Why I Don't "Believe" in "Science" by Robert Tracinski

I recommend this excellent article by Robert Tracinski.  Here is a brief quote from it, but please read his entire article:

Some people may use “I believe in science” as vague shorthand for confidence in the ability of the scientific method to achieve valid results, or maybe for the view that the universe is governed by natural laws which are discoverable through observation and reasoning.

But the way most people use it today—especially in a political context—is pretty much the opposite. They use it as a way of declaring belief in a proposition which is outside their knowledge and which they do not understand.

And Robert also says:

The problem is the word “belief.” Science isn’t about “belief.” It’s about facts, evidence, theories, experiments. You don’t say, “I believe in thermodynamics.” You understand its laws and the evidence for them, or you don’t. “Belief” doesn’t really enter into it.

So as a proper formulation, saying “I understand science” would be a start. “I understand the science on this issue” would be better. That implies that you have engaged in a first-hand study of the specific scientific questions involved in, say, global warming, which would give you the basis to support a conclusion. If you don’t understand the basis for your conclusion and instead have to accept it as a “belief,” then you don’t really know it, and you certainly are in no position to lecture others about how they must believe it, too.

I have long maintained that most of the people who claim they believe in catastrophic man-made global warming and a scientific consensus that it is a proven theory, do not have a coherent understanding of the science or the economics to rationally support their beliefs.

For instance, those scientists said to constitute the consensus cannot even agree on the scientific basis for the claims themselves.  Those who create the climate computer models produce results which are highly divergent from one another and also highly divergent from reality.

There is a very good reason for this.  They do not understand the physics of the atmosphere and thermal radiation.  Their ideas are commonly in error and the very principles of physics they say they believe in are not consistently applied.  The resultant theories produced by those scientists who even try to put forth a theory have an incredible number of combinations of errors.

Given the bias toward catastrophic man-made global warming, any output that concludes there is significant warming due to carbon dioxide or other man-made infrared-active gases is said to support the consensus.  Garbage in — dogma out.  There is no scientific consensus at all.