Global warming debate depends on scientific data and fearless review, not intellectual warfare

Daily Press (2009-11-29)

Regardless of where one stands on the global warming debate, reasonable men and women should agree that no one has an ironclad claim on scientific “truth,” which is subject to adjustment as our knowledge and scientific tools advance.

Doubt is a fundamental tool of scientific progress, and incontestable certainty is suspect.

Not three decades ago, Carl Sagan was warning that the world was headed for another Ice Age. Early in the 20th century, many prominent Americans, includingHenry Ford, were convinced that eugenics — denying the right of reproduction to anyone whose genes were “weak” — was the way to advance the human race. In the past few weeks, based on their reassessment of the scientific data, a medical advisory panel changed directions on when women should undergo mammograms for cancer prevention, prompting impassioned debate. Global warming, or mankind’s role in creating it, is an important subject for exploration and debate. It must be done with scientific rigor, not evangelical fervor.

Global warming debate depends on scientific data and fearless review, not intellectual warfare

Daily Press (2009-11-29)

Regardless of where one stands on the global warming debate, reasonable men and women should agree that no one has an ironclad claim on scientific “truth,” which is subject to adjustment as our knowledge and scientific tools advance.

Doubt is a fundamental tool of scientific progress, and incontestable certainty is suspect.

Not three decades ago, Carl Sagan was warning that the world was headed for another Ice Age. Early in the 20th century, many prominent Americans, including Henry Ford, were convinced that eugenics — denying the right of reproduction to anyone whose genes were “weak” — was the way to advance the human race. In the past few weeks, based on their reassessment of the scientific data, a medical advisory panel changed directions on when women should undergo mammograms for cancer prevention, prompting impassioned debate. Global warming, or mankind’s role in creating it, is an important subject for exploration and debate. It must be done with scientific rigor, not evangelical fervor.

Which is why it was alarming to see recent news reports surfacing from a hacker’s attack on the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University in England. E-mails printed in the Wall Street Journal show that some of the scientists who believe the evidence points to man-made causes of global warming are guilty of near-dogmatic fervor against their skeptics.

Many e-mails published in the Journal report show a personal contempt for scientists who dissent from their conclusions. One scientist from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory muses about beating up Pat Michaels, the former Virginia state climatologist who is one of the better-known skeptics of the belief that man is responsible for climate change.

While those exchanges might show only that scientists are human, and not exempt from personality-based likes and dislikes, of more concern is e-mail traffic that shows climate scientists declined to make their data available to scientists with whom they disagreed. That goes against the very heart of peer review and scientific inquiry, which welcomes testing of theories and ideas.

In another e-mail quoted by the Journal, the director of the East Anglia climate center, Phil Jones, suggests to an American peer that those who share their views must find a way to keep those with different views from publishing their findings in scientific publications.

In yet another, the director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State muses about encouraging other researchers to “no longer submit to, or cite papers in” a journal that published a paper skeptical of the man-made global warming theory.

As pointed out by defenders of the network of climate scientists entangled in the exchanges, nothing in the e-mails discredits any of their scientific data or betrays a conspiracy to deceive, and man-made global warming remains the preponderant view of scientists.

Yet, as tempting as it might be to ignore this glimpse into these private communications as academic infighting or inter-office grumbling, the conclusions these scientists seem unwilling to subject to skeptical scrutiny have very real consequences. Based on those conclusions, the president and leaders of Congress aim to push cap and trade legislation that will cost taxpayers billions of dollars, and jeopardizes a host of American businesses.

We should insist that any science used to support such legislation is freed from dogmatic taint.