Bradley Harrington
— "When all else fails, lower your standards." — Unknown
Science, in the minds of most Americans, still has an aura of dignity and respect that transcends any particular faith or educational background.
Indeed, devoted as it is to the analysis of the facts of reality, we can thank science-along with its sister creator, technology-for the fact that most of us aren't dead before we turn 30.
But science and the scientific method are very much the products of a rational epistemology — of a theory of human knowledge — that didn't really take systematic root until Galileo; it was his detailed methods of observation and experimentation that paved the way for all the incredible advances that followed.
Today, that method of acquiring knowledge is under concerted attack — and nowhere is that attack more blatant than in the field of "climate science."
Not everyone, however, is being fooled; and, as the unbelievable pile of distortions, untruths and outright lies surrounding this alleged field of "inquiry" become more exposed, we are being fooled even less: "Americans are now almost evenly split over what they believe to be the major contributor to global warming, according to a new Gallup Poll released Thursday." ("Poll: Americans more skeptical about global warming," CBS News, Mar. 11th.)
"Fifty percent of respondents," the article continues, "believe human activities are causing a rise in the earth's temperature, while 46 percent say the rise is due to natural causes." That has changed markedly from 2003, when the same poll showed the figures at 61 percent versus 33 percent.
Naturally, the global warming advocates are worrying about this, and pulling out all the stops in order to counteract it. Consider the following from earthjustice.org: "Politicians may flutter in the wind of public opinion polls, but science doesn't care what people think." (Terry Winckler, "Polls be damned, climate change is real," Mar. 11th.)
Really? But scientists certainly seem to care when their research grants — and, often, their very paychecks — are approved by such "flutterers," don't they? And this fact, incidentally — the politicalization of science — is the real tragedy for truth, of which the current orgy of global hot air hysteria is merely the most obvious example.
So — is it facts that we are concerned with here? And how the alleged facts are acquired?
If so, consider this, as a highly revealing instance of how one highly prominent climate "scientist" engages in "research": "'The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the U.K., I think I'll delete the file rather than send it to anyone...We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind.'" (Wall Street Journal, "Global warming with the lid off," Nov. 24th, 2009.)
That particular jewel came from Phil Jones, Director of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, along with thousands of other e-mails hacked off the CRU's email servers last year. The two "MMs" are almost certainly Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, the two Canadian scientists who blew global warming's so-called "hockey-stick" hypothesis off the map when all the relevant data — not merely the data provided by Michael Mann, American climatologist and originator of that hypothesis (and the man Jones' e-mail was sent to) — were considered.
So much for the idea that data should be repeatable, verifiable, and shared amongst all parties. And, what few of the public realizes even today, is that the data from the CRU serves as the basis for nearly all of the global warming climatology projections and scenarios for the last 20 years.
Welcome to the new age of "science," folks, where your information is only as safe as the small-minded, agenda-driven, consensus-seeking, control-mongering, fear-pandering and truth-violating little data diddler who happens to hold it. Objectivity and the integrity of truth? Long gone-washed away by a tidal wave of subjective supposition.
Back in Galileo's era, and for most of the centuries afterward, hypotheses were adjusted to fit the facts. Now, in a more pliable time, we reverse that process: we alter the facts to fit the desired hypothesis. As Ayn Rand once observed, "It is on the basis of this kind of stuff that you are being pushed into a new Dark Age." ("The Anti-Industrial Revolution," 1971.)
It's a crapshoot as to which is the greater calamity: that true science has all but disappeared — or that half of the country still hasn't figured that out yet. Have our standards eroded to the point that neither one matters any more?
Bradley Harrington is a former United States Marine and a free-lance writer who lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
