Dr. Judith Curry was recently called a heretic by Scientific American due to her views on climate science and public policy. Here, in a post at he new blog, she shows her resolve to maintain her independence from consensus thinking and to ignore the slings and arrows.
She takes no prisoners with this missive where she asks a very direct and effective question:
Let me preface my statement by saying that at this point, I am pretty much immune to criticisms from my peers regarding my behavior and public outreach on this topic (I respond to any and all criticisms of my arguments that are specifically addressed to me.) If you think that I am a big part of the cause of the problems you are facing, I suggest that you think about this more carefully. I am doing my best to return some sanity to this situation and restore science to a higher position than the dogma of consensus. You may not like it, and my actions may turn out to be ineffective, futile, or counterproductive in the short or long run, by whatever standards this whole episode ends up getting judged. But this is my carefully considered choice on what it means to be a scientist and to behave with personal and professional integrity.
Let me ask you this. So how are things going for you lately? A year ago, the climate establishment was on top of the world, masters of the universe. Now we have a situation where there have been major challenges to the reputations of a number of scientists, the IPCC, professional societies, and other institutions of science. The spillover has been a loss of public trust in climate science and some have argued, even more broadly in science. The IPCC and the UNFCCC are regarded by many as impediments to sane and politically viable energy policies. The enviro advocacy groups are abandoning the climate change issue for more promising narratives. In the U.S., the prospect of the Republicans winning the House of Representatives raises the specter of hearings on the integrity of climate science and reductions in federal funding for climate research.
What happened? Did the skeptics and the oil companies and the libertarian think tanks win? No, you lost. All in the name of supporting policies that I don’t think many of you fully understand. What I want is for the climate science community to shift gears and get back to doing science, and return to an environment where debate over the science is the spice of academic life. And because of the high relevance of our field, we need to figure out how to provide the best possible scientific information and assessment of uncertainties. This means abandoning this religious adherence to consensus dogma.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Excellent.
ps typo ‘of a number of a number’ line 4 second para.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. That piece by SciAm was straight out of the gutter.
I respect the fact that Dr Curry will still have the view that human activities have an outsized influence on the planet and its climate, but at least I feel I can talk to her as a scientist in a civilised manner.
TYTYTY, Dr Curry. I believe the tide is turning, slowly, but surely! Bravo!
Thank you, Dr Curry, for having the courage to stand up for science, rather than for consensus politics, and reaching out to us sceptics, most of whom are not inbred closed-minded fanatics.
Climate change is dogma but it is more than that, its part of a grab for political power using the climate as a scare tactic on the public to justify restrictive laws and regulations and high taxes. And it is a fraud to grab wealth by selling credits to buy off climate sin, or else pay a fine. We were to be told, and are now with light bulbs for example, what we can buy with our money and those purchases would have a government stamp of approval. Not approved purchases would be off the market because of a lack of parts, such as cash for clunkers where good cars and usable parts were ordered destroyed, to force us into cars we don’t want and through high taxation to eliminate certain products from the market. And at the cost of free enterprise and jobs.
All this had the total approval of many politicians, the MSM and the movie industry. Worse, it had the approval of some scientists who knew better. They knew better because they hid their work while threatening, shunning opposition and accepting grants for work that was more politically correct than science. When caught with a false claim they changed the claim but always with the same goal.
Climate change was their springboard to exercise total control. Dogma and science, if the mix was in coffee you would not want to drink it.
Scientists such as Dr Curry and those who contribute to this website by article and comment are to be commended for not wandering off the rail of good science and for not allowing themselves to be corrupted.
Examine religious fanaticism throughout history and up to today and you will find especially harsh treatment for apostates.
So Sci Am breaks radio silence, gives Dr Judith Curry a brief hearing and summarily brands her a “heretic”. How is a human being, an individual, a person; endowed with natural curiosity; highly trained and disciplined in the sciences; an individual with honesty and integrity like Dr Curry insulted and labeled a “heretic” for simply telling it like it is?
Climate science has degenerated into a kind of weird amoral cultish religion – backed by pandering politicians and popularized by MSM. It is time for scientists, highly qualified and honest/moral academics to step forward and denounce this nonsense before more damage is done to the practice of legitimate science, world economy, and humanity.
We need more Dr Currys to step forward.
The peer review system was an early victim of the climategate revelations. This position paper comes very close to a first step in restoring my faith in that system. I hold this contingiency and lament: The peer reviewer must have Dr. Curry’s resolve and integrity, be a champion for science, not for a cause, and the reviewer must actually test the hypotheses under review. That is to say, look for errors, flag them, don’t rubber stamp them. The lament is Dr. Curry and others of a similar bent, not being part of the good ol’ boys peer review/rubber stamp system, will not be called on to peer review anything important and so won’t be influential.
So broken is the system it seems from the outside beyond restoration, leading one to infer it may never have operated at a level one expects of such an important process.
Let the hearings begin.
They will redefine entertainment.
Watch the environmental wackos turn on each other.
Kickin’ butt and takin’ names.
With all the complexities at play in our environment, no two scientists should see eye to eye on their understandings of the climate.
