Lomborg werd wereldwijd bekend na de uitgave van het omstreden boek The Skeptical Environmentalist (2001), waarin Lomborg beweerde dat de wetenschappelijke voorspellingen van de opwarming van de Aarde niet realistisch en te pessimistisch waren. Hoewel het boek door verschillende recensenten goed onthaald werd, kwam er veel kritiek van veel wetenschappers op het studiemateriaal en de methodes van Lomborg. Er kwam zelfs een klacht over wetenschappelijke fraude tegen Lomborg, die in eerste instantie bevestigd werd door een onderzoekscommissie, maar die uiteindelijk na tussenkomst van het ministerie onbeantwoord bleef omdat het boek niet als wetenschappelijk kon worden beschouwd. (https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B8rn_Lomborg)
Opvallende tekts op Wikipedia want:
Wasn't Bjorn Lomborg proved scientifically dishonest?
No. Using a critique written by Lomborg's critics in the Scientific American (January 2002), the Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty (DCSD) found that The Skeptical Environmentalist was objectively scientifically dishonest on January 7 2003. However, on December 17 2003, the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation completely rescinded this finding. It released a 70-page evaluation criticizing at least 13 points in the DCSD report, three of which individually would have led to it being rescinded. It found the DCSD verdict "dissatisfactory", "deserving [of] criticism" and "emotional." Most importantly, the Ministry found "that the DCSD has not documented where [Lomborg] has allegedly been biased in his choice of data and in his argumentation, and that the [DCSD] ruling is completely void of argumentation." The case was finally dropped by DCSD March 12 2004. While Lomborg's critics continue to quote the DCSD's 2003 verdict, it has been rescinded and found to be "dissatisfactory," "emotional" and "completely void of argumentation." An independent Dutch group of scientists analyzed the DCSD verdict and found that the comittee "delivered an almost totally political verdict." (https://www.lomborg.com/for-journalists)
Hasn't Kaare Fog produced a copious list of how wrong Lomborg is?
It is true that Fog has been very productive in his claims (http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/), and has been so since the publication of Lomborg's book in 1998 in Danish. However, Lomborg has answered Fog many times in publications, most clearly when Fog edited a book with arguments against Lomborg in 1999. Lomborg published a web-book of 180 pages painstakingly going through each argument in Fog's book, pointing out its unproductive errors and misunderstandings, Lomborg likewise replied to each and every of the first batch of claims from Fog to the DCSD, pointing out how they were incorrect and/or misleading. However, with limited time, Lomborg cannot reply to every new claim from Fog. Moreover, it would seem reasonable that Fog would have used his best counterarguments first, and clearly these have not stood up. (https://www.lomborg.com/for-journalists)
Dr. Bjorn Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and visiting professor at Copenhagen Business School. The Copenhagen Consensus Center is a think-tank that researches the smartest ways to do good. For this work, Lomborg was named one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world. His numerous books include "The Skeptical Environmentalist", "Cool It", "How to Spend $75 Billion to Make the World a Better Place", "The Nobel Laureates' Guide to the Smartest Targets for the World 2016-2030" and "Prioritizing Development: A Cost Benefit Analysis of the UN's SDGs". (https://www.lomborg.com/about)
Measuring the Real State of the World
In The Skeptical Environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg challenges widely held beliefs that the global environment is progressively getting worse. Using statistical information from internationally recognized research institutes, Lomborg systematically examines a range of major environmental issues and documents that the global environment has actually improved. He supports his argument with over 2900 footnotes, allowing discerning readers to check his sources.
Lomborg criticizes the way many environmental organizations make selective and misleading use of scientific data to influence decisions about the allocation of limited resources. The Skeptical Environmentalist is a useful corrective to the more alarmist accounts favored by green activists and the media.
... probably the most important book on the environment ever written.
The Daily Telegraph, UK, Aug 27, 2001
This is one of the most valuable books on public policy - not merely on environmental policy - to have been written for the intelligent general reader in the past ten years. ...The Skeptical Environmentalist is a triumph.
The Economist, June 9, 2001
The Skeptical Environmentalist is the most significant work on the environment since the appearance of its polar opposite, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, in 1962. It's a magnificent achievement.
Washington Post Book World, Oct 21, 2001
The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World.
Cambridge University Press, 2001, 540 pages.
ISBN-13: 978-0521010689 (https://www.lomborg.com/skeptical-environmentalist)
Het boek heb ik gelezen tijdens mijn studententijd. Het was veel te dik om zomaar te lezen, dus ik had het eerst al een paar keer vastgepakt zonder het te lezen. Pas nadat ik State of Fear van Michael Crichton had gelezen begon ik aan The Skeptical Environmentalist. Het intrigerende aan het boek en aan Lomborg vind ik de aanleiding:
Did Lomborg always want to get involved in the environmental debate?
No. It all started in 1997, when Bjorn Lomborg read a Wired Magazine interview with economist Julian Simon claiming that the environment - contrary to common understanding - was getting better, not worse. Lomborg thought this had to be incorrect ("right wing, American propaganda"). Looking for new ways to get his students involved, in the fall of 1997 he organized a study group with some of his top students to prove Simon wrong. Much to everyone's surprise, much (though definitely not everything) of what Simon said was right. Thus the group set out to write about their results in op-eds in Denmark's leading newspaper, Politiken. They published four lengthy articles with fifty footnotes in each, sparking a firestorm debate spanning over 400 articles in all the major metropolitan newspapers. The articles led to the publication of a Danish book later that year and to The Skeptical Environmentalist in 2001. (https://www.lomborg.com/for-journalists)
Hij kreeg veel kritiek en Lomborg weerlegde die (zie o.a. hierna). Ondanks dat blijft hij afgeschilderd worden als een rechtse industriële nepwetenschapper.
Bjorn Lomborg’s Climate Confusionist Spin Is Never Ending
Read time: 4 mins
By James Hoggan • Friday, September 17, 2010
Bjorn Lomborg is in the spin business, plain and simple. In his Wall Street Journal op-ed this week, the Danish game theorist pretends to be so surprised that people were confused by his ‘change of heart’ last month – when he suddenly recognised that climate change is “one of the chief concerns facing the world today” and advocated for a $100 billion annual investment and a carbon tax – after years spent arguing that the world shouldn’t spend a penny on the problem.
