The title of this string is a quote from 19th/20th-century philosopher George Santayana. He was talking about how we escape, to our peril, from embracing what is uncomfortable fact by satisfaction with theory.
Theory, such as what was once called "global warming," because we thought, then, that each year, the average world temperature was rising. That claim was debunked when, in 2018, President Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Accord, a climate change UN directive established in 2016, under the Obama administration, to which the United States was contributing the greatest percentage of financial support, because we were convinced climate change was an existential threat.
When we pulled out, the world cried foul, screamed at the moon, and tore their hair out for the U.S. affront to their sensitive brains, making more sensitive, still. One would think by now, that NOOA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association] would have standardized by the same measurement method and equipment and locations, alloweiong for technical improvement of measurement. However, NOOA says of itself
"NOAA's global temperature records have never been collected using the exact same measurement methods, equipment, or unchanging station locations for any length of time, because the global observing network has continuously evolved and expanded since records began in 1850. Instead of relying on identical static equipment or fixed locations, scientists maintain long-term consistency by tracking temperature anomalies (the difference from a long-term average) rather than absolute temperatures." https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.noaaglobaltemp.html
By the way, while one would think NOOA resides within a technical cocoon, it is actually within the U.S. Department of Commerce. That's science? It's commerce, certainly, but...
Carl Jung once said, "The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong."


