Climate, Climategate, and the Heartland Institute

I think it is likely that human actions are having some destabilising effect on the environment.  That is more likely to be a bad thing than a good thing.  From the little I know of the science, I have to wonder why methane isn't the big focus.  That it isn't is actually one of my grounds for suspicion that this is post hoc reasoning to kick Big Oil and Free Market, and elevate nice Arts & Humanities people to positions of moral importance.

I also know that none of us have much ability to prove scientific theories from scratch.  Even for accepted theories, such as a heliocentric solar system, plate tectonics, or germ theory, we are entirely dependent on the work of others for what we believe.  Even knowing it to be true, I am hard-pressed to think how I would to prove any of these to some skeptical society.  What we believe, like it or not, is almost entirely dependent on who we believe.

I believe most climate scientists, however defined, are decent Joes and Janes, wanting to get the right answers to questions, doing a bit of good for the world on the way. I also believe that they work in a social context with a history and implied acceptabilities, and this influences them. I also know that threats to one’s professional acceptance (or worse, even one’s livelihood) are perceived at great distance – sometimes even exaggerated.

Regarding that last, I have enough examples of my own being influenced by social context for at least some of what I believe – at work, at church, and about a hundred issues – that I don’t find it automatically reprehensible that other folks are influenced.  It is a failure of objectivity. The more one is influenced, the greater the sin, I suppose.  I give credit that people for whom objectivity is part of their job description are probably more ethical about this than I am.  My profession has different absolutes.

Heck, they’re likely better people than I am anyway.  Just not perfect. They are influenced. And – from my own experience where I am an expert – the failure to acknowldege even a 1% chance of being badly wrong, is itself evidence of bias that runs deep.

I have heard that “we’re the experts” tone of voice before, and react badly to it.  So I perhaps remember more the times when the bastards did not prove out – possible causes and treatment of schizophrenia, autism, depression, OCD, Borderline Personality Disorder – than when they did.  Once I go looking, I can also remember folks in other fields, with proper credentials, dead wrong but still condescending. Pastors whose seminary training is now revealed as rather obviously a product of its era, with a dozen approaches now lying in the ditch; literature professors sneering at understandings now considered mainstream.

Experts are more often right.  In particular, there are certain types of errors they are not prone to.  I trust climate scientists to get it mostly right.  Except that they* act like the people I have known who were dead wrong but still quite sure, and that seems to be getting worse instead of better.  At this point, I have to say my default position is that  they exaggerate.

* I admit - the ones who are quoted and in the news.  I do also try and follow some respectable climate sites, but people go all advocate on me very quickly, and I just turn it off.