Global Climate Change Camp

I'm a statistician. This puts me in the nice position to have collaborated with scientists from many fields (not climate science though). Statistics is hard, even for statisticians, and it's quite essential for science. I have seen much wrong statistics in science, and that doesn't even touch the issue of the trustworthiness of the data.

One thing that I wanted to add is that science is essentially a social, collaborative and communicative endeavour. The idea that one person can get to the bottom of things on their own can't work. The amount of established scientific knowledge is huge. Ultimately we can't make all the observations and evaluations on our own. What we believe relies always to a big extent on trust. We trust some sources and informations and discard others, or we can't find anything to believe.

Science is also paradoxical. On one hand science relies on critical thinking and on the rejection of dogma, but on the other hand it is impossible to get at the level of proper understanding what goes on without accepting some things that a single person can't check on their own. So science needs to encourage controversy, but there needs to be a limit in order to make it possible to move forward, find out something new, draw consequences.

 

The human nature will always get in the way of proper science; people can make money and get famous if they claim the right things. Science is vulnerable to meddling interests and also to plain human stupidity, psychology and egoism. However, science is huge and many people contribute to it, and science has always the potential to call out a manipulator.  Within science, we need to fight for this and cannot take for granted that it will happen, but I don't think a one-man-band from outside has good chances to do better. We need to listen and to encourage controversy but at the same time we will always try to build on what's already there, and it is no surprise that people who do that sometimes react dismissive to those who attemptto tear down what is seen as fundamental. I have seen my fair share of corruption and egoism in science, but usually in such cases there is dissent, and often that dissent may win or at least survive. My perception from the inside is very, very different from the idea that this is all guided by some more or less hidden world elite. Science gets things wrong, at least temporarily, but it still has some mechanisms to correct itself or at least allow pluralism until things are sorted out.

By the way, I'm not an expert of Rupert Sheldrake's work, and I was probably too negative in my earlier posting. He has some very interesting stuff, and I do realise that some people try to defend their position by discrediting him, often in unfair or stupid ways. However to positively establish his morphic resonance ideas he won't succeed as a "loner against the establishment" and rightly so, because science is communicative and he needs to be convincing. He needs to get through to those who are open enough, and in science you will find them (if what you present is convincing enough).

I have by the way similar experiences pointing out the weak statistical arguments behind some of the key works that were used to convince the world that homeopathy is no good. Many scientists don't like that (homeopathy is among the top belief systems to be branded "pseudoscience") and I had to deal with a good number of ignorant counterarguments, all by otherwise intelligent scientists. People would try to convince me that positive studies that I had seen either don't exist or are methodologically flawed without having read them. However, that homeopathy is criticised unfairly doesn't make it true, and you can find as much ignorance on the other side.

 

 

siLLy puPPy wrote: This furthermore connotates a universal cause and effect known as the wheel of karma however it is very prevelent that those who allow themselves to be controlled are also using their freewill in this case to avoid responsbility but are still karmically responsible for the actions they carry out whether they understand it or not   ................

Sorry but "hypnotising humanity" does not apply to those allowing themselves to be controlled (unless you intended to mean unconsciously allowing themselves to be controlled.) 

Would you please explain this incongruence?

.