I’ve avoided writing on the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit having their files “hacked” because it is hard to get worked up over the turning battle over man made global warming. The majority of people have now realized that this is bogus movement with the tipping point happening some time this year. Still, a significant percentage still believe in this junk science so the revelations of data tampering exposed by the documents has done quite a bit of damage. Christopher Booker’s commentary at the Telegraph lays out why this is such an important scandal and I highly advise reading it.
This needed to be brought to the light like any politically driven pseudo science, but I fear there will be fallout across the board tainting the public perception of scientific research. The old problem of a few rotten eggs ruining things is something I’ve worried about. An example of how science is now getting a negative reputation can be found in the hysteria that starting the CERN supercollider would create a black hole. The earth will be sucked into and we’ll all die!
Yes, people have little understanding of scientific method and I blame our pathetic public education system for that. The bad eggs in politicized junk science have aggravated the problem as they use sensationalism to obtain large grants. Maybe it is time to seriously audit all research grants to see how the money is actually spent and see if there is graft going on. Of course, that would be negative publicity for scientific research again. *sigh*
We still have to get the truth and I hope this scandal will have a chilling effect on corrupt scientists.
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