Science Fiction

Killing people --or threatening them with a horrible death-- has been a time-honored means of suppressing inconvenient truths and fictions and causing witnesses to recant and/or go into hiding.  

It happened in the 4th century (for instance to Hypatia), and it is happening today ( John's Hopkins  and less scientifically to a geek )

Once upon a time Heliocentrism was considered heresy by believers in so-called settled science, and Galileo was forced to recant.

Here are more links to the stories of scientist who crossed the establishment and suffered for their science.

https://www.wired.com/2012/06/famous-persecuted-scientists/

http://unamsanctamcatholicam.com/history/historical-apologetics/79-history/596-scientists-executed-by-the-catholic-church.html

Given that successful fiction writing begins with a wronged innocent, there's plenty of inspiration or grist for the writing mill here, above.

A modern day science that is said to be settled (and may well be so) concerns plant food. That is, carbon dioxide. Would California be better off lush and green, or dry and crackly golden? Should forests be cut down to install arrays of dark glass? Are bird-and-bat whacking windmills better than trees? 

If polar bears evolved back to brown bears, would that matter? To whom? And why? Is it modern day heresy to wonder?

Sources:
https://townhall.com/columnists/davidwojick/2020/11/27/slight-beneficial-warming-from-more-carbon-dioxide-n2580718

https://www.livescience.com/10956-polar-bears-evolved-150-000-years.html

They say --and they may be correct-- that white stuff is vital. They mean sea ice, but would any white stuff do just as well. Not for a habitat for seal hunting, one would grant, but if the need is to reflect solar rays back away from earth, would artificial white plastic floes do as well? What about the white upside of clouds?

"...include clouds. Alarmist climate science bases its “dangerous manmade” global warming, not on the CO2 increase alone, but also on incorporating positive water vapor and cloud feedbacks: emphasizing heat-trapping properties of clouds, while largely ignoring the degree to which clouds also block or reflect incoming solar radiation."

Why are only some science theories, “permissible”?  Is it Hypatia and Galileo all over again? One must know History....

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/global-warming-manmade-or-natural/

Is science necessarily "settled" when consensus may not exist, and where the so-called scientists have no scientific qualifications?

 

"... For example, the widely touted “consensus” of 2,500 scientists on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an illusion: Most of the panelists have no scientific qualifications, and many of the others object to some part of the IPCC’s report. The Associated Press reported recently that only 52 climate scientists contributed to the report’s “Summary for Policymakers.”


https://www.ibtimes.com/nasas-shocking-discovery-global-warming-isnt-melting-polar-ice-caps-analyst-claims-2801469

The starting point for research matters. What if the starting point for data is where ice caps were at an unusual volume?

"...in the beginning of NASA’s satellite observations, the polar ice caps just came from a 30-year cooling trend, which ended during the late 1970s. This made the polar ice regions significantly larger compared to their past states in the previous decades"

With a monthly electricity or gas bill, the utility company shows what your use was a full 12 months ago. They do not start by comparing your November 2020 usage with your December 2019 usage. They don't project what your January and February usage is likely to be.

http://akclimate.org/node/1768

 

Six years ago, the late great thinker, Charles Krauthammer attacked the "settled" nature of science.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-the-myth-of-settled-science/2014/02/20/c1f8d994-9a75-11e3-b931-0204122c514b_story.html

"...If climate science is settled, why do its predictions keep changing? And how is it that the great physicist Freeman Dyson, who did some climate research in the late 1970s, thinks today’s climate-change Cassandras are hopelessly mistaken? 

........

None of this is dispositive. It doesn’t settle the issue. But that’s the point. It mocks the very notion of settled science, which is nothing but a crude attempt to silence critics and delegitimize debate. As does the term “denier” — an echo of Holocaust denial, contemptibly suggesting the malevolent rejection of an established historical truth..."

Ridicule is a potent weapon.https://bolenreport.com/saul-alinskys-12-rules-radicals/

Why would anyone want to weaponize climate science, or any kind of science? Who benefits... apart from the scientists who guarantee themselves perpetual employment?  Someone wrote that a scientist will find it almost impossible to disprove a proposition that makes him (or her, or them) a profit.

https://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2014/02/18/5-scientific-reasons-that-global-warming-isnt-happening-n1796423

Why, in 2020, are scientists afraid to publish research that runs counter to "received wisdom"? Why do they retract, if not recant? Or perhaps, they merely published too soon.
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2020/11/27/johns-hopkins-newsletter-ran-study-saying-covid-relatively-no-effect-on-deaths-in-u-s-then-deleted-it-after-publication-n286080?utm_source=rsmorningbriefing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&bcid=6fed806fc43048eb10861e86d69f2ada

What's the betting the so-called wayback machine may not last far into 2021?
https://web.archive.org/web/20201126223119/https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2020/11/a-closer-look-at-u-s-deaths-due-to-covid-19

 

Controversial excerpt:

"When Briand looked at the 2020 data during that seasonal period, COVID-19-related deaths exceeded deaths from heart diseases. This was highly unusual since heart disease has always prevailed as the leading cause of deaths. However, when taking a closer look at the death numbers, she noted something strange. As Briand compared the number of deaths per cause during that period in 2020 to 2018, she noticed that instead of the expected drastic increase across all causes, there was a significant decrease in deaths due to heart disease. Even more surprising, as seen in the graph below, this sudden decline in deaths is observed for all other causes.

The study found that “This trend is completely contrary to the pattern observed in all previous years.” In fact, “the total decrease in deaths by other causes almost exactly equals the increase in deaths by COVID-19.”

Briand concludes that the COVID-19 death toll in the United States is misleading and that deaths from other diseases are being categorized as COVID-19 deaths."

So... is some important "science" really "fiction"? Is some "fiction" really "science"? How can we know the difference, and does it matter? At any rate, it has the makings of a great story!

 

All the best,

Rowena Cherry