Opinion | Knowledge, Ignorance and Climate Change - The New York Times - 1 views
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the value of being aware of our ignorance has been a recurring theme in Western thought: René Descartes said it’s necessary to doubt all things to build a solid foundation for science; and Ludwig Wittgenstein, reflecting on the limits of language, said that “the difficulty in philosophy is to say no more than we know.”
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Sometimes, when it appears that someone is expressing doubt, what he is really doing is recommending a course of action. For example, if I tell you that I don’t know whether there is milk in the fridge, I’m not exhibiting philosophical wisdom — I’m simply recommending that you check the fridge before you go shopping.
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According to NASA, at least 97 percent of actively publishing climate scientists think that “climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely caused by human activities.”
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