Climate change info just ideology

Published 3:11 pm Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Regarding the Tuesday editorial, “An unhealthy skepticism”: It is most unfortunate that partisan ideology over climate change has apparently precipitated a more general distrust in science as a whole. To quote Peter Huber (“Galileo’s Revenge: Junk Science in the Courtroom”), “Good science is the science of publication, replication and verification. The science of consensus and peer review, the science of Newton, Galileo, Gauss, Einstein Feynman, Pasteur, et al, the science that has eradicated smallpox, polio and tuberculosis, the science that has created antibiotics and vaccines.”

Alas, in the argument about the causes of climate change we see none of the basic requirements of good science. The information generally published is either alarmist or total denial, depending on ideology. And neither is based on science. Whatever was the social purpose and ideology of the church, Galileo was right when he stated “nevertheless it (the earth) does move.” Whatever was the purpose and ideology of the Marxist state, Gregor Mendel was right, and Stalin’s Lysenko’s junk science was wrong.

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, by giving us the opinions of the uneducated, modern (science) journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.

God help this country if we allow ideology to dictate science, for when that happens, both the science and the ideology are doomed to failure.

Frank Baumann

Snohomish