Science and Liberalism

Since many of us have just endured another interminable period of very cold weather, I thought this would be a good time to bring up global warming. And no, that's not really fair, but shut up. But also, I want to talk about the way in which the Left "does" science, and why it's so bad.

Where are we on the whole global warming/climate change/dead polar bears crisis? Well, as far as the broad outlines are concerned, there's not a lot I can tell you that you don't already know. It's early April and I'm still shivering in my long-sleeve shirts, so the temperature's not going up and up and up; impartial scientific measurements continue to show a plateau in global temps for the past decade or so; and as far as the public goes, belief in the reality and importance of global warming continues to remain steady or even decline somewhat, depending on who you talk to.

Likewise, although there has been some weakening in a few quarters, I'm sure I don't need to tell you that the general response from the Left to all this has been to double down. In particular, many climatologists and commentators like to claim that a significant cold snap is itself proof of the reality of global warming. As an example, a senior editor from Time, which surprisingly is still in business, explained the cold wave a couple weeks ago by saying that "the Arctic is warming faster than elsewhere" and this is causing a changing "temperature differential" that results in rapid changes of the weather, so it's not just "global warming" but "global weirding."

Uh....okay. First of all, that makes no sense. Second, it is nonetheless possible that changes associated with global warming, assuming it actually is happening, could cause a short-term cooling effect in some areas. (Although not on the ridiculous scale of The Day After Tomorrow.) Third, why am I even talking about this? Isn't it a given by now that liberals will just make up the rules of global warming or whatever they're calling it this week to keep pushing environmentalism? Well, yes it is, because that's liberals for you, but it also has a lot to do with some differing interpretations of science.

Now by "interpretations," I don't mean whether result X should be considered scientific. No, I'm talking about what it means for something to be considered science. There's actually a very deep philosophy about this, which I can't do much justice to, but in summary, there are a couple different schools of thought, generally known as verification and falsification. According to the former, science consists only of that which can be proven true (or verified), while falsification says it only consists of that which can be proven, well, false. I know it sounds like there's no difference between them, but there kinda is, and falsification is the one conservatives should go with.

Again, I can't explain why this is so without making myself fall asleep, but here's the bottom line: Proving something false (or ultimately failing to do so) requires a heck of a lot more rigor than does an effort to prove something true. The most famous example is that of swans. If you go with verification to prove the statement "All swans are white," all you have to do is find some swans, observe that they're all white, extrapolate to the general population, and voila! Statement proven. To prove it through falsification, though, you have to go out and find a swan that isn't white (there are, but they're in Australia or something).

Now what does this have to do with liberals and conservatives? Well, I'm not saying that each group adheres to one side alone, because most people don't actively think about this. But verification, with its looser standards, leaves a lot more room for pseudoscience and circular logic--the sort of thing that the Left specializes in. Consider AGW. At the very least, we can find a lot of data that suggests the earth is getting warmer, right? And that there's a connection between that and rising carbon dioxide levels, right? Boom! Theory verified. And this can apply to lots of theories. Evidence that rich capitalists are exploiting the poor? Boom! Marxism verified!

And the beauty of this approach is that non-evidence or contrary evidence is a lot easier to shoehorn into a verification of sorts. Rather than throw out your favorite theory altogether, you only have to modify it slightly. Thus AGW suddenly becomes responsible for global cooling AND global warming. Evidence of people acting for reasons having nothing to do with economics isn't evidence that Marxism was wrong, it's merely an instance of "false consciousness." And so on.

Now like I said, verification, falsification, etc. aren't terms you run across in everyday life. And most liberals, like most conservatives, probably aren't aware of how all this works. So why bring it up? Well, I think it's important not to underestimate the Left. Although liberal thinking is deeply flawed, there is some structure to it, and to challenge it, we need to understand it. And there's a lot of truth in the charge that radical environmentalism and other "causes" are just updated versions of old-line Marxism. Ideas come and go, but the assumptions that give rise to them haven't. To refute liberals, you can't just disprove individual claims, you have to get at why they came up with them in the first place.

Then again, pointing out it's really freaking cold outside isn't half bad if you're short on time.