368. It's Easy, Mr. Trump, to Take the Right Position on Global Warming.

Sure, you don't have the time and the know-how to do the research yourself.  You don't know, apparently, the scientific method.  You don't have a system.  But sensible gamblers have one.  Why not follow it?

It's all probability.  Odds.  What are the chances that this person or that person knows whether or not the planet is warming, and whether or not the cause is under human control? 

Well, who has the best record reporting facts, and who has the best record explaining them?  Here you have to know a little history.  If you do you're led to the class of people called scientists.  Their track record is so much better than any others you'd be a fool not to bet on them.  History is packed with fools who bet on people who are not scientists — astrologers, alchemists, theologians, prophets, seers of all kinds.  You know them, though lately many have gone by other names — theosophists, homeopathologists, conspiracy theorists.

 But what are the odds that the scientist you go to is a real scientist?  A lot of people who have called themselves scientists (think Christian scientists, think scientologists) really aren't. 

Here the odds aren't so firm because a lot of scientists do their work outside the places where they are usually gathered, universities.  But the odds of finding them outside are low.  Go to a university and the odds are much higher.

You apparently, from the global-warming denier you have picked to lead your transition team for the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the deniers you have chosen so far for your cabinet, don't believe this.  Here you need to know more about science.  Not much more.  What was taught in your ninth-grade general science course will do.  Scientists are reliable sources of knowledge because they can't say they have it until they've submitted what they think they know to a lot of tests, tests by evidence and logic, tests they can count on other scientists to conduct.  If they aren't willing or able to do this they, no matter how welcome they are on internet sites, are not welcome in universities.

In universities, in departments assigned to seek reliable knowledge in the area you are interested in, hard science departments, you'll find the people best equipped to answer your question.  But not because they are smarter, and members of an elite, but because they test each other's answers to questions, and rely only on what has stood up, so far, against those tests.  And open themselves to anybody able to test — you know, with evidence and logic.

These are real horse people, Donald, not touts.  You have surrounded yourself with touts. The kind you find at every track.  Smart gamblers laugh at them.  They test only each other.  In a chamber full of echoes.

Is it too late for you to get smart?  This is one of the most important races you'll ever have to bet on, Donald.  You could lose the farm by betting on the wrong horse.  Everybody's farm.