A Scientist's Duty

Recently read an article about how a scientist specializing in the study of polar bears had been disinvited from some scientific conference in Copenhagen because his findings don't jibe with the conventional "so-called" wisom with regard to global warming. But doesn't the very fact that these attendees are scientists preclude them from excluding someone based on "idealogy". Isn't the very nature of science supposed to be inquisition and openness to ideas and theory, and the use of empirical data and objective observation to support these ideas and theories? And isn't there either a certain arrogance or incompetence displayed by scientists who openly dismiss a colleague who subscribes to an equally valid and equally compelling theory... especially a colleague who specializes in the very subject matter which is at issue? Where do these people get off? So this guy doesn't subscribe to man-made global warming as a catastrophic threat to life as we know it. He's not just some nut that was trawled off the street in some random city somewhere... he's been in the field for 30 years collecting data and observing these animals and their environment firsthand.

Do I need to point out that barely more than 500 years ago, conventional wisdom still held that the world was flat? Or that before Copernicus in the 1500's, it was considered a fact that the Earth was the center of the universe? How about the "fact" that lobotomies were a cure for countless mental afflictions, practiced with regularity in some countries right up into the 1980's? The point is that science and consensus facts are constantly evolving and changing as instruments and methodologies improve and new observations are made. And while a consensus is not in and of itself a bad thing when the data points in a particular direction, a failure to be open to contrarian viewpoints and contradictory data cheapens the process and casts doubt on the conclusions of the scientists drawing them up. It is the duty of any research scientist with a theory to go where the science and the data takes him or her, and not where their personal wonts and proclivities would lead.