Here’s something from a talk at the California Institute of Technology on Jan. 17, 2003 that I believe is spot on:

“I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. 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. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period. . . .

I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way. . . .“

“Consensus is the business of politics“  - that’s exactly it. If the  scientific revolution counted for anything it was surely the idea that our theories and ideas should be tested against Nature and Reason - not by the whim or bias of some arbitrary social group. Before that revolution it was the Church that exercised social control over ideas. The post-modern advocates of a consensus epistemology are simply replacing that discredited system with a form of control based on an entrenched academia (which in turn can be “managed” by the ruling political class on whom the academics are dependent for funds).

Let’s hope Science can survive!

“Snow fell as the House of Commons debated Global Warming yesterday - the first October fall in the metropolis since 1922. The Mother of Parliaments was discussing the Mother of All Bills for the last time, in a marathon six hour session. ” More on this

How does the UK Met Office’s forecast compare?

“25 September 2008
The Met Office forecast for the coming winter suggests it is, once again, likely to be milder than average. It is also likely that the coming winter will be drier than last year.“

So now of course we have extraordinary cold weather in October (triggering Government cold weather payments) and floods in Devon!

However I have been woken up to do a post following something I read at Anthony Watts’ excellent blog on the subject of Kids Against Anthropogenic Global Warming.

Kids everywhere seem to be brainwashed these days into the depressing lack of original thinking and political correctness of their teachers. Where’s the rebellion of youth?

For example - consider this that I read recently:

“A GROUP of Scarborough students learned all about their carbon footprint at a recent roadshow in Scarborough.

The Carbon Footprint Roadshow, run by BP, called at George Pindar Community Sports College in Moor Lane, Eastfield.

Its aim was to raise awareness about issues surrounding global warming and the students took part in role play exercises, planning and group work.

The workshop was part of the students’ theme in science of making learning real and they also took part in the BP young persons’ survey about attitudes towards global warming.

A spokeswoman for Pindar College said: “The sessions went very well and the presenters were really impressed by how concerned the students were about global warming.”

She added that the organisers were impressed by the fact that the students got more questions right than older participants from a recent workshop.“

Yuck! And run by BP for heaven’s sake! For some reason it brings to my mind a line from a Lewis Carroll poem:

How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in,
With gently smiling jaws

How refreshing then to find a 14 year old from down under taking on the AGW orthodoxy.

So good on yer webmistress Eloise and may your cloud of Google referring links grow ever larger and more authoritative by the day!

Phil Chapman is a geophysicist and astronautical engineer and the first Australian to become a NASA astronaut writing in the Australian.  He continues alarmingly…

“The next descent into an ice age is inevitable but may not happen for another 1000 years. On the other hand, it must be noted that the cooling in 2007 was even faster than in typical glacial transitions. If it continued for 20 years, the temperature would be 14C cooler in 2027. By then, most of the advanced nations would have ceased to exist, vanishing under the ice, and the rest of the world would be faced with a catastrophe beyond imagining“

Which brings to mind Robert Frost’s wonderful poem:

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

‘Nuff said?

The sinning article is here:

Unbelievable!

“Shall we endure longer that the succession of the seasons be changed, and the temper of the heavens be stirred to anger, since the embittered perfidy of the pagans does not know how to preserve these balances of nature? For why has the spring renounced its accustomed charm? Why has the summer, barren of its harvest, deprived the labouring farmer of his hope of a grain harvest? Why has the intemperate ferocity and the winter with its piercing cold doomed the fertility of the lands with the disaster of sterility? Why all these things, unless nature has transgressed the decree of its own law to avenge such impiety?” –Novellae Theodosiani, 438 CE

(Spotted in Benny Peiser’s excellent CCNet)

Update Jan 13th 2008:

• Snow in Baghdad for the first time in living memory!
• The heaviest snow in Iran for a decade
• National Geographic is also reporting that heavy snow and cold weather has also affected Afghanistan, India, and several Central Asian countries

And here we have some climate change protesters outside the State House in Annapolis chilling out:

It seems honey prices in the UK are set to soar by as much as 25% in the coming year.

And the reason? A dry spell followed by a cold summer in Argentina. Yes, that’s right, Argentina does not seem to be on the same planet as hothouse Earth.

Not only that, the UK Met Office states (a little vaguely admittedly) that bees in Australia and Eastern Europe “experienced many of the same problems“.

But wait, it gets yet more global - Iranian bees have also been chilling out:

“The average harvest of Honey is 7 to 10 Kilos which shows a downward trend in comparison with that of past years because of long lasting coldness of last year and increased rainfall” - Faraj Allah Molavi, the Executive of the Union of honey bee growers of the province East Azerbaijan here

Perhaps we should not be too surprised. The best efforts to measure global temperature seem to show no warming since 1998. One wonders at what point a blip morphs into a “critical anomaly” for warm-mongers?

It seems to me that one of the by-products of the global warming debate has been the addition of the idea of consensus into the theory of science. Given that the global warming debate is about highly politicised science, perhaps it should come as no surprise that a concept fundamental to political progress (consensus) gets assumed to be at the heart of scientific progress.

(Of course “Consensus” is also one of those Orwellian newspeak feel-good words which modern politicians deploy because it seems to make its own argument).

The alternative view, as wonderfully expounded by Karl Popper for example, stresses the adversarial nature of science. On this view we should (insofar as we wish to think scientifically) never cease to challenge the consensus, to find refutations and look for critical tests. The best theories will be the ones still standing after exposure to the most powerful scepticism. Those who seek to shield their ideas from criticism by, for example, invoking a “closed shop” of men in white coats who alone are qualified to speak on the issue are being profoundly un-scientific. You see this attitude from latter-day warming-mongers like this:

• “You claim AGW is scientific fact because there is an overwhelming consensus. But what about scientist …..(insert name) who disagrees?” Ah, but he is in the wrong department/in the wrong field/ retired/has a great aunt whose third cousin believed in creationism (delete as appropriate)
• “But what about this scientist……. (insert name). He is an expert in the field!” Ah, but although he makes these claims, they have not been published in a peer-reviewed journal
• “But what about this scientist………(insert name)? His work is published in…. (insert peer-reviewed journal)!” Ah, but those are the wrong peers and this is the wrong journal!

A wonderful critique of “consensus” has just been published by John Kay. Here are some things he has to say:

“Consensus finds a way through conflicting opinions and interests. Consensus is achieved when the outcome of discussion leaves everyone feeling they have been given enough of what they want. The processes of proper science could hardly be more different. The accomplished politician is a negotiator, a conciliator, finding agreement where none seemed to exist. The accomplished scientist is an original, an extremist, disrupting established patterns of thought. Good science involves perpetual, open debate, in which every objection is aired and dissents are sharpened and clarified, not smoothed over.”

And: “We do not say that there is a consensus over the second law of thermodynamics, a consensus that Paris is south of London or that two and two are four. We say that these are the way things are.”

And: “Peer review is a valuable part of the apparatus of scholarship, but carries a danger of establishing self-referential clubs that promote each other’s work.”

And: “The notion of a monolithic “science”, meaning what scientists say, is pernicious and the notion of “scientific consensus” actively so. The route to knowledge is transparency in disagreement and openness in debate. The route to truth is the pluralist expression of conflicting views in which, often not as quickly as we might like, good ideas drive out bad. There is no room in this process for any notion of “scientific consensus”.

Wonderful!

http://johnkay.com/political/518.

John Kay is one of Britain’s leading economists