My favorite example of this comes from nutrition research. A researcher finds a modest link between oranges and longevity, let’s say. Somewhere down the line, either a reporter or the public at large gets the wrong idea- the confuse causation and correlation, or they think one published piece of research can be generalized to all of existence. Then, when a new finding sees that this effect doesn’t hold up in the elderly, the frustrated, confused consumers of science news throw their hands in the air- how can scientists just change their minds like this! How can we know which foods are “good” and “bad”? I guess we should just eat what we want, and ignore the bogus science, the well-meaning lay people say.

But science didn’t do anything wrong. An unskeptical, uninformed approach to science did the dirty work. This applies to climate change, too- after An Inconvenient Truth came out, most everyone seemed to have the impression that climate change caused hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters. Science knows otherwise- but Gore and the rest of us kinda missed the boat. We believed what we wanted, what made intuitive sense, and didn’t dig far enough into the evidence to learn otherwise.

There is a well known concept in social psychology that is used by cults throughout the world. An individual will tend to believe what ever he or she hears the most. The application of this concept pervades the media. It is also the foundation of religious fundamentalism. The “education” of the masses under this concept takes the form of some expert tells you what to believe, And anything that disagrees with that belief is wrong.

It sounds like the Pope telling the Christian world that creationism is evil because he says so. Real science is based on the scientific method, which encourages challenges to the theory and results. Real science is always in a state of flux as it adapts and evolves. Populist science is based on parroting and promoting limited views the are particularly emotive to the masses. Populist science sells books and movies,

Check out popular sites like http://climate.jpl.nasa.gov/ and follow their references to see exactly why the consensus is moving more and more strongly toward the theory of human accelerated global warming.

As for colony collapse: They looked for new parasites first (besides the known mites that started thinning bee populations 20 years ago). When none could be pointed to in either bio labs or epidemiological studies, then they started examining the statistically less likely human-caused scenarios. You say they found a definite virus? There was some buzz about a possible link between Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus and CCD last fall. But it didn’t seem to lead anywhere. They still don’t know.

Humanity is not “godlike” to cause the destruction of our environment any more than is anthrax. Both are relatively benign parasites in their host environments, until the overpopulate and contaminate it with their wastes.

Malthus made no appeal to ego when he accurately modeled our limited position and options on this planet, long before Darwin came along. Humanity takes a toll on its environment by existing. Between our incrementally increased ability to measure, and our exponentially increased effect, we can now measure how we are destroying our cradle. Climate is just another mode that we are now recognizing.

But my point in this post wasn’t about specific issues, but rather my disillusionment that a former collaborator on hard science fiction is now on the loose fringe. It is fine to postulate oddball ideas that have not already been disproven, but I object to promoting these near-hypotheses as scientifically valid in educational fora before they are properly vetted.

Perhaps it is a sort of social egotism to assume that mankind is collectively so godlike, that we are the unintentional cause of every environment problem.

An example is Conlony Collapse Syndrome of the honeybees. Unproven theories abound, such as global warming, electromagnetic interference. Recently, the actual cause was found to be a virus.

I am not skeptical of the current global warming trend, I am, however, skeptical of the overly simplistic theory of anthrogenic co2 as the major and controlling cause of global warming. I could go into details, I know I will be ignored and dissed by the majority here that have already decided the majority must be right.

I have learned to be skeptical of any simplistic explanation of a complex system. Science must be able to show how things work in a consistent and predictable manner within the scope of measurable observation. The scientific method is based in the concept that critical concepts should be tested and not merely speculated on. scientists should not be saying “It is so because I say it is!”, because that is the role of religion. Science should say “Here is the data, look at it and see what you think.”

The internet has made an incredible amount of information available to the masses. The problem being that most of it is the purest dreck. There is so much dreck that it is often mistaken for the truth, while the real truth is buried under great volumes of misinformation and disinformation.

The problem is that many so called scientific facts are neither scientific or factual, but simply echoes of a multitude of people who believe in something without really knowing the actual data or processes by which to prove or disprove the belief.

In short, if we do not question the popularized science to uphold the standards of the method, it ceases to be science and becomes superstition. and after a while, that superstition turns into religion.

So I say: Be vigilant. Question everything.