Please read this letter that I co-authored for ocla.ca.
http://ocla.ca/ocla-letter-who/
http://ocla.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/2020-06-21-Letter-OCLA-to-WHO-DG.pdf
Hou.
#masksdontwork
Showing posts with label establishment science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label establishment science. Show all posts
Monday, June 22, 2020
Thursday, October 3, 2019
Dear True Environmentalists: Fight Corporate Criminality, not Atmospheric Gases
Dear true environmentalists: I am with you.1
Corporate pollution and releasing of toxic substances should be treated as a criminal act, with full power to seize assets for reparations, actual reparations, not just punitive fines.
I would apply the same standard of prosecution to the “medical”/pharma2 and agri-food industries,3 also.
However, the planet and biosphere are not at risk of imminent collapse, and certainly not from CO2.
The “imminent collapse” fabrication serves powerful manipulators, and necessarily diverts us away from attaining actual democracy and fairness. In the words of Chomsky:4
History of imbedded doomsday narratives
All societies are dominance hierarchies, and all large, human dominance hierarchies have hired high-priests that construct and maintain the State doomsday narrative. These high-priests constantly instruct us on required beliefs and behaviours that minimize the deleterious effects of the alleged impending catastrophe. The behavioural instructions fan everything from diet, to hygiene, to dress code, to physical activity, to work ethics, to attitudes and morals, to child rearing, to political positions, to deference to experts, and so on.
It would be delusional to believe that this structural feature of society is any different than it ever was. In present Western society, the high-priests are the “scientists”, which include the medical doctors and all the “experts”.
This does not mean that science itself is not a valid and rigorous method to test and eliminate hypotheses and theories. It only means that establishment scientists are hired high-priests, notwithstanding the rare exceptions that prove the rule. It also does not mean that scientists never tell the truth. It only means that establishment scientists never harm or rebel against the dominance hierarchy, except by accident or solely in appearance.
These days, there is an industry of scientists that indulge in generating, testing and ameliorating ever more creative doomsday predictions, which are hoped to be of utility to the bosses. The said utility is often termed “societal relevance”. As an eminent example, we have the theory of a “tipping point” towards irreversible total collapse of the ecosphere, often referred to as a “species mass extinction”. The notion of a tipping point has also been advanced for planetary climate, wherein, in the absence of any non-human cause, one crosses into a global climate regime of constant extreme weather and flooded continents.
Whereas past planetary transformations have been related to game-changers, such as the advent of photosynthesis, the calming of tectonic (volcanic) activity, and so forth, and whereas the known recurring climate catastrophe of ice ages is believed to be driven by variations in solar insolation, the new “tipping points” spontaneously occur from the gradual changes of increased modern human or industrial activity, including: habitat destruction, burning of fossil fuel, population growth, and dispersal of toxic substances.
The new “tipping point” theory is not unlike the deluge of the Old Testament, which followed an accumulation of human depravity, except that no god is postulated, and building the Ark requires a centralized and globally restructured economy, handled by overarching elite private institutions, of course. War, disease, hunger … are all defeated under the same umbrella, death itself eventually.
The accompanying calls from establishment icons are often shrill. In the words of Prince Charles, in 2009:5,6
The scientists follow and are often not more contained than Prince Charles or President Obama:
Furthermore, even among scientists, still getting their bearings, there is persistent disagreement as to whether species extinction rates are higher in recent decades. A critical review concludes:13
There is a large structurally imbedded industry of doomsday narrative. In addition, individuals are reared in a dominance hierarchy and therefore constantly seek messaging about fitting in. The result is that we adopt the State religion. Even if the State is occupied by an exploitative elite, we continue to uphold and follow any State religion that has been sufficiently implanted.
In this case, the State religion is that we are cared-for by mother earth but that our bad behaviour is poisoning mother earth and that we are therefore all at risk, unless we adopt the new stringent conditions that should be imposed globally. Non-believers should be rooted out and isolated. We should demand that all our peers and our representatives do what is proscribed by the State religion.
Meanwhile corporate criminality, while dressed in the colours of the State religion, will continue at an accelerated rate, and our minds and bodies will continue to be occupied.3
I say no. To escape this trap, we must realize that the planet is, well, a planet, with huge response capabilities; that the planet is far more resilient and robust than we imagine.
Habitat destruction and industrial practices are grotesque, and these cause real and significant harm to human communities and ecosystems — more so even than actual wars in the present era … although not more so than so-called economic sanctions and exploitative nation financing. In contrast, “warming” itself cannot hurt the biosphere or humans, nor is the planet at risk of “collapse” from all the criminal practices. That is fabricated nonsense.
Our joint efforts should be on justice, attaining actual democracy, the elimination of criminal behaviour, extortion and exploitation, enforcement of reparations, enforcement of corporate transparency and accountability…
The problem is human behaviour against humans and nature, organized by an occupied dominance hierarchy, and the solutions are political; nothing to do with CO2, methane or anything else in the atmosphere.
Corporate pollution and releasing of toxic substances should be treated as a criminal act, with full power to seize assets for reparations, actual reparations, not just punitive fines.
I would apply the same standard of prosecution to the “medical”/pharma2 and agri-food industries,3 also.
However, the planet and biosphere are not at risk of imminent collapse, and certainly not from CO2.
The “imminent collapse” fabrication serves powerful manipulators, and necessarily diverts us away from attaining actual democracy and fairness. In the words of Chomsky:4
For example, suppose it was discovered tomorrow that the greenhouse effect has been way underestimated, and that the catastrophic effects are actually going to set in 10 years from now, and not 100 years from now or something. Well, given the state of the popular movements we have today, we’d probably have a fascist takeover—with everybody agreeing to it, because that would be the only method for survival that anyone could think of. I’d even agree to it, because there just are no other alternatives around right now.Rather than accept fascism or totalitarianism, corporate and finance criminality can best be fought from a position of realistic perspective regarding the end of the world, sober analysis of means regarding leverage for change, and focused political targeting against corporate rule without accountability.