Hardly surprising to anyone who has followed Lomborg’s long trail of disingenuous spin, the ‘change of heart’ was nothing more than a ploy manufactured to tease his forthcoming book.
...
Ever since his controversial (and error-ridden) 2001 book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, Lomborg has minimized the threat posed by global warming, arguing that – while he claims to accept the science documenting that the planet is warming – it is far from a top priority for humanity to confront.
He argued then, as he does to this day, that the environment has improved over the past few decades and industry has cleaned up its act so there is no need to implement new regulations to curb carbon pollution. (Of course, he ignores the fact that it was 1970s-era environmental regulations that brought about such air and water quality improvements by forcing industry to clean up its act a bit.)
In Lomborg’s home country, the Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty reviewed the 2001 book and identified a litany of dishonest practices, ranging from “Fabrication of data; Selective discarding of unwanted results (selective citation); Deliberately misleading use of statistical methods; Plagiarism; and Deliberate misinterpretation of others’ results.”
Ironically, the Committee decided it couldn’t reprimand Lomborg because he lacked any inkling of credibility or training in the climate sciences, so they took pity on him and absolved him of responsibility for his errors. And boy, were there errors! An independent review by Danish scientist Kare Fog documented 319 specific errors, exaggerations or logical flaws in The Skeptical Environmentalist.
Undeterred by such a thorough debunking, Lomborg used the book to launch a lucrative career on the speaking circuit, especially popular among the Exxon- and Koch Industries-funded climate denier crowd, which loved his efforts to convince people that climate change was too expensive to address and that everyone should focus attention elsewhere on ‘more pressing’ problems. (He completely glosses over the fact that climate change will make most of those other problems worse, of course.)
(https://www.desmogblog.com/bjorn-lomborg%E2%80%99s-climate-confusionist-spin-never-ending)
Lomborg's errors in his discussion of climate change have been documented by many sources including A 2010 book published by Yale University Press titled The Lomborg Deception: Setting the Record Straight About Global Warming.
Lomborg-errors.dk is a website focused on documenting his errors, although it does not appear to have been recently updated. It also maintains a timeline documenting the events leading to Lomborg's fame, and how he is regarded among his fellow Danes. [4] (https://www.desmogblog.com/bjorn-lomborg)
Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Sceptical Environmentalist, makes headlines around the world by arguing that capping carbon dioxide emissions is a waste of resources. He recently published a piece in the Guardian in which he dismissed efforts to craft a global carbon cap as "constant outbidding by frantic campaigners" to "get the public to accept their civilisation-changing proposals".
To support his argument, Lomborg often cites the Copenhagen Consensus project, a 2008 effort intended to inform climate negotiators. But there's just one problem: as one of the authors of the Copenhagen Consensus Project's principal climate paper, I can say with certainty that Lomborg is misrepresenting our findings thanks to a highly selective memory. (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/aug/22/climatechange.carbonemissions)
Ik verbaas me daarover. De weerleggingen van de kritiek op zijn werk vind ik namelijk erg overtuigend:
A Response by Bjorn Lomborg to Howard Friel’s ‘The Lomborg Deception’
... Howard Friel’s book The Lomborg Deception (LD) focuses on two of my books, The
Skeptical Environmentalist (TSE) and the U.S. edition of Cool It (CIUS). It is heartening
to write books that engage others, and I welcome his critique.
Unfortunately, it is obvious that Friel has no interest in fair-minded criticism or
honest disagreement. Rather, he seems determined to portray me as devious, deceptive,
and intellectually dishonest. Ironically, in his zeal to do so, he repeatedly commits the
very sins he accuses me of—selective or incomplete quotation, misrepresentation of
source material, and even outright fabrication. Rather than engaging with my books on
their own terms, he caricatures my work and then attacks it.
Friel makes his intent clear in an author’s note at the beginning of his book, in
which he identifies what he calls “Lomborg’s Theorem”: the idea that “global warming is
no catastrophe” (p. xi).1
His aim, he says, is to discredit this idea—“to show that
Lomborg’s Theorem is grounded in highly questionable data and analysis, and that there
is little if any factual or analytic basis for the theorem” (p. xi).
Fair enough. This is the stuff of academic debate: are my data accurate and is my
analysis valid? I have no problem with anyone questioning the basis of my work,
provided the questions are honest and fair-minded. But as I will document below, what
Friel does in The Lomborg Deception is something else entirely. In his attempt to prove
that my data and analysis are misleading and/or dishonest, he quotes source material out
of context, mangles source figures and tables, misrepresents my text and source material,
relies more on news reports than on peer-reviewed research, and consistently avoids
engaging with the central arguments of my work.
Two quick examples from the very beginning of The Lomborg Deception will
illustrate what I am talking about. In his introduction, Friel spends a half-dozen pages (pp.
11-16) recycling Scientific American’s long-since debunked 2002 attack on TSE—
without ever mentioning my exhaustive 32-page refutation of the magazine’s criticism2
, a one-page version of which Scientific American allowed me to publish six months later.3
In a similar vein, Friel finds room in his Introduction to repeat Stephen
Schneider’s accusation that I misunderstood Richard Lindzen’s work on clouds (p. 11)—
while failing to mention that Lindzen himself refuted Schneider. ... (https://www.lomborg.com/sites/lomborg.com/files/bl_reply_to_howard_friel_0.pdf)
A Response to Michael Mann and Tom Toles
... Michael Mann and Tom
Toles present me as a prominent climate change denier. They claim that I do “insidious climate change denial,” disregarding “the seriousness of the threat” and “lowballing climate projections.” Here are the facts. Since my very first book, I’ve explicitly accepted climate change. Here’s the summary from my 2008 book Cool It: “Global warming is real and man-made. It will have a serious impact on humans and the environment toward the end of this century.” Not exactly disregarding the seriousness. ... They use very selective quotations to imply that I’m indifferent to
the fate of 400 million people, but forget to include that the actual research I quoted shows 15 million
people will have to be relocated, not 400 million, and that over a century. In their zeal to expose what
they see as straw-man arguments and cherrypicked facts, Toles and Mann seem to have resorted to
those very practices.... (https://www.lomborg.com/sites/lomborg.com/files/a_response_to_michael_mann_and_tom_toles.pdf)
Hoe zit dat met Lomborg en Crichton?
