It is not often that I read an article that makes me go AHA! now I know why I believe something.  This article by Daniel B. Botkin in the Wall Street Journal titled “Absolute Certainty Is Not Scientific” , in todays paper, is one of those articles, well it is really an opinion piece.

I know this blog is not about me, but I must share that I am not a believer in anthropomorphic global warming (human caused).  I agree that there is clear evidence of warming that is fact.  There is data showing green house gas increases, which is a fact.  But the causation link has been tough for me to accept.  As a Lean Six Sigma professional, I live in a world of uncertainty.  Every hypothesis test is really a test where to reject the null or fail to reject the null.  You never prove anything.  I have learned this the hard way in my working career when I have been certain about a test conclusion and have been found to be wrong.

The article by Mr. Botkin starts with a quote from a NASA scientist stating “Based on evidence, what we do have is, unequivocally, the conditions for the emergence of life were present on Mars—period, end of story.”  Can science ever prove something unequivocally?  He then follows with a statement from Niels Bohr (Very Famous Scientist) about quantum theory that it should be shocking to anyone who understands it.  He understood that science is about challenging every belief because they all change as we know more.

Would the scientists of old have ever said that their theory was unequivocally true?  No way.  Why do we see it in today’s writings, specifically from many of the Global Warning scientists?  Al Gore said that the questions are settled, there is no argument, global warming is manmade.  Now he is not a scientist, but that attitude is found in climate science but in other areas of our lives.

The US government and its politicians say that they know the cause of xxxxx absolutely and we need to spend money on something to correct it.  Of course they are almost always wrong and we still spend the money.

As a lean six sigma practitioner we run hypothesis tests and realize that causation is nearly impossible to prove.  We often act on p-values that tell us the causation is probable, but we realize that we might be wrong and have backup plans and risk mitigations in place.  I am clear in my understanding about global warming due to man to be troubling.  It is the absolute views by the advocates makes in incompatible with my knowledge of science.  I know it could be human causes, but it could be natural, it could also be caused by something that we do not understand.  Is it worth studying, yes.  Should we adjust our lifestyles based on current knowledge, yes in some areas?  I would suggest that we should all use the low hanging fruit type changes.  Change behaviors that are reversible if they are not really needed, but may still be the right thing to do.

This article was in the opinion section of the WSJ, but on the front page was an article about how research is becoming more difficult to confirm or replicated.  They state how in past years (20 years ago) around 60% of the findings were replicated by an independent source, while that rate is dropping below 30% in recent years.  Why?  well they suggest a few reasons, but I think it has a lot to do with the same concepts in the Absolute Certainty article.  We talk ourselves into strength of belief that is not real and it leads to publishing without a true measure of uncertainty.