Brenda Ekwurzel reports that she was reminded this week, by an exchange of words between Senator Ted Cruz and Sierra Club President Aaron Mair, that at hearings on policy, the discussion can go off on a tangent toward climate science and what is or is not settled. Spoiler alert - settled is as close as scientists get to knowing that a scientific finding has been a widely accepted explanation or law for which no credible alternative exists. For some concepts, like gravity or the fact that carbon dioxide traps heat in Earth atmosphere, the science has been widely accepted for over a century or longer.
What are the top 3 signs that a topic in science is settled?
1. No study on the topic has stood the test of time as having offered a compelling alternative.
2. Topic is common knowledge.
3. It is declared a scientific law or theory (a technical term for a widely accepted explanation).
Before we jump to the top three widely accepted climate science developments below, let us quickly cover how we got to these. The operative phrase in number one above is that the topic has stood the test of time. Many studies are conducted after a finding is presented in order to test if it can be disproved. During this process some studies may temporarily look like they have disproven the original concept. Upon closer inspection, flaws in the approach, human error, or other factors may emerge that, once discovered, return the scientific community back to the fundamental explanation.
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