Would You Trust The National Academies Of Science To Tell You How Science Works?

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  • My last two posts have been about the new Federal Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, just out (December 31) from the Federal Justice Center. The Chair of that Center is U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts. The latest version of the Manual is the Fourth Edition. The prior version in 2011 was the Third Edition; and there were also two prior Editions from 2000 and 1994.

  • In those previous two posts, I principally criticized a newly-added chapter in the Fourth Edition titled “Reference Guide on Climate Science.” Today, I want to take a look at another chapter titled “How Science Works.”

  • There was no such chapter in the First Edition, but a chapter by that title, written by a guy named David Goodstein (an Emeritus Professor at Caltech), was added in the Second Edition. In the Third Edition, Goodstein’s chapter was somewhat modified and slightly expanded (from 16 pages to 18). Goodstein died in 2024, and in the Fourth Edition he has been replaced by Michael Weisberg and Anastasia Thanukos, who have now produced a chapter with the same title, but now running to some 61 pages.

  • In my January 31 post, my comment on the Weisberg/Thanukos work product was that it was “not too terrible,” but that it was “way longer than it needs to be” and “the most important points are buried.” Further comparing this chapter to the chapter on (so-called) “climate science” (which is entirely hoakum) I continue the view that there are some good points here. However, there are also some serious flaws, and I don’t want to move on without pointing some of those out.

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More On The Federal Judicial Center And The Attribution Scam

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  • As discussed in the previous post, the Federal Judicial Center’s recently-updated Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence contains a new chapter on Climate Science. That chapter focuses on the promoting the hocus pocus of “attribution” studies that seek to blame every latest hurricane or flood or drought on human emissions of CO2, and thus on fossil fuel producers in particular.

  • In my post, I characterized the authors’ write-up of the methodology of these attribution studies as relying on “logical fallacy,” and as “double-talk and bafflegab.” But I think that I inadequately articulated the nature of the fallacy. So I will try to correct that here.

  • The heart of the problem is that science is all about hypotheses being subject to empirical test against real world evidence.

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The New Federal Reference Manual On Scientific Evidence: All The Smartest People Get Hoodwinked By The Climate Charlatans

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The New Federal Reference Manual On Scientific Evidence: All The Smartest People Get Hoodwinked By The Climate Charlatans

  • It is truly remarkable how easy it is to fool the smartest people. And especially when you tell them they are helping to save the world.

  • So something called the Federal Judicial Center has just come out with a new edition, the 4th, of something called the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence. The publication date appears to be December 31, 2025.

  • The idea that the federal government, and in particular the judiciary, needs a reference manual on scientific evidence seems to date from the 1990s. The courts, then as now, were facing an increasing volume of cases involving complex scientific evidence; and meanwhile almost none of the judges are trained in science. Best to provide them with a good grounding in the basics. Fortunately, back in the 60s Congress had established something called the Federal Judicial Center as a “research and education agency” of the judicial branch. Here was the perfect opportunity for that bureaucracy to expand their mission and budget.

  • In this latest version of the Reference Manual, the FJC has totally lost its way. Somehow, it got captured by a clique of climate charlatans who have inserted a lengthy section that is anti-science and based on logical fallacy. And many dozens of seemingly smart people who were supposedly reviewing this have gotten hoodwinked.

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"Affordability": Two Theories Of How To Achieve It

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"Affordability": Two Theories Of How To Achieve It

  • “Affordability.” That’s the new political mantra of Democratic politicians. Or maybe it’s one of two mantras, the other being that deporting illegal aliens makes ICE the modern-day “Gestapo.”

  • So, how to achieve “affordability”? There are two approaches, which are essentially opposites of each other. Can they both be right?

  • Approach Number 1 is that the government orders producers not to increase prices, and sometimes also offers handouts of one sort or another to favored constituencies to reduce their effective costs. Approach Number 2 is that the government mostly keeps out of the relationship between producers and consumers, and thereby makes the producers reduce their costs if they want to attract customers.

  • My observation would be that there exists an enormous amount of evidence on this subject, all of which supports that proposition that Approach Number 2 works, while Approach Number 1 is counter-productive. But maybe that’s just me.

  • So there was Mikie Sherrill last week in Newark, getting inaugurated as the new (Democratic) Governor of New Jersey.

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Mann v. Steyn: Finally Ready For Appeal?

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  • Way back in 2012, climate “scientist” Michael Mann, then at Penn State University, sued four defendants for defamation. The four were commentators Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg, who had written blog posts about Mann, and National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, entities which had respectively hosted the Steyn and Simberg posts.

  • The occasion for the Steyn and Simberg posts was that independent investigator Louis Freeh had issued a Report that had castigated Penn State President Graham Spanier for having whitewashed the conduct of the university’s assistant football coach, Jerry Sandusky, in a sex abuse scandal. Steyn and Simberg had compared Spanier’s exoneration of Sandusky to his exoneration two years previously of the university’s star climate science professor, Mann, after the so-called “ClimateGate” emails had shown Mann deeply involved in data manipulation schemes to support the narrative of climate apocalypse.

  • Here we are now in 2026, more than 13 years later. The Mann v. Steyn case has gone through a truly incredible procedural history, including multiple motions to dismiss, two appeals to the D.C. Court of Appeals (different from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals), a certiorari petition to the Supreme Court, a jury trial after remand (in 2024), and a bevy of post-trial motions. I have previously had numerous posts covering this case, including the trial and subsequent developments. My most recent post was this one from March 2025, covering the trial judge’s decisions on most of the post-trial motions.

  • A few days ago, on January 22, the trial judge finally issued a decision that appears to resolve the last of the post-trial motions.

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Announcing A Live Event In New York: Net Zero And Freedom

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Announcing A Live Event In New York: Net Zero And Freedom

  • When it comes to using government coercion to force a multi-trillion dollar “net zero” energy transition, many things can go wrong.

  • At this website I have focused on multiple potential calamities likely to flow from this effort: things like whether the proposed “renewable” wind and solar generators can actually work, whether they can produce sufficient electricity and at the right times, how much energy storage would be needed, the risk of blackouts, and how much all of this would inevitably cost.

  • My list of potential calamities is far from comprehensive. Here is a huge issue that I have barely touched upon: The threat to human freedom posed by the process of forcing this energy transition.

  • My friends at Net Zero Watch are now setting out to cure that omission.

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