Michael Crichton (born October 23, 1942 – died November 4, 2008 ) was a Harvard Medical School graduate turned writer.... In 2003 he gave a controversial lecture about the concept of scientific consensus—which he entitled "Aliens Cause Global Warming". [1] Crichton castigates the scientific establishment for:
holding on to established notions, long after the definitive, reproducible observations had proved these notions wrong
refusing to examine new research which overturns existing theories
However, Crichton's expertise to discuss these points is not particularly obvious, and many of his examples are poor. He examines the Drake equation—which is about the chances of finding extraterrestrial civilisations—which has nothing to do with the two points above. Nuclear winter has never occurred, obviously, and so cannot possibly have been refuted by "definitive, reproducible observations" as he claims. Within the nuclear winter section, Crichton examines an equation for the effects and asserts that, "none of the variables can be determined. None at all." Which is odd, because the quantities involved as things such as warhead size, warhead yield and detonation height. All of these can be given reasonable guesses to explore different scenarios.
Another example he examines is continental drift, as an example of traditionalists holding onto a "scientific consensus" instead of doing real science. But again, Crichton's views are rather one sided. Continental drift was vigourously debated. One of the main problems with Wegener's theory was that he believed that the continents "plowed" through the rocks of the ocean basins. Most geologists did not believe that this could be possible. They were right. Only the accumulation of new evidence and theory made Wegener's hypothesis tenable.... In an interview in 2004 with the Philadelphia Inquirer Chrichton invoked criticisms of Bjorn Lomborg's work as similar to the reaction to his thriller State of Fear which embraces the views of climate sceptics.
Asked what his opinion on a "scientifically sound view" on climate change is, Crichton echoed Lomborg's arguments. "Climate is always changing. In what ways are the changes being altered or exaggerated by human influences? (No one disputes that human beings are affecting climate.) But which human influences are important to address? And what should our response be?," he said.
"I argue we should not base real-world policies on the present state of climate science and the present state of computer prediction. It is simply not good enough right now... If I suggest to people that waiting gives us access to new technology, they roll their eyes as if I am making some predictable evasion. But it is they who are evading reality. It is sensible to expect major technological change, including unanticipated change... There is plenty for us to do with our money in the meantime. Ten to twenty thousand people die of waterborne disease every day. We could prevent that. We could provide everybody on the planet with clean water and a decent diet," he said.[3] The Copenhagen Consensus group made similar arguments and recommendations. (https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Michael_Crichton)
Crichtons politieke incorrectheid op milieugebied is verfrissend. Maar het heeft iets gekunstelds en uiteindelijk iets irritants dat Crichton aan de hand van de Deense scepticus Bjorn Lomborg en andere wetenschappers zijn overtuigingen kracht bij wil zetten. Als een schrijver predikt in plaats van vertelt, ontspoort de verhaaltrein al snel.... Zijn bedoeling is duidelijk. Met de verkenning van een politiek gevoelige kwestie streven Crichton en zijn uitgever opwinding, aandacht en mooie verkoopcijfers na. Dat laatste lukt. State of Fear staat al weken hoog op de bestsellerlijsten.
Maar critici in de VS hebben het probleem aangestipt. Crichton had een puur politiek manifest kunnen schrijven, met voetnoten en al, maar dan had zijn lezerskern waarschijnlijk nooit euro 21,50 voor het werkje neergeteld. Hij had een thriller zónder voetnoten kunnen schrijven, maar dan had hij zijn politieke ei niet kunnen leggen.
Dus zitten we nu met een dubbelhartig pamflet. Delen van het boek zijn de moeite waard. Het toegevoegde essay over het gevaar van gepolitiseerde wetenschap overtuigt. Maar dat is een ernstig, goedgeschreven essay; niks fictiefs aan. Dat hij begint met een gesimuleerde tsunami en eindigt met een echte, is zo kort na 26 december 2004 een bevestiging van zijn vooruitziende blik.
De reden waarom State of Fear niet de verhoopte controverse heeft veroorzaakt, werd door de criticus van The New York Times verwoord in diens recensie. 'De roman leest als een schril, onzinnig rechts antwoord op de schrille, onzinnige, maar op camp-achtige wijze wel vermakelijke broeikasfilm, The Day After Tomorrow.'
Zonde, want waar je ook staat in het milieudebat, de door Crichton beschreven 'toekomst van onze planeet' verdient meer dan een schouderophalend 'tja'.
(https://www.volkskrant.nl/economie/rechts-gepreek-in-een-eco-thriller~bd71b1e9/)
Remember that time in 2004 when Michael Crichton wrote a climate-change skepticism book? Neither do I. That's why I was so surprised to come across this book as I was researching my 2017 reading focus on "The Integrity of Western Science." In "State of Fear", Crichton attacks the scientific consensus around climate change. With biting sarcasm and an abundance of scientific footnotes, he points out much of the hypocrisy and cynicism within the environmental movement. To underscore his point, he includes a few particularly gruesome deaths for the targets of his vitriol. The book reads like a typical Crichton, with poorly developed and highly stereotyped characters and a lot of "gee-whiz" science thrown in. But it is most interesting as a commentary on scientific integrity. ... In his speech, Crichton singles out Bjorn Lomborg's "Skeptical Environmentalist" as the victim of a "consensus science" witch-hunt. I'm adding it to my reading list to evaluate the merits myself. But I am more familiar with the Sagan "Nuclear Winter" and Ehrlich "Population Bomb" failures. Crichton is not wrong to point out their ideologically-driven pseudo-scientific hyping of overblown claims that rested on dubious computer modeling of complex, real-world systems. I'm left in a state of doubt.(http://books.max-nova.com/state-of-fear/)
Michael Crichton... werd ...zelf een scepticus toen hij in '98 research deed voor een boek over een wereldwijde catastrofe en er op uitkwam dat bijvoorbeeld de nucleaire 'ramp' in Tsjernobyl (1986) nauwelijks doden maakte - volgens een VN-studie minder dan 60 tot nog toe. 'Nog straffer', aldus Crichton, 'volgens hetzelfde VN-rapport richtte de straling minder schade aan dan de psychologische gevolgen als gevolg van de systematisch slechte info over het ongeval.
Hij veralgemeent die vaststelling: doemdenken richt grotere rampen aan dan om het even welke ingreep door de mensheid. Dat geldt volgens hem ook in het geval van de klimaat- hype . 'Als we teveel geld pompen in klimaatbeheersing, doen we onszelf en onze economie de das om'.
