When people say that ‘the science of climate change is settled’ they are often being problematically imprecise. Elements of the science are certainly settled beyond a doubt - for instance, the simple fact that adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere raises global temperatures. Other elements are certain but less precise: overall warming of the planet will alter air and water currents, though we do not know exactly how. Still higher order questions have answers at lower levels of both precision and certainty.
This graphic sketches out a bit of what I mean:
Responding to climate change is perhaps the ultimate case of needing to make decisions under conditions of uncertainty. Simplistic conceptions of what it means for something to be ‘certain’ must give way to a more nuanced appreciation of the nature of knowledge and evidence.
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I think this is an excellent post - I’m considering printing out this graph and posting it on some telephone poles.
As you probably can assume, I have a beef with certainty, and this is a case where any notion of truth based on certainty is going to be useless in decision making. As you say, simplistic notions of “certainty” need to “give way to a more nuanced appreciation of hte nature of knowledge and evidence”. What is the nature of knowledge and evidence? I think the best way to start is “that which you could always be wrong about/be misled by”.
Ugly. Ugly Visio.
I think it’s a great doc. Clear and succinct.. But it’s the size of Texas when you open it..
Can you resize it so it opens to a normal size?
It was intended for use as a wall-sized poster, illustrating the concepts therein for underlings…
Excellent post, Milan. As a non-scientist, I’ve often found the arrogance of some in the scientific community astonishing. There is plenty of historical evidence after all that scientific certainties become less certain and even refuted as time, experience and other influences intervene. Medicine is a prime example of this.
XUP,
Scientists have made mistakes in the past. That said, people are sometimes far too quick to dismiss their work, just because it clashes with something they want to believe.
If you want to gain some appreciation for how meticulous and precise a lot of climatic science is, read Richard Alley’s “The Two Mile Time Machine.”
Although there remains uncertainty in many aspects of climate science, as in all science, over the past few years an overwhelming and well-founded acceptance has emerged, not only in the scientific community, but among the general public and in political arenas, that human activity, and in particular the burning of fossil fuels, is warming the planet. Far from the debate being over, with this awareness the discourse on climate change has largely moved from one of questioning the science to disputing what ought to be done about the problem.
The rational for the FPS publication of this note was to ‘open up the debate’ on climate change. The obvious ineptitude of this contribution underlines quite effectively how little debate there is on the fundamentals if this is the best counter-argument that can be offered.