Science lies foully murder. The Environmental Faith is the New Fascism.

Zootwoman wrote:
> > If we wish to remain in the domain of science, rather than politics, we
> > must continue to debate any theory, no matter how well established.

Rich Koerner objected:
> You don't DEBATE theories. You PROVE them, and make them FACTS!!!!

That was the old, well-proven way of doing science, as formalized inter
alia by Sir Karl Popper. It no longer applies to the environment.

The problem with the debate on the environment is that it has been
removed from the spheres of both science and politics. The body which
heavily influences environmental policy (Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change - IPCC) has taken three fatal steps:

1. It has repeatedly rewritten, or forced scientists to rewrite,
scientific findings in stronger terms to suit political aims, and in
several notorious cases the various consecutive drafts have in fact
turned the finding of the scientists on its head, the final executive
summary for politicians saying exactly the opposite of what the
scientists found and said in their report. A notorious example was the
major summary in the 1996 report in which the scientists concluded
there is no evidence that global warming is caused by human activity.
When the report came out, the summary claimed that the evidence proves
that global warming is caused by human activity! This institutionalizes
lying.

2. Glory- and fund-hunting "scientists" have been encouraged to state
their "feelings" as if these have the same validity as repeatable
scientific proof. An example is the 2001 report in which the summary
was diametrically at odds with the data in the report; the chief
"scientist's" excuse was that he "felt" that politicians "should" take
the environment seriously! At the same time naysayers who demand proof
and honest interpretation of data have been persecuted in the press and
by the environmental establishment, funding bodies and suchlike, the
vilification of the statistician Bjorn Lomborg being merely the most
egregious and best documented example. This is an Inquisition to
persecute skeptics. In addition, any questioning of scientists, their
findings and investigations by political authorities is presented as
persecution, as current congressional investigations of controversial
findings with big public finance implications have been misrepresented
as a witchhunt. That is a mechanism for turning scientists into a new
priesthood, with their own courts and their own law, totally outside
democratic control.

3. Worst of all, it was officially decided that environmental measures
should not be subjected to cost-benefit analysis. This is simply crazy,
because the only measure any democracy has in the end is cost-benefit.
You cannot spend the taxpayer's money without limit for any purpose
whatsoever. But this crazy *official* concept goes further than even
that in its implications. For instance, legislators are not supposed to
make commonplace comparisons with other calls on the public purse, such
as Health. This takes the Environment (note the new capital) out of
politics and makes it into an official Super-Religion, a faith no dares
question. See above about the Inquisition persecuting skeptics and the
immunity of the new faith from rationality, law and democratic
oversight. So who will control this new faith? Why, the pressure groups
who have so successfully brought it about.

It's the new fascism.

***

I might also remark that the Last Rational Age started on 29 May 1919
when Eddington used the eclipse of the sun to prove Einstein's
relativity theory. Einstein had set three tests and insisted all three
tests, the red shift during the eclipse being the last, be met before
the theory would be accepted as valid. Einstein wrote to Eddington: "If
it were proved that this effect does not exist in nature then the whole
theory would have to be abondoned."

After this scientific relativity was confused with moral relativity to
the point where a worldwide "scientific" body (IPCC) would in 1996
persuade scientists to sign their names to lies and then from 2001 to
substitute their "feelings" for observable fact. That was the end of
science; 2001 marks the beginning of The Age of Feely-Feely. A few
years later we have an idiot from a pressure group telling us
(apparently without understanding how much the single sentence reveals
of the methods and motives of these power-hungry minority pressure
groups):

>>If we wish to remain in the domain of science, rather than politics, we
> > must continue to debate any theory, no matter how well established.

which translates into plain English as a threat:

"We don't care *** what science proves, and we don't care *** for the
supervision of our elected representatives, we'll continue pressuring
everyone until you give way because our 'feelings' are more important
than science or democracy."

The abandonment of science for the Environmental Faith and mob rule may
yet give the green pressure groups their destructive dream of cottage
industry and no cars. Someone should explain to them that horses ***
all over the roads and that that too is a form of pollution.

Andre Jute
Bicyclist

PS This message, posted on RAT for rational discussion, is also posted
to AGA, but not crossposted. I leave it entirely up to RATs whether
they wish to take a quick tourist trip to the monkey farm
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.guitar.amps to see how the crazies
on AGA treat the same material.

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