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Open Letter from Science

21:41 / 08.05.10

We are deeply disturbed by the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular. All citizens should understand some basic scientific facts. There is always some uncertainty associated with scientific conclusions; science never absolutely proves anything.

Bazinga!

21:47 / 08.05.10

The list of signatories makes me hot. 11 Nobel laureates, mmmm.
And I love that line "All citizens should understand some basic scientific facts."

01:51 / 09.05.10

Your link didn't quite work, Quantum. I think this is what you're linking to. The "assault on scientists" in the current climate...discussion is all a part of the current (yet somehow familiar) anti-intellectualism reaction to the big scary world that we currently live in, fraught with uncertainty. People often tend to want to see things in terms of right and wrong binaries, and science is too god damned grey, because scientists can't just come out and say "this is right!" or "this is wrong!"
How do you like my broad brush? I think it spreads paint rather well.

22:21 / 09.05.10

This sort of thing makes my blood boil.

'Science' is no more a reasonable catch-all term for a number of equally valid, or invalid, ideas about what reality is to do with than 'religion'.

There as many hack slags peddling dumb ass ideas about climate change, say, as there are about God.

For the sake of argument, God doesn't exist. But how does that excuse the increasingly hectoring tone adopted by the likes of Dawkins, Hitchens, etc? Obviously, they want to sell books, but that's about it, really, isn't it? Seeing as while denying evololution is a bit silly, 'science' can't, as far as I know, explain consciousness, either.

Perhaps naiively, I've always thought that religion, as opposed to 'religion!' is something that civilised people can agree to disagree about.

If the atheist lobby is, as seems to be more and more the case, hell-bent on breaking the compact, in that respect, then, fine.

But if so, what they're arguably attracting is the sort of hostility that the genuine sciencist, working away in a lab in pursuit of the truth, would want nothing to do with. Because it gets in the way.

10:55 / 10.05.10

For the sake of argument, God doesn't exist. But how does that excuse the increasingly hectoring tone adopted by the likes of Dawkins, Hitchens, etc? Obviously, they want to sell books, but that's about it, really, isn't it? Seeing as while denying evololution is a bit silly, 'science' can't, as far as I know, explain consciousness, either.

Not quite true. As I understand it there is plenty of research ongoing into the question of conciousness. However it would be presumptive to state catagorically that a specific theory has more credence than any others before the data's been gathered. So the more correct statement would be that "science" can't provide evidence that a specific theory about conciousness is correct at the moment.

There is a lot of evidence for the evolutionary model so comparing it with something that has yet to be so thoroughly mapped seems somewhat flawed to me.

The book selling point applies to pretty much anyone who writes a book with the expectation that it will be published. I think that the desire to write about a particular subject and have it read by people can exist in a person side by side with their desire to get paid for it.

If not then, arguably, anyone who got paid for creating something could be accused of the same thing.

'Science' is no more a reasonable catch-all term for a number of equally valid, or invalid, ideas about what reality is to do with than 'religion'.

Absolutely right. The scientific process itself is a tool for analysing reality rather than (as some seem to think) an ideology in and of itself.

Science and atheism are often linked and the asumption is often that "scientists" are atheists. Obviously this is not the case and there are plenty of people who are both scientist and religious.

Much as people should feel free to criticise belief systems, they should also be free to criticise scientific proofs (as is happening at the moment with the climate change debate). My personal opinion is that desemination of greater understanding of the scientific process into the gen pop is no bad thing. People are much more likely to distrust things they don't agree with if they don't understand them.

21:37 / 11.05.10

Desemination. I'd pay to see that.

Alex, I'm not sure— what was making your blood boil? Is it that the group of signatories believe that climate science is particularly being singled out lately for criticism, (especially weak and ignorant criticism, as opposed to reasonable questioning)? I'm not really sure. "Science" isn't a demographic or a way of life, so much as a method. It is a human endeavor, but it's the endeavor to observe and quantify. Humans are the ones doing it, so scientists (evil or otherwise) are flawed as humans are.

What's your beef?