Jouni Valkonen <[email protected]> wrote: It should be obvious that there is politics involved in climate science. > There is just too much money and urgency involved. This means also > corruption, because science is not clear and it is very difficult and > everyone wants to see what the wish most. >
Absolutely true! It is a political minefield. No doubt people on both sides of the dispute sometimes distort and play politics. I did not mean to suggest the researchers are all pure-heart scientists, and opponents all ignorant people or oil company shills. I expect there are smart & honest people on both sides. I can only judge by looking at externalities, particularly the fact that the majority of working scientists within the field agree. Since I know so little about it, I must depend upon their professional expertise. This is weak argument compared to a direct technical argument, but I am not capable of making such a argument. But let us be realistic. We depend upon experts for 99.99% of our knowledge of the world. We assume they are right about nearly everything. We bet our lives on experts every time we fly in an airplane or undergo surgery. Or take a ferry boat in the Inland Sea. We can do this with confidence because most of the time they are right. Regarding that ferry boat, I meant to say it is *not* surprising that once in a while one captain makes a mistake. On the other hand, if next Tuesday every single ferry boat captain in the Inland Sea runs aground, that would be very surprising. The likelihood of that is effectively zero. The likelihood that ever single climate scientist is wrong, and every single cold fusion researcher is wrong, is also so close to zero I wouldn't worry about it. Here is an article about the ferry mishap, which involved a bunch of high school students. They were freaked out, according to my friends in Oshima (or Suo-oshima as it is listed here): http://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/News/Tn201211150043.html - Jed
