It’s really a shame that some who pass for scientists get so caught up in hanging on to previous misstatements that they hold on at all costs just to save face. Especially with climate change. If those who claim we’re headed for catastrophe are right, we’re talking something that’s about as important as it gets. But they’re shooting themselves in the foot and the rest of us in the head.
And mainstream media, which has staked out a position on the side of this stretched science, gets caught up in CYA to the point that they don’t report (what else is new). They take a “woe is me” stance when some so-called scientist gets caught fudging the evidence. As in this Washington Post item:
“With its 2007 report declaring that the “warming of the climate system is unequivocal,” the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won a Nobel Prize– and a new degree of public trust in the controversial science of global warming.
“But recent revelations about flaws in that seminal report, ranging from typos in key dates to sloppy sourcing, are undermining confidence not only in the panel’s work but also in projections about climate change. Scientists who have pointed out problems in the report say the panel’s methods and mistakes — including admitting Saturday that it had overstated how much of the Netherlands was below sea level — give doubters an opening.”*
In other words, bad science isn’t important because it’s wrong, but because the claims it made can now be refuted.
Amazing. Science is supposed to go where the evidence leads it, no matter where the chips fall. But now the pro-climate-disaster folks are sticking to the bad science. Not moved by the fact that it’s bad, but by the fact that those who disagreed with it might now be able to say the bad science guys were wrong.
So where does America get the facts? We’ve been looking, and they’re hard to find.
*via Series of missteps by climate scientists threatens climate-change agenda – washingtonpost.com.
