Science Says So - politicians are exploiting our blind faith in the power of science



Few nowadays defer to the traditional authority figures of old – parents, priests or politicians. But many are inclined to take scientists' word for things. If scientists say that anthropogenic climate change is happening, well, then anthropogenic climate change is happening. (Mr. Obama's tweeters must mean anthropogenic climate change, since no one denies that the climate is changing, as it always does.)


People often talk about science as if it were a single discipline with a single method, "the scientific method," so that all scientifically acquired beliefs are equally likely to be true. Since all of Team Obama's threesome – gravity, the spherical Earth and climate change – are scientific, you should be no less certain about reality of anthropogenic climate change than about the reality of gravity.

This vision of science is wrong. Scientific inquiry encompasses a great variety of disciplines with different methods, some of which are more reliable than others. Particle physics, evolutionary biology, epidemiology, climatology and behavioural economics, to take but five examples, concern different phenomena, use different methods and produce results of very different credibility. Deference is due to some scientists but not to all.

The physics of medium-sized objects moving at velocities well below the speed of light has been experimentally tested and successfully applied in technology to such an extent that it is beyond reasonable doubt. Anyone who drives a car across a rickety bridge has reason to defer to physicists.


So why should anyone believe these climate models and their implications? One popular answer is that they are entailed by what we already know about physics. For example, according to the Australian scientists Stephan Lewandowsky and Michael Ashley, "we can calculate the effect [of greenhouse gases], and predict what is going to happen to the earth's climate during our lifetimes, all based on fundamental physics that is as certain as gravity.”


Similarly, even if a climate model contains nothing but physics, those bits of physics might be insufficient to explain and predict weather patterns. The only way to find out is to test the model's predictions against observed long-run weather patterns. But as I noted earlier, we cannot do that at present.


Anyone who follows the news will know that most scientists believe in anthropogenic climate change. This is supposed to convince us. But it ought to perplex us. Why would scientists – people supposedly devoted to intellectual rigor and honesty – tell us that we ought to believe the implications of untested climate models with as much confidence as we believe in gravity?

First, we need to separate climate scientists from scientists working in other fields who declare their confidence in the anthropogenic thesis. The latter are in no better a position to judge the merits of climate models than anyone else. They are merely expressing solidarity with their scientific brothers. They are like the unionised workers in the 1970s who went on strike in sympathy with workers in entirely different industries, knowing nothing about the alleged legitimacy of the grievance.



We are asked to believe that "climate change is happening" because scientists with obvious incentives to overstate their achievements tell us that their untested models prove it. Those of us who remain sceptical are then accused of being anti-science fools. Funny.

This article originally appeared on IAI here.

Jamie Whyte is the author of ‘Quack Policy: Abusing Science in the Cause of Paternalism

I don't pretend to have studied climate change and have no strong views on the subject. However, I am inclined to be sceptical based on my experience in other areas because I have no faith in the objectivity of the academics involved. A combination of political interference and the competitive nature of modern research funding have undermined objectivity to an extent where I think that the public should question "science" more than it does. True scientists should welcome questions. That is what science is supposed to be about. Sadly in areas such as public health and climate change, the reverse is true. The so called scientists seem to be driven more by policy and politics than the quest for truth and accuracy. In these areas funding is also dictated by politics rather than merit so the dominant theory tends to be mirror the dominant political ideology and it is extremely difficult for those who do not adhere to the established dogma to be either published or funded. I see no good reason to have any confidence in the "science" produced in such environments. I have read some of the climategate emails and have no idea why the principles involved are still in jobs. If they had worked in industry they would have been hounded by the media and either forced to resign or fired. Their behaviour was completely unacceptable irrespective of whose theories about climate change turn out to be most accurate.

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