General

Scientists condemn climate change attacks

Hundreds of researchers sign an open letter against “political assaults”

In an attempt to fight the bad press swirling around the climategate scandal and restore public faith in climate research, 255 of the world’s leading scientists have written an open letter condemning attacks driven by “special interests or dogma” and “McCarthy-like” threats. The letter explains that scientists aren’t perfect, but that some theories, such as the Big Bang and Darwin’s theory of evolution, have such overwhelming and thoroughly tested evidence in their favour that they can basically be spoken of as facts. The researchers add that climate change now enjoys that same support in the scientific community, but that because of science’s adversarial nature, it’s easy for people seeking “fame” to take potshots at the theory. “There is nothing remotely identified in the recent events that changes the fundamental conclusions about climate change,” the letter says. The letter bears the signatures of 11 Nobel laureates, senior researchers from Cambridge, Oxford and Manchester universities, and a host of top anthropologists, biochemists and physicists. “Many recent assaults on climate science and, more disturbingly, on climate scientists by climate change deniers, are typically driven by special interests or dogma, not by an honest effort to provide an alternative theory that credibly satisfies the evidence,” says the letter.

Guardian

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