Estado Sentido

What Heartland is doing is harmful, because it gets in the way of public consensus and action. Was Gleick right to lie to expose Heartland and maybe stop it from causing further delay to action on climate change? If his lie has good effects overall – if those who take Heartland’s money to push scepticism are dismissed as shills, if donors pull funding after being exposed in the press – then perhaps on balance he did the right thing. It could go the other way too – maybe he’s undermined confidence in climate scientists. It depends on how this plays out.

Este tipo de afirmações  - "95 percent of active climate researchers agree that humans are contributing to global warming, yet free market fundamentalists continue to deny our responsibility" -, equivale à formulação de que "a ciência está estabelecida" e de que "não há tempo a perder" ou, já no limite, "mesmo que actuemos agora já não seremos capazes de evitar uma grande parte dos perniciosos efeitos do aquecimento golbal, aka alterações climáticas".

Na sequência desta notícia, Neutrinos and Appomatox, por Steve Landsburg:

Scientists at CERN have found apparent evidence that neutrinos can travel faster than light.

 

Suppose that tomorrow historians at Harvard find apparent evidence that the South won the American Civil War — not in some metaphorical “they accomplished their goals” sense, but in the literal sense that it was actually Grant who handed his sword to Lee at Appomatox and not the other way around.

 

Question: Of which conclusion would you be more skeptical?

 

Of course your answer might depend on exactly what this new “apparent evidence” consists of. So let me reword: As of this moment, which do you think is more likely — that neutrinos can travel faster than light, or that the South won the Civil War?