By Charles Battig, M.D.
Positive public perception of the scientist has long been powerful. The public has the tendency to defer to scientists, as it does to authority in general. It is part of the educational and socialization process inherent in societies.
Scientists are in a special category in the public’s mind, since they are perceived to have specialized knowledge that, it is assumed, will benefit society in general and, more importantly, the individual concerned with his own well-being.
Scientists are assumed to be the link between the mysteries of our natural world and the means to better our chances of survival in it. They are assumed to be impartial in seeking fact, as best as it can be determined or approximated. From the time of the alchemists to the present, that assumption continues.
Idealism in such scientific pursuits has had a tough time in the real world. When the scientist has convinced himself in the discovery of a new law of nature, his ability to communicate its veracity to the public is equally challenging, and often proves life-threatening. The established order (read: special interests) has been equally ingenious in using its view of the world to its financial and political ends. The ruling classes of all types are highly protective of their means of controlling the public.
When the age of enlightenment produced such an out-pouring of new scientific discoveries seeming to hold benefits for all strata of society, the scientist achieved the respectability not afforded the primitive alchemist. Karl Popper and then Richard Feynman provided the moral underpinnings of what should be the measure of truth in the scientific method.
At each step, the political classes were equally busy looking to bend the curve of new knowledge to their advantage. As dispensers of favors, fame, and funds, they can make tempting offers to those who might see reality their preferred way. In place of Feynman has come post-normal science, a sort of à-la-carte pseudo-scientific expediency in place of old-fashioned “falsifiability.”
Once a relatively obscure field of scientific interest, climatology has become front-page news, and a battleground of competing claims of theory and verifiable knowledge. The origins of this transition have been speculated upon and include post-WWII groups as the Bilderbergs, and more formally the Club of Rome. Population growth, environmental idealism, and new-age earth worship were part of the mix. Intoned guilt over societal progress in bettering bare existence became a new meme for the promoters of societal control.
Energy, increasingly abundant and cheap, literally powered this growing and more prosperous society. Parts of the world benefited unevenly in such growth, but even in the “disadvantaged” parts, energy held promise to better meager existence. The population control activists feared the consequences of such growth in both the developed and undeveloped world. They sought a common enemy, and defined it as mankind. Then they defined man-made carbon dioxide as the global scapegoat.
The recent publication of the latest National Climate Assessment Report, and the EPA proposed rule on carbon dioxide emissions by power plants, can be seen as coordinated assaults on affordable energy in the U.S. The inherent scientific contradictions within these documents and their advocacy in place of impartial scientific argument have been documented by others. The public is left confused and at the mercies of inadequate media reporting, itself a source of one-sided advocacy commentary.
Political wordsmiths have coined the term “carbon pollution.” By stringing together two scientifically unrelated words, they have crafted an emotionally charged term to fit the needs of government and propagandists. We are categorized as “carbon-based life forms.” Carbon dioxide is an inherent and necessary chemical component of all such life. Photosynthesis and the role of carbon dioxide describe the dance of nature by which the carbon dioxide produced by our bodies is part of the atmospheric carbon dioxide that feeds the plants, which in turn produce the oxygen we need to live.
The negative connotation of pollution has been grafted onto carbon in a version of Gresham’s Law – the bad driving out the good. This is not science, but propaganda.
Having defined a new hazard in the minds of public, the government has now assumed the mantle of protector and can prophesize that the new clean air regulations specifically targeting carbon dioxide (“carbon pollution”) will prevent “150,000 asthma attacks in children each year and 20,000 heart attacks,” forestall dangerous climate change, hold back sea-level rise, and prevent global warming. The lack of valid supporting scientific facts to make such claims is ignored, as political dogma has marginalized and even punished scientific dissent.
Federally mandated cures for nonexistent carbon pollution will inflict real heath harm as the less advantaged are forced to pay more for basic energy needs. More expensive heating and cooling bills will be added to more expensive basic food as farmland is used to grow fuel stock produce. More expensive gasoline will hinder trips to the doctor. More expensive transportation and manufacturing processes will increase the cost of living for all and lower the standard of living for many. Bad science kills.
The false prophets have spoken. The admonition “beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” is fair warning.
