I am afraid there will be few posts today. I was working on a post this morning when my browser crashed, and I was unable to salvage it. And, as work is rather busy and I am under the weather, I don't think I will get to much writing today.

So,  to make up for my lack of writing, allow me to pass along two good links from junkscience.com. First, an entertaining analysis of absurd claims made about the GM Volt. Second, an interesting article on the weakness of claims about carbon.

If things should quiet down, I may write a bit on the rhetoric of environmentalism, as I had some thoughts on that topic, but it seems far more likely I won't be posting anything until tomorrow.

POSTSCRIPT

The post I mention at the beginning was, unfortunately, lost when my browser crashed. As I do not plan on rewriting it, as it was long and involved, it was a reexamination of the "capture" argument I made in "The Failure of Peer Review". I looked at the theories explaining the K-T extinction event and argued that pop-science and the popular media placed so much emphasis on asteroid theories that funding (and interest) dried up for all competing theories, leading to pop-science driving real science. Because much funding is allocated by politicians and bureaucrats who draw their understanding from the popular media, when a theory gains the approval of the popular media, that theory tends to predominate in science as well. And the K-T extinction is a perfect example, as after about 2000 you no longer heard about the extensive evidence that it took thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of years, and all we heard about were iridium layers and "sudden extinctions". Even when evidence was found in the Yucatan of limestone layers containing creatures alive 300,000 years after the extinction event, it was ignored. I then linked this to the way that AGW, being supported by government funds, has captured the journals and many schools, making itself the accepted orthodoxy and effectively excluding dissenting voices. (NOTE: I did not say the asteroid theory is wrong, just that it was bizarre how prior to about 2000 there were dozens of accepted theories and suddenly, when popular attention drove the asteroid theory to the forefront of public opinion, all other theories suddenly became "fringe beliefs". At least in the popular scientific media, and the popular scientific press is what matters, as it sets public agendas, drives a lot of funding, and generally has much more impact than serious scientists would like to admit.)

POSTSCRIPT II

Having read my summary, I may eventually revisit my lost post, as the importance of popular press in setting scientific agendas is an interesting topic, as is the way that orthodoxies can capture a discipline. In addition I made the significant point that, no matter how incredible our system of research is, how great our process of peer review and the scientific method is, it is still designed by humans and inherently imperfect. In addition, if all men share a mistake, no system is going to be enough on its own to eliminate that mistake. Once men agree to an error, it is very hard to eliminate that error, regardless of what tools we have. So revisiting those thoughts may be worthwhile when I feel a bit better and have more time.

On an unrelated note, I may also look at how the 1996 IPCC report was rewritten by the bureaucrats to match the "Summary for Policymakers", rather than writing a summary to match the report. It is interesting as it shows how little impact scientific research might have on the public perception, as well as pointing out how scientific research can be hijacked and twisted to serve a political end, giving the impression scientific evidence supports a position it does not. It also is the model upon which all future IPCC reports were based, making it historically interesting as well.

But all of that will have to wait until I have more time and energy, but check back soon, I doubt I will be silent long.

UPDATE

I need to clarify something I said above. When I say "ignored", I do not mean serious science ignored it. What I do mean was that popular coverage was minimal. And, as with most subjects, when little interest is shown in an area, little funding is put into it as well. And, honestly, no matter how scrupulous scientists may be in following every lead, without funds very little science takes place, meaning that topics drawing little interest in the public at large do not get much follow up.

My point being that scientists may themselves be more honest in their appraisals of theories, but thanks to the nature of modern science, largely captive to public funding, or private funding which mostly follows public funding, popular impressions have much more impact on the direction science takes than anything else.