Bad Astronomy: Global Warming Denial Is Science-Proof
Antiscience cranks, such as global warming deniers, never seem to pass up an opportunity to equivocate if it helps them look good (to the choir, at least, since the dishonest arguments are transparent to people who know what they’re looking for). If a scientist uses a lay definition, hold him/her to the scientific one, and vice-versa.
Phil is right — science doesn’t deal in proof; that’s the realm of math (or alcohol). Science deals in evidence, and in confirming models to a high degree of confidence. If a scientist says that we’ve proven something to be so, they are using a lay definition, meaning that we have very strong evidence.
Like gravity. You can’t definitively “prove” gravity but you wouldn’t want to bet against it.
I hold [the rock] over my foot. I know that our understanding of gravity is not 100% perfect, that Newton’s laws are an approximation, and that Einstein’s rules are more accurate. I can even argue over proof versus evidence versus reasonable doubt, but in the end, once that rock is falling, the science is good enough to know I should move my foot.
Greenhouse Effect/Global Warming/Climate Change. Earth will be desiccated and incinerated like Venus: current US continental flooding. Enviro-whinerism replaces harmless cheap Freon chlorofluorocarbons with crappy working fluid, expensive, carcinogenic, non-lubricating, corrosive, violently IR-absorbing, and furiously Ozone Hole-fueling hydrochlorofluorocarbons. As those patents expire, patentable flammable and toxic hydrofluorocarbons are legislated.
We must zero-tolerence enforce every religion in the event that one of them is true, without regard to cost. Every chronic test of HFC-134a and HCFC-141b elicited abundant tumors and “other effects” in rodents, ASHRAE Journal 36(7) 17 (1994). We are dosing the wrong rats.