Throughout the last century a very pivotal debate has been brewing among philosopher's  and historians of science. The question is broadly known as the “demarcation problem.” It essentially asks where to draw the line in the sand between science and pseudoscience. Among the many major players in this debate are the philosophers Thomas Khun, Bertrand Russell and Sir. Karl Popper. Each of these commentators contributed a very unique and substantive argument and we will discuss and connect their ideas to the current global warming science. The (very loaded) issue of global warming is of utmost relevance to me, to my generation and the generations to come. However it’s important not to overlook deeper roots of what science is and what it isn’t, with relation to climate science,

In his major analysis, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” (1962), Thomas Khun expounded that the pursuits of a scientific theory aren’t about finding truth about reality, but rather more revolved around confirming a dominant paradigm under certain intellectual conditions. For Khun, science is divided between “normal science,” which seeks to only verify existing theories without testing the underlined assumptions of that theory and “revolutionary science,” which challenge and changes basic assumptions about the prevailing theory. By Khun’s reasoning, the Copernican Revolution was evidence of this phenomenon. Copernicus posited that the Sun was at the center of of his cosmology and Earth was one of the many planets which revolved around it. At the time this theory was completely at odds with the fashionable Ptolemaic school of thought which held that the Earth stood still in the center of the universe. After further observations by Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilee the paradigm shifted and we now know the Earth is not flat, is in constant motion and we are not at the center of the universe. 

By now, it is easy to make the connection between Khun’s analysis and the current science obsession, man made global warming. If we accept that since world governments, large scientific bodies and pop culture are all on the bandwagon of “going green,” then we have to accept that anthropogenic global warming is the new dominant paradigm or prism, from which climate science is researched. The science is founded on the assumption that man through industrialization has increased levels of carbon dioxide which in-turn make the temperature of the earth warmer. That assumption comes mainly from the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) formed by the United Nations. As evident by their web-site's mandate, the IPCC is not simply a group of scientist seeking to find truth and measure reality, but rather aim to gather facts that corroborate this accepted theory and provide decision-makers with policy relevant reports.

The difference between paradigms then vs now, is that pop culture, (e.g., hollywood and the media) has had a much larger role in cementing the paradigm simply by ostracizing criticism. This brings us to one of the most influential philosophers, Sir Karl Popper. For Popper all knowledge is tentative, should be constantly tested and above all opened to criticism. In terms of demarcation, Popper held that a genuine science courts refutation and the highest virtue of science was not its evidential predictability, but rather its falsifiability. Falsifiability, does not imply false, but rather the capability of a theory to be criticized and proven false by a clashing observation. 

Today it has become evident that those who arrogantly claim that the “evidence” is on their side, do so because of the emotion, money and time invested in corroborating perceived climate change. By Popper’s criterion, the enterprise of endorsing global warming science would not be considered a genuinely scientific pursuit, but rather an activity liken to a religion. We can observe this brand of “dogma” at work, in how the public at large faithfully trusts “scientist-endorsed” conclusions rather than adjudicating the evidence itself. Proponents also behave in a way contrary to Popper’s principles of openness. Some scientists who have denounced these popular conclusions have even been tagged “deniers,” a reference to those who denied the holocaust. Perhaps nothing is more antithetical to Popper’s philosophy than current legislation in California to make global warming a compulsory educational subject in public schools. Karl Popper believed that the same thing which makes a theory a good theory also makes a society a good society. That thing is openness, and it is safe to say that Sir. Karl Raimund Popper is turning in his grave right now.

Lastly, we look to the Analytic school of thought by remembering the words of the prolific philosopher Bertrand Russell. Bertrand Russell spoke often about knowledge being split between “A Priori” which means deduced from theoretical reasoning and “A Posteriori” which means knowledge deduced from observation and experience. Interestingly the research surrounding climate change follows a similar dichotomy. Proponents claim that the observable (a posteriori) evidence for global warming are all illustrated on what is known as the “Hockey-Stick Graph,” published by Michael Mann and the IPCC. The theoretical (a priori) deductions are that man caused that warming. Unfortunately, for proponents, their hockey stick graph is meaningless simply because it infers a global average temperature and to come up with an average temperature for our planet is liken to calculating the average phone number from a phonebook, both have no meaning that corresponds to a physical reality. The only trends going up or down are the cherry picked selections of proxy data samples like, tree rings and ice cores. 

The truth is there are in infinite amount of temperatures on earth depending on the alloted space and time and we can conclude that there are many smart reasons to be skeptical of the politics and mitigation of global warming. Reason, as we know it, is being hijacked and like many of the lessons of the 20th century, indifference will allow it. It’s beneficial for us as citizens of the world to look back to the wisdom of past philosophers and apply it to our hyper-media politicized science culture. Albert Einstein once said, “most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone...” I agree and believe now is the time for us to lose our intimidation of science and to challenge common thinking for the common interests of all people alive today and in the generations to come.

© iMerica, Michael A. Martinez 2008. All Rights Reserved.