Article Tags: Martin Hertzberg
Re. “When a scientist becomes an activist,” Opinion, Auden Schendler, March 10:
The “climategate” e-mail scandal revealed an appalling lack of scientific integrity, possible criminal conduct in violating Freedom of Information Acts in both the US and the UK, and the fraudulent treatment of data, on the part of some scientists involved in pushing the Gore-IPCC-Hansen theory that human emission of CO2 has been causing global warming/climate change. The e-mails also reveal a conspiracy to suppress opposing viewpoints, and even the gloating over the death of a distinguished Australian climatologist who disagreed with them. Ever since then, a host of environmental activists, pretending to be scientists, have come to their defense. The latest is the recent article by Auden Schendler hailing Jim Hansen as a “once in a millennium . .comet of a person … like Jonas Salk … a great man.”
There is a simple way to tell the difference between a scientist and a propagandist. If a scientist has a theory, he searches diligently for data that might actually contradict his theory so that he can modify or refine it. If a propagandist has a theory, he carefully selects only the data that might agree with his theory and dutifully ignores the data that disagrees with it. In the case of James Hansen, he doesn’t even bother with the data: all he has to support his theory are half-baked computer models that are totally out of touch with reality, and have already been proven to be wrong. By any reasonable definition, Hansen’s scenarios and those he helped Gore and the IPCC to concoct, are the work of fear-mongering propagandists.
Source: summitdaily.com