Believe in science, but not all scientists

I laughed at Jorge Smirnoff’s acknowledgment of my book gift. I set a simple trap for him, and he predictably fell in. He avoided stating the title of the book I gave him “A Disgrace to the Profession: The world’s scientists, in their own words, on Michael Mann, his hockey stick, and the damage to science.”

Science is objective and factual. Scientists, less so. Nothing could be truer about selfdeclared Nobel Prize winner, climatologist Dr. Michael Mann. Mann’s hubris precedes him.

Smirnoff confuses “following the science” with “following the scientists,” such as Mann.

If science was never questioned, you’d still be believing Earth was the center of the universe, drinking cocaine (CocaCola) and giving kids heroin infused cough syrup was a good idea, using cyclamate to sweeten coffee, “knowing” Earth’s tectonic plates didn’t move, Earth is 75,000 years old, and that “cold-fusion” actually works.

You’d still believe ulcers were caused by stress, rather than a curable infection of heliobacter pylori, discovered in 1982, yet rejected for over 20 years, and finally awarded the Nobel Prize in 2005. Cures don’t generate a long-term revenue stream, treatment does. The same goes with “climate science,” which is now a multi-billion-dollar business. To question it is to threaten revenue.

Doubt is essential to science. If you don’t understand how science works, you can’t understand how to think about new information. With the book gift, I demonstrated Mr. Smirnoff can’t (and won’t) assimilate new information — because it goes against his belief system.

References here: https://wattsupwiththat.com/newspaperletter-references/

— Anthony Watts, Chico