[WikiEN-l] REPOST: Neutrality and the

[limholt at excite.com]

This is a single thought I'd like you to consider. I agree with almost all of your points in the 'expert opinion' or validtion discussion. This note just suggests one more consideration.

An earlire point in thiss or another thread about 'global warming' suggested looking at funding and/or publication counts for journal articles as a way yo determine concensus opinion. I think these two are very tightly coupled.

If funding is available, university types get grants and mae studies. Since their future career also depends on publication, they publish results, usually in terms that will make the grant source happy.

This gets us back to politics and interset. There is only a very diluted (i.e. many people with a very mild interest) desire to prove that warmig is not occuring. There are some very concentrated intersets (i.e. few people, but with a strong interest) hoping to prove it is true. So funding, studies, papers, etc. all tend to one side of the argument.

This does not make it true, just widespread. It doersn't make it false either.

Since I valued most of your points, I wanted to plant this thought with you, hoping for future germination. This is off-list since I don't want to create an extended response or reavtivate global warming.

Regards,  Lou Imholt (LouI at Wiki)

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