Motus Mentis

Following on our previous post, I”d be remiss not to bring to your attention a white-paper from the French-based Société de Calcul Mathématique, which specializes in complex mathematical modeling, on the “climate change” cryptoreligion.

In the paper’s summary, we read:

All public policies, in France, Europe and throughout the world, find their origin and inspiration in the battle against global warming. The initial credo is simple: temperatures at the surface of the planet have been rising constantly for the past thirty years, and human beings are to blame.

This is leading to all sorts of discussions, conferences and regulations, which are having an enormous impact on our economy. Every area of activity is affected: transport, housing, energy ”“ to name just a few. Why do we need to save energy? It is quite simple: we have to reduce human impact on the planet. This is the fundamental credo.

The impact on the entire field of scientific research is particularly clear and especially pernicious. No project can be launched, on any subject whatsoever, unless it makes direct reference to global warming. You want to look at the geology of the Garonne Basin? It is, after all, an entirely normal and socially useful subject in every respect. Well, your research will be funded, approved and published only if it mentions the potential for geological storage of CO2. It is appalling.

The crusade has invaded every area of activity and everyone”˜s thinking: the battle against CO2 has become a national priority. How have we reached this point, in a country that claims to be rational?

At the root lie the declarations made by the IPPC, which have been repeated over the years and taken up by the European Commission and the Member States. France, which likes to see itself as the ‘good boy of Europe”˜, adds an extra layer of virtue to every crusade. When others introduce reductions, we will on principle introduce bigger reductions, without ever questioning their appropriateness: a crusade is virtuous by its very nature. And you can never be too virtuous.

But mathematicians do not believe in crusades; they look at facts, figures, observations and arguments.

The paper is long, and painstakingly detailed. There is a lot I could excerpt, but I’ll just leave you with this:

Conclusions based on any kind of model should be disregarded. As the SCM specializes in building mathematical models, we should also be recognized as competent to criticize them. Models are useful when attempting to review our knowledge, but they should not be used as an aid to decision-making until they have been validated… validating a climate model requires thousands of years.

… and this:

In a democracy, there is an opposition, and this opposition has a right, in principle, to express its views: this is what distinguishes democracy from dictatorship. But when it comes to the questions about global warming that we are talking about here, the opposition ”“ people who do not believe in global warming ”“ have been told to shut up: no public debate, no contradictory discourse, no articles in scientific journals. They have simply been told that the case is proven and it is time to take action.

In law, there is a fundamental principle known as the “adversarial principle”. A case can be thrown out of court if the defense is not informed of every known element of the accusation. Even if twenty people have witnessed the abominable criminal commit his offense, if the defense has not had access to blood-sample analyses, the case will be thrown out. In the case of global warming, a number of bodies are telling us they have all the evidence, but refuse to tell us what it is. The data have been processed, but how? Time series have been altered, but why? Some phenomena have been left out of the equation, but on what grounds? We do not know, and we are simply required to keep quiet and do what we are told. No second opinion is permitted. It is on the debris of the fundamental principles of the law and of democracy that this White Paper has been written.

And that’s the point: how is it possible, in this era of universal doubt — in which every sacred thing, every founding principle and honored tradition, is dissolved in the acid of radical skepticism — that we are to be shunned, reviled, and kicked to the curb for doubting this? What more evidence do you need in order to understand that we are confronting, here, our new official religion?

Read the whole thing here.