Guest opinion by Leo Goldstein
One of the most popular alarmist arguments is likening the “consensus climate scientists” to medical doctors. For example, this essay on “climate denial” from Andrew Winston at medium.com took part in the bashing of recently hired climate skeptic Brett Stevens at the NYT, saying:
Imagine your doctor tells you that you have dangerously high cholesterol and blocked arteries. She says you may drop dead soon. [Note: Based on comments/questions, I should clarify here. By “doctor”, I mean the entire medical establishment. So imagine you got not just a “second opinion,” but 100 opinions…and 97 say the same thing].You might have four basic reactions based on two dimensions, belief (or doubt) in the basic facts/science, and whether you commit to action or delay.
Refutation of this fallacy is confounded by the fact that there are two distinct problems: miscommunication of science and the intentional corruption of science. The former one has persisted for over 30 years while the latter one became noticeable in the late 90’s and has been growing ever since.
Most climate alarmists’ knowledge of science comes from TV shows like “The Big Bang Theory.” But the differences between the relationships they have with medical doctors and the ones they have with putative climate scientists can be easily explained even to them.
1. A medical doctor is a highly-qualified professional. Medical doctors must successfully complete a medical school, spend 3-7 years in residency actually treating patients, and be licensed by a state medical board composed mostly of proven doctors.
In contrast, anybody can call him- or herself a scientist and speak on behalf of science. There are no licensing or certification requirements. Enviro-activists and certain media personalities have been abusing this freedom for decades. Unfortunately, a terminal degree and affiliation with a formerly prestigious university or institution cannot serve as evidence that a person is a scientist.
2. A medical doctor is accountable. A doctor would lose patients or be fired if his or her advice isn’t sound. A doctor can also be sued by a dissatisfied patient. In a number of cases, doctors have been indicted.
A putative climate scientist can hardly even be criticized. Remember how a mere investigation of the misconduct by Michael Mann caused pandemonium. News media shouted about infringement of academic freedom (although the Constitution does not provide for any academic privileges, and the Article I, Section 9 might be interpreted to explicitly prohibit grant of such privileges). Nevertheless, perceived academic immunity is widely abused by con scientists and leftist operatives in universities and research institutions.
3. Patients have direct bidirectional communication with their doctor. “Direct” means that the patient usually speaks face-to-face with the doctor. “Bi-directional” means the patient can ask the doctor questions and get answers. Very few accept TV personalities’ talk as real medical advice.
The so-called “climate science” is usually communicated to the public in third person point of view like “The scientists say that …”, “Majority of peer-reviewed articles conclude …”, and even “Models show that …” These used to be typical introductory clauses before statements about alleged climate dangers. Recently, climate alarmists dropped those qualifying statements together with any pretense for honesty. They are actors, media personalities, politicians, and other people who are as far from science as one can be. Communication with “climate science communicators” is always one-sided. When faced with non-rehearsed questions they assuredly fail, causing laughs among climate realists.
4. One takes initiative to seek a doctor, rather than the other way around. Any unsolicited email offering a medical procedure or a wonder pill is sent straight to the spam folder.
But climate alarmism promoters always come unsolicited! That started with James Hansen, who made a front page article in the NY Times in 1981 while the possibility of future harm from carbon dioxide release was being considered by the Carbon Dioxide Assessment Committee. After that, every time real scientists rejected alarm in scientific proceedings, the environmentalists invited themselves to the media and shouted about impending catastrophe that could only be avoided if we repented and did whatever they told us to do. Then, they chased out most real scientists from climate-related research and declared that there is scientific consensus in favor of alarmism.
5. Doctors do not demand patients to trust them. They earn their trust.
Climate alarmists demand trust because they have earned mistrust.
I would like to finish by paraphrasing Edmund Burke:
Alleged science looks for defense from Washington when it fails in the real world.
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Decades ago I earned and was awarded a BSME degree (same as Bill Nye) which requires demonstrated competence in chemistry, physics, heat transfer, thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, statistics, algebra, calculus, etc. Get the idea?
