Re: [Phys-l] Check your source!

["John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>]

Things may now have changed.  Up until today Exxon would not acknowledge
that human influence may be a major factor in global warming, and at one
time the oil companies even denied that global warming existed.  The offer
in the letter was refused by the scientist because he said any article that
he wrote might be twisted.  Notice that I was not the only person who
mistrusted the motives of Exxon.

However, now the CEO has acknowledged that there is probably human influence
on the climate, and that his company needs to be trying to find ways to
prevent further damage.  So in light of that, the offer now appears to be
more benign.  As a result they might get some good articles because
scientists will not be scared away.

As to religious truth, the reality has been that companies will pursue
actions that raise their bottom line, irrespective of the harm that it does
to the public.  This has happened in drug companies that have not reported
negative findings, and in tobacco companies that manipulated nicotine
levels, targeted younger people with advertising, and denied that smoking
was harmful despite the fact that they had evidence that it was.  I do not
have to look for conspiracies to find them, as they are already there.

As to truth, science has always had any number of people who rejected
evidence and clung to their conceptions.  Older medical doctors  rejected
the use of antiseptics,  skeptics rejected Boltzmann's ideas ...  Even
pioneers in a field have rejected later findings.  This is part and parcel
of being a human being.  We do not know when we are often being irrational.
Finally the accepted interpretation is decided by consensus.

As I am not an atmospheric scientist, I doubt that I could judge the merit
of an article written by an atmospheric scientist, so I asked some questions
which I thought were relevant.  Nobody answered them.

And why does zeal have to be religious????  That is a cheap shot to smear
others.  In either case being concerned that there is a probability for
dramatic damage to the Earth's environment can hardly be called religious
zeal.  While the report claims that it might take millennia for the
Greenland sheet to melt, scientists have been surprised by evidence for
rapid geological and climactic shifts.  Remember, that anything that does
not fit into the existing paradigm is generally excluded.

I think I detect a hint of antireligious zeal.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX

> I am not shocked, I am saddened by such activity. Religious zeal has
> replaced honest search for truth. As in religion, the Truths are
> given; one must only construct the connections necessary to support
> the Truths. It has happened before, and the disease is widespread.
> Some scientists have even lost their lives to zealots; Galileo only
> lost his freedom to publish.