Abstract

In this paper I examine the sorts of arguments that motivate skepticism about the predictive powers of global climate models. I contend that these arguments work by contrasting the development and testing of global climate models with an idealized image of science drawn largely from a theologized model of fundamental physics. A richer appreciation of the methodology of a full range of successful empirical predictions—particularly in practical fields that study complex systems––can dispel some of these skeptical worries about climate science. If this is right, the good company into which climate science will have been drawn may help to save it from contemptuous ill-treatment at the hands of a theologized image of physics.