Yes.
I do understand the analogy, but my view is that the doctors were perfectly right to recommend low fat food at the time because that's what their best in class data and understanding was telling them to do. It was a perfectly rationale choice.
No. If the 'best in class data' does
not meet the rigorous standards of the methodology of science then the recommendation should always come with a 'maybe', or a 'possibly', just as many natural supplements do which are claimed to improve certain aspects of health.
How many time has science been right in their predictions on millions of topic of interest for our lifes. Are we going to throw away science because scientists are not always right?
Absolutely not. You should study how and why they got their predictions wrong and what was lacking in their methodology which led to the incorrect theory or prediction, then, perhaps, you can avoid repeating the mistake with other issues.
The possibility that science may not be right on climate change is real, but it's a probability game. And not taking any action on the ground that we are not 100% sure is IMHO too risky knowing that we think it would be too late to revert back once we are certain.
I don't think anyone is recommending we do nothing. The environment in many places is in quite a mess due to 'real' pollution. Focusing on reducing that marvelous gas, Carbon Dioxide, which is essential for all life and continues to increases plant growth up to levels of 1200 parts per million and beyond, seems irrational to me when there are so many obvious and serious problems which are not being adequately addressed due to lack of funding and the misconception that reducing CO2 levels will fix the problem.
We should ask ourselves, what is it precisely that we are alarmed about in a warming climate? More frequent heat waves? More frequent downpours of rain? This is what is claimed, with high confidence, to have occurred since 1950, by that great authority on climate, the IPCC.
However, there is 'low confidence', due to lack of evidence, that floods, droughts and storms like hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones, have been increasing since the 1950's, globally, yet more people than ever are losing their lives and property, world-wide, due to floods and storms, because governments are not addressing the real issue, which is building more dams, contouring the land to prevent flash flooding, and insisting that all homes in areas subject to hurricanes are built to withstand the hurricane categories that have occurred in the past. In other words, the increased damage and loss of life is due to increased populations and increased urbanization, rather than global warming.
There are other major issues such as smog and 'real' pollution in the cities due to petrol and diesel-driven vehicles with inadequate emission controls, and coal-fired power stations with inadequate emission controls. However, the latest Ultra-Supercritical coal-fired power plants do have adequate emission controls (for the real pollutants), and I'm very much in favour of developing the electric vehicle which will potentially be much more efficient than the petrol vehicle, when the initial price of the vehicle matches the current price of petrol vehicles. At present, I believe the increased initial cost of an electric vehicle is greater than the total savings resulting from the lower running costs over the lifetime of the vehicle.