"We need to explain the natural variation in climate over past centuries so that we can tease apart all those factors that contribute to climate change. But before we can do that we need to nail down those changes in detail," says Wheeler. "Climate doesn't behave consistently and warmer and colder, drier and wetter periods can't always be explained by the same mechanisms." In the two decades after that terrible winter, the climate warmed very rapidly. "Some people point to that and say today's warming is nothing new. But they are not comparable. The factors causing warming then were quite different from those operating now." Poor conflicted scientists. They can't seem to make up their minds whether studying the past can give us insight into the present and the future.
That current "global warming" religion certainly has a pernicious and persistent effect on scientists (as opposed to science.)
If this is their belief (emphasis mine) why bother studying the past at all? In detail or otherwise?