History of imbedded doomsday narratives
All societies are dominance hierarchies, and all large, human dominance hierarchies have hired high-priests that construct and maintain the State doomsday narrative. These high-priests constantly instruct us on required beliefs and behaviours that minimize the deleterious effects of the alleged impending catastrophe. The behavioural instructions fan everything from diet, to hygiene, to dress code, to physical activity, to work ethics, to attitudes and morals, to child rearing, to political positions, to deference to experts, and so on.
It would be delusional to believe that this structural feature of society is any different than it ever was. In present Western society, the high-priests are the “scientists”, which include the medical doctors and all the “experts”.
This does not mean that science itself is not a valid and rigorous method to test and eliminate hypotheses and theories. It only means that establishment scientists are hired high-priests, notwithstanding the rare exceptions that prove the rule. It also does not mean that scientists never tell the truth. It only means that establishment scientists never harm or rebel against the dominance hierarchy, except by accident or solely in appearance.
These days, there is an industry of scientists that indulge in generating, testing and ameliorating ever more creative doomsday predictions, which are hoped to be of utility to the bosses. The said utility is often termed “societal relevance”. As an eminent example, we have the theory of a “tipping point” towards irreversible total collapse of the ecosphere, often referred to as a “species mass extinction”. The notion of a tipping point has also been advanced for planetary climate, wherein, in the absence of any non-human cause, one crosses into a global climate regime of constant extreme weather and flooded continents.
Whereas past planetary transformations have been related to game-changers, such as the advent of photosynthesis, the calming of tectonic (volcanic) activity, and so forth, and whereas the known recurring climate catastrophe of ice ages is believed to be driven by variations in solar insolation, the new “tipping points” spontaneously occur from the gradual changes of increased modern human or industrial activity, including: habitat destruction, burning of fossil fuel, population growth, and dispersal of toxic substances.
The new “tipping point” theory is not unlike the deluge of the Old Testament, which followed an accumulation of human depravity, except that no god is postulated, and building the Ark requires a centralized and globally restructured economy, handled by overarching elite private institutions, of course. War, disease, hunger … are all defeated under the same umbrella, death itself eventually.
The accompanying calls from establishment icons are often shrill. In the words of Prince Charles, in 2009:5,6
If we do nothing, the consequences for every person on this earth will be severe and unprecedented – with vast numbers of environmental refugees, social instability and decimated economies: far worse than anything which we are seeing today … We have 100 months left to act.While the leader of the most warring nation on earth, President Barack Obama, concluded in his 2015 State of the Union speech:7
No challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change.The role of scientists
The scientists follow and are often not more contained than Prince Charles or President Obama:
Earth is rapidly approaching a tipping point. Human impacts are causing alarming levels of harm to our planet. As scientists who study the interaction of people with the rest of the biosphere using a wide range of approaches, we agree that the evidence that humans are damaging their ecological life support systems is overwhelming. We further agree that, based on the best scientific information available, human quality of life will suffer substantial degradation by the year 2050 if we continue on our current path. Science unequivocally demonstrates the human impacts of key concern: Climate disruption – more, faster climate change than since humans first became a species. …8In fact, there is no science of a “tipping point” for earth biodiversity or for earth climate. No such testable theory has been elaborated. The entire notion of “tipping point” is hypothetical and tenuous. It is a product of bias to presume that a large and complex system (planet) would be susceptible to “tipping” rather than extraordinarily stable against internal superficial changes. A recent paper describes how one might begin to define concepts or measures that would allow even discussing the topic of “tipping point” intelligently, for realistic ecological systems.12
We maintain that humanity’s grand challenge is solving the intertwined problems of human population growth and overconsumption, climate change, pollution, ecosystem destruction, disease spillovers, and extinction, in order to avoid environmental tipping points that would make human life more difficult and would irrevocably damage planetary life support systems.9
But today, for the first time, humanity’s global civilization—the worldwide, increasingly interconnected, highly technological society in which we all are to one degree or another, embedded—is threatened with collapse by an array of environmental problems. Humankind finds itself engaged in what Prince Charles described as ‘an act of suicide on a grand scale’, facing what the UK’s Chief Scientific Advisor John Beddington called a ‘perfect storm’ of environmental problems. The most serious of these problems show signs of rapidly escalating severity, especially climate disruption. But other elements could potentially also contribute to a collapse: an accelerating extinction of animal and plant populations and species, which could lead to a loss of ecosystem services essential for human survival; land degradation and land-use change; a pole-to-pole spread of toxic compounds; …10
The loss of biodiversity is one of the most critical current environmental problems, threatening valuable ecosystem services and human wellbeing. A growing body of evidence indicates that current species extinction rates are higher than the pre-human background rate, with hundreds of anthropogenic vertebrate extinctions documented in prehistoric and historic times.11
Furthermore, even among scientists, still getting their bearings, there is persistent disagreement as to whether species extinction rates are higher in recent decades. A critical review concludes:13
Net species gains or losses should be assessed with respect to common baselines or reference communities. Ultimately, we need a globally coordinated effort to monitor biodiversity so that we can estimate and attribute human impacts as causes of biodiversity change. A combination of technologies will be needed to produce regularly updated global datasets of local biodiversity change to guide future policy. At this time the conclusion that there is no net change in local species richness is not the consensus state of knowledge.Reality check
There is a large structurally imbedded industry of doomsday narrative. In addition, individuals are reared in a dominance hierarchy and therefore constantly seek messaging about fitting in. The result is that we adopt the State religion. Even if the State is occupied by an exploitative elite, we continue to uphold and follow any State religion that has been sufficiently implanted.
