[JackFr]

But it should make the scientists more circumspect about public policy recommendations. They're not making evidence-based policy, if yesterday's models are evidence and today's models are not.

> This is how science works — it is a process that strives to be as accurate as possible, not come up with a static answer and stick to it (that’s what religion does).

That's fine. Many public policy advocates throw around the term 'settled science'. But based on what you said, is there such a thing?

[microtonal]

But it should make the scientists more circumspect about public policy recommendations.

From the article:

Climate models have been doing a fine job projecting warming for a long time. A recent study compared models as old as 1970 with observations made in the decades since. Some models warmed up too much, and some too little, but 14 of 17 past projections turned out to be consistent with the measured path of global average temperatures.

Scientists can not give definite answers in such complex systems, but it is the closest we can get in extrapolating the trajectory that we are on and computing what the effect of various measures is.

I am not sure what else one could base policy on.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

> That's fine. Many public policy advocates throw around the term 'settled science'. But based on what you said, is there such a thing?

Yes, there is. Just because there is no absolute certainty, doesn't mean it's all just baseless speculation. Just because, as a matter of scientific methodology, atomic theory is not absolutely certain (i.e., we could hypothetically find evidence that contradicts the model), doesn't mean someone just made it up and it has no predictive power.