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~~Solid Snake~~ · 12-31-2016, 01:43 PM

Quote:<a class="bbc_url" href='http://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2016/12/31/skeptical_climate_scientists_coming_in_from_the_cold.html'>http://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2016/12/31/skeptical_climate_scientists_coming_in_from_the_cold.html</a>

This is encouraging. There's life coming back to science. That's the opposite of the false narrative the OP is feebly attempting to peddle.

“Here’s to hoping the Age of Trump will herald the demise of climate change dogma, and acceptance of a broader range of perspectives in climate science and our policy options,” Georgia Tech scientist Judith Curry wrote this month at her popular <a class="bbc_url" href='https://judithcurry.com/2016/12/05/climate-heretic-to-be-or-not-to-be/'>Climate Etc. blog</a>.

Politics, not science, has been forcing opposing scientific viewpoints aside where they cannot be heard and are not accepted. Broader perspectives are necessary for real science to exist.



William Happer, professor emeritus of physics at Princeton University and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, is similarly optimistic. “I think we’re making progress,” Happer said. “I see reassuring signs.”

For the first time in years, skeptics believe they can find a path out of the wilderness into which they’ve been cast by the “scientific consensus.” As much as they desire a more open-minded reception by their colleagues, they are hoping even more that the spigot of government research funding – which dwarfs all other sources – will trickle their way.

Funding, not science, is what has lead climate research. Only with a more open mind will there be true progress in climate science, where honesty and real science might be able to replace political agenda and the "snake oil" that's currently being sold in climate research.



“In reality, it’s the government, not the scientists, that asks the questions,” said David Wojick, a longtime government consultant who has closely tracked climate research spending since 1992.

While it could take months for such expanded fields of research to emerge, a wider look at the possibilities excites some scientists. Happer, for one, feels emboldened in ways he rarely has throughout his career because, for many years, he knew his iconoclastic climate conclusions would hurt his professional prospects.

When asked if he would voice dissent on climate change if he were a younger, less established physicist, he said: “Oh, no, definitely not. I held my tongue for a long time because friends told me I would not be elected to the National Academy of Sciences if I didn’t toe the alarmists’ company line.”

Scientist in the field for the sake of science, and not lead lead there to be corrupted by research funding, face professional peril if they do not "toe the alarmists' company line." Just. Wow. Again, this is the opposite of science.



That sharp disagreements are real in the field may come as a shock to many people, who are regularly informed that climate science is settled and those who question this orthodoxy are akin to Holocaust deniers.

It's far from "settled" science in the scientific world. It's only sold that way to the unknowing public. It's why you see such extremist positions and name calling (so-called "deniers" etc.) to sell the false narrative.



“I think that the vast ‘middle’ will want and seek a more collegial atmosphere,” Georgia Tech’s Curry told RealClearInvestigations. “But there will be some hardcore people (particularly on the alarmed side) whose professional reputation, funding, media exposure, influence etc. depends on cranking up the alarm.”

Again, it's worth pointing out the reasons for the extreme viewpoint of alarmism. Without it, the funding is not sustained at such high levels. It's also reason for the attacks on any scientists and viewpoints that run counter to theirs. They will defend their "precious" not unlike Golem, becoming pure beasts when threatened.



“Remember this was a tiny field, a backwater, and then suddenly you increased the funding to billions and everyone got into it,” Lindzen said. “Even in 1990 no one at MIT called themselves a ‘climate scientist,’ and then all of a sudden everyone was. They only entered it because of the bucks; they realized it was a gravy train. You have to get it back to the people who only care about the science.”

And that pretty much sums up the reason for the extreme, misaligned viewpoints. The harder the buy-in, the better the funding. And unfortunately, the higher the corruption and lack of real "science."



"They only entered it because of the bucks; they realized it was a gravy train. You have to get it back to the people who only care about the science.”

*mic drop*



We can only hope climate science can be revived before it's too late. Otherwise, it's already dead and we're stuck with only flat-Earth "conclusions."

You're making the assumption that climate scientists only work to produce research, in an effort to secure funding, that agrees with their initial hypotheses or the narrative of the agencies that fund them.

During the grant writing process you might state in your specific aims that you are interested in the effect of X on Y. Assuming you are funded for a couple of years you may find that there is no significant effect of X on Y, however that doesn't mean your research is any less valuable. Finding data that doesn't agree with your hypotheses doesn't mean you research isn't valid. It could mean either A) you did not account for a particular confounder ( e.g. Maybe Z affects X from affecting Y), your experimental design was flawed (this does happen periodically), you utilized the wrong tools to analyze the data or the tools themselves have flaws etc etc. Having said that it's perfectly valid to do a literature review on existing datasets and write an entire paper analyzing a particular dataset using new techniques or a more profound understanding of the subject. In fact, we scientists do this all the time by looking at the available literature and finding flaws or gaps in other studies. What you seem to be implying is that scientists, particularly climate scientists, fudge their data in order to secure more funding. I have not seen any evidence of this. It's also fairly easy to spot fudgers as the data is required to be publically accessible.

During the Deepwater Horizon blowout there was a lot of federal dollars allocated to understand the short term and long term ecological effects of crude oil on on the marine ecosystem. Some research indicated that there were severe ecological consequences in the interim period directly after the blow out, some research found that there was no significant effect depending on the location studied, some found that the most profound effects were in very localized areas but mitigated fairly rapidly by microbial processes and photoxidation.

I co-authored a paper will a colleague (still in prep) who was fully funded by NOAA to study the effects of the blowout and we found no significant effect of crude oil on microbial communities marine habitats situated along the Gulf. Now being the liberals we are, we could have very easily fudged the research, you know because we hate oil rigs out in the open ocean and want alternative energy, but we reported the data we had and NOAA was perfectly fine with our results. I believe this is pretty common practice. But saying most of the scientific community conducting climate research are manipulating data, fudging data, to secure more dollars on a supposed "gravy train" is a slap in the face of those scientists who have worked for decades in their respective careers.

How much do you think these scientists make? It's not the financially lucrative career you might think it is. It's a gigantic money/time investment requiring years upon years of schooling and professional training. That is why most people don't pursue careers in STEM.