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 Originally Posted by Bob F.  In the real world, scientists, as everyone else, are driven by the need to earn a living: to feed their families by acquiring money and reputation. They will not do any of these things by bucking the system. They are not aesthete, saintly figures, in white robes dedicated to higher things...
Their money is supplied by research committees. Who sits on these committees? The establishment does. Who gives the committees their money? Government committees do. Who appoints people to the government committees? The politicians do. Who calls the tune? The person who pays the piper does. Always (and even more so when it is a control freak like all politicians happen to be)...
In the real world, a scientist who allows his objectivity to be compromised will never be taken seriously again by his peers - as a result he will no longer be published, get funding or have a job - remember the mantra is "publish or perish"
BTW - I never presented scientists as saintly figures. What I said is that regardless of where their funding comes from, they are subjected to rigorous peer review by other scientists with no vested interest in the outcome. Indeed, scientific research is highly competitive and there is significant motivation for reviewers to poke holes in the papers they review.
Last edited by dslater; 09-30-2007 at 11:42 AM.
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Originally Posted by dslater With such a power source, things like hydrogen and ethanol based fuels become more viable. For example, one of the primary criticisms of ethanol based fuels is that the production of ethanol creates more CO² than you save by using it - this critique is based on the assumption that the energy to produce ethanol comes from coal or oil fired plants - if the energy comes from clean nuclear power, then the argument goes away and ethanol becomes merely a storage medium for energy generated by nuclear power. The Brazilians are already producing Ethanol in plants powered by electricity created from burning the biomass of the sugar cane. No fossil fuel is used at all in production. See this October's National Geographic.
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Originally Posted by Bob F. 1st rule of Internet forums: any thread that exceeds 6 posts will go off-topic. 2nd rule: any thread that exceeds 15 posts will go hopelessly off topic. You can lead a thread to water, but you can't make it stop splashing around in the shallows...  Add in a touch of dodgy science and accusations of a nanny state and things get really 'interesting',
Still I can go and teach Maths to disillusioned urban kids tomorrow so the quality of debate should improve Hmm- Wonder if she'd notice if I bought that :)
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[QUOTE=Gary Holliday;526573] Originally Posted by dslater Gary,
This is imply flat out wrong. You clearly have no idea of how scientific research works.
The thing is that the decline in average temperature that causes an ice age is in fact less than the rise in average over the past 150 years or so. As to the suns output, it is in fact extremely stable - significant fluctuations in the suns output happen over the course of millions to tens of millions of years.
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BobF summed up my answer to your first reply, so no need to say anything at length.
As for the second reply. It wasn't so long ago in the planet's history, when humans needed to live as far south as Spain to avoid the ice. If this happened again, involving a massive migration to a suitable climate, imagine the panic if this was predicted. Should we worry? Hardly. Unlike the current warming trend, cooling trends that lead to ice ages happen over periods of tens of thousands or years. One of the primary concerns about the current warming trend and increase in CO² is not only the levels we're seeing, but also how fast the increase is occurring and it appears to be accelerating.
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Originally Posted by dslater In the real world, a scientist who allows his objectivity to be compromised will never be taken seriously again by his peers - as a result he will no longer be published, get funding or have a job - remember the mantra is "publish or perish" What you suggest is the way it is supposed to work and sometimes, in unimportant areas, probably does work, but important science is political.
Science is done by humans. Humans are, regrettably, flawed. Scientific papers are in any case rarely conclusive: there is always scope for argument, interpretation and reassessment. Reviewers are, by definition, established experts in that field - i.e. those with the most to lose if the current orthodoxy (their orthodoxy) is overthrown.
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Originally Posted by Andy K The Brazilians are already producing Ethanol in plants powered by electricity created from burning the biomass of the sugar cane. No fossil fuel is used at all in production. See this October's National Geographic. Are these the same people that are burning down the rain forest to make room for growing cane?
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Originally Posted by Bob F. What you suggest is the way it is supposed to work and sometimes, in unimportant areas, probably does work, but important science is political.
Science is done by humans. Humans are, regrettably, flawed. Scientific papers are in any case rarely conclusive: there is always scope for argument, interpretation and reassessment. Reviewers are, by definition, established experts in that field - i.e. those with the most to lose if the current orthodoxy (their orthodoxy) is overthrown. Bob,
I simply think you're wrong here - scientific journals make their money from subscriptions - very expensive subscriptions at that. Also, the idea that global warming is the orthodoxy is a very strange one as well - as little as ten years ago, the "orthodoxy" was that global warming either didn't exist or we didn't have enough information to make any conclusions. These attitudes have been changing over time as more evidence comes in. Very few things in this life are conclusive - However, when a large number of climatologists claim that global warming is "very likely" caused by human activities, ignoring them is foolish. Finally, I find the idea that there is some kind of political conspiracy to support environmentalists simply doesn't pass my common sense test - after all, you are talking about people whose primary source of re-election funds comes from big oil and big business - do you really think they're going to turn around and support policies that go directly against the interests of their primary campaign contributors and lobbyists? Consider George Bush is about as far from an environmentalist as you get - he is himself an oil man. The idea that he would do anything to support the IPCC findings is simply ridiculous.
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Originally Posted by Andy K The Brazilians are already producing Ethanol in plants powered by electricity created from burning the biomass of the sugar cane. No fossil fuel is used at all in production. See this October's National Geographic. Hmm - very interesting. However, I believe I read somewhere that one of the problems with biomass like this as a source of energy is that if we use it to supply the energy needs of the world, there won't be enough arable land left for food production. I'm not certain if this applies to burning biomass. I do know it applies to producing ethanol from corn. Making ethanol a truly viable replacement for oil requires developing the technology to produce ethanol from cellulose. Current technology only uses the sugar laden corn kernels.
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'Very likely' is not definitive, it is nothing more than speculation.
As I said previously, the IPCC are bureaucrats not scientists.
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Guys,
As has been pointed out we have strayed way OT from the OP and completely hijacked this thread. I think we're simply going to have to agree to disagree here. It's been a fun thread and has certainly kept me thinking. I'd like to thank you for your continued civility - This is a contentious topic and I have read many other threads on this subject that quickly degenerated into personal attacks. I think we can look on this thread as a testament to the APUG community.
Dan
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