Logic. It’s a beautiful thing. It’s also the stuff of which common sense is made. Life is made up of continually connecting the dots and coming to a conclusion. It’s not rocket science, though rocket science and, indeed, all science does basically this very same thing.
If….
Then….
Else….
When you fall off a horse and find yourself unable to move one of your arms without severe pain, you go see a doctor who will x-ray your hurting arm. If it’s broken, then the doctor will set it so it will heal properly, else they will send you home with instructions to take pain medication and take it easy for a while.
When you’re driving down the highway at night and your car stalls, you pull over to the side of the road and look at the gas gauge. If it’s on empty then you will call for help, else you’ll walk down the highway to the nearest exit (or sit there unhappily, hoping someone will notice your plight and stop).
There is a difference between “hard science” and what is often called “soft science”. Hard science is the realm of mathmeticians, biologists, engineers, etc. They work with hard facts (1 + 1 = 2) and conclusions are based on the ability to consistently repeat a scenario. This is why your lights turn on when you flip a switch, how your doctor knows when to prescribe an antiobiotic and which one will work, and how man got to the Moon and back. It is the source of your reading this font on your monitor screen.
Soft science, on the other hand, mimics hard science in its attempts to validate a conclusion but, very simply speaking, its conclusions are far more likely to be mere possibility than real probability because the number of variables is simply far too large to get easily from point A to point B. Soft science is the realm of psychologists, sociologists, even astrologers. For example, psychologists study human behavior and tell us things like people who torture animals as children are more likely to grow up to be something really bad, like serial killers. Astrologers look at a “map” of the time of a person’s birth and tell us of things for which a person has the most affinity. Because of its inherent element of chance (i.e. too many variables to calculate, often called “choice”), soft science has always been far more fascinating to a majority of people, as evidenced by the never-ending speculation on the predictions of Nostradamus, the Mayans (2012, anyone?), the Bible, etc., as well as documentaries about everyone who doesn’t live a “normal life”, from Jesus to Charles Manson to Michael Jackson.
People often confuse the two, however, and this is when you find “hard” scientists mocking their “soft”-studying counterparts. Personally, I believe both sides have a place at the table but it is important to understand what that place is, what it really means for each to be in their proper place, and only then place your bets accordingly. Think of hard science like putting your money in a savings account. You’re guaranteed to draw interest on it and come out ahead. Soft science is like buying a lottery ticket or investing in the stock market. You may – or you may not – come out a winner.
Confusing the two can also have deadly consequences. One example is the Holocaust. Scientists of the “soft” kind determined there was something wrong with Jews, insisted their “hard” counterparts prove their conclusions, and we all know how that worked for everyone involved. (Well, everyone knows it except a handful of pinheads like Iranian President Ahmadinejad.)
On the subject of global warming we find a mix of hard and soft science coming together in a way almost as terrifying as the Holocaust. Hard science is telling us one thing (humans are having little to no effect on the cyclical climate of the Earth) but soft science is telling us something else. Did I mention that soft science is more often than not influenced by the personal psychology of the scientist? You can pick up a stone and put it in a bucket, then pick up another stone and put into the bucket, too, then look in the bucket and see two stones. A hard scientist who calculated there would be three stones in the bucket sees the two stones as tangible proof their calculations were wrong and instead of denying what they see, go back to examine where they messed up (original premise? method? mathmatical equation?). Then they repeat their experiment and eventually end up with a final, documented conclusion that putting one stone in a bucket, then another stone in the bucket will always give you two stones in the bucket. In the case of global warming, though the calculations of (government-supported, meaning vested interest-personal agenda) scientists have found to be wrong, instead of going back to find the flaws in their premise, methods, or calculations, the sponsors of the hard scientists (driven by soft scientists) are insisting that they simply throw away any data that doesn’t support their mistakes. The scientists are, in effect, being told that the speck of dirt left in the bucket because someone didn’t clean it out before they used it to hold the stones must count as their third stone.
This is a case of hard science shifting away from its original purpose and thereby jumping with both feet into the murky pond of prognostication. All for the personal gain of a select few. Of particular amusement is the involvment of President Obama. Apparently, attempting to usurp the second coming wasn’t enough, it sounds as if he also wants to usurp Nostradamus’ place in our National Enquirer-minded history. Witness his fortunetelling:
“A long-term benefit is we’re leaving a planet to our children that isn’t four or five degrees hotter.” (June 25, 2009)
His presidency would be “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” (2008 campaign)
President Obama has also claimed he can snap his fingers and we’ll “block the Sun’s rays to end global warming.”
Simply because his one voice carries to the ears of the most Americans doesn’t change the truth. The truth that what he says is wrong. Wrong based on the hard facts of hard science. So don’t confuse facts with “hopes”. In the same way the Great & Powerful Oz was eventually revealed to be just a man, the stars might lie, but the numbers never do.
(Thanks to our friends at Climate Depot for this morning’s inspiration.)