Other scientists take funding from organisations that are also interested in specific outcomes. Lamb producers fund research and surprise, surprise red meat is recommended as part of a healthy diet.
If a young scientist is employed (as PhD student, post doctoral or working scientist) in an organisation, their are often spoken & unspoken boundaries around which they do their research. Once the research is published, hedged with as many ifs, buts, perhaps, etc the referees then contribute to the wording of published papers.
With a climate science, the huge amount of data produced by experimentation is quite often only understandable once massaged through series of models and data manipulation. Secondary evidence such as tree ring analysis (dendrochronology) is based on assumptions about their rings and what they mean.
Thus it may be relatively easy for the same data to be interpreted in different ways by different scientists. So long as the data is published, repeated, vigorously discussed and continued, the scientist will work towards a moderate consensus. Until the next leap or major idea changing the interpretation.
The signal to noise ratio is open to interpretation also.
Politicians and the public need to also take leaps of policy based on incomplete data. The data is always incomplete because we are human and fallible. And often doing stuff before its too late is what we need to do.
The point about the climate data is that it will continue to grow in complexity and meaning. Exactly what policies we make based on the data is also complex, probably wrong and largely ineffectual.
Perhaps Tony Abbott, some economists and my son are right.
A carbon tax is what is needed!
Let the debate rage
