Scientific Suicide

THERE is a fine line between science and religion, and as British scientist Thomas Huxley once said, "Science commits suicide when it adopts a creed."

Has the greenhouse effect become a creed?

The greenhouse effect was first hypothesised by Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius in 1896. He also predicted the existence of tropical jungles on Venus.

If his first prediction was correct, the temperature of the earth could have risen 3.5`C by now.

Worst-case estimates put the actual rise at just 0.6`C, though it is very difficult to make a measurement of that accuracy across the entire planet over a 100-year period.

Huxley also said - with exquisite irony - that the tragedy of science is "the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact".

Is the ugly fact the temperature rise is simply nowhere near as high as the greenhouse hypothesis predicted?

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