Post by Admin on Nov 7, 2019 1:43:51 GMT
Policy always involves politics. Governments often make policy decisions by starting with a social objective and then bring in the “facts” to justify the goal (think of the Vietnam war, the Iraq war, Prohibition, the War on Drugs, and others). We shouldn’t be surprised to find social agendas driving at least some of the “science” of global warming.
In addition, studies show that political beliefs cloud our ability to process information. Strong political beliefs can cause us to look at one side of an issue and ignore the evidence. We should try to avoid shortcuts and look directly at the data.
Forecasts are mental constructs; they are not properties of the physical world. Forecasts are tools, not truth. In most cases, the size of the error bars (uncertainty) around the number is more important than the number itself.
Consensus is not an argument for any scientific principle. Many important scientists toiled alone to make discoveries that were less than popular. One key paper can be worth more than thousands of papers reinforcing a myth. The claim that 97 percent of scientists believe in man-made global warming is one such myth. Almost all scientists expect a small man-made contribution to warming, so the claim is misleading.
Metastudies are important. One key paper can be a breakthrough, but there are very few of those. A better source of information is properly done metastudies (reviews of all the literature on a topic) conducted by qualified statisticians. They help find the signal in the noise.
