Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
particularprescribedposition.Allexpertsthenagreebydefinition.Otherviews,equallyby
definition, are not from experts. It's simple. Forget about distinguishing between experts;
they're all alike, by definition. Your contribution to important discussions need only be
to reply to doubters with, 'The experts all agree.' It's liberating. Who cares who agreed
or what they might have agreed to? Try it: ask people who and what. It's no wonder that
climate journalists, who have never heard of the equations that govern the motions of air
and water, could survive despite a quarter century of boiling climate fervor.
But, despite the madness of it, if you don't actually know anything, how can this even
be achieved? Any prescription for what's 'correct' requires at least some knowledge to
set the definition. Maybe you could farm that out too. But you do need to be reassured
that some canonical position has actually been set by someone, even if you avoid learning
what it is. Moreover, you still need to know specific tasks that you are called on to
do by the inscrutable, duly defined experts. While the Paleolithics might not be able to
help you with microwave ovens, they would recognise at once who you need. You need
a shaman to intercede for you with the gods. The experts recede into the background
as unknowable entities of power (the gods). They're interpreted for you by some bold,
charismatic personality (the shaman). Al Gore is a shaman.
So in the end, despite our democracy, modernity, sophistication, and technology, we
return to the old stone age, because it all boils down to what the shaman tells us the gods
say, while the supplicants chant, 'Club. Club. Club …' And if you do not agree that this is
'science,' then you believe in smoking and that the earth is flat, or something like that. But
the modern supplicants actually chant something else equally devoid of scientific content:
'climate change is real; the science is clear; the scientists all agree.' I suggest you look off
into the distance, hold your arms wide, and repeat it full voiced, three times, to get the full
inspirational effect. I've tried it. It's a compelling ritual. Perhaps it could be put to music.
Enablers and oracles
These methods aren't for everyone. But there's a fourth, very hip, alternative. It was once
explained to me by a certain sociologist. She told me that it did not matter that she knew
nothingaboutscience.Sheknewwhattodoanyway.Herexplanationwassosmoothitwas
like a song:
Don't know much about climatology; don't know much about astronomy; don't know much about a physics topic; don't
know much about the math I took; but I do know what we should do; and I know that if you do too, what a wonderful
world this would be.
But no matter how mellifluous the explanation, reasoning matters. If we don't act,
she reasoned, things may or may not turn out bad, but if we do act then things will be