In this case, the State religion is that we are cared-for by mother earth but that our bad behaviour is poisoning mother earth and that we are therefore all at risk, unless we adopt the new stringent conditions that should be imposed globally. Non-believers should be rooted out and isolated. We should demand that all our peers and our representatives do what is proscribed by the State religion.
Meanwhile corporate criminality, while dressed in the colours of the State religion, will continue at an accelerated rate, and our minds and bodies will continue to be occupied.3
I say no. To escape this trap, we must realize that the planet is, well, a planet, with huge response capabilities; that the planet is far more resilient and robust than we imagine.
Habitat destruction and industrial practices are grotesque, and these cause real and significant harm to human communities and ecosystems — more so even than actual wars in the present era … although not more so than so-called economic sanctions and exploitative nation financing. In contrast, “warming” itself cannot hurt the biosphere or humans, nor is the planet at risk of “collapse” from all the criminal practices. That is fabricated nonsense.
Our joint efforts should be on justice, attaining actual democracy, the elimination of criminal behaviour, extortion and exploitation, enforcement of reparations, enforcement of corporate transparency and accountability…
The problem is human behaviour against humans and nature, organized by an occupied dominance hierarchy, and the solutions are political; nothing to do with CO2, methane or anything else in the atmosphere.
- “Questioning Climate Politics: Denis Rancourt says the ‘global warming myth’ is part of the problem” by Dru Oja Jay, The Dominion, 11 April 2007. []
- “Cancer arises from stress-induced breakdown of tissue homeostasis” by Denis Rancourt, Research Gate, December 2015, DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.1304.7129. []
- “GEO-ECONOMICS AND GEO-POLITICS DRIVE SUCCESSIVE ERAS OF PREDATORY GLOBALIZATION AND SOCIAL ENGINEERING: Historical emergence of climate change, gender equity, and anti-racism as State doctrines” by Denis Rancourt, Research Gate, April 2019, DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.26897.89449. [] []
- “Undertanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky”, by Noam Chomsky, edited by Peter Mitchell and John Schoeffet, The New Press, NY, 2002; at page 388, in Chapter 10 “Turning Point – Based on discussions in Illinois, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York, and Maryland in 1994 to 1996 and 1999”, ISBN 1-56584-703-2. []
- As quoted in “Apocalypse Now! Fear and Doomsday Pleasures” by Erik Swyngedouw, Capitalism Nature Socialism, Volume 24, 2013 – Issue 1, pages 9-18. []
- “Climate change must be tackled before global poverty, says Prince Charles” by Andrew Alderson in Santiago, The Telegraph, 10 March 2009. []
- “Obama: No greater threat to future than climate change” by Madison Park, CNN, 21 January 2015. []
- “Introducing the Scientific Consensus on Maintaining Humanity’s Life Support” by Anthony D Barnosky et al., The Anthropocene Review, 2014, 1: 78. []
- “Avoiding collapse: Grand challenges for science and society to solve by 2050, by Anthony D. Barnosky, Paul R. Ehrlich, and Elizabeth A. Hadly, Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, 4: 000094, doi: 10.12952/journal.elementa.000094. []
- “Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided?” by Ehrlich, P.R. and Ehrlich, A.H. (2013) Proc R Soc B, 280: 20122845. []
- “Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction” by Ceballos et al., Sci. Adv., 2015, 1: e1400253. []
- “Unifying Research on Social–Ecological Resilience and Collapse” by Graeme S. Cumming and Garry D. Peterson, Trends in Ecology & Evolution, Review| Volume 32, ISSUE 9, P695-713, September 01, 2017. []
- “Estimating local biodiversity change: a critique of papers claiming no net loss of local diversity” by Andrew Gonzalez et al., Ecology, 97(8), 2016, pp. 1949–1960. []
Wednesday, June 7, 2017
Can't leave scientists alone with science
By Denis G. Rancourt, PhD
(This article was first published on my climate blog.)
If the generalized global warming fever and "climate change" hysteria has taught societal observers anything it is that you cannot leave scientists alone with science.
The scientific enterprise is embedded, and scientists are manufactured service intellectuals.
Two outcomes are possible.
In the first extreme scenario, those scientists that are mainly responsible to recruit young minds and to fabricate the illusion of research freedom are given freedom within the framework of professional advancement based solely on peer-reviewed publication output. The result is irrelevant gibberish, as any institutional analyst would predict.
In the other end-point scenario, research funding is tied to professional advancement and is determined by government agencies and corporate interests. The outcome is again precisely as would be predicted: the research output exactly satisfies the contractual conditions.
This is true whether one is patenting a genetically modified organism, or approving a new "non-addictive" pain medication, or developing a next-generation delivery system for nuclear warheads.
The on-going episode of global warming "science" has illustrated a structural flaw in this otherwise functioning state-science system: If scientists are given career-enhancing supra-national political instruments to create exaggerated relevance of their work in driving a globalist agenda, then they will take the opportunity and run.
Such runaway irrelevance is already known to occur on its own within a career-centered science network (the so-called Gold Effect). [1]. With the climate scare example, we see that the phenomenon is highly amplified when there is a strong corporate or institutional and propaganda-supported driver.
Usually, societal observers and ordinary citizens would not notice. In this case however, the shrill alarmism that has been generated, propagated by the mainstream media, and condoned by the science establishment, is stratospheric. The independent-thinking blogger can detect the tenuous nature of the claims of everything from imminent human species extinction to continental flooding to engulfing forest fires to unprecedented mega-storms to war-causing droughts, and so on. [2].
You can't leave scientists alone with science. Thankfully, in this case, the propaganda runaway has caused the insanity to be palpable, influential domestic forces are not buying in, and a large segment of the middle-class is not swallowing it; species extinction or no species extinction, bumblebee migration or no bumblebee migration.
