Doubt the Expert

In the last year, two major discoveries have occurred in human anatomy.  First, the mesentery has been upgraded to an organ.  This may be a case where anatomy has modified the definition of an organ and suddenly the mesentery fit that new definition, not unlike how changes in astronomy recently downgraded Pluto from being a planet.  However, we are hundreds of years along in our study of anatomy, have dissected untold thousands of bodies, and have just determined that this bit is an organ.  Then there is this new development.  The lungs produce blood cells?  I was taught that blood cells came from bone marrow.  If true, this is a mind-blowing discovery.  Again, hundreds of years with a vast number of scientists studying the human body and only now we are discovering where blood cells are made?  My faith in medicine and medical science is shaken by these two discoveries.

 

Scientists and doctors have been studying the human body for vastly longer than scientists have studied climate science.  Today, the number of people studying the human body exceeds the number of people studying climate.  Climate research is a small sector when compared to medical research.  In 2012, $119 billion was spent on medical research in the US.  In 2013, climate change had a $22.5 billion budget, about a fifth of medical research.  Therefore, medical science with its vastly greater resources, greater number of scientists, and vastly longer history of study is still discovering things about how the human body works but climate scientists - with less money, time, and personnel - have already figured out that we are doomed without drastic changes.  Gosh, I wish those climate scientists had gone into medicine instead and we'd have a cure for cancer.