There's one significant aspect of all debates like this, whatever the subject, which I've realized that most people seem to be unaware of, and which can sometimes be the cause of a lot of anger and conflict.
It is that everything, without exception, requires interpretation.
Yes indeed. This is why the fundamentalist insistence on the innerancy of a sacred text is ultimately meaningless. Even an innerant text (and who could
establish, rather than merely claim, its innerancy?) must be interpreted. But IMO the inerrant text claim is nothing but a dodge. What's actually being claimed is the innerancy of particular interpreters. To state this directly would invite, and rightly so, charges of extreme arrogance. So it's put forth indirectly, while nonetheless being believed fervently, instead.
Even when it comes to very detailed scientific matters, the public at large seems to be unaware of this unavoidable process of interpretation. One sees it in the Climate Change debate. Those who are worried about the future of their grandchildren, and believe that rising CO2 levels are a great threat, get very emotional about the views of skeptics who claim that we cannot be certain about the matter and should treat it as a risk management.
The very fact that such skeptics are often branded as 'Climate Change deniers' is a bit shocking to me. I sense there is a religious fervour implied by such comments, like categorising everyone into believers and non-believers.
Skepticism is at the heart of scientific progress. Denialism is burying one's head in the sand without reference to any contradictory evidence or any reasonable, alternative explanations.
I'm amazed that quite often, apparently intelligent people will use the consensus principle as justification for their support that Anthropogenc Climate Change will be disastrous. Have we reached the stage in human development when consensuses of scientific opinion cannot be wrong? They've frequently been wrong in the past, especially when the subject is really complicated, with elements of chaos included, as climate change is.
I'll take you up on this a bit. One of my friends is a climate scientist. To him (and I agree) the evidence & analysis to date clearly point towards a historically abnormal disruption in the global climate and towards us as being to some extent responsible. The mistake he feels some of his colleagues have made (and I again agree) is to go beyond presenting data & analysis and into advocating policy. Once you do this you end up in the quicksand of politics & ideology and are understandably subject to accusations of (mis)using science to justify dogma. Better to stay clear of that realm and thus avoid tainting your good work with emotionalist fervor. Let the mechanisms of policy setting, as harrowingly imperfect as they often are, do their thing. I'm personally sanguine about it. IMO our nature is such that we don't respond to unwanted developments until our backs are up against the wall. But if the evidence & analysis is on the right track we'll eventually deal with it.
I find it interesting that both the political Left and Right are so wedded to stasis. On the Left the subject of genetically modified food invokes the same kind of brain-liquifying emotionalism that evolution invokes on the Right. As if there's such a thing as "natural" food free from genetic influence. Or that genetic mutation hits an arbitrary brick wall when a given species is on the verge of becoming a different species. Both betray a deep desire that certain aspects of the world
not change. But history and evidence tell us that eventually everything changes.
-Dave-
