{"id":101386,"date":"2009-12-18T18:45:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-18T23:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18884161.post-8424743078352716123"},"modified":"2009-12-18T18:49:28","modified_gmt":"2009-12-18T23:49:28","slug":"lest-we-forget-the-past-passion-is-often-the-problem-not-skepticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/101386","title":{"rendered":"Lest we forget the past, passion is often the problem, not skepticism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Letter to <em>The Economist<\/em> magazine December 2009<\/p>\n<p><strong>Against the prevailing wind<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>SIR \u2013 Passion is the root problem in what you term &#8220;the modern argument over climate change&#8221; (&#8220;A heated debate&#8221;, November 28th). You state, for instance,that the &#8220;majority of the world&#8217;s climate scientists have convinced themselves&#8221;that human activity is the cause of climate change. I know of no poll that confirms this, but your choice of words is telling. In science, our interpretations of nature are based on observation, experiment and evidence, not self-conviction.<\/p>\n<p>Those of us who are dismissed, often derided, as sceptics have waited a long time for the chicanery behind the global-warming movement to come to light. But we should not blame scientists\u2014however unprincipled\u2014nor UN organisations, nor national governments. The true culprits are the latter-day Nostradamuses who, under their icons of cuddly pandas and polar bears, have misused science to stoke fear, guilt and a craving for atonement in the minds of the public. Governments have been browbeaten to respond to these catastrophists, and some scientists, dependent on public money, have fashioned their behaviour accordingly.<\/p>\n<p>Nikolay Semyonov, a Soviet scientist and Nobel prize winner in chemistry, wrote that:<br \/>&#8220;There is nothing more dangerous than blind passion in science.This is a direct path to unjustified self-confidence, to loss of self-criticalness, to scientific fanaticism, to false science. Given support from someone in power, it can lead to suppression of true science and, since science is now a matter of state importance, to inflicting great injury on the country.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Semyonov was referring to the ruthless manipulation of Soviet science by Trofim Lysenko and other opportunists. In a similar vein, it is time we recognise that we are becoming prey to a new fanaticism, a religious fervour that runs contrary to rational society.<\/p>\n<p>Paul Reiter<br \/>Paris<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img width='1' height='1' src='https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/18884161-8424743078352716123?l=gmopundit.blogspot.com' alt='' \/><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Letter to The Economist magazine December 2009 Against the prevailing wind SIR \u2013 Passion is the root problem in what you term &#8220;the modern argument over climate change&#8221; (&#8220;A heated debate&#8221;, November 28th). You state, for instance,that the &#8220;majority of the world&#8217;s climate scientists have convinced themselves&#8221;that human activity is the cause of climate change. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":710,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/710"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101386\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}