Dogmas are not good for the advancement of science.

For some time, and as an impartial observer of some of the main scientific paradigms of the last decades, I tried to analyze these ideas in light of my experiences and knowledge.

As we all know, scientific knowledge is relative. What is accepted today as a great truth, tomorrow will be disproved by other "truths", and what is more forceful, by the actual data of reality.

A paradigm that prevailed in the last 25 years is that climate warming is occurring, and that the cause of it is human action through the combustion of hydrocarbons, which has been called (with an appellation at less doubtful) "fossil fuels".

It has logic. The need or greed, has led to use the available hydrocarbons in the crust (oil, coal, natural gas, etc.) to provide energy to industries, homes, cars, railways, ships and other technological means typical of globalized industrial societies .

Due to uncontrolled consumption enormous amounts of carbon dioxide are generated, that gradually accumulate in the atmosphere producing a greenhouse effect, which in turn increases the temperature,`producing a climate change, which, according to this "very logical" approach, is the fault of human beings ( or "man" if we use the dominant patriarchal terminology).

It is all very logical. However, reality is stubborn. The concrete data (raw, NOT modified) show that this reasoning fails in several aspects.

In the first place, as all geologists know, talking about climate change is equivalent to saying nothing. On Earth, climates have changed throughout their history. In different times and places there have been, hot, humid, arid, cold climates, glacial ages, etc. In successive geological periods there are numerous rock formations that bear witness to them. Therefore, talking about "climate change" is like saying nothing new.

Regarding the terminology also used, although to a lesser degree, there is talk of global warming, of melting of the Antarctic, of a rise in the level of the oceans, of tropicalization of temperate climates, of increase in the number of hurricanes and other analogous phenomena which would be (is stated) the result of this “warming” that is predicted.

On each of these phenomena there are contradictory data. To begin with, it is very difficult to demonstrate warming with traditional methods of measuring temperature (meteorological stations of heterogeneous distribution that tend to measure predominantly the influence of urban islands). The temperature of the oceans, has shown to have periodic variations, and in the last years NO generalized warming has been appreciated. Neither measurements of the satellites have been conclusive. The temperature of the lower atmosphere has not increased significantly.

As for CO2, it is noteworthy that the content of the atmosphere of this gas is very small, just 0.04%. Since plants (the sustenance of all life on the planet) require CO2 to carry out their metabolism, their increase, which currently is of the order of 0.0001% per year, has the main effect of helping the growth of plant ecosystems (such as jungles, meadows or algae formations).

Regarding C02 as a "greenhouse" gas, it does not seem to have any influence when compared to the greenhouse effect of water vapor (much more abundant and with more intense effect) and above all with the influence of variations in solar radiation (which is, absolutely, and almost entirely, the main source of atmospheric energy).

For these reasons, it is unlikely that the tiny increases in CO2 in the atmosphere can have an effect on the global temperature, and, on the contrary its main effects ARE POSITIVE, that is, the increase in the productivity of plant ecosystems.

Of course, this is not important for the global powers, who are not interested in scientific truth (of course, beyond their speeches). For them the data of reality are irrelevant.

This includes, of course, the academic authorities (who can not deviate from the paradigm under penalty of losing their grants or tenures), political leaders (who do not know much about the issue and try to accommodate their claims to what is expected of them from the point of view of convenience) and business leaders (who in general manage to extract profits from any prevailing paradigm, whatever it may be).

And on the other side there are the heretics. Those who analyze the facts of reality without prejudices or preconceptions. Fortunately,  in this globalized world there are many heretical scientists and individuals.

Of course, those who disagree with the absurd idea of ​​climate change do not have good press. They are criticized as unscientific, and of course, always criticizing them without taking the discussion to the grounds of the arguments.

In fact, what happens is that the heretics have (myself included) many doubts.

