A Thought About Climategate

As the "ClimateGate" situation continues to unfold, there is one reason in particular why this whole hot mess troubles and disappoints me.  As I described to a friend earlier this week, not only has ClimateGate brought into question some knowledge or theory that some of us believed to be truth, it has also cast doubt on the very reasons why we believe what we believe.  As Ilya Somin writes on the Volokh Conspiracy blog, I think we often forget how much "truth" relies on social validation.  The fact that ClimateGate involves scientific knowledge makes the social validation proposition that much more troubling.  I - and I think there are others who agreed with me on this point - believe science to be one of the few terrestrial sources of truth, or something close to it.  I believe this because, while science certainly relies on theory, it strives to validate theory through data.  And, unlike words, numbers are not subject to interpretation.  Five is five - upside down or inside out.  The fickle and fleeting nature of words' meaning is famously illustrated by statements like "It depends on what the definition of 'is' is."  Thus, when circumstances cast doubt on the reliability of numbers, I start to notice little beads of sweat on my brow.