Chapter 5 Searching for Explanations for the Pervasiveness of Corruption Within the CSE
That the rot has spread from the head is beyond question. How did this happen?
Richard Lindzen wrote a paper on this back in 2008 entitled Climate Science: Is it currently designed to answer questions?
globalresearch.ca/climate-science-is-it-currently-designed-to-answer-questions/16330
Here is the abstract:
*For a variety of inter-related cultural, organizational, and political reasons, progress in climate science and the actual solution of scientific problems in this field have moved at a much slower rate than would normally be possible.
Not all these factors are unique to climate science, but the heavy influence of politics has served to amplify the role of the other factors. By cultural factors, I primarily refer to the change in the scientific paradigm from a dialectic opposition between theory and observation to an emphasis on simulation and observational programs. The latter serves to almost eliminate the dialectical focus of the former.
Whereas the former had the potential for convergence, the latter is much less effective. The institutional factor has many components. One is the inordinate growth of administration in universities and the consequent increase in importance of grant overhead. This leads to an emphasis on large programs that never end. Another is the hierarchical nature of formal scientific organizations whereby a small executive council can speak on behalf of thousands of scientists as well as govern the distribution of ‘carrots and sticks’ whereby reputations are made and broken. The above factors are all amplified by the need for government funding.
When an issue becomes a vital part of a political agenda, as is the case with climate, then the politically desired position becomes a goal rather than a consequence of scientific research. This paper will deal with the origin of the cultural changes and with specific examples of the operation and interaction of these factors. In particular, we will show how political bodies act to control scientific institutions, how scientists adjust both data and even theory to accommodate politically correct positions, and how opposition to these positions is disposed of.
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Lindzen talks about a change in the scientific paradigm. Another development in that vein is the growth of so-called post-normal science (See Ravetz and Funtowisz), which encourages activist, policy-driven, and PR-driven—not to mention, mendacious-- science. Melanie Phillips puts this in the context of post-modernism in her book The World Turned Upside Down.
But we will let Mike Hulme, a prominent UEA professor and part of the CSE, articulate in a Guardian article this post-normal vision of climate science:
Philosophers and practitioners of science have identified this particular mode of scientific activity as one that occurs where the stakes are high, uncertainties large and decisions urgent, and where values are embedded in the way science is done and spoken. It has been labeled “post-normal” science…The danger of a “normal” reading of science is that it assumes science can first find truth, then speak truth to power, and that truth-based policy will then follow…Self-evidently dangerous climate change will not emerge from a normal scientific process of truth seeking, although science will gain some insights into the question if it recognizes the socially contingent dimensions of a post-normal science. But to proffer such insights, scientists—and politicians—must trade (normal) truth for influence. If scientists want to remain listened to, to bear influence on policy, they must recognize the social limits of their truth seeking and reveal fully the values and beliefs they bring to their scientific activity…Climate change is too important to be left to scientists—least of all the normal ones…
quote from Melanie Phillips’ book The World Turned Upside Down, p 278.
Pat Michaels gives a very illuminating lecture on climate science and the regulatory state and the inherent bias of summary science:
youtube.com/watch?v=WpNzwzwm-xU
Conventional climate science serves many causes and many varied interests have rallied around it. As we have seen, in its inception the IPCC was designed to serve the radical anti-population, environmental and global governance agendas. The international socialists are all in, along with a whole host of crony capitalists. Bjorn Lomborg talks about the “climate-industrial complex.” Christopher Horner documents it all very well in his books Red Hot Lies and Power Grab.