Saturday, November 24, 2018

Science or Opinion?

Not everything is a matter of opinion.

For example, we know when water boils, and if you want to hold a different opinion you are just wrong.

The age we live in has in some ways allowed certain people to treat everything as relative.

Most things aren't.

It often doesn't matter when people decide to reject certain facts.  If you want to believe the Earth is flat, go ahead.  You are demonstrably wrong, but who cares?

If on the other hand you fail to vaccinate your children because you believe the proven fallacies of the dangers of vaccination you are risking them and others to dangerous diseases.

Are vaccinations risk free?  Well nothing is risk free really, but the risks are not related to the wild rumors on the Internet, they are extremely rare.

Similarly, the impact of man on the climate is no longer a matter of opinion if it ever was.

Clearly pumping tons of pollutants into the air is not a beneficial thing and while we had trouble measuring the full impact at one time, science can now determine its impacts and consequences.

Science likes to express some facts as ranges, because even when the data is clear, the calculations almost always include some variables that can change the prediction.

The change is a matter of range, not of reversal.

So if the prediction is that something bad will happen in 50 to 60 years, it is not unsettled science, it is the nature of future variability.

The federal government issued a report after detailed studies which spells out the catastrophic consequences of climate change if we don't do something.  In some cases it is probably already too late.

Denial is not really an option and the results are sound science, not opinions.

You can't wish them away.

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