Auto enthusiasts are being bombarded by an overload of
predictions about the future of transportation. Peak oil, global
climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, electrification of
cars, wind, solar and wave energy sources, natural gas, biofuel,
hydrogen... the list goes on. Ask the person on the street how
we are going to solve all our future problems and more often
than not they point to science as our salvation. That's putting
on awful lot of weight on the shoulders of the scientists, whose
work few people understand.  For most of us scientific work is
most evident as photographs from Mars, a new possible cure for
cancer, or dire predictions of the next global catastrophe, and
the views of scientists carry a lot of weight when it comes the
news media. The irony is that if you look at what scientists do
and how they work, we're really asking too much when we ask them
to predict the future or explain things with utter certainty.
Scientists-reputable scientists-are taught to use the
"scientific method." This