Scientific Consensus 2026

I was born on July 19, 1939 in New York City. Google AI indicates that my mother was lucky that day since the temperature in pre-air conditioned New York City only reached an unseasonable 81 degrees. Three years earlier, on July 9, 1936 the temp reached 106 degrees, what would turn out to be the  high for the whole twentieth century. 

As I wondered about temperature in July,  some recent news items came to mind. Last week smoke from forest fires in Canada drifted down into the Northeast area and created uncomfortable, even dangerous air quality. No one can blame President Trump since just three years ago in 2023, during the Biden administration, Canadian fires had caused similar air quality concerns in the area. Fortunately, the latest episode only lasted a few days, and the World Cup final was held in New Jersey's Meadowlands on one of the most beautiful days of the year.

More important was the news a few weeks ago that scientists in Europe had rejected their worst case scenario for Climate Change, and said that recent developments had made it implausible. The recent developments included human efforts to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy. It is hard to credit their explanation since China and India, by far the two most populous nations in the world are not leaders in renewable energy. 

Anyway, the fact that they would discard a worst case scenario that most scientists had accepted just a few years ago led me to revisit a post that I had written in 2017 on scientific consensus, The post was in response to a video of Senator Bernie Sanders berating a Trump appointee back in 2017.

I recently saw a video of Senator Bernie Sanders grilling Scott Pruitt, President Donald Trump’s nominee for the post of director of the Environmental Protection Agency. Throughout his seven minutes Sanders repeatedly demanded that Pruitt affirm that 97% of scientists believe that global warming is a grave threat to the planet; that it is caused by human activity; and that the government must take steps to shut down the use of fossil fuels. Of course, Sanders jumped in and interrupted every attempt by Pruitt to answer his questions. He ended by saying that he could not vote to confirm him, as if there was ever any doubt.

To be fair I must say that Sanders qualified his question by adding that the 97% figure referred to the percentage of peer-reviewed papers that had appeared in climate change journals and other similar publications. I think that this qualifier is overlooked when most people consider the question of scholarly or scientific consensus. I can certainly believe that 97% of these peer-reviewed papers support the human responsibility for global warming. What is hard to believe is that 3% of the papers were able to sneak their way through the peer-review process and cast doubt on the hypothesis. 

My own experience makes me skeptical about the whole peer-review process. For years I have subscribed to a couple of scholarly journals on the Renaissance. Inevitably, they feature articles or book reviews on Shakespeare. Never have I seen one that would even hint that the great plays and poems might have been written by a man of much greater education and life experience than the man from Stratford on Avon. 

Great writers like Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, and Henry James raised the question in the nineteenth century. Sigmund Freud shared the view that someone else was the author as did Shakespearean actors like Orson Welles and Derek Jacobi. Dozens of books on the authorship question have appeared in the past few years but most go unmentioned in the peer-reviewed journals.

My own experience in the field of Renaissance art history has also made me question the peer-review process. In the past twenty years, I have been able to arrive at plausible interpretations of some of the most well-known but most mysterious paintings of the Renaissance. I have done the research, written up my findings but found that the peer-review process is a closed shop, only open to peers. Necessity made me turn to the web and in 2010 I put my interpretations online and also created a blog, Giorgione et al..., to explore the subject further. 

Scholars often urge their students to “think outside the box” but rarely follow their own advice. Although their politics may be liberal and even radical, they tend to be conservative when it comes to their own subject. Graduate students have to be aware of the danger of criticizing their mentors. Professors must still publish to keep their jobs, advance their careers, or gain grant monies. It is very difficult to challenge the traditional wisdom or orthodoxy.  As one art historian wrote,

“To do so would be to question the competence of most of those who have written on the subject, and this is something that no one…wants to do…the longer those views have gone unchallenged the greater the authority that they have acquired.”

Galileo is a hero to so-called “freethinkers” but in his time, he stood virtually alone against all the professional scientists and mathematicians of his time who dominated the institutions of higher learning. He used a primitive telescope to destroy the elaborate system accepted by more that 97% of the leading experts. Oddly enough, a few Jesuit astronomers were among his early supporters.

Climate change has become like a new religion and its priests can be found in the scientific establishment. Their devoted followers march in street processions to proclaim their beliefs and attack heretics. For them the issue is settled and no further debate is necessary. What are they and Bernie Sanders afraid of? Why did he find it necessary to interrupt and ignore any attempt on the part of Scott Pruitt to reply? 

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Democratic Socialist Primaries

People like Senator Bernie Sanders are old enough to understand that it was necessary to add the word Democratic to Socialism in order to separate it from its sordid and murderous past. After all, only the most diehard Socialist would want to be linked with the National Socialists (NAZIs) in Germany under Adolph Hitler, or the Communists in the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin, or the Communists in China under Chairman Mao. These regimes imprisoned and killed millions of their own people.

