Text 11405, 102 rader
Skriven 2007-02-02 19:05:29 av Carl (14844.babylon5)
  Kommentar till text 11399 av rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated (14838.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: Cath0licism and Creati=nism
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"Josh Hill" <usereplyto@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:2nk7s2djvp3d80cfsph8ip5ufi8gor1rp4@4ax.com...
> On Fri, 02 Feb 2007 09:05:33 -0800, Charlie Edmondson
> <edmondson@ieee.org> wrote:
>
>>Josh Hill wrote:
>>> On 1 Feb 2007 17:10:22 -0500, vorxion@knockingshopofthemind.com
>>> (Vorxion) wrote:
>
>>>
>>> Dude, science is science: it cannot be suborned, because to do so, one
>>> would have to suborn thousands of scientists, academic institutions,
>>> and journals. For a well-known example, look at the failed attempt by
>>> the tobacco industry to suppress the evidence linking smoking and
>>> cancer.
>>>
>>> As it happens, the "commercial and governmental interests" are the
>>> ones who are pretending that global warming does not exist; see, for
>>> example, this article about the Bush Administration's attempts to hide
>>> the facts on warming from the American public.
>>>
>>>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/30/AR2007013000985.html

>>>
>>> Part of their cynical campaign consists of convincing the public that
>>> science has somehow been corrupted, while oh-so-honest politicians and
>>> oil companies have quaffed at the grail of truth.
>>>
>>
>>Josh,
>>WHAT UNIVERSE DO YOU LIVE IN?????
>>
>>Of course Science can be suborned!  It has happened hundreds of times
>>over the centuries, and will no doubt happen again and again in the
>>future!  All it takes is for the "common sense" viewpoint to reach a
>>"consensus" and all the power of human greed and self delusion kick in
>>to maintain it!  It stays in place until finally, facts come along that
>>can no longer be denied, and then a new consensus is established.  That
>>is how human minds work, despite the wish of thousands of scientists
>>that it didn't.
>
> That wasn't what I had in mind when I used the term "suborned" -- I
> was referring to the accusations that commercial and governmental
> interests could suppress science. They can't, not more than
> temporarily.
>
> But regarding social pressure, how many longstanding examples can you
> point to in the modern era? I'm not talking about medieval doctors and
> Galen, or about things that were briefly suppressed by special
> interests, such as the side effects of pharmaceuticals. Sometimes,
> discoveries can be suppressed for a few years, e.g., the relationship
> between smoking and cancer. Or they can be ignored or talked into a
> corner -- Mendel's research, say, or Semmelweis's, or the theory of
> continental drift. But the truth always seems to come out, even when
> opposition is overwhelmingly powerful, as the Church was in Galileo's
> day, or a majority is dead-set against something, as in the case of
> Darwin or Freud, or the scientific establishment is skeptical, as in
> the case of Special Relativity.
>
>>Now, with AGW, it originally was an interesting theory that maybe the
>>amount of CO2 that we produced was effecting the global climate.
>>Someone then made a statement that it could be bad.  The radical
>>environmental movement than took hold of it as another reason for humans
>>to hate themselves, and pushed it for all its worth.  It quickly became
>>the 'cause de jour' for political pundits and activists, and the
>>pressure was put on the scientific community to come up with the
>>evidence to support it!
>>
>>So, as more and more grant money and tenure was available for AGW
>>supporters, and less and less for AGW opponents, Science soon went out
>>the window.  The 'PROOF' was found.  All data and computer models were
>>massaged and interpreted to make sure that the conclusions needed came
>>out.  Today, you can hardly find anyone in the field willing to go
>>against the flow.
>
> But no one was able to come up with reasonable models that showed
> other results. It would only take /one/ scientist, /one/ model to
> prove the other models wrong. Besides which, there were initially many
> skeptics among climate scientists, who were certainly not shy about
> contesting the models or expressing their opinions.
>
>>So, what is the truth?  The truth is that change is happening.  Has
>>always happened, and will continue to happen.  Personally, I think the
>>changes we have made have been to our (the human race's) advantage
>>overall, with deforestation and rice swamps having a much greater effect
>>than all our vehicles.  I also personally believe that in 10 years a lot
>>of us will be driving electric vehicles (at least 10%) and that using
>>less oil is just a smart thing, apart from any climate effects that
>>might have.  But that is just me, and has no scientific basis at all.
>
> I'm content to follow the science here, since I've been given no
> scientific reason to doubt it. The people who are arguing against it
> at this point are arguing against it for political rather than
> scientific reasons, and in those arguments, science always wins. If
> someone came up with a good /scientific/ argument against it, that
> would all change.

Unless the lawyers get involved.  They ruin everything. :)
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