Charles Battig, M.D. is Piedmont Chapter president, VA-Scientists and Engineers for Energy and Environment (VA-SEEE). His website is www.climateis.com.
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Over the past 400 years, science as an institution has earned a huge amount of respect from the public — repect for its ability to deliver useful or impressive advances, and respect for its devotion (on the whole, with temporary departures) to honoring truth and ignoring politics. Over the past 30 years, though, we have seen a sustained effort to “cash in” this reputation, to convert it into a machine for cementing political power. We see scientifically outrageous behavior from prominent figures who are little more than politicians in lab coats, we hear “science says” bandied about as a blatant, logically fallacious appeal to authority, and we are bombarded with assertions that counting noses is a reliable method of establishing scientific truth. The public’s respect for science may never recover. I feel as if I’m watching a 400-year accumulation of fine brass laboratory instruments being melted down to make cannon barrels for a religious war.
Dr. Battig’s essay should be sent to every newspaper in the land with a challenge addressed to each: “Do you believe in reporting the truth, or not?”
“Bad science kills.”
Better words were never spoken. CO2 is a by product of cheap energy. Cheap energy has increased the life span of most humans to the point now that they are simply dying due to wearing out (versus before when any nasty bug would lay waste to a family or clan). By throttling a by product, with no ill effects other than a perceived warming effect (unproven), they seek to throttle cheap energy. And thus force humanity back to an age of “blood letting” and leeches. Many alarmists claim we are not charging the correct price for energy due to the deleterious affect of CO2, focusing solely on a conjecture without factoring in the positive implications. And in so doing, the law of unintended consequences (they may be intended by some) will see greater misery, death and poverty than any miniscule warming that may result from the by product of cheap energy.
Outstanding
to me any person using the scientific method IS a “scientist”, which means those promoting that humans have taken control over the climate via releasing co2 are NOT scientists since NONE of them are using scientific method………..also only fools believe having “credentials” makes one right.
Perhaps slightly OT but interesting:
FiveThirtyEight has an article that shows “Global warming” ranks 24th in the list of “Most-Edited Wikipedia Articles.”
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/the-100-most-edited-wikipedia-articles/
Good point Bill Taylor June 9 9:11 AM
Real good points… not only one but two. The last is essential “creditentials”, titles or degrees doesn’t make anyone always right. the scientific method, here in Sweden called Theories of Science, is what’s make or brake a “cake”. With the cake rise, without it always lack risepowder no matter who say otherwise.
Well said.
Pete says:
June 9, 2014 at 8:27 am
Dr. Battig’s essay should be sent to every newspaper in the land with a challenge addressed to each: “Do you believe in reporting the truth, or not?”
But most of them sincerely believe they are doing just that. They’re wrong, of course, but they don’t see it that way.
To counter balance the image of beneficence and wisdom, the mad scientist meme is fully embedded in the westernized public’s mind. Waiting for the time when it gets attached to climate science. Perhaps that will come with a movie about a failed geo-engineering project.
“Political wordsmiths have coined the term “carbon pollution.”
When I was in elementary school we learned about photosynthesis:
Sunshine +H2O +CO2 = Sugar(food) + Oxygen
Add some essential minerals, usually from the soil and it sure as hell doesn’t appear to be pollution to me!
Great article!
Political wordsmiths have coined the term “carbon pollution.”… the new clean air regulations specifically targeting carbon dioxide (“carbon pollution”)
I believe the use of the phrase “carbon pollution” is supposed to have the same effect on the people as the phrase “the video” was supposed to hide the true nature of the attack on Benghazi. People aren’t supposed to think of a clear gas anymore, they’re supposed to think of a black soot particulate that is genuinely harmful, even deadly. All these years they’ve been hammering on CO2, now suddenly CO2 has been dropped from the vocabulary as if it was never there to begin with, and substituted with “carbon.” The earth, is turns out, doesn’t have a fever. The Arctic ice, which was to have disappeared, is still there, the Antarctic ice is increasing and may surpass records soon. It is well nigh time to change the meme from the clear and, as it turns out, mainly impotent gas, CO2, labeled a global killer, to dirty, dangerous, and deadly “carbon.” Will it work?
