So the Heartland Institute’s Conference on Climate Change has come and gone, and they’re touting it as a “Smashing Success”, and saying:

The alarmists in the global warming debate have had their say–over and over again, in every newspaper in the country practically every day and in countless news reports and documentary films. They have dominated the media’s coverage of this issue. But they have lost the debate. Skeptics are the winners of EVERY scientific debate, always, everywhere. Because skepticism, as T.H. Huxley said, is the highest calling of a true scientist.

Yay for science! Game over – the skeptics win.

However, in the talking points about the conference, the Heartland Institute made this statement:

No scientific theory is true because a majority of scientists say it to be true. Scientific theories are only provisionally true until they are falsified by data that can be better explained by a different theory. And it is by falsifying current theories that scientific knowledge advances, not by consensus.

Which is entirely true. But then the Heartland Institute hosts an international conference with the explicit purpose to demonstrate that there is consensus (at least among the conference attendees) that there is no broad scientific consensus that Global Warming is man made nor that there will be any negative consequences from it. Indeed, they state that the existence of the conference they themselves sponsored is conclusive proof that Al Gore and his band are actually a bunch of socialist earth-loving fake scientists that really really want to raise your taxes. And if there’s one thing this climate doesn’t need, it’s higher taxes. Not ever.

Of course, that’s the climate “skeptics” switch in their bait and switch tactic, isn’t it. If they thought the issue was ever really about whether we were actually a threat to the climate of our planet, then why are they raising the boogeyman of taxes? I’ll tell you – because the notion that we might destroy our own planet is something a bit too abstract to contemplate – and the risk of paying taxes isn’t. The goal of the conference was to demonstrate that there is enough skepticism among the wealthy and powerful anti-regulation types such as the Cato Institute, and S. Fred Singers Science & Environmental Policy Project to stake out a position to do nothing and allow all industry to continue without restraint.

At the conference, the notion of the Carbon Tax was supported by Kenneth Green of the conservative American Enterprise Foundation, much to the chagrin (I assume) of other attendees. Mr. Green opposed the leading option popping up in various circles, the so-called “cap and trade” system, on the grounds that it encourages corruption while doing little to address pollution emission:

Companies have incentives both to overstate historical emissions, and to exaggerate the benefits of new technologies to generate bogus emissions that become ready cash. Experience in both the U.S. and Europe shows that firms usually get away with it: validating historic emissions is nearly impossible. And governments won’t look very hard–wanting to appear green, they have strong incentives to turn their eyes away from carbon credit malfeasance. (ref)

So, rather than seeing this as any sort of victory for science and scientific skepticism, I’ll defer judgement on the actual merit of the Heartland Institute’s Conference on Climate Change. I’ll wait until I hear and read more. Even so, something about this is reminiscent of the anti-science tactics that conservatives have used for many years. In earlier instances, “skepticism” about scientific claims were raised as part of a concerted effort to block regulation and minimize the impact of cleaner, greener, healthier business and manufacturing practices. This is the same crowd that was skeptical of the hazardous nature of PCBs, DDT, and other dioxins. These were the same folks that were ok with lead paint, asbestos, and red dye. Maybe they’re different now. Maybe they really want to do what’s best for the nation and the world by denying global warming.

Maybe so, but I’m still somewhat skeptical about that.

In what amounts to probably the nicest example of corporate support for the spirit of community that pervades the Web 2.0 phenomena, IBM has launched a cool new site called Many Eyes that allows members to upload and visualize datasets from just about anywhere.

I found it very easy to navigate the system and upload some data related to Homicide Rates in the US, as you can see here. In order to create a visualization, you have to first register with IBM. After that, you can upload data, and then create one or more custom visualizations of your data. In addition to the standard plot types (bar, line, pie, and are charts) you can also use bubble plots as well as tag-clouds for free-form text data.

So, go forth my friends, and let slip your inner statistician.