Truth comes from four sources: intuition, authority, experience, and logic.

We believe things because our bodies tell us it is true (intuition), someone we trust tells us it is true (authority), we have witnessed it (experience), and we have deduced it from fundamental premises.

Intuition is the distillation of the wisdom of generations upon generations of ancestors both human and pre-human.

Reliance on authority is the necessary consequence of the division of labor.

We believe scientists because we trust their authority not because we have actually understood the science itself. This trust comes with risks. The science-based war on fat led to the obesity epidemic.

Experience is often a heartless teacher.

Logic can protect us against horrible experiences but can be tricky and lead us astray. Reality is often counter intuitive.

The best of intentions can have the worst consequences because of ignorance of painful truths.

Human capacity for denial and self-deception is infinite.

Truth hurts. The most painful truths are truths about yourself.

Often you are not the person you think you are and would rather not admit it or do anything about it.

Speaking truth can get you in serious trouble. Not least of which because it can hurt the feelings of others. Should truth be put above the value of kindness?

“Rather than love, than fame, than money, give me truth,” wrote Henry David Thoreau. Easier said than done.

A distressing quality of truth is its sluggishness relative to falsehood.

As Churchill wrote, lies fly half way round the world before the truth gets his pants on.

Two traditional views of the difference:

a.) science is inductive, non-science is deductive, right?

b.) science is verifiable, pseudo-science isn’t, right?

Well, actually, lots of pseudo-science is based on lots of empirical evidence.

And it’s easy to find data to verify pseudo-scientific theories.

Confirmation bias makes this extremely easy.

The most essential difference between science and pseudo-science is that science is falsifiable. Is the theory of evolution falsifiable? Yes.

It would take only one rabbit foot fossil from the pre-Cambrian to disprove Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. The bad news for creationists: 150 years later not even one such foot has turned up. Is creationism falsifiable?

No.

A second factor distinguishing science from pseudo-science is the quality of experimental data. How often have the experiments been repeated?

What is the size and quality the samples used? If we are talking about medical claims are the results based on large, double blind randomized control trials?

A third criterion is predictive capacity. Have the predictions forecast by the theory come to pass? How does the track record differ from that of alternatives?

A related question is: are the social sciences really sciences? or are they partisan ranting in drag?

How many times has an economist or a political scientist conducted an experiment that has resulted in a finding that conflicts with that predicted by his partisan bias?

Almost never in my experience.

Might it be fair to say that with respect to the social sciences, partisan bias drives basic premises which drive the framing of questions which drive the design of experiments which determines the results? A harsh but fair conclusion perhaps.

A solution could be to have all policy-related studies be done by bipartisan teams.

A good measure of the American educational system’s utter failure is the inability of most Harvard physics majors to answer these questions. I have been testing them episodically for 7 years. This failure is perfectly consistent with the results of Philip Sadler’s testing of the knowledge of the reasons for the seasons among Harvard and MIT graduates back in 1989. Sadler’s findings were the basis of a film called the Private Universe. It is also consistent with the testing of knowledge of the most fundamental concepts of physics by Harvard Professor of Physics Eric Mazur.

The most common answer among physics and non-physics majors to the half moon to full moon queston is the same: two weeks. The next most common answer is: “I have no idea.” One reason given for the second response is “I don’t know how long the lunar cycle is.” Wow! The third is: “it depends if it is waxing or waning.” The typical answer to the follow up question of what is it in each case is: well if it’s waxing two weeks, if it’s waning 6 weeks. Wow, again.

Why two weeks? Well, half moon suggests half a cycle and if a full cycle is a month. a half moon must be half that. Another reason might be the experience is that the shape of the moon changes only very gradually and the intuition is that it can’t possibly go from half to full in less than two weeks.

But two weeks is wrong. the answer is either 1 week or 3 weeks depending if it is waxing or waning. The rule of thumb answer how to tell waxing from waning is whether or not the C  shape is backwards or not. The most common and wrong answer to the relative position question is that the New Moon (eg. no visible moon) is when the earth casts a shadow on the moon. No, that is called an eclipse.

Three Points: the scientific method is all about observing, asking, guessing, testing, and telling. This little case study shows that students are not being taught to observe, ask, guess, test, and tell. The best way to teach the scientific method and the joy of science is to start where humanity started: with the sun, the moon, and stars.

The best algorithm for ranking the power of experiments to teach the young is that they be easily repeatable and low cost. Turning the sky into a laboratory makes sense on both counts.

No is the short answer. Many highly regarded scientists are skeptics – from Stephen Koonin to Freeman Dyson to Richard Lindzen. The myth that no serious scientists are skeptics is simply false. This does not mean skeptics are right.

Many other serious scientists express serious dismay at the inability to have a serious conversation about climate change because it has become so politicized.

What should every citizen know about climate change? Some thoughts follow.

It is important to remember that disagreement over the odds of climate catastrophe does not preclude agreement on what is to be done about it. Whether  you think the odds are 50% or 30%, or 10%  you still might think it is a very good idea to investment heavily in nuclear energy as well as alternative energy just in case. You might also be equally passionate in your support of a carbon tax.

Also, even if the consensus is correct, the question of the relative urgency of climate change relative to other global challenges is not a given. Many of the world’s leading economists think global warming ranks rather low on the list of most important and urgent problems facing humanity.

A further fact worth remembering is that while the IPCC headlines of the last decade have become increasingly alarmist, in the footnotes the IPCC has lowered its sensitivity assumptions as the actual warming has fallen short of prior forecasts.

An important paradox to remember is that our current reliance on fossil fuel is in no small measure the result of the over-reaction of the environmental movement to the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979..

The term “climate change” is a rhetorical trick. It is utterly unfalsifiable. The climate has always and will always change. It is interesting that 20 years ago the term “global warming” was much more in use. The new term “climate change” was the result of less severe warming than expected. The real test of the scientific nature of a theory is its falsifiability.

The long term (100 MMs of years) climate trend is cooling driven by platetectonic factors. The medium term trend (1000s of years) is cooling driven by Milankovich cycles. The shorter term Cycles (10s of years) are driven by solar cycles (eg. sun spots) and deep oceanic current cycles (eg. Pacific duodecal oscillations). These can overwhelm the effects of human CO2 emissions. Historically, relatively warm periods have been Good for humanity and relatively cool periods bad. The greatest short term climate risk is volcanic eruption (a cooling event). A full accounting of the positive and negative impacts of the fossil fuel industry on human well being nets a tremendous positive – bringing warmth where there was cold, light where dark. Human resourcefulness should not be underestimated. A thousand years ago the Dutch with picks, shovels, and a few windmills turned an arm of the Atlantic ocean into some of the most fertile land on earth.