There is no certainty that global warming is taking place in the atmosphere (data are not conclusive), there is no certainty that the inlandsis of Antarctica and Greenland are melting. Rise of ocean levels are very slow (a couple of millimeters per year) and may be the result of geological inertia after recent geological deglaciation.

Things are NOT clear.

When there is uncertainty about the processes, hasty political (and economic) decisions can be double-edged swords.

It is not reasonable to dogmatize the arguments. Do not forget that to a large extent the scientific advances of humanity were the result of the ideas and discoveries of the great heretics. Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Lamark, Darwin and many others have allowed us to reach new milestones in human knowledge that can serve as illustrative examples.

Dogmas are not good for the advancement of science.
Danilo Anton

Contemporary scientific dogmas 
and the "excommunication" of heretics

Danilo Antón
At each historical moment there are conceptual and / or scientific models that are to a large extent the ideological support of prevailing power systems. States and their political, academic, and religious structures rely on such models.
These models change over time. New data are obtained, other conceptual approaches are developed, and finally, the model change occurs. Kuhn called it "paradigmatic change".
Generally, political, religious and academic authorities and powers resist this change, but in the end, the accumulation of information and the diffusion of new ideas impose the substitution of old visions for new ones more adapted to the state of society in that moment.
Although this process has been systematic throughout history, the elites of each period act as if their conceptions were immutable, sometimes true dogmas.
This also occurs in contemporary times.
Human societies organize their knowledge through the symbolic systems of their cultures.
In each epoch there are dominant models that relate to the social and political power structures in place. These models, which were for a long time of a religious character, often dogmatic, allowed the domination of the some groups at the political or sacerdotal level.
At the same time that the elites imposed a system of knowledge, they ensured their political control and the enjoyment of economic and social privileges.

Modern History of Dogmatism
The process of replacing European dogmatic religious systems began early in the so-called "Middle Ages" sheltered in the medieval "Universities" and urban centers "burgos" and growing
through the demographic and commercial expansion of the ecumenical regions.
People who disagreed with dogmas were declared "heretics." Some, such as Giordano Bruno and Tomás Moro, were executed for their ideas or behavior that contradicted the postulates and norms established by the political and religious castes. Others, such as Nicolas Copernico or Galileo Galilei, were bitterly criticized, persecuted for their ideas and finally forced to renounce to express their points of view.
The new ideological systems developed since the XVII century commenced to neglect the philosophical structures based on biblical, canonical and Greco-Roman influences.
From the triumph of the European industrialist revolution the new systems of knowledge were definitively imposed, leaving aside the geocentric religious and dogmatic approaches.
New economic and political structures engendered a system of knowledge generation based on a network of academic, corporate and governmental institutions.
It is within the framework of this "network" that "official" knowledge, valid and / or "fundable" research projects were defined, as well as the selection of "publishable" articles in so-called "refereed scientific journals".
According to Thomas S. Kuhn's work "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" (1970 edition), "normal" (official) scientific research is concerned on looking for novelties within accepted conceptual frames, as well as to obtain data that "confirm" what is already known.
James Lovelock points out in his work "The Ages of Gaia" (1988) that academic scientists may think that they have freedom but in reality most of them "have changed freedom of thought for good working conditions, regular income and social prestige..
Scientists are also constrained by an army of bureaucratic forces, from funding agencies to health and safety organizations. Scientists are also limited by the tribal rules of the discipline to which they belong. A physicist would have difficulty doing chemistry research, and a biologist would find almost impossible to do physics. To complete the above, in recent years the "purity" of science is more closely guarded by a self-imposed inquisition called peer review. "
The current model or scientific system is called normal science or "paradigm". The paradigm of normal science in Kuhn's view is the set of theories, rules, procedures and knowledge that permeate a given society at a particular moment in its history. At present it refers to the scientific "model" adopted in a generalized way in contemporary globalized society.
In this "globalized" society the official scientific construction works through the accumulation of scientific data that allow (supposedly) to "advance" in the knowledge in particular to achieve greater detail in the concrete application of accepted scientific models.
There is no method in this official paradigm (nor in any other dominant paradigm, by the way) that allows to discard "the whole model" and begin to accept other theories and apply other rules or procedures that end up radically altering the recognized model.
To a great extent, the difficulty of changing the official paradigm is that the radical modification of the paradigm implies altering the relations of power.
At the political level, the holders of paradigmatic power are those who occupy the decision-making positions. At an economic level, it is they who benefit from their privileged position in the knowledge structure. At the academic level, they defend the prestige and economic security that the university and professional positions they occupy.
In short, the struggle for the preservation of the paradigm by its main proponents arises in terms of power.
D.Antón.
More info at daniloanton.blogspot.com

