Very recently, President Biden had a press conference with the Prime Minister Modi of India. He proclaimed that we must keep global temperature rise to 1.5 °C. Their two speeches seemed to rationalize why our countries will spend trillions of dollars trying to reduce carbon emissions to achieve this goal.
I wonder. Does Job Biden know that given the theory of global warming, and his attempts to reduce carbon emissions, that the science says we will not come close to 1.5 °C? Has President Biden’s staff read the book False Alarm by Bjorn Lomborg to better understand the balance between economics and atmospheric temperatures? Has he listened to the founding scientist of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore, on his opposition to the notion that carbon emissions are causing global warming? Maybe he has listened to climate scientist Judith Curry that the climate emergency is being fabricated. What if Joe Biden knew that there wasn’t scientific consensus on the climate change narrative that he is echoing in his political speeches.
Science is messy. There are often two or more conflicting conclusions after processing the evidence for and against a specific theory. Instead of considering these conflicting views and then acting in a way that is reasonable, science has devolved into a popularity contes. Why? Because politicians who advocate a reasonable and scientific approach don’t win elections.
When it comes to climate science, our two front runners for president have opposing views. Donald Trump claims that the popularized theory of climate change is a “hoax”. Joe Biden claims that climate change is an existential threat that required spending money we don’t have to fix it.
This article is not being published to resolve the idea of climate change. Although, I will say that, if climate change is caused by carbon emissions, we are implementing the wrong solutions. Instead, this article is about the topic of science itself.
Science is defined as a neutral, rigorous, systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Let’s face it, there’s a lot we humans don’t know.
We use scientific processes to fill in the gaps of our knowledge of how the world works. Many conclusions made by scientists are incomplete and flawed. There are some fields of science where theories cannot be tested by the scientific process, and so we stick with our best guess.
Origin of the universe and the earth
Ancient civilizations
The age of the universe and the earth
Climate change
When a fetus becomes a human being worth of protection.
Gender choice vs biologic gender
Keynesian vs Austrian School vs Modern Money Theory of economics
Grand unified theory
Theory of evolution
Pros and cons of vaccinations
Disease transmission
Amount of undiscovered fossil fuel reserves
The moon’s interior
The existence of non-earth life
The list is endless. This is the cool thing about science. It’s fun finding out the answers to these questions. The problem is that these answers are complicated. Even when the answer seems obvious, the best actions we can take are not.
Now for this term, “following the science”. If you “follow the science”, you will be on a never-ending search for the truth. You will not have reached a conclusion that fits your narrative of how the world works. You will remain inquisitive and listen to critical voices on popular theories. You will be highly skeptical of popular theories promoted by politicians. Why? Politicians are not scientists, and their motive to promote a scientific viewpoint is not because they love science. Instead, it is because adhering to a scientific theory advances their political party, their political career, and their political power.
Whenever I hear someone say, “I follow the science”, I’m convinced that they are a political partisan who has no clue about the competing scientific theories on whatever perspective they are ready to expound.
You may think that only non-technical people are the ones fooled by this scientific hype. Unfortunately, most scientists fall prey to political hype.
Here’s how it works.
Politicians get elected based on their stance on some scientific idea. It could be gender fluidity, climate change, or Keynesian economics. Politicians make laws and decide where government money will be spent. If you’re a scientist who disagrees with the politically popular ideas, your research will not receive needed government funding. This popular scientific funding cycle will eliminate any contrarian ideas because scientists who hold them will go broke. One of two things happens. Either a scientist who holds a contrarian opinion researches a topic that contradicts his/her opinion; or they decide to take a different career path. In either case, the contrarian ideas won’t be researched or advanced.
What can we do?
I know what you’re thinking. You suspect that scientists are wrong, but how can a mere mortal know enough to challenge these complicated scientific formulas and knowledge that it took decades for these experts to amass?
Seek Contrary Opinions
When a scientific idea becomes massively popular and political, you can bet that the idea is wrong. To better understand why, you need to search hard to find dissenting opinions. This is difficult because popular search engines, news organizations, and social media censor information that contradicts the popular opinions. They think that such contrary ideas are dangerous misinformation. In some cases, contrary ideas are misinformation. However, you have enough common sense to at least know that there is disagreement on a popular scientific idea.
Follow the Numbers
The COVID19 pandemic was new to everyone in 2020. It was scary and we decided to lock down and protect ourselves from a fatal disease. The numbers being reported by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) were alarming. As of today (6/2023), close to 7-million deaths are attributed to the COVID19 pandemic. The hysteria of this pandemic created a belief that staying in your house, wearing a mask when you went out of your house, and avoiding groups was the best way to avoid getting COVID19 and dying. Eventually, the newly developed COVID19 vaccine was added to the scientifically approved list of remedies for this deadly illness.
The numbers of deaths were real. At least I have no evidence to prove they were not. However, the cause and effect of increased and decreased deaths was not scientific. Many countries who didn’t follow the hysteria had fewer deaths than those who did. There was little correlation of COVID19 deaths to the supposed scientific advice being given. We knew that young adults and children were not as susceptible to the disease as adults. And yet, we shut down schools which created a negative impact on these kids that exceeded the harm they would have experienced from COVID19.
Interestingly, vaccinated populations saw little difference in infection rates when compared with unvaccinated populations. Maybe that is why half of our population decided to not take booster shots.
When the numbers contradict the rhetoric, you can be assured that the people “following the science”, are “following the politics”.
Follow the Money
The world of economics can be difficult to unwind; and so, it’s difficult to “follow the money”. However, it is in the interest of oil companies to resist ideas that climate change is caused by oil. Ironically, oil companies have become the most profitable as politicians have resisted increased exploration for oil. Electric utilities resisted converting to renewable energy until they understood that they would make record profits as they adopted the cost-plus model of charging added costs to electricity rate payers. Almost all political decisions are being lobbied by a special interest. And all special interests hope to gain special money from the government spending. These companies pay for and promote ideas in the name of science to enrich themselves.
If you think that oil companies are against green energy, you may want to better understand how companies make money. When a commodity is restricted, new exploration is restricted; and the price of that commodity increases because it is still in demand with lower supply. This looks like commodity inflation and is highly profitable for the company providing the scarce resource. Most oil companies have investments in green energy projects to hedge oil revenues. Large corporations rarely lose regardless of the decisions made by the government. They smile all the way to the bank as the masses claim they are following the science.
I hope that after reading this article, you adopt a healthy skepticism for politicians who say they are “following the science”. Check out the facts for yourself. Use your common sense. Get a list of talking points to use when your friends poke fun at you for not following popular opinions. Who knows? Maybe critical thinking is not dead after all.
Комментарии