Today’s Democratic Socialists believe that they can avoid the errors and excesses of the past and build a new society based on truly democratic principles. They believe that America has been undemocratic for years, and that few have shared in its prosperity, even more so during the current Trump administration. 

Although the recent victories of Democratic Socialists in New York City and elsewhere have garnered National attention, they are far from democratic. In none of these primaries did the winner get even 20 percent of the district’s total vote. Low voter turnout has long been common in blue cities. Why is this so? 

Low voter turnout in political primaries is traditional especially in major cities where candidates for general elections are usually chosen by party leaders, or by a minority of eligible voters. Either the great majority of voters don’t care or think that their votes don’t matter. Even on election day, most eligible voters don’t turn out to vote. Why?

I don’t think voter suppression explains why most Democrats didn’t vote in the recent NYC primaries. I think that rather than rising up to fight for equality and prosperity for all, most Democrats realize that they have it made. 

If we look under the so-called Big Tent of the Democratic party, what do we find. Unions, especially public service unions, are the solid core of votes and financing for the Party. They are the Party’s backbone. They are the party of government from the Federal government down to local municipalities.

Unlike the people they serve, public service union members at every level cannot lose their jobs, or experience pay cuts. Even in retirement, they have it made. They have pensions far better than ordinary people’s Social Security benefits, as well as superior medical insurance plans. None of them have to be enrolled in Obamacare. They and their families have been beneficiaries of government largess most of their lives. Why should they rock the boat and vote against Democratic Socialists who want to increase the role of government.?

My home state of Connecticut is always listed as a blue state. Bridgeport is Connecticut’s most populous city with about 150,000 residents, but the city has been controlled by Democrats for years. In the last Mayoral election the Democratic Mayor won over a Democratic challenger with about 6,000 out of 10,000 votes cast. Some Democracy!

Rather than people who have not shared in American prosperity, the core of the Democratic party are the public service union members who have prospered over the past 50 years from the tremendous growth of government at all levels.

Perhaps this explains why many hate President Trump so much. He is rocking their boat more than AOC. 

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Stan and Ollie

 

Here's a post with some recommended summer viewing. 

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were without doubt the best comedy team in film history. Originally paired during the silent era, they easily made the transition to talkies. During the 1930s they reached the height of their popularity appearing in almost countless features and shorts. 

Their feature films included a number of operettas like The Devil’s Brother, The Bohemian Girl, and the ever-popular Thanksgiving favorite, The March of the Wooden Soldiers, where they provided the comic relief. But the features in which they starred are their best. Below find brief reviews of my favorites features and shorts. 

 

Sons of the Desert.  

Stan and Ollie play next door neighbors who trick their wives so they can secretly attend the Chicago convention of their fraternal order, the Sons of the Desert. Many believe this 1933 film is Laurel and Hardy’s best feature, both a critical success and one of the year’s top ten box office draws. 

The film has one hilarious skit after another and also exults in bone-crushing slapstick. Ollie winds up the target of endless pots and pans and kitchen crockery all hurled with unerring accuracy by his carving knife wielding wife, played by Mae Busch, one of Hollywood’s best comediennes. The film also features Charley Chase as an obnoxious lodge member, and Dorothy Christie as Mr. Laurel’s beautiful shotgun-toting wife. A popular tune, Honolulu Baby, danced by a night club chorus line, has become a cult classic.  64 minutes.

 

Way Out West. 

In this 1937 film Stan and Ollie play two men on a mission to deliver the deed to a deceased prospector’s gold mine to the daughter whom he had left behind with a sleazy saloon keeper and his gold-digging wife. This film is marked by one hilarious gag after another, often repeated.

It also showcases Stan and Ollie’s song and dance skills in three numbers. Stan’s career started as a song and dance man in English vaudeville, and Ollie had a fine voice. Adding to the fun is James Finlayson, a Laurel and Hardy regular, who plays the saloon keeper, and Dinah the mule who plays a key role in some of the skits. 63 minutes.

 

Blockheads.

In this 1938 film Stan and Ollie play wartime buddies who had been separated in the last days of WWI. Twenty years later Stan is discovered still guarding his post in the trenches. Ollie, now happily married, sees Stan’s picture in the newspaper and goes off to visit him in a nearby home for veterans. They meet and Ollie invites him home for dinner.

When they meet, Stan asks if Ollie remembers how dumb he used to be and then claims that he is better now. From that point on he causes a series of hilarious mishaps that wreck Ollie’s car, apartment, and marriage. Ollie’s next-door neighbor is played by the irascible Billy Gilbert, another Laurel and Hardy regular.

 

The Flying Deuces. 

On vacation in Paris, Ollie falls in love with the innkeeper’s daughter only to be heart broken when she reveals there is another man. In a hilarious scene, he attempts to commit suicide by drowning himself in the Seine and insists Stan do likewise. A passerby talks them out of it, and suggests they join the French Foreign Legion in order to forget the girl. 

