Scientific investigation attempts to understand the natural world. The idea is that observing, measuring, and accurately predicting natural phenomena through repeated observation and manipulation will lead us towards Truth.
I am surprised that so many people and scientists believe that Truth is determined by a vote, as opposed to being a process and way of understanding. Can you find a single definition of science where it ends with ". . . and they all agree."?
That begs the question: What is the role of consensus in determining Truth? Since when is Truth a democratic process? If that were true, evolution would not yet be true. From a strictly scientific perspective: agreement does not equal Truth.
Now, moving on to more practical ground, science can help inform us of A LOT. Scientific inquiry is an epistemic powerhouse in terms of how to view and interact with the natural world. Science is also unable to answer many questions (further elaborated upon on Greg Craven's site: http://www.gregcraven.org/) .
When it comes to "controversial" topics such as human's influence in global climate change and evolution, I think that it is important to realize that "scientific fact" plays little to no role in what people think. The latest Gallop Poll that I read (early 2009) found that 39 and 29% of Americans respectively do and do not "believe in evolution." This is something that is beyond established in the scientific community.
What I think is happening with climate change is fourfold: (i) many scientists that are not directly studying climate change are wrongfully contributing to the problem by chiming in on the debate, (ii) scientists that are being honest are saying that we cannot prove causality (much like in the sense that it took DECADES to definitively link smoking to cancer), (iii) "scientists" are being supported by big industry that are opponents of acknowledging that that they are contributing to accelerated climate change, and (iv) many scientists are conflating their scientific inquiry with their beliefs that we humans are destroying the Earth--the very thing (natural world) that likely led them to where they are.
I think that to solve these issues, we must realise that ideas that affect other people (e.g., climate change, genetically modified organisms, evolution) that are cast as being scientific need more than science and to resolve them and that we must realise our subjectivity (e.g., we, as the academic elite prioritize differently than, say, those living in poor, urban environments).
I think the reason why Greg Craven was so successful because he was not putting up charts with projected global temperature change + / - 95% confidence intervals for the dozen or so models, but he took a humanistic approach being that this is a human-caused and -controlled issue.
Therefore, when dealing with social issues, we need to concentrate on social change and not just belabouring and degrading the point of scientific legitimacy. This is where many of the scientists and their liaisons (e.g., "Man-Bear-Pig" on South Park is Al Gore) are failing to make the connection.
Think about all conservation issues of which you are aware. If we really want to change things, how does practicing science really help? Shouldn't we be taking another approach? If you want to save the endangered house sparrow, you need not to study it to death and talk about how all ecosystems are going to collapse with its extinction (hyperbolic stance many scientists take), but show people (i.e., source of the problem) and help people understand that it is more than just another species of bird.
