San Marino. “If the scientist cheats … we learn humility”
We receive and publish a reflection by Don Gabriele Mangiarotti:
In the years of my school childhood I often repeated this phrase: “Historia magistra vitae”, trying with this to give value to a certainly demanding and tiring study. Then, recently, we listened to the Italian minister for technological innovation Roberto Cingolani, and his impromptu statement on the low workability of the study of the Punic wars. Thus justifying the many advantages in the usefulness of the story itself and of the study.
Then you happen to read articles, exhumed from social networks, which show you how history must be taken into consideration so as not to be deceived by the vulgate of the power of the moment. And I believe that a memory of what is being served up to us in these days compared to what was stated only a short time before in its opposite would not do us much harm.
Here’s what I’ve been rereading lately. I propose it again as an invitation to a greater critical sense in reading information. And this may perhaps also apply to those who work by profession in the world of communication. That world that is so quick to eliminate uncomfortable, counter-current, non-aligned voices (and I have some personal experience of this, unfortunately).
Pierluigi Battista wrote in the weekly magazine Sette, of Corriere della Sera, on December 3, 2009: “IF THE SCIENTIST MAKES
Get caught with your hands on your computer doing tricks and faking climate data. And they laugh, and they are smart
Yes, but this is not done. Well the battle for the environment, for the climate, for the sky and the earth, but we should not cheat: but what does these illustrious structures who send each other emails to alter the data on heating figure? And if they say it, and laugh at it, and play smart. And if there wasn’t a hacker (not Michael Crichton) we wouldn’t even know.
However. I would not have had that a scientist wrote a colleague of his: “I have just finished the procedures on the change in the last two millennia and I was able to use Michael Mann’s trick to have the temperature decline in some series starting in 1981”. Or also: “The fact is that at the moment we cannot account for the lack of heating, it is a fiction that we cannot afford. The data is certainly wrong. Our observation system is inadequate ”.
And again: “I would really like to be more positive about that material, but I swear I used the tricks I know to come up with something … The data is interesting, but there is a difference and I don’t think it would be productive to manipulate the statistics any more than has already done “.
But it does not do so. Scientists who speak of “tricks”, of “fictions”, of “statistical manipulations”? There is a good cause why those engaged on the global warming front respond to their critics by deliberately altering the data, hiding the uncomfortable ones, wisely manipulating figures, numbers, series, to make one thesis triumph over another or even to to convince the governments of the world to spend considerable sums? Of course, you don’t intrude on other people’s emails. Of course, this is an espionage operation with truly despicable purposes. But in short, members of scientific bodies that should provide objective data to governments tell themselves that they have falsified the data, there is something wrong. There is a suspicion of forgery of all data. There is a perception that he cannot really trust not science, but studies. Among other things, those caught with their hands in the computer cover their opponents with insults, accused of anti-scientificity. But with what courage. And how could their data be judged from now on? Of course, the cause is holy. The defense of the environment is a noble reason. And generous is the one against the danger of climate catastrophe. But, in short, this is not done. He is not fooled. Point.”
What was the name of Andersen’s fable? “The Emperor’s Underpants”? Or “The king is naked”? Be that as it may, it reminds us that using reason and rejecting politically correct and pundits would be a good exercise of thought, to remain free in our judgments. (taking into account that even the wallet would gain).