Martin Manning FRSNZ: Science of the people, by the people, for the people
A paper I got published in 1978 derived what is still the best theoretical lower bound for the binding energy of a nucleus. It could be the most extreme example of a scientist stuck inside his own ivory tower. Moving into climate science came with a misconception that this would be a much easier problem to solve.
Part of my learning curve has been to discover major limits in our knowledge, so even constructing a probability distribution can be seriously flawed. Then to realise that human minds have many different ways of ignoring uncertainties anyway. Dealing with climate change is increasingly serious. Ocean temperatures, the atmospheric concentration of methane, and other key factors are increasing at record rates. But diversity of views and contrarian approaches are still more serious. Environmental science needs to recognise the range of views that people will always have, communicate in ways that keep finding and extending areas of agreement, driven by a focus on care for each other.