Contemporary scientific dogmas and the "excommunication" of heretics
Danilo Anton
In every historical moment there are conceptual and / or scientific models which are largely ideological support systems of the prevailing power. Governments and their political, academic and religious structures are based largely on those models.

However, models change as time passes. new data are obtained, other conceptual approaches are developed, and finally, the model change occurs. It is what Kuhn called the "paradigm shift". Generally, political, religious and academic authorities resist this change, but in the end, the accumulation of information and the dissemination of new ideas impose the replacement of old visions with new ones better adapted to the state of the society knowledge and feelings at that moment.
Although this process took place systematically throughout history, the elites of each period act as if their views were immutable, true dogmas.
This also happens in contemporary societies.
Human societies organize their knowledge through the symbolic systems of their cultures.
In every age there are dominant models that relate to social power structures and policies.
These models, which during long time had been religious and dogmatic, allowed social and economic control by the dominant political groups.
When the elites imposed a system of knowledge, they ensured political control and enjoyment of the economic and social privileges that ensued.
Modern history of dogmatism
The process of replacing European dogmatic religious systems began early in the "Middle Ages". Revolutionary minds were sheltered in the medieval "Universities" and urban centers ("boroughs" or "burgos") that developed through the demographic and commercial expansion of the ecumenical regions.
Discrepant with dogmas were declared "heretics.".  Some, like Giordano Bruno and Thomas More were executed for their beliefs that went against the principles and standards set by the political and religious castes. Others, like Nicolaus Copernicus or Galileo Galilei, were criticized bitterly, forced to recant, dismissed or persecuted for their ideas.
The new ideological systems put aside philosophical structures which were based on biblical, canonical and Greco-Roman influences.

With the triumph of the European industrialist revolution, new knowledge systems developed, leaving aside religious and dogmatic geocentric approaches.
The new economic and political structures engendered a system of knowledge based on a network of academic, corporate and government institutions.
Whatever is accepted by this "network" is defined as "official" knowledge and determine the projects that will be supported and articles or books that will be published.
According to the work of Thomas S. Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" (expanded edition, 1970), the (official) "normal" scientific research cares little about search news of importance, both in the field of concepts in such phenomena. From what point it is to develop more precisely the accepted conceptual frames as well as obtain data "confirm" what is already known.
James Lovelock points out in his paper "The Ages of Gaia" (1988) that "...academic scientists may think they are free but in reality most of them "freedom of thought have changed for good working conditions, a regular income, a fee and A Hostel. They are also limited by an army of bureaucratic forces from funding agencies to health and safety organizations. Scientists are also limited by tribal rules of discipline they belong A physicist would have difficulties in chemistry and a biologist would find it almost impossible to do physically. To complete the above, in recent years the "purity" of science is more closely guarded by a self imposed inquisition called peers review"
Thomas S. Kuhn calls normal science or "paradigm"  the current scientific model or system.
The paradigm of normal science in Kuhn's vision is the set of theories, rules, procedures and knowledge that permeate a particular society at a particular time in its history. Today it applies to the scientific "model" widely adopted in the modern globalized society.

