Bishop Hill More Nullius
Mar 16, 2012 Royal Society Suddenly the reactions to my Nullius in Verba report on the Royal Sociey are coming thick and fast. Bernie Lewin has written a long blog post, the first of two on the report.
Montford’s sparse and unembellished chronicling of the relaxation of this discipline is what makes it such a powerful work. Montford does not pretend to chronicle the perversion of science itself, as Richard Lindzen suggests in the Foreword – he does that elsewhere, and daily, on his blog. Nonetheless, his story of the perversion of the Royal Society is an emblem, a sign or an indicator of this general perversion, wherein, as Lindzen puts it, the legitimate role of science as a powerful mode of inquiry is replaced by the pretence of science to a position of political authority. Montford’s is a story no less of how a leading institution of the scientific revolution—the sober, reasonable, disinterested, oh-so-Anglican model for the European Enlightenment—after preserving its integrity for so long, has only recently, and grossly, perverted itself with the promotion of one opinion in particular, namely: the ‘consensus’ opinion on the ‘settled science’ behind the need for urgent action to mitigate a global climate catastrophe.
Reader Comments (8)
A very good article, and surely very pleasing for you to see your work being included to such good effect.
And the discovery of a very promising blog! I quote from his 'About':
'The first premise of this forum is that there is insufficient evidence to make the claim that CO2 emissions are causing catastrophic global warming. From this position of scepticism, for those interested in the history and philosophy of science, a whole bunch of questions arise:
Why is this claim so widely and firmly pronounced as the overwhelming conclusion upon the science?
How and why the suppression of debate?
What was it in the history of science that lead up to this monumental distortion of the science?
Has this sort of thing happened before?
…and so forth'
Spot on.
I forgot to mention, my much more modest mention of Nullius here: http://climatelessons.blogspot.com/2012/03/teaching-point-on-climate-data-analysis.html
As Lindzen puts it, the legitimate role of science as a powerful mode of inquiry is replaced by the pretence of science to a position of political authority.
It is as if someone had taken a telescope and started using it as a plumbing tool.
Science is a fantastic tool. When used properly (and who doesn't use kitchen knives to open paint tins) it works superbly. But it only works well when it is applied to the right job.
You can't cure the common cold with surgery ... indeed, you cannot cure the common cold at all. Science isn't any use when your daughter is off school sniffling on the floor. It might help me, e.g. not try anti-biotics, or not assume it is "because she was out in the cold". So, it might help me direct the treatment, but it doesn't provide the answer.
Likewise, the global climate has seen a very mild increase in temperature. Like all paranoiacs, governments and the eco-nutter "scientists" have gone out to look for symptoms of major brain cancer, bird-flu or whatever the latest scare is. However, those older parents who have seen it all before know that temperatures go up and down. There will be periods of trauma and tantrums ... but they are all normal.
There is no more need to send the planet to a brain surgeon for a mild temperature, than there is for a kid with a mild temperature. There is no more need to subject the planet to every conceivable investigative tool (at huge public expense) than there is for a kid with symptoms so mild they are barely discernible to anyone (except those who tell us they need the tests ... and who stand to profit handsomely like all quack doctors).
Science is as much a defence against the charlatan in favour of normality as it is a tool to investigate the abnormal. So, no wonder the charlatans have tried to hijack science to prevent us poor patients realising that they are trying to sell brain surgery PIP breast implants to cure the common cold.
"older parents who have seen it all before know that temperatures go up and down"
Nice analogy! But it's not news or fund-worthy unless more sinister causes can be imputed.
"Why is this claim so widely and firmly pronounced as the overwhelming conclusion upon the science?"
I've often wondered.
As avatars of the post-WW II Boomer generation born c. 1946 - '64, for all their virtues recent PRS incumbents such as Lord May, Martin Rees, latterly Paul Nurse, inhabit a peculiar attitudinal cocoon-- wonderfully skilled and trained, but quite uneducated in the sense of self-awareness befitting ignorance and curiousity beyond their specialities.
As Lord Monckton puts it, and as the Royal Society once knew, arguments ad populum and verecundiam butter no parsnips, especially in the non-empirical classificatory field of so-called "climate science" which more resembles botany than fluid dynamics or any other genuinely mathematical discipline.
Nothing the Green Gang of climate cultists does or says has any substance other than crude Statist propaganda. Ehrlich, Holdren, Keith Farnish... like Briffa, Hansen, Jones, Mann, Trenberth, all are death-eating Luddite sociopaths, extreme reactionaries bent on sabotaging post-Enlightenment industrial/technological civilization. All despise Norman Borlaug, whose genuine Green Revolution gives the lie to Warmsters' every odious tenet. Harsh as this seems, it does not go far enough.
All funding tends to corrupt and absolute funding corrupts absolutely.
Nullius sed primus imprimus --
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116252563441412312.html