Expert: Tom Whiting - 1/30/2011

Question
Why do people believe in pseudoscience and global warming when there is no scientific evidence for doing it?

Answer
Hi Kristian,
Lack of a proper education for one. Most people like astronomy, but either don't want to spend the time learning the subject (which also includes some physics, chemistry, and mathematics to really understand it), or they are not that good at science in the first place. So they 'adopt' the pseudoscience of astrology, mistakingly thinking that its part of astronomy (which it isn't)
and therefore enhance their own self-esteem by participating in what they think is a close relative to astronomy in particular, and science in general.
Others adopt a pseudoscience and go into what we call metaphysics, adopting an offbeat theory, like "there was no Moon Landings".. and go through reams and reams of bewildering information and partly truthful statements in an attempt to prove the same. Why? To sell a book or magazine and make money on it. (You can always spot a metaphysics topic as it contains at least 10 times more information then the truthful answer requires, and it's bewildering too. Science simplifies things, and doesn't make them more and more complicated.)
But generally, it's just a lack of education, or ignorance, of the subject they adopt for their own reasons... make money, self-esteem enhancement, or they just enjoy taking a contrarian position; hoping against hope that they turn out to be correct some day, and get famous, while they make some money on their book;  some people are like that.
With the false global warmists, they already know that meteorology and climatology are not exact sciences (like math, chemistry, and physics) to begin with, so they can inject a lot of self-opinions, and no one can prove them right or wrong... and they already know that.  And there is big government monies (subsidies) to be made in the 'green' movement... solar panels, windmills,
etc. (Which I'm not against BTW, I just don't like fooling people with false global warming to achieve those ends, that's all).  Oh, the new mantra is now "climate change" (or read that weather change) so every monthly storm that develops seems to make their point, when in reality, we've had weather changes for centuries... it's the very nature of weather, to change. You wouldn't want 3000 straight days of continuous sunshine would you, otherwise you'd turn into a desert!
Clear Skies,
Tom