Crichton gaat ver in zijn kritiek: hij is een van de inmiddels zeldzame sceptici die nog steeds de hockey-stick in vraag stelt. De hockey-stick is een reconstructie op basis van boom-jaarringen door dr. Michael Mann (Massachusetts) van de gemiddelde temperatuur op het noordelijk halfrond in de laatste duizend jaar. De curve ziet er uit als een liggende knuppel, met het slageinde rechtop in de laatste honderd jaar: veel schommelingen voordien, maar niets zo sterk als de steile stijging sinds de industrialisatie. Sinds de aanvankelijke publicatie, in '99, werden tal van correcties in het onderzoeksmateriaal van de curve aangebracht. Maar het slageinde blijft rechtop pieken.
Omdat de hockey-stick in vorige IPCC rapporten als sterk argument werd opgevoerd om de CO{-2}-uitstoot van wij, mensen, als factor in de opwarming op te voeren, werd de knuppel en vooral elk foutje daarin een tijdlang hét voornaamste doelwit van de sceptici. Intussen durven de meeste sceptici het niet meer zo bont te maken, en bovendien hebben de IPCC-wetenschappers de (gecorrigeerde) stick niet eens meer nodig: ze hebben andere en sluitender argumenten om aan te tonen dat de CO{-2}-uitstoot door mensen dé motor is van de opwarming.
Michael Crichton heeft ondertussen ook het geweer van schouder veranderd: Al Gore is volgens hem onderdeel van een wereldwijde samenzwering van 'groene' politici en aanverwante klimatologen die met hun 'klimaatterreur' de consumenten trachten te gijzelen in onterechte paniek.
De Deen Bjorn Lomborg, de 'paus' van de gematigde sceptici, schudt het hoofd: 'Ik zie ook dat mijn Nederlandse uitgever op de achterflap van mijn nieuwste boek schermt met een citaat van Michael Crichton. Hij denkt daarmee meer boeken te kunnen verkopen. Maar ik word liever niet vereenzelvigd met Crichton. Ik doe niet aan science fiction , mijn argumenten staan op zichzelf.' (https://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/gce1jkl2h)
De Hockeystick is een veelgebruikte benaming voor een grafiek uit de paleoklimatologie. De grafiek geeft een reconstructie weer van de temperatuur op het Noordelijk Halfrond gedurende het afgelopen millennium (jaar 1000-2000). Omdat gestandaardiseerde metingen met thermometers pas begonnen omstreeks 1850, werd de reconstructie uitgevoerd aan de hand van proxies. Dit zijn indirecte gegevens waaruit de temperatuur kan worden afgeleid. In het geval van de Hockeystick ging het daarbij om boomringen.
In 1998 publiceerden Michael E. Mann, Raymond S. Bradley en Malcolm K. Hughes (MBH) een artikel[1] met de eerste kwantitatieve temperatuursreconstructie aan de hand van proxies van de eeuwen voor 1850. De studie ging terug tot 1400 en toonde aan dat de temperaturen op het einde van de 20e eeuw sterk begonnen te stijgen. In 1999 publiceerden MBH een uitbreiding van hun werk die terugging tot het jaar 1000.[2] In dit artikel stond de grafiek die, vanwege zijn overeenkomst met een IJshockeystick, de "Hockeystick" werd gedoopt door klimatoloog Jerry Mahlman van NOAA. Het Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, dat klimaatwetenschap samenvat nam in 2001 de hockeystick, samen met de resultaten van de reconstructies van andere onderzoekers, op in het derde assessment rapport. .... Er kwam kritiek op de hockeystickcurve. McIntyre en McKitrick beweerden in 2003 dat hockeystickvorm een artefact (bijproduct) is van het gebruik van gebrekkige gegevens en een slechte statistische verwerking.[6] Dit wordt door de auteurs MBH verworpen.[7] Hierop ontstond een polemiek over de grafiek en uiteindelijk werd op verzoek van het Amerikaans Congres een commissie van onderzoekers van de National Research Council samengesteld om het artikel van MBH door te lichten. Ze kwamen tot de conclusie dat het artikel inderdaad enkele statistische tekortkomingen had, maar dat die het eindresultaat niet aantasten.[5]
De Amerikaanse Republikeinse senatoren Joe Barton en Ed Whitfield vroegen daarnaast op eigen initiatief aan Edward Wegman een nader onderzoek door statistici. Wegman bevestigde dat er statistische problemen waren en veroordeelde de statistische methode als "een slechte methode + een goed resultaat = slechte wetenschap". Het Wegman-rapport kwam echter zelf ook weer onder vuur te liggen.... In 2005 publiceerden McIntyre en McKitrick een nieuwe kritiek in het tijdschrift Geophysical Research Letters waarbij ze weer stelden dat de hockeystick vorm een artefact is van de statistische verwerking. Ze vonden met Manns methode in 99% van de gevallen een hockeystick, zelfs als ze rode ruis als gegevens gebruikten.[17] Michael Mann werd verder aangevallen omdat hij de gebruikte gegevens niet volledig beschikbaar zou stellen. Maar alle gegevens kwamen uiteindelijk toch op zijn ftp-server te staan. (https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockeystickcurve)
In 1998, Michael E. Mann, Raymond S. Bradley and Malcolm K. Hughes developed new statistical techniques to produce Mann, Bradley & Hughes 1998 (MBH98), the first eigenvector-based climate field reconstruction (CFR). This showed global patterns of annual surface temperature, and included a graph of average hemispheric temperatures back to 1400.[4] In Mann, Bradley & Hughes 1999 (MBH99) the methodology was extended back to 1000.[5][6] The term hockey stick was coined by the climatologist Jerry D. Mahlman, to describe the pattern this showed, envisaging a graph that is relatively flat to 1900 as forming an ice hockey stick's "shaft", followed by a sharp increase corresponding to the "blade".[7][8] A version of this graph was featured prominently in the 2001 IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR), along with four other reconstructions supporting the same conclusion.[6] The graph was publicised, and became a focus of dispute for those opposed to the strengthening scientific consensus that late 20th-century warmth was exceptional.[9]
...