I suppose the makers of this film tried to capitalize on the success of Beau Geste, a Foreign Legion drama released earlier in 1939. In any event, Ollie never acted better playing the love-sick suitor. The film also includes another of their fine song and dance numbers, as well as Stan’s rendition of the “World is Waiting for the Sunrise,” played on a makeshift harp fashioned out of a bedspring while they wait in prison to be shot at sunrise. 69 minutes. 

 

Big Business.

Stan and Ollie play door to door Christmas tree salesmen in this 1929 silent short. When an irascible homeowner turns them down, one thing leads to another, and a little altercation becomes an all-out battle. This short film is a comedy classic listed by the Library of Congress on the National Film Registry. 19 minutes.

 

The Music Box.

In this short Stan and Ollie play movers charged with the delivery of a player piano to a home atop many flights of steps. They park their horse drawn cart at the base of the steps and proceed to attempt to carry the crate enclosed piano up the steps. They meet one obstacle after another but finally get to the top only to encounter even greater obstacles. This comedy classic is also included in the National Film Registry. 29 minutes.

 

Them Thar Hills.

This 1934 short is not on the National Film Registry but it is still my favorite. Ollie has a large cast on his gout ridden leg, and his doctor, played by Billy Gilbert, claims that the gout is caused by too much high living. He suggests that the boys go camping in the mountains, lead the simple life, and drink plenty of mountain water. 

They attach a camper to their car and drive to the mountains where they park near a deserted house with a nearby well. Unbeknownst to them, moonshiners have just dumped a load of liquor in the well. The boys find the “mountain water” delightfully refreshing, and as they freely imbibe, they get increasingly high. This film also features Mae Busch. 20 minutes.

Most of these films can be viewed on Youtube for free but a few years ago a Laurel and Hardy DVD box set appeared that included an almost complete collection on 10 discs. The tenth disc includes a tribute where comedians like Jerry Lewis and Dick Van Dyke expressed their appreciation and debt to Stan and Ollie.

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Independence Day 2026

 I concentrated on eighteenth century British politics in my brief academic career more than 50 years ago. In the process I came to realize the importance of British politics for a true understanding of the American Revolution. The American colonists regarded themselves as Englishmen defending their traditional rights as Englishmen. Basically, they believed that government should be as close to the people as possible, and not in some faraway capitol. Below find a brief analysis of the Declaration of Independence.

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Every July 4 we celebrate Independence Day, the anniversary of the promulgation of our famed Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Most of us have heard the famous opening lines of the document, 

“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

However, few have ever read the entire Declaration and even fewer have any understanding of the nature of the actual grievances that led the colonists to sever their ties with England and seek independence. Most readers don’t get past the following words.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

King George III of England was one of the nicest, most benevolent rulers that England ever had, but the Declaration portrayed him as a tyrannical despot. However, the real conflict between England and her American colonies was not between Monarchy and Democracy but between the rights of the British people represented as they were by their own Parliament, and the rights of the American colonists represented as they were by their own colonial assemblies. In this conflict no one was a greater supporter of the rights and authority of the British Parliament than the King.

For the most part the Declaration of Independence does not complain about violations of individual human rights but concentrates on what it claims has been a systematic attempt on the part of the government in England to violate the rights and privileges of colonial representative assemblies. 

The founding fathers believed these assemblies that represented the leading citizens and property owners in the various colonies were the sole bulwark against monarchical tyranny on the one hand, and democratic anarchy on the other. They claimed that the King and his colonial governors had repeatedly refused to put into operation laws passed by these assemblies.

•He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

•He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operations till his assent should be obtained…

•He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature…

•He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

In some cases the English government has even gone so far as to dissolve some of these representative assemblies and leave particular colonies without any form of self-government. The legal system, military defense, and tax collection have been taken out of the hands of the colonial representatives. Here are some examples:

•He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

•He has made the judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

•He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

•He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

• He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power.

In the end the Declaration claimed that it came down to a contest between their own local representative assemblies and a faraway legislature that did not represent them. Because they had come to deny the authority of the British Parliament, they never used the word Parliament in the document. 

There are elements in the Declaration that might seem offensive to modern ears. Jefferson and others in America opposed the efforts of a reforming British government to permit religious toleration of the large Catholic population in newly conquered Canada. For them Catholicism went hand in hand with despotism. The Declaration also complained about attempts on the part of the British government to prevent colonization of Indian territory. Indeed, it claimed that England was encouraging the native tribes.

Nevertheless, the leaders assembled in Congress insisted on their rights as Englishmen to govern themselves. They wanted government to be as close to home as possible. They would make their own laws, vote their own taxes when necessary, and be responsible for their own legal and military systems. They did not want to be governed by a faraway government that had little concern for their interests or welfare.

It was true that the founders were men of property and status. Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, and Franklin were not common men. Democracy would come later. For the present they wanted to protect their right to self-government. The British government had declared itself “invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.” To resist, they were prepared to risk all that they held dear.

•“And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” 

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