Peer review

At risk of being pilloried, I am going to wade in on the topic of peer review.

First, let me say that I absolutely agree with the general practice of peer review of scientific and technical claims/assertions/findings etc. I have served on a technical review board, have reviewed many papers, actually killed one or two (not for being inaccurate but rather for being obvious advertising without any new information), and have written papers that were subjected to review prior to publication. I wholeheartedly support the practice.

But when it comes to discerning what is truth, what are the "real facts", peer review is only a means to filter out some unfounded claims. It does not make something be fact, nor does peer-rejection make it not fact.

The planet is round. It matters not how many people once thought it was not, nor how many might have said "right on" to their peers who said it was not. Facts are facts.

What we humans do that seems to pretty much distinguish us from most other organisms (I can't prove that, don't know it is fact) is actually attempt to discern the truth, including underlying causes. We are curious about where the world came from, where humans came from, and where both are going. Science is all about a disciplined process to answer questions, often raising more along the way. But humans in general, with that curiosity and without the patience and training of the scientific method, tend to spin yarns to answer those questions, declare them to be truth, and say "right on" to each other. Thus the stories of creationism, of the world carried on the back of a turtle, of all the major – and minor - religions...

Peer review is an important means to vet claims that appear to go against "conventional wisdom". Requiring independent corroboration before running off tilting at yet another windmill is essential if true progress is to occur. BUT, and here is where I tread on dangerous ground: peer-review neither proves nor disproves the accuracy of any assertion. It merely improves the apparent probability of accuracy. So where AG and others rightfully point out that the naysayers with their claims that things are really rosy and a black pall over our cities is A-OK have no peer review to substantiate them, there is a risk, in my mind, of overplaying that card. The creationists responded to such criticism by - guess what - assembling a group of peers to review their claims!

So in my mind it is more important to point out the indisputable facts, such as receding glaciers, and then throw Cheney's 2% rule back in their faces. Disregarding any debate over whether humans can/do have an affect on this disturbing trend, if there is a 2% (or even less) possibility that the world as we know it is going to come to an end within a generation or two, and that we can do anything about it, then it is worth doing. Period. QED.

Those arguing that it is not yet proven haven't a leg to stand on against the potential imminence of doom. It's like the old ant and grasshopper story.

I'm not saying that criticizing a ridiculous statement with the fact that it has not been substantiated by independent means and/or peer review is inappropriate. I just think we run a risk of overplaying it when the REAL issue is the question of what is fact, and the probability of any efforts we might make having a payback.

The FACT is that, global warming aside, we are screwing up our environment at an appalling pace. Denuding the rainforests and building palls of smog over all cities, killing off forests with acid rain, paving more and more of the surface to permit more and more vehicles to crowd into traffic jams, is rapidly destroying our beautiful, potentially unique-in-the-universe, planet. Whether there are others out there is a matter of speculation, but the probability of there being any within several lightyears is demonstrably very near zero. So we as a species have nowhere to go and we are fouling our nest. The naysayers like GHWB a couple of decades ago mocking "treehuggers" for impeding "progress" are flat-out wrong. REGARDLESS of how soon the overriding risk of global warming might bring an end to the fragile balance we have enjoyed for thousands of years, we are screwing the place up with too many people, too much garbage, too much irresponsible destruction of the ecosystem. This is inarguable. The only counter that has ever been offerred is "but you are talking about hurting the economy". You won't find many people, even CEO of an oil company, who will say "I personally prefer swimming in sludge to golfing in Hawaii".

So the "fringe benefits" of responding positively to the risk, however small you want to say it is, of global catastrophe, are ALL GOOD. The short-term economic impact to this company or that of needing to pollute less is immaterial. In the grand scheme of things, we as a people (the entire global population) need to look out for our planet. We have demonstrated we are capable of destroying beauty and creating ugliness. We have demonstrated we are capable of making air unbreathable, water undrinkable. We have demonstrated we are capable of destroying entire ecosystems and making species extinct. We now suspect that we are capable of actually bringing down the entire fragile balance. How can any sane person argue that we must have incontrovertable proof of the risk before doing anything about it? We cannot, must not, get drawn into debate over peer-review and absolute proof. It can be turned against us as a form of obfuscation.