IS CLIMATE SCIENCE BECOMING CLIMATE DOGMA?

Former Government Scientist Explains Why Single Cause Fallacy is Dangerous for Science

In his own extensive research, Ward discovered that humans did cause the warming from 1975 to 1998 by depleting the ozone layer and that other periods of warming throughout Earth history are explained by non-explosive, basaltic, volcanic eruptions of the type we see in Hawaii and Iceland and sometimes covering continents. But the overwhelming political nature of the climate debate causing scientists to not even want to look at the evidence for other causes.

“No matter how sure we are of our data, we need to have an open mind. History shows that consensus is often wrong,” says Ward, citing the many times the scientific consensus has led to policy that was later proven wrong.

In the 80’s and 90’s, the consensus in neuroscience was that habits and tendencies in the brain did not change after adulthood. Called the hardwired brain theory, it led the Clinton administration to pass “Crime Bill” in 1994, involving the three strikes law, giving long sentences for people who commit even minor crimes over three times. Hillary then marketed this bill, coining the term “superpreditors.”

Most advocates and experts in the field today point to this bad science as the source of today’s mass incarceration of people of color and partly contributed to her campaign loss in 2016. Worst of all, it is totally false. Despite consensus at the time and thousands of peer reviewed papers to back it up, the neuroscience community has completely abandoned the hardwired brain theory and embraced brain plasticity as the correct model of the brain by 2010.

The “Lipid Theory” created by Dr. Ancel Keyes (Time Magazine cover 1961) was the idea that fat and cholesterol in your diet causes heart disease. With the help of the scientific community, this theory was adopted as fact and they attacked public scientists who disagreed. (Gary Taubes, NYT Magazine, 13 Apr 2011). By the 1980’s, scientists formed a consensus as one article said “the lipid theory is universally recognized as a law.”

This theory was later debunked, and we know now that sugar consumption is the leading cause of Heart Disease. Although most organizations including the U.S. government have changed their stance, the damage was done. Polices based on this theory are directly linked to the current obesity epidemic we face today, along with thousands of deaths.

These are all cases where a misunderstanding in science caused substantial harm in society.

The recent published findings portraying that greenhouse gas theory is sacred and can almost never be challenged is dangerous for science itself. Not just because we believe there is reason to challenge it, but because there is a mixed number of climate change causes. Science should never get to the point where we do not have an open mind, especially something as complex as an entire planetary ecosystem!

“Science should never close its door on new ideas and research. I don’t want science to become like religion and stick to a dogma that people are not open to other theories. I’m fighting for good science, for triumph of the scientific method…” 

…says Dr. Peter Ward, who has worked intensely for the past decade trying to resolve several enigmatic observations related to climate change. Climate science has been derailed by a political drive for consensus, by belief in dogma, by group think, and by the dominantly conservative (and often Republican) desire to dismiss any science that is inconvenient. Science has misled the world. Most scientists believe that the best science available should inform public policy. But science has now derailed and misled public policy big time.

How can we get science back on track?

Dr. Ward wants the public to understand the crisis is not in climate, the crisis is in science.

INTERVIEW TALKING POINTS:

• Is climate science becoming climate dogma?
• Why a single cause fallacy is dangerous to science itself
• Shocking examples of when scientific consensus was disproved
• Why climate science has been derailed by a political drive