Fresh out of school I sat for the 8 hour exam for the EIT and years later the 8 hour exam to become a registered professional engineer.
I have applied that knowledge for over 35 years where my work has to actually work. I have followed CAGW since 1989 and have read related materials extensively. Much of my work has been peer reviewed on open climate change blogs, not just a closed system of good old boys. My postings are totally my own, not handed to me on a clipboard in some troll’s minimum wage cube, and as clearly noted several times based on IPCC AR5 and other references.
I’m tired of hearing wet behind the ears millennial sociologist/journalist progressives who know nothing about physics, chemistry, heat transfer, thermodynamics or how the earth heats and cools, who obviously get their science from the MSM propaganda machine and have happily downed the CAGW Kool-Aid, pontificate on global warming, greenhouse gases and the evils of modern mankind.
There is nothing special about “climate” science. They have to follow the same fundamentals as everyone else.
I went through the same path, a BSCE, EIT and finally a PE. At the time I was working for a public agency and had to interact with a lot of other engineers. I was young, had long hair and a beard. Until I got the PE (at the first attempt), I was mostly ignored, after that I was welcomed into the sacred fold. Just for a piece of paper, my thoughts meant nothing. Hypocrites. I will never forget that.
Experts are mostly incompetent at predicting things link
The question with experts is whether their performance can be measured. If an expert’s performance can be measured, the expert can correct bad practice and get better. (In the case of predictions, a smart expert will develop humility because accurate prediction is often impossible.) Very often experts find ways to ignore their mistakes. “I was right, the timing was just off by a few centuries” is a typical self-defence mechanism. When experts can avoid acknowledging their mistakes, they are worse than beginners. They have the illusion of understanding.
I can’t find the link but it seems to me that surgeons get better with age because they get immediate feedback. Radiologists, on the other hand, get worse because the feedback isn’t nearly as immediate and compelling. If a patient dies on a surgeon, it is right away and traumatic. If a radiologist messes up, she will not hear about it very soon or very loud. It will be easy to ignore.
The most deluded are the climate scientists who acknowledge that they can’t predict the weather next month but insist that they can predict the climate a hundred years hence.
A famous saying says “Its hard to predict, especially about the future.”
I’d give attribution, but it is murky see http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/10/20/no-predict/
If I specify, design, calculate a million dollar system incorrectly and it doesn’t perform as advertised my replacement will have to fix it.
There is a reason they say doctors “practice” medicine.
I worked in a lab that studied Lyme disease, and we worked with live Borrelia and with infected animals. We all knew that if we had a needle stick or an animal bite, we were to proceed immediately to the medical clinic and to take appropriate medical literature about recommended treatment along with us.
We had a previous postdoc who had a bite that didn’t break the skin, but she went to the clinic anyway. After an hour the doctor walked in with an article he printed off Wikipedia. The only way she could get the recommended treatment was to pull up the correct medical reference on her iphone while the doctor waited.
Wankerpedia is a horrible source, the Encyclopedia Twitannica of the Internerd.
Ah, the 97% BS again.
Does a particular medical doctor rule out the opinions of psychiatrists because they don’t jive with his own qualifications, then rule out foot doctors for the same reason, then rule out brain surgeons, etc., etc., until there are only seventy or so doctors with whom he considers himself equally qualified, and then claim that he is in the 97% consensus of agreement about what ails you?
I am aghast at the thought of an MD applying climate-style science, and coming anywhere near me!
https://ibb.co/hf4BwQ
Thanks to the brazen skullduggery of climate “scientists “97%consensus” is now a dirty word.
Correction. ‘climate “scientists”, “97%consensus” is’
Scientists never registered and voted on the AGW conjecture so there is no 97% consensus. Even if there were, science is not a democracy. Scientific theories are not validated by a voting process. The laws of science are not some form of legislation.
