Fads in science and Climategate
Speaking of Climategate, what people fail to understand is that "science" is a job. It is subject to the same pressures any other job is. Sure, it has an intellectual component. But, by far, politics, money, and power outweigh truth. One of the worst thing that happens is a scientific fad or a bandwagon. Stem cells for instance. Or string theory. Whole slews of people make their PhDs, postdocs, tenure track work - entire scientific careers - on a particular topic which is generally cast as a _____ (insert: cure, catalyst, theory, what have you) of everything.
The worst part of it is peer review. The mechanism meant to prevent falsehoods or unsubstantiated speculations from entering "the literature" is abused to screen out data that is perceived as unfavorable to the fad idea/topic/goal. All this does is create an almost insurmountably high burden of proof for the sceptic. Any experiment must have every potential control, and then some, and even with the controls confounders will be invoked and used to merciless blast away the sceptic. These are all complex systems, that is, life, the universe, or the earth.
After 5 or 10 or 30 years the fad fizzles out when it becomes clear that other, perhaps more interesting, topics, have been neglected and that what was promised did not fulfill. New blood must approach the problem, perhaps after more years and decades, and must attack it from a fresh perspective.
Climate change is just another fad, another bandwagon. A bunch of scientists craving for grants, promotions, and fame, are pushing AGW roughshod over evidence that contradicts the theory. What is most dangerous is that unlike string theory, which has little impact on daily life, or stem cell research, which has a low impact on the world (the use of human embryonic stem cells being the most controversial part), the climate change theories are being implemented into a political agenda, one that will affect economies of whole countries, overall production, the use of fuel and disposal of waste on a massive scale, agriculture, and the lives of hundreds of millions of people. We are being asked to "save the earth" and to "make the sacrifice" with hardly any evidence that we are responsible for changes in the earth's climate.
Resist the temptation to bow to "science." Read the papers yourself - any intelligent person can comprehend them - and read what the sceptics have to say. Inform yourself before you allow your government to reorganize your life entirely to suit a bunch of fraudsters and hysterics.