“Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips.” Such is the wise counsel of Proverbs 27:2. Well, recently that happened, in a big way. Ken Haapala, President of the Science and Environmental Project (SEPP), was so impressed by the Cornwall Alliance’s From the Stacks livestream November 23, with guest Dr. Christopher Essex, that he devoted the first part of SEPP’s weekly e-newsletter The Week that Was November 27 to summarizing and commenting on some of its … [Read more...]
Should we trust science?
Naomi Oreskes’s book Why Trust Science? (2019) has been described as a defense of science, but it is nothing of the sort. The cornerstone of her thinking is total consensus determining truth in the natural world. Her approach is a scorched earth epistemology. 1. Science and the Oscars I write this while my wife is watching the Oscars. The music of professional musicians and overwrought thank-yous drift to me along with the dependably-boring, routinely inappropriate political … [Read more...]
Open Letter to Attorneys General about Climate Change
Dear Attorneys General, You’re not stupid. Stupid people don’t graduate from law school. Neither are you generally ignorant. You know lots of law. But the day of the “Renaissance man,” vastly learned across all fields of knowledge, is long gone. All intelligent and learned people are ignorant about some things. So, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and members of Attorneys General United for Clean Power, take no offense when I tell you that your intent to investigate and … [Read more...]
