The scientific naivety of pilots constantly astounds me.
I’m not so sure about that. I think that groups of pragmatic logical people might be more likely identify the anti-scientific methods being passed as science in the media.
For example;
A scientific hypothesis must be
falsifiable, implying that it is possible to identify a possible outcome of an experiment or observation that conflicts with predictions deduced from the hypothesis; otherwise, the hypothesis cannot be meaningfully tested.
[7]
and
Physicist Richard Feynman invoked the informal approach to communicating the basic principles of science in his 1974 commencement address at the California Institute of Technology (Feynman, 1985):
[There is an] idea that we all hope you have learned in studying science in school—we never explicitly say what this is, but just hope that you catch on by all the examples of scientific investigation. It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty—a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid—not only what you think is right about it; other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked—to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.
Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can—if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong—to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. In summary, the idea is to try to give all the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution, not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another. (pp. 311-312)
These are basics in my mind and the use of climate models that are constantly being refined and manipulated and have often been inaccurate in the past just produce more hypothesis without a result of ‘scientific fact’. We are left with ‘general consensus’ and concern which is very different to scientific fact.
When people question why the hypothesis are being presented as fact they are met with insults and statement like
The scientific naivety of pilots constantly astounds me.
which is really a thinly disguised insult.