In this "globalized" official intellectual system, scientific construction works through the accumulation of scientific data that allows (supposedly) to develop more and better knowledge. However, what it does, is to achieve greater detail in the practical application of already accepted scientific models, but not to change it.
There is no method in this official paradigm (or in any other dominant paradigm) that would establish a new "whole model"  accepting other theories or applying other rules or procedures that may end up radically changing the recognized model.
The main difficulty of changing the official paradigm lies in the fact that a radical paradigm shift involves altering power relations.
Politically, the holders of paradigmatic power are those in decision-making positions. Economically, they are benefiting from its privileged position in the structure of knowledge. Academically, they defend the prestige and economic security that give academic and professional positions they occupy.
In short, the struggle for the preservation of the paradigm by its leading proponent is mainly and sosmetimes exclusively posed in terms of power.
Danilo Anton

Nearly all great scientists start out as heretics 

Nailing their theories to the door of conventional scientific wisdom. Galileo, Darwin and Einstein were all at some point in a minority of one; Alfred Wegener was dead before continental drift was taken seriously. So somewhere today there is a scientific heretic being ridiculed by the orthodox scientific clerisy, but who will later be recognised as a visionary. Trouble is, the fact that all great scientists were heretics does not mean that all heretics are right.

Science is plagued by self-proclaimed geniuses furious at the establishment's refusal to recognise their disproof of relativity. It is easy to judge heretics in retrospect. Ignaz Semmelweis was the Viennese physician who noticed in 1847 that doctors were killing women by not washing their hands in between dissecting corpses and delivering their babies. The death rate from childbed fever was twice as high for doctor-assisted births as it was for midwife-assisted births. But Semmelweis's reward for pointing this out was vilification, ostracism and eventually the insane asylum, where he died. All over the world, doctors resisted the idea of antiseptic hygiene. Take the surgeon who treated US president James Garfield after he was shot in 1881 - he invited colleagues to probe the wound with their fingers. Garfield died two months later from infection, not injury.That could never happen now, could it? Well, consider the case of Barry Marshall, the Australian medical researcher who in the 1980s suggested that stomach ulcers are caused by bacteria, not stress and spicy food. Antacid drugs were among the pharmaceutical industry's biggest cash cows at the time, and Marshall's theory was dismissed. So he infected himself by drinking a brew of Helicobacter pylori, then cured himself with antibiotics. The bacterial theory was still not accepted for many years, but it won him the Nobel prize in 2005. Or take dietary fat. As recounted in Gary Taubes's book The Diet Delusion, the hypothesis that fatty food was responsible for heart disease became an article of faith with the medical establishment despite studies failing to verify the link. But by citing only the relatively few studies that did find a correlation, and ignoring the ones that did not, a powerful body of evidence was assembled. Heretics who said that dietary carbohydrate mattered more were brushed aside until very recently.Yet I could cite just as many heretics who were ignored and were wrong. Peter Duesberg, who believes that HIV does not cause Aids, and Andrew Wakefield, who thought the MMR vaccine caused autism, have their tales of ranks closing against them, as do various kinds of intelligent designers. Right on the cusp of plausibility, in my view, lies the heresy championed by Edward Hooper in his book The River, that the Aids epidemic may have been started by trials of experimental polio vaccines in Congo and Burundi in the late 1950s. I hope it is not true, yet I have always thought the circumstantial evidence Hooper exhaustively gathered was strong enough to merit serious discussion. Early, live polio vaccines were indeed contaminated with animal viruses such as SV40; huge vaccine trials were done in the year before the oldest surviving HIV-positive blood sample was taken and in areas where Aids epidemics later broke out among the young adults likely to have been vaccinated as children; and a large chimpanzee colony was maintained for polio research by the very team developing the vaccine in the Congo (HIV is a chimp virus). But there are some good arguments against the theory: the family tree of the virus seems to show earlier infection of human beings, and no sample of chimp tissue used for locally amplifying the vaccine has ever come to light. Scientists are human. They allow their prejudices, their interests and their loyalties to get in the way of reason. Sometimes, ideas in science cannot prevail until their diehard opponents have died hard. Theory, it is said, advances "funeral by funeral". And as for the financial heretics? Yes, I also wish I had listened more to them.