AT first the AGW conjecture sounds quite plausable but upon a more detailed evaluation the AGW conjecture is full of holes. For example, CO2 does not trap heat because it has LWIR absorption bands. Good absorbers are also good radiators so CO2 is a much more efficient radiator to space then are the major gases in the Earth’s atmosphere. In the troposphere, heat energy transfer by conduction and convection dominates over LWIR absorption band radiation. CO2 can gain energy by conduction and convection and then radiate that same energy out to space more efficiently then N2, O2, or Argon. So adding CO2 to the atmosphere is more likely to cause cooling rather than warming.
The AGW conjecture depends on the existance of a radiant greenhouse effect caused by trace LWIR absorbing gasses but such a radiant greenhouse effect has not been observed in a real greenhouse, on earth, or anywhere else in the solar sytem. The radiant greenhouse effect is fiction hence the AGW conjecture is fiction.
The AGW conjecture is based on only partial science. For example the initial calculations of the climate sensifvity of CO2 failed to include that a doubling of CO2 will cause a slight decrease in the dry lapse rate in the troposphere which reduces the possible warming effects of CO2 by more than a factor of 20. The AGW conjecture assumes that H2O will act as a positive feedback to increases in CO2 and hence amplify CO2’s warming effect by a factor of roughly 3. But this idea ignore’s the fact that H2O is a major coolant in the Earth’s atmosphere as exemplified by the fact that the wet laspe rate is significantly less than the dry lapse rate. The H2O feedback is really negative as it has to be for the Earth’s climate to have been stable enough for life to evolve.
If CO2 really did affect climate then one would exect that the increase in CO2 over the past 30 years would have caused at least a measureable increase in the dry lapse rate in the troposphere but such has not happened.
Both my grandparents received very expensive and invasive surgeries late in their lives from which they never recovered. Hospitals often gain consent from emotionally upset relatives that are not informed about the futility of the procedure or the opportunity cost it represents, in that the family will likely never speak to “Grandma” again. Of course Medicare paid most of the bill. As the young grandson who attempted to object to all of this, I was told by a hospital administrator, “What do you care? You don’t have to pay for it.” It’s the “invisible hand” of corruption where if there is money on offer a plausible narrative will be constructed to take it. Is there a more “noble cause” than “saving lives”? I’d like to believe that most MDs are not corrupt, but the system that many of them serve in is absolutely corrupt.
I had a similar situation in my family. It was my mother-in-law. She left us in agony, and that’s the part I’m not able to justify. The treatment she received was given to her with words “just in case”.
Well, here’s one thing climate scientists and doctors can do, but ducks cannot, they can stick their bills up their asses.
====================
It was previously thought that for a physician to succeed in practice, four personal attributes were necessary; able, affable, affordable, and available. Climate scientists are not affable, nor affordable, nor available, and only half able, shall we make that differently and unsuccessfully abled.
==========================
Ancel Keys sucessful demonizing of cholesterol, (by securing patronage from Eisenhower’s Surgeon General) has been a major public health disaster with many parallels to CAGW. From “hiding the decline” in his 21 nation correlation study by simply discarding data from the 18 he found inconvenient, the bonanza for vegetable oil marketers riding the government sponsored bandwagon, to the role of outsiders in finally exposing the fraud the similarity is eerie. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-been-a-big-fat-lie.html
Unfortunately the facts are irrelevant to a mainly political endeavour. As EU Climate Commisioner Connie Hedegaard said, Greens are right even if they are wrong. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/climatechange/10313261/EU-policy-on-climate-change-is-right-even-if-science-was-wrong-says-commissioner.html
“Would you ignore the advice of 97% of doctors?”
YES, in the case of the anti-fatty food dogma.
What if those 97% have been 97% wrong?
Create a graphic for this, Josh!
(Graphic shows 100 docs around G. Washington’s bed.)
