By David Wojick
The new “Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence: 4th Edition” from the Federal Judicial Center has a chapter “How Science Works” that was written by a climate alarmist, and it shows. It is trying to sell the nonsense that science is all about consensus, when it is really all about debate. Nor is there a consensus supporting climate alarmism.
Another chapter — “Reference Guide on Climate Science” — was withdrawn after a letter from 27 state attorneys general pointed out that it was pure alarmist advocacy. The “How Science Works” chapter should be withdrawn for the same reason.
The “How Science Works” chapter is pages 47 to 111 in Volume one.
One of the two authors, Professor Michael Weisberg is a leading alarmist activist. His university website calls him a “climate diplomat” because he is active in UN climate negotiations including the infamous “loss and damage” reparations funding scheme.
“How Science Works” gets off to a quick bad start. The very first paragraph contains this gem of alarmism: “…. public relations campaigns have misled the public about the true state of scientific consensus regarding certain scientific issues.” Citation: Naomi Oreskes & Erik M. Conway, “Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming” (2010)
This ridiculous Oreskes book is a pillar of climate alarmism. So, the bogus thrust of the chapter is that climate alarmism is a consensus and skepticism is a public relations stunt. This is pure advocacy.
Most of the rest of the chapter is a long, false claim that science works by consensus. It mostly works by debate, as scientists struggle to explain how the natural world works. These proposed explanations are debated by the scientific community, sometimes in complex ways and often for a long time without resolution.
Consensus does have a very long-term role to play because science is an ever-growing body of knowledge. But scientific activity is mostly a lively marketplace of argument.
The fundamental scientific method is very simple. Given some observations people propose various hypotheses to explain them. These hypotheses are then tested against additional observations. In theory, if the testing observations do not support the hypothesis, it is rejected.
In modern science, this seemingly simple process can become very complex, especially when trying to explain complex natural systems. For example, individual scientists may perform just part of process. Then, too, observations are often “theory laden,” so they can be challenged. In addition, hypotheses can be very complex, making it hard to know where the error lies.
Not only are hypotheses and observations often debated, but these debates can also last a long time. In major cases, they lead to alternative schools of thought (which is where human caused climate change is today).
For example, the hot debate between particle and wave theories of light lasted over 200 years. The climate change debate is now well over 40 years old.
Note that you cannot see the debates using the journal literature because criticizing or disagreeing with another scientist is generally not allowed in journal articles. Articles just report specific research results. Of the 3 million or so articles published a year very few are likely to refer to the ongoing debates.
It used to be that the widespread debates were publicly invisible. They mostly occurred during conference presentation question periods or via personal correspondence. The rise of online debating of science has changed this a lot. Chatbots might be useful for finding these debates. For example, there are hundreds of distinct controversies in climate change science, many of which are publicly debated.
The unscientific term “consensus” occurs over 70 times in “How science works.” The key word “debate” occurs just four times near the end. Ironically, one of these is a statement that “in science, debates relating to scientific evidence generally play out over many years….”. Max Planck put it very nicely: “Your ideas will (only) be accepted when your students become journal editors.” The climate science debate has lasted even longer, so the claim of consensus is wildly false.
This chapter on “How science works” is basically a misleading attempt to advance the false claim that there is a consensus supporting climate alarmism. As such, it is political advocacy, not sound judicial guidance. The chapter should be removed just as the advocacy chapter on climate science has been removed.
