by JOHN TIERNEY
The New York Times
November 30, 2009
…I’ve long thought that the biggest danger in climate research is the temptation for scientists to lose their skepticism and go along with the “consensus” about global warming. That’s partly because it’s easy for everyone to get caught up in “informational cascades”, and partly because there are so many psychic and financial rewards rewards for working on a problem that seems to be a crisis. We all like to think that our work is vitally useful in solving a major social problem — and the more major the problem seems, the more money society is liable to spend on it.
I’m not trying to suggest that climate change isn’t a real threat, or that scientists are deliberately hyping it. But when they look at evidence of the threat, they may be subject to the confirmation bias — seeing trends that accord with their preconceptions and desires. Given the huge stakes in this debate — the trillions of dollars that might be spent to reduce greenhouse emissions — it’s important to keep taking skeptical looks at the data. How open do you think climate scientists are to skeptical views, and to letting outsiders double-check their data and calculations?…
Read the complete article here.