In the hockey stick controversy, the data and methods used in reconstructions of the temperature record of the past 1000 years have been disputed. Reconstructions have consistently shown that the rise in the instrumental temperature record of the past 150 years is not matched in earlier centuries, and the name "hockey stick graph" was coined for figures showing a long-term decline followed by an abrupt rise in temperatures. These graphs were publicised to explain the scientific findings of climatology, and in addition to scientific debate over the reconstructions, they have been the topic of political dispute. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy)
A critique of the hockey stick was published in 2004 (McIntyre 2004), claiming the hockey stick shape was the inevitable result of the statistical method used (principal components analysis). They also claimed temperatures over the 15th Century were derived from one bristlecone pine proxy record. They concluded that the hockey stick shape was not statistically significant.
...
Hockey stick is broken
“In 2003 Professor McKitrick teamed with a Canadian engineer, Steve McIntyre, in attempting to replicate the chart and finally debunked it as statistical nonsense. They revealed how the chart was derived from "collation errors, unjustified truncation or extrapolation of source data, obsolete data, incorrect principal component calculations, geographical mislocations and other serious defects" -- substantially affecting the temperature index.” (John McLaughlin)
The "hockey stick" describes a reconstruction of past temperature over the past 1000 to 2000 years using tree-rings, ice cores, coral and other records that act as proxies for temperature (Mann 1999). The reconstruction found that global temperature gradually cooled over the last 1000 years with a sharp upturn in the 20th Century. The principal result from the hockey stick is that global temperatures over the last few decades are the warmest in the last 1000 years.
...
What the science says...
Since the hockey stick paper in 1998, there have been a number of proxy studies analysing a variety of different sources including corals, stalagmites, tree rings, boreholes and ice cores. They all confirm the original hockey stick conclusion: the 20th century is the warmest in the last 1000 years and that warming was most dramatic after 1920. (https://www.skepticalscience.com/broken-hockey-stick.htm)
Michael Crichton Praises 'Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming'
By Noel Sheppard | August 11, 2007 4:52 PM EDT
Best-selling science fiction author Michael Crichton has penned a glowing review of Bjorn Lomborg's soon to be released book "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming."
For those unfamiliar, Lomborg is an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School and former director of the Environmental Assessment Institute. Although he believes in anthropogenic global warming, his controversial view is that there are far more serious problems facing the planet that governments should spend time and money solving.
As a result, his "Skeptical Environmentalist" series of books continually evoke great debate internationally.
With that in mind, the following are snippets of Crichton's review of Lomborg's most recent installment (emphasis added, h/t Glenn Reynolds):
Bjørn Lomborg is the best-informed and most humane advocate for environmental change in the world today. In contrast to other figures that promote a single issue while ignoring others, Lomborg views the globe as a whole, studies all the problems we face, ranks them, and determines how best, and in what order, we should address them.
[...]
Lomborg is only interested in real problems, and he has no patience with media fear-mongering; he begins by dispatching the myth of the endangered polar bears, showing that this Disneyesque cartoon has no relevance to the real world where polar bear populations are in fact increasing. Lomborg considers the issue in detail, citing sources from Al Gore to the World Wildlife Fund, then demonstrating that polar bear populations have actually increased five fold since the 1960s.
(https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/noel-sheppard/2007/08/11/michael-crichton-praises-skeptical-environmentalists-guide-global)
State of Fear is a devastating critique of radical environmentalism in general and global warming alarmism in particular. When the book appeared in 2005, Crichton was met with a barrage of attacks and distortions from leftists and radical environmentalists. Fenton Communications--a public relations firm with a long history of fanning public fears in order to advance liberal causes--even launched a Web site called RealClimate.org devoted to rebutting Crichton. That site still exists, and still pitches global warming alarmism.
But was Crichton right? In an extensive analysis of State of Fear presented below, the president of The Heartland Institute, Joseph Bast, catalogues all of Crichton’s scientific claims, checks them against peer-reviewed literature, and finds Crichton’s science was as strong as his narrative skills. Crichton was right, and thanks to his popularity as a novelist, millions of people around the world now know that global warming is not a crisis. (https://www.heartland.org/topics/climate-change/Michael-Crichton-Is-Right/index.html)
Aliens Cause Global Warming
Caltech Michelin Lecture – January 17, 2003
... I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.
Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world.... Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. (http://books.max-nova.com/state-of-fear/)
When did “skeptic” become a dirty word in science? When did a skeptic require quotation marks around it?
To an outsider, the most significant innovation in the global warming controversy is the overt reliance that is being placed on models. ...more to the point, even if the models get the science spot-on, they can never get the sociology. To predict anything about the world a hundred years from now is simply absurd.
Look: If I was selling stock in a company that I told you would be profitable in 2100, would you buy it? Or would you think the idea was so crazy that it must be a scam?
Let’s think back to people in 1900 in, say, New York. If they worried about people in 2000, what would they worry about? Probably: Where would people get enough horses? And what would they do about all the horse****?
Horse pollution was bad in 1900, think how much worse it would be a century later, with so many more people riding horses? But of course, within a few years, nobody rode horses except for sport.
And in 2000, France was getting 80% its power from an energy source that was unknown in 1900. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Japan were getting more than 30% from this source, unknown in 1900. Remember, people in 1900 didn’t know what an atom was.
They didn’t know its structure. They also didn’t know what a radio was, or an airport, or a movie, or a television, or a computer, or a cell phone, or a jet, an antibiotic, a rocket, a satellite, an MRI, ICU, IUD, IBM, IRA, ERA, EEG, EPA, IRS, DOD, PCP, HTML, internet. interferon, instant replay, remote sensing, remote control, speed dialing, gene therapy, gene splicing, genes, spot welding, heat-seeking, bipolar, prozac, leotards, lap dancing, email, tape recorder, CDs, airbags, plastic explosive, plastic, robots, cars, liposuction, transduction, superconduction, dish antennas, step aerobics, smoothies, twelve-step, ultrasound, nylon, rayon, teflon, fiber optics, carpal tunnel, laser surgery, laparoscopy, corneal transplant, kidney transplant, AIDS. None of this would have meant anything to a person in the year 1900. They wouldn’t know what you are talking about.
Now. You tell me you can predict the world of 2100. Tell me it’s even worth thinking about. Our models just carry the present into the future. They’re bound to be wrong. Everybody who gives a moment’s thought knows it. ... In 1960, Paul Ehrlich said, “The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines-hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death.”
