I couldn't have said it better myself. University of Oklahoma Professor David Deming writes in defense of Dr. [Don] Easterbrook, geology professor emeritus at Western Washington University, who dared to question the anthropogenic global warming orthodoxy. As I have said before, it is critical that our scientists present their findings honestly and without political slant...and welcome skepticism about those findings. Yet time and time again skeptics in the scientific community who dare to question the global warming theory are ostracized and ridiculed by colleagues. That is not what science is about. Dr. Deming's
letter, in full, follows:
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Dr. David Deming, University of Oklahoma |
I write in rebuttal to the March 31 letter by WWU geology faculty criticizing Dr. Don Easterbrook. I have a Ph.D in geophysics
and have published research papers on climate change in the
peer-reviewed scientific literature. In 2006 I testified before the US
Senate on global warming. Additionally, I am the author of a
three-volume history of science.
I have never met Don Easterbrook. I write not so much to defend him
as to expose the ignorance exhibited in the letter authored by WWU
geology faculty. Their attack on Dr. Easterbrook is the most egregious
example of pedantic buffoonery since the Pigeon League conspired against
Galileo in the seventeenth century. Skepticism is essential to science.
But the goal of the geology faculty at WWU seems to be to suppress
critical inquiry and insist on dogmatic adherence to ideology.
The WWU faculty never defined the term “global warming” but described
it as “very real,” as if it were possible for something to be more real
than real. They claimed that the evidence in support of this “very
real” global warming was “overwhelming.” Yet they could not find space
in their letter to cite a single specific fact that supports their
thesis.
There is significant evidence that would tend to falsify global
warming. The mean global air temperature has not risen for the last
fifteen years. At the end of March the global extent of sea ice was
above the long-term average and higher than it was in March of 1980.
Last December, snow cover in the northern hemisphere was at the highest
level since record keeping began in 1966. The UK just experienced the
coldest March of the last fifty years. There has been no increase in
droughts or wildfires. Worldwide hurricane and cyclone activity is near a
forty-year low.
One might think that the foregoing facts would raise doubts in
scientists interested in pursuing objective truth. But global warming is
not so much a scientific theory subject to empirical falsification as
it is a political ideology that must be fiercely defended in defiance of
every fact to the contrary. In the past few years we have been told
that not only hot weather but cold weather is caused by global warming.
The blizzards that struck the east coast of the US in 2010 were
attributed to global warming. Every weather event–hot, cold, wet or
dry–is said to be caused by global warming. The theory that explains
everything explains nothing.
Among the gems in the endless litany of nonsense we are subjected to
are claims that global warming causes earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic
eruptions. Last year we were warned that global warming would turn us
all into hobbits, the mythical creatures from J. R. R. Tolkien’s novels.
I am not aware of any member of the WWU geology faculty criticizing
these ridiculous claims. Their vehemence seems to be reserved for honest
skeptics like Dr. Easterbrook who advance science by asking hard
questions.
At the heart of the WWU geology faculty criticisms was the claim that
peer review creates objective and reliable knowledge. Nonsense. Peer
review produces opinions. Scientists, like other people, have political
beliefs, ideological orientations, and personal views that strain their
scientific objectivity. One of the most disgusting things to emerge from
the 2009 Climategate emails was the revelation of an attempt to subvert
the peer-review process by suppressing the publication of work that was
scientifically sound but contrary to the reviewer’s personal views.
The infamous phrase “hide the decline” refers to an instance where a
global warming alarmist omitted data that contradicted his personal
belief that the world was warming. This sort of bias is not limited but
pervasive. Neither is science a foolproof method for producing absolute
truth. Scientific knowledge is always tentative and subject to revision.
The entire history of science is littered with discarded theories once
thought to be incontrovertible truths.
The WWU geology faculty letter asserted that technological advances
arise from application of the scientific method. They claimed that
airplanes were invented by scientists. But the Wright brothers were
bicycle mechanics–not scientists. The modern age of personal computing
began in a suburban California garage in 1976. The most significant
technological advance in human history was the Industrial Revolution in
Britain that occurred from 1760 through 1830. When Adam Smith toured
factories and inquired as to who had invented the new machinery, the
answer was always the same: the common workman. Antibiotics were not
discovered through the rigorous application of scientific methodology
but serendipitously when Fleming noticed in 1928 that mold suppressed
bacterial growth.
Dr. Easterbrook’s contributions have furthered the advance of
scientific knowledge and the progress of the human race. It matters not
if a multitude of professors oppose him. As Galileo explained, it is
“certain that the number of those who reason well in difficult matters
is much smaller than the number of those who reason badly….reasoning is
like running and not like carrying, and one Arab steed will outrun a
hundred jackasses.”
David Deming
Professor of Arts & Sciences
University of Oklahoma
4 comments:
Paul, you being very, very naughty. Prof. Deming has an axe to grind himself about this subject. You should have at least mentioned it.
Climate fraud is thug-ocracy scheming to beat up citizens with falsehoods & take their money.
Here's the latest on climate fraud from Lord Monkton (an expert on the subject, to the extent they exist anywhere): www.wnd.com/2013/03/climate-fraudster-have-an-award/
The Global Warming (or Climate Change) racket is a naked statist effort to accomplish what old-fashioned Marxism had yet to do - gain complete control over industry and people's everyday lives. The people most certain of, and invested in, Global Warming, are politicians, bureacrats, and other government employees, such as state university scientists. The hard left has gone so far as to recommend arresting people who disagree with their agenda.
Even before recent events, the Global Warming agenda was full of holes:
1) It's predicated on warming being man-made (anthropogenic), in spite of evidence that solar activity is a major factor.
2) The anthropogenic aspect is so important because that means global warming could be corrected through various "controls".
3) Such controls include harsh limits on economic activity, plus a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions, plus imposition of idiotic contrivances like CFL bulbs and the Toyota Prius. (CFL bulbs contain mercury, and are inferior in every way to LED. A Prius over its lifetime from raw material to eventual scrapyard, uses more energy than a gas-guzzling pickup truck.)
4) Yet all the controls imagined would have an infinitesimal impact on global temperatures, as has been documented universally.
5) The controls therefore have little to do with reducing global warming, and more to do with enriching the political class in the name of wealth transfer.
Recent events such as described in The Economist show that warming stopped about 15 years ago. The leftist's model for global warming can now clearly be seen as the ruse it always was: http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21574461-climate-may-be-heating-up-less-response-greenhouse-gas-emissions
For pointing out the BS in the left's agenda, they would call me whatever names are in fashion. Yet I fully support common sense approaches like insulation, higher CAFE standards (long opposed by the damn UAW), and the abandonment of the materialism that defines our society. But to the left, that's not enough, because the left wants to call all the shots. Without a catastrophe to take advantage of, their statist push goes nowhere.
I also think office workers should either (a) telecommute or (b) live close to where they work. But to the left, that's not enough, because the left wants rail transport.
The left doesn't give a sh*t about global warming or tranit options for the poor - they start with "solutions" that advance their cause, then wrap those solutions in feel-good ideals.
Oh come on, have you even looked at the scads of very clear data that are out there, or have you just prayed and had God tell you that everything will be all right? At this point, denying anthropogenic climate change is akin to insisting that the Earth is the center of the universe - both positions are unsupportable and obstructive of technological progress, and therefore deserving of ridicule.
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