Quote:
Originally Posted by jimjamuser
I would have to say that Global Warming is "settled science". Since it is just recorded temperatures showing increases in about the last 30 years. There is NO mystery to recorded data.
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Is science ever really "settled"?
I've always seen science as the logical formulation of theories based on all pertinent current data, with the understanding that as more data comes to light, those theories may be revised slightly, altered significantly, or even negated totally. History is replete with examples of "settled science" undergoing such changes. Phrenology, determining personality traits by the shape of one's skull, was "science" in roughly the first half of the 19th century before more information coming to light completely discredited it. But my favorite has to be the science of astronomy. It was "settled science" back in the fifteenth century that the earth was the center of pretty much everything. I mean, you could SEE it. The Sun faithfully circled the earth once every 24 hours. Likewise for the moon and most of the stars (those pesky points of light called "wanderers" didn't always follow the same paths and procedures of the other stars but they were at least predictable. Besides, the earth as the center of everything jived pretty neatly with the current religious thought of the day. Then along comes Galileo, expanding on a theory of Copernicus, and with this newfangled scientific instrument called a telescope and throws the whole settled science of astronomy for a loop. His observations proved that what you SEE isn't always what IS. The church branded him as a heretic and he nearly lost his life in the process. I think it took the church something like 300 years to finally admit that they were wrong and Galileo was right.
Such is what happens when "settled science" becomes dogma.