“This was the cure / 97% were sure.”
http://www.google.com/search?q=george+washington+on+his+deathbed&num=100&client=safari&rls=en&prmd=ivnsb&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=hWJDU9CUC8GbygG2yIGIAg&ved=0CAUQ_AU
In America, “everyone” pretty much knows that the image is of George Washington on his deathbed, and that his death was hastened by the bleeding his doctors prescribed. Doctors then didn’t know much about the human body, although there was a consensus that they did. By analogy . . . .
Roger Knights: Nothing, if their proposed cure is to bleed me, and if the pioneering patients whom they have already bled (e.g., Spain, Germany, UK, Ontario and Denmark) are more sickly now.
markstoval January 3, 2016 at 10:13 am
“The biological meaning of cholesterol is just starting to be explored. Everything that doctors know about cholesterol is wrong. New information about cholesterol is clarifying important issues in physiology and pathology” ~ Biochemist Professor Raymond Peat
http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/cholesterol-longevity.shtml
TinyCO2 | January 30, 2015 at 3:29 pm | Reply
One thing that Dan Kahan and his ilk don’t seem to grasp is shades of grey. For them the science is either right or wrong. Likewise the consensus scientists are right or the sceptics are. You vote left or right, Republican or Democrat. Public opinion is not binary. It’s not even analogue, but is in reality multi-dimensional.
Dan wonders “why on most scientific subjects they trust scientists without argument. It’s only a small handful that are politically contested. Why don’t people do the same on black hole physics or the Higgs boson?” The answer is not simple but the major component for his two examples would be importance. You don’t need to question stuff that doesn’t appear to affect you. The amount of scepticism/engagement about key issues is a measure of how significant they are. It’s ironic that doctors are used as an example of those experts we trust, when in truth we don’t trust them very much, despite medicine having a far greater track record of success than climate science. Yes, you might trust your doctor if s/he told you that you had to have an operation but what if instead that person said “you’re fine, it’s psychosomatic”? What if the cost of the operation far outweighed the potential harm of living with a condition? Humans weigh up evidence every single day, so why would climate psychologists expect us to turn that off just because of the fears of an improbable 97% of a self selected set of experts?
Mike says: February 2, 2014 at 7:08 am
“If 99 doctors…” is a very weak analogy and pretty indicative that the person proffering it knows nothing about the topics. Doctors are practitioners not scientists…they are trained (and obligated) to prescribe treatment based on observations, test results, etc. (aka “facts”). And why their education and certification is based on standardized texts and protocols. The goal is that if I see multiple doctors (e.g. an ER doc, my GP, and a specialist) they should agree . . . .
M Courtney says: November 26, 2013 at 12:06 pm
The Doctor Analogy:
A man goes to the Doctors for a routine check-up.
The Doctor says “You are very sick. We have no time for further tests. We must act now,”
“But I feel fine. I have no symptoms…”
“NOW! We must act now! I am an expert, a world renowned highly qualified medical practitioner” Do as I say,”
“OK. What must we do?”
“I’m just going to cut off your left leg, your right arm and your genitals”
“What?”
“Come on, hurry up, leg or whatever first? Oh, don’t worry I’ll do whatever I want”.
“Wait, can I have a second opinion?”
“No time.”
“But there’s no sign I’m sick. How about I get a second opinion as to whether there’s time for a second opinion?”
“NO! They are deniers! The ones who disagree with me… they’re paranoid you know… they believe in conspiracies and they are all paid by big business who want you dead…DENIERS!!!”
The Doctor pauses, and then says in his professional bedside manner, “There is no time. You must just trust and obey.”
“Trust and obey – it’s the new science way…”
ockham57 says: February 2, 2014 at 11:17 am
In the US at least, doctor errors (misdiagnosis, unnecessary drugs and procedures and unintended consequences) are the third leading cause of death behind heart disease and cancer.
http://www.health-care-reform.net/causedeath.htm
http://chriskresser.com/medical-care-is-the-3rd-leading-cause-of-death-in-the-us
I use this simple retort, whenever I am accosted with the doctor analogy.