The heroes in this story -- in this unique and historic example where a large segment of society has correctly perceived a widespread profiteering construct -- are the bloggers and vloggers, the domestic industrial interests that resist finance globalization, the USA political networks that reject global governance, and, of course, the exceptional scientists that refused to compromise intellectual integrity and publicly said so.
All of this, in circumstances where the relevant planetary physics is straightforward, if anybody cared. [3].
Endnotes
[1] See the description of the Gold Effect in: Rancourt, D.G., Cancer arises from stress-induced breakdown of tissue homeostasis, Research Gate (December 2015), 25 pages. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.1304.7129
[2] My critical review of the global-warming "science" of forest fires may be one of the best illustrations of how bad the science is, as I document the "runaway" recorded in the scientific literature: Rancourt, D.G., Anatomy of the false link between forest fires and anthropogenic CO2, Research Gate (May 2016), 18 pages. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.2059.6087
[3] Rancourt, D.G., Radiation physics constraints on global warming: CO2 increase has little effect, my climate blog (June 2011), http://climateguy.blogspot.ca/2011/06/radiation-physics-constraints-on-global.html
Denis Rancourt's articles and interviews on climate are listed HERE.
Links to all my articles are HERE.
(This article was first published on my climate blog.)
If the generalized global warming fever and "climate change" hysteria has taught societal observers anything it is that you cannot leave scientists alone with science.
The scientific enterprise is embedded, and scientists are manufactured service intellectuals.
Two outcomes are possible.
In the first extreme scenario, those scientists that are mainly responsible to recruit young minds and to fabricate the illusion of research freedom are given freedom within the framework of professional advancement based solely on peer-reviewed publication output. The result is irrelevant gibberish, as any institutional analyst would predict.
In the other end-point scenario, research funding is tied to professional advancement and is determined by government agencies and corporate interests. The outcome is again precisely as would be predicted: the research output exactly satisfies the contractual conditions.
This is true whether one is patenting a genetically modified organism, or approving a new "non-addictive" pain medication, or developing a next-generation delivery system for nuclear warheads.
The on-going episode of global warming "science" has illustrated a structural flaw in this otherwise functioning state-science system: If scientists are given career-enhancing supra-national political instruments to create exaggerated relevance of their work in driving a globalist agenda, then they will take the opportunity and run.
Such runaway irrelevance is already known to occur on its own within a career-centered science network (the so-called Gold Effect). [1]. With the climate scare example, we see that the phenomenon is highly amplified when there is a strong corporate or institutional and propaganda-supported driver.
Usually, societal observers and ordinary citizens would not notice. In this case however, the shrill alarmism that has been generated, propagated by the mainstream media, and condoned by the science establishment, is stratospheric. The independent-thinking blogger can detect the tenuous nature of the claims of everything from imminent human species extinction to continental flooding to engulfing forest fires to unprecedented mega-storms to war-causing droughts, and so on. [2].
You can't leave scientists alone with science. Thankfully, in this case, the propaganda runaway has caused the insanity to be palpable, influential domestic forces are not buying in, and a large segment of the middle-class is not swallowing it; species extinction or no species extinction, bumblebee migration or no bumblebee migration.
The heroes in this story -- in this unique and historic example where a large segment of society has correctly perceived a widespread profiteering construct -- are the bloggers and vloggers, the domestic industrial interests that resist finance globalization, the USA political networks that reject global governance, and, of course, the exceptional scientists that refused to compromise intellectual integrity and publicly said so.
All of this, in circumstances where the relevant planetary physics is straightforward, if anybody cared. [3].
Endnotes
[1] See the description of the Gold Effect in: Rancourt, D.G., Cancer arises from stress-induced breakdown of tissue homeostasis, Research Gate (December 2015), 25 pages. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.1304.7129
[2] My critical review of the global-warming "science" of forest fires may be one of the best illustrations of how bad the science is, as I document the "runaway" recorded in the scientific literature: Rancourt, D.G., Anatomy of the false link between forest fires and anthropogenic CO2, Research Gate (May 2016), 18 pages. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.2059.6087
[3] Rancourt, D.G., Radiation physics constraints on global warming: CO2 increase has little effect, my climate blog (June 2011), http://climateguy.blogspot.ca/2011/06/radiation-physics-constraints-on-global.html
Denis Rancourt's articles and interviews on climate are listed HERE.
Links to all my articles are HERE.
Monday, December 26, 2016
Beware Anti-“Pseudo-Science” Agitation
By Denis G. Rancourt, PhD
I was asked to write this short article to be published in the January newsletter of the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship (SAFS): see SAFS Newsletter, Number 75, January 2017, pages 8-10. A longer version of the article, with references, will be published in a 2017 SAFS conference proceeding.
If we accept an operational definition of “pseudo-science” as whatever any critic of so-called “pseudo-science” probably means, then vehement criticisms of the said “pseudo-sciences” are generally made for one of four reasons:
Thus, the full array of motives for engaging in the sport of “pseudo-science” bashing spans a spectrum from good scientific practice to ordinary social behaviour in structured society to support for organized fraud to outright base competition that is incompatible with the science ideal. Here, I outline the last three reasons, as follows. A longer version of this article, with references, will be published elsewhere.
Popular support for establishment science as state religion
Given the epidemic lack of understanding of science concepts, it is not surprizing that there is a wide array of beliefs that are at odds with the school lessons about science, including: astrology, “intelligent design”, “free energy”, “orgone”, “creation biology”, and homeopathy.
Realistically, virtually all citizens are entirely unable to critically evaluate what we take as being scientific truth, regarding public policy and regulatory questions. Thus, “public education” means state propaganda. We are reduced to “scientists have concluded” or “there is a scientific consensus that” and so on.
