"Science is at no moment quite right, but it is seldom quite wrong and has, as a rule, a better chance of being right than the theories of the unscientific. It is therefore rational to accept it hypothetically" Bertrand Russell
At school we were taught that science is about the quest for empirical universal truth. We were also told the scientific method is about the validation of these truths (or hypotheses about the truth) by way of observation and measurement. They still sound like pretty good maxims for scientist and layman alike. Some empirical truths are so much taken for granted that there is simply no mileage (or rationality) in trying to disprove them, which is why people of sound mind leave a skyscraper on foot through a door at its base rather than from its roof at the top or from windows in-between.
For centuries eminent doctors of the church and of astronomy believed the Sun orbited the Earth rather than vice versa. Copernicus (himself a Catholic cleric) and later Galileo confirmed by measurement and observation that this was not so. What they "discovered" is now as uncontroversial as what Newton "discovered" sitting under his apple tree. But the truth that the Earth orbits the Sun was not a truth just because these two gents said they had proven it was so. After all, the Earth and Sun have always behaved like this. The achievement of both Copernicus and Galileo was to disprove that the Sun revolved around the Earth. And this, I would very humbly suggest is the true nature of the scientific method and the advancement of knowledge. Science evolves and works by a process of disproof.
A cursory knowledge of the UK mass media however, shows just how difficult it is to keep science and the scientific method in the public eye. In part, this is a reflection of the sensible division of labour: we would no more have asked Stephen Hawking to choose our wall paper as we would trust Kirstie Allsopp to explain the more arcane aspects of relativity. But when the trajectory of science does intersect with that of popular culture, strange things start to happen. There is no dramatization about Watson and Crick bending coat hangers and paper clips as they elucidated the structure of DNA. Nor is there one about Dorothy Hodgkin, only the third woman to win a Nobel Prize for Chemistry for her work, inter alia on the structure of Vitamin B. Nor about Freddy Sanger who won the Nobel twice. In mass market culture scientists are those with great minds which wander unhindered across the universe, like the crippled Hawking with his disembodied voice and wheelchair. Or Alan Turing with his repressed sexuality and his "bombes". It is this cultural relationship which possibly accounts for the enduring popularity of sci-fi. It helps of course if these characters are plainly wonkish or have other human traits such as homosexuality, atheism or autism which in any other context would be of only vestigial interest. In these films they are however, neither laboratory bound nor even mainly highly focused professionals like Hodgkin. There is barely any reference to the underlying science at all.
In popular understanding, science also protects us from things which are dis-obliging or which we otherwise find difficult to comprehend. In that sense, it has replaced religion as a source of consolation and hope, even of redemption. Scientists "prove" things. Even better is if they do so in the service of dishing our enemies like Barnes Wallis with his dam busting bomb or Dr Who bashing the Daleks. If you want a bigger bang, you have of course to cross over to America, which may account for the huge appeal of "Oppenheimer". At least that film contained a brief philosophical exposition of the purposes of science.
When science enters the orbit of government and the political process however, even weirder things occur. The seemingly unstoppable encroachment of government in our daily and increasingly our private lives can only really be justified by an appeal to technocratic superiority and excellence on the part of the ruling elites or to "science". Indeed this is an enduring myth of the UK Left: one of the main roots of its socialism is buried deeply in the beliefs of the Fabian movement, with all of its bossy certainties about the ordering of a progressive society based on scientific principles.
We have become used to the quotidian cock-ups whenever the government or its agents gets involved in "high tec" projects like IT in the NHS or the Horizon system of the Post Office. Or to the handbrake turns which have to be executed when the scientific evidence used by the omniscient government turns out to be flawed, like Gordon Brown's partiality to diesel fuelled vehicles. Or to the inevitable embarrassments such as when an advanced new war fighting technology is powered by a near obsolete propulsion system like that of the UK's latest aircraft carriers. None of these however, approach the scale of the extraordinary faith and resource which was placed in "the science" during the Covid pandemic. Indeed, so often was this mantra repeated to justify the government's actions that it almost amounted to an abrogation of political and democratic responsibility. Given the global scientific and technological resources which were available, it seems remarkable that there was so much variation in the way developed countries reacted to the crisis. In the UK, the response was wholly driven by the priority given to stopping the NHS from being overwhelmed and, in its early stages, the extraordinary reliance which was placed upon epidemic modelling techniques from the University of London which turned out to be highly flawed. Yet all of this juju was dignified as "the science".
So what has all this got to do with global warming? It may be fairly said the consensus across the Occidental political spectrum about rising temperatures on Earth and the connection with humankind's burning of fossil fuels appears presently settled. However, the "scientific consensus" is assuredly not. Of course this reflects doubt about whether there can ever be a settled scientific consensus about anything which is not self evident. A dispassionate assessment of the claims of anthropogenic global warming however, reveals the high reliance which is placed upon so-called "model dependent realism" to show it is the burning of fossil fuels and the resultant CO2 which is driving climate change. This technique is partly informed by the fallacy which says that an understanding of how a system works allows us to make predictions about its operation in the future. But this can only ever be partly true and seems to take no account of probability or the role of unseen factors.
