re: #640 ludwigvanquixote

Well yes, that is the scientific community itself, subject to peer review and congressional oversight. I know this sounds harsh, but people do not have the right to decide on complex things they know nothing about. The general pubic does not get to set medical standard of care protocols either. The general public does not get to vote on how a surgeon should go about cracking a chest. If we let them do that, people would die.

That is most elitist, condescending, and what’s worse, anti-scientific! Who oversees membership into the “scientific community”? Does holding a PhD imbues a scientist with authority over the lives and money of us common plebes? If so, I know a few interesting characters at Answers in Genesis, with impeccable credentials. Or does being peer-reviewed authorize a scientist to decide for the rest of us how our money is spent? That would be quite a circular definition, by the way. Also, the scientific method is fundamentally skeptic. The knowledge we derive from science is only absolute in the hypotheses it discards, not in the ones it affirms. Millions of observations can be overturned by a single one. Science never proves; only disproves: hence its conclusions do not even possess the epistemological rigor of strict dictates to rule over people’s lives.

From all I know, the majority of scientists today agree on the anthropogenic nature of climate change. Does that mean we ought to be bound by their opinions today, and by their prescribed solutions, whatever they be?

What is the constitutional basis for governance by “scientific” fiat? The average Joe may not know squat about Quantum Mechanics. I do. Supposedly so do you. Mathematical physicists by profession know a helluva lot more than both of us. So what? It does not give them or you the moral or legal right to forcefully spread ignorant Joe’s wealth around, toward your scientific master-plans.

This why we have a system where the scientific community advises the congress and the congress has oversight.

Yes, but who watches the Watchmen?