Open minded science

You would think and hope that the scientific community really should be the most open minded about theories and changes in mega-trends and ideas due to the study of facts and opposing research. That may be true on the every day scientific method of research, but historically, scientists, notably in the medical arena, have fought stubbornly and non-scientifically against movements that go against their own ideas or methods. Objectivity seems to fade especially in major trends which they have invested time and personal effort, or is the established theory of the community.

I read about a Dr. Benjamin Rush in an old American Heritage magazine. He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and was a prominent doctor and professor before 1800. He was the advocate of blood-letting, a mainstream idea, and internal cleansing for almost all illnesses. He stubbornly practiced these things, and scorned other classifications. He represented the mainstream for years, and then as more modern remedies replaced these methods, and evidence mounted, these new ideas were resisted, not studied and embraced as you would expect.

Well, resistant mentality is present in today's "global warming" scientific arena as well. Somehow the conclusions preceded the science, and honest studies of the data and computer models are impossible to decipher when the scientists involved will not acknowledge that there can be opposing ideas or flaws in the underlying assumptions. Like the blood-letters, they have so much personal intellectual capital invested in the conclusions and theories that they do not welcome new studies. They seem to circle the wagons and reject other possibilities out of hand.

There are fundamental reasons to be skeptical about the link between human activity and the potential catastrophic climate changes. I am a reader of CO2andClimate.org . They are NOT nay-sayers for global warming. They do present more sides of the scientific debate . They at least act as a calming factor to the "Chicken Littles" of the world who seem to be daily telling us the the global warming is about to kill us, and it is all our fault for using spray deodorant in the 80s.

Don't misinterpret my intent here. I know that man is polluting too much, needs to clean up his act, and there should be constant efforts to improve. It just must be acknowleged that there is not a way to prove these things as cause and effect globally without very controversial subjective interpretation of data that in some cases is not known, and can't be known.

For example, in this article, Ironies, they remind us that computer models and historical assumptions, not direct measurements from our past data.

"The 20th century indeed was warm. We know this to be so because temperatures could be measured using instruments designed for that purpose. What they indicate is that global temperature increased by about three-quarters of a degree Celsius. The question becomes: Was that rate of warming unusual in a longer-term context? We'll probably never be certain because there were no comparable instruments taking measurements in earlier centuries. Barring an unlikely discovery the Catholic Church operated a secret, well-calibrated global thermometric measurement network during the Crusades, for example, any comparison of contemporary measurements with those of the past will be, by definition, fraught with error."