Skepticism and Climate Change Skepticism

Abstract

We argue that the climate change debate has been plagued with confusions resulting from the fact that the word “skepticism” has been given positive connotations. Many people, including a number of professional philosophers and scientists, regard skepticism as an intellectual virtue, and as a particularly scientific virtue at that. We will consider various ways of understanding the word “skepticism” and argue that skepticism is not a virtue, and that there is nothing scientific about it.