Quote:Hi,
Sorry, but you are wrong. String theory, which is not politically driven, suffered from the same problems for years. Anyone criticizing it or postulating opposing theories could not get published, or even funded. In quantum mechanics, those looking for alternatives to the Copenhagen interpretation found themselves in the same boat. Those two examples, from the field of physics, are something I know from personal contact with people on the short end of that stick. From reading the letters in Nature, in Science, and in other referred journals, I suspect the same thing is true in many other fields of study. One documentary I saw recently claimed that some archaeological findings from Africa were ignored for a long time because the finder was not part of the European science clique. Another, on the interpretation of Mayan writings, told of how some important work was ignored for a long time because it was done by a Russian.
History is filled with examples of the scientific establishment protecting itself by shutting challengers out. Eventually, it has always worked out, though it sometimes takes a few generations. So, in this particular case, it is not possible to dismiss the charges without examination. One must keep in mind the fact that the behavior of the workers in a field and the validity of their work are not necessarily linked. It may well be that the main stream theory of global warming is indeed correct and yet the proponents of that theory have behaved badly in suppressing valid inquiry into its opposition.
--Pete
Pete, first, read the line I quoted from Kandrathe....you see that what you write in your first sentence (not politically driven) doesn't apply to what I stated. I stand by by point that it is a lie that 'political unpopular ideas' will NEVER be published.
For climate science (which is an incredibly broad field) this for sure is not true, maybe the contrary is closer to the truth. Global warming is something that has been discussed for many years already.....and especially 20 years ago big oil companies had a big influence on what research was done, and what research was funded by governments for example. Only the last years there is funding for climate research, which isn't always the linear search for how much CO2 gives which temperature increase. Often they are bits and pieces of other research from marine biologists, chemists, physicists etc. etc., most of them not even mentioning global warming in the title in refereed:)journals.
Your examples have very little to do with this...the only thing it does is giving examples of groundbreaking research that took some time to win the hearts of the scientific community. And, be honest, in something like string theory it is not strange it takes some time to convince everybody, something so abstract and theoretic.
Still I agree that there have been many cases in which people try to keep something out of the journals, but in climate science that is not the case. There just is not a whole lot of proof that the global warming theory is wrong, period. Of course you have to take number for sea level rising and temperature rising with a grain of salt.....that is not very exact science, but the whole theory stands as a house, and is probably the second most attacked scientific theory (set) that is still standing like a house (after evolution).