and any other "scientist" who sets aside his or her intellectual integrity for cash. Ahem. Here goes.
So by now it is old news that famous climate change denier Willie Soon has taken massive amounts of money from dirty large energy companies. Here's a fact sheet from DeSmogBlog, for background: http://www.desmogblog.com/... (I can't get links to work on this site... any other diarists have a tip on how to make them work?)
What completely baffles me is how that influences his research - if he is really a scientist. If he is really a scientist, and the evidence clearly shows that climate change is being caused (or influenced, or goosed, or forced) by human activities including massive use of fossil fuels, then how can he reach the opposite conclusion?
This piece (http://www.washingtonpost.com/...) talks about "ideological filters," and it's a cogent argument, as far as it goes. The puzzling bit is that a scientist - a real scientist, practicing science the way it is intended to be practiced, with a clear eye and a passion for rooting out bias - could not recognize his or her own ideological filters and set them aside.
In Stephen Jay Gould's excellent book "The Mismeasure of Man" he discusses the 19th century "science" on race that led to incorrect - and horrifying - conclusions about differences in intelligence among the human races. Mismeasuring - misrepresenting - confirmation bias - the book is full of fascinating examples of scientists who massaged their data to "prove" what they already believed.
And I get that. But at the time that work was being done, pretty much everyone believed that there were differences among races that included differences in intelligence and aptitude. Those beliefs were WRONG. Stark, staring, ravingly MADLY wrong. But that was majority opinion. So confirmation bias and massaging of data makes more sense at that time and in that context.
Meanwhile, Willie Soon and a handful of others like him are selling their scientific integrity to the highest Big Oil Bidder at a time when majority consensus - when the overwhelming pressure of the fact-checked, thoroughly-vetted EVIDENCE - is that climate change is a fact, and that humans are its proximate cause. Which makes them absolutely disgusting and wicked. If Willie Soon is a real scientist - and he must be, b/c, look where he works! - then he is setting aside his principles and the true meaning of science and attempting to lead Americans (and the world) down a sure path to destruction - for money. For filthy lucre.
The stink is horrifying.