Mar
The Pathological Science of AGW
To give credit where credit is due I came across this American Thinker article this morning entitled, “We Are Doomed – - Again.” The author, John Dietrich, delves into the history and psychology of apocalyptic predictions including AGW.
It explains a lot about the “why” of these predictions, as related to religions, cults and even science. I would urge everyone to read it.
He hit upon one term “Pathological Science” that had a Wikipedia link on the subject. Now, I am aware of some of the things that go on with Wikipedia, but I found this to be very interesting in explaining what is going on with Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) scientists and the effect upon the believers.
To start, here is Wikipedia’s definition of Pathological Science:
Pathological science is the process in science in which “people are tricked into false results … by subjective effects, wishful thinking or threshold interactions“
Sounding familiar?
Irving Langmuir, Nobel winning chemist, said:
“a pathological science is an area of research that simply will not “go away” —long after it was given up on as ‘false’ by the majority of scientists in the field. He called pathological science “the science of things that aren’t so”
Now this is starting sound REAL familiar. It explains a lot about what is going on with the battle of warmers vs. deniers and the “science” surrounding Climategate.
Bart Simon lists it among practices pretending to be science: “categories [.. such as ..]pseudoscience, amateur science, deviant or fraudulent science, bad science, junk science, andpopular science [..] pathological science, cargo-cult science, and voodoo science ..”.[3] Examples of pathological science may include Martian “canals”, N-rays, polywater, water memory, and cold fusion (which remains controversial as there is ongoing published research).
To this list I would add Anthropogenic Global Warming.
Langmuir further defines Pathological Science as follows:
- The maximum effect that is observed is produced by a causative agent of barely detectable intensity, and the magnitude of the effect is substantially independent of the intensity of the cause.
- The effect is of a magnitude that remains close to the limit of detectability, or many measurements are necessary because of the very low statistical significance of the results.
- There are claims of great accuracy.
- Fantastic theories contrary to experience are suggested.
- Criticisms are met by ad hoc excuses.
- The ratio of supporters to critics rises and then falls gradually to oblivion.
So next time you see a warmer on here spouting non-existent facts please remember that they are really victims of Pathological Science and they are suffering from pathological science induced psychosis.
Note that this does not apply to Al Gore. He’s anything but a victim and, in fact, I’d wonder if he didn’t get the idea to promote AGW and reap hundreds of millions of dollars for him and his buddies from Irving Langmuir, who no doubt would be rolling in his grave at the thought. He’s obviously studied Joseph Goebbel’s propaganda techniques, so why not Langmuir?
When you combine the two you it’s a potent combination.
Possibly related posts:
- As Galileo was to the Catholic Church, anthropogenic climate change skeptics are to the Church of Settled Science
- Former NASA scientist debunks CO2 greenhouse theory
- ABC science presenter Robyn Williams seeks more truth, like seas could rise 100 meters
- ABC remains silent on climategate
- James Delingpole, tell us how you really feel about Wikipedia
I wouldn’t put AGW in the same category as the examples given. All of those were initially thought to be real, and all except N-rays are still arguable or half-right. For instance, the Martian canals were pooh-poohed for a century as mere artifacts of bad telescopes and wishful thinking, until 10 years ago when rovers and satellites showed that they are in fact remnants of past rivers.
By contrast, AGW was intentionally and completely false from the start, cooked up to satisfy the power greed of governments and the money greed of speculators. It’s crime, not science.
Beg to differ, AGW was believed to be true from the beginning from a misunderstanding of the effect of Carbonic Acid in the atmosphere, to Sagan’s invention of a runaway greenhouse effect during the 1950′s to counter Velikovky’s hypothesis that Venus would be not because it was young.
A couple spelling errors need to be corrected
Outstanding. Pathological is the perfect term for AGW dementia.
There is an uncanny similarity in the Langmuir definition of Pathological Science and the methods of the IPCC and its supporters.
It could even be the Blueprint for the climate warmers manual produced by Defra and Futerra.We have heared the same liturgy used in Parliament in the last few days ,in defence of “climate science”,and on a late night bbc program.
By the way,leave BBC radio 2 alone it does not need fixing.
To Langmuir’s list I would add: funding provided by public agencies. Politicians and governmental “science” institutions tend to work in group-think, and unfortunately have vast resources for funding. Most (real?) scientists grope for funding on a continuing basis, and so this funding can be an irresistable temptation to shade the truth (in the name of pursuing their own — pristine of course — scientific passions).