This article was taken from the October issue of Wired UK magazine

Nearly all great  scientists start out as heretics 

Nailing their theories to the door of conventional scientific wisdom. Galileo, Darwin and Einstein were all at some point in a minority of one.

Alfred Wegener was dead before continental drift was taken seriously. So somewhere today there is a scientific heretic being ridiculed by the orthodox scientific clerisy, but who will later be recognised as a visionary. Trouble is, the fact that all great scientists were heretics does not mean that all heretics are right. Science is plagued by self-proclaimed geniuses furious at the establishment's refusal to recognise their disproof of relativity. It is easy to judge heretics in retrospect. Ignaz Semmelweis was the Viennese physician who noticed in 1847 that doctors were killing women by not washing their hands in between dissecting corpses and delivering their babies. The death rate from childbed fever was twice as high for doctor-assisted births as it was for midwife-assisted births. But Semmelweis's reward for pointing this out was vilification, ostracism and eventually the insane asylum, where he died. All over the world, doctors resisted the idea of antiseptic hygiene. Take the surgeon who treated US president James Garfield after he was shot in 1881 - he invited colleagues to probe the wound with their fingers. Garfield died two months later from infection, not injury.

That could never happen now, could it? Well, consider the case of Barry Marshall, the Australian medical researcher who in the 1980s suggested that stomach ulcers are caused by bacteria, not stress and spicy food. Antacid drugs were among the pharmaceutical industry's biggest cash cows at the time, and Marshall's theory was dismissed. So he infected himself by drinking a brew of Helicobacter pylori, then cured himself with antibiotics. The bacterial theory was still not accepted for many years, but it won him the Nobel prize in 2005. Or take dietary fat. As recounted in Gary Taubes's book The Diet Delusion, the hypothesis that fatty food was responsible for heart disease became an article of faith with the medical establishment despite studies failing to verify the link. But by citing only the relatively few studies that did find a correlation, and ignoring the ones that did not, a powerful body of evidence was assembled. Heretics who said that dietary carbohydrate mattered more were brushed aside until very recently.Yet I could cite just as many heretics who were ignored and were wrong. Peter Duesberg, who believes that HIV does not cause Aids, and Andrew Wakefield, who thought the MMR vaccine caused autism, have their tales of ranks closing against them, as do various kinds of intelligent designers. Right on the cusp of plausibility, in my view, lies the heresy championed by Edward Hooper in his book The River, that the Aids epidemic may have been started by trials of experimental polio vaccines in Congo and Burundi in the late 1950s. I hope it is not true, yet I have always thought the circumstantial evidence Hooper exhaustively gathered was strong enough to merit serious discussion. Early, live polio vaccines were indeed contaminated with animal viruses such as SV40; huge vaccine trials were done in the year before the oldest surviving HIV-positive blood sample was taken and in areas where Aids epidemics later broke out among the young adults likely to have been vaccinated as children; and a large chimpanzee colony was maintained for polio research by the very team developing the vaccine in the Congo (HIV is a chimp virus). But there are some good arguments against the theory: the family tree of the virus seems to show earlier infection of human beings, and no sample of chimp tissue used for locally amplifying the vaccine has ever come to light. Scientists are human. They allow their prejudices, their interests and their loyalties to get in the way of reason. Sometimes, ideas in science cannot prevail until their diehard opponents have died hard. Theory, it is said, advances "funeral by funeral". And as for the financial heretics? Yes, I also wish I had listened more to them.

http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2009/10/start/nearly-all-great-scientists-start-out-as-heretics

This article was taken from the October issue of Wired UK magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online

