Re:The rise and fall of scientific authority, and how to bri...
by notyourday on Tuesday March 19, 2019 @07:16AM
(#19429749)
That's exactly the point: if one wants to be taken seriously one's predictions either have to pan out or the predictions should come with a caveat.
When the predictions do not pan out one should not expect the population to trust one's future predictions as much.
That's the catch is that even things that have overwhelming scientific consensus are not "settled science".
There's always more data to collect and more theories to test.
I'm not saying that we shouldn't believe the data or act on the conclusions, far from it. I just don't agree with using the absolute term "settled science". It's not like there's an equation everyone agrees on or a reproducible experiment we can run.
We're still learning as we go and revising projections frequently. But there's no shame in making personal or political decisions based on our best scientific understanding of the day, we do it all the time and it would be just as big of a mistake to act like we know nothing about climate change as acting like we already know everything.