The Highest Authority in Science is the Data

joannenova.com.au/2012/04/the-highest-authority-in-science-is-the-data/

Joint Post David Evans and Jo Nova

“97 percent of climate experts say man-made global warming is a major threat”

The correct response: “So? The satellites, ocean buoys, and weather balloons disagree.”

The alarmists may have “experts”, but the skeptics have the data.


How do you find the truth about some disputed point in science? You find the most authoritative source of information. The vital thing that makes science different to a religion is that there are no “Gods” of science. There is no expert who is infallible. The highest authority in science is the measurements and observations. Here is the hierarchy of authority in climate science:
1.Data (empirical evidence)
2.Climate scientists
3.Other scientists
4.Lay people.

For most of the last few centuries, science has been supreme over politics for settling the truth in matters pertaining to the physical world—empirical evidence beats anyone’s say-so.

But the modern political approach is to ignore that top level. To most warmists and the public who “believe in climate change” (as they so misleading say), the hierarchy is:
1.Climate scientists
2.Other scientists
3.Lay people.

The way the climate scam works is for the like-minded western bureaucracies to be the only employers or funders of climate scientists—which eliminates most of the competition that would otherwise keep them scrupulously honest. While peer review (like the IPCC process) is treated as equivalent to the bible, it’s more like a report of a committee meeting (one that dissenters were not invited to). The government climate scientists use the peer review process to block criticism or alternative theories from being officially heard—as they were caught doing in the Climategate scandal. The mainstream media go to the climate scientists as their ultimate source of authority, and propagate their opinions to the public. Very neat.

It is a loophole in the modern world. The process is called “science”, but works like a religion. The media repeat what the experts say, but are silent about much of the data, how it is collected, and what it means. The public wrongly assumes the conclusions were audited or checked by competing scientists and that journalists asked the scientists hard penetrating questions. It all gains the veneer of rigorous analysis. The public don’t complain when they are asked to pay for it all. An excellent con.

The warmist’s view is more like the hierarchy in the days of the Pope v. Galileo, which, on pain of death by government, was:
1.The Pope
2.Papal scientists and theologians
3.Lay people.

Of course, with the printing press and the subsequent reformation and enlightenment emerged the familiar hierarchy that brought great technological strides for mankind:
1.Data (empirical evidence)
2.Scientists
3.Lay people.

But now the regulating class, the bureaucrats and the mainstream media, have lopped off that vital top layer and inserted their own layer of bought-and-paid-for scientists instead.

The way the climate change debate will eventually be resolved is that the traditional primacy of data will be re-asserted, if only because by the middle of the century people will have noticed that it isn’t several degrees warmer.

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“It is a loophole in the modern world. The process is called “science”, but works like a religion.”

In the meantime, the mainstream media should be reminded that there is a higher authority than the government climate scientists—the data. If the investigative “journalists” were doing some investigating, they would go over the heads of the government climate scientists to the data itself. But the mainstream media have ignored the data to date, only showing the limited selection as interpreted and presented by the climate scientists, without questioning its source or the means by which it was obtained, or noting that it conflicts with the data that comes straight from the instruments.

Here is some relevant, high-quality data from our best instruments and impeccable sources showing that the climate models have failed all their major predictions. Publicly available too. Yet the mainstream media have not shown any of this data, ever, anywhere (as far as we know).

(That could be about to change in a small way. Joanne and I have minor roles on a reality tv show about climate where we insisted on showing some data on the Australian ABC.)