Settled Science

<snort> "Settled science." The people who use that term are non-scientists.

Science is uncomfortable, it does not deal in absolutes. There are no black and white, right or wrong answers (except in math), only different ways to travel the path of knowledge discovery knowing that for everything you learn you will have to un-learn something else, and you will realize that what you still don't know is vaster still. But it doesn't negate or trivialize what you do know, nor does it mean that you can't extrapolate to the bigger picture with no hope of any certainty.

When the race was on to discover the "transforming" or "inheritable material" in living creatures, most scientists of the day believed it had to be protein based on the sheer quantity in our bodies and its depth of complexity (based on crude preparations ground out and separated out of many cell types). No way in hell it could be deoxyribonucleic acid, it was too simple, too minute in quantity, to carry the vast instructions required to create a whole new life and command its day-to-day existence. https://www.genome.gov/25520250

Once that was proven wrong, they discarded proteins altogether as having any properties that could affect reproduction and day-to-day genetic influence. Guess what?

What appears to be "settled", i.e. DNA is the source and controls all, it makes proteins that only go and do the work that keeps us alive, moving, and reproducing, is merely a crude understanding, both simultaneously right and wrong depending upon what question is being asked.

Proteins do indeed directly influence gene transcription by binding to DNA and turning genes on or off, or regulating their activity from high to low. (Proteins can even cause disease by replicating and further infecting cells, just like viruses and bacteria, though that would hardly qualify them as to being "heritable" material. But, if you look at the early experiments that proved DNA was, prions could've fit the bill.) The products of those genes go on to affect other pathways so that in essence a cell is one large cascade of interactions, causes and effects. So they aren't the direct "transforming agent" but they exert a ton of influence. And how does all this work to find the right balance if one gene makes a protein that regulates another gene that affects another gene or protein, ad nauseum down the line, where does the control start or stop? How many genes and proteins interact with, and affect, one another?

From one simple pathway:

Role of MSKs in Regulating NF-κB Activation http://www.landesbioscience.com/curie/chapter/5390/

To some of the known pathways that are involved in cancer cell signalling:

http://www.cellsignal.com/catalog/disease/cancer.html

http://hopelessart.deviantart.com/art/C ... g-47027768

Holy crap, right?! Looking at that, it looks like scientists are hopelessly in the weeds, with no hope of figuring out the bigger picture of how each piece affects the other. Does it mean that what they do know of each individual pathway is inconsequential and any theories as to how it's all integrated at the functional level are for naught? Nope. The fact still exists that the pieces that are known fit into the whole and can be observed, measured, and outcomes predicted with varying degrees of certainty. Because even the bigger picture can be observed and predicted, even without a complete understanding of all the players involved and how they affect the pathway to the outcome.

To add to pine's thoughtful post:

Look above at the last definitions under Law and Theory. These definitions clearly differentiate the two words. Some scientists will tell you that the difference between them is that a law describes what nature does under certain conditions, and will predict what will happen as long as those conditions are met. A theory explains how nature works.

Regardless of which definitions one uses to distinguish between a law and a theory, scientists would agree that a theory is NOT a "transitory law, a law in waiting". There is NO hierarchy being implied by scientists who use these words. That is, a law is neither "better than" nor "above" a theory.

http://science.kennesaw.edu/~rmatson/3380theory.html

I also believe that those scientists who pretend to know exactly what this will cause in 20, 30 or 50 years are white-coated propagandists.

This is a classic example of the ignorance that abounds. This person hasn't even bothered to look up the IPCC, or other primary research, and see the graph of the range of what's predicted based on several scenarios of future carbon output because the word "exactly" does not appear in there. Nor do they "pretend to know" - they make predictions based on known observations of variables influencing climate and determine a range of outcomes with varying degrees of certainty, which are spelled out as to what's still unknown that could change the predictions and then watch to see if those predictions come true. There's no "pretending", just calculated, careful guesswork based on known foundations of observed and measured data, then waiting to observe if predictions match outcomes. The only difference being between climate science and other science disciplines is the level of politicized controversy still involved because scientists feel compelled, once enough data is accumulated to point towards a trend that is deleterious, to raise warnings to the public about said trend. As has been done with many other topics, such as open-air nuclear detonation testing, use of DDT, acid rain, ozone depletion, etc etc (all of which were also fought against when the initial concerns were made public and leaders pushed to do something about it).

To say anything is "settled", is to hide in details, to look for comfort in absolutes. To deride science as "settled" when it is clearly not, but that is not the root cause of the problem, is to look for reasons to reject that which may not be 100% certain mechanistically but requires attention and action nonetheless because observations warrant it.