Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

My Canadian friend Grant sent a link to this. I'm no scientist, and I don't even play one on TV, but there would appear to be dissensus rather than consensus among experts about whether the globe is warming and, if it is, how much of the warming (if any) is attributable to human activity. Here's my question to you: Given how politicized this issue has become, with many scientists heavily invested, personally and professionally, in the global-warming hypothesis, will scientists admit error? Scientists are supposed to hold their theories and hypotheses tentatively rather than dogmatically. Strictly speaking, no scientific theory or hypothesis is ever proved. At most, scientific theories and hypotheses survive refutation attempts. The more refutation attempts a given theory or hypothesis survives, the more likely it is to be true; but nothing stronger can be said. It is always a matter of probability, and that probability is never one. Even Einsteinian physics is merely our best current understanding of the phenomena. We have good inductive grounds for believing that it will be supplanted one day.