The scientists are not the problem as grant funded ramblings are deconstructed at WUWT and elsewhere. The problem is their ethos. Judith Curry has removed herself from the herd on that one: but how many will follow?
That door to the church of global warming is getting plastered with several different thesis documents, they don’t have the time to clean the Pigeon poop off the statue of
the Profit…
thank you, Judith…
Garry says:
October 26, 2010 at 4:43 am
“The enviro advocacy groups are abandoning the climate change issue for more promising narratives.”
Yes, particularly “biodiversity,” which is largely about land use rights aka “private property” and which can be battled by enviros in the judicial courts rather than in the court of public opinion where their warmist propaganda has been soundly and (almost) thoroughly trounced.
Hence “biodiversity” will be the next big enviro issue, because a retreat to the courts (and a departure from public opinion) is where their authoritarian impulses will find the warmest (not warmist) welcome.
————
spot on!
already one WAust farmer was jailed for contempt of court for ignoring the insane ruling that he couldnt make firebreaks or farm his oWN land.
SZULK hes just got out of jail. and more will follow.
Great Judith, the plain truth. I would just love if scientists in my dear home country Brazil was just half as honest as you.
Roberto
http://www.anovaordemmundial.com/
Time to quit playing, kids, with your Wee-Like-Models!. You must realize you went too far. As shown many times here at WUWT, you went too far buddies: Remember when Prof. Khabibulo Abdusamatov, the head of the Pulkovo Observatory, in Saint Petersburg, when asked about your “Global Warming” said: “That’s Hollywood science”?… See what happens now?
Well said and well done. Now it would be nice if a few more good old-fashioned scientists would follow her lead and speak up — in the media, loudly and publicly.
But…but…but… Arianna Huffington said there weren’t two sides to this arguement!
Thank you Dr. Curry. The truth is on your side and the truth will prevail.
Although I am confident that it will happen eventually, it will of course take a long time for good science, commonsense and reason to prevail.
The situation remains that the proponents of climate alarmism (climate ‘scientists’, politicians, policymakers, consultants, traders, media, assorted hangers-on etc) are all enjoying life in their respective ivory towers far too much to simply rollover and abandon the cause overnight.
Purveyors of pseudoscience will always wriggle and squirm and invent at least 1,001 excuses in order to avoid engaging in open debate because they recognise the inevitability of being shot down in flames. Far better from their point of view to hide behind their barricades, even though they cracking and crumbling, and string it out as long as possible.
Therefore change will be gradual, and I doubt that we will ever see a massive showdown between good science and bad. In the end, it won’t be very exciting but it might be quietly satisfying.
Could this be the beginning of an avalanche?
Judith,
Well said. I can remember when you used to leave cryptic notes on ClimateAudit like “Be skeptical of your skepticism.” I wondered at the time why you couldn’t be skeptical of your faith in AGW. You have grown and it good to see.
It takes courage of the highest order, to abandon the comfort and security of the AGW bedding. One should be fully aware of the painful rejection from CAGW convinced colleagues, friends, family and media. After all, they are trying to save mankind and the very planet itself. No issue or scientific finding can be allowed to disturb this holy mission. Of course secondary to this mission, is the sweet icing of billions of US greenbacks, lavishly spread over the AGW cake.
I am filled with empathy, when I contemplate the road Judith must now travel. As every CAGW skeptic already knows, it is a hard row to hoe.
The only reward (other than the advancement of science) is the satisfaction, each day, of being able, to look, in the mirror and smile at what you see. Best of luck on your journey Judith… and thanks for being brave, when there are so many conformists ready and willing to take your piece of cake. GK
There’s someone you could trust to head the IPCC!
Well received statement.
All we (scientists) want is unbiased objectivity from ourselves and our peers.
In a long, successful career, my big mistakes were made when I “knew” how the answer would turn out — I found what I expected — by overlooking the obvious — and wrote a bad paper/report.
I still literally shudder physically when I think of those blunders — I am embarrassed for myself — though decades later probably no one but me remembers.
Would that some Climate Scientists could feel the same sense of shame and commence to do better for themselves, their profession, and our world.
I wonder how much revenue mags like Sci Am, New Scientist etc will lose over this, and how much they would have retained if they’d played with a straight bat?
I do not think it would be helpful to portray science as having opposite sides, two factions struggling to dominate and suppress the other, rather there should be scientific endeavour to seek scientific truth that resists political interference and ideological pressures.
I think I speak for many when I say that all we have ever wanted is the truth presented without fear or favour, prejudice or ideology. We have been lied to and sold a political narrative, been subjected to substandard science liberally laced with fraudulent misrepresentation for years.
If the planet is warming lets find out why, if the planet is cooling lets find out why, if the climate is being influenced by human activities lets work out by how much or how little but lets finish with the lies and deceit and cynical manipulation and fraud and exaggeration and poisonous dirty tricks.
All we have ever wanted is real scientific truth presented without fear or favour, is that too much to ask? BTW & FWIW Judith Curry is behaving exactly how any normal rational scientist should behave and exactly how the pioneer sceptics have been behaving(and suffering for it) for years. What she is doing should be regarded as the norm not the exception and certainly not in the same league as the early pioneers in the search for scientific truth, having said that I do admire Judith for standing up for the truth and pursuit of real science.