New Findings (Dan Simmons on Global Warming).

The deeper question here is whether we want to turn major political decisions and huge efforts at terraforming Terra over to scientists (as Kim Stanley Robinson fictionally argues is necessary in his series of much-applauded global warming novels.)

I love science. I consider it one of the few decent thought-systems ever created by the human species. Its very reliance on self-correction is what sets it apart from all the myriad of religions, political systems, ideologies, and self-help creeds that begin with "self-evident" propositions and go downhill from there.

On the other hand, just as real democracies have to learn that war is too important to be left to the generals -- that civilian control of the military is an absolute given for any truly democratic nation -- so, I would suggest, is it necessary for democracies to realize that political and real-world ACTIONS to deal with "scientific problems" are too important to be left to scientists.

The cautionary tale of the "absolute consensus" among science and the media 30 years ago that global cooling and a premature return of the ice age, based on human behavior and pollution, IS important to take into consideration now. The one thing that is certain with science is that 30 years hence, our scientific understanding of the current global warming phenomenon will have greatly extended data and almost certainly greatly different hypthoeses and mechanisms.

What if it IS due --as friends of mine at the National Center for Atmospheric Research believe -- far more to minor fluctuations in the solar constant than to greenhouse gases (whose effects only began to be understood in depth after our first real observations of Venus 30-some years ago?)

Carl Sagan, a fellow educator and a man whom I come as close to revering as I do any mortal, ended his career -- at the urging of his very political second wife -- combining science and politics to a great degree. The issue then was "nuclear winter" -- and just since Sagan has died, the data on that has extended and changed our understanding of it, and its plausibility, very significantly.

Pushkin wrote -- "Better the illusions that exalt us than ten thousand truths." Well, I reject that idea. This is the creed of creeds, not of science. Thermonuclear war was obscene enough to oppose on its own terms, without flogging the shaky theory of nuclear winter as an absolute truth. Global warming, whatever its causes, will have benefits to the planet and its species as well as some truly disastrous consequences, but turning it into a huge political issue with which to bash your political enemies, or turning to such technosaviors as Al Gore, threatens to raise illusions that exalt us above scientific fact.

I would suggest to NoC that when it comes to such issues as national and global economies, where the personal fates and futures and prosperity of billions of human beings are at stake, it's a reckless scientist who can say -- "Sure, 30 years ago we were stuffed absolutely full of wild blueberry muffins on the global cooling thing, but now we KNOW FOR SURE. THE DEBATE IS OVER."

That's the problem with science. The debate is never over. Ask Newton. Ask Einstein. The best theories, as workable as they are on one scale and for one era, are soon to be seen as false on a larger or deeper or smaller scale. Perhaps there is truth to the old statement -- "The ecology of the Earth is not more complex than we think. It is more complex than we CAN think."

I would vote against the Scientific Party every time, if it insists on getting into politics. War is too important to be left to the generals.

I guess these days I am surprised when a decently popular author does NOT come across like a moonbat lefty. Dan Simmons has been a pleasant surprise, much like Orson Scott Card.

Dan previously had written "Time Traveler" which warned about the dangers of NOT fighting Islamofascism. Here, he takes a sceptical and responsible look at the global warming movement.

I personally am not longer a denier (but stil a sceptic) of the basic idea of Global Warming, however I am opposed to the MOVEMENT and its aims (worldwide socialism and the fall of American prominence).

"The ecology of the Earth is not more complex than we think. It is more complex than we CAN think."

Darn Good article.

I don't think anyone denies global warming is happening.

What they are denying tho is that it's 'man made'.

The earth warms and cools in cycles, we are probably heading into a warming trend.

When the two Canadian climatologists tried to recreate Mann's infamous "hockey stick" they found more religion than science behind it. Data that didn't fit was put in a directory called "sequestered". Mann wouldn't give his analytical code to them because he thought they were trying to disprove his work. Nothing "scientific" about the conduct of Global Warming's high priests.

It is a fact that the methods proposed for dealing with the "crisis" invariably line up with the proposers ideas of what is desirable anyway.

Generally this consists of instituting a command economy and giving much more power to the government.

**War is too important to be left to the generals.**

Nonsense here is what Air Force General Jack Ripper said about that subject.

"He said war was to important to be left to the Generals. When he said that, fifty years ago, he might have been right. But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."

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