Quote:
Originally Posted by camber
Floors and floors of modestly paid scientists on depressing short term contracts
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We Scientists (not a climatologist btw) just try our best, for reasons we doubt ourselves sometimes, to present the closest to the objective truth we can produce and hope someone actually reads it. From our clever predecessors we know all the ways that humans can delude themselves in technical arguments when they want something to be true, and we pounce on other scientists in meetings when they make those mistakes. We can be smartarses in forums pointing out when non scientists show these argument biases again and again and again.
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The scientific consensus on global warming is very clear, and has been verified by multiple avenues of research and multiple groups of scientists who probably don't like each other that much. Sorry.
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Pretty much plus one to this. I used to work in government-funded research in the UK. People who do this sort of stuff aren't in it for the money. They're not into trying to scam the general public out of money to fund their lifestyles. If they do want more money, it's to fund their actual research. They're driven by a desire to find stuff out, and also to earn the respect of their peers.
To make a slightly tortured analogy, they're like people who fly online and insist it's full switch - they want other people to say "That guy's
good!". So there are egos involved. This means, as Camber pointed out, that the scientific consensus is not normally arrived at though some chummy agreement.
Before anyone jumps on this post, I'm not claiming that these people do their stuff for free, or that they'd turn down the chance to get paid like Premiership footballers. But I bet if they did get paid that much, they'd use a good chunk of the money to buy better scientific gear, rather than two Lamborghinis.
Success for them is not about earning more and more dosh.
On the other side of the fence, to my mind, you have the petro-chemical industry. I think we can agree that they do measure success in terms of profits. Why could they possibly opposed to the idea that the burning of fossil fuels is something that we should be curtailing?
Of these two sides, which is the more powerful, in terms of shaping world economy and politics? A bunch of people who just want to prove that they're right to their own small community, or a bunch of people who can convince nations to go to war in their interests?
If there is a conspiracy involved in proving the validity of the theory of man-made climate change, I know who I think is behind it.