Christine Todd Whitman Quotes

This is a classic technique used by politicians of the left and right when they are faced with scientific findings that do not comport with their ideological, religious, or political view of the world. Namely to point out that the science is not settled and the field is still in flux. Therefore, they are, that it si too early to make public policy on the basis of that. And they have little trouble finding that the scientists themselves who did the research that they do not like are the first ones to say that the science is in flux. For ALL SCIENCE IS IN FLUX and new findings are being introduced literally every day in most scientific fields. That very rarely does the new knowledge contradict the older science in huge and dramatic ways. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity turned the field of physics and mechanics upside down but it did not change the calculations that engineers and scientists would make in over 99 percent of their measurements. Within a few decades of Einsteins theory being published, it was demonstrated to be wrong—not completely wrong, but inadequate to measure the mechanics of tiny partials like electrons adn quarks. Quantum mechanics was born. And every week or so these days there is more knowledge that makes slight changes in the way we understand quantum mechanics. No science has ever remained settled for 1000 years since the beginning of scientific inquiry, By the 19th century most science did not remain settled for 100 years. In the 20th century “settled” science rarely lasted more than a decade, and in the 21st century, few are stable for even a year.

Many scientists saw this quotation as indicative of the problem of non-scientifically trained people having to make scientific judgments. This view was not typical of members of Congress. See {611678}.

For an example of what Senator Jeffords was referring to, see {610719}.

[While the Obama-Biden administration had done much more than the previous George W. Bush administration to reduce the rate of increase in environmental damage to the planet, many critics also fault the Obama-Biden administration for not doing more than "laying the groundwork". However, there was a Republican-controlled congress whose major objective was to prevent any bill from passing for which the President and the Democrats could claim credit. In addition there was a strong element of the Republican party which was ideologically opposed to admitting that man's activities—–especially industrial activities—–were having any kind of harmful effects. So, there was little operationally that the Obama-Biden administration could do other than build the "groundwork"].

Eugenics was an intellectual movement of the first half of the 20th century that was mostly junk science and was debunked. While the analogy is clever and makes her political point about climate change science, there are actually several major differences. Eugenics was never a set of scientific laws that had near unanimous support of all the scientists in that and related fields while climate science is. Eugenics was not an experimental science where its principles were subject to refutation with data. So called Eugenic scientists did no experiments, analyzed almost no data, and were more philosophical and political than scientific. Most of the Eugenics advocates were not scientists at all and had little or no training in science.

Most environmentalists worried about the global warming problem have one basic solution they want the world to adopt. Reduce the carbon footprint by reducing the amount of fossil fuels that we use. However, there are other techniques that are possible and are looking increasingly cost beneficial. But those worried about climate change tend to want to steer public discourse away from other solutions. They worry that if technologists like Myhrvold propose other solutions that may be credible, that will give the politicians of the world a rationalization for stopping the progress on reducing use of fossil fuels and political momentum would be lost with no certainty that these other technologies would be effective or worse whether the politicians would ever appropriate the moneys to give them a try and we would be left with nothing changing and the world warming with all the negative consequences therefrom.