The problem with "beliefs"

The other day, I was reading this article, which was interesting, but isn't really the topic of this post.  Instead, I got sidetracked by the comments.  As is often the case, the comments ended up moving on to other topics; in this case, global warming (or climate change, or whatever we're supposed to call it this week).  And, I'm not really going to argue one way or the other on the issue of global warming since I'm really not well-informed enough to put together a real argument one way or the other.  Instead, I want to talk about one of the problems with the whole argument, which is that the global warming "believers" seem to have a tendency to call anything that might be construed as contradicting their belief an anomaly.

Anyway, after reading the comments in the above linked article, I went on to read some other news and happened on a couple of articles about global warming.

Mount Everest's ice is melting, researcher claims

The researchers suspect that the glacial melting in the Everest region is due to global warming, but they have not yet established a firm connection between the mountains' changes and climate change, Thakuri said in the statement.

And so, I'm sure the researchers will work diligently to establish a "firm connection" because to do otherwise would require rethinking their belief in man-made global warming.

The Mt. Everest article above then linked to this article:


Lopsided Melting Discovered Along Himalayan Glaciers

Glaciers and sea ice around the world are melting at unprecedented rates, but new data indicates that this phenomenon may be lopsided. It seems that some areas of the Himalayan mountain range are melting faster than others, which aren't melting at all, a new study indicates.

Now, if scientists were really looking at this data in an unbiased way, the conclusion might be that we really don't know why the melting glaciers are melting, but instead, because of the bias, we don't know why the glaciers that aren't melting aren't.  Referring to the glaciers that aren't melting, one researcher commented:

"This is an anomalous behavior."

So, somehow, glaciers that are "behaving" in the way they have for millenia are now considered anomalous.

And there is one other troubling aspect of the whole thing: since these nonmelting glaciers are simply doing what they've always done, it isn't news, so we don't hear about them; in fact, we don't even look for them.  We accidentally find them in our search for evidence to back up what we already believe.

I don't really mean to pick on just scientists; this is something that happens in nearly every area of human endeavor.  And, in my opinion, it is a major source of problems for us.  It is why our government can't really accomplish much of anything because the politicians are too hung-up on their beliefs and their ideologies.  It is why people's minds are closed to new ideas, because opening their minds would threaten their belief system; it would require that they continue to learn and accept that no matter how much they know, they don't know enough.  And learning is hard work.