http://www.baen.com/Why_Science_is_Never_Settled.asp (Part One)
http://baen.com/Why_Science_is_Never_Settled-Part2.asp (Part Two)
This essay is quite decently written, and very effectively covers the ground of why science is a process, not a result, and truly never finally settled. Sadly, while never going at the subject head-on, it's laced through with excuses for climate science denialism.
Science is never settled, but we're reasonably sure gravity doesn't make things fall up, and that we really can't breathe in a vacuum. And while geocentrism and the humors theory of medicine were once "settled science," the same is not true of global cooling speculation in the 1970s. We now have a great weight of evidence in favor of climate change in the direction of warming of the planet, not cooling. Nor has global cooling made a comeback in th 2010s, as Roberts asserts. The ice caps are melting, the permafrost is thawing, and the sea level is rising. There's always the possibility we may have the explanation wrong, and it's always possible that things will change. The fact remains that as of right now, we have abundant evidence that the planet is warming at an alarming rate which may soon become truly dangerous. It's sad that this essay that so effectively explains how science works and the factors that can both create and perpetuate error, then embraces a currently popular error, the belief that because it's politically convenient, current climate science data, reasoning, and conclusions can be ignored.
I really wanted to like this one. So much of it is solid.
Not recommended.
http://baen.com/Why_Science_is_Never_Settled-Part2.asp (Part Two)
This essay is quite decently written, and very effectively covers the ground of why science is a process, not a result, and truly never finally settled. Sadly, while never going at the subject head-on, it's laced through with excuses for climate science denialism.
Science is never settled, but we're reasonably sure gravity doesn't make things fall up, and that we really can't breathe in a vacuum. And while geocentrism and the humors theory of medicine were once "settled science," the same is not true of global cooling speculation in the 1970s. We now have a great weight of evidence in favor of climate change in the direction of warming of the planet, not cooling. Nor has global cooling made a comeback in th 2010s, as Roberts asserts. The ice caps are melting, the permafrost is thawing, and the sea level is rising. There's always the possibility we may have the explanation wrong, and it's always possible that things will change. The fact remains that as of right now, we have abundant evidence that the planet is warming at an alarming rate which may soon become truly dangerous. It's sad that this essay that so effectively explains how science works and the factors that can both create and perpetuate error, then embraces a currently popular error, the belief that because it's politically convenient, current climate science data, reasoning, and conclusions can be ignored.
I really wanted to like this one. So much of it is solid.
Not recommended.
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