Desh your forget that I've made not only a career but a vocation in the environmental field. One of the truly frustrating facets about this field is the staggering ignorance of the public about the environmental field. Having said that it is a science and one of the most important and humbling aspect of working in any field of science is the foundational principle that you can't ever be 100% certain about anything. You can determine a very high probability of being correct but there is always, ALWAYS, a probability that you are wrong, even if that probability is minutely small. This principle is what not only makes science self correcting but it is also what makes science such a hard discipline to master because its very nature assures that you will be wrong more often than you are right.
So anyone with a solid education in science keeps that in mind through out the progress of their work. There is nothing sadder in science than to watch a beautiful theory or hypothesis slain by an ugly fact. It happens all the time though in science.
So the fact that someone in this field, like myself, who has forgotten far, far, far more than you know always considers the rational prospect that "hey....I might be wrong.".
The most common mistake lay people have in regards to science Desh is that it is monolithic. To those of us who actually practice the discipline for a living that is hugely frustrating as nothing could be further from the truth.
Objectivity and understanding what the facts are to the best of your ability does not gaurentee one is right and understanding this isn't political partisanship. This is how science work. You have vast numbers of competing ideas but all of them are only as good as the predictions that can be tested and INDEPENDENTLY verified.
Now if this makes me a partisan lefty or rightist, as has often been claimed by partisans who disagree. So be it. That's more an indication of that persons illiteracy in science than it is indicative of my political beliefs.
