"If you follow the subject of global warming alarm, you will have read many times that there is a “consensus” of “97% of climate scientists” on — well, on something.
I’ve actually never been able to find a precise statement of the proposition on which the 97% supposedly agree.
...Really, what choice do you have other than to trust the people who have done the work, and who call themselves the scientists and the experts on this subject?
This approach apparently seems reasonable to a lot of people, including many, many seemingly intelligent people.But not to me.
The approach does not seem reasonable to me because the scientific method provides a very simple check for testing whether scientific claims are valid, and you don’t need to be a scientist to apply this check.
(Another way of looking at it is that the people who apply this check are actually the real scientists, because they are the ones using the scientific method; and the people who call themselves “scientists” and work in “scientific” fields of endeavor and publish in scientific journals and wear scientist outfits, but don’t apply the actual scientific method, are not really scientists. But at this point in time the label “scientist” has been so captured by those who apply it to themselves whether or not they follow the scientific method that I think it is hopeless to get it back.)
Here is the very simple check.
When confronted with a claim that a scientific proposition has been definitively proven, ask the question:
What was the null hypothesis and on what basis has it been rejected?
Consider first a simple example, the question of whether aspirin cures headaches.
Make that our scientific proposition: aspirin cures headaches.
How would this proposition be established?
Read all to find out!
No comments:
Post a Comment