While people are busy with their own knee-jerk reactions trying to stifle my criticizing the scientific community, the Wall Street Journal did what was predicted by that very criticism, namely turning the way that the scientific community deals with the faster than light neutrino results into an asset for global warming denial:

Robert Bryce in “Five Truths About Climate Change”:

“The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations”, published in 2004, is a book by James Surowiecki. It discusses, often using anecdotes, that under certain conditions, crowds of people make better decisions than experts. In how far can we (mis)construe this as further proving the democratic doctrine?

This year’s Nobel Prize in physics goes to Saul Perlmutter, who shares it with Adam Riess and Brian P. Schmidt, all having been vital in the discovery of that the universe’s expansion is speeding up; research that was done during the 1990s.

Several science bloggers opined that maybe work on quantum entanglement was more deserving, and they have a point, but if the wider impact of scientific issues is at play in the considerations that lead to awarding the Nobel Prize, the decision today was a good one in that regard.