Law vs. Science (Score 1)

Nothing is more instructive about modern times than the idea that a scientific question could meaningfully be addressed by an adversarial system like tort law. The best science is created without passion or controversy, but tort law is passion and controversy — it's intrinsic.

The climate change question will ultimately be decided — not by a group of scientists, not by objective evidence where that exists, and not by a court of law — but by individual couples worldwide who will ponder whether they should have more children. Evolution (a topic about which there is no serious debate) says they will decide to have as many children as they can manage, and they will rationalize their decision in ways that make up in ingenuity what they lack in reason. They will do this because they're the surviving offspring of people who were equally adept at rationalization (the reasonable ones died out long ago).

Think this is too extreme? Okay — imagine confronting someone who looks like Jessica Biel, thinks like Marilyn Vos Savant and has the fertility of Nadya Suleman (a.k.a. Octomom) — imagine trying to persuade her that three children is too many. And good luck.

Regardless of the truth or falsehood of anthropogenic global warming, there is nothing we can do about it without addressing global population, a topic that is much clearer in its causes and effects and yet entirely outside anyone's control without resort to totalitarianism (or universal education).

In other words, global warming is either a myth or a symptom, but world population is the disease.