May 26, 2023

Nonscientists assume science is a bunch of facts. There are no facts in science. Science is a methodology for producing evidence.

Scientists can express opinions; but opinions are not an official part of science. Opinions are a person's own products apart from the rest of science.

Deep in the history of science, there are well established principles that are related to in science as generally true but always subject to evaluation and criticism.

That means, know-nothings who speak for scientists are an insult to science. Rationality everywhere requires explanation of claims. Know-nothings cannot explain scientific subjects.

That problem is a result of nonscientists getting two things wrong about science. First, they assume there are facts in science that they can pick up and promote. If there were, which ones should be promoted? Nonscientists assume the first impressions they get are facts of science, which often means finding their favorite fraud to tell them what the facts are.

Secondly, nonscientists miss the degree of complexity in science. All of the complexities must be evaluated in expressing opinions related to science. The complexities supposedly disappear, once facts are determined. Not so.

Those bits of stupidity are what allowed fraud to overwhelm science in destroying transportation and energy systems to remove a critical nutrient from the atmosphere which is in short supply.