Fostering Trust in the Science

As we have noted before, believers in global warming climate change hold to all of the following propositions:

a) the earth is warming;
b) warming is harmful;
c) the principal cause of warming is humanity's production of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide;
d) Therefore, humanity must completely overhaul its activities to reduce the production of greenhouse gases.

To question any of the above is to be called a global warming climate change denier, similar to how insecure believers silence agnostics by calling them atheists. (And yes, nettlesome facts call into question each of propositions (a), (b), and (c), but that discussion is beyond the scope of this short post.)

The voyage of the research vessel Tara (Scientific American)

Refreshingly, there is a "massive" five-year ocean study whose authors refuse to be stampeded into making stronger conclusions than the data warrant:

Plankton diversity was higher than anticipated.....In the short term, oceans have yet to shown significant damage, but researchers fear that we may not know the true effects.

Conclusions are suspect when methods are shortcut and long-established scientific principles are evaded. Being careful to state what one doesn't know, on the other hand, fosters trust and may even persuade skeptics, that is, if persuasion and furthering knowledge are one's goals.