Originally Posted by julianh72
may i suggest ...
Don't rely on the headlines in the popular press, or claims by "interest groups" - always go to the source documents, and check what was actually said - and by whom!
Whenever you see an alarmist headline in the popular press, or on the evening news, or on a blog site, or on any of a myriad of other sources, that says something like "scientists say ..." or "experts predict ...", that it is almost invariably not an accurate reflection of what was actually said!
If the science which is being reported is any good, it should have already been peer-reviewed, and if it is making predictions, there should be some statement of confidence ranges expressed. Journalists are interested in a scary headline, and are rarely very good at checking whether the work is peer-reviewed, or why peer-reviewed work is inherently more valuable than non-peer-reviewed work, and they often don't understand confidence intervals, ranges, standard deviations and so on.
An authoritative paper which reports that a model suggests that summer polar ice could disappear within 40 years (plus or minus twenty, say), but goes on to point out there is a list of unverified variables which need validation and further study and refinement, will be reported as "scientists say ice will be gone within twenty years". (journalists like to quote the lower-bound time-range, and the upper-bound outcome, because it is a lot scarier than quoting the ranges, or the more meaningful mean values.)
within a few years, the worst-case scenario will often be found to have not happened, and the next thing you know, the inaccurate early reporting will be quoted as "proof" that the models are worthless, and scientists don't know what is actually going on.
(and if you actually talk to the scientists involved, they will freely admit what they don't know, but it is a good bet that they know a damn-sight more than the journalists ever did!)
|