BURNING GALILEO

Chapter 2 - The Man Called Galileo

The man called Galileo stood on the pallets stacked neatly around the wooden pole. They were standard wooden pallets, stacked three deep. His hands were bound behind him, and to the pole.

He had rotten teeth, and long stringy hair. He wore the attire of a well-to-do seventeenth century citizen. The sweat on his face accentuated the rough texture of his skin and his bulbous nose.

Behind studio 25 in Universal Studios, on the edge of the hill overlooking the 101 freeway, the film crew had built a makeshift outdoor court. On the studio's exterior wall hung a leaderboard with the results from the online poll. There were three camera men, all at strategic positions.

"You denier!" The Inquisitor, a young man with a prepubescent mustache said, pointing at Galileo.

"What do you mean 'denier'?" Asked Galileo, "You haven't proven anything yet. I can't be a denier. If you have failed to convince me, the failure is yours."

"But look at this; we have a consensus of sci-en-tists!"

Galileo replied, "That's all fine and good sir, but you still haven't proven anything."

"Global Warming exists! It's a thing. How dare you go against science?"

"I'm sorry, but you haven't presented any science today. All I have seen from you is illusory correlation. Will you show me the actual science?"

"BURN HIM!" Screamed 1.3 billion citizens of earth at their laptops and mobile phones.

"BURN HIM" Flashed at the top of 1.3 billion computer screens in the internet watching world.

At the bottom of their browsers were two large oval buttons, one green and marked 'Burn Him'; the other orange and marked 'He's Right'. Below the buttons were their respective vote counts: 1.3 billion for 'BURN HIM' and 197 for 'HE'S RIGHT'. This appeared instantaneously on the leaderboard.

"Look you denier, we found isotopes in the atmosphere."

"What are isotopes?" Asked Galileo.

"Ha!" the Inquisitor looked at the cameras and smiled, knowing that the worldwide audience understood now Galileo's obvious stupidity.

The Inquisitor read from his clipboard: "Isotopes are variants of a particular chemical element which differ in neutron number. One carbon isotope, C14, is radioactive and dies away to undetectable levels in approximately 50,000 years, let's call this 'natural carbon'. Now if we humans burn a lot of things, like the fuel in our cars, the carbon released by this burning displaces the natural carbon. We have verified this, this proves that global warming is man made!"

"Wait a second," said Galileo, "You say you have actually measured the different kinds of carbon in the atmosphere?"

"Yes."

"And the man made carbon is displacing the natural carbon?"

"Yes."

"So how does that prove anything? How does that cause — or better said, prove causation in this case?"

The Inquisitor rolled his eyes. 1.3 billion viewers on earth sat on the edge of their seats. Lance wrestled with his laptop and screamed, "Yes! —give it to him! —denier! —redneck! — kook!"

The Inquisitor continued: "Look, I'll explain it again; rising carbon dioxide levels are due to human activity. The carbon atom has several different isotopes: If rising atmospheric carbon dioxide comes from fossil fuels — that we burn in our vehicles; the 'natural carbon' should be falling. And this is what IS occurring and the rising temperature trend correlates with the trend in global emissions. That, my friend, is proof."

"But my good sir," countered Galileo, "you just said it yourself. '...the trend correlates with the trend..' I'm sorry but correlation is not causation."

The Inquisitor looked at Galileo with empty eyes, one eyebrow raised.

Galileo continued, "Furthermore, 'he who makes the claim, has the burden of proof.' You have not proven that this 'man made' carbon has caused anything. You have only verified that it is there. I commend you for this, but everything that follows after that has been nothing but illusory correlation— "

"We have proof you heretic! What else could be causing it?!"

"Proof? My friend, after you verify something, the next step is to validate it. You know the what, but now do you know the why? This is the start of a wonderful journey. Now you can try all plausible ideas and try to falsify them."

"We have!" interrupted the Inquisitor. "There is nothing else left, it must be the carbon."

"Can you falsify this claim in any way? Are there any other elements or factors which could cause a change in temperatures?"

"Now look here," said the Inquisitor, "I know what you are trying to do. Like every one of you, you are going to go into detail ad absurdum until you find any little thing that coincides with YOUR argument, and then you're going to say it proves you right."

"Oh no, no, no! Let's try to prove your theory first. And we can do that by trying to falsify it. Now I ask you again, have you exhausted all possibilities, is carbon, or did you say carbon dioxide, the only possible cause of this warming?"

The Inquisitor took a deep breath and looked down at the pavement.

"Look, our scientists have done the work for us. There is no other explanation."

Galileo now took a deep breath: "I'm sorry young man. But just because carbon is the only man left in the room, does not mean he is guilty. You must prove a positive. Causation is an elusive thing, some philosophers actually argue that there is no such thing as causation, but let's stay with the science shall we? Or...are you asking me to blindly believe your scientists?"

"Yes, why not? They're scientists. They did all the research for us."