| There's only one small problem with your reasoning: the Lysenkoists called their work "science" as well. As do of course the other two. Unless you adopt a tautological definition, in which "science" does not include pseudoscience, "science" is whatever the people in your society who practice and organize it choose to call "science." More specifically, since basically all "science" is government-funded, you'll find that your actual working definition of "science" is "whatever my government funds and calls science." So your statement boils down to: climatology can't be pseudoscience, because it's funded by the US Government. And Washington (unlike Moscow) would never fund pseudoscience, and call it "science." This is a pretty interesting epistemology to say the least. Do I have it right? If not, where's the error? If so, what information do you, as (no doubt) a rationalist, have about the US Government that justifies this extension of trust? And if USG is not the institution you're trusting, what is? What set of human beings are you investing your trust in? If the field of climate science as presently practiced was not in fact scientific, but rather pseudoscientific, who would you expect to have stepped in and shut it down? [Edit: see also the links to the actual funding levels a couple of posts down. If you're interested in reconsidering your position on this issue, the blog to read is Steve McIntyre's.] |