EPILOGUE
Skepticism versus fallibilism for achieving
reliable science and wise policy decisions
Victor R. Baker
The many chapters in this volume summarize what
glaciers are telling us about how Earth’s climate
is changing. To use a very simple analogy, the
observed changes in Earth’s glaciers are functioning
in the same manner that small caged birds functioned when carried by coal miners into their dangerous underground workplaces. The observed
distress of the birds provided a message, if it was
properly understood, that indicated phenomena
that could cause problems for the miners. In contrast to the mining example, however, the message
provided by Earth’s glaciers is complex, and, as
documented in this book, it needs to be understood
scientifically in terms of the many interacting controls on glacier advances and retreats.
Nature is not obligated to be simple. The climate
models that are commonly used to simulate the
effects of anthropogenic carbon dioxide on climate
warming provide simplified mathematical statements about climate change, essentially presenting
pronouncements about what is happening to the
climate and how its changes might continue into
the future. By contrast, however, the many observations summarized in this volume on the global
changes of glaciers present nature’s realities for
phenomena that are very closely related to climate.
In essence, and unlike the models that present what
is being said about Earth’s changing climate, the
glacier observations reported in this book are providing Earth’s own statements about what is hap-
pening. In this case the science is all about reading
and interpreting those statements.
As pointed out in the Prologue, the history of
glaciological theory development illustrates how
reliable knowledge has been developed for understanding both glaciology and climate change, even
though there has always been (and always will be)
uncertainty about many of the specific details.
Though dedicated scientists can never be absolutely
certain about any specific predictions in the science
of global climate change, that reality should not
lead to distrust of the generally reliable positions
developed by the long and distinguished history of
glaciological scientific inquiry. And, of course, the
reality of anthropogenic climate change, the global
pattern of glacial mass balance changes, etc., are all
very timely examples of such reliable (though not
infallible) knowledge.
Unfortunately climate change is one of many
polarizing issues in modern political discourse,
and it is even proving to be a decisive factor for
some elections. The most recent example is the
Australian election of September 6, 2013, in which
the conservative politician Tony Abbott replaced,
as Prime Minister, the Labor Party leader, Kevin
Rudd. According to an opinion piece in the September 8 Wall Street Journal (Switzer 2013), a key
to the Australian election was Mr. Abbott being,
‘‘. . . sceptical about alarmist claims of man-made
global warming.’’ In further comments Switzer
842
Epilogue
(2013) observes that prior to the election, ‘‘. . . the
global warming debate had been conducted in a
heretic-hunting and illiberal environment. It was
deemed blasphemy for anyone to dare question
not only the climate science but the policy consensus to decarbonize the economy.’’
As of this writing the climate change debate
among political factions is about to become even
more heated. Even some who admit to the realities
of global warming are invoking skepticism in regard
to the scientific consensus about the magnitude and
consequences of that warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published
the first of three volumes of the Fifth Assessment
Report on September 27, 2013, and its conclusions
are already fueling new debate. Writing in the September 13 Wall Street Journal, Matt Ridley (2013)
observes that the new report, ‘‘. . . dials back the
alarm. It states that the temperature rise we can
expect as a result of man-made emissions of carbon
dioxide is lower than the IPCC thought in 2007.’’
Ridley emphasizes that the new result is significant,
‘‘. . . because it points to the very real possibility
that, over the next several generations, the overall
effect of climate change will be positive for humankind on the planet.’’ He continues that the new
estimate of warming, ‘‘. . . most of which is predicted to happen in cold areas in winter and at
night, would extend the range of farming further
north, improve crop yields, slighty increase rainfall
(especially in arid areas), enhance forest growth and
cut winter deaths (which far exceed summer deaths
in most places).’’
Science and politics make for an uneasy mix.
Politicians know that electoral success derives from
the ability to convince voters of the truth and certainty of political positions. At least in the U.S.
politicians are mainly trained in the methods of
lawyers, who tend to think of cases in the abstract,
with one set of arguments marshaled against an
alternative set of arguments. The most efficient
and readily understandable means for doing this
is not to consider the complexity of multiple working hypotheses, acknowledging the real-world uncertainties associated with each. Rather, it is to cite
the absolute authority of scientific certainty as a
basis for action. This means that those opposed
to the proposed action will seek all possible means
for undermining that authority. In the resulting
political debate science comes to be viewed either
as a source of authority and certainty or as a
reasoning process that requires absolute skepticism
to counter the dogmatic appeal to authority. Both
viewpoints badly misrepresent science, and both
rely upon public ignorance in regard to the misrepresentation, as well as a lack of guidance by
the scientific community making it clear that both
dogmatic authority and skepticism are inherently
anti-scientific.
Let us first consider the problem of dogmatism.
