Hothouse

I like Global Warming. Without the Global Warming industry, newspapers would be bereft of those wonderful “junk science” articles that add so much colour to a slow news day. You know the ones I mean. They tell us that Global Warming will raise sea levels by 100m (kind of puts the Foreshore and Seabed legislation in perspective, doesn’t it?) Or they tell us about frightening increases in freak weather (except that the weather people always put it as “the worst floods since…” and then quote a relatively recent date). Or they warn us about the melting of Antarctica (which should please those poor emperor penguins!).

Todays candidate for silly science is this article in the Herald on how global warming may reduce protein in plants. Apparently the argument goes that the fossil record demonstrates that more plants were eaten by insects in Eocene period when the carbon dioxide levels were very high and the world was much warmer. One explanation is that the plants produced less protein and that insects needed to eat more. Of course, by far the more logical argument is that there were far more insects in the Eocene era. This argument is also in the article – but as an afterthought. I’m not sure why. The headline “Global Warming May Cause Plague of Insects” would be kind of catchy. Anyone who has lived in Africa will attest to the fact that a hot climate make insects both large and prolific. 

There are, of course, dozens of other reasons why insects may eat more plants. Some related to warming but most not. But none of these other explanations will fit nicely into the Global Warming meme. Like the Grand Unification Theory in Physics, Life scientists seem to be attempting to fit everything into the Unified Global Warming Theory. Like their Physics brethren, their explanations seem to become less logical and unconvincing by the day.

Regardless of whether you think that Global Warming is a real problem or a case of scientific scaremongering, there is no doubt that the ridiculous attempts by reputable scientists to make the interpretation their discoveries fit the Unified Global Warming Theory does science a great disservice. A narrow interpretation of facts like this predisposes scientists to overlook far more insightful and useful connections between their data. Like the Church’s suppression of Galileo’s findings, Global Warming Theory suppresses independent and innovative thought in life sciences. It is the same thought process that created the dark ages. It is a negation of discovery.

Political correctness and science make disastrous bedfellows.

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