Got involved in a forum discussion today about Climate Change that really depressed me.
It wasn't just that no one else follows the scientific consensus of human-caused global climate change. What frustrated and depressed me was how thoroughly they misunderstand the very nature of science, let alone the science of the Earth's climate.
One poster even claimed there was plenty of room for "his science" and "my science." He may have thought he was being nice, but he couldn't have been more wrong.
There is no "your science" or "my science." There's only Science. You either believe in the expansion of human knowledge through repeatable experiments or you don't. Science is based on consensus, not opinion.
How can these "skeptics" undermine faith in the scientific method using technology only possible because of that method?
Help me out here. Am I way out of line to come down hard on them? Should I just let it go? Or have I stumbled onto a nest of irrationality that must be confronted?
1 comment:
Skepticism and science has been a growing motivation of mine in terms of the work that I'm doing in medicine. It's one thing to engage people who are more entrenched in their faith to the exclusion of objective reality... but it's another when you are interacting with someone who defines them self as a "skeptic" or a "scientist," then proves a complete lack of comprehension of what science is by using language implying that it's a subjective, personal thing.
Science is about objective, universal observation of reality, and not subjective opinion. Period.
Such inanity and magical thinking needs to be confronted. That said, I tend to think of fora on teh interwebs as a lost cause in that regard. There are just too many people who use their relative anonymity as a opportunity to bait and antagonize the well-intentioned for their own entertainment... I've never been in a disagreement on one that I've felt has ended well, no matter how diplomatic and well-stated my case is. Put another way, some idiot will always have the "last word."
I vote that you state your case and leave it be, and perform a tactical extraction from a likely lose-lose situation.
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