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Smithsonian 'Toned Down the Science' In Climate Change Exhibit
An anonymous reader writes "According to an International Herald Tribune article, the Smithsonian pre-emptively toned down the scientific content of a climate change exhibit put into place last year. The changes, including removal of scientist conclusions and muddying of displayed data, were made to ensure that the exhibit would not offend the Congress or the White House. Pressure brought to bear by Institute officials resulted in the resignation of Robert Sullivan, a sixteen year veteran of the organization. 'This is not the first time the Smithsonian has been accused of taking politics into consideration. The congressionally chartered institution scaled down a 1995 exhibit of the restored Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, after veterans complained it focused too much on the damage and deaths. Amid the oil-drilling debate in 2003, a photo exhibit of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was moved to a less prominent space.'"
Please tell me some of the other conspiracies from your rich internal life.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
That would be great, except that the IPCC has used the names of credible scientists in the past without their permission, or against their objections.
I'm not fully behind everything in The Great Global Warming Swindle, but I do think it's worth paying some attention to the cautions of Richard Lindzen (Alfred P. Sloan professor of Meteorology at MIT), who has said:
"In Europe, Henk Tennekes was dismissed as research director of the Royal Dutch Meteorological Society after questioning the scientific underpinnings of global warming. Aksel Winn-Nielsen, former director of the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization, was tarred by Bert Bolin, first head of the IPCC, as a tool of the coal industry for questioning climate alarmism. Respected Italian professors Alfonso Sutera and Antonio Speranza disappeared from the debate in 1991, apparently losing climate-research funding for raising questions."
"Picking holes in the IPCC is crucial. The notion that if you're ignorant of something and somebody comes up with a wrong answer, and you have to accept that because you don't have another wrong answer to offer is like faith healing, it's like quackery in medicine - if somebody says you should take jelly beans for cancer and you say that's stupid, and he says, well can you suggest something else and you say, no, does that mean you have to go with jelly beans?"
When IPCC numbers are at the edge of the error bars, and situations so laughably implausable as the A1FI scenario are treated as genuine risks, you've stepped far from the realm of science. It's okay to worry that we'll make weather a bit more drastic and droughts a bit more painful. It's also okay to say that a lot of data supports a strong correlation between CO2 and increased temperatures. It is not okay to say that we're going to put a large number of cities underwater (as if civil engineers would watch NYC sink) and that we are certain that is all on the back of CO2.
Alarmists and deniers are all making it more difficult for us to find reasonable solutions, or even predictions...
It's time to trust that people can understand the small effects of complex systems, and it's time to allow for good science.
Any evidence that doesn't fit the millions of years belief system is routinely "lost" or ignored by the Smithsonian. This way of thinking has permeated the Smithsonian (and the scientific community) since the 1890s, and has ended the careers of hundreds of scientists.
Science is supposed to be about being free to ask (and test) the questions. Why is everybody so afraid of Creationism and Creation Science and Intelligent Design? If they are truly false, just let people run their experiments. In fact, give them some money so they can get it over with already. What's the harm? It will prove itself untrue and go away by itself, right?
So, tell me, why is it that everyone is so afraid of Creationism and ID? I would imagine that many of you were taught the Bible at a young age and no longer believe it, right? Is it so terrible to know what other people believe? There would be a lot less violence in the world if people understood where other people are coming from. Maybe the experiments they run will help guide science faster toward the truth. Ignoring evidence (a la the ostrich) never helps anyone in any discipline in life.
I had a High School teacher that made us read The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx at the height of the Cold War. His reason? Even if we don't agree with Communism, we will be richer for the experience if we understand it. It will help us understand and predict their moves and will ultimately force the end of Communism, since it was untenable as a governmental system (because it assumes the leaders will be altruistic instead of corrupt).
He was right. I'm glad I read it (and I still don't believe in Communism).
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Raw data: chaotic historical graphs that show the influence of several non-linear influences.
Implied conclusion: It's nearly impossible to predict future changes when you have only one test case.
Missing scientific interpretation: We can handwave away all that uncertainty to get more funding and it's not like any experiment could prove our model wrong.
Actual scientific conclusion: Incentives matter.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.