Is Scientific Consensus a Threat to Democracy?

chance_encounter writes "President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Klaus has published an article in the Financial Times in which he seems to equate the current global warming debate with totalitarian thought control: 'The dictates of political correctness are strict and only one permitted truth, not for the first time in human history, is imposed on us. Everything else is denounced ... The scientists should help us and take into consideration the political effects of their scientific opinions. They have an obligation to declare their political and value assumptions and how much they have affected their selection and interpretation of scientific evidence.' At the end of the article he proposes several suggestions to improve the global climate debate, including this point: 'Let us resist the politicization of science and oppose the term "scientific consensus," which is always achieved only by a loud minority, never by a silent majority.'"

Comments

Scientific Consensus About Not Breathing

[NeverVotedBush]

I bet he considers that questionalble too.

Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" is called that for a reason. This truth is very inconvenient.

A whole lot of people will need to experience famine for themselves before they finally believe that not only is it possible, but that maybe we might be causing it.

The scientific facts are that CO has a very strong infrared spectrum. It is a scientific fact that it will act like a greenhouse around the earth. The only question is the extent. Everything else is simple scientific fact that anyone could verify for themselves in a college chemistry spectroscopy class. Maybe even high school.

So, with that established and the only issue being the extent, that, is also pretty easily calculated based on concentration and pathlength, sun radiance, the earth's reflectivity, etc. It's also backed up, amazingly, byt the grounding of all aircraft over the USA for the days following the 9/11 attacks.

Convincing the skeptics who refuse to try to understand and only regurgitate and babble the talking points their vocal minority misleaders hand them is a waste of time. They refuse to listen. they refuse to learn. And in fact, most of them are too stupid to even understand. It's not just a rufusal to understand. They just don't have the scientific background to understand.

Sigh.

Wow you're a fucking genius ... NOT

[Nicolas MONNET]

I looked at the graph you point to ... and oh, boy, that's interesting, last time climate was warmer than now, dinosaurs were the dominant species.

Then climate changed. Care to remind us what happened to them? Oh yeah, that's right, THEY DIED.

Freaking genius.

Re:Finally, someone said it

[drinkypoo]

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/temperature/greenl an d.18kyr.gif Nope seems to be reality

wow, you really are stupid. You make that idiotic (CO2 doesn't cause warming) argument (I explain why it is stupid in my reply to that comment) and then you come here and try to say that temperatures in greenland are somehow representative of the entire globe.

Global warming is about global temperatures, that's why we call it global warming. Let me know if this is too complicated, I might be able to find some smaller words to use. It is well known that there are localized temperature fluctuations. The Medieval warm period was one such.

Say it with me: GLOBAL WARMING. Not "Greenland Warming".

Some people shouldn't be allowed to read slashdot, let alone comment here.

Re:Threat to democracy?

[ShieldW0lf]

Invest what? Your share of the nebulous "money" that you can't eat or wear or take shelter under, that only has existence and value in that it gives you power over me and others around you?

Burn your money, invest your money, makes no fucking difference. Money doesn't do anything except keep count of these predatory arrangements that give men power over each other.

In other words, you can say "Oh, but if I didn't invest in drug companies, but instead bought candy, there would be no drugs for your illnesses." But it's a big lie. You cordoned off resources that were floating around out there and put them in your pocket. My house. My factory. My land. My good idea.

They're only yours to administer because of the cops and guns.

If I want them, I'll take them by force, and if I'm more effective in my violence or have more friends on my side than you have cops, well, now they're mine.

This is all wrong.

The force of guns, the force of owning all the food and houses, they're the same force.

Secret police and the state, public police and international cartels of rich selfish bastards, all the same to me. Same fucking evil organizations.

Same fate in the end.

Yo Mama

[spun]

So you're some kind of Robin Hood, huh? Seems you're getting a whole lot out of beleiving in global warming already. Does it give you a boner? Nope, I took one look at your mama and now the doctors say I'll never have a boner again.

I could give a fuck about what people think about me. I just don't want you bastards shitting all over the planet I have to live on.