We’re constantly told man-made climate change is settled science. Why? Not from solid research rather than an experiential base. No. On the bases of consensus. Man has to have caused all the environmental problems encountered in our world.
Consensus is not science. Models formulated and used today are more based on assumptions, speculation, and theory, than science or solid research. Science is about irrefutable proof, gleaned from testing, and retesting and keeping an open-minded approach to findings.
Obviously, man did not bring on former ice ages or other cataclysmic planetary climate changes of the past. Few talk about normal earth cycles that are so long-term they are difficult to get a handle on. Simpler just to blame those alive today.
This is not to say humans haven’t done damage to the environment, but we live on a large piece of land that is far more complex and able to restore than we want to admit. (Check ozone layer and if the earth is really heating up) Scientists, like everyone else, get stuck in current politically correct belief. (How many grants are dependent on following the current trends?)
I read there is a 97% consensus among “scientists” that climate-change, man-made climate change, is fact. (I do dispute this figure. There are many scientists calling the man-made assumption in question in whole or in part.) Science isn’t about consensus. Umm. Before Columbus sailed the ocean blue, scientists and the educated of the day were in consensus that the world was flat. Oops. Consensus didn’t stop Columbus from shattering that truth, which turned out to be merely a belief based on some observed phenomenon, rather than facts and truth.
A hundred and fifty years ago, scientists and doctors believed “cupping” or bleeding a person was critical medical treatment. There was a high consensus. Doctors who found, through experience, otherwise and that patients lived longer without such treatment were sidelined, dismissed and put down. We now know such bloodletting siphoned needed blood from the body, actually keeping the body from healing. Most believed (consensus again) there was much more blood in the body than there actually is. These professionals actually caused their patients to bleed out and die by their actions. One of these might have been the Father of our country—George Washington.
Those willing to break out of the consensus mold discovered the truth and saved countless lives, especially once the scientists and medical profession were dragged away from their traditional consensus belief. Consensus leads to stagnation, not new discoveries.
The cyber hacks of East Anglia several years ago revealed many in the scientific community are more interested in clinging to their theories—such as man-made climate change, than in exploring, with an open mind, alternative possibilities. They trashed, destroyed or hid findings contrary to their consensus.
Consensus is not science. Don’t get caught in this same trap. Because something is claimed, because there are emotional appeals, doesn’t make something either scientific or truth. We need to go beyond consensus and view our wonderful world through a wider lens of curiosity, and with an unbiased search for reality.
After all, “In the beginning, God created…”
By Carolyn R Scheidies