Wednesday, January 26, 2011

BBC Horizon with Sir Paul Nurse on climate change and communicating the science

UPDATE: Here is a link to the complete program, with improved definition:
http://bundanga.blogspot.com/2011/02/bbc-horizon-scientists-under-attack.html

Thanks to a post on ClimateProgress, I was able to watch this recent BBC Horizon program via six links on youtube: Note: no longer available - you can watch it on the BBC.

Some messages:

Humans are causing the climate to change at such a rapid rate that it is threatening life as we know it today.

Denier blogger, Delingpole, is brazen (and foolish) enough to say to a Nobel prize winning President of the Royal Society that science is nonsense and peer review doesn't work, at the same time admitting that he, Delingpole, doesn't read scientific papers because he, Delingpole, cannot understand them. (Check out his body language while he is holding forth on his 'opinions' - folded arms, hand over mouth, eye movements etc)

GM radicals are against genetically modified foods because they believe eating food with genes in it is bad. (Apparently some members of the public are not aware that all plants and animals contain genes, which are essential to ongoing life, growth and reproduction.)

We live in a world where 'point of view not peer review holds sway'. Scientists have a responsibility to argue the scientific case. Newspapers report the same news items, one reporting a completely opposite account (of the same event) to the other.

Sir Paul Nurse is a very good ambassador for science. It was a good move made by the Royal Society, to elect him as President.

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