Systemically, from an operational perspective, establishment science is a state religion. It is not anchored in empirical evidence that can be evaluated by the non-expert individual using reason and intellectual discernment. It frames and supports the established order. It provides legitimacy to government programs. It purports to appease our deepest quests for meaning, and supplies a creationist mythology (cosmology, string theory, and so on). Its high priests are venerated and occupy top ranks in the class hierarchy.
Ordinary well-educated citizens have invested in many beliefs delivered by establishment science, and have integrated these beliefs into their personal identities. It is therefore natural that middle-class and professional-class individuals have a learned and reflexive impulse to attack “pseudo-science”. These attacks can be individual or can coalesce via the animal behavioural collective phenomenon known as mobbing.
Legitimacy for problematic areas of establishment science
A stunning example is the organized barrage of criticism and legislation against “alternative medicine” that is largely benign and harmless, intended to imply that establishment medicine — said to be scientifically sound — is the only trustworthy system for repairing individual health.
The problem here is that establishment medicine is anything but shaped by objectively evaluated empirical evidence, and anything but scientifically sound. The eminent medical researcher Dr. John P.A. Ioannidis has demonstrated that “most published research findings are false”.
In North America, between 6% and 8% of citizens will be killed by medical errors of all types. In just one area of establishment medicine, Professor Dr. Peter C. Gøtzsche has come to the point of flatly concluding that long term use of psychiatric drugs cause more harm than good. In his words, based on a decade of research: “Psychiatric drugs are responsible for the deaths of more than half a million people aged 65 and older each year in the Western world, as I show below. Their benefits would need to be colossal to justify this, but they are minimal. ... Overstated benefits and understated deaths ...”
Attacking legitimate criticisms of establishment positions
Climate science has major domestic and geopolitical implications. It is routine to attack critics as immoral or crazy, and for influential actors and groups to seek legal instruments of intimidation and enforcement. The Wikipedia list of “pseudo-sciences” includes “climate change denial”.
This is a remarkable inclusion because several high-profile establishment climate scientists expressly reject the so-called “consensus”, including: Judy Curry (Georgia Institute of Technology), Richard Lindzen (MIT), Hendrik Tennekes (Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute), Nir Shaviv (Racah Institute of Physics), Craig D. Idso (Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change), and many others. Furthermore, detailed studies contradict claims that industrial-era CO2 has had a causal effect on climate and extreme-weather events.
Conclusion
Agitation against “pseudo-science” has two illegitimate interrelated societal mechanisms: Institutionally, it is propaganda (by word and by action) intended to legitimize and impose establishment science. Individually, it serves to preserve the identity-tied personal investment in belief of the teachings of establishment science.
For those of us who cling to the ideal of the university, a review of anti-“pseudo-science” agitation should lead us to support a strict meaning of academic freedom, which does not admit institutional suppression or containment of any chosen research direction and expression. We must trust that actual freedoms of research and expression lead to the best that society can be, through the discourse that arises, whatever that discourse will be.
Denis Rancourt is a former tenured full professor of physics at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He has published over 100 articles in leading scientific journals, and writes social theory articles. He is the author of the book Hierarchy and Free Expression in the Fight Against Racism, and a regular contributor to Dissident Voice.
I was asked to write this short article to be published in the January newsletter of the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship (SAFS): see SAFS Newsletter, Number 75, January 2017, pages 8-10. A longer version of the article, with references, will be published in a 2017 SAFS conference proceeding.
If we accept an operational definition of “pseudo-science” as whatever any critic of so-called “pseudo-science” probably means, then vehement criticisms of the said “pseudo-sciences” are generally made for one of four reasons:
- To invalidate unworthy ideas, as part of the normal course of science itself — a classic example is the 1989 case of “cold fusion” and its fallout, in the field of condensed matter physics and chemistry
- To celebrate and maintain the middle-class belief that modern society is based on scientific knowledge; to fight against idolatry in the realm of ideas; to participate in improving public discourse and consciousness
- To provide false legitimacy for problematic areas of establishment science that survive owing to systemic financial and professional interests — the preeminent example being establishment medicine (see below)
- To attack a legitimate criticism of a dominant scientific position (collateral attack by appeal to authority or “consensus”, using denigration)
Thus, the full array of motives for engaging in the sport of “pseudo-science” bashing spans a spectrum from good scientific practice to ordinary social behaviour in structured society to support for organized fraud to outright base competition that is incompatible with the science ideal. Here, I outline the last three reasons, as follows. A longer version of this article, with references, will be published elsewhere.
Popular support for establishment science as state religion
Given the epidemic lack of understanding of science concepts, it is not surprizing that there is a wide array of beliefs that are at odds with the school lessons about science, including: astrology, “intelligent design”, “free energy”, “orgone”, “creation biology”, and homeopathy.
Realistically, virtually all citizens are entirely unable to critically evaluate what we take as being scientific truth, regarding public policy and regulatory questions. Thus, “public education” means state propaganda. We are reduced to “scientists have concluded” or “there is a scientific consensus that” and so on.
Systemically, from an operational perspective, establishment science is a state religion. It is not anchored in empirical evidence that can be evaluated by the non-expert individual using reason and intellectual discernment. It frames and supports the established order. It provides legitimacy to government programs. It purports to appease our deepest quests for meaning, and supplies a creationist mythology (cosmology, string theory, and so on). Its high priests are venerated and occupy top ranks in the class hierarchy.
Ordinary well-educated citizens have invested in many beliefs delivered by establishment science, and have integrated these beliefs into their personal identities. It is therefore natural that middle-class and professional-class individuals have a learned and reflexive impulse to attack “pseudo-science”. These attacks can be individual or can coalesce via the animal behavioural collective phenomenon known as mobbing.