Ten years later, he predicted four billion people would die during the 1980s, including 65 million Americans. The mass starvation that was predicted never occurred, and it now seems it isn’t ever going to happen. Nor is the population explosion going to reach the numbers predicted even ten years ago. (http://books.max-nova.com/state-of-fear/)
We can take as an example the scientific reception accorded a Danish statistician, Bjorn Lomborg, who wrote a book called The Skeptical Environmentalist.
The scientific community responded in a way that can only be described as disgraceful. In professional literature, it was complained he had no standing because he was not an earth scientist. His publisher, Cambridge University Press, was attacked with cries that the editor should be fired, and that all right-thinking scientists should shun the press. The past president of the AAAS wondered aloud how Cambridge could have ever “published a book that so clearly could never have passed peer review.” (But of course, the manuscript did pass peer review by three earth scientists on both sides of the Atlantic, and all recommended publication.)
But what are scientists doing attacking a press? Is this the new McCarthyism-coming from scientists? Worst of all was the behavior of the Scientific American, which seemed intent on proving the post-modernist point that it was all about power, not facts.
The Scientific American attacked Lomborg for eleven pages, yet only came up with nine factual errors despite their assertion that the book was “rife with careless mistakes.”
It was a poor display, featuring vicious ad hominem attacks, including comparing him to a Holocaust denier. The issue was captioned: “Science defends itself against the Skeptical Environmentalist.”
Really. Science has to defend itself? Is this what we have come to? When Lomborg asked for space to rebut his critics, he was given only a page and a half. When he said it wasn’t enough, he put the critics’ essays on his web page and answered them in detail.
Scientific American threatened copyright infringement and made him take the pages down. Further attacks since, have made it clear what is going on. Lomborg is charged with heresy. That’s why none of his critics needs to substantiate their attacks in any detail. That’s why the facts don’t matter.
That’s why they can attack him in the most vicious personal terms. He’s a heretic. Of course, any scientist can be charged as Galileo was charged. I just never thought I’d see the Scientific American in the role of Mother Church. (http://books.max-nova.com/state-of-fear/)
In het anekdotes komen voorbeelden voorbij van UFO's, klimaatwetenschapmet grafieken en computermodellen, drijvende werelddelen, Galileo, infectieziekten, DDT en dergelijke. Ze doen denken aan wetenschapsfilosofie. Consensus is geen argumenten wetenschap hoort juist rebels te zijn....
Als Galilei een degelijke wetenschapper was geweest, zouden we nu nog steeds geloven dat de zon om de aarde draait. Volgens wetenschapsfilosoof Paul Feyerabend bestaat er geen vooruitgang zonder radicale rebellie.
Rationaliteit geldt als het onbetwistbare uitgangspunt van de wetenschap. Precies tegen die verheven gedachte zet Paul Feyerabend zich in zijn klassieker Tegen de Methode (Against Method, 1975) af: wetenschap is verre van rationeel, zo betoogde de schrijver, en: ‘Het enige principe dat vooruitgang niet hindert, is: anything goes, alles moet kunnen.’ Feyerabend overdondert de lezer met zijn mix van abstracte argumentatie, beledigingen, intuïties en controversiële ideeën – als je tegen de heersende opinie ingaat, moet je zorgen dat mensen naar je luisteren.
Feyerabend bedoelt met zijn boodschap niet dat we maar wat moeten aanrommelen in de wetenschap; hij gebruikt vooral zijn boerenverstand. Feyerabend probeert ‘de lezer ervan te overtuigen dat alle methodologieën, zelfs de meest voor de hand liggende, hun beperkingen hebben.’ Er ligt niet één specifieke methode ten grondslag aan alle ‘ware’ theorieën. Er is niet één juiste manier van onderzoek doen; noch delen alle ware wetenschappelijke ontdekkingen één logische structuur. ... Als voorbeeld van de ongrijpbaarheid van de wetenschappelijke methode noemt Feyerabend Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). In zijn tijd geloofden geleerden dat de aarde het middelpunt van het heelal was, en dat hadden ze nu nog geloofd als Galilei netjes binnen de wetenschapsfilosofische lijntjes had gekleurd. Gelukkig moest de Italiaanse geleerde het niet hebben van zijn wetenschappelijke onderbouwing. Een groot aantal getuigen achtte Galilei’s telescoop volslagen onbetrouwbaar vanwege de vele vervormingen en spiegelingen van het beeld binnen in het apparaat (waarmee de voor zijn nieuwe theorie baanbrekende observatie van Jupiters manen betwistbaar werd). De weinige experimenten die hij uitvoerde, konden zowel worden aangevoerd als bewijsmateriaal voor de oude als voor de nieuwe theorie. De doorslag moest komen van retorische trucs en gedachte-experimenten – en daar lag Galilei’s kracht. (https://www.filosofie.nl/nl/artikel/10642/alles-moet-kunnen.html)
In de tweede helft van de twintigste eeuw is het met name K.Popper geweest die hierbij een nieuwe richting heeft aangegeven.
Het uitgangspunt voor Popper is een denkmodel dat er van uitgaat dat kennis niet iets op zichzelf is maar beschouwd moet worden als een proces. Hij gaat er van uit dat alle wetenschappelijke uitspraken in feite hypothesen zijn d.w.z. dat ze altijd weer opnieuw ter discussie kunnen worden gesteld. Zijn benadering wordt aangeduid als Kritisch Rationalisme... Popper wees op de asymetrie dat de waarneming van een zwarte zwaan voldoende is om de stelling 'alle zwanen zijn wit' te verwerpen terwijl een eindeloos aantal waarnemingen van witte zwamen niet echt bijdraagt tot de bevestiging... De eis van methodische falsificeerbaarheid is een kernpunt van Poppers analyse.
Deze is geïnspireerd door het probleem van het empirisme dat moest vaststellen dat veelvuldige verificatie enige zekerheid kan geven maar tegelijkertijd uitspraken met een algemeen geldig karakter niet zeker kan stellen omdat een waarneming van een tegenstelling niet kan worden uitgesloten.
Ik kan wel 1000 keer meten dat water kookt bij 100 graden Celsius, daarmee weet ik - zoals Hume concludeerde - nog niet zeker of dat de 1001ste keer weer zo zal zijn. Wetenschappelijke aanpak is het onderzoeken wanneer het niet het geval is b.v. bij lagere of hogere druk.
Met methodische falsificeerbaarheid wordt bedoeld dat wanneer men een wetenschappelijke uitspraak doet met een bepaalde algemeen geldigheid men tevens moet kunnen aangeven hoe, b.v. met welke experimentele resultaten, deze uitspraak (hypothese, theorie) weerlegd kan worden.
