Why trust science? Here's why.

Continuing my coverage of Dr. Naomi Oreskes' new book.

I was on my way to the pet store yesterday to pick up a new collar for Ranger. Naomi Oreskes was on NPR's Science Friday discussing her new book and her forceful, eloquent defense of science broadly.

Despite widely reported attacks on science, the vast majority of Americans continue to trust scientists, according to the latest survey from the Pew Research Center. Many listeners of Science Friday might take it as a given that we should trust science, but is that trust well-founded? Naomi Oreskes, history of science professor at Harvard University, argues that we should. In her new book, Why Trust Science?, she explains how science works and what makes it trustworthy. (Hint: it’s not the scientific method.)

Read an excerpt of Oreske’s new book Why Trust Science?

The book will be released on October 22nd. I have a pre-pub review comp courtesy of Princeton U. Press, and will continue to review and cite it.

From New York Magazine:

A geologist turned historian of science, Naomi Oreskes is the world’s preeminent chronicler of climate denial and disinformation, primarily thanks to 2010’s Merchants of Doubt, which she co-wrote with Erik Conway. A couple of years later, they collaborated on a work of climate fiction, The Collapse of Western Civilization, and the following year, Oreskes wrote the introduction to the American edition of Pope Francis’s climate encyclical. Her new book, Why Trust Science?, draws on the Tanner lectures she delivered at Princeton University, and was inspired, she says, by all the people who came up to her after lectures to ask how it was she knew whatever it was she was claiming to know. We spoke in early September about how much consensus it takes before we can take action on something like climate change, why people can’t properly process the science we do know, and whether we need to give up on GDP growth to properly address climate change...

Let me return you to the September Science Magazine review that alerted me to the book (it's not paywalled). Excellent brief Kirkus Review here as well.

Also, her recent talk at the London School of Economics.

My only pick with this video is that she wasn't wearing a lapel mic, so the handful of times she wandered from the lectern, some of her talk was unclear.

 Note my permanent upper right-hand links column links.

I am also a member of AAAS and the Union of Concerned Scientists. Links lower down in that column as well.

Of particular revelance to this topic thread, the Aines' work on "Championing Science."

We're gonna need a concerted effort to bring the Oreskes message to the non- college educated lay demographic--knowing full well there will be entrenched unreflective Deniers among them. We don't need to get 'em all onboard. Think tipping point net consensus margin.

Prior post: "Define 'science'."

CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES OCT 2019 UPDATE, IN ONE PHOTO

Different year, same calamity.
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More to come... #CoveringClimateNow