Though the politician considers scientific consensus
on an issue to be the authoritative basis for taking
public action, and dogmatically equates that consensus to factual truth, such an attitude does not sit
well with the instincts of true scientists. Albert
Einstein, for example, famously observed that he
had questioned authority throughout his scientific
career, and that in later life he was punished for this
by being made an authority. The need by politicians
to argue from authority is associated with demands
by the public and political sectors for certainty, or
at least for reduced uncertainty in regard to potential actions, neither of which is consistent with the
nature of science (Pollach 2003). These related
demands seem to arise from the false definition that
holds science to be a body of absolute facts and
truths about the natural world, which is a most
unfortunate misrepresentation of science.
Science is above all an activity and an attitude,
held by a community of like-minded investigators,
who are passionately driven by their desire to
uncover the truths of nature. In order to pursue this
inquiry into nature it is actually necessary to have
uncertainty, not to suppress it. How could one possibly do science, as just defined, if its subject matter
consisted of facts and absolute truths? There would
be nothing to pursue. Science is a living, dynamic
process of inquiry, not a dead collection of presumed factual truths. Scientific inquiry is open
ended. Questions (hypotheses) are pursued to generate understanding that makes for more and more
reliable knowledge.
Science should not be confused with engineering,
which employs many of the same kinds of models as
those used in science. Engineering is the application
of current understanding, not the discovery of new
truths about nature. Engineering seeks reduced
uncertainties in order to produce solutions to problems, but those solutions are severely limited by
available time and resources. Moreover, they apply
to very limited circumstances, and they can be
totally invalidated because of unknown factors or
changing conditions relative to the assumptions
that are necessary for generating the proposed
solutions. Because science seeks to discover previously unknown factors by concentrating on the
Epilogue 843
uncertainties, it provides a necessary complement to
engineering.
The basic definition of science outlined above is
not the one perceived by much of the general public,
and it certainly is not the one that politicians find
useful when they cite science as authority for their
proposed actions. Thus, the important issue for the
public perception of science is not so much the
widely bemoaned lack of public understanding of
scientific ‘‘facts’’ (what is commonly termed the
‘‘scientific literacy’’ issue). Instead, the critical issue
is a lack of public understanding of how science
works as a process of inquiry. Science literacy
problems involving factual knowledge are real, of
course, but this is a red herring in the debates over
climate change, because, barring a true and longterm revolution in our education system, there will
always be a lack of public understanding of scientific facts. The big problem with scientific facts is
that they are being manipulated by the so-called
‘‘climate skeptics’’. As with all such manipulations,
arguing over uncertainties relating to authoritative
pronouncements about the appearances of nature is
exactly the game that the manipulators want to
play.
There is a sense in which the emphasis on climate
models in the political debate over global warming
provides an ideal opportunity for misrepresentation. The model predictions convey a sense of certainty that fits the need for justifying action on the
basis of authority. However, scientists know well
that the predictions from their climate models are
not authoritative truths, but are instead tools for
generating understanding. Models cannot act as the
unerring oracles for prophesy in regard to future
events that politicians wish to claim as authoritative
bases for action (Sarewitz et al. 2000). Trying to use
models in this way is precluded by severe limitations
of logic and practical realities (Oreskes et al. 1994,
Pilkey and Pilkey-Jarvis 2007). Models are most
appropriately viewed as making predictions only
in the logical sense, such that, if certain premises
are held, various outcomes will necessarily follow.
The goal of science is to learn from nature about
the realities that such logical predictions seek to
represent, and then to apply the results to yield
the greater understanding that will improve the
premises for revised models.
The second misrepresentation of science in modern political discourse is more nuanced than that of
dogmatism. Indeed, skepticism is actually argued
by some philosophers to be necessary as a part of
doing science. This view arises from a long tradition
in philosophical discourse and the associated
rhetorical argumentation that juxtapositions dogmatism versus skepticism. The argument from
authority relies upon the view that we can know
some things with absolute certainty (e.g., scientific
‘‘facts’’). In contrast, the argument from skepticism
begins by disputing claims to absolute certainty,
commonly by demonstrating that there are specific
dogmatic claims about which certainty can be disproven. Then, the skeptic takes this common-sense
observation one step further by holding that the
lack of certainty about specific beliefs leads to the
conclusion that many or all of the related, more
general beliefs should be dismissed or severely discounted as untrustworthy.
Note how this type of skepticism fits with the goal
of denying anthropogenic climate change based on
the lack of certainty about various details in model
formulations or observations of the natural world.
There will always be uncertainty about various
details, so, as long as one buys into the logic of
skepticism, the climate skeptic will always win the
argument. But should our uncertain knowledge
really make us into skeptics? The question is important because some philosophers and even many
scientists claim that, like open-mindedness, skepticism needs to be an attitude cultivated for the
doing of science. The critics of global warming rely
upon this perception to act as though a skeptical
attitude is the appropriate one to hold in being
scientific (e.g., Lumborg 2001).