As our current technology and accumulated expertise allows us only an imprecise prediction of next week's weather patterns, it seems extraordinary the global warming debate references data which go back millions of years and which is variously deployed to support the assertions of each side. Apparently some of the biggest spikes in the levels of CO2 occurred when man wasn't around at all. The biggest bones of contention are whether or not it is CO2 which drives temperature and other climatic extremes and whether or not this constitutes some kind of "climate emergency" which threatens our whole existence. You can stare at data which goes back to the Pharaohs and further. You can do so both with and without the help of hallucinogens and yet still be none the wiser. But one thing which does become reasonably clear is that the "models" which predict disaster unless we de-carbonise the planet do not even accord with the historic observed data, never mind providing a rational platform on which to build government policy. Climate change is self evident, yet its causes are open to debate. This can only be addressed by observation, measurement and by the calibration of risks if these causes presage harm. In such a state, it may seem reasonable for a lay person to accept Pascal's Wager which suggests nothing is lost if one prepares for an eventuality which may not materialise. But Pascal was talking about the existence or otherwise of God. In the case of climate change, such a wager is to confuse risk with uncertainty. And like insurance, the profits accruing are likely to be small.
Another approach is to ignore the controversies around the "science" of climate change and focus instead on some adjacent and environmentally friendly activity. Indeed, a perfectly good living can nowadays be made by the promotion, activation and regulation of the "sustainable", "circular" or "green" economies. But might not this just be displacement activity? After all, it is difficult to imagine a single legitimate human enterprise which deliberately sets out to consume more resource than it needs for its achievement. If this seems intuitively true of humans acting in their private capacity, then it is demonstrably true of an enterprise which has profit as its motive. And at the margin, societies have long evolved laws, regulations and taboos which aim to inhibit or prevent resource spoilation by bad faith actors.
Despite the best attempts of the UK Conservative party to hug a husky and sponsor a polar bear by packing "Dave" Cameron off to the Arctic on his sledge, the politics of "green" and climate change sits far more comfortably on the Left. Greta Thunberg has replaced Marx as the inspiration by which to critique and control the capitalist system. If we can't overcome capitalism by the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange we'll change it by slowing or shutting it down. In the jargon of the Left, "sustainable" emphatically does not mean the careful curation and optimisation of the totality of our resources to improve or enrich people's lives. It means curbing our appetites and forcing us to accept a finite and "fair" share of the economic totality, irrespective of our individual efforts. How this prospectus lifts people out of relative or absolute poverty is anyone's guess and it would undoubtedly be hard lines for any developing country, although Venezuela is giving it a go.
Although class-based politics has far less resonance in the UK today, the Left has managed to organise a powerful if volatile coalition to support its agenda. It has been masterly in its exploitation of people's fears of the unknown, the incomprehensible and the dangerous with its promotion of the "climate emergency". In this, it has been hugely abetted by the media and the uncritical acceptance of anthropogenic warming by outlets like the BBC. Every bulletin of wild fire, cyclone, drought or famine is routinely attributed to the burning of fossil fuel. No gorgeous presentation of the natural world by the eminent zoologist Sir David Attenborough is complete without a jeremiad about the impact of human activity. He is too canny to demonise the very things from which he himself has benefited, but there is no doubt about the underlying message as we watch some poor polar bear struggling on some disintegrating chunk of sea ice. Personable and telegenic media scientists like Brian Cox are more artful still: the "public is done a disservice" by questioning anthropogenic warming (of which he says "we are 95% certain") because doing so calls into question the bona fides of the scientists who are only offering "advice". Give the man a BAFTA for sophistry ! If the preservation of foxes, badgers and other UK raptors from climate change is your thing, try the bromides of Chris Packham, another gifted communicator.
Yet arguably the least attractive trait of the swelling ranks of the Thunbergistas and their Extinction Rebellion stormtroopers is their vanity and conceit. In a world of seemingly finite resources, a perfectly reasonable case can be made for seeking alternative sources of energy. Despite the harrowing experience of Hiroshima, the Japanese turned to nuclear power generation not because they "proved" it was safe, but because they disproved the willingness of OPEC to provide them with oil at a price the Japanese found acceptable. Sustainability and care of the environment were on the agenda long before the shaman of Stockholm turned up: it was the uber capitalist Richard Nixon who set up the Environment Protection Agency in the USA over 50 years ago. Similarly, there were plenty of other sources of non- monetary enrichment and consolation long before the Greens and their fellow travellers flaunted their hair t-shirts: religious faith, feminism, pacifism and the ecology movement spring to mind.
The amount of political capital and treasure expended on fighting the "climate emergency" is simply colossal and there have been huge transfers, mis-allocations and even expropriations of economic resource. All this to ensure a "safer and fairer world for our children and our children's children" as the IPCC would put it.
But whatever the source of the "climate emergency", we can be categorical that it is not the fault of the children. Perhaps it's the rest of us who need to grow up.
