Has Climate Science Drifted into Pseudoscience?

Stamp Collecting or Science? The Perils of Unquestionable Truth

Introduction: The Importance of the Scientific Method

The scientific method is the cornerstone of discovery and advancement in every branch of science. At its heart, it is a process of formulating hypotheses, conducting experiments or observations, collecting data, and then refining or rejecting these hypotheses based on the evidence. Science thrives on rigorous questioning, falsifiable predictions, reproducibility of experiments, and open debate. When these fundamental aspects of inquiry are maintained, scientific knowledge moves forward.

In many fields, such as physics, chemistry, and earth science, the scientific method is not just a philosophical ideal but a daily practice. Scientists propose theories, test them, and invite critique from peers. If a theory fails under scrutiny, it is modified or replaced. If a theory consistently withstands critical tests, it gains acceptance (though not eternal immunity from further questioning). This is how scientific progress is meant to work.

But what if a branch of inquiry strays from these standards, becoming more dogmatic than inquisitive? What if, rather than hypotheses being tested, they become axioms that cannot be challenged? In such cases, science risks devolving into something else… a pseudo-scientific enterprise propped up by consensus of ideology rather than robust empirical evidence.

Nowhere is this shift more apparent than in climate science. We are constantly told that the science is settled. That there is no debate. That anyone who dares to challenge the dominant narrative, no matter how qualified, no matter how data-driven, is dismissed as a "denier," lumped in with conspiracy theorists and flat-earthers.

I’ve watched this transformation unfold in real time. Over the years, funding institutions, professional societies, and journals have moved away from fostering inquiry and toward enforcing ideological boundaries. If you’ve ever wondered why dissenting voices in climate science seem to have disappeared, it’s not because they’ve been proven wrong.

It’s because they’ve been systematically excluded.

And that raises an uncomfortable question:

Is climate science still science? Or has it become something else entirely?

Climate Science: “The Science Is Settled”

In the realm of climate science, one often hears phrases such as “the science is settled” or “there is no debate.” This language is unlike what we typically expect in scientific fields. Normally, no scientific discipline is ever truly “settled,” because new data or novel interpretations can always surface. When climate science is framed as a debate that has reached its conclusion and can no longer tolerate questions, it raises concerns about whether core principles of the scientific method, especially the healthy skepticism and openness to alternative hypotheses, are being sidelined.

That is not to say that every claim in climate science is groundless. Certainly, there is robust evidence that Earth’s climate has changed over time and that human industrial activity, primarily land-use changes but including the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) like carbon dioxide (CO₂), plays a role in this shift. Yet, the leap from “CO₂ likely contributes” to “CO₂ and human activity are solely (or overwhelmingly) responsible for all climate variability we observe” is a significant one. In many circles, it seems that any observable change, be it temperature fluctuations, altered weather patterns, or insignificant changes in glacial ice, is almost reflexively attributed to anthropogenic CO₂.

The catchphrase “the science is settled” implies that the debate is over, dissenting views need not be funded, and journals need not publish them.

From Science to Ideology

In most scientific fields, competing hypotheses are tested against each other. But in climate science, the process often starts with a conclusion, human-generated CO₂ is the dominant driver of climate change, and researchers are expected to frame their work to support it. Dissenting interpretations aren’t just ignored; they’re actively discouraged.

Take the National Science Foundation (NSF). Their research calls make it clear what kind of work will (and won’t) get funded. Consider this example from the Organismal Response to Climate Change (ORCC) program, which states:

“The world is currently undergoing unprecedented changes in global climates across all biomes, with effects on nearly every life-form.”

That’s not a research question… it’s a declaration. Are we certain today’s climate shifts are “unprecedented”? The Earth has seen far greater changes before human industry existed. But researchers aren’t invited to explore that possibility; they’re expected to work within the assumption that today’s changes are uniquely catastrophic.

Would an NSF-funded study proposing that natural climate variability plays a more significant role than CO₂ stand a chance? Could a grant questioning the severity of future warming be approved? Unlikely.

This isn’t how science is supposed to work.

When Science Becomes Advocacy

It’s not just funding agencies shaping the narrative. Scientific societies are now issuing political statements as if they were scientific conclusions.

