Quote of the day—James Taylor

Don’t look now, but maybe a scientific consensus exists concerning global warming after all. Only 36 percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis, according to a survey reported in the peer-reviewed Organization Studies. By contrast, a strong majority of the 1,077 respondents believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem.

James Taylor
February 13, 2013
[Via a tweet from Scott Adams.—Joe]

Share

5 thoughts on “Quote of the day—James Taylor

  1. Na-uh…TIME magazine said it exists and it’s settled science, so don’t be a poopy face and say it is fake. /end sarcasm

  2. Consensus is not science. Never has been, never will be, no matter how many Democrat Progressive authoritarians and Republican Party weasels want it to be so.

    • I’ll let Agent K (played by Tommy Lee Jones) take this one: “5,000 years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe, 500 years ago everybody knew the Earth was flat, and five minutes ago you knew that mankind was alone in the universe.

      And to paraphrase someone else on the Interwebz concerning “settled science” (possibly here, and my apologies to this eloquent soul): Anyone who believes “the science is settled” has no real understanding of science.

    • Agreed, consensus is not science. However, as continued experimentation and observation converge on a central theme, scientific principles move from obscure notions, to hypotheses, to theories, to accepted laws. Hence the notions of plate tectonics, ice age floods, global extinctions, etc.

      Just because a plurality of similarly-funded scientists agree on preordained conclusions does not make them true. But convergence of scientific thought is a natural part of the scintific process.

      • Right. But any real scientist will agree that, no matter how much supporting evidence there exists up to now, nothing is ever settled. And any attempt to unsettle things is always welcomed.
        Anyone who claims that “it is settled” is a quack or a priest, not a scientist. Anyone who tries to suppress inquiry aimed at unsettling the consensus, or who attempts to tamper with the data, or who attempts to suppress the data, is all those things and worse — a tinpot dictator as well.
        Newton’s laws were settled until more accurate observation of Mercury’s orbit unsettled them, at which point Einstein constructed something utterly and completely different — which is the new consensus until it too falls to future evidence.

Comments are closed.