Every so often a sentence you read in a news story catches your eye. Consider this sentence in a November 6 Washington Post story headlined, “Environmental groups at odds over new tack in climate fight.”

“It's a lack of faith in the American public,” said Kieran Suckling of the Center for Biological Diversity, an Arizona nonprofit, talking about the light-on-climate ads used by bigger groups. “If the scientists, the environmentalists in our country do their jobs, and explain the test of climate change, the public will come along.”
“A lack of faith.” Faith is what religion asks of us. We have confidence in the practical application of scientific theories (think of astronauts in launch phase) but faith in religious dogma (that there will be life after death). And what, by the way, is “the test of climate change.”