I don't believe in the Higgs-Boson particle

Have you ever heard someone say "I don't believe in the Higgs-Boson particle."? How about "String theory is not going to bring us any closer to a Grand Unified Theory."?

We never hear anyone disputing the veracity of these theories because they are so complicated and abstract that unless you have years of training in that particular field you cannot even begin to understand the debate. So to comment on them only makes the lay commenter sound foolish. I will therefore not dwell on them further, as I know little of the details and simply trust the scientists know what they are talking about.

But if one reads the comments section on any news item about climate change and you will see many people believe that climate change is some sort of communist plot devised by the U.N. as a way of oppressing us in an Orwellian New World Order. Really, I am not making this up, nor am I using one bit of hyperbole. This type of vitriol also encompasses death threats aimed at climate scientists. Even Canadian and British newspapers print reactions in which readers scoff at the dire predictions of climate research, saying that the science is all a bunch of hooey and that, anyways, the climate has always fluctuated so there is nothing to worry about.

This is fascinating. Nobody would say such things about chemistry or nanotechnology, but apparently the general populace is more informed about greenhouse gasses than the dozens of scientists who wrote the IPCC report calling for atmospheric CO2 levels to be kept below 450 ppm in order to avoid a pretty bleak future for all of us. Polite conversation at a dinner party would come to an end if you said you thought that you did not believe in evolution but rather that Adam and Eve magically appeared in a garden 6000 years ago. But I have met people who say "You know, I'm not sure about climate change - I don't think it is true.".

Really? I don't know how to respond to that without insulting their intelligence. One cannot pick and choose the science one "believes" in. Science is logically consistent and any part of it can be asserted with confidence by building upon first principles. There is a direct line of "if...then" statements that lead from 2+2 = 4 to the calculations that predict the existence of the Higgs-Boson particle, or the predictions of drought and sea-level rise resulting from increased CO2 emissions.

Yet somehow many people have decided not to "believe" the numbers generated by climate models. This is foolish - and at a societal level - very dangerous. I do not doubt that the calculations behind the search for the Higgs-Boson particle are correct. Nor do I doubt that the calculations behind the climate-change models are correct. I have no reason to doubt the science and so must trust that others are doing their job.

We are in for some heavy weather and to make-believe that numbers are not real makes the climate-change denier sound stupid.