Again, it boils down to the 1%…climate change elitists!
February 11, 2017
I have been so completely enthralled with the muses and thoughts of Scott Adams, that I had to post one of his blog entries here!
SCOTT ADAMS’ BLOG
- TOP TECH
About the 97% of Climate Scientists
Posted February 10th, 2017 @ 2:31pm in #climate science
One of the most famous statistics in the world of politics is the claim that 97% of climate scientists agree with the idea that humans activity is boosting CO2 to dangerous levels.
Critics say the 97% is misleading because the critics like to include in their own list the scientists that are working for energy companies. The industry-paid scientists and engineers have less credibility, say the critics of the climate science critics.
Recently I retweeted a link to a climate science whistleblower. I don’t have any way to evaluate his claims. But his story did a good job of illustrating the flow of data from the measuring devices all the way to the published papers and then to your brain. And what I got out of that was that very few people have direct access to the measuring devices and the original data. Let’s say 1% of climate scientists are actually involved in generating the temperature data and deciding what to include, what to smooth, what to replace, and so on. Apparently you can measure Earth’s temperature a number of ways, from ice core samples to satellites, to ocean buoys, to land thermometers. I might be missing a few. Oh, and each of those methods probably changes a bit over time, so you have some apples-to-oranges comparisons if you look at history.
In other words, even the 1% involved in direct measurements might not be involved in all the different forms of it.
What follows next is pure speculation, based on my years of experience in corporate America and my understanding of human nature. But it seems to me that 99% of the 97% are relying on the accuracy and honesty of the 1% who actually produce the temperature measurements. Sure, the other scientists read the papers and see whatever “adjustments” were made by the authors. But that seems like opening the hood of the car, looking at the outside of the engine, and determining that it’s all good on the inside.
Speaking of my corporate experience, this reminds me of a situation when I worked for the phone company. 100% of the employees believed that one of the Executive Directors in our group was a Ph.D. in some sort of technology field. After all, he said he was, and the Human Resources group does background checks before hiring. So he had to be a Ph.D., right?
But it turns out he was a con man. He had no Ph.D. The Human Resources group was two years behind in their background checks. When they caught up with him, he was fired immediately.
I’m open to correction on my assumption that 97% of climate scientists depend on the accuracy and honesty of the handful of people with direct access to the data. Let me know if I got that wrong. If I’m wrong, that supports my point that non-scientists such as myself can’t be expected to have useful opinions on science topics.
You just witnessed a little trick I learned from President Trump. I gave myself two ways to win and no way to lose. You should try it. It works every time.
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/157072093411/about-the-97-of-climate-scientists
All Credit for this post goes to Scott Adams, Creator of the Comic Strip, Dilbert!
Daniella Cross is the Guardian of 4Earth and the featured writer.
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