First, Harris – who, according to Wikipedia, is "executive director" of an "international climate science coalition", which, in fact, is a Canadian group of climate change skeptics – mixes some things together. There is absolute truth but most truth is not absolute, but nevertheless true.

We need not go back to Plato. Truth is a quality regarding statements. The only absolutely true statements can be made in logic and mathematics (whether the fundamental ethical statement that "what is morally good is never wrong, and what is evil is never right" is absolute is disputed). All other truths are synthetic, thus needing reasoning. They can yield true statements, but statements that are open to correction.

So classical physics as formulated by Isaac Newton are still the basis of most mechanisms of human life, but quantum physics put them into a wider horizon. They yield the true statement that in airplanes built according to the laws of physics we can fly safely. Harris' promulgation that "truth never applies to our findings about nature" is just nonsense.

The same holds for Harris' statement that "global average air and ocean temperatures […] are the results of statistical manipulations". The statement that warm water flows from the Gulf of Mexico into the Northern Atlantic cannot be doubted, thus it has truth value, as is the statement that sea water temperatures west of South America strongly influence weather patterns in Indonesia.

Statistics can, of course, be manipulated, but they are, in fact, a reliable basis for most of our policies. Statistics are results of repeated observations. By statistics we know that since the use of seat belts, fatal traffic accidents have sharply declined. And of course ocean temperatures are reliably established by "thousands of observations in different places and at different times". Identifying statistics with manipulations is a clear sign of conspiracy disease.

When the United Nations speaks of “climate truth”, it cannot and does not claim absolute truth. It just claims that an overwhelming amount of scientific data point to an extremely high probability that human activity is influencing the climate in a way that will seriously endanger humankind within a few decades. This claim by the UN is not only supported by most scientific institutions worldwide, but not challenged by any of the big political players: The US and Canada, Russia, China, Europe, India, also Indonesia.

But Harris, based upon poor Plato, claims that nothing can be established about the climate. The Earth is flat, the virus that causes COVID-19 is an invention by a conspiracy, and instead of trying to moderate possibly catastrophic climate change we should "adapt" to it (give the 30 or more million Bangladeshis whose land will probably be inundated swimming lessons?)

It is a bit disappointing reading such crass nonsense in a high quality newspaper.

 ***

The writer is a Catholic priest and philosopher.

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