Monday, August 15, 2011

GLOBAL WARMING: Are scientists 100% objective and without any political motivations?

No, all scientists want to see their research turn out they way the predict. That's why medical research on new treatments is conducted under strict rules, the rules are defined "a priori" and there are "stastical penalties" for peaking at the results or violating the pre-defined rules. The whole point is to cut down on investigator bias. Given that it is not possible to define global scale experiments post-hoc, these studies make use of less stringent techniques that are not accepted as the gold standard in other fields such as medical reseach. For example the government won't allow health claims for herbal remedies that make use of these less stringent research methods, they will only accept replicated, well-controlled clinical trials, since it is easier for investigators to fudge results under the less stringent research methods. This is the problem with the climate data. That doesn't mean something isn't going on, but I don't like the idea of taking drastic action based on what could be flawed science, especially given the political, emotional and economic motives of the people who support these drastic measures, regardless of their good intentions.

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