Evidence is a strong teacher.  Children will hear their parents tell them to wear heavy coats when it is cold outside but argue and refuse, only to find out that the advice makes a lot of sense.  Based on the evidence when they feel the cold themselves.

Evidence is what we look to in order to prove a theory.  Evidence is what can make or break models of complex systems as we learn more.

Therese Asplund, who recently presented her PhD thesis at Linköping University found evidence that Swedish farmers are very skeptical of climate change.  This isn’t politically driven – this is based on evidence.  The evidence that the Swedish farmers have themselves.  The climate of course has previously gone through natural spells, and the farmers tend to think in terms of their experiences in recent decades.  “Many have a lot of experience, for instance they recall the mild winters of the 1960s,” explains Asplund.  The farmers also distrust climatologists partly on the grounds of what they perceive of as too much concurrence,  “They think information about climate change is too uniform. Credibility would increase if more contrary perspectives were presented,” she says.

Maybe most of all – the farmers don’t see any evidence that the climatologists live or know the soil, weather and growth seasons.

Evidence is hard.  Maybe those that are advocating for changes to various policies should take this into account.  Maybe those who are zealous about the climate change debate should listen to some of these humble Swedish farmers and really do the science and find some evidence rather than adopting language like “post-normal science”.

Evidence is.  Period.

GorT

GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.