When religious or political ideology meet science, its not a pretty sight. An ideology is a collection of doctrines, beliefs and opinions about how the world works or should work.

Science, on the other hand, is a systematic and relatively objective process of discovering how the world works. ‘Should’ doesn’t enter into it.

Since the scientific revolution of the sixteenth and early seventeenth century ideology and science have collided on numerous occasions. The theories of Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin and others posed profound threats to ideologies of the time, and were strongly resisted. But as experimental and observational evidence poured in, and as the idealogues failed to produce a solitary experimental or observational result disproving the theories, most people adjusted their worldview accordingly and accepted the facts.

But not everybody. There are still those who believe that the world is flat, or that it was created 6,000 years ago, or that humans are unrelated to apes. Not everybody is capable of challenging and adapting their own beliefs, whatever the evidence says.

The idea that humans are dramatically changing the planet’s climate is a scientific idea based on replicable observational and experimental evidence filtered by a rigourous peer-reviewed process. This idea, and the implications that flow from it, threaten the interests and the ideology of many people and so it is inevitable that there will be resistance.

But ideological resistance has never been a match for science, nor is it this time. While it might be difficult to question your worldview, your beliefs and perhaps your core values unfortunately, if you want to stay connected to reality, you don’t have a choice.