It was about eight to 10 years ago that the Left made a unilateral decision to shut down all opposition and any skepticism about climate change by pronouncing that the debate was over.
The “scientific consensus” had been reached as if sent down on tablets from God, that mankind was causing the rapid warming of the planet. Period. End of argument. [bold, links added]
Doubters will be denounced as science deniers and stripped of their science credentials and muzzled by the speech police.
This idea of a scientific consensus is, of course, the diametrical opposite of what scientific inquiry is all about. It is completely ahistorical.
History’s greatest minds and inventors were people who challenged the conventional wisdom of the day.
It’s an updated version of the Flat Earth Societies in the Middle Ages that would imprison those who dared question the scientific consensus of the time that the Earth was flat. The Spanish Inquisition tortured heretics who questioned papal orthodoxy.
The irony of the modern-day inquisitionists is that they are the very people who were the doomsayers of the 1970s who have been so consistently wrong about the future.
These were the people who peddled the “population bomb,” which fizzled. They were the ones who said the Earth was cooling and that we were headed into another Ice Age.
They were the ones who said we were running out of energy, food, and farmland, and we were headed to a Malthusian nightmarish future.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
You’d think they would be humbled. But they are reiterating their certainty that they are the fountains of wisdom.
And now they are getting dangerous with their heavy-handed tactics to squash dissent.
Consider what has happened in California — and soon coming to blue states near you.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom just signed a law that will revoke a physician’s medical license for conveying “misinformation” (defined as deviation from expert “consensus”) about COVID-19 and its treatments.
Remember, by the way, this comes from the same people who said that the scientific consensus was to shut down schools and businesses to stop the spread of COVID-19 and that children as young as 5 had to be vaccinated — yet another set of the catastrophic and wrongheaded decision by “the experts.”
Read rest at Townhall
Let’s face it. If we were engaging in the actual application of the scientific method, informed climate debate would be WELCOMED! Anyone can (and should) challenge an hypotheses if you are in pursuit of TRUTH. “Consensus” has no weight in a legitimate scientific debate. If the evidence for the “activists” was so compelling, they’d be ready, willing & able to “mop the floor” with the so called “deniers.” When you LABEL people you don’t agree with and refuse to accept the possibility of another viewpoint, I’d suggest your position is WEAK. Look at COVID, climate, energy or any number of other key issues. VILIFYING any potential opponents and stifling discussion is the same “go to” out of the left wing playbook. The voters need to decide in 3 weeks just how far they will this craziness to continue. I just hope the electorate is (still) smart enough to see through fog…
Let’s consider past science consensus where politics were not involved. The continents were in fixed positions and not moving. In the lower 48 states of the US, Mt Lassen in California was the only active volcano. Open minded inquiry showed that the continents are moving. The other volcanoes clearly showed Mt Lassen has a lot of company as far as being active. Climate change is different. Here, the supporters of that narrative are very aware that it can not survive a free exchange of idea. For them censorship is critical.
Some University of Oregon egghead wanted Obama to Suspend the Constitution and do what was necessary to curb Global Warming some liberal Collage Professor named Kari Norgaard