...Why scientific programming does not compute

Another ploy, if you like, has been the argument or advocacy by 'referral to authority'. Roughly speaking this goes 'so and so said it, so it must be true'. Now it's not unreasonable to claim ignorance of specifics and arcana thus, similiar to specialist evidence in law courts, we need to rely upon devoted intellectual resources. However one can go too far, and also like a law trial one ought to examine the veracity of any claim to specialist knowledge.

An excellent example DownUnda in the climate debate has been the CSIRO, the federal government funded science research body, which has been proposed by some sources as being authoritative. So effectively the planet is warming because the CSIRO says it is. What I find amusing about that line of reasoning isn't so much whether the CSIRO is right or wrong, but that those who posit the authority of CSIRO have self evidently done so very little homework, or have neglected to reveal any they have done. One ought to do some background checks if you're going run that line of logic ....

You see this is the very same CSIRO that was dragged, kicking and screaming, to a Royal commission in the 1970's for their scientifically fraudulent behaviour in the 1950's ( partly under a previous institutional title ) regarding the then ( British ) nuclear testing in outback Australia. To cut to the chase : they buffed reports that stated that cracking off nukes was not only not bad for the indigenous inhabitants but a positive boon. Back then they ( aborigines ) were viewed by 'civilised' white anglo-saxons as being on a par with native animals - kangaroos et al. So the range safety efforts only targeted whites. Literally. It is actually unknown how many were killed on the day or later on because they were out in the field when the button was pushed. This beggars belief today but that's the record. So science covers criminal activity? All this was a product of doing the work you are paid to do. In this case the paymasters were the political institutions of the day. [ Google say with 'CSIRO' and 'Maralinga' or try this book for instance. ]

OK, you might say, that was then and this is now. So time heals and improves us all, right? You'd think that an institution with that sort of not-to-distant history under it's belt might be real keen to get us to relax about how they go about things nowadays. Well, you'd be wrong. When the Emissions Trading Scheme went to parliament last year various proposals were based on CSIRO work in recent times. When queried the CSIRO essentially slammed the door saying - and get this - it's true because we say it is. Not even partial disclosure of their methods, data and thinking, but a patently silly self-referential statement that any abrasive three year old could come up with.

Note the issue now isn't whether the CSIRO is right or wrong, because at present that is an un-examinable hypothesis ( the CSIRO response has ensured that ). The issue is their active prevention of any testing of their claim to authority. Interestingly some of their computer modeling on climate change was questioned by a direct request to reveal the source code. Which has yet to be honoured, and was rejected with some blather about confidentiality etc ( this from a group of people supported by public funds ..... ). Shades of CRU perhaps? Do we need yet another CSIRO focused judicial investigation?

[ And of course one could ask why the current paymasters aren't forcing that issue, which is very much in their power. Also I am personally confused by such a heavy reliance on GW advocacy. There was already an avalanche of good reasons to reduce our hydrocarbon dependency prior to that hypothesis. I remember the good old days of Rachel Carson .... ]

Cheers, Mike.

( edit ) No doubt I'd be labeled as a 'climate skeptic' or some such, which distorts my real intent - but much like cold fusion claims I'm skeptical of those who attempt to use the rubric of 'science' as a cover for personal opinion, preference and gain ( see Al Gore ). You can't really use science to answer sociological questions ..... but you can use emotion to divert objective measurement and thought.

( edit ) To be more exact a humble field officer in the CSIRO, biochemist Hedley Marsden, had the guts to blow the whistle on higher management who were very compliant to political influence. One bizarre 'scientific finding' was that atom bomb radiation exposure was to be preferred, for safety, over a medical chest X-ray! Now the bulk of frequencies from nuclear processes is in the 'gamma ray' range, much more energetic, and so a comparison at X-ray wavelengths alone could give that favourable answer. However that's like saying I'll have less chance of a 60 mph collision if I travel in a car going 90 mph!!

( edit ) More Maralinga detail here, which I'd point out page 18 of 48 ( by pdf count ) :

Quote:

After completing the manuscript for his paper detailing the results of his survey, he had copies sent to the director of CSIRO and LH Martin, the director of the AWTSC, for clearance prior to publication in January 1957. The report seriously implicated the Safety Committee (which, later that year, came under the leadership of Prof. Ernest William Titterton, British - born physicist, open supporter of the continuation of the development of nuclear weapons and first person to ‘press the button’ on an atomic bomb in July 1945) and made inferences between the levels of radiostrontium contamination of Australia, based on his survey of radioiodine. Although the paper was eventually published, the Safety Committee went to great lengths to not publish it, and even discredit its content.

while no especial hard link was found ( no emails then, nor memo trail alas ) to firmly prove collusion b/w upper CSIRO and Federal Government committees, the only logical remaining consistent and simplest deduction is exactly that. Occam.