{"id":3274,"date":"2010-03-12T18:30:25","date_gmt":"2010-03-12T23:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.realclimate.org\/?p=3274"},"modified":"2010-07-27T10:19:47","modified_gmt":"2010-07-27T15:19:47","slug":"why-we-bother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.realclimate.org\/index.php\/archives\/2010\/03\/why-we-bother\/","title":{"rendered":"Why we bother"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A letter from a reader (reproduced with permission):<\/p>\n

\nDear RealClimate team:<\/p>\n

I have a background in biology and studied at post-grad level in the area of philosophy of science. For the last few years, I have been working on a book about the logic of argument used in debates between creationists and evolutionists. <\/p>\n

About a year ago I decided it was time to properly educate myself about climate science. Being perhaps a little too influenced by Harry M Collins’ “The Golem<\/a>” (and probably too much modern French philosophy!), I was definitely predisposed to see group-think, political and cultural bias in the work of climatologists. <\/p>\n

On the whole, though, I tried hard to follow the principles of genuine skepticism, as I understood them.<\/p>\n

Obviously, there are plenty of ill-considered opinions to be found either side of any issue, but only the most ignorant person could fail to see the terrible intellectual gulf between the quality of so-called skeptic sites and those defending the science behind the AGW thesis. <\/p>\n

What convinced me, though, is that the arguments made by a few sites like yours are explicit and testable. In particular, it is useful that RealClimate sticks to the science as much as possible. It has been a lot of hard work to get here, but I am now at a point where I understand the fundamentals of climate science well enough to articulate them to others. <\/p>\n

For my part, I am grateful to you guys. I hope it gives you some small amount of satisfaction to know that your work can convert readers who really were skeptics in the beginning. I use the word ‘skeptic’ carefully – the one thing most commonly absent from the so-called ‘skeptics’ is authentic skepticism.<\/p>\n

By the way, my book is an attempt to categorise the various logical errors people fall into when they search for arguments to support a conclusion to which they have arrived at a priori. It will now have a few chapters on global warming.<\/p>\n

All the best,\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<\/div> ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A letter from a reader (reproduced with permission): Dear RealClimate team: I have a background in biology and studied at post-grad level in the area of philosophy of science. For the last few years, I have been working on a book about the logic of argument used in debates between creationists and evolutionists. About a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-climate-science","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t