Scientists being Nerds

According to a recent New York Times article, a handful of scientists have been complaining about Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. I bet you're thinking "Great, more of those fake scientists claiming global warming doesn't exist." Well, you're absolutely right; about nay-saying climatologists being fakes, that is. As for whom it is that's complaining about Al Gore's movie, you're horribly mistaken.

It is none other than perfectly credible scientists who are pointing out inaccuracies in Gore's documentary (which I have seen, by the way, and so should you), worrying that taking an extreme stance and "overselling" the science behind global warming is a bad idea. While they have no political quarrels with Gore, they fear he may have overstepped the bounds of what science can reasonably predict about climate change.

If Al Gore were presenting a scientific thesis, I would agree completely. Mr. Gore himself has said, however, that "[He is] trying to communicate the essence of it in the lay language that [he] understand[s]." No kidding. An Inconvenient Truth is probably the most plain-spoken explanation of global warming and the problems it causes that I have ever seen. There is a very good reason for this "lay language," or plain English: the movie is supposed to educate people who are still undecided about global warming. Mr. Gore and myself might best be described as members of the "educated laity."

For those of you who don't remember your history, the laity was/is the term for the common folk, anybody who did not belong to the clergy, or religious hierarchy (Catholic church, etc.). In modern times, "the laity" can refer to anyone who is not part of an educated minority of some sort. The scientific laity is the majority of people who don't really understand science and its procedures. Al Gore is not officially a scientist, but he understands scientific principles and concepts, so he tries to explain what the eggheads in the laboratory (scientists) are saying to the laity (everyone else). Now those eggheads are treating Gore's movie like a scientific thesis, pointing out inaccuracies that only a scientist would care about.

My point, if I haven't strained your patience too far to care, is that these scientists are shooting themselves in the foot. They may be professors emeritus and whatnot, but they're still being nerds. Remember that one nerd in high school who thought he just had to interrupt the teacher every ten minutes to correct him or her on some detail that nobody cared about and made no difference whatsoever? I used to be that kind of nerd, and these scientists are still being that kind of nerd. They refuse to accept that outside of the university, people don't want to hear every little detail, and they won't give a crap about what you're telling them if every third sentence is a "percent error" statement.

Al Gore knows that they understand everything already, he knows that there are many complex details behind every claim he makes in his documentary, and he knows that the scientific community already agrees that climate change is really happening and humans are partly responsible. The whole purpose of the movie is to get the point across to the rest of the world. So what if he doesn't have a table of data for every single statement he makes? (For the record, he does a pretty darn good job of backing up his claims as it is) The movie would be way too long and way too boring to get an award for Best Documentary if it were made to convince a bunch of scientists. The whole point of being a scientist is that you always question everything, are always skeptical of what you're being told, and look for evidence to back up everything. That's not what An Inconvenient Truth is about, it's about trying to motivate the people who are really going to make the changes for the better: populus pluri (everybody).

Besides, would it be a catastrophe if a handful of exaggerations in a movie motivated more people to buy fuel-efficient cars? It's much easier to make big changes if the general populace understands the problem and what to do about it.

Fortunately, these compulsive nerd scientists are in the minority; hopefully they won't put too much of a buzzkill on Al Gore's attempt to increase awareness.

Here's a banner slogan for environmentalists to shout: "Save the polar bears!"