[Tisdale:]
Imagine you’re running a persistent slight fever. You visit a new clinic. The nurse takes your vitals and enters them into a computer program. A short time after the computer model completes its simulations, the doctor arrives, advises you of the computer-diagnosed ailment, and prescribes controversial high-cost medications and treatment.
You’re not comfortable with the service, diagnosis, prescription or treatment, so you check out online the computer model used by the clinic. It is proclaimed to be wonderful by its programmers. But, the more you research, the more you discover the model’s defects. It can’t simulate circulation, respiration, digestion, and other basic bodily functions. There are numerous research papers exposing the flaws in the model, but they are hard to find because of all of the other papers written by the model programmers extolling its virtues.
Of course, you would not accept the computer-based medical diagnosis from a model that cannot simulate basic bodily functions and processes. But that’s the position we’re faced with climate science.
We need a second opinion for the slight warming the Earth had experienced. Unfortunately, it is not likely to be coming anytime soon, not until there are changes to the political agendas that drive climate science funding.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/02/if-99-doctors-said/
Andyj says: January 17, 2014 at 1:35 pm
If 97% of climate scientists said I’m under the weather, would I believe them?
97% of doctors held doubts stomach ulcers could be cured with antibiotics and one of them cut 2/3′s of my dads stomach out. Another 3% were shouted down and reviled for even suggesting bacteria lived in the stomach.
Andrew30 says: January 17, 2014 at 1:09 pm
If 97 doctors told you …
Merck had:
Years of research.
Peer reviewed papers.
Computer models for number and distribution of ill effects.
Medical studies.
Patient testimonials.
Favorable publication in scientific magazines.
Thousands of doctors believing them.
Millions of people believing them on multiple continents.
There was a consensus in the scientific and medical community, there was no denying the benefits of Vioxx.
Then people started to die, too many people. The data on fatalities in the real world did not match the information from the computer models published in the scientific journals.
There was a consensus.
Pachygrapsus says: April 7, 2014 at 6:33 pm
Re: Heidi Cullen…
I love the “medical” analogy. We have one Earth. Medical science is built upon millions of independent trials to demonstrate safe and effective practices, and even those treatments are approved only after extensive tests on analogous systems are completed.
Just a little thought experiment:
I go to a doctor after experiencing a 0.5C increase in body temperature. The physician explains that it’s caused by too much oxygen, a gas that is known to create heat. The prognosis is grim. My body temperature is projected to increase dangerously and this will cause many of my essential systems to fail, so the doctor recommends the removal of one of my lungs.
Am I wrong to be skeptical that such a radical procedure is necessary when I’m presenting such benign symptoms? When I learn that my body temperature has reached this level many times before, should I accept the doctor’s assurance that this time is different because he/she ran a simulation on a computer? If I waited a week and my body temperature remained stable, would I be a “medical denier” if I factored that into my decision not to act?
As far as the 97% consensus, I can’t fit that into a thought experiment because it’s an absurd proposition. With no patients as a reference, no empirical data, and a series of simulations that are inconsistent with my progress so far, it would be impossible to get ANY responsible physician to perform the surgery. The medical analogy fails completely because of that field’s insistence on through research and double-blind trials before any treatment is approved. In fact, climate science has a lot more in common with the marketing of vitamins and supplements being utilized by quasi-medical therapists and nutritionists. (Magnets anyone?)
Dudley Horscroft says: February 2, 2014 at 6:11 am
“No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong”
Albert Einstein
I cannot help feeling that if 99 doctors said you were dead, but you sat up and disagreed with them, this one experiment would have proved them wrong.
wws says: February 2, 2014 at 6:54 am
Yet another counter example: You have a slight fever, you go in for a checkup, and 99 doctors (who all belong to the same club, and whose collective incomes depend upon very expensive treatments) tell you that you MUST have both legs cut off immediately, even though you think you really only need a couple of aspirin.
