Of Diamond Planets, Climate Change, and the Scientific Method

A few weeks ago, we discussed the discovery of a diamond planet in orbit around a pulsar. One of the researchers behind the discovery has now written a followup article about reaction to the news from the media and laypeople. Quoting: "The attention we received was 100% positive, but how different that could have been. How so? Well, we could have been climate scientists. ... Instead of sitting back and basking in the glory, I suspect we’d find a lot of commentators, many with no scientific qualifications, pouring scorn on our findings. People on the fringe of science would be quoted as opponents of our work, arguing that it was nothing more than a theory yet to be conclusively proven. There would be doubt cast on the interpretation of our data and conjecture about whether we were “buddies” with the journal referees. If our opponents dug really deep they might even find that I’d once written a paper on a similar topic that had to be retracted. Before long our credibility and findings would be under serious question. But luckily we’re not climate scientists."

Comments

Re:I've Tried This Logic with Resulting Low Impact

[GameboyRMH]

It's Al Gore's fault.

Imagine yourself as an Average Joe who just managed to grind his way through a few basic high-school science courses. You don't know or care about science, it was just a course you had to take, and ideally would have liked to skip. Sort of like gym class is to geeks.

Most people were first introduced to the theory of global warming by Al Gore (already a Bad Guy to conservatives) telling them that their Dodge 3500 is killing polar bears and going to flood New York. BUT, they could prevent this by buying carbon credits (I think we can all agree that the current implementations of carbon credit schemes are...flawed, at best). Oh and he owns a carbon credit company but he didn't mention that bit. Then he flies off in his private jet back to his giant house with a heated pool. Oh and by the way, solving this problem will involve CHANGE and might require HIGHER TAXES.

So now Joe Average understandably thinks this whole global warming thing looks mighty fishy and doesn't like the implications. He goes online to do a little research and has a few choices where to get his info from (assuming he didn't unintentionally use a biased search string like "global warming scam"): he can go to these sciencey websites using gigantic words, or he can go to these little blogs that say CLIMATE CHANGE IS A SCAM and are reinforcing all his worst suspicions. He spends the night reading through these blogs, and it all makes sense! That science stuff is confusing but this explains the whole conspiracy in a language he can understand. And look! Just follow the money! As long as this climate change thing is real that means money for scientists researching it and for renewable energy companies! It HAS to be a scam!

And a climate denialist is born.

Re:I've Tried This Logic with Resulting Low Impact

[RazorSharp]

Yeah, it's Al Gore's fault that the guy you're describing is a moron.

Even if Al Gore had never said a word about climate change, Joe Average wouldn't change his mind. It's not Al Gore who Joe Average hates, it's the ideas that Al Gore represents. If George W. Bush all of a sudden became a defender of climate science and green technology, Joe Average wouldn't change his mind about climate science and green technology, he'd change his mind about George W. Bush.