Because it is impossible to convince the other side by saying "my side is truth, your side is opinion." If the goal in engaging climate skeptics is to turn them into climate realists, then the discussion must be on their terms, not yours. "skeptics" always forget this because they aren't "skeptical" at all - they just accept that anything sciencey-sounding is dogma and anyone who questions dogma is an infidel.
I now give science talks here in town, and I may have blow someone's minds last month. The topic of radiocarbon dating came up so I spent about 10 minutes talking about what radioactivity is, why carbon is used for "young" things, how we know it works etc. The guy who asked the question wanted me to talk about isotopes as I sort of '30,000ft' the conversation. Somehow, I got to talking about O-16 versus O-18 and how it can be used to determine temperatures in ancient air samples in glacial air bubbles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_isotope_ratio_cycle link for the interested. Oh, I was talking about using PET in cancer treatment, and using Oxygen isotopes. That is how it came up. This had nothing to do with climate change, nothing to do with politics, it was a side conversation about how atoms work. Two people after the talk asked me to write that wiki link down so the could read it; nobody had ever explained to them the HOW they come up with the idea that the earth is getting warmer and why they are confident this is true. In another thread today (waiting for parts on RMA so I have down time ) the conversation was about eavesdropping. One of the things we forget sometimes on the internet is that the whole world is eavesdropping on us, having this conversation, every conversation. You never know who is reading your words. The amusing thing for me is that I've been on the internet so long I naturally talk to an audience instead of an individual and have to make a concentrated effort to not do that in person. Every time I use this handle on the internet, I assume everyone is going to see it and act accordingly. So to sort of come back around to a point on topic for those who are eavesdropping, my talking about oxygen isotopes and what they are used for may have opened the minds of two climate "skeptics." Or it hardened them either further, I guess I'll find out if they show up at a future talk. The guy who asked the question sent me an email after reading about nuclear physics on wikipedia with the comment "I never realized how much stuff I never knew about!" That is how you fight nonsense, in my opinion. Expose people to the "I had no idea people knew this stuff" and let their curiosity hopefully guide them in the right direction.
Also, when the media can write things that aren't incoherent, that's a win. Sadly, this article is a loss. The title itself is nonsense. I'm a scientist, and I have no idea what a "science fact" is. I know what data are. And I know how to make reasonable connections between data that appear to have a causal relationship. But, to this point in my career, I've not encountered a science fact. Climate change is a belief, it just happens to be a well reasoned one. The facts are the data points that show, collectively, that the world is retaining more energy. Climate change, as a predictive theory, is certainly a belief by any reasonable definition of the world belief. Articles like this do nothing other than to muddle good science and terrible journalism. Somehow, we've decided that belief means things that aren't true and facts are things that are. I think that's a shit way of looking at the world. I think over time that the predictive powers of the various models out there will get better, as more data are gathered and better understanding of various climatic interactions develops. This will make the models more fully believable, but they'll still be beliefs. The media need to help out, if the unconvinced masses are to ever come on board with science and the scientific method. Writing things like "science fact" represent small setbacks for humanity.
It reminds me of the discussion we all had about moral facts. https://hubski.com/pub?id=209417 Here's where I would say that climate change is an opinion, or belief, based upon physical facts. The author seems to struggle with this. "Agreed-upon" is the crux of the matter, IMO. Ultimately, the author is trying to parse beliefs founded upon scientifically collected data from other types of beliefs. To be fair, the phrase wasn't hers, but the chief of the EPA. The language here is messy. It might be redundant to say scientific fact, but I guess the scientific part separates it from historical facts. It could be shorthand for facts gathered in a scientific manner. But, I agree that it's inappropriate to apply it to a theory.Some arguments carry more weight than others, but at least it's a debate that can stand on agreed-upon fact.
Nate silver made an interesting point in The Signal and the Noise that a whole lot more people "believe" in "the greenhouse effect" than they do in "climate change" and that contrary to the assertions of most "skeptics" the argument over "anthropocentric global warming" is over "anthropocentric" not "global warming." Unfortunately, most "skeptics" like to argue "it's science, duh" without really noticing that their opponents aren't arguing the mechanisms, they're arguing the validity of the data leading to an anthropocentric interpretation of climate change. I, for one, can explain "the greenhouse effect" no problem. They first started teaching that when I was in 5th grade. Have a nuanced article about the validity of the data indicating anthropocentric climate change? Well, the data has convinced me but I'm nowhere near entrenched enough to debate it.
I wonder if they still teach the greenhouse effect. I remember learning a lot about the environment in grade school, before the environment was a politically divisive issue. We had a second grade choir concert in which one of the songs was about turning off the faucet when you brush your teeth, and another about the evils of polystyrene. Imagine if my music teacher had to tell us that the inability of polystyrene to break down in landfills was "just a theory". My how times have changed...
Dude, remember acid rain? How that was going to be the downfall of us all? Or the hole in the ozone layer? http://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/pages/6e7ff51a-3f5b-4b91-8411-98786c01b740/images/animation.gif it's almost as if we can fix things when we acknowledge them as fact and work to correct them. mk - here's a great reason why animated gifs should be allowed.
That seems an unfair assessment of many skeptics. Of course, once you are grouped you suffer from characterizations of that group, but that's not my view of what to be a skeptic is. To me, it means having views that reflect the weight of current evidence. Not to say all proclaimed skeptics meet that measure, but it seems unjust to group those that do with those that don't. Has the term 'skeptic' been sullied?
I had a subscription to the Skeptical Inquirer for about a year. I think that was before Reddit, or any skeptic forums of note. At the time it seemed pretty tame, if not an angle for popular science. I suppose this was also before the vaccine frauds. Every scientist is a skeptic. But IMHO popularizing science wins a lot more hearts and minds than debunking. Most people don't believe in things strongly due to evidence alone. Perhaps /r/skeptic has unfairly biased you against some mellow folk that congregate elsewhere?
And I own two Michael Shermer books. My mother has a Ph.D in microbiology. Her dad is a Ph.D biochemist and the chief scientist for a fortune 500 biomedical company. I consider myself "skeptical." But for the past 10 years I've been encountering "skeptics" that are nothing more than angry assholes who want so much to believe in a religion but their own rationality prevents them so they cling to "skepticism" as if it were papal doctrine. The only people who use the title "skeptic" are those who want to pick a fight. Enough of them have threatened bodily harm against those I love that I am entitled to my bias. "Skeptics" never politely disagree: they tell you why you're a fuckhead for not thinking like they do.