Thursday, December 01, 2005

Science faces 'dangerous times'

In his final speech as president of the Royal Society, Lord May of Oxford will say scientists must speak out against the climate change "denial lobby". Here is the article.

THis article touched a nerve with me. I found it as a link on a blog by a guy calling himself "odograph" where he and I (I think it's a he) and a guy named ralph had a brief discussion. You can read that here.

Some of the things he says just make me want to cry when I think of what we partly are as a species. Other times I shrug it off to just the way things are. I, unfortunately possibly, have a hard time shrugging it off. It is the basic point of this whole blog. That no one seems to be commenting on it much leads me to wonder if I am in the minority. Nevertheless. AAARRRGGGHHH!!!!!!!!

"There are serious problems that derive from the realities of the external world: climate change, loss of biological diversity, new and re-emerging diseases, and more.

"Many of these threats are not yet immediate, yet their non-linear character is such that we need to be acting today. "And we have no evolutionary experience of acting on behalf of a distant future; we even lack basic understanding of important aspects of our own institutions and societies.
"Sadly, for many, the response is to retreat from complexity and difficulty by embracing the darkness of fundamentalist unreason."

'Denial lobby'

Lord May will say that fundamentalism applies not only to organised religions but to lobby groups on both sides of the climate change debate.

The climate change "denial lobby" and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) opposed to nuclear power are not exempt from a denial or misrepresentation of scientific facts, he told reporters in London.

3 comments:

Engineer-Poet said...

I just wanted to let you know that I don't read your blog.

And I didn't think the Antichrist thing was funny, because I didn't even look at it.

As a matter of fact, I haven't even stopped here.  This post is a figment of your imagination.

BWE said...

Well. Now we're making progress. At least now I know that you're not visiting. Now I've got something to work from-a base so to speak. THank you. I will try to make it harder to avoid next time.

BWE said...

It doesn't matter how you slice it, Pascal's wager is one based on fear.