What Sherlock Holmes Would Advise About Global Climate Change
In listening to The Writer’s Almanac this morning, I learned that it’s the birthday of Arthur Conan Doyle, who gave us the character Sherlock Holmes, and thrust the power of deductive reasoning onto the world stage a century ago. Holmes told us, “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly, one begins to twist facts to suit theories rather than to twist theories to suit facts.”
I bring this up because it’s so precisely relevant to the discussion of global climate change; this is exactly what the deniers claim, i.e., that the theory is based on a manipulation of facts to suit a theory. Having said that, 97+% of climate scientists don’t see it this way.
It’s interesting that when climate warming deniers say that scientists support their claims, but if you look more closely, the ones who support them don’t specialize in areas of science that would give them expertise on the matter. Climate Science is not the same as weather forecasting, so meteorologists are not naturally well-informed; same goes for biologists, chemists, physicists, geologists, etc. Therefore, I am not impressed when I read “x percent of scientists support the view that global warming is not caused by humans” or “x percent of scientists don’t believe global warming is real.” Those statistics are misleading. Not all scientists are created equal, so to speak.