[orwell2k]

Originally Posted by hapax legomenon

Orwell2K, Michael Crichton isn't taken seriously either by climate change scientists or by literary critics. If you want to read genuine thoughtpieces about the interactions between science and belief, check out Steven Dutsch's Pseudoscience essays. He is a professor of earth science and quite eloquent and witty.

I'm not sure what Steven Dutch smokes for breakfast, but it certainly makes his writing entertaining. Although I find it hard to take his absolutist arguments too much to heart, such as statements like:

With a few exceptions, mostly Holland and the Scandinavian countries, most of the signatories of the Kyoto Accords are posers. They have no more intention of actually living up to the Kyoto Accords than the U.S. does, but they have one clear advantage over the U.S. They lie. We consider implications and don't sign treaties we can't support or fulfill; other countries merrily sign treaties they have no real intention of living up to.

Apparently his axiomatic patriotism makes this statement one of clear, undisputed fact (at least in his universe). Alas, I hate to tell you Stevie, but all governments lie, manipulate, cheat, mislead, exploit equally as well as each other - I can only guess he made such claims prior to the Iraq invasion fiasco (you do remember there was a little issue of less-than-truthfulness involved there)? Although that doesn't explain his apparent ignorance of other great moments in history.

We have to hope his other arguments are a little more thought out and based on scientific reasoning. But can we? Try this one on for size:

...we have a clear record of carbon dioxide increasing in the last couple of centuries and pretty solid evidence the climate is actually getting warmer

Blistering scientific 'fact' put forward again in support of the theory - I especially like the 'pretty solid evidence the climate is actually getting warmer' part of the statement.

Using the 'Dutch Method' of scientific resoning we can group the 'accepted facts' (stated so eloquently above) of CO2 increase and warmer climate into tha same basket as the sun rising every morning - i.e. don't bother getting me to prove the sun will rise tomorrow, but come and see me, if and only if, it does not.

He tries to (quite wittily) turn the tables of the burden of proof onto the sceptics rather than the theorists. I thought the scientifc process was to form a hypothesis that explains observation, then either prove or disprove that hypothesis. But I guess in the best Orwellian traditions where War is Peace and Freedom is Slavery, we must add Hypothesis is Fact (or some such - maybe Global Warming is Cool would be more hip?). We have a lot of theories and hypotheses, but the burden of proof seems yet to be satisfied.

As entertaining as the Dutch page is, as well as so many others, I'm not really looking for yet another extremist crackpot using his scientifc 'objectivity' to make aximoatic statements that 'prove' anthropogenic global warming claims. Nor am I looking for conspiracy nuts claiming suppression of data or other 'evangelical environmentalists' are creating the global warming hyteria.

What I would like is a truly impartial look at the evidence and the reasoning behind the theories. But the issue seems too divisive to have any neutral observers, or at least any neutral observers with real knowledge of the science.

I'll keep looking...