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

Politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Well...yea. The discovery of a diamond planet isn't used by politicians to create bad policy that doesn't properly address the concerns created by the discovery, and cost people unnecessary amounts of money.

diamond planet

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a big difference, I'm surprised the 'Scientist' failed to see it. In one case the U.N. I.P.C.C. has never - ever - had a prediction come true, in fact quite the opposite. In this case, there is a much greater possibility that this author actually got it right and there is indeed a 'Diamond' planet.

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

[Trailer Trash]

Let's talk about the religion of global warming. We'll set aside for a minute the emails about how we "use Michael's trick to hide the decline". In the religion, we have to cut CO2 output right now by 10 or 20% to supposedly cut down on the run-away global warming. Oddly, performing this feat requires only that we ramp up regulation to levels that the left has been salivating over for years.

The people who are the loudest advocates for this live lifestyles of wasteful mansions and private jets that make their CO2 output literally hundreds of times as much as mine. Better yet, Al Gore has managed to make about $900,000,000 over the last 10 years through various companies that sell "carbon offsets" and such. He has a stake in people believing this.

Then there's the fact that global warming causes *everything*. Warm winter? Global warming. Terrible winter with lots of snow? Global warming. Bad hurricane? Global warming. Few hurricanes during the season? Global warming.

Every single thing in that list has been attributed to global warming in the press.

Then we have the fact that the earth hasn't warmed in the last 10 years.

I believe that the earth is warming. We're coming out of the little ice age still, and in the larger scheme we're still coming out of an ice age. Looking back, we have ice ages and non-ice-ages. This is normal. I can even believe that humans are partly the cause of our current warming. It's not just CO2, either. We have tons of methane generated by the cattle that we keep, and it's a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2.

The problem that I and a lot of others have is the idea that if we don't dramatically alter our lifestyle now (in a way that will destroy our economy) this global warming will be a runaway disaster. It won't. Sorry, it just won't.

Obviously, the people who most push this are doing so to benefit from it. It's like watching a preacher telling you how much *you* are supposed to give, while he lives a lavish lifestyle and clearly benefits from your believing him.

The fact of global warming (the earth is getting a little warmer) - I'm there. The religion - I can do without. Separate the two if you want to convince others that there's something to this.

Re:Science depends on stats

[SciBoy]

There is no scientific debate on this issue. It's settled.

And once upon a time all scientists knew that the earth was flat. Just because there is a consensus doesn't mean that they are right. I think people are being sceptical because we're just not seeing the evidence of what they are proposing. So far, none of the climatologists predictions have come true. Al Gore himself has bought San Fransisco-bay area real-estate that would be washed away if his own predictions were true.

Even if there are a million scientists that claim that the air is full of little invisible fairies that push the clouds around, if they are scientists, they should listen when someone puts forward proof that this is not the case. There are scientists (Henrik Svensmark, for example) that have alternative theories to why there is global warming and who actually have experiments that confirm their theories.

I think one of the main reasons why people are sceptical to this research is that it is a field where we suck. We suck at predicting weather. We suck at it because it is too hard. If you've studied just a little bit of chaos theory you know that it is impossible to forecast weather for more than a very limited time. So all one can say about it is possibly general and broad statements about how it's going to be in the far future and even then just a slight change in the model or the data you're basing your calculations on and that all changes.

Re:So climate science is politics?

[BitZtream]

And thats just the reality of it isn't it?

Diamond planet many many light years away ... absolutely no effect on me, I don't care if you're right or wrong, but I suspect you're wrong anyway. Why? Astrophysicists are usually wrong. You're looking through a telescope making indirect observations that you can only confirm by other indirect observations about the way something works. Too much of it requires faith in guesses with almost nothing to back them up. I know we have to make some assumptions, but the number of assumptions involved at this level are just ridiculous to any scientist who actually understands the subject matter at all.

Someone telling me I have to change my lifestyle because the world is going to end as I know it otherwise? I'm supposed to believe them based on blind faith or a bunch of indirect evidence presented at me with no long term directly observed facts to back it up? Thats not science, its religion, and the people pushing it act like its a religion, again making me trust it less. Its more like a cult than a religion I guess as most people involved with it are fanatical. I was TAUGHT to ignore people like that, or else I'd end up drinking suicide juice the next time a comet swings by so they could beam me up!