Science isn't easy. And it may convey unpopular messages. Even overwhelming evidence will leave some unconvinced. Such is the case for climatology and its current state as we have already seen here at the TH!NK ABOUT IT blog. "Don't believe what they say", "they don't really know the truth", yada, yada, yada. I'm sure most people, like me, are sick and tired of this haggling. But actually, to some extent the "science deniers" and "climate sceptics" do have a point.

Because no-one has the truth for themselves. The truth is an idea that does not exist.

Reason, not faith, please

Science as most modern day people think of it began with the European Renaissance. Or rather: spurred by capitalist needs for innovation it re-emerged from the Dark Ages of Catholic dogma. Progressing through the times of Newton, the Age of Enlightenment and positivism, the history of science has been a history of revising the religiously speculated description of the world. Little by little belief has been replaced by reason.

Science is a product of culture. This is evident from any historical review of the evolution of scientific theories. The gray area in between religion, philosophy and science is called metaphysics. Anyway, let's agree science deals with human knowledge. So, what is knowledge?

Philosophy demands truth, credibility and rationality for something to be recognized as knowledge. The earth was a sphere even before science had religion admit it, but it wasn't knowledge because few believed it. Similarly, the coming Apocalypse isn't knowledge because few believe this biblical prediction to be neither rational nor credible. In order to produce knowledge, criteria for truth have to be agreed upon. What "Laws of Nature" can we use to predict concrete empirical observations? Observing a solar eclipse is easy. Establishing a set of rules to successfully predict all future solar eclipses is the hard part.

Particularly positivist science considers itself the quintessence of human cognitive ability. From this perspective all science is doing today is improving results. (Areas possibly troubling today's positivists in the future could include dark matter in space and junk DNA in genomes.)

What we traditionally want from and think of as science is objectivity, truth and applicability. Unfortunately, history has shown us all of these three doesn't always appear in union. Basic science is rarely immediately applicable. Truth is not imperative from objectivity. And a wrong theory can be applicable in a limited area; until it is tried outside this area and fails. The higher the degree of scientific support a theory has - from slightly disputed to enjoying consensus - the less probable we must assume it is to fall, and the more it'd be wise to take guidance from it's suggestions and conclusions.

Scientific method assumes one objective, rational path to knowledge entirely free of imposed values. This path goes roughly as follows: a) observe one or more phenomena in nature (or laboratory) in an impersonal and non-preconceived manner, b) formulate hypothesis on regular guiding principles hereof, c) conduct more observations with border areas or possible weak spots of hypothesis in mind, d) integrate with existing related knowledge and have observations confirmed by others to promote hypothesis to theory, e) describe the theory in the language of mathematics and f) ensure all arguments of the theory are formulated within the rules of classical logic and reasoning.

Every single bit of scientific knowledge you read about is meant to have been constructed by such hypothesis formulation, meticulous observation, reasoning, logic and puzzling together of theories. This process is of course accelerating, but is actually millennia old.

    "If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulder of giants." – Isaac Newton.

A crucial step on the above "path" of scientific method is how to get from point c to f, from a finite number of empirical observations to a widely applicable and true law. This is termed the problem of induction. A scientific hypothesis must allow for experimental tests of falsify it. Basic steps of criticizing scientific consistency: a) show ideological elements in constructed theory and/or it's application and popularization, b) eliminate pseudo-scientific elements and c) rephrase valid scientific leftovers. The prerequisite for such critique is of course a deep theoretical understanding of the scientific field in question. Preferably critique of science is immediately followed by further constructive work in the field. Having followed the climate debate since about 1992 I must say a lot of the "anti-AGW" people has some elements of oil-and-consumption ideology (a), susceptibility to highly questionable research (b), inability to construct alternative complexes of theories (c) plus widespread lack of scientific merit. On the other hand, "they" complain mainstream climatology is infused with leftist eco-freak anti-capitalism (a) and unsound science (b, always horribly put forward).

The whole Global Warming / Climate Change / general pollution debate has worked it's way down a long and winding road. Many early adopters of climate change predicting theories were leftists and 'greens' who coupled it with growth theory criticism which inherently is asking questions at the very foundations of capitalist and consumerist society. But those ideologies have their own devoted worshippers so opposition has been fierce. And obviously still is.

But we have finally arrived at a point where the overwhelming mass of empirical evidence firmly connected in solid theory leaves little doubt. And a point where some financial and political powers have eyed possibilities in making profits and votes from the solution, not the creation, of environmental degradation.

Seeking evidence for only one preconceived conclusion is a scientific abomination by definition. Scientific journalism should follow some of the similar rules science itself does. Rephrasing the same opinion over and over again isn't even journalism to begin with - it's just a load of crap propaganda blogging.

Significance, not truth, please

"Most scientists look for the truth but some believe in human caused climate change just for the funds" - disturbingly typical statement of the blogosphere.

It has been a long time since I read the above statement. What's left is a straw man because I forgot the source and even the original quote. I resigned in the face of overwhelming ignorance.

Why is the statement so offensive then? First, scientists don't really "look for truth". They observe for significance. And links significant observations with plausible explanations. Second, they don't really believe in theories. They trust theories to some extent; i.e. expressed as levels of confidence.

