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By Die kalte Sonne

(Translated by P. Gosselin)

The climate issue now dominates almost all areas of life. This makes it all the more important that the arguments of the critics of the climate alarm are finally heard seriously. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

On the contrary, those who do not support the alarm line will be publicly scolded, possibly obstructing their career and future. An almost perfectly controlled opinion system has been established.

Has something like this existed before? Have there been cases where good arguments were ignored for far too long, where critics had to fear reprisals, to the point where they were finally proved right and public opinion suddenly turned? Yes, there have been such cases. It seems to be a basic psychological pattern in human society to regard one side as the only valid truth in controversial debates and to present competing opinions as the misguided misconceptions of some madmen. The following three examples illustrate this:

1. The case of Claas Relotius

I’m sure you know the case. A Spiegel editor (Claas Relotius), who was highly respected at the time and showered with prizes, had incorporated years of invented facts into his reports. When another reporter (Juan Moreno) found out about his colleague, his superiors did not believe him at first, although he provided good evidence. This went so far that he was threatened with termination of his contract.

Moreno fought for his professional survival and was able to convict Relotius in the end. You can read in Moreno’s exciting book “Thousand Lines of Lies: The Relotius System and German Journalism“.

2. Doping in cycling

For many years, professional doping was used in cycling, and it is probably still the case today. Whoever wanted to make the manipulations public was done in the cycling scene. The best example was the multiple Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, who defended himself against all accusations legally and otherwise with great effort. In the end, everything was discovered.

In January 2013 Armstrong confessed his doping past in an interview with Oprah Winfrey. Read the book “The Cycling Mafia and its dirty business” by Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle.

3. The rejection of continental drift

Today we know that the continents are moving. When Alfred Wegener proposed this at the beginning of the 20th century, he was laughed at and ridiculed. Long after his death it turned out that he was right. We had reported about it here in the blog (“Plate tectonics is catching on: Lessons for the Climate Debate” and “Continental Shift and Climate Change: The Miraculous Repetition of the History of Science“). A comprehensive treatise on the subject was published by Naomi Oreskes in her book “The Rejection of Continental Drift: Theory and Method in American Earth Science“.

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4. Alzheimer’s cabal

Another example of rampant dogmatism in science to add here is: “The maddening saga of how an Alzheimer’s ‘cabal’ thwarted progress toward a cure for decades” by Sharon Begley.

Her report exposes how a “cabal” of “influential researchers have long believed so dogmatically in one theory of Alzheimer’s that they systematically thwarted alternative approaches.” Had it not been for this dogmatism, “we would be 10 or 15 years ahead of where we are now,” said Dr. Daniel Alkon, a longtime NIH neuroscientist who started a company to develop an Alzheimer’s treatment.