What Is a Scientist?

I blog less often than I would like, and sadly it often happens because I am spurred into action by something ridiculous. So it is today. In a nonsense piece [2] called "Should Scientists go on strike over climate change?", the author writes:

I hesitate to make an estimate, but a brief Google search suggests there are approximately (depending on definitions) six million ‘Scientists’ in the world.

At present, these six million or so Scientists do not have what Marx and Engels referred to as ‘class consciousness’, but they have a great deal to unite around; a shared commitment to certain methodologies, principles, values and practices and a worldview that respects appropriate responses to data and evidence.

From this shared sense of identity and purpose they would generally respect the verdict of their climatologist colleagues (better not to say ‘comrades’…) that climate change is happening because of what governments are allowing people and businesses to do, and that we ought to ‘do something’ rapidly to change that.

I notice he capitalises "Scientist". Capitalisation is used to make something a name rather than a plain descriptor. A scientist is someone who applies the scientific method to discover truth. But who knows what a "Scientist" is? Because scientists certainly do not and should not share a "class consciousness" (a concept odious enough in any context, but vastly more so here). Scientists try to disprove each others' work, because that way, the thing they all respect, truth, is more likely to emerge because the false notions will fail while the correct ones will withstand all challenges.

Scientists do not "respects appropriate responses to data and evidence." That is code for accepting other people's word for it, whereas a real scientist says "show me your data". That I am not unkind in this interpretation is seen immediately in the next paragraph, where, we are told, "Scientists" "would generally respect the verdict of their climatologist colleagues (better not to say ‘comrades’…) that climate change is happening ..."

And we see that "respect" is simply mealy-mouthed code for "believe without seeing the evidence". That is, the absolute exact opposite of genuine science.

Well, to the fool who wrote this nonsense, I say this much:

Science is about evidence, cogent thinking, and verification of hypotheses. All that is needed to get me on-side is to show me evidence that there is the slightest truth in the panic catastrophic anthropogenic global warming theory (CAGW). Oh, and also, tell my why my opinion that the theory is already disproved is wrong. For your convenience, here it is:

Everyone agrees that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and that doubling it will warm the planet by around 1 C, and 1 C will grow more crops, more food for wildlife, and generally make all our lives more pleasant. That's "GW". But "CAGW" says: "Yes, but that 1 C will evaporate more water from the tropical oceans, and, water being the most powerful greenhouse gas, will multiply the 1 C by 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 (you name it) times, causing a runaway disaster.

Why is this disproved?

1. Because it has been far hotter in the past with no such thing happening (disproof from experience);
2. because the tropospheric hotspot (see above) isn't there (it's cooler, not hotter), and the water isn't there (it's drier, not wetter), and the blockage this was supposed to cause for radiation escaping into space isn't there (it's escaping faster, not slower) (disproof from failed predictions and observed absence of the postulated heating mechanism).

In short, the evidence disproves the theory.

Now tell me why I, as a scientist, should have the tiniest atom of solidarity or respect for lying scoundrels who know all this but hide it from the public?