the EPA. There are lots of things
that are 'natural' but that are still pollutants. For example, fine
particulates are considered a pollutant because they cause cancer. Thus
construction equipment is not allowed to vent unlimited amounts of diesel
fumes, even though much of what is released is basically the same as the stuff
that already occurs to a small extent in the natural environment.

~~~
anamax
> CO2 actually is considered a pollutant by the EPA.

So what? The EPA is a regulatory agency. If they define something as a
pollutant, they get to issue regulations and control things.

If you're going to take a regulatory agency's word, ketchup is a vegetable....

