From the Sunday Times in London: SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based. It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years. The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.

Most of us know that President Eisenhower, in his farewell speech, warned of the danger of the “military-industrial complex”. Regardless of your particular stand on military spending, there is no doubt that he was substantially right about the enormous abuse of power and fraud in the defense industry. Less known is the Eisenhower’s second warning in the speech. Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual Read More ›

There’s a totalitarian subtext to scientism. Scientism entails a militant certainty of truth, and an utter intolerance for dissent that is remarkably akin to totalitarian political movements. Scientism is increasingly a spawn of the political left, which has been the primary source of totalitarianism in the past century. The reaction of Darwinists or of global warming scientists to even the most mild skepticism is remarkably vicious. They hunt down skeptics and suppress differing opinions using practically any means at their disposal. If a school district attaches a sticker to a textbook that says “Darwin’s theory is a theory, not a fact, and evidence for and against it should be considered.” it will find itself in federal court, facing financial ruin, Read More ›

British journalist Christopher Booker, writing in the British Telegraph, has a thoughtful essay that puts the various aspects of the ClimateGate scandal in context and provides insight into the relative impact of each component of the scandal. Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation

Iowahawk has a delightful post on a newly evolved species: climate researchers. Money quotes: Like other species in the order homo scientifica, the climate researcher gathers and organizes data to lure grant money to the hive. In contrast to those other species, however, the climate researcher has evolved a set of complex violent behaviors to insure any data leaving the hive is perfectly adapted to nature’s most lucrative and sweetest grants. It really is a marvel of natural selection, and explains why the climate researcher continues to thrive in any kind of weather condition…The ear-piercing screech of the swarm warns the intruder that they will cut off his peer review unless he retreats. But the the hungry skeptic is not Read More ›