Really asking.
> Second, "mainstream science" is an oxymoron. Science is not faith;
> not faith
> in its findings (which are always provisional); nor faith in its
> methods
> (which are many). Being at odds with received opinion is what
> science is.
Well yes and no. If most scientists agree on something, my instinct is to think they're onto something. I realize that that that requires a certain delegation of authority from a nonscientist, who can't judge the scientists' work on their own terms, but scientific authority is just one of those things that seem well-proven enough that it's not worth the argument.
> Fourth, I know when I am being railroaded, and I am surprised that you
> don't. Indeed I am constantly surprised that people who would not
> dream of
> accepting a government, or United Nations' or government scientists'
> argument that terrorism demands special government powers lap up
> the same
> argument when the threat is 'climate change' (as if 'climate
> change' was
> anything but tautology).
We live in different countries. In the U.S., climate change - at least until recently - was dismissed as nonsense by much of the Republican party and the corporate class. The Dems have long thought it was for real, but are paralyzed in doing anything about it, given the whole American set-up. The war on terror wasn't worked out by scientists, but by frightening politicians.
> Fifth, arguments put by the environmentalists that anthropogenic
> climate
> change is upon us are so palpably dishonest and contradictory, that
> no sane
> person could adopt them without a wilful suspension of disbelief.
> When I see
> the IPCC report that water levels might rise by an inch in the next
> century
> cited to support the argument that they will rise fifteen feet,
> then I think
> that the case is wilfully alarmist; or similarly, when I see
> conjunctural
> weather patterns, like Britain's recent floods or Hurricane Katrina
> attributed to anthropogenic climate change on page one of the
> newspapers
> (only to be retracted at a later date on page 21 later on).
Look, there's a lot of weird weather lately, and I'll bet it can be proved.
> Sixth, all the people who want me to worry about climate change are
> the same
> ones who lied to me about the dangers inherent in genetically
> modifed foods,
> told me that one third of the British public would have CJD by
> 1997, also
> that one in ten people in the UK would have contracted AIDS, told
> us that
> DDT was so dangerous that we ought to prefer malaria, told us that
> nuclear
> power was innately dangerous (but seem to be having a rethink),
> continue to
> tell us that building dams is wrong, opposed the MMR vaccine on
> specious
> grounds, have conspired to wreck the UK housebuilding sector, and are
> basically people I would not trust to change a lightbulb.
Scientists told you those things, or enviros? I never believed the stuff about GM, CJD, universal AIDS. DDT, nuclear power, and dams have some serious problems though.
> And lastly, Doug writes
>
> "unlike Alex Cockburn, who has an aristocrat's distrust of science
> as being
> too complicated and wonky, especially now that he's become country
> gentry
> with some quirky opinions (as Lou Proyect put it recently)."
>
> Lou Proyect, Alex Cockburn; it is not really such a hard choice, is
> it?
Funny how things change. Five years ago I'd have agreed with your choice in that simple A/B; now I wouldn't.
Doug