Science has rigorous procedures and relies on a vast accumulation of empirical evidence, argues Australian Science Minister Kim Carr.
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The Australian Museum has been hosting the Eureka Prizes now for 21 years.
Never during that time has science been challenged in quite the way it is being challenged today - at least in some quarters.
Science is all about the contest of ideas, and all friends of science welcome that contest. What we are seeing today, however, is not a fair fight.
On the one side we have science, with its rigorous procedures and vast accumulation of empirical evidence. On the other we have a mass of opinion, anecdote and special pleading - all of it demanding to be treated as the intellectual equivalent of science.
Too many people have been willing to appease this demand. Too few are prepared to look humbug in the face and see it for what it is. Of course, I am thinking here about climate change and those who deny it in defiance of overwhelming evidence.
I am thinking about those who malign the scientists who report that evidence. The real danger in these partisan attacks is that they may undermine the legitimacy of all scientific endeavour.
The good news is that few Australians seem interested in joining the backward march to the dark ages. Research by Swinburne University shows most Australians feel strongly that science and technology are continuously improving our quality of life.
The same research shows that Australians have a high level of trust in scientists and scientific institutions, including CSIRO and our universities - which are considered more than twice as trustworthy as the commercial media, for example.
Yet it is equally clear that the climate change deniers have sown a degree of uncertainty and doubt in people's minds. This is no shortage of survey data bearing this out.
This is why it is so important that we set about building a community consensus on climate change and the action needed to fight it. It is also why the friends of science must never shy from defending its heritage, its methods and its results.
science is the knoledge
we should always think ahead our mind is great than this univers...this is my openion about science...I always keep yhinking about every thing I see so now I have many knoledge that I didnt had before...we must keep up cant giveup....
Science
Science has always been challenged! Today's questioning of science is no more than it ever has been - perhaps less so, if anything. Scientists have to understand that they aren't gods, and history shows that they make terrible mistakes. There's absolutely no certainty that our experiment with CO2 on the atmosphere will bring about warming. Anyone who says it will just isn't being scientific. We simply don't know what the feedbacks will be. One decent-sized volcano could bring more cooling than we could bring warming in just a year of time!
I'm tired of the Hansens and the Al Gores telling us with certainty what to expect. And I'm annoyed that I'm therefore bracketed into the 'sceptic' (or worse, 'denier') camp. Still, I'm in good company - all good scientists are sceptics. To take the precautionary approach is a no-no because of the expense. For crying out loud, we're not going to change our way of living anyway, so let's spend the money on adapting to whatever is thrown at us - whether we're causing it or not!