Quote:
Originally Posted by Aldin
@ Dad_Scaper
I have no idea where you get the idea that I'm attacking the integrity of anyone, unless you believe that human beings acting like human beings are incapable of integrity. Which, I suppose, may indeed be your stand. |
I think the complaint is more that you are not really describing the social pressures scientists face in a remotely realistic way.
Who, exactly, are these climate scientists getting feted and given accolades? Sure, some politicians use this on the stump, but literally nobody, and I mean nobody, is famous because of their support of the consensus on climate change.
I actually read these papers and read the blogs of climate scientists, and I can only name three prominent climate scientists off the top of my head:
- Michael Mann - a very prominent climatologist, but mostly famous for "the hockey stick controversy" and the "climategate" e-mail leak.
- Richard Muller - a physicist who largely looked down on all climate research, then founded the Berkeley Earth research group and reproduced everything from the ground up, and got basically all the same conclusions as everyone else.
- Judith Curry - Phaethon's favorite climatologist (I knew of her before I read his stuff) - she agrees on all the basic physics but is a sort of soft denier who says there's more uncertainty and we don't really know what the trend is. Was part of the Berkeley Earth project but left when she didn't like the conclusions.
So... that's all I got. A denier, a former denier who was famous for being a denier, and the scientist who is most hated and vilified by the deniers. That is the entire list of climate scientists I can name. Do you have a longer list than that? Does this list actually suggest that pushing the consensus is the path to fame, fortune, and glory?
The reality is that anyone who could actually create an explanation for why global warming is a nonissue that withstood scrutiny would be a super-rock star. THAT is the path. Another true thing is that being a climate scientist who agrees with the consensus is neither an amazing trick for career advancement, nor a path to glory and praise.
I continue to be utterly amazed that people seriously think it's the
climate scientists who have an overwhelming incentive to dissemble, and not the people representing
the most profitable industry in human history. But as Dysole alluded to earlier, the human capacity to fit our observations into a narrative that comports with our worldview is almost without limit.