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posted by martyb on Friday September 16 2016, @09:46AM   Printer-friendly
from the go-figure! dept.

Claims that the "the science isn't settled" with regard to climate change are symptomatic of a large body of ignorance about how science works.

So what is the scientific method, and why do so many people, sometimes including those trained in science, get it so wrong?

The first thing to understand is that there is no one method in science, no one way of doing things. This is intimately connected with how we reason in general.

[...] Those who demand the science be "settled" before we take action are seeking deductive certainty where we are working inductively. And there are other sources of confusion.

One is that simple statements about cause and effect are rare since nature is complex. For example, a theory might predict that X will cause Y, but that Y will be mitigated by the presence of Z and not occur at all if Q is above a critical level. To reduce this to the simple statement "X causes Y" is naive.

Another is that even though some broad ideas may be settled, the details remain a source of lively debate. For example, that evolution has occurred is certainly settled by any rational account. But some details of how natural selection operates are still being fleshed out.


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  • (Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Friday September 16 2016, @03:29PM

    by curunir_wolf (4772) on Friday September 16 2016, @03:29PM (#402833)

    Claims that the "the science isn't settled" with regard to climate change are symptomatic of a large body of ignorance about how science works. ... Those who demand the science be "settled" before we take action are seeking deductive certainty where we are working inductively.

    I thought that everyone was already claiming that AGW, based on use of fossil fuels, is, in fact, "settled science". Is there some acknowledgement now that it's not, so now we should change tactics to encourage support for taking action?

    The article brings up some interesting points, but if the goal is to get these "ignorant" skeptics to go along with the "action plan", it fails on many levels. The most obvious is the failure to acknowledge how an established scientific theory can be defended in the face of conflicting evidence (many examples of it throughout history).

    Aside from that, the "action items" proposed to deal with climate change are extraordinary, and with very little relative impact on the predicted outcomes, even within the models. In fact it seems clear in the studies that when all factors are accounted for, the proposed measures would cause greater suffering of people around the world than taking no action at all.

    Instead of continuing these bitter fights and arguments, and battles for world dominance, it would be better if all viewpoints were simply acknowledged and some reasonable steps to mitigate the effects of a warming earth could be agreed to instead. In that way, it wouldn't really matter how much of the warming is actually caused by CO2. Fossil fuels are a finite resource anyway, and we need to plan for that. The climate is warming and we need to plan for that. Increased energy efficiency, increased use of economic renewable energy, and support for improving the living conditions of ordinary humans should be the focus, not beating people over the head all the time because they might be emitting too much CO2.

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