Investor’s Business Daily: When Scientists Become Politicians
The recent expose of the e-mails from the scientists at the Hadley Climatic Research Unit at Britain’s University of East Anglia, revealing the nefarious nature of their global warming crusade, does far more than damage the credibility of global warming activists. It damages the foundation of one of the last bastions of truth.
Science above all is about the search for truth, for fact, for data that either support or undermine a theory. When a group hijacks the scientific process for political and/or financial gain, not only does the science (and truth) suffer, but all of mankind suffers insofar as we lose faith in the supposed unbiased endeavors of those seeking answers to important questions. Scientists become the very politicians that so many people so vehemently distrust.
Over the years, science and the rigors of scientific inquiry have been held up as shining examples of the pursuit of truth unsullied by the vagaries of political discourse or influence. People learned to trust scientists for this very reason. What was deemed to be supported by science was held aloft as truth — after all, the science “proved” it!
However, once the scientists are revealed to be nothing more than the “wizards” behind the curtain, mere charlatans passing off parlor tricks as “science,” the veil of impartiality is torn asunder, along with the trust that we had learned to place in them.