I submit that at this point, every rational person will realize that the “Doctors” have become more deadly than any disease they’re claiming to be able to treat, and one’s best option is to ignore them all and take your chances on your own.
Dodgy Geezer November 3, 2014 at 3:20 am
You say you would rather trust a specialist like a doctor to tell you what to do.
What would you do if you took your child to the local hospital with a bad cut on one of his fingers? And the doctor there said that cuts can go septic, so it would be best to amputate the whole arm? And you asked for a second opinion, and the doctor’s colleague agreed, and so did all his students?
Then when you got home, you looked at the track record of this doctor, and found that that doctor had a track record of losing 3/4 of his patients, and that the hospital had been a small backwater clinic until this doctor turned up and started prescribing amputations, and that now the hospital was booming with international grants from the World Centre for Amputations.
And that there had been some earlier complaints from the original hospital doctors about unnecessary amputations being prescribed, but that these doctors had been sacked, sued and banned from writing to any medical journals about their concerns….
Jim Clarke says: September 20, 2013 at 7:03 am
“…leaked documents seen by the Associated Press, yesterday revealed deep concerns among politicians about a lack of global warming over the past few years.”
Imagine your doctor expressing ‘deep concern’ when he discovers you are in good health.
“I am sorry, Mr. Smith, but there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with you. You might think that is great news, but it really sucks for me. I love giving people treatments, having control over their lives and making them pay me an inordinate amount of money, while I get to play the hero, even if my treatments are completely ineffective! That is what I love, and your good health is just really screwing it up for me! So I have decided to start giving you treatment for cancer anyway. While this will be extremely painful for you and very expensive, it will make me and the staff here feel better. Besides, what if you really do have cancer and the tests just didn’t show it? I mean…think of your children, Mr. Smith! Don’t you love your children?”
One Funeral at a Time . . .
99 doctors of dreer on the team
99 doctors of dreer
If one of those doctors should blaspheme
98 doctors of dreer
Funny they used the cholesterol example, as the “settled science” on that is proving to be totally wrong. And yet the media and MDs and dieticians are just starting (begrudgingly) to come around.
I think the article missed the top distinction between climate scientists and doctors, or the medical practice in general. Doctors/medical practitioners have objective indicia of their expertise. If legions of doctors start prescribing a given drug to ameliorate a medical condition, they can later confirm that patients taking the drug were more or less likely to get better. Doctors can measure cholesterol levels in the blood and differentiate between cholesterol levels of different patients. And ultimately, doctors can be compared against each other to determine who provides better outcomes to their patients. I other words, they have feedback demonstrating their level of expertise. Thus, when a doctor gives a diagnosis (or multiple doctors give the same diagnosis). believing them is not falling victim to the appeal-to-authority fallacy.
This is true for engineers, geologists, weather forecasters, and a whole host of applied science disciplines. But climate science is not really an applied science. Sure, to the extent that scientists agree that CO2 is an infra-red absorber and will block outgoing surface IR that otherwise would escape directly to space, this proposition is testable and sound. But everything else – relating to the amount of warming, the degree of positive and negative feedback, the secondary impacts to climate etc. – is all theoretical. Michael Mann, for example does not have a time machine to send an army of graduate students back throughout the ages, armed with thermometers, to verify the accuracy of his proxy reconstructions. Climate modelers don’t have the benefit of multiple versions of the Earth to establish a statistical baseline of natural variation so as to objectively set probabilities on their attribution analyses.
There’s a vary important point here, The only objective measure of our scientific understanding is the practical applications to which we put that science. How well do we understand electromagnetics? Well enough to send power across hundreds of miles of transmission lines and to design functional microcircuits on small enough scales that electromagnetic effects have to be taken into account. How well do we understand gravity? Well enough to predict the motions of planets and asteroids, and to send ballistic missiles that land where we want them. How well to we understand the interaction between electromagnetic fields and gravity? Not well enough to accurately predict solar flares.
