Crichton on How To Fix Science

Final excerpts from Crichton’s important speech:

And at the moment we have no mechanism to get good answers. So I will propose one.

Just as we have established a tradition of double-blinded research
to determine drug efficacy, we must institute double-blinded research
in other policy areas as well. Certainly the increased use of computer
models, such as GCMs, cries out for the separation of those who make
the models from those who verify them. The fact is that the present
structure of science is entrepeneurial, with individual investigative
teams vying for funding from organizations which all too often have a
clear stake in the outcome of the research-or appear to, which may be
just as bad. This is not healthy for science.

Sooner or later, we must form an independent research institute in
this country. It must be funded by industry, by government, and by
private philanthropy, both individuals and trusts. The money must be
pooled, so that investigators do not know who is paying them. The
institute must fund more than one team to do research in a particular
area, and the verification of results will be a foregone requirement:
teams will know their results will be checked by other groups. In many
cases, those who decide how to gather the data will not gather it, and
those who gather the data will not analyze it. If we were to address
the land temperature records with such rigor, we would be well on our
way to an understanding of exactly how much faith we can place in
global warming, and therefore what seriousness we must address this.

READ THE WHOLE SPEECH.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live." View all posts by Jimmy Akin