Back in the day, Anthony Pratkanis wrote a telling (and very readable paper) called “How to Sell a Pseudoscience.” http://tinyurl.com/2v5jw The paper is a step-by-step approach to persuading people to believe something (well, to believe anything, however ridiculous it might be).
IMO, it’s a must-read for anyone interested in how people come to believe, and then why they are unable to be persuaded out of that belief no matter the evidence.
(Pratkanis is a psychologist who’s interest is in persuasion — as in “Holy cow! How could anyone believe that?”)
Support for climate policy and societal action are linked to perceptions about scientific agreement – See more at: http://environment.yale.edu/climate-communication/article/support-climate-policy-action-linked-perceptions-about-scientific-agreement/#sthash.bqTSC4kT.nvKNBn5O.dpuf
This builds on what you just posted, which was very interesting and appropreate .
Scientists are in a special category in the public’s mind…..a person that has no clue…and is trying to get one
I couldn’t agree more.
+ beware of prophets making profits
Battig is a wonderful writer. I think that the ruthless, extractive, debauched aristocracy that uses laws to remove other people’s property – or perhaps worse, to command the use of other people’s property – is an ancient problem. What is interesting is to note the major inventions and discoveries which were made by accident, or by an amateur, or by an ingenious person trying to solve a simple problem. The debauched aristocracy also re-writes history to try to claim, or to give the impression, that all achievement comes from their class and their own educational back ground. This class arrogance embedded deep in the structure of the history books contributes greatly to the misplaced trust in experts. And it is truly instructive to remember that the Romans considered it entirely matter-of-course to plagiarize or rephrase other culture’s work and literature. This is another way that the extractive, ruthless aristocracy maintains its completely unwarranted image of superiority.
But the victim is also responsible for his own powerful addiction to believing experts, to some extent.
A week ago I received an email from John Podesta, Counselor to the President. It starts “Power plants currently churn out about 40 percent of the carbon pollution in the air we breathe, and contribute to hundreds of thousands of asthma attacks and thousands of heart attacks.”
I asked the Counselor what exactly a carbon pollution was. No answer so far. Maybe he does not know. I am beginning to doubt the quality of his counsel.
“Federally mandated cures for nonexistent carbon pollution will inflict real heath harm as the less advantaged are forced to pay more for basic energy needs.”
It’s not just rising prices, but instability, black outs and price volatility, which will combine to create the “need” for rationing through Smart meters. Already investors are lining up to make a lot of money placing these on homes all over the globe, by 2020. Smart meters also have remote control capabilities. And so the grid is made extremely vulnerable to centralized government control by these renewables. Next up: “If you like your home’s electric meter, you can keep your home’s electric meter.”
It’s an interesting read, but I notice that Pratkanis, who is a psychologist, classifies science as an example of “pseudoscience” when George Price attacks Joseph Rhine the parapsychologist. Isn’t this too just like climate scientists defending their work against science? We all have our weaknesses–it’s difficult to be a consistent skeptic. Pratkanis says that Price attacked Rhine without sufficient data, but Irving Langmuir had whacked Rhine even harder two years earlier in his lectures at General Electric.
H/t Scarface: Beware of false Prophessors.
Thanks, Charles.
Another one the many non-science claims from alarmists is that skepticism (denialism) is tied to libertarian and rightist ideology whereas alarmist positions have NO ties to leftist ideology. The leftists would say “we’re pure, we’re objective, we’re centrists, we’re scientists, we’re correct. And if you disagree with us, you ought to go to jail!”
Let’s not lose track of this axiomatic truth. Much of the hype and alarmism in the CAGW debate is about making largely ignorant people scared enough or angry enough to vote when they otherwise might have been content enough with their personal situation to skip voting altogether. Taken in that light, all Podesta’s blather means is “vote for our side, vote for Democrats, contribute to Democrats.”
As a coddled society flourishes in the many benefits of science, this unfortunately has its own negative feedback of eutrophication: lack of common sense.
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Lets hope they don’t come after “Nitrogen Pollution”.
I always thought that the “Separation of Church and State” kept the government out of the armageddon like photphecy business.