Climate scientists have not ever demonstrated what they claim to know by practically applying it. They don’t gather together in a Nevada desert on star-filled nights and conjure up thunderstorms. They can’t present us with a stack of resumes from alien civilizations testifying to how well they’ve engineered climates throughout the galaxy. The only measure of their expertise is the accuracy of their predictions of what will happen in the future (not some useless hindcast of what you already knew happened), and by that measure they routinely fail. They fail so badly that they have lately taken to denying (gotta love that word) that they ever made predictions in the first place, instead adopting the silly euphemism “scenario.”
But they do write a lot about what they think they know, and talk about their writings, and write about their talks, and once every few years do all that at some exotic location on the taxpayers dime. But what’s lacking is any objective evidence of any expertise.
I love the part where you say that that they have to ban the use of the word prediction when their predictions fail.
They use the word projection as well as scenario. But you are right, it is all the same. It is model output, or the result of their calculations, and if the result is different from the empirical reality, then the models, calculations, scenarios, theories, hypotheses or whatever they want to call them are wrong.
Although it is nice to hear bashing of climate “science” I read this as a hit piece against science in general. Not everyone may call themselves scientists, no matter how many Big bang theories they consumed.
By now it is obvious that some disciplines, like psychology, with their infamous DSM, can’t possibly be a science for many valid reasons, but the most important one is a failure of a zero hypothesis.
As a counter-argument to the hit-piece above, it is far too often said that medicine is an evidence-based science. Which in fact has nothing to do with scientific method, and can’t possibly pass the zero hypothesis test. Placebo takes care of that. It is about time doctors stop using the word “science” in whatever they do. From the hit-piece above, it seem to me that the evacuation of medicine from the sciences is afoot.
It’s not remotely a hit piece on science in general. It’s a discussion on expertise, which is broader than science. More narrowly it’s an attach on a poor analogy between an alleged expertise of climate scientists and a presumed expertise of doctors. Whether or not doctors follow the precise methodology you ascribe as being “science” isn’t relevant.
An expert architect might have talent at designing buildings that are aesthetically pleasing. An expert chess player can kick the crap out of most of the populace in a game of chess. Neither architects nor chess players ply their trade by first calculating a null hypothesis.
Perhaps, but architecture is an art, and medicine boasts a science, which it is not.
I wouldn’t trust a doctor who could not show that he had ever cured anything.
“Imagine your doctor tells you that you have dangerously high cholesterol and blocked arteries. She says you may drop dead soon. [Note: Based on comments/questions, I should clarify here. By “doctor”, I mean the entire medical establishment. So imagine you got not just a “second opinion,” but 100 opinions…and 97 say the same thing].”
Leaving aside the usual reference to the mythical 97%, what if my doctor had told me all that 30 years ago? I had then decided to do nothing effective about the alleged problem and, 30 years on, I’m still fine. Maybe, just maybe, I might have reason to believe that he might have been wrong.
Excellent article.
Some remarks:
1. scientific institutes communicate with the public via communications experts lacking scientific knowledge.
2. science is misunderstood: it involves what may be measured/researched/ quaintitized So, some things we know pretty well such as electronics, mechanics,energy but other subjects are part of ongoing research such as bio-medical subjects and, indeed, the climate.
3. real scientists honestly report assumptions and uncertainties, quacks and false prophets sell seeming certainties
Hugh Laurie is a brilliant doctor in the media series House, but like Mann it’s just a preordained script that he follows and no matter how deep you get into the show, it’s still just a show.
Youre telling me that Hugh Laurie is not a real Doctor! Who knew?
I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV.
He is not cripple either.
University degrees have lost their value, certainly in the UK. Socialist ideology increased university attendance from about 5% to almost 50% during the last fifty years. The excellent students are still excellent but many leave with poor quality degrees in pointless subjects.
Medical science has a mixture of good and bad, like every other discipline. The nature of the 7 year process is very demanding and no doubt deters the weaker students.
