Science is not a belief system. Science is a method. Science uses techniques to measure and classify things and events, assemble data, control variables, infer effects, hypothesize outcomes and more to test belief systems, and to test itself. For example, if in a science experiment a hypothesized result fails to appear, scientists figure out what went wrong and try again, this time with the knowledge that the prior techniques, variables or inferences were wrong. Hypotheses are proved, disproved, or modified. Science is satisfied when test results point to more required testing.
Religion is a belief system. Politics are belief systems though of different kinds and not to be conflated with government, which, unfortunately, sometimes buckles under political belief systems. Belief systems are born of devotion to doctrines or non-scientific practices. The doctrines and practices of religion and politics do not self-test, though they demonstrate conflict and faults routinely and can evolve better with self-testing.
Belief systems can be tested by using scientific methodology and its general tools, but not all belief systems. Not religion nor politics (nor, sometimes, governments) pass muster to scientific testing because, after a point, religion, politics and government are no longer susceptible to scientific testing methodology due to faith, a human quality inherently immeasurable.
Man-made climate change is measurable and classifiable; anthropogenic global warming has been confirmed by scientific methods. The science community from ordinary business records knows how much fossil fuels have been mined, stored, transported and combusted since the Industrial Age. Science knows what chemical reactions take place in the Earth’s atmosphere. The review of such records and the application of ordinary science is not a mystery. The conclusions from such records and scientific applications are easy to understand among those educated in science, but are difficult to understand among persons indoctrinated in the faiths of religion and politics.
That faith and science do not mix may be a truism, but in the operation of human nature in day-to-day activities, faith beats science frequently resulting in obstruction of social development and planetary sustainability, or in complacency about social problems and natural resources degradation. Catholicism embraced science centuries ago, especially due to advances by the Jesuit Order. Other religions shun science. Modern iterations of some religions, e.g., Christian and Evangelical groups, Mormons and others, may survive only if their leaders start to preach scientific acceptance as followers are becoming more and more educated with the consequence that questioning religious authority is more popular.
Evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould stated science and religion are separate “non-overlapping magisteria” (Rocks of Ages, Ballantine, 1999). Gould explained that science is “what the universe is made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory)”. Religion can claim monopoly over “questions of ultimate meaning and moral value.” I add that though religion holds monopolistic sway for the past two-or-so millennia, religion is not necessary to form meaning and moral value – philosophy suits the same purpose. Religious doctrine, other than teaching the subjugation of enemies and subservience of women and dominion over animals, also teaches to be good stewards of our bodies, fellows, and the planet. Compare science which teaches understanding and good stewardship without deities, violence and dominion. Philosophy and science are fundamentally intertwined. Faith and science are not, despite forced statements saying so.
Politics to many is faith based, and for many others is just a “rah-rah for our team, let’s beat the other team” rallying cheer. Faith-based and rally-based politicians do not serve us well. In our system, laws are vetted through politicians, and in too many cases, through their faiths. Thus, American politicians’ statements denying and confabulating climate change and anthropogenic global warming do not measure up to scientific or philosophical reasons. Unfortunately, these same statements of denial and confabulation rally the faith-based constituency.
In How To Break The Climate Deadlock (Scientific American, December 2015), author Naomi Oreskes fairly compares the free marketplace and the American government. She states the old maxim that the government that governs best governs least (I agree where “least” is due in large part to responsible citizenship). She invokes the dictum that in a truly free marketplace, factors can adjust to the current dumping of carbon into our planet’s atmosphere. She passes judgment with authority and solid proof that the marketplace is skewed: In a properly functioning marketplace, consumers pay the economically true costs of goods and services. True costs? Herein is a major unaddressed problem – our atmosphere is being used as a dump for lots of carbon, but no one is paying the true costs to use the dump. She concludes, in general, that neither the American government nor the American marketplace adequately are addressing climate issues, but they must, and must do so in collaboration with other countries.
Political groups address this climate problem in the most screwball manner. In addition to and digression from Oreskes’s discussion, I add that the more extreme any doctrine, a greater sense of trust among adherents within that doctrine is revealed, paradoxical though that sounds. Thus, the extremer doctrine implants its own morality and such morality is claimed superior to that of other groups who are deemed less moral or deserving of conversion or, worse, expulsion or punishment or, in extreme cases, death (such as the current ISIL problem). Where among these kinds of classifications do anti-science, climate-change-denier political groups fall? Let’s see:
In an imaginary USA governmental subdivision, say, a predominantly Republican Party county or municipality, the local landfill does not charge a fee or otherwise does not charge the local taxpayers for dumping. In a laissez-faire marketplace, residents and businesses in neighboring counties and municipalities very likely are to take advantage of cost savings by transporting their dumpables to that free district for only the cost of transportation. How long before the free district residents and businesses complain about the implied subsidy they are giving to their out-of-district neighbors? Then, what do they do about the implied subsidy? Charge a fee or a tax? To their own constituency? Only to outsiders? Now picture in your mind the county or municipal council dialogue (much finger pointing, little science and economics) used to argue these points for the next year-or-so. Which group is more moral and which less moral? Is the solution to charge the local constituency a smaller fee and the outsiders a larger fee? Expanding these thoughts, a local government landfill dumping scenario is easier to grasp than an extrapolated global carbon dumping scenario – global scale impact, but same small mindset.
In Consilience And Consensus, Or Why Climate Skeptics Are Wrong (Scientific American, December 2015), author Michael Shermer succeeds defining in a manner anyone can understand how scientific evidence is accumulated, reviewed, disseminated, and publicized which all result in the “convergence of evidence”. The author uses a comical anecdote to demonstrate the wrong-mindedness in the popular sphere: As Albert Einstein said in response to a 1931 book skeptical of relativity theory entitled 100 Authors Against Einstein, “Why 100, if I were wrong, one would have been enough.”
The convergence of evidence on climate change is self-evident and clear. Earth’s atmosphere is a free dump. The marketplace of our atmosphere is skewed. We in the USA suffer our peculiar American dilemma – a large part of the American audience does not want to hear the evidence, and especially the current majority of elected officials will not tune in to the scientific discussion of the environment. Instead, they invoke faith to avoid discussion.
Now what? Decline? Or change? Maybe the wealthy 1% can buy their survival. The 99%? Hmmm.