Please. Your science "god" has made a lot more than one big mistake that he's had to retract, he's not very highly regarded by his peers anymore, and his reputation (in the scientific community) is declining almost as quickly as his health. But please continue to worship at his altar.
Yes, that's true, but don't overlook the way the less developed countries are trying to play this to engineer a giant resource transfer from the developed world to them. For years, they tried to play the so-called North-South guilt card to little avail. The idea was that the developed world had unfairly exploited their resources and we owed them something. The idea seemed to be that we would should pay off the corrupt elites in these countries so they would shut up. Now they have a new scam, AGW. This time it is far more dangerous because they have allies in major western governments. We have a whole generation of young people who have been systematically indoctrinated and who lack the critical reasoning skills necessary to distinguish fact from fiction.
No, these are some of the most highly respected people ever to work for NASA, and they are objecting to NASA being used to promote a political agenda. Much of it comes from one source , Goddard,and one guy, this James Hansen, a fanatical AGW zealot whom Bush should have fired. These astronauts did not take a position one way or the other on the ultimate issue. They only said NASA should not be promoting a political agenda based on controversial science. That seems pretty reasonable to me, but liberals have to politicize everything they touch and demonize anyone who doesn't go along.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/01/97_of_active_climatologists_ag.php http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/01/19/eco.globalwarmingsurvey/ http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2010/2010-02-20-01.html On the denial industry: http://one-blue-marble.com/climate-change-denial-industry.html http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/dec/07/climate-change-denial-industry http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/denier-vs-skeptic/
Link? And how is it that some people take pleasure in disparaging one of the greatest, if not the greatest, minds of our time? Who does that?
Here's an example. Remember when I told you his latest book was nothing more than speculation but you "thought" otherwise simply because your science "god" wrote it? <iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Dg_95wZZFr4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Hawking did have to walk back his theory that black holes did not follow the "conservation of information" law. He was proven wrong by an upstart scientist. Cosmologists make their living by coming up with outlandish theories of how things work in the universe then trying to prove those theories right. This is a bad method of analysis for the earth's climate science since changes that effect large numbers of people are promoted as a result of such theories.
Personally I think all the fuss over Hawkings has more to do with sympathy over his physical condition than his great scientific mind.
This Hawking gaffe was even more ridiculous. Start watching at 1:17 <iframe width="480" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/oUAgO6sYgqU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>