First, I appreciate your non-confrontational approach and that you cite sources.

But what I’m talking about in my post isn’t climate change (or what causes it) but the nature of science (scientific inquiry).

We may have our differing opinions (say for example about who the best rock band of all time is), and we’re entitled to our opinions in a free country.

Science is not a matter of opinion or argument. I may say that two samples of blue are the same (assume for the sake of argument that there’s nothing wrong with my vision) and you may say they are different. But if you measure the wavelengths of each sample and get different results, you are using scientific inquiry. It’s not that your opinion is right and mine is wrong. It’s that you’re using the best available tool of scientific inquiry and I’m using simple observation.

It’s not that a particular finding reached through the best possible scientific inquiry will always be the most accurate finding (like “coffee is bad for your health”). As our tools for observation and measurement improve, so will the accuracy of our results. But they are always subject to change. I don’t foresee Barry Loudermilk changing his view of climate change (though I hope he does). He’s relying on logical fallacy in order to derive the results he wants (Loudermilk is against big government interference and for big religion interference; “we’ve always had climate change” simply confirms his initial biases).

My quarrel with climate change deniers isn’t that they have a different opinion from mine or that they have a different set of values. It’s that they claim their “findings” are supported by scientific inquiry, when (at best) they rely on distortions of observations and fallacious reasoning.

Not everybody who wears a ten-gallon hat is a cowboy.