Global Warming & Evolution: Skepticism & Genuine Science
Is it mere coincidence that just about all ‘skeptics’ of both evolution and human-induced global warming are politically and religiously conservative? I doubt it — though I’m not sure what the common factor is. Perhaps once having been introduced to anti-scientific ideology and/or the idea of preferring ideology over science, it’s easier to do the same to a new subject. Perhaps the very rejection of evolution inclines one to disbelieve global warming, though I’m not sure how that would work.
Chris Mooney writes in the Nov-Dec, 2004 issue of the Skeptical Inquirer:
[F]ew ... “skeptics” have been publishing very much lately in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Despite efforts to derail it, a global consensus on climate change has formed and has been embraced by both the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the United Nations’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). “Consensus as strong as the one that has developed around this topic is rare in science,” Kennedy has noted.
Why does this matter? Well, the scientists whose views I detailed above fit firmly into the mainstream and were presenting consensus positions, not controversial ones. It would be a stretch to say that the theory of anthropogenic climate change has become as firmly established as, say, the theory of evolution, but there are telling similarities. Both views have won broad acceptance by the vast majority of scientific experts and now only come under fire from a small band of contrarian outliers. Moreover, the outliers aren’t contributing much real science at this point. With a few exceptions, they’re taking their case straight to journalists and public policymakers, an end run around the peer-review process. And of course, when the debate isn’t going their way, they cry persecution.
Skeptics should recognize many of these traits; we’ve seen them before, not just in antievolutionists but among a wide variety of fringe scientists. At the very least, then, it seems that anyone who claims to be a science defender — but questions the reality of human-induced climate change — should have to answer the following question: Why trust the mainstream scientific community on other issues but not this one? One possible response — dismissing today’s climate science as warped by environmentalist alarmism — strikes me as simply untenable. If we truly believe that ideology can so corrupt the scientific method in one field, then why place any more trust in the rest of science? [emphasis added]
Chris Mooney’s question is very good and should be emphasized: whether one dismisses evolution or global warming, they are dismissing a conclusion accepted by just about everyone in the relevant scientific fields — but if they are so incredibly wrong, how can the consensus of this field or any scientific field on any other issue be trusted? Obviously it’s possible for a group of people to be right about one thing and wrong about another, but the conclusions at issue here were all arrived at by the same process.
If one is right and the other wrong, it should be possible for “skeptics” to identify how scientists went wrong in one case but not the other. Not only have they not done so, they haven't even really tried. The closely thing to an "explanation" which has been offered is the presence of conspiracies: a conspiracy of godless atheist evolutionists has created a "consensus" around evolution in order to discredit the Bible while a conspiracy of godless, socialist internationalists has created a "consensus" around global warming in order to undermine America's national sovereignty, enforce global socialism, etc.
In addition, there seems to be people who reject the anti-evolution “skepticism” of creationists while disputing the global warming consensus of science. Such people should be asked why the anti-warming arguments look and work so much like the anti-evolution arguments. They should have to explain what distinguishes their position from that of creationism and Intelligent Design, ideologies which they readily reject as absurd. This also shouldn't be too difficult, if in fact their skepticism is based upon genuine skeptical and scientific principles while that of creationists is merely a front to rationalize a religious ideology.
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Comparing and contrasting the evolution and global warming debates is a very interesting topic, and one that really does not get the attention it deserves. i’ve also noticed that most of the global warming “deniers” are also evolution “deniers”, but you rarely see any crossover, i.e., one who accepts evolution but is skeptical of global warming. I believe I fall into this category. Before you assign any political motivation to my opinions, please know that I am also an atheist, and my political perspective is much more pragmatic than ideological.
The obvious differences between global warming/climate change and evolution (as I see them, feel free to take issue with my opinion) are:
1) evolution has a much broader base of evidence underneath it than climate change does.
2) evolution is simply a theory that shows how life came to be, it does not threaten to produce world-wide natural devastation.
3) public policy changes based on evolution are pretty much limited to whether or not we should teach our kids about it. public policy changes based on global warming will have far-reaching, unpredictable economic effects.
4) if scientists discover new evidence that shows our current theory of evolution to be completely wrong (as unlikely as that would be), that means we will have printed alot of text books with incorrect information. if scientists discover new evidence that shows our current theory of global warming to be completely wrong (i.e, it’s very much natural and nothing disastrous will happen), we will have made sweeping public policy changes that need not have been made.
The way I see it, when it comes to global warming, we stand a lot to lose either way. If we’re right about global warming and we (the U.S.) end up destroying the environment with our aggressive economic policies, we’ll regret having not taken the advice of the scientific consensus. On the other hand, if we decide to be aggressive in the other direction, imposing the sort of limits that are supposedly beneficial to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and it ends up that we were wrong about global warming, then we risk stifling economic progress for no good reason.
Basically, policy changes based on the current scientific consensus on global warming have much more inherent risk. it’s one thing so say, “here’s what we’ve found across the various fields of study…therefore we believe the planet is heating up and it’s our fault”. But it’s another thing entirely to say, “it’s our fault the planet is heating up, therefore we HAVE to make arbitrary adjustments to our ecomony in the HOPE that we can make it stop heating up”.
as you know, consensus has a pretty good history of changing when new, more accurate evidence is discovered. scientific theories and models can be updated fairly quickly to incorporate new evidence, but public policy is far less dynamic. we may be able to cut greenhouse emissions, but what if the planet keeps on heating up? what if we stifle progress both at home and in 3rd world countries, while china and russia cruise past us, and we (as a planet) reap no environmental benefit?
to me, implementing public policy in order to try and affect the ENTIRE global environment honestly feels like alarmism, and THAT is frightening.
That would be a difficult assertion to support.
This doesn’t seem much different from #3 and #4 (consequences of being wrong or right). Evolution is the central organizing principle of all the biological sciences and, as such, is the principle behind all genetic engineering and medical sciences. If evolution is wrong, we’ll be involved with much more error than just incorrect textbooks.
If it’s purely a cost/benefit calculus, the cost of being wrong and doing nothing seems to be worse than the cost of being wrong and acting. Of course, cleaning up pollution and finding cleaner sources of energy carry benefits even if global warming isn’t affected.
They are different: the first acknowledges we’ve created a problem, the second demonstrates that one cares enough to try to fix the problem one has created.
In that case, the economic benefits we would have gained from not acting will be completely moot.
Is it mere coincidence that just about all 1970’s ‘believers’ in the eminent environmental collapse due to population growth and current believers in human-induced global warming are politically leftists?
Is it mere coincidence that just about all ‘skeptics’ of both safe nuclear power and the safety of pesticides are politically leftists?
I doubt it’s a coincidence — though I’m not sure what the common factor is. Perhaps once having been introduced to anti-scientific ideology and/or the idea of preferring ideology over science, it’s easier to do the same to a new subject.
There is a far stronger scientific consensus on the safety of pesticides and nuclear power than there is on calamitous/problematic human-induced global warming.
Also if you look at the nature or nurture debates you will find that leftists have just as much of a problem with Darwin as conservatives do.
Conservatives tend to reject arguments for government action on human-induced global warming because they do not like government action and they remember what projections environmental scientists made in the 1970. They see no danger in a wait and see approach. Leftist seem to really fear things in the environment whether or not scientists can display a real danger.
Leftists seem no more likely than conservatives to believe in science, so you will have to come with more a concrete argument.