Sunday, May 27, 2012

Incompetent Public Climate Debate Wrongly Accepted as "Post-Normal Science"

Everyone knows there is dissension among scientists over the supposed climate consensus, which is being politically, massively abused. There are a range of scientific opinions, virtually all of them incompetent in accepting, to some degree, the false "greenhouse effect", of increasing temperature with increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But the politicization of the consensus, and the subornation of all of our institutions to that consensus, makes the climate debate a public one, with mostly non-scientific voices pretending to follow the science. There are a range of such non-scientific voices, or opinions, too. At one extreme of that range lies the call for an entirely open debate, in which all voices are welcomed indiscriminately. That extreme position is well exemplified in the Judith Curry climate blog, Climate Etc., as well as the Klimazwiebel ("Klima Zwiebel", German for "Climate Onion") site. The entirely open debate has been elevated at such sites to its own category, known as "Post-Normal Science", as if such open debate were the democratic evolution of science into a community sing-along, with every song welcome.

I have submitted the following short response to the latest entry, and reference to "post-normal science", at Klimazwiebel:

Werner Krauss wrote: "...Science indeed is plural, it is many sciences in one. It is plural enough to give a voice to 'skeptics, political interests, climatic determinism, religion'..."

Science is no such thing. What you are talking about is the sociology of public debate over a scientific question (like "global warming", or more correctly, for the layperson beset by climate dogma, "runaway climate"). Science is much larger, deeper, grander than a mere concatenation of voices with different points of view. It is something entirely other than such an inharmonious concatenation, and you have wrongly identified it by accepting that concatenation of voices as science, calling it "post-normal science". It is not science at all; science simply IS NOT a "ritualized societal practice". (I suspect you are a sociologist, or merely strongly attracted to sociology, for the truth is rather that sociology is but an imitation of science--an attempt to apply the scientific method, based firmly upon objective observation, to sociological questions, but ever stymied by those questions' essential subjectivity, as exemplified by the many voices with different points of view that you refer to with such motherly concern, as if they were your children, all needing encouragement.) Sociology is not a meta-science, that can subsume any and all other sciences within itself; you are fundamentally mistaken, and go beyond the bounds of competent logical debate, by assuming it can.

1 comment:

  1. It is true that science is not these things, but acceptance of science is. You are wrong to think this process hinders the progress of the truth. The general population are much smarter than you give them credit for. Yes they hold the same dogmas as their leaders, but they are much more capable of shaking off those dogmas than their leaders are too. Your support will come from the uneducated first. The more education someone has, the greater the self image they cling to and project to the world of themselves being intelligent. Cleverer than others. Better than others. Exposing that they are just as gullible and stupid as those they look down upon is the worst torture you can inflict upon them. Pride was singled out as the worst of the sins for a reason. Everyone is guilty of it at some point and hardly anyone is capable of recognising it when they are.
    These forums look ugly and progress to begin with is slow, but enlightenment is compounding in nature. You enlighten one, two enlighten four and so forth. This is a networking issue. It will take time to gather critical mass, but it IS occurring!

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