Legitimacy for problematic areas of establishment science
A stunning example is the organized barrage of criticism and legislation against “alternative medicine” that is largely benign and harmless, intended to imply that establishment medicine — said to be scientifically sound — is the only trustworthy system for repairing individual health.
The problem here is that establishment medicine is anything but shaped by objectively evaluated empirical evidence, and anything but scientifically sound. The eminent medical researcher Dr. John P.A. Ioannidis has demonstrated that “most published research findings are false”.
In North America, between 6% and 8% of citizens will be killed by medical errors of all types. In just one area of establishment medicine, Professor Dr. Peter C. Gøtzsche has come to the point of flatly concluding that long term use of psychiatric drugs cause more harm than good. In his words, based on a decade of research: “Psychiatric drugs are responsible for the deaths of more than half a million people aged 65 and older each year in the Western world, as I show below. Their benefits would need to be colossal to justify this, but they are minimal. ... Overstated benefits and understated deaths ...”
Attacking legitimate criticisms of establishment positions
Climate science has major domestic and geopolitical implications. It is routine to attack critics as immoral or crazy, and for influential actors and groups to seek legal instruments of intimidation and enforcement. The Wikipedia list of “pseudo-sciences” includes “climate change denial”.
This is a remarkable inclusion because several high-profile establishment climate scientists expressly reject the so-called “consensus”, including: Judy Curry (Georgia Institute of Technology), Richard Lindzen (MIT), Hendrik Tennekes (Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute), Nir Shaviv (Racah Institute of Physics), Craig D. Idso (Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change), and many others. Furthermore, detailed studies contradict claims that industrial-era CO2 has had a causal effect on climate and extreme-weather events.
Conclusion
Agitation against “pseudo-science” has two illegitimate interrelated societal mechanisms: Institutionally, it is propaganda (by word and by action) intended to legitimize and impose establishment science. Individually, it serves to preserve the identity-tied personal investment in belief of the teachings of establishment science.
For those of us who cling to the ideal of the university, a review of anti-“pseudo-science” agitation should lead us to support a strict meaning of academic freedom, which does not admit institutional suppression or containment of any chosen research direction and expression. We must trust that actual freedoms of research and expression lead to the best that society can be, through the discourse that arises, whatever that discourse will be.
Denis Rancourt is a former tenured full professor of physics at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He has published over 100 articles in leading scientific journals, and writes social theory articles. He is the author of the book Hierarchy and Free Expression in the Fight Against Racism, and a regular contributor to Dissident Voice.
Saturday, May 23, 2015
Climate stupidity and human survival
By Denis G. Rancourt
This article accompanies a 2-hour public lecture I gave at the University of Ottawa on March 27, 2015, entitled "The science and geopolitics of climate change": VIDEO-LINK-Part-1, VIDEO-LINK-Part-2. The physics calculations of Earth's radiation balance described in Part-1 of the talk are from this paper: Rancourt, D.G., "Radiation physics constraints on global warming: CO2 increase has little effect", archive.org (3 December 2011). Links to my articles and interviews about climate are HERE.
The human animal has an instinct to identify potential dangers and to warn others. It is a built-in survival mechanism of any animal that lives in a group. And it is a strong and constant activity, re-enforced by environmental stressors.
This plays out on several time scales, from the immediate in the case of a potential physical assault, to the weekly in checking the weather forecast, to seasonal in preparing for winter, to life-long in planning for inevitable aging, to leaving good things for our grandchildren...
It is in our fiber to look ahead and to plan ahead, especially in the face of foreseeable or detected dangers.
The whole process can spin out of control when the danger is difficult to perceive yet could be lethal. Think of baboons who are on the lookout for a stalking lion. The slightest shadow movement can make them scream and run for the trees. It's a tense and highly volatile situation.
At this stage in our evolution we are faced with a pathological extension of our collective survival reflex, which is entirely fabricated by our high priests (government funded scientists and talking heads).
If these high priests were not here to tell us that the atmospheric concentration of the minor constituent CO2 is increasing, and that "global mean surface temperature" has increased by some 0.5 C in the last 100 years, then we would never know about these imperceptible causes of our certain eventual collective death as a species.
The priests explain that our certain extinction will occur from a rising sea level and changing regional climates. That these changes will cause mass migrations, ecosystem collapses, agricultural failures, famines, and disease. They also inform us that those who will suffer most are the most vulnerable inhabitants of the planet, as though this were a new feature of the effects of natural disasters.
Therefore, they urge, we must tax carbon emissions, apply cap and trade, and create a global carbon economy to limit CO2 in the atmosphere. And who better to coordinate it all than the World Bank, IMF, and such, given their stellar records in managing equitable development on this little rock. (Or is that economic enforcement of US regime supremacy?)
Forgive me for saying, but this all sounds rather nutso to me.
Nothing could be more like a religion than this crazy movement. We are expected to accept that an essential and growth-limiting plant nutrient (CO2: [1]) is a toxic pollutant, that the world will be destroyed because of our collective and intrinsic wickedness of emitting CO2, via floods no less.
Take a deep breath (exhale if you dare) and allow me to state a few facts that might help put things into perspective.
The planet has been teeming with life for billions of years.
During that time, the global mean temperature has almost always been some 10 C higher than in the present geologic anomaly [2], in a manner uncorrelated with CO2 concentration [3]. That is the history of this same planet that we live on. During that time, the CO2 concentration has typically been 10 times higher than today's value, and it has rarely been as low as modern values, nor has it ever been lower than modern values.
There is no reason to believe that humans would not fare well on an Earth that is 10 C warmer, never mind 1 or 2 C. Land value would increase in the polar regions, and there would be intense reforestation and forest densification of the equatorial regions, with little possibility for controlling growth where it is hot and humid.
