Who is anti-science?

Vincent J. Curtis

3 June 23

Who is “anti-science?”  The epithet “anti-science” is often thrown about these days to impugn those who don’t go along with the “climate change” hypothesis.  But what makes a person “anti-science?”

Science is an organized body of knowledge about a subject matter, and the philosophical approach to science is an open-minded search for truth; being undismayed by unorthodox conclusions.

A person who is anti-science is someone who places conformance to an orthodoxy above the evidence.  Characteristically, a person who insists on conformance to an orthodoxy is dismayed by unorthodox conclusions because the orthodoxy is the supreme thing that mustn’t be challenged.

Let’s look at an historical example for illustration.  Nicholas Copernicus in the 16^th century proposed that the solar system was heliocentric.  At the time, the scientific consensus was the Ptolemaic view, that the earth was the center of the universe and that all celestial objects revolved around it.  The earth being the center of the universe was also congenial to the theology of the times, since it suggested the importance of mankind, who were at the center of God’s creation.  Copernicus’ heliocentric hypothesis challenged both the scientific and the theological views and consensus, and was therefore of great interest to astronomers, who were guided by an open-minded search for truth.

Though imperfect, Copernicus’ theory became accepted by astronomers because it explained the movement of celestial bodies better than Ptolemy’s theory did.  Copernicus’ theory held erroneously that the planets revolved in perfect circles around the sun, and correcting for the fact that planetary orbits were elliptical made the correspondence with observation even closer.  The theologians came to accept the heliocentric theory because, to theology’s credit, it maintained that theology could not be at odds with science.

So, who was anti-science?  Actually, none on either side of the dispute was, because both astronomers and theologians accepted Copernicus’ challenge; they didn’t dismiss it as contrary to consensus.  His theory may have been dismaying, but the search for truth prevailed over prejudice.  After Sir Isaac Newton and his theory of gravitation explained heliocentricism, no one could seriously challenge the heliocentric view of the solar system; and if someone today insisted on the archaic Ptolemaic system without some extraordinary evidence, they would be anti-science.

Today, there is a different orthodoxy that is being insisted upon.  Its foundational belief is that Western Civilization is the heart and the cause of evil in the world.  After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Western Civilization stood alone and unchallenged in the world for its economic, cultural. scientific, and technological successes.  How to humble the Western powers?  Apart from incessant and unprincipled moral criticism, one way is to cripple its economic success, by making its energy production uneconomic.  Nuclear power generation having been made into a boogie-man, the next step was to abolish power generation by the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas.  And that was the point of the Kyoto Treaty of 1995.  The Kyoto Treaty was founded upon the belief that the continued burning of fossil fuels was going to destroy the planet.

(Note: I dispute calling methane, natural gas, a “fossil fuel.”  Its abundance elsewhere in the solar system indicates that methane on earth may not be primarily of biological origin.)

That carbon dioxide, a product of the burning of carbonaceous fuels, absorbs light in the infra-red spectrum, and thus could trap heat in the earth’s atmosphere, was known in the 19^th century.  The great Swedish physicist Svante Arrhenius first proposed that more CO2 in the atmosphere would lead to uncontrolled atmospheric warming; but his theory was discredited by the actual events of the 20^th century.  The earth did warm from the beginning of the 20^th century until 1940.  Then, despite rising CO2 level, the earth cooled until 1979.  The climate scare of the 1970s was of a coming ice age.  Then, the earth began to warm again until 1998, when warming paused.  That pause caused the cry of “global warming” to be changed into the vague and non-falsifiable “climate change.”  It’s hard to maintain in science a theory of rising CO2 causing global warming when CO2 is rising but global temperature isn’t.

(Note: we now understand why Arrhenius was wrong.  The greenhouse effect of CO2 is maxed out by 100 ppm concentration.  Adding more CO2 above 100 ppm traps practically no more infra-red radiation.)

The global warming file, re-started in 1988 by NASA scientist James Hansen, was given to Al Gore when he became Vice-President of the United States in 1993.  Gore conditioned the receipt of Federal science funding upon the advocacy, somehow, of the global warming hypothesis.  The Kyoto Treaty was Gore’s triumph.  The world didn’t have time to discuss it; global disaster was just around the corner; and the pre-cautionary principle commanded immediate action.

However, all the forecasts of apocalypse that came out of the global warming hypothesis, from 1988 onwards, proved wrong in the event; the most obvious of which were the many forecasts of the Arctic Ocean becoming ice-free in summer, of a rise in sea level with the accompanying inundation of coastal cities; the submersions of Pacific islands, and a catastrophic and accelerating rise in global temperature.  The failed forecast problem was answered with greater ferocity of orthodoxy enforcement and with more frightening apocalyptic forecasts.

The political orthodoxy which followed upon the global warming hypothesis did, however, succeed in crippling the growth of cheap energy supply in the Western world, and China became the center of world manufacturing over the last twenty years.

The only things supporting the ‘burning-of-fossil-fuels-causes-global-warming’ hypothesis are models, which are nothing more than specific articulations of that hypothesis.  Models aren’t data.  Models aren’t evidence.  Models demand evidence for their validation.  None of the models match the temperature data except for the Russian models.  The non-Russian models all forecast warming, and warming isn’t happening.  The Russian models don’t forecast warming, and are therefore the closest fit to the actual data.  Are you dismayed by this unorthodox outcome?

So, who is anti-science?  Are the Russian models anti-science because they correctly forecast no warming?  Or are those anti-science who place the orthodoxy ahead of the data?  Who places orthodoxy ahead of the evidence?  Who is not guided by an open-minded search for truth, and is dismayed by the unorthodox conclusions? 

The refusal to entertain hypotheses which challenge the orthodoxy is anti-science.  How else is theoretical science to advance except by challenges to the received orthodoxy, with theories which better explain the evidence?

Can a scientist be trusted whose daily bread relies upon his claiming that this or that phenomenon is a sign of climate change?  The use of the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent can often keep bread on the table and the conscience somewhat clear.

The latest fallacious climate claim is to attribute the Nova Scotia fires to ‘climate change.’  Let’s sort this out.  Okay, the hypothesis is that climate change caused the fires: what evidence have you got to support that hypothesis?  The phenomenon itself cannot serve as the proof of its own cause.  That’s obviously fallacious.

There is no evidence offered; the hypothesis that climate change caused fires is merely affirmed as consistent with the orthodoxy, which fails utterly to confirm the hypothesis at issue, namely that the cause of the fires is climate change.  This is the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent: fires, therefore climate change.

But drought is not climate change.  Drought is a normal abnormal condition; it is a prolonged but temporary condition of a lack of rain when rain is expected.  Climate change is when Nova Scotia turns into a desert.

It seems clear that those hurling the accusation of being “anti-science” are themselves the ones who are anti-science.  Lacking evidence that supports their hypothesis, they place the orthodoxy above the evidence; they are dismayed by theories and conclusions that deny the orthodoxy; they reject theories that explain the evidence better than the received orthodoxy, and their standard mode of argument is to affirm the consequent.

St. Thomas Aquinas said that to one who has faith, no explanation is necessary.  Those throwing around the epithet “anti-science” to enforce an orthodoxy are the ones who are anti-science.

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