(http://www.filosofietuin.nl/Kennis/wetenschapstheorie.htm)
Karl Popper stelde voor dat omdat er geen enkele hoeveelheid aan experimenten ooit een wetenschappelijke theorie zou kunnen bewijzen, maar één enkel experiment het wel kan ontkrachten, de wetenschap zich zou moeten baseren op falsificatie.[6] Terwijl dit een logische theorie voor wetenschap vormt, is het in een zekere zin "tijdloos" en hoeft het niet noodzakelijkerwijs een reflectie te zijn van hoe de wetenschap zou moeten voortschrijden door de tijd. (https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetenschappelijke_consensus)
Feyerabend gaat in zijn 'Against Method' ['In strijd met de methode'] dieper in op de niet-rationele processen bij de paradigma wijzigingen. Die vereisen namelijk een analyse en aanpak die niet strookt met de op dat moment in een wetenschappelijke discipline aanvaarde methodes. (http://www.filosofietuin.nl/Kennis/wetenschapstheorie.htm)
Paul Feyerabend [3], een student van Karl Popper, was het voorbeeld van de filosoof die graag tegen de schenen van de natuurkundige schopte.
Feyerabend had scherp in de gaten dat de natuurkundige beschrijving van de wereld wordt beperkt door onze aangeboren noties van rationaliteit. Hij betoogde dat de werkelijkheid zelf overvloedig en onuitsprekelijk rijk is. Deze overvloed kan eenvoudigweg niet bedwongen worden door de natuurkunde, die zo keurig aan de leiband van onze aangeboren ideeën loopt. In de wereldreligies en bij mystici vinden we dan ook een visie op de werkelijkheid die tenminste zo leerzaam en informatief is als de rationele visie van de natuurkundige.
Feyerabend schrijft: “Hoe kan een objectieve werkelijkheid die niet reeds gegeven is nu worden bestudeerd door middelen (zoals denkbeelden, geheugen, zintuigen) die aangeboren zijn en die soortspecifiek zijn? (…) Hoe kunnen mensen, vanuit hun evolutionaire niche, en die daarbij moeten vertrouwen op hun beperkte intellectuele capaciteiten, de gehele werkelijkheid beschrijven in begrijpelijke, objectieve termen? Het is vrijwel zeker dat onze ‘rationaliteit’ zelf niet op een erg rationele manier is ontstaan.”
(https://www.geloofenwetenschap.nl/index.php/opinie/item/532-feyerabend-over-rationaliteit-en-werkelijkheid)
Feyerabend keert zich radicaal tegen het idee dat aan wetenschappelijke vooruitgang een rationele methode ten grondslag ligt, wat bijvoorbeeld door Popper wordt verdedigd. Een wetenschappelijke methode belemmert juist vooruitgang, in de wetenschap is het "anything goes". (https://www.filosofie.nl/nl/nieuws/2746/de-paus-begrijpt-niets-van-feyerabend.html)
Paul Feyerabend laat in zijn boek Against Method (1975) zien dat de wetenschappelijke praktijk meestal zo complex is dat er niet één wetenschappelijke methode werkzaam is. Anders dan wetenschapsfilosofen zoals Karl Popper of Imre Lakatos stelt hij dat wetenschap verdacht veel lijkt op een ideologie.” (https://www.trouw.nl/home/feyerabend-wetenschap-is-niet-waar-maar-een-ideologie~a0f2cca9/)
„Feyerabend wil laten zien dat in de wetenschap propaganda en retoriek vaak van doorslaggevende betekenis zijn. Neem het voorbeeld van Galileo, zegt Feyerabend. Deze Italiaanse natuurkundige wilde in de zeventiende eeuw beargumenteren dat de aarde rond de zon beweegt. De meeste natuurfilosofen uit die tijd geloofden zijn theorie niet en waren van mening dat de aarde stilstond. Want, zo bedienden ze Galileo van repliek, stel dat je boven in een toren zou staan. Als je dan een steen naar beneden laat vallen, dan komt die steen aan de voet van de toren terecht. Stel nu dat Galileo gelijk zou hebben met zijn idee dat de wereld draait, dan zou ook de toren met aarde mee moeten draaien. Als je in dat geval de steen boven in de toren loslaat, zou de steen niet aan de voet van de toren, maar een eindje verderop moeten komen te liggen. Galileo kan dus onmogelijk gelijk hebben. Omdat hij niet van dezelfde observatie gebruik kon maken als zijn tegenstanders, probeert hij via retorische trucs mensen te overtuigen.
Stel je voor, zegt Galileo, dat je vanuit de kade een boot voorbij ziet komen. Op het dek van de boot maakt een tekenaar een tekening. Hoe gaat die tekening eruit zien? Op de tekening zullen we uiteraard niet de lijn terugzien die de boot gedurende de reis heeft afgelegd. Hoewel de tekening lijkt te suggereren dat de tekenaar en de boot stilstaan, bewegen ze natuurlijk wel.”
De wetenschappelijke praktijk mag verre van ideaal zijn, maar hebben we niet bepaalde spelregels nodig op basis waarvan we de wetenschap kunnen beoordelen?
„Wetenschapsfilosofen kunnen volgens Feyerabend wel nadenken over hoe je wetenschap kan interpreteren, maar ze moeten niet zeggen hoe wetenschappers zich moeten gedragen.
Waarom zouden wetenschappers zich op voorhand moeten committeren aan een principe? Laat wetenschappers zelf nadenken over de vraag hoe ze hun probleem willen oplossen. Door verschillende zienswijzen ontwikkelt die wetenschap zichzelf. Omdat iedereen voortdurend met elkaar in discussie is, gaat de wetenschap vanzelf vooruit.” (https://www.trouw.nl/home/feyerabend-wetenschap-is-niet-waar-maar-een-ideologie~a0f2cca9/)
Feyerabend goes on to discuss the ways in which this approach is used with great profit in scientific circles, discussing quantum theory, Newton's theory of gravitation and Schrödinger's wave mechanics. In each case the theory is validated by an appeal to a wider domain of understanding. Feyerabend writes "in his search for a way out of the difficulties of early 20th-century science, Einstein relied on thermodynamics. In all these cases models are compared with basic science and their realistic implications are judged accordingly. What was the wider domain that determined reality for the church? According to Bellarmino, the wider domain contained two ingredients, one scientific -- philosophy and theology; one religious and to that extent normative --' our holy Faith'." Feyerabend goes on to point out that for Bellarmino philosophy and theology were both sciences in the modern sense of the word: "theology dealt with the same subject matter (as science) but viewing it as a creation, not as a self-sufficient system. It was and still is a science, and a very rigorous science at that: textbooks in theology contain long methodological chapters, textbooks in physics do not."
