Global warming: how do scientists know they’re not wrong?

Back in July, LiveScience ran a piece by Andrea Thompson entitled Global warming: how do scientists know they’re not wrong? Although one could argue that there is too much straining to seem “balanced” (the two deniers quoted receive a vastly disproportionate bit of page space relative to the consensus in science), it is generally a very interesting look at how science deals with politically controversial areas of inquiry, particularly when they involve questions that are not easily amenable to laboratory experimentation or direct observation or which involve extrapolation from available, smaller-scale observations. The parallels with evolution are clear. The lesson: science operates according to a set of principles, and if you reject those principles because some of the conclusions they produce are distasteful to you, you may do so at your own (and everyone else’s) peril.


3 thoughts on “Global warming: how do scientists know they’re not wrong?

  1. Are you crazy? Do you really think that skeptics have no valid reasons for believing that global warming is natural? When all previous episodes of climate change since the earth was created were natural? We’re talking about one of the most complex, chaotic systems known to man in a field, climatology, that is still in it’s infancy. Do you have any idea how much there is still to learn?

  2. You’re right — better to just wait and see and ignore the scientific consensus. Thank you for setting us straight, Mike M.

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