someone I know was initially diagnosed as a heart attack. Then the doctors decided it was not. There were many tests and reviews of the heart imagery.

After looking at the heart images one last time before his discharge after 10 days in hospital, the doctors worked out it was a thickening of the heart wall.

That programme House has some basis in doctors being detectives.

When I was in health services research I saw a very interesting paper which reported a negative relationship between good diagnosis and the number of questions or “readings” that the doctor used.

My Popperian interpretation was that the good ones very quickly identify the ball park and then ask questions or get information that rapidly eliminate whole clusters of candidates. Less confident diagnosticians will ask questions that only duplicate information already in hand and so don’t eliminate any contenders.

Yes, as demonstrated by the IPCC-driven scam of climate alarmism.

Laframbose pointed out that all the IPCC leadership is politically appointed, then they recruit the scientists and ecological activists.

Probably a very valid argument for one place in which democracy should be limited.

There is Christopher Robert and Richard Zeckhauser‘s taxonomy of disagreement:

Positive disagreements can be over questions of:
1. Scope: what elements of the world one is trying to understand
2. Model: what mechanisms explain the behaviour of the world
3. Estimate: what estimates of the model’s parameters are thought to obtain in particular contexts

Values disagreements can be over questions of:
1. Standing: who counts
2. Criteria: what counts
3. Weights: how much different individuals and criteria count

Any positive analysis will tend to include elements of scope, model, and estimation, though often these elements intertwine; they frequently feature in an implicit or undifferentiated manner.

Likewise, normative analysis will also include elements of standing, criteria, and weights, whether or not these distinctions are recognized.

science fits in in a small way in this taxonomy and the weight given to its advice is a political question

Calls for no more politicized science are an argument against democracy. Both the Left and Right do it – everything from GMOs and nuclear energy to evolution.

Probably a very valid argument for one place in which democracy should be limited.

Science and religion are both belief systems, so politics and democracy should be the result of belief, not the other way around. When politics becomes the cause of belief you are heading toward collective insanity.

For some reason, his meeting with Professor Fred Singer was in a coffee shop to discuss his view how temperature fluctuations correlated better with solar activity than with levels of CO2.

those Nurse agreed were met at their NASA office and were allowed to use many TV screens on a big wall showing actual and predicted global cloud cover as props.

The worst part was when he said FOI requests are “a tool to intimidate some scientists”. They should have put the data on their web site to save on the compliance costs of democratic accountability. I thought releasing data was central to replication?

Calls for no more politicized science are an argument against democracy. Both the Left and Right do it – everything from GMOs and nuclear energy to evolution.

His 2012 Dimbleby lecture is at http://royalsociety.org/uploadedFiles/Royal_Society_Content/people/fellows/2012-02-29-Dimbleby.pdf where he calls for a re-opening the debate about GM crops based on scientific facts and analysis:

We need to consider what the science has to say about risks and benefits, uncoloured by commercial interests and ideological opinion.

It is not acceptable if we deny the world’s poorest access to ways that could help their food security, if that denial is based on fashion and ill-informed opinion rather than good science.

Sound fellow in his own area.

unless we are going into a cooling cycle

why the lack of drum-beat about a next ice age? can’t blame humanity for it, I suppose.