In traditional news event reporting truth nearly exist. Example: Bush went to Iraq and had a shoe thrown at him. That's probably true since we've all seen the taped evidence. But as soon as it gets more complicated than that it starts getting difficult. The Iraq war on Fox isn't the same war they report from on CNN. The news events are wrapped up in little stories that makes sense to the respective audiences.

Climate change is happening right now to most people, media and scientists. But still articles and documentaries appear every now and then that says it isn't happening. Typically the journalist busts his brain trying to understand some research project, then blow this information out of proportion by reporting about it with little regard to all the other research being conducted in the field let alone the decades of research already having been undertaken in it. Or in the spirit of always presenting "both sides of the story" whatever nutcase ready for ridicule gets plenty of space.

    "The truth is out there" - X-files

And it's gonna stay out there. Interestingly, philosophers don't like talking about significance too much. To statisticians it's a kind of tool. In short it means "an observation worth noting". The more science you read, the more probability distributions you will see. Precise facts just keeps disappearing. For years I'd been reading about how atom nuclei are circled by electrons each in a certain distance measured in Ångström. But that is a simplification; from the Wikipedia article:

"This behavior is defined by an atomic orbital, a mathematical function that characterises the probability that an electron will appear to be at a particular location when its position is measured."

Nuclear physicists don't know where the electrons are. They just have a pretty good idea. They know the fraction of electrons in extreme positions, they have pretty good ideas about what atoms with electrons in extreme positions could do, if that process would be immediately reversible etc. Yet they can predict with extreme precision how many grams of chemical Z is produced by adding x grams of chemical X to y grams of chemical Y.

As I said earlier "news events are wrapped up in little stories that makes sense to the respective audiences". Journalists have to do this in order to get any readership. In blogging even more so. A lot of bloggers appear to be doing a project of confirming their own ideas. A lot of blogging isn't a progress of news reporting at all. It's a step back from proper journalism. (There. I said it.) Let us all try to actively look out for information to challenge our ideas.

Confidence, not belief, please

If I make a claim, you should not believe in me. You should evaluate my arguments and decide for yourself if I am making a prediction worth your confidence. Look at the observations I reason with.

There are many lousy arguments used to construct claims all the time. Let me just attack a couple (while making wild claims just to get this article finished).

First: History proves nothing. Never has, never will. It is the tale of the survivors, rarely much more than that.

Second: Financial postulates are usually over-valued? Gross national products have omitted social costs and environmental degradation. Economic theory is rooted in and tainted by simplifications of obsolete physical theories (see "The Origin of Wealth" by E. D. Beinhocker). Cost-benefit analysis is too easily exploited for propaganda.

Third: Even my much beloved statistics have its limits. We express most predictions in bell curves of confidence intervals. But no prediction is based on godlike complete understanding of the universe. Hence, all bell curves should be drawn with "fat tails". (Perhaps see the books by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.)

Fourth: Let us listen to experts. The lists of academics who denounce the climate change consensus is full of dentists. I like dentists. Especially those who fix teeth. (Perhaps we should also try and have a look at the track record of our economists!? The people we trust our values - did they see the current financial crisis?) Our experts hail their successes, hide and excuse their failures.

Confidence intervals are expressions of the precision of predictions. In fact, they are more important that the predictions themselves - how often do we see predictions that hits spot on? We don't expect that. If the weather man said it'd be 5 degrees Celsius, we don't write him an angry letter if it's only 4 degrees Celsius.

Weather forecasts are notoriously imprecise so we know that. But how about a forecaster predicting "between minus 100 and plus 50 degrees". That would be a prediction of little value. Another prediction that is often discussed is the one by the IPCC. They do talk about confidence in their conclusions ie...

"The understanding of anthropogenic warming and cooling influences on climate has improved [...] leading to very high confidence that the globally averaged net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming [...]" - IPCC

And their estimates have been conservative, reality exceeding their fears repeatedly. The IPCC cannot risk over-estimates as that would cost a lot of their credibility in a world of skeptics and deniers.

Remember: We cannot live by scepticism alone

Science needs scepticism. So don't be too hard on your local "denier". First of all, scientists should be sceptic of their own work. This is (should be) taught at university. Basic stuff. I hope to have conveyed this message in the above paragraphs.

BUT... there comes a point when action is needed, scepticism must be saved for later. Now is such a point in regards to the climatological predictions on the runaway greenhouse effect.

"Scientists have been too dogmatic about scientific truth and sociologists have fostered too much scepticism — social scientists must now elect to put science back at the core of society [...] the logic of a sceptical argument defeats any amount of evidence; one can deduce that no inference from observation can ever be certain, that one cannot be sure that the future will be like the past, and that nothing is exactly like anything else, making the process of experimental repetition more complicated than it seems [...] Just showing there is some doubt about an issue, or another side to the story — at which we social scientists are nowadays unbeatable — does not inform you what to do" - Harry Collins

Enjoy "We cannot live by scepticism alone" - if you have a subscription to Nature.

(This article was a re-hash of three old articles posted at Newsvine.)