...
Feyerabend goes on to conclude his paper by returning to the question of expertise and traditions, revisiting his earlier contrast between one tradition arguing that "society must adapt to knowledge in the shape presented by the scientists" and a second tradition arguing that "scientific knowledge is too specialised and connected with too narrow a vision of the world to be taken over by society without further ado. It must be examined, it must be judged from a wider point of view that includes human concerns and values flowing therefrom, and its claims to reality must be modified so that they agree with these values." Feyerabend interprets the Galileo affair principally as a conflict between those two traditions and writes of the church that its perspective "had and still has a tremendous advantage over the principles of an abstract rationalism. It is also true that the noble sentiments inherent in a knowledge of this kind did not always prevail and that some church directives were simply an exercise in power. ...Hence, scientists may contribute to culture, but they cannot provide its foundation -- and, being constrained and blinded by their expert prejudices, they certainly cannot be allowed to decide, without control from other citizens, what foundation the citizens should accept. The churches have many reasons to support such a point of view and to use it for a criticism of particular scientific results as well as of the role of science in our culture. They should overcome their caution (or is it fear?) and revive the balanced and graceful wisdom of Roberto Bellarmino, just as the scientists constantly gained strength from the opinions of Democritus, Plato, Aristotle and their own pushy patron saint, Galileo."
(http://elizaphanian.blogspot.com/2007/09/feyerabend-on-galileo.html)
According to Karl Popper, one of the most influential philosophers of science in the past millennium, “In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality.”
In context, the field of astrology — the study of the divine effect of the positions of celestial bodies on our lives — is pseudoscience because it violates this rule. No matter what patterns the stars and planets might be exhibiting on any given day, those movements are interpreted to be influencing what is happening in our lives. There is no course of events that could transpire that would lead astrologists to believe that their horoscope predictions were incorrect. As a result, astrology, numerology and other pseudo-scientific fields are considered to be non-Popperian.
Similarly, it seems like any and all atmospheric occurrences are attributed to climate change — in part because its definition has become so broad. There is no combination of weather patterns that would cause climate change devotees to doubt their gospel. By contrast, even theories that are deeply ingrained in the fabric of our society, such as gravitation or evolution, are still capable of being disproven with counterexamples. It is for this reason that they are regarded as theories and not axioms. Climate change, on the other hand, has no counterexamples since every weather pattern is seen as a byproduct, therefore making it essentially pseudoscience. (http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2017/10/bharadwaj-climate-science-has-become-non-popperian)
Consensus is irrelevant in science. There are plenty of examples in history where everyone agreed and everyone was wrong... Having been active in the IPCC since 1994, serving in various roles in all its three working groups, most recently as a convening lead author for the fifth assessment report of working group II, my testimony to the committee briefly reiterated some of the mistakes made in the fifth assessment report but focused on the structural faults in the IPCC, notably the selection of authors and staff, the weaknesses in the review process, and the competition for attention between chapters. I highlighted that the IPCC is a natural monopoly that is largely unregulated. I recommended that its assessment reports be replaced by an assessment journal. (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2014/jun/06/97-consensus-global-warming)
In an article in the Guardian, Richard Tol wrote that “There are plenty of examples in history where everyone agreed and everyone was wrong”. He didn’t give examples there – perhaps he thought this was so well known that it wasn’t worth commenting on, or perhaps space was too limited. ...
Copernicus, Galileo and the Sun. For some time after Copernicus wrote his book saying that the Earth goes round the Sun, most scientists continued to believe the opposite.
Ernst Chladni and meteorites. The consensus was that meteorites came from the earth, perhaps from volcanoes, until, around 1800, some nutter suggested they might come from outer space.
Cholera and John Snow. The consensus was that cholera was caused by ‘miasma’ – bad air, until John Snow identified a link with a contaminated water pump in the 1850s.
Semmelweis, hand-washing and puerperal fever. His results were rejected because they conflicted with the consensus of scientific opinion.
Evolution. The consensus was that God created species in a few days. Darwin was so worried about the consequences of what he’d found that he sat on it for many years.
The Aether and the speed of light. It used to be thought that light travelled at a certain speed relative to a background known as ‘aether’. Experiments and then Einstein’s theory of relativity showed that this was wrong.
Wegener and continental drift. Wegener was attacked and ridiculed for this theory.
George Zweig and quarks. The consensus was that protons and neutrons were fundamental elementary particles until Zweig and Gell-Man came up with quarks.
Barry Marshall and stomach ulcers. The consensus was that gastritis and ulcers were related to poor diet and stress. in 1984, Marshall had to ingest the bacteria, helicobacter pylori, to show he was right that this was the cause, and eventually won the Nobel Prize.
Stanley Prusiner and prions The consensus was that disease agents needed nucleic acids. Prusiner’s theory of prions in the 1980s led to incredulity, personal attacks and then a Nobel Prize.
Barbara McClintlock and “jumping genes”. Another Nobel Prize winner whose work wasn’t accepted at first because it went against received wisdom.
Maybe all those people insisting on how important it is to convince the public that there’s a consensus on climate change need to take a basic course in the history of science.
(https://ipccreport.wordpress.com/2014/08/19/the-consensus-was-wrong/)
De inherente onzekerheid in de wetenschap, waar theorieën nooit bewezen, maar enkel ontkracht kunnen worden, is een probleem voor politici, beleidsmakers, rechters en bedrijfsprofessionals. Waar wetenschappelijke of filosofische vragen binnen hun disciplinaire omgeving vaak voor decennia in onzekerheid kunnen blijven hangen, moeten beleidsmakers juiste beslissingen maken gebaseerd op de huidige beschikbare gegevens, zelfs als het geen volledig uitgekristalliseerde vorm van de "waarheid" is. Het lastige is uitmaken wat het dichtst bij de "uiteindelijke waarheid" staat. (https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetenschappelijke_consensus)