Climate science was historically a small, specialist backwater until AGW and massive funding created an explosion in green enthusiasts all keen to save the planet. This is not a good basis for developing high quality, objective thinkers applying the scientific method. These people are being taught by the few who created the AGW bandwagon in the first place. Understanding basic, natural climate variability was abandoned in favour of demonising carbon dioxide. Climate science has set back several decades
“University degrees have lost their value, certainly in the UK”
.
Same as the U.S. We now offer up numerous degrees such as Gender Studies, Film Studies, Urban Studies, etc, where often the prerequisite courses are basic math, English and reading because K-12 is failing to teach students in Urban schools to read beyond an 8th grade proficiency. In essence an undergraduate degree is a very expensive form of a high school diploma. But in all cases these degrees thoroughly indoctrinate the student into the certain perils of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. and ALGORE documentaries are mandatory viewing.
If a doctor told me that I had high cholesterol, I would first ask him “By which standard?”. Because you all probably know that standards for what is supposed to be “dangerously” high HDL were changed at least 3 times (always lowered) since the now famous faked research allegedly showing correlation between high HDL and cardiovascular disease.
As for averages, this is how a grandfather explains it to his grandsons: “I am 81, you are 8 and 10 years old, therefore on average we are 33 years old and therefore in great sexual condition. But in fact none of us can do it.”
Let him that readeth understand.
A friend of mine has always had lower than average blood pressure. When asked if he wanted to do something about it, he told his doctor that he saw no point in being ‘bracketed’. A good way to put it!
When you present to a (UK) doctor, if needed you are then referred on to hospital.
Tests will be carried out, bloods, cultures etc etc and the results will inform the doctor on the next course of action if any is needed.
In short, there is a protocol/method that is followed.
They don’t throw your details into a half-bodged computer model
Thanks to those who point out the fallacy that medicine is responsible for increased lifespan. It’s disturbing how many people have superstitious adoration for modern medicine.
It plays a part, but that’s mainly due to vaccines – the ones that work, anyway. Surgery also plays a part, but surgery is not medicine. I would argue that antibiotics work (although they are often redundant and therefore harmful) but for most patients there are better ways to heal from infections.
In short, medicine is a safety net, and not the circus act.
Well, 80 years ago people with type I diabetes mellitus used to die in a matter of months. Now they do not if they are treated with insuline.
And that is just one example.
Yes, medicine does manage the symptoms and seeks to keep the patient alive. But medicine has not cured type 1 diabetes at all. What causes it? How can we prevent it or cure it?
One very famous heart doctor has told the story of being in a changing room with another heart surgeon and telling him that most heart disease could be cured by diet and the other guy saying, “where is the profit in that?”
“people with type I diabetes mellitus used to die in a matter of months” except that even Roman records recount variants of a ketogenic diet that eliminated all carbs, thus eliminating the reason blood sugar spikes, was used to keep diabetics alive without insulin. Our CSIRO in Australia has even recently released a statement about how their variant (which still includes carbs) can ‘reduce insulin dependence’ . This same diet which has been used for over 100 years to cure childhood epilepsy and is currently poo-hood my modern medicine in many countries..
We have fads and fashions in medicine as much as we do in any human endeavor – things fall in and out of favor based on innumerable things and people today are possible subjected to as much BS from doctors as our ancestors were – it’s just different.
Thinking of my doctor when I had kidneystones who without any evidence demanded I cut back on beer, seafood and red meat. No evidence, didn’t ask about my current diet – just told me. When the results came back from a lesser mortal at a laboratory who ran actual tests, the advice turned 180 degrees. the labrat had deduced my actual diet was very heavy in leafy greens and I’d been building huge levels of oxalates. Only then did the doctor listen when I said I rarely ever ate meat, ate no shellfish and never drank beer. He presumed his assumptions was correct and wouldn’t listen. Oh, and he still recommended reducing my meat intake.