In this country, there is too much emphasis on "belief" on issues like climate change/global warming

[CreekDog]

This issue, and others like it, should not be looked at in terms of whether people "believe" it, but objectively in terms of the scientific evidence and scientific consensus about that evidence.

I think some folks think that the way that they believe in faith matters (some would say they feel it in their heart, their gut, their instincts or that Jesus tells them to- voice in their head, feeling in their heart, gut, etc.), that this is how they should approach scientific issues or things that can be empirically evaluated.

Without getting into the validity of religion, religion is this way because it can't be objectively proven, there is no scientific evidence of its truth. Religions are, even by many of their own definitions, matters of "faith", not empirical knowledge.

Science and tangible things in the physical world aren't matters of faith. You don't need "faith" or "belief" in science because it can be demonstrated or replicated without faith or belief. You need "faith" and "belief" in religion because there is no science or scientific method that validates religious tenets.

So, when people say what they "believe" about climate change, or other things that can be judged empirically and objectively, and for which science has studied and come to broad consensus and conclusions about...people really need to be asked why what they "believe" is relevant.

It is no different than one believing that airplane travel is safe one day and believing it is unsafe another day without any objective change in the facts or science of airplane travel. The problem is many climate deniers do see it precisely this way. They are waiting to be convinced, much like an altar call, when they gain a "conviction" or "confession" of religious "faith". This isn't an objective thing and when they say they believe it or they don't, it's not evidence that's convincing them, it's something else they're looking for.

And there is too much actual evidence of climate change to bother discussing whether one sincerely believes it based on their "feelings" or "faith", or doubts it on that basis.

[valerief]

1. Americans are trained to believe instead of think. Oligarchy 101. nt

[hunter]

6. Yep.

I have much education thinking, K-12, university graduate, and beyond.

But the oligarchs are trying to kill those opportunities for education.

They want robots.

Worker robots, doctor robots, engineer robots.

The laborer, craftspeople, doctor, engineer, scientist, language and political ARTISTS scare the shit out of them.

[enough]

2. As someone said, climate change doesn't care whether you believe in it or not. (nt)

[CreekDog]

13. yes, that

[Vattel]

3. All arguments, even scientific ones, begin with assumptions that are not themselves proven.

[ret5hd]

4. Can you give us the dissenting point of view that you "believe"?

[CreekDog]

5. Yes, but the climate change argument is not at the beginning

[Vattel]

7. Let me rephrase that. All scientific arguments and theories rest on unproven assumptions.

That's okay, I think, because good science rests on assumptions that are pretty much undeniable even though they cannot be proven. Such truths include basic logical and mathematical truths, for example, and the assumption that our senses do not systematically mislead us.

[GreatGazoo]

8. +1 Real science is an on-going discussion.

Science itself is a kind of discussion between Mankind and the Universe -- questions and theories get tested to produce answers. Data gets aggregated and queried to become multi-variate analysis. Research is peer-reviewed -- another discussion. Ultimately we get a few laws of physics but mostly lots of theories which have to be revised or discarded if evidence which disproves them is observed.

I think the OP presents "science" as a monolith of agreement and of hard facts when it is closer, at its edges if not the center as well, to clusters of theories which explain various phenomena. The word "theory" seems increasingly to be left out by those who present science as a monolith. If this monolithic version of "science" cannot stand up to discussion by those who make the distinction between theory and law then it is perhaps closer to religion than it is to real science.

The umbrella term science seems over-used when most of the discussion and subject matter is in the sub-set of biology (for example climate change). Of all the sciences biology is perhaps the most complex and elusive. At the hard facts and laws end of the range I would put a science like Mathematics or Physics. At the complete other end of the range, the end where things are often just too complex to be reduced to equations and pure numbers, I would put biology. Using the term "science" to mean "biology," or the complimentary "ecology," sets expectations of certainty that Physics can meet but biology seldom does.

[Vattel]

9. The social sciences, as well as parts of biology, are definitely more prone to error than physics.

I am not sure why you classify climate science as biology. Isn't it interdisciplinary: part chemistry, part physics, part biology, and so on?

I am not a skeptic about global warming, but I am skeptical about the claim to certainty that is too often made on behalf of certain conclusions about the rate and causes of climate change.

[GreatGazoo]

10. Didn't mean to imply that anyone, myself included, is a skeptic of climate change

only that theories of climate change, and other sciences, will evolve as more data is captured and analyzed. So I think we agree on that.

Climate science is interdisciplinary but the key parts, for human survival, are biology, and biology tends to engender some of the more legendary and robust discussion on DU -- circumcision, dog breed and aggression (aka 'pitbull threads'), and the use of BMI to classify people as unhealthy to name a few. To put it a different way, climate change would likely not be a hot topic if it did not involve biology.

[RobertEarl]

11. Climate Change is a Theory

It is based on the fact of Global Warming. Measurements of temperatures are the basis of the fact that the Globe is Warming.

The theory of Climate Change says that Global Warming will force Climate change.

Another Theory is that Global Warming is caused by humans and our pollution/alteration of the atmosphere. That Theory is based upon measurements of human induced pollution.

[Vattel]

12. The theory that global warming is caused by humans

is based on a lot more than mere measurements of human-induced pollution. But besides my being picky about that over-simplification, I have no objection to what you stated.