Biologist Wayne Rossiter, author of Shadow of Oz: Theistic Evolution and the Absent God, writes to offer his thoughts on the recent screed at Nature against “denialism”:
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There is much that could be said about this article. Science “denialism” is absolutely permitted within science, so long as the denier adheres to the larger mainstream views (which are often not scientific at all). One can blast Darwin, so long as the replacement is equally dysteleological (or worse).
The other presumed “denial” here is climate change. From my reading of the facts, the only things “scientists” mostly agree on are that 1) the climate changes and 2) we are exacerbating it. Details beyond those assertions are particularly fuzzy.
I’m not a climate change denier at all. But we must admit just how errant “scientific authority” has been. Dire predictions of catastrophic destruction have come and gone (I won’t list them all here, but my old digs in NJ are supposed to be completely inundated by now). Then you have the “fallibility” part of expert science:
Here’s what we know, and it doesn’t take more than an entry-level stats course to figure it out. The 150 year pattern of average global temperature shows a slight linear increase (something like 0.8 C). That is troubling, because even slight changes have greatly altered global and local processes. You’ll get no fight with me there. But, if we attempt to extract a relationship between that pattern and global atmospheric CO2 (which has increased geometrically), you won’t find one. Yet, CO2 is the central point of discussion. Falsely. (again, the rise of CO2 is worrisome for other reasons. We measure these global fluxes in gigatons, and right now, we think about 90 gigatons of CO2 move from the oceans to the atmosphere, but 92 gigatons move from the atmosphere to the oceans, and this is leading to acidification).
So, why should we trust “authority,” when it has been publicly embarrassed over and over?
The bigger problem I would point to (which isn’t mentioned by Crease is that “science” has become sensationalized to the point of being tantamount to “fake news.”
Outrageous claims, and modest findings. Big Science looks more and more like WWE wrestling or daytime television. I say that painfully, because it’s a true shame of our time.
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See also: At Nature: Waging war on the science deniers! Sadly, there is a war on science, of sorts, afoot. Social justice warriors, for example, are taking dead aim at math. And at objectivity generally. It’s as if, unable or unwilling to even name, let alone withstand the threat, establishment science types hope to distract themselves with a different story until it goes away. Good luck with that. SJWs see that science has funding. And they always need more money.
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Why can top scientists get away with extraordinary claims?