THE WAY "BIG SCIENCE" WORKS.  OR SHOULD WE CALL IT POLITICAL SCIENCE? – AT 7:17 P.M. ET:   Reader Sam Indorante alerts us to this Pajamas Media column by Professor of Mathematical Physics Frank Tipler of Tulane, who has written for the Urgent Agenda Forum.  The professor has apparently upset some of the self-appointed gods of the scientific establishment.  Good for him:

The National Academy of Sciences, in its official journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has just published a list of scientists whom it claims should not be believed on the subject of global warming. I am number 38 on the list. The list of 496 is in descending order of scientific credentials.

Professor Freeman Dyson of the Institute for Advanced Study, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the Royal Society, is number 3 on the list. Dyson is a friend of mine and is one of the creators of relativistic quantum field theory; most physicists think he should have shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Richard Feynman. MIT professor Richard Lindzen, a meteorologist who is also a member of the National Academy, is number 4. Princeton physics professor William Happer, once again a member of the National Academy of Sciences, is number 6.

I’m in good company.

Yes you are, Professor.   And...

The list is actually available only online. The published article, which links to the list, argues that the skeptical scientists — the article calls us “climate deniers,” trying to equate us with Holocaust deniers — have published less in climate “science” than believers in anthropogenic global warming (AGW).

True.

But if the entire field of climate “science” is suspect, if the leaders of the field of climate “science” are suspected of faking their results and are accused of arranging for their critics’ papers to be rejected by “peer-reviewed” journals, then lack of publication in climate “science” is an argument for taking us more seriously than the leaders of the climate “science.”

COMMENT:  Absolutely correct.  Americans have been sold the bill of goods that when "scientists" speak we must absolutely accept what they say, without question.  In fact, the history of science is an ongoing debate, and is filled with questions and doubts, as I learned from an excellent young instructor at the University of Chicago. 

We wish Professor Tipler the best in his struggle to keep science honest, and non-political.

July 9, 2010