Since John Donegan’s recent column, “Orthodoxy and vanity” (March 11) is even more incoherent than usual, it’s hard to figure out his point. “Conservatism in science is not only desirable but necessary. Theories need to be vigorously challenged, especially where acceptance requires an expensive and painful reaction such as with anthropogenic (human caused) climate change.”
That’s a loaded formulation at best. In the early 20th century, was acceptance of the internal combustion engine challenged because it would require an expensive and painful reaction? Not so much. Even though it certainly was expensive and painful to the horse-related businesses of the time, urban street design and a lot of other things. Instead, to use the “conservative” lingo of our time, the change was mostly accepted in a positive way as “creatively disruptive.” Why isn’t transitioning from fossil fuel the same as getting rid of the tyranny of horseshit that once plagued our cities?
But my bigger question is this: Is conservatism in science different from conservatism in general? I thought the point was that the Founding Fathers got everything right and that the Constitution, for example, should therefore be strictly and literally adhered to. Originalism and all that.
Frank Joyce
Paso Robles
This article appears in Mar 18-28, 2021.
“Incohernt”? If someone listens to a radio broadcast in an unknown foreign language, , it is not incoherent. It is just something that the listener can not understand.
The development of the internal combustion engine wasn’t “science”, but engineering. Big difference. The science behind it was already well known. And,of course, the development was driven by popular demand, not government edict flung down from on high, pandering to the fashionable political sentiments of the day. The process of developing renewables and electric cars is proceeding nicely, although perhaps not as quickly as a generation which demands instant gratification and the immediate obedience to their diktats would prefer.
The Constitution can be “updated” by amendment. The process is deliberately slow and difficult, to protect from implementing the whims of the mob and their gnat-like attention spans. Both the Constitution and science benefit from a deliberate, well thought out approach, rather than mindlessly accommodating every brain fart which momentarily captures the public’s imagination.
Major climate shifts are not influenced by human activities on earth. Local weather patterns can experience temporary shifts it micro climate conditions such as those dictated by terrain ie altitudinal zonation and other weather phenomena dictated by terrestrial movement of water through flora and fauna. Weather patterns are dynamic and mindkind has very little influence on the behavioral properties of subatomic particles and their intrinsic chemical structures which determine their behaviors when exposed to the inherent gravitational resonances of planetary bodies. Major climate shifts are determined by the position and conditions set by planetary bodies and their dynamic masses in outer space. This is why Frank Joyce nor Baby Huey aka: John Donegan sound like complete tools arguing about scientific methods. Neither of them have practiced meteorology but somehow how both believe they are resident experts on the subject of climate change without practicing science. I am recognized as an applied meteorologists in real life. Both of them will discredit me because they are blowhard Google researchers who discredit everyone who disagrees with their flimsy unorthodox jailhouse science. The Naval Research Lab and DARPA agree with me, not you. Take a big drink.
The Rhodesian
Recognize this weather altering technology is our current technical reality and can be deployed and observed… https://climateviewer.com/2014/10/22/haarp…
Humble oneself to science or science will humble you.
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-R…