A slight temperature

A tweet of mine went mildly viral⁰. There was a paper in PNAS about nasty surprises the climate might have in store for us¹. It was reported in several places with the dread phrase: some scientists think.

This phrase irks me, falling somewhere below “some scientists believe” which suggests at least a bedrock of conviction on the scientist’s part, and “some scientists say” which implies that said scientist had reached the stage of articulation that involves another human being – someone who might laugh and tell other people behind their back – and which usually brings a mercifully-early end to the worst excesses of what “some scientists think“.

“I’m a scientist”, I thought. “I think. But this thinking has not always been followed by acts or words of great wisdom². Often, the opposite happens and this might be a good way to illustrate the emptiness of the phrase”. Then, I thought, “What’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever done?”

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Some scientists think

When an article says “some scientists think” then remember this: I, a scientist, once thought I could fit a whole orange in my mouth. I could, it turns out, get it in there, but I hadn’t given sufficient thought to the reverse operation.