Global warming isn’t a guess or hunch

I was disappointed to observe that scholar Victor Davis Hanson refers to “theoretical global warming” in an otherwise trenchant (if predictably partisan) op-ed that appeared in the April 22 Bee. In fact, there is nothing “theoretical” about global warming, the evidence for which was described in the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports as “unequivocal”.

Perhaps Hanson confuses the science on that point (which is robust) with oft-contentious political debates on how to best respond to the increasingly-probable consequences of climate change? If so, that would be understandable, but I would caution him to avoid using the word “theoretical” in the dismissive sense often encountered in casual use, which mistakenly conflates scientific theories with “hunches” or

“guesses”.

Scientific theories have far greater explanatory and predictive power, and deliberately blurring that distinction is a parlor trick usually practiced by creationists, rather than a respected scholar in the classics.

This story was originally published April 25, 2017 at 1:28 PM with the headline "Global warming isn’t a guess or hunch."