| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:cuts no ice | |
| Posted by: | Tom Pike | |
| Date/Time: | 01/07/08 16:13:00 |
| Matthew, Science works in a very different way than that you suggest. A concept is scientific only if it is possible to disprove it. To that extent, even long-held theories remain provisional, even if there has been a tremendous amount of corroborating scientific evidence. Normally whoever overturns what had been a well established set of concepts gets tremendous recognition - Einstein's relativity superseding Newton's Laws being the classic example. Religion hardly works in this way. Take the example of the volcanoes under the Arctic. Of course the scientists who discovered these would have immediately considered whether the eruptions might be responsible for ice melting. If plausible, this would have revolutionised our understanding of the Arctic. The scientists could expect the admiration of their colleagues, not to be dismissed as heretics. But for very good scientific reasons these scientists saw that such a volcanic cause of melting was unlikely to be significant. We should really relabel climate-change sceptics as deniers. Scientists are by their nature sceptics and should always be willing to shift positions in the light of new scientific results. In contrast climate-change deniers take a religious position which ignores the scientific evidence, advocate untestable propositions, and pick up discarded theories of climate change to try to buttress their case. |