Many scientists, including the late Carl Sagan
(1997), one of the greatest science communicators
of the modern era, advocate skepticism as a means
of countering dubious claims by individuals that
purport to be ‘‘scientific’’ but instead are actually
pseudoscience. Note the paradox here. The global
warming critics are invoking skepticism in their
questioning of the scientific consensus that has been
achieved about global warming (Oreskes and Conway 2010), but some mainstream scientists would
invoke skepticism as the means to question dubious
claims made by the global warming skeptics that
purport to be scientific. Skepticism per se does not
seem to be an effective means for distinguishing
valid from invalid science, at least to a degree that
would be readily apparent to the general public and
their political representatives.
There is an alternative to this dogmatism/
skepticism dichotomy, which is to consider the attitudes and reasoning processes of the claimants, as
opposed to the uncertain truths of the claims. It is a
sad commentary that there are those claiming to
844
Epilogue
speak for science in the global climate change
debates for whom the goal of finding out how things
really are is not the primary motivation for their
inquiry. The logician Susan Haack (2007) terms
this kind of reasoning ‘‘fake’’. If authentic science
involves a kind of reasoning pursued with the overriding motive of getting to the truth of things,
craving to know how things really are, then in fake
science the goal is not so much to seek truth as to
use the appearances of scientific inquiry to achieve
some other end, such as to make lots of money, to
advance a cherished ideology, or to gain fame.
Moreover, there is a closely related dysfunctional
reasoning, recognized more than a century ago by
the great American logician and geophysicist,
Charles Sanders Peirce. This is ‘‘sham reasoning’’
which Peirce defined as when it is not the reasoning
that determines what the conclusion will be, but it is
the conclusion that determines what the reasoning
will be. Thus, the skeptic, who already believes that
global warming is a myth and fraud, may employ
sham reasoning to provide a pretense of scientific
reasoning toward that predefined conclusion.
It was also Charles Sanders Peirce who recognized the scientific attitude that effectively replaces
skepticism (see de Waal 2001). While it is true that
one should discount dogmatic claims to absolute
certainty for various individual beliefs, this does
not justify the claim of the skeptic that one should
then distrust all the related beliefs. Peirce pointed
out that the proper attitude of the scientist is fallibilism, not skepticism. Fallibism holds that one can
trust an assemblage of related beliefs that have been
shown generally to work in practice, experiment,
etc., even though we cannot be absolutely certain
about the validity of any one belief in isolation.
As was later pointed out by the logician William
Van Orman Quine (1951), scientific knowledge
works like an interconnected web in which some
aspects near the core of the web, like rules of
logic or basic laws of physics, are so trustworthy
that it would be an immense waste of time to
question them. In essence, science operates at the
outer edges of the interconnected web of generally
reliable beliefs, always working toward a more
reliable total structure that is continually being
refined.
Science is not about developing and conveying
knowledge that is absolutely certain in all its
details. Arguing about the certainty of those details
is an invitation to engage in the skeptical games
employed by the practitioners of fake reasoning.
Instead, science is about the continual achieving
of knowledge that becomes more and more
‘‘reliable’’, a term applied to science by Ziman
(1978).
In a lecture delivered on August 19, 1872, the
brilliant English mathematician polymath William
Kingdon Clifford observed, ‘‘Remember that
[scientific thought] is the guide to action; and that
the truth which it arrives at is not that which we can
ideally contemplate without error, but that which
we may act upon without fear; and you cannot fail
to see that scientific thought is not an accompaniment or condition of human progress, but human
progress itself ’’ (Stephen and Polloch 1901, p. 109).
What the glaciers are telling us, as reliably reported
in this volume, should definitely be considered to be
a source of guidance for future policy decisions. But
the interpretations made of the messages from the
glaciers are not absolute truths. They are something
upon which we can reliably act, but the basis for
that action is not some static and unchanging factual truth. Rather, the basis, as stated by Clifford, is
the dynamic process of scientific thought itself,
pursued by investigators like this volume’s chapter
authors, who are totally dedicated to continuing to
improve upon understanding the realities of what is
actually happening. Recognition of these realities
and effective communication of the same to the
public is much more likely to promote belief than
are dogmatic pronouncements as to what the future
will be. There may be minor uncertainties in some
of the details, but this does not justify wholesale
skepticism. Neither the sham nor fake reasoning
invoked to question the authentic progression of
scientific reasoning can provide a basis for action.
Though the only certainty is that science will always
be fallible, its continuing and authentic pursuit
assures that it will be the most reliable guide to
action that humankind has ever devised.
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Lumborg, B. (2001) The Skeptical Environmentalist,
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Oreskes, N., and Conway, E.M. (2010) Merchants of
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on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming,
Bloomsbury Press, New York.
Epilogue 845
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