Nearly all great scientists start out as heretics nailing their theories to the door of conventional scientific wisdom. Galileo, Darwin and Einstein were all at some point in a minority of one; Alfred Wegener was dead before continental drift was taken seriously. So somewhere today there is a scientific heretic being ridiculed by the orthodox scientific clerisy, but who will later be recognised as a visionary. Trouble is, the fact that all great scientists were heretics does not mean that all heretics are right. Science is plagued by self-proclaimed geniuses furious at the establishment's refusal to recognise their disproof of relativity. It is easy to judge heretics in retrospect. Ignaz Semmelweis was the Viennese physician who noticed in 1847 that doctors were killing women by not washing their hands in between dissecting corpses and delivering their babies. The death rate from childbed fever was twice as high for doctor-assisted births as it was for midwife-assisted births. But Semmelweis's reward for pointing this out was vilification, ostracism and eventually the insane asylum, where he died. All over the world, doctors resisted the idea of antiseptic hygiene. Take the surgeon who treated US president James Garfield after he was shot in 1881 - he invited colleagues to probe the wound with their fingers. Garfield died two months later from infection, not injury.That could never happen now, could it? Well, consider the case of Barry Marshall, the Australian medical researcher who in the 1980s suggested that stomach ulcers are caused by bacteria, not stress and spicy food. Antacid drugs were among the pharmaceutical industry's biggest cash cows at the time, and Marshall's theory was dismissed. So he infected himself by drinking a brew of Helicobacter pylori, then cured himself with antibiotics. The bacterial theory was still not accepted for many years, but it won him the Nobel prize in 2005. Or take dietary fat. As recounted in Gary Taubes's book The Diet Delusion, the hypothesis that fatty food was responsible for heart disease became an article of faith with the medical establishment despite studies failing to verify the link. But by citing only the relatively few studies that did find a correlation, and ignoring the ones that did not, a powerful body of evidence was assembled. Heretics who said that dietary carbohydrate mattered more were brushed aside until very recently.Yet I could cite just as many heretics who were ignored and were wrong. Peter Duesberg, who believes that HIV does not cause Aids, and Andrew Wakefield, who thought the MMR vaccine caused autism, have their tales of ranks closing against them, as do various kinds of intelligent designers. Right on the cusp of plausibility, in my view, lies the heresy championed by Edward Hooper in his book The River, that the Aids epidemic may have been started by trials of experimental polio vaccines in Congo and Burundi in the late 1950s. I hope it is not true, yet I have always thought the circumstantial evidence Hooper exhaustively gathered was strong enough to merit serious discussion. Early, live polio vaccines were indeed contaminated with animal viruses such as SV40; huge vaccine trials were done in the year before the oldest surviving HIV-positive blood sample was taken and in areas where Aids epidemics later broke out among the young adults likely to have been vaccinated as children; and a large chimpanzee colony was maintained for polio research by the very team developing the vaccine in the Congo (HIV is a chimp virus). But there are some good arguments against the theory: the family tree of the virus seems to show earlier infection of human beings, and no sample of chimp tissue used for locally amplifying the vaccine has ever come to light. Scientists are human. They allow their prejudices, their interests and their loyalties to get in the way of reason. Sometimes, ideas in science cannot prevail until their diehard opponents have died hard. Theory, it is said, advances "funeral by funeral". And as for the financial heretics? Yes, I also wish I had listened more to them.

Heretical thoughts about science and society

An essay by Freeman Dyson [8.7.07]

My first heresy says that all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models. Of course, they say, I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak. But I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in. The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models, than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That is why the climate model experts end up believing their own models.

FEERMAN DYSON is professor of physics at the Institute for Ad

vanced Study, in Princeton. His professional interests are in mathematics and astronomy. Among his many books areDisturbing the Universe, Infinite in All Directions Origins of Life, From Eros to Gaia, Imagined Worlds, and The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet. His most recent book, Many Colored Glass: Reflections on the Place of Life in the Universe (Page Barbour Lectures), is being published this month by University of Virgina Press.
http://edge.org/conversation/heretical-thoughts-about-science-and-society