Global warming first surfaced as a scientific question, all but devoid of ideology. Today it’s an ideological position, all but devoid of science. What happened? Nothing, really: Science has revealed itself to be human.
Science has done so before, disappointing those who confuse its ideals with its practice. Intellectual rigour may alleviate, but cannot alter, the fact that the objective findings of science are mediated through the subjective brains of scientists. “Einstein’s space is no closer to reality than Van Gogh’s sky,” as Arthur Koestler famously observed in the The Act of Creation.
“The scientist’s discoveries,” Koestler wrote in his influential 1964 book, “impose his own order on chaos, as the composer or painter imposes his; an order that always refers to limited aspects of reality, and is based on the observer’s frame of reference, which differs from period to period as a Rembrandt nude differs from a nude by Manet.”
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