Keeping machines comfortable
Bookworm on Aug 13 2007 at 11:42 am | Filed under: Climate change
From Earl, I got some insight into the machinery that’s used to track the climate change that’s in the headlines all of the time. This is information clearly a matched set with the information that a Y2K bug may well be the culprit behind the sudden sky rocketing in US temperature data.
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3 Responses to “Keeping machines comfortable”
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Well, yeah, so this nicely precedes your very well-supported post on modern urban myths (political fairy tales). Since global warming was what people _expected_ to hear, they didn’t question a single-sourced data reference. For Pete’s sake, even if it matches the gut feel, a good scientist knows to look for further evidence beyond a single data source.
In the book _Ubiquity_, by Mark Buchanan, the author discusses how big landslides of events will happen from a buildup of little changes. Scientific discovery is not immune from the popular landslide: they’ll pile on to a new idea, although they claim to be restrained by the scientific method.
Somebody should’ve insisted on investigating the data, further.
These aren’t scientists. Rather, it would be more accurate to call them “those under the patronage of the aristocracy”.
I think that Ymar has put his finger on an important point about “science” in our time and place. It really *IS* like the old system, except that the government and the politicians dispensing the money have taken the place of the Medicis and other wealthy patrons…..
Actually, I think the chance of disinterested funding was probably greater in the early days….the Medicis had very little to worry about in terms of their position, provided they didn’t make the Pope too angry. Today, the politicos are always sticking their fingers into the wind!