Tim Ball: the Last Skeptic Standing

onOct 9, 2006 @ 04:30 PDT

In an open letter to the Royal Society, reported here, Dr. Tim Ball says that ‘scientific inquiry is unique because it requires falsifiability’ and ‘The beauty of science is that no issue is ever “settled”, that no question is beyond being more fully understood, that no conclusion is immune to further experimentation. And yet for the first time in history, the Royal Society is shamelessly using the media to say emphatically: “case closed” on all issues related to climate change.’

No issue is settled? I don’t know. Gravity is pretty compelling, as is the spherical nature of the earth or the straightness of the shortest line between two points. Of course, we used to believe that summer would always give way to fall and winter

Dr. Ball takes seriously this dictum that there is “no conclusion immune to further experimentation.” He has, for example, gone to great lengths to make his own credentials “more fully understood” through a thorough application of “falsifiability.”

For example, although Queen Mary College at the University of London thought that it granted Ball a Ph.D. in Geography in 1983, Ball has “experimented” with being “the first Canadian Ph.D. in Climatology” or even a “Dr. of Science.”

While the University of Winnipeg is firmly of the belief that Dr. Ball was a professor for just eight years (1988 to 1996), the tireless investigator has experimented with being a professor for 28 years or even 32 years.

In his campaign to “debunk” the science of global warming, Dr Ball complains that “For some reason (actually for many) the world is not listening.”

Ball sets out a long list of theories, but it might just be that Dr. Ball’s understanding of scientific uncertainty extends well beyond the scope allowed by lesser scientists – certainly well beyond what lesser mortals would call “the truth.”

By Richard Littlemore

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