The Sixth Extinction

[l'oiseau]

Originally Posted by Neil

In Uncertain Science...Uncertain World the author explains how science moves forward based upon uncertainty. The opponents of say, climate change, pounce upon that normal and desirable uncertainty in order to smear the scientific community. Ie. if there is disagreement on any topic or subject they crow, "Aha! See? The scientists can't even agree amongst themselves!"

Uncertainty is good. It makes you think, and think real hard about the evidence you present.

If you work in science someone may even ask you to calculate it. Someone may question how you know the measurements you made were correct. Usually this happens when the results are unexpected.

You never really know, and never really are 100% correct... I've never known a measurement that doesn't have an error associated with it and I've never known a model that wasn't correlated to a measurement or a theory that wasn't confirmed by empirical evidence.

Only fools are certain, because certainty is an illusion humans create.