English major Chris Mooney: Climate science isn't settled; climate scientists are allegedly "good at catching mistakes and incorrect interpretations—they’re not too sure of themselves"

Chris Mooney | Republicans Aren’t the “Truth Party,” Mr. Santorum. They’re the “Certainty Party.”

Global warming is nothing if not a complicated issue—one with scientific aspects to it (across multiple disciplines) but also economic aspects, policy aspects, geopolitical aspects, ethical aspects, and so on. For all of these reasons, it cannot possibly be understood without some sense of nuance, and some appreciation of scientific (and economic) uncertainty.

This uncertainty, properly understood, does not make us less worried about global warming. Rather, it makes us more worried—we don’t know how bad it is going to be, but we know it could be very, very bad.

Appropriately, the scientists who study the climate are trained—and often, temperamentally disposed—to see the world in gray, rather than black and white. That’s what makes them good at catching mistakes and incorrect interpretations—they’re not too sure of themselves. In the scientific community, nobody proclaims to have suddenly discovered “the truth”; rather, knowledge proceeds incrementally, and everything has error bars around it.