From what we know of our planet and the history of its biosphere, warming is not going to kill us off any time soon. None of the known mass extinctions (a relative term) in Earth's history can be reliably attributed to "sustained warming", whereas ice ages that have occurred recently (during human presence on the planet, in the last 1 M years) are expected to correspond to periods of decreased planetary life density, but saw mammals and human populations completely adapt. Basically, neither warming or cooling can kill us by any know mechanism ever observed. If anything, the opposite of "killer warmth" is observed on today's Earth, where both human populations and living biomass are concentrated near equatorial latitudes:
Therefore, we still have much time left to achieve human extinction by much more direct means than warming (or cooling) of any kind. We also have a lot of time and occasions to practice accommodating mass migrations caused by our wars and economic violence, in order to prepare for the "climate migrations".
Somehow there seems to be more public-opinion, political, and lobbying effort in implementing and developing the instruments of a global carbon economy than in developing the instruments to prevent wars of aggression, to cope with the consequences of natural disasters, to stop displacing and dispossessing local inhabitants, to enforce the Geneva Conventions, to stop the wholesale destruction of entire nations (Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran...?), to respect international law, ... not to mention reparations to the survivors of recent slavery, genocide, dispossession, and crass exploitation.
Rather than widespread vehement and actuated insistence on democratic control of local resources and institutions, based on individual realities on the ground, instead we have a sizable yet ineffective population of vocal do-gooders enthralled in spasmodic incantations against atmospheric CO2 emissions, as part of a Gaia-inspired religion perverted by the Christian concept of original sin; all of which de facto supports the carbon globalization schemes engineered by the US regime to attempt to constrain their emerging competitors and extort a development tax.
When has "globalization" ever been about justice, or about anything other than economic predation? When have good-will global efforts ever had any significant positive impact? [4]
Why pollute local struggles and liberation of the individual with tenuous claims about imperceptible dangers? And why put so much energy into insisting that the danger from CO2 is real? This seems like a classic example of seeking an overarching religious belief "solution" to real local problems that one cannot or will not confront.
"Climate justice" needs to be "justice". The comfortable-middle-class fetish for carbon co-opts the analysis, defuses the thrust for defending identity-tied interests, and sends legitimate demands straight into the atmosphere. Or, at best, it is simply irrelevant to real struggles.
In the main population, if all the fanatics that are screaming that the sky is falling would scream to stop the war machine that occupies every corner of the globe, then we could start moving away from the real manufactured disasters that wash over the planet continuously, which don't require satellite spectrometers to detect.
Instead of asking whether we can detect warming, whether intense weather events are actually more frequent, whether species extinction rates can reliably be measured, and so on, why not address the obvious: Humans are exploiting and terrorizing other humans, human conditions are constantly being attacked, and natural habitat is being destroyed for corporate benefit by eliminating local sovereignty.
Why turn to sanitized and intractable up-in-the-air questions when injustice and actual destruction is all around us? And why oh why pretend that humans can manage global carbon fluxes, manage the radiation balance of the planet, and control climate?
It's a planet!
If we are going to have a global religion, why not believe that justice leads to both short-term and long-term safety? Not justice that is planned and given to us, but justice that we acquire through struggle and liberation.
On the other hand if you must be irrelevant and must have your carbon fetish, then at least put it into a planetary perspective [5]:
- The present (2010) rate of fossil fuel burning (0.8 x 10^13 kg-C/y) is 8% of global primary production (GPP)
- The latter plant growth (GPP) uses only 0.07% of solar light striking the planet
- Thus, fossil fuel burning represents 8% of 0.07% = 0.006% of solar energy rate of input (the sun is a sun and the Earth is a planet...)
- The CO2 production from the burning of fossil fuel is approximately equal to that from human and domestic animal breathing
- The combined biomass of humans and domestic animals is 0.04% of Earth's living biomass
- Ants have transformed the planet's surface and its ecology far more than have humans
- The total amount of fossil fuel burned to date (historically to 2010) by humans is 3.7 x 10^14 kg-C, less than half of the carbon contained in the atmosphere as a minor constituent gas
- Dissolved CO2 in the oceans is 50 times more than the total amount in the atmosphere
- Living and dead biomass-carbon (in soils, sediments, plant-cover, etc.) is probably much greater than carbon as CO2 in air and water
- Thus, the total post-industrial fossil fuel burned to date represents less than 1% of the planet's global bio-available and exchangeable carbon, not to mention geological sources
- As such, atmospheric CO2 is readily exchanged with and buffered by compartments of labile carbon that are much larger than the atmosphere, via flux mechanisms that science is barely beginning to understand (e.g., [1])
Endnotes
[1] Keenan et al., "Increase in forest water-use efficiency as atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations rise", Nature 499, 324-327 (18 July 2013); Donohue et al., "Impact of CO2 fertilization on maximum foliage cover across the globe's warm, arid environments", Geophysical Research Letters 40(12), 3031-3035 (28 June 2013).
[2] Wikipedia article, "Geologic temperature record", accessed May, 2015, see "Overall view". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_temperature_record
[3] Rothman, D.H., "Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels for the last 500 million years", Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 99(7), 4167-4171, (2 April 2002). http://www.pnas.org/content/99/7/4167.full
[4] Rancourt, D.G., "Some big lies of science", Activist Teacher (8 June 2010). http://activistteacher.blogspot.ca/2010/06/some-big-lies-of-science.html
[5] Rancourt, D.G., "Is the burning of fossil fuel a significant planetary activity?", Activist Teacher (21 August 2010). http://activistteacher.blogspot.ca/2010/08/is-burning-of-fossil-fuel-significant.html ; Rancourt, D.G., "CO2 emission from fossil fuel burning is not more than from breathing", Activist Teacher (22 August 2010). http://activistteacher.blogspot.ca/2010/08/co2-emission-from-fossil-fuel-burning.html
Dr. Denis G. Rancourt is a former tenured and Full Professor of physics at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He is known for his applications of physics education research (TVO Interview). He has published over 100 articles in leading scientific journals, including in the area of environmental science, and has written several social commentary essays. He is the author of the book Hierarchy and Free Expression in the Fight Against Racism.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Climate science is a "Zombie science"
By Denis G. Rancourt
Dr. Bruce G. Charlton recently (2012) wrote an informed and polemical book entitled "Not even trying... The Corruption of real science". In this book, Dr. Charlton defines what he calls "Zombie science".
