[LINK] The meaning of climate change denial

[Stephen Wilson]

I dip occasionally into the interminable debate between Koltai and the 
Rest of the Link World. I wouldn't be the only one dumbfounded by the 
man's obstinancy.  What can it mean that an intelligent person feels SO 
VERY MUCH IN THE RIGHT to buck science?

It's an instance of a very worrying and deeply ironic modern 
phenomenon.  Why is it that so many people feel they have license to 
ignore science?  Sometimes I fear we're heading back into a Dark Age 
when great segments of the population can feel they simply know better 
than science on such matters as:
- anthropogenic climate change
- vaccination
- evolution
- obesity
- homosexuality.

Why is scientific consensus these days reduced, in so many minds, to 
what they imagine is mere opinion?  Maybe lay people have lost whatever 
sense they had for the enormity of scientific effort: the training, the 
apprenticeship, the research, the peer review, the contest of ideas, and 
year-on-year sheer bloody hard work of millions of professionals in 
labs, doing their bit to build civilisation's body of knowledge.  Is 
that because the person in the street only glimpses science every few 
months on the TV when a scientist with a bit of research news has to 
subborn themselves to the sound grab and blandly predict when their work 
will produce a pill to cure something?  It was different when I grew up 
in the late sixties.  The Brisbane tabloid newspaper carried the 
"Frontiers of Science" strip, with a vastly superior signal-to-noise 
ratio that the execrable ABC TV "Quantum".  Back then ABC TV every 
morning broadcast serious physics lectures and the like for schools.  
Non scientists rejoiced in science.

Now, science doesn't always get it right.  So yes, there is indeed a 
slim chance that scientific consensus is wrong on climate change 
(cornering a climatologist on this point is a pyrrhic victory comparable 
to getting Richard Dawkins to concede there just might be a god).

But given the amazing -- nay, truly awe inspiring -- success rate of 
science, why would any non-expert presume to know better about what are 
deeply technical and empirical issues?

Unfortunately, the public can be captivated by stories of the odd 
scientific maverick who goes their own way, heroically coming up with 
some new theory and prevailing at last over the establishment.  These 
rare precedents energise climate deniers in particular.  They legitimise 
the tiny number of quasi-qualified (or totally mis-qualified) 
technicians -- like Monkton or Plimer -- that "bravely" challenge the 
big bad hierarchy.  I say this to the lay person who thinks their chosen 
heroic climate change denier is the next Einstein: it is ALWAYS SCIENCE 
ITSELF that comes round to agree with the mavericks.  So, you have to 
give it time! If these brave souls are right and carbon pollution is not 
to blame, science will swing to their position, and swing fast.

Meanwhile, consider that the Eric von Danikens and Peter Brocks of the 
world vastly outnumber the Darwins.

I hope I'm not drawing a long bow, but humoring loonies like Koltai 
might regrettably embolden any number of others with fringe barrows to 
push.

So in other words, yes, I think we should all, by and large, bow to 
science.

Is that arrogant? Is it cultish?  Hell no.  Science works.  It amazes me 
no end that people can enjoy telephony, medicine, aviation, a fantastic 
standard of living, and incredible longevity, and at the same time 
casually, and with no real clue at all, poo-pooh climatology, immunology 
or evolutionary biology.  The scientific edifice that enables doctors to 
transplant hearts, and engineers to keep heavier-than-air craft aloft is 
the very same system that predicts devastating warming if we keep 
returning fossilised CO2 into the atmosphere.

Cheers,

Steve Wilson.
Lockstep
http://lockstep.com.au/blog/science.