On the BBC there was an interview of Sir Paul Nurse, president of the British Royal Society with climate sceptic James Delingpole, a man with a long record of copying ill-informed sceptical claims and attacking climate scientists. In the interview Delingpole admits he doesn’t actually has scientific expertise, but is “an interpreter of interpretations”.
Of course, Delingpole is wrong when he says science doesn’t work with ‘consensus’. As I explained before it’s a philosophical perversity that from a certain point of view we cannot “proof” something is right. And science therefore actually ALWAYS works with a consensus. This is a matter of philosophy of science, and important to understand.
Neven mentioned this Delingpole-video in my previous blogpost (in Dutch) as an example of how people copy things without checking their sources, and indeed Delingpole is an important source of information in the Dutch blogosphere for people like Hans Labohm, Joost Van Kasteren or Hajo Smit, while interpreting things of an interpreter of interpretations of a science someone isn’t qualified in might not be the best thing to do.
EDIT : the whole BBC-series can be seen here