I submit that Dr. Charlton's definition of a "Zombie science" eminently applies to today's climate science. I predict that today's climate science enterprise will, in some future, be universally adopted as a textbook example of Zombie science by historians of science, who will emerge in a next generation of honest academics.
Here is the definition of Zombie science given in the on-line version of Dr. Charlton's book:
When a branch of science based on incoherent, false or phoney theories is serving a useful but non-scientific purpose it may be kept-going by continuous transfusions of cash from those whose non-scientific interests it serves.
For example, if a branch of pseudo-science based on a phoney theory is nonetheless valuable for political purposes (e.g. to justify a government intervention such as a new tax) or for marketing purposes (to provide the rationale for a marketing campaign) then real science expires and a ‘zombie science’ evolves.
Zombie science is science that is dead but will not lie down. It keeps twitching and lumbering around so that (from a distance, and with your eyes half-closed) zombie science looks much like real science.
But in fact the zombie has no life of its own; it is animated and moved only by the incessant pumping of funds.
*
Real science is coherent – and testable (testing being a matter of checking coherence with the result of past and future observations).
Real science finds its use, and gets its validation, from common sense evaluation and being deployed in technology.
Real science is validated (contingently) insofar as it leads to precise predictions that later come true; and leads to new ways of solving pressing problems and making useful changes in the world.
But zombie science is not coherent, therefore cannot be tested; its predications are vague or in fact retrospective summaries rather than predictions.
*
In a nutshell, zombie science is supported because it is useful propaganda; trading on the prestige which real science used-to have and which zombie science falsely claims for itself.
Zombie science is deployed in arenas such as political rhetoric, public administration, management, public relations, marketing and the mass media generally. It persuades, it constructs taboos, it buttresses rhetorical attempts to shape opinion.
Furthermore, most zombie sciences are supported by moral imperatives – to doubt the zombie science is therefore labelled as wicked, reckless, a tool of sinister and destructive forces.
To challenge zombie science is not merely to attack the livelihoods of zombie scientists (which, considering their consensus-based power, is itself dangerous) – but opens the attacker to being labelled a luddite, demagogue, anti-science, a denialist!
For all its incoherence and scientific worthlessness, zombie science therefore often comes across in the sound bite world of the mass media as being more plausible than real science; and it is precisely the superficial face-plausibility which in actuality is the sole and sufficient purpose of zombie science.
In contrast to objective reality, the warmist spin is spectacular.
Climate science is overwhelmingly supported by the establishment and by global finance which is hard at work installing a multi-trillion-dollar carbon economy for its profit and to assist in extortion via a development tax against any regime that insists on economic independence. The public opinion battle appears to have been largely won. Valiant resistance is tolerated as a quaint demonstration of freedom of expression in the US. All other civil and societal sectors are aligned, by virtue of the mega-snow-job that equates ecological destruction with CO2 gas (a growth limiting plant nutrient), as opposed to its actual causes. (The cause of ecological destruction is ecological destruction!)
It is glaringly obvious that carbon "logic" is a major emerging instrument of global control and fortified exploitation that, like US dollar standing in the purchase of strategic resources, will be backed with military might. Yet, "deniers", including dedicated top scientists, are targeted as pure evil, being paid by destructive interests.
The holy apparatus of "peer review" is advanced as a truth detection instrument, where it is objectively known to be an establishment opinion imposition structure, which was rejected as such by none other than Albert Einstein, and which did not exist when science made virtually all of its greatest advances.
The climate models are opaque and not testable, and when the "predictions" from these models fail dramatically, multiple clouds of spin erupt from both the modellers and those who generated the "measurements". Most historic climatologists are intimidated into sheepish silence. Government scientists mostly tow the line. Official politically contrived reports (IPCC, etc.) fall over themselves to declare a CO2 crisis, year after year.
By contrast, simple and rigorous physics calculations conclusively show that other factors are orders of magnitude more important than CO2 in determining mean global surface temperature. The "other factors" (land use, water management) are made subservient to the CO2 gospel.
I mean, it should be thoroughly embarrassing to all professional climate scientists. How can they be so silent?
And there are armies of opportunists. The ecologists cite imperceptible global warming rather than denounce direct habitat destruction, which would put them into harsh conflict with immediate "economic interests". Green energy and environmental remediation (carbon storage, etc.) charlatans are only too happy to accept funding for bogus and unsustainable technologies. And on and on.
When global finance has a project that aligns with global geopolitical interests, present First World civil society and all professional employees are, in turn, easily aligned. At least for now, dissidents will continue to be mobbed by hoards of zombies.
***
Dr. Denis G. Rancourt is a former tenured and Full Professor of physics at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He is known for his applications of physics education research (TVO Interview). He practiced various areas of science (environmental geochemistry, soil science, spectroscopy, condensed matter physics, materials science) which were funded by a national agency, has published over 100 articles in leading scientific journals, and has written several social commentary essays. He is the author of the book Hierarchy and Free Expression in the Fight Against Racism. His articles and views about climate science include: LINK.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Radio Talk::: Denis Rancourt on science and science popular education propaganda
This one-hour radio show is receiving positive feedback from around the world, mostly Russia this month:
CHUO 89.1 FM Ottawa -- Dr. Denis Rancourt goes it alone critiquing science and science popular education propaganda
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