Science by intimidation
REX MURPHY
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
June 27, 2008 at 6:46 PM EDT
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080627.corex28/BNStory/specialComment/home
Truth may enter the world by many doors, but she is never escorted by
force. I thought that was a lesson learned long ago, and learned by
none more tellingly than scientists. Real scientists, actually, have
learned it. A new amalgam has emerged however, the scientist-activist,
and for that specimen it's a lesson passed by.
In the dawn of the Enlightenment, it was scientists who were hauled
before tribunals and inquisitions. Galileo is the arch example, the
pioneer empiricist who rejected the ancient Earth-centric model of the
(then known) universe, and for his pains earned the attention and
wrath of the distinctly unscientific Inquisition.
I am drawn to these thoughts, and to the long-decayed example of the
Inquisition, by a most curious outburst this week by James Hansen, the
principal voice of NASA on the subject of global warming, a man who
played – as it were – John the Baptist to Al Gore's messianic
teachings on the subject. Dr. Hansen is largely credited with
“sounding the alarm” on man-made global warming, and he has been a
persistent, high-profile and very aggressive proponent of the cause
for over two decades now. Dr. Hansen doesn't take kindly to those who
dispute his apocalyptic scenarios. I choose the term, apocalyptic,
deliberately. According to Dr. Hansen, mankind may have reached the
tipping point with global warming. Should that be the case, wide-scale
calamity and catastrophe are inevitable. And should we not have
reached the point of absolute crisis, should there be a minuscule
interval for the human species to act and avert the very worst,
according to Dr. Hansen, what yet remains to be faced is still
horrible enough indeed.
Not all the world shares Dr. Hansen's vision of imminent ecological
Armageddon. Serious minds, seriously disinterested in the subject,
throw up caveats all the time. They question the models of
climatological speculation; they question the peculiar mix of man-made
and other likely sources of climate dynamics; they question some of
the data gathering and some of its interpretation; and they question
the very maturity of the highly complex, and experimentally deficient
science of global warming itself.
They seriously question, too, the massive policy prescriptions that
are being insisted upon as necessary in response to the scientific
determinations of man-made global warming. There is lots of room for
different, honest opinion on questions so large and complex, questions
at the terribly complicated intersection of science, politics and
economics.
But, to Dr. Hansen's agitated mind, those who raise such questions,
who inject skepticism into the global warming debate, are “deniers.”
The word here is becoming commonplace, but it remains a singular slur.
A clutch of the global warming believers like to cast all who would
argue with them into the polemical pit, the pit being that dissent
from orthodox opinion on global warming as the equivalent of Holocaust
denial. It is a shameless and vicious tactic, and hardly accords with
the nobility that is suppose to drive the conscience of those out to
save the planet. Dr. Hansen is overfond of the specious and chilling
analogy: He has written of the “cra****ng glaciers serv(ing) as a
Krystal Nacht” and, although he later repented of the metaphor,
compared coal trains to “death trains – no less gruesome than if they
were boxcars headed to crematoria, loaded with uncountable
irreplaceable species.” This week, Dr. Hansen went a step even more
noxiously forward.
He called for a tribunal, or as I prefer to call it, an Inquisition,
to put on trial for crimes against nature and humanity, the CEOs of
the big oil companies who, according to Dr. Hansen's frantic view of
things, feed the public “misinformation” about the climate crisis.
Again the implicit model is to Nuremberg, as the man attempts to put
concern for a future – let us call it a probability – on a moral and
factual par with the unquestioned, historical, shattering enormity of
the Nazi Holocaust.
Is this a scientist speaking? If so, it is more than curious that in
the 21st century it is the scientist calling for the secular
equivalent of an Inquisition. More to the point, are these the words
of a man really certain of his truth, or one who – with the anxiety of
the fanatic – is trying to ****eld it from all rigour of skepticism and
inquiry? In either case, I do not question at all the assertion that
it is the voice of a man who is neither a friend to reason or science.
This is the voice of the scientist-activist consumed with his own
virtue and fearful of all dispute.
Science has no need of tribunals or trials, no need of Nuremberg
justice, or analogies with the Holocaust. James Hansen's words this
week were an offence, an offence against inquiry, against science,
against moral seriousness. They were a piece of insolence against the
idea of debate itself.
--
"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our
homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other
countries are going to say OK." -- Barack Obama
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to
escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. -- Marcus Aurelius
"...the whole world, including the United States, including all that
we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark
Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights
of perverted science." -- Sir Winston Churchill
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
|
