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the Anomalist
Volume 11, Summer 2003
Plus...Cotton Mather and the Case of the Floating GirlIs HIV really the cause of AIDS?Bad Forecast – The Global Warming MythThe Fire TheoryMemetics...and more!
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The Anomalist
Edited and Published by Patrick Huyghe and Dennis Stacy Designed by Ansen Seale
Volume 11, PDF Version
Published about once a year, The Anomalist explores the mys-teries of science, history, and nature. Our regularly updated internetedition, at www.anomalist.com, consist of original articles and selectedreprints from this journal.Editorial Submissions: First person experience, investigationsand commentaries are welcomed. Contact the editors prior to manu-script submission. All unsolicited manuscripts must be accompaniedby an SASE or will not be returned. Submissions are best submitted via email to editors@anomalist.com, or sent by mail to Dennis Stacy (address above) or Patrick Huyghe, PO Box 577, Jefferson Valley, NY 10535.All articles appearing in The Anomalist represent the views and work of the individual authors. Their publication does not necessar-ily constitute an endorsement by the editors and publishers of TheAnomalist.ISSN 1076-4208Copyright © 2003 by Patrick Huyghe and Dennis Stacy Cover photo Copyright © 2003Ansen Seale.
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By Ian Kidd
Table of Contents
(click title to link to article)
Welcome to the Fringe
by Patrick HuygheI am pleased to report that there has been an explosive growth of latein the ranks of “fringe scientists.” All its newest members have doctoraldegrees and are university afliated. I’m not talking about ufologists andcryptozoologists and parapsychologists. Oh no, we have plenty enough of them, don’t we? Those who I’d like to welcome to the fold are a host of climatologists and other environmental scientists.How have these distinguished fellows come to be members of thefringe, you ask? Well, you may have noticed that scientists are havingquite a tiff over the global warming issue. In this eld, as in the not-so-dis-tinguished elds of ufology, cryptozoology and parapsychology, there arethe “believers” and there are “skeptics.” But while it’s politically correctto be a skeptic when it comes to UFOs, ESP, and astrology, on the globalwarming issue it’s politically correct to be a believer. In fact, the believ-ers of global warming have begun calling its skeptics “fringe scientists.”Imagine!Orthodox scientists won’t bat an eye when their colleagues callthem cranks, extremists, amateurs, akes, even pathological. But “fringescientists”!? That must be the ultimate insult. While ufologists and theircounterparts in the X-sciences are used to this epithet being thrown theirway, for climatologists and environmental scientists, it’s really demeaningto be dumped into the same basement as the pseudoscientists so near anddear to our hearts—most of whom are by now quite inured to the “fringe”epithet.So here is how it happened. In the late 1990s, a report signed by a USCongressman, George E. Brown Jr., branded those who argue that climatechange is overblown practitioners of “fringe science.” The slur was di-rected at any scientist who disagreed with the United Nations perspectiveabout the putative human impact on the climate. Although the report wasentitled: “Environmental Science Under Siege: Fringe Science and the104
th
Congress,” it has nothing to do with fortean phenomenon, not evensh falls.But wait, there’s more to the report. Referring to a Nov. 16, 1995hearing on global warming, Brown, who was then the ranking minoritymember of the Committee on Science of the U.S. House of Representa-tives, alleged that data-based (empirical) arguments are unscientic. Datais unscientic—that’s what the fringe scientists we are more familiar withhave always been told. But now, it seems, climatologists are facing thesame dismal reality.You don’t believe me? Here are Brown’s own words: “By equatingsound science with empirical science, the [Republican-dominated] Sub-committee has attempted to sever the link between peer-reviewed scienceand policy and to stop environmental regulation in its tracks.” Regardlessof what Brown says, however, we all know that data is the cornerstone of science. It’s even the cornerstone of fringe science.But the report gets even worse in ways all too familiar to those of uson the margins of science. It appears that Brown and his Democrats thinkthat these skeptical scientists are actually
conspiring
to destroy science byrelying on data. “The emerging effort to truncate the scientic method atthe initial observations stage,” notes Brown, “endangers the ability of thescientic community to unify its understanding not only of environmentalproblems, but any phenomenon.” For Brown, truth is a mere pawn.The underlying problem is this: the global warming skeptics havebeen pointing to data that essentially demolishes the initial large forecastsof global warming by the believers. Their effrontery has created the greatght over what to do about greenhouse gases and global warming. And theght has been exacerbated by the fact that these “fringe scientists” happento be vocal and articulate. As the viewpoint of these skeptics has begunseeping into the newspapers and talk shows, the believers have becomeincreasing fearful—and desperate. Brown has asked the scientic com-munity to suppress its internal dissent.“Brown’s report is clearly unprecedented in the history of Americanscience,” writes University of Virginia professor Patrick Michaels in hisbi-weekly report called
World Climate Report
. “It brings back, with ahaunting chill, memories of other Congressional hearings where peoplewere blackballed for their beliefs, or, even worse, accused of believing inthings that they did not.”This sort of thing is not new, of course. It’s happening every day in the“real” fringe sciences. The back corridors of orthodoxy are chock full of beleaguered fringe scientists. To climatologists and environmentalists, allwe can say is: welcome to the club—and be careful out there!
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