BewaConsensus Science

Greetings Val,

Thanks for your post and treatment of the subject. In
am in complete agreement that the global warming
debate is following a similar pattern to what Galileo
(The Catholic church was wrong) and Alfred Wegener
(The world is not static). In both cases there were
huge vested interests and a lack of commonly available
and perceivable clinching evidence.

The evolution debate got drowned out by the emergence
of genetics (very profitable and powerful) so much so
that a fundamentalist aquaintance of mine bemoaned his
inability to get a job as a biologist when everything
related to using gene analysis for classification. To
this day I believe he is still an avowed follower of
creationist doctrine though he works daily with the
evidence to the contrary.

My guess is the global warming debate will go the same
way and become irrelevant when things really start
happening and it is obvious to the voting populace
that it is time to act. This is still a ways off as
best I can tell and indifference reigns in the
meantime.

May I reassure you that on your point e) that the
human race is no closer to extinction than in the 12th
century though grim for some it may be. As in history
those that can afford to insulate themselves will do
so. Those that cannot will survive as best they can.
It is not hard to discern the winners from the losers
in a simple sense. Bangladesh looks doomed to
dissapear due to sea level rise. Wierder things could
happen to make this not what it seems.

It is my hope that this debate focuses more interest
in the opportunities of SPS as a solution to all sort
of earthly issues. As a group the community of space
enthusiasts seems to me deeply fragmented. This is
good for brainstorming though a liability for
encouraging respectability. Tangoman is right in my
opinion about the dangers of microwaving power to
earth and how consensus science would work against
that. It would not serve us to be in agreement only
to arouse a political and scientific force we could
not win against.

Cheers, Thor

Some input from an innocent bystander :-)

I think, and correct me if I am wrong, that TangoMan's
chief concern
here
isn't the evidence that Arthur is speaking of, but the
treatment of
evidence
or hypothesis that run counter to the prevailing
consensus. In
addition, I
think that he is concerned about the inappropriate,
dishonest, or
ignorant
use of such things in the persuit of a social
engineering agenda. Let
me
state ahead of time that I agree with these concerns,
and anyone can
certainly see that this is occuring.

After following the links provided, I concluded that
the treatment of
Dr. L
didn't seem to fit in with the pure ideal of how the
science community
should behave to enhance science. It seemed that there
was probably a
pretty
good amount of knee jerk PCness in the treatment of
his book, and I was
amazed by how SciAm behaved as well. So, at least in
this case (I
hadn't the
time to pursue all the info), it is evident that
politiks from outside
of
science played a part. One doesn't seem to see this in
such things as
physics, probably due to the extreme esoteric nature
of the work, and
the
much more concrete results. The chief emotional
responders, and the
power
base that politikos play off of are the masses, whom I
think we can all
agree are on average woefully deficient in science
knowledge and
critical
thinking ability. However, they certainly feel
entiteled to their
opinions,
however uniformed, and are played by the media and the
politikos,
neither of
whom have a great deal of ability to analyze the data
before using it,
and
love to develop the 'us vs. them' themes for ratings.
Clearly there is
a lot
more room for misunderstanding, heated arguments, and
what not, in this
arena. I would venture to say that therein lies the
root of the
problem.

In my own readings, it seems evident that consensus is
important an
basis of
science, though in a much different way than the
general public would
look
at that word. Consider the difference in usage btween
the sci community
and
the general public of the words 'fact' and 'theory'.
In reading the
debate
between you two, it would seem that your primary
differences lie here
rather
than in the actual treatment of issues by the
scientific community.
After
all, quantum dynamics and relativity theory are both
'tentative' in the
strict scientific sense, in that they are both
considered subject to
falsification. Indeed, experiments are done rigorously
and routinely to
do
just that. The fact that these experiments have only
thus far served to
strenghten these theories does not change the fact
that absolutely
nothing
is absolute in science. The public, however, consider
that 'theory'
word to
mean that evolution, quantum dynamics, relativity, and
a host of other
things, are all on very shaky ground because they are
not called
'facts' by
science.

Perhaps it would help to consider where the
preponderance of evidence
lies,
and what useful predictions have been made and
vindicated, or made and
falsified, and then base the opinion on that. In this
sense the
computer
models are making predictions, and only time will tell
how accurate
they
are. The use of model results to form public policy is
a decision
making
process that must be made by balancing risks vs.
benefits, necessarily
without the luxury of waiting to see just who has the
most accurate
model.
Very different than science. In fact, in this case,
politics is
actually
gambling, but trying to bet with mind and not the
heart, for the future
benfit of all (yes, yes, and a lot of other crap
thrown in, like money
and
big business, blah, blah).

In light of all that, and a recent post by Thor, it is
very clear that:
a)
the temperatures are rising with a very high degree of
certainty b)
mankind
has some sort of input to that at the present, though
the exact degree
is
uncertain c) due to clearly unavoidable developments
(rising standards
of
living in the third world and attendant increases in
industry, and an
inexorable rise in populations) WILL lead to an
exponentially increased
competition for a fixed amount of resources d) these
factors WILL lead
to
conflicts of all sorts, including wars e) due to the
inevitable and
unstoppable proliferation of mass kill technologies,
the costs will be
very
high, possibly inluding the end of civilization as we
know it or the
extinction of humanity f) we are the first species on
this planet to
have
the means to pass beyond these factors, the exact same
factors that
every
other living thing on this planet has had to cope with
from the dawn of
time
g) what in blue blazes are we going to do about it?

While I agree that there is an inordinate amount of
politiks in the
envrionmental sciences at the present, this is no
different than at any
other time one chooses to pick, including the favorite
to mention,
Galileo.
Ceratinly it behooves us all, but especially these
sciences in
particular,
to recognize the overt politiking where it intereferes
with the healthy
course of debate, weed it out, and get on with it. On
that I am sure we
can
all agree. Or can we? :-)

Val

>Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 11:23:57 -0500
>
> >It would help you to read what I write rather than
blindly and
> >deafly shouting slogans that have nothing to do
with the issues I've
> >raised.
> >
>Honestly, I do not have time to defend science
further here. You keep
>asserting there is no evidence for the "group think"
consensus. Please
>go look at the scientific literature yourself - there
are thousands of
>papers with evidence out there, available in any
local university
>library. Become a climate scientist yourself, and
you'll understand, I