Take the American Geophysical Union (AGU). In 2020, they declared:

“The global climate crisis, unequivocally driven by human activities that increase greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions, is proving increasingly costly and disruptive worldwide. Comprehensive actions to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis are urgently needed…”

This is not the language of scientific inquiry. Crisis, unequivocally, urgent action. It’s advocacy.

The Geological Society of America (GSA) follows the same pattern. Their climate position states:

“Human-induced increases in greenhouse gases, especially CO₂, are the main drivers of recent global warming.”

Even if this claim turns out to be true, the lack of nuance is troubling. Good science presents theories with confidence intervals, not as absolute truths. Instead, GSA treats human-driven warming as an indisputable fact, cutting off inquiry into other possible explanations, whether solar cycles, oceanic oscillations, or land-use changes.

And then there’s the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), which states:

“A changing climate affects human health and wellbeing… The effects of climate change worsen many existing illnesses, diseases, and conditions.”

There’s truth here, climate does influence health. But notice the one-directional framing: climate change is always bad. Yet, throughout history, periods of moderate warming have led to agricultural booms, lower mortality rates, and human prosperity. Those benefits are never mentioned.

The goal of these statements isn’t scientific exploration. It’s to push a predetermined narrative.

I’ve delved into this problem further in my article “When Science Gets Political”.

From Scientific Inquiry to “Stamp Collecting”?

In the mid-19th century, physicist Ernest Rutherford famously dismissed many branches of study as mere “stamp collecting”… collecting facts without deeper theoretical interpretation.

Modern climate science, I’d argue, has devolved into a form of data-gathering and modeling that automatically ascribes every irregularity to human-driven GHG emissions. Instead of formulating and rigorously testing multiple competing hypotheses (e.g., solar variability, ocean-atmosphere oscillations, cosmic ray influences, or land-use changes), the conversation often funnels back to a single cause… CO₂.

When one factor is presumed to be the prime mover of every observed climate variation, scientists risk overlooking other drivers or conflating correlation with causation. This is precisely what the scientific method tries to avoid: ignoring alternative explanations or discounting new data that do not fit the prevailing theory.

This reminds me of a famous quote by Karl Popper…

Funding Trends: Tracking NSF Grants with “Climate” in Their Title

One telling way to gauge the shifting emphasis on climate research is to see how often the word “climate” appears in grant titles or abstracts funded by major agencies like the National Science Foundation (NSF). While I can’t review the entire NSF database here in real time, even a quick look at the NSF Award Search (nsf.gov/awardsearch) reveals a substantial increase in the number of grants referencing “climate” since the early 2000s:

• In the year 2000: Searches for the keyword “climate” return just over 400 results (depending on filters).

• In the year 2010: That number expands to nearly 1200, representing a 200% increase over 2000.

• In 2023: The figure climbs further, to nearly 1700.

Of course, these numbers can vary based on whether you search only titles or entire abstracts. Still, the upward trajectory is unmistakable. In principle, ramping up climate research funding isn’t automatically a bad thing, climate is indeed a critical issue with major policy and societal implications. Yet I can’t help but note the irony: if the science is so thoroughly “settled,” why is ever more money required to keep studying it at the expense of other pressing environmental concerns? Issues like biodiversity loss, freshwater scarcity, soil degradation, and even asteroid impact preparedness have, in many cases, seen their share of funding stagnate or shrink relative to climate-focused grants.

From my vantage point as a researcher whose primary work revolves around asteroid impacts, this shift is hard to ignore. My students and I have watched as proposals for topics only tangentially related to climate often struggle for attention unless we cleverly integrate a climate angle. That means padding our applications with statements about how “rapid changes from asteroid collisions might inform future climate disruptions” or “broader impacts” tying our work to climate preparedness. It’s not that these linkages are entirely baseless, indeed, understanding how Earth responds to catastrophic events is relevant to resilience and sustainability. But it felt like we had to lean ever harder on the climate hook just to keep our proposals competitive.

I’ve even joked with colleagues, “We might as well get on the bandwagon.” Perhaps that’s inevitable in a research environment where being aligned with climate goals can be the difference between a funded grant and a rejected one. It’s not that I’m rejecting all climate science outright; rather, I’m inviting a closer look at whether the field’s rapid expansion, and the tendency to dismiss dissenting views, may threaten the rigorous, open-ended inquiry that should be at the heart of the scientific endeavor.

Is Climate Science Still Science?

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