Archives for November 21, 2005

The guys at Real Climate have posted a piece outlining their frustration with the media giving ‘global warming skeptics’ a hearing:

We here at RC continue to be disappointed with the tendency for some journalistic outlets to favor so-called “balance” over accuracy in their treatment of politically-controversial scientific issues such as global climate change. While giving equal coverage to two opposing sides may seem appropriate in political discourse, it is manifestly inappropriate in discussions of science, where objective truths exist. In the case of climate change, a clear consensus exists among mainstream researchers that human influences on climate are already detectable, and that potentially far more substantial changes are likely to take place in the future if we continue to burn fossil fuels at current rates. There are only a handful of “contrarian” climate scientists who continue to dispute that consensus. (end of quote)

I am continually amazed when so called scientists (i.e. the guys who run RC) slip from appealing to an ‘objective truth’ to claiming ‘objective truth’ on the basis of ‘a clear consensus.’

To quote the wonderful maverick contrarian Prof Bob Carter:

To the extent that it is possible for any human endeavour to be so, science is value-free. Science is a way of attempting to understand the world in which we live from a rational point of view, based on observation, experiment and tested theory. Irritatingly, especially for governments, science does not operate by consensus and it is often best progressed by mavericks. (end of quote)

I think history is on Bob’s side – that is historically the best science has been done by mavericks who are often contrarians?

I will provide a recent example from Crikey published on 5 October 2005 and titled ‘How the medical establishment snubbed Australia’s Nobel Prize winners’:

A medical industry insider writes:

As the media, politicians and the Australian medical research sector rush to congratulate our newest Nobel laureates – and to bask in their reflected glory – it is worth reflecting on the truth of the long and, at times, lonely journey Barry Marshall and Robin Warren have taken to reach this point.

Rather than welcoming and supporting the work of “local heroes,” many Australian gastroenterologists were highly critical and disbelieving of Marshall and Warren’s (ultimately) Nobel Prize-winning work, and continued for many years to stubbornly deny that Helicobacter pylori had much, or indeed any, role in the pathogenesis of ulcer disease.

Barry Marshall was made to feel quite uncomfortable when he attended specialist conferences – he was regarded by many as a maverick and even a loony, especially when the story of his drinking “swampwater” in order to infect himself got around. Worse still, this lack of acceptance was often blamed on Marshall’s personality (he has been described as “brash”) or justified as a response to him apparently seeking publicity and glory. It certainly didn’t help that he was not a gastroenterologist by training.

Given Marshall and Warren’s pioneering work, Australia should have been the first place in the western world to accept the full H. pylori story. But, shamefully, it was not. Although a Working Party reported to the 1990 World Congress of Gastroenterology (which incidentally was held in Sydney) that H. pylori was definitely an important cause of ulcer disease, many prominent leaders of the gastroenterology specialty in Australia continued to deny its importance, or to claim that it was a cause of only a small minority of cases of ulcer disease, well into the mid-1990s. As examples:
* In 1991, Parke Davis got scant support from local “opinion leaders” when it brought an international speaker (and member of the Working Party) to Australia to discuss H. pylori eradication as an approach to treating ulcer disease.
*In a drug company-sponsored 4-page educational publication for GPs published in Australia in 1992, only the last two paragraphs mention H. pylori, and only in the context of how this company’s anti-acid drug might one day have a role – in combination with antibiotics – in eradicating the bacterium. It was only 4-5 years later, when such combinations were shown to be effective in eradication, that education and promotion to GPs about the role of H. pylori in ulcer disease really started to pick up momentum.

Marshall’s work was much more readily accepted internationally than locally, and so he spent what may perhaps have been his most productive years as a researcher overseas. Medical journalist Melissa Sweet gave some of the back-story in this article in the SMH in 1997.

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And there is ‘food for thought’ in this comment posted by ‘detribe’ on 23rd September at my piece titled Now Scientific Basis for Climate Change:

Phil,

I like your response a few posts back to my remarks. It’s how we treat our contrarians that tells us whether we are living in a truely civil society, for the contrarians (Michael is one) are very valuable to us, because they point to the places where ‘conventional wisdom’ may be getting it wrong.

My favorite book at the moment is Christopher Hitchens’ letters to a young contrarian, which I have on my desk as I type this. Whatever you think about Hitchens’ opinions, his English style is great, and youve gotta admire someone who is willing to call Mother Theresa a fraud in print.

And as you know, AGW is the Green version of Mother Theresa.