Many Scientific “Truths” Are, In Fact, False

British Universities And The New Fascism
 

Just imagine, if you will, their shock. Their outrage. Their incomprehension. Britain’s most famous, achingly right-on, liberal lefties being blackballed from university campuses because they are insufficiently achingly right-on and liberal. They are being out-pioused from the far left — not simply told that they are wrong and vile, which they certainly are being told, but also that they are not allowed even to speak in case they upset people even more left-wing than themselves. Boy, are they furious. You would need a heart of stone not to laugh. Up to a point. --The Sunday Times, 13 March 2016
In 2005, John Ioannidis, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, published a paper, “Why most published research findings are false,” mathematically showing that a huge number of published papers must be incorrect. He also looked at a number of well-regarded medical research findings, and found that, of 34 that had been retested, 41% had been contradicted or found to be significantly exaggerated. Since then, researchers in several scientific areas have consistently struggled to reproduce major results of prominent studies. By some estimates, at least 51%—and as much as 89%—of published papers are based on studies and experiments showing results that cannot be reproduced.--Olivia Goldhill, Quartz, 13 March 2016

The student activists do not wish to hear anything at all that conflicts with their views. Or even hear anything that does not conflict with their views but allows for the fact that there might be conflicting views. “This mob mentality has echoes of the Red Guard in China back in the 1960s,” says Peter Tatchell. -- Rod Liddle, The Sunday Times, 13 March 2016 

A fascinating rift is growing in the climate community. While US scientists appear to be doing everything in their power to bury the ongoing pause in global warming, with questionable adjustments to their data, UK Ocean Scientists are refusing to give up without a fight. On the basis of a 2014 paper, UK Ocean scientists have just secured a budget, to launch a major investigation into why global warming has paused, and to work out how to predict future pauses. --Eric Worrall, Watts Up With That, 12 March 2016

For years, climate activists have been concerned and puzzled by the fact that a lot of people don’t agree with them. In order to rectify this problem, they tried to get the message out about climate change, thinking that if everyone had the correct information, we could all happily live together in a world of onethink and pursue the rapid and drastic political agenda they wish for. They then realised that this naive idea, called the deficit model, didn’t really work: despite an enormous effort from the climate propaganda machine, public concern about climate change and support for action continued its steady decline. This “problem” is a regular concern at Adam Corner’s blog, Climate Outreach. The next idea was finding the right words: spinning the message in a particular way so that it might appeal to, for example, Conservative voters, or “framing the narrative”, to use the sociology jargon. Unfortunately for them, this doesn’t seem to work either. --Paul Matthews, Climate Scepticism, 11 March 2016

We recently discussed the February 2016 El Niño-related upsurges in the RSS and UAH lower troposphere temperature (TLT) data in the post March 2016 Update of Global Temperature Responses to 1997/98 and 2015/16 El Niño Events. Not to be outdone, the GISS Land-Ocean Temperature (LOTI) data showed a +0.21 deg C jump in global land+ocean surface temperatures from January to February 2016…tacked on to the +0.24 deg C jump from September to October 2015. ----Bob Tisdale, Climate Observations, 12 March 2016

The El Niño weather pattern, while weakening, continues to hurt crop farmers as well as cattle ranchers across the Asia-Pacific region with its hot and dry conditions. Global temperatures in February were 2.43 degrees Fahrenheit above the average temperature for that month in the period from 1951-1980—a three-decade yardstick the National Aeronautics and Space Administration uses to understand recent temperatures—according to data released Saturday by the agency. The El Niño phenomenon began in the first half of 2015, peaked in December and has started to recede. But the phenomenon will continue to affect weather patterns as it breaks down. Normal conditions are expected in the second half of 2016, according to weather bureaus in Australia, Japan and the U.S. --Lucy Craymer, The Wall Street Journal, 14 March 2016

 

 

U.S. Attorney General Lynch Looks Into Prosecuting ‘Climate Change Deniers’

 

Post-Modern Science: Academics ‘Regularly Lie To Get Research Grants’

 

The climate debate shows how you can intimidate all of society in not speaking freely. It works, unfortunately, and unless we learn the lessons of how the stifling and the intimidation and the demonisation of certain topics actually not only stifles debate but intimidates a whole group of people, this will be used by activists as a very strong tool to force down their views. –Benny Peiser, Climate Scepticism, 8 March 2016

In news that should shock and anger Americans, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that not only has she discussed internally the possibility of pursuing civil actions against so-called “climate change deniers,” but she has “referred it to the FBI to consider whether or not it meets the criteria for which we could take action.” --Hans von Spakovsky, The Daily Signal, 10 March 2016

This not only represents a serious blow against the free flow of ideas and the vigorous debate over scientific issues that is a hallmark of an advanced, technological society like ours, it is a fundamental violation of the First Amendment. As I have noted before, this is also reminiscent of the old Soviet Union, where Joseph Stalin persecuted those whom he thought had the “wrong” scientific views on everything from linguistics to physics.  Both Lynch and Whitehouse might want to read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s book, “In the First Circle,” in which he outlined the Soviet government’s suppression of dissenting scientists and engineers. --Hans von Spakovsky, The Daily Signal, 10 March 2016

Unsure about climate change? Watch out: You may be risking jail. “We have received information” about certain allegations and “have referred it to the FBI,” US Attorney General Loretta Lynch said at a Senate hearing Wednesday. The legal threats are a warning to dissenters: Shut up, or risk legal armageddon. It all adds up to an outrageous attack on free speech — and a pander to ideologues. –Editorial, New York Post, 11 March 2016

 

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