What they want to hear

There was another interesting point in the discussion at Hans von Storch’s that I brought up – an interesting comment by “Toby” on the earlier piece:

Lysenko told the politicians what they wanted to hear – a “short cut” to socialism. Which side of the current “debate” is telling politicians what they want to hear? The ones arguing that money must be spent and sacrifices made? Or the ones advocating that nothing be done?

That is a good question, and is the root of much of the political polarization of climate science.

Toby implies that politicians want to hear that nothing need be done – money need not be spent.

A right-winger – like myself – believes that what politicians want to hear is that their departments and budgets must be enlarged.

As I explained, the distrust of motives is enough by itself – without any actual dishonesty or malpractice – to mess up the scientific process in a field where unequivocal confirmation or rejection of theories is difficult to come by.