Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!

[llamabeast]

Thanks for the answer Max.

Let me turn your question around: why was Ignatz Semmelweiss a pariah for decades in the medical community, when listening to him was really in everyone's best interest? (To the extent that his discovery, today, would elicit nothing but "Duh. Of course washing your hands reduces infection rates.")

Well, I think it's obviously the case that there can be enormous inertia in the scientific community, such that obviously correct things can sometimes be resisted for a long time. I definitely wouldn't claim that the scientific consensus is always correct.

However, this is kind of the opposite, in that a very large number of scientists have started believing in a new theory (manmade global warming) and abandoned the status quo to do so. People didn't believe in it in, say, the 70s, and it wasn't a very nice thing to start believing in either. I understand that the early proponents of manmade global warming experienced considerable resistance to their ideas, as you'd expect. But now, I think it's fair to say that a majority of scientists and public bodies accept manmade global warming. Can you think of another example where there has been a mass move away from the status quo to a new theory which turns out to be wrong (or at least, wronger than the old one)? I feel there would have to be quite compelling evidence to cause that kind of shift.

I suppose my approach in thinking about this is really to look at the trends in people's beliefs rather than the science itself, at least for the sake of this discussion. I actually had a course in atmospheric chemistry in my undergrad chemistry degree at cambridge, and it was made completely clear that climate change was a real issue, the whole background was explained, and it seemed entirely non-controversial. Of course, it could easily be argued that my lecturers were biased, or misled. Whoever gives the information can make a convincing case in either direction (in a matter with so very much evidence, it is easy to find enough to thoroughly support either side which makes it all but impossible to judge the validity of presented arguments). So this brings me back to the question of why there should be so many biased/misled scientists who believe in this rather uncomfortable idea of manmade global warming in the first place.

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by llamabeast

Can you think of another example where there has been a mass move away from the status quo to a new theory which turns out to be wrong (or at least, wronger than the old one)? I feel there would have to be quite compelling evidence to cause that kind of shift.

You know, llamabeast, I don't know. I'm not much of a scientific historian. (I mean, I could say "what about phrenology?" but I don't know whether it ever caught on to the degree you're asking for.) If you were to go looking for precedent, you'd probably have to look in a field that has the salient characteristics of climatology: the subject is too complex for experimental study, so experiments focus on studying the behavior of simplified models of the subject. The only other field I know of like that is economics, but as I said I don't know much about the history of economic theory so I don't know whether it's experienced fads.

-Max