Posted on 03/06/2010 6:57:11 PM PST by neverdem
Actually, you are wrong. Science is always provisional, it always represents our best understanding of some phenomenon at a given point in time. The real anti-scientific notion that is circulating in connection with the study of the earth's climate is the idea of "settled science".
On the other hand scientific theories are not mere speculation or conjecture, they must have a basis in observations, and must also have the property that they should make predictions that can be checked against observations. When the predicted observation occurs it does not prove that the theory was correct, it merely lets is survive to be tested against more subtle tests. This is what Sir Karl Popper called "falsifiability".
Newtonian physics looked "settled"--and it was tremendously useful for predicting all sorts of thing like the flight of a cannon ball or the return of Halley's Comet--until the precession of the orbit of Mercury, the photoelectric effect, and the constancy of the speed of light in a vacuum falsified it.
The problem with AGW "climate science" is that it has ceased to be falsifiable: every conceivable observation gets trumpeted as "proof" of AGW, and failure of its predictions are ignored. There have been three such falsifications of which I am aware: the most elemental being that CO2 concentrations have continued to rise while a decade long mild cooling trend occurred. But there are two others: the computer models (the only 'proof' of the theory) predicted a hot spot in the upper troposphere over the tropics, observation has shown there is none; and most deadly to the theory, if the warming trend from the 1970's to the 1990's had been due to a CO2-induced greenhouse effect, the amount of outbound infrared radiation in the band absorbed by CO2 should have decreased, but satellite observations show it actually increased slightly.
I know I would not like living under Communist rule. Why don't the media know that, given they are so much smarter and better educated than I am. After all, my degrees came from Mary Hardin Baylor and Troy University--not Columbia or Harvard.
vaudine
I have been corrected, and enlightend by your learned reply...thanks.
Who’s leaking these emails? This is too easy.
Ooh, we can see and quantify the reflected greenhouse energy? Funny that nobody is talking about this. That is a block buster.
Thanks for the link.
are “climatologists” any more respectable than “scientologists” these days?
anyone can “pretend” to the “science” label but it takes more than a word or an assertion to make something scientific
That actually makes sense, as the anthropogenic fraction of global carbon dioxide is very tiny. The warmists talk grimly of a balance being pushed over, but a balance of what? The more CO2, the more green plants there will be to eat this yummy stuff up, pushing back towards equilibrium levels. This doesn’t exactly sound like a ball ready to fall off a cliff.
Scientists advertising?! Well, that should restore their scientific method credibility, LOL!
I fear they will win.
As the nation plunges deeper into debt and the “good news” is 36,000 job losses, they are not winning jack squat.
Alas, the big snows of 2009-10 were caused by overheating of the Pacific Ocean and a strong El Nino. However, there is no way to prove if this was climate change or merely a periodic variation.
“Yes, and he was smart. However, I was making the point that although he had personal traits worthy of criticism, the media went after him for the one thing he was right about.”
Yes. I wasn’t trying to be confrontational, just to say that I think he rated a bit of a break on the personal stuff.
“Why don’t the media know that”
The ancient Greeks said, “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.” Looking at the same phenomenon from a Christian perspective, I would say, “Satan roams the Earth as a raging lion, seeking whom he may devour. And when he sees a good prospect, he reduces the difficulty of leading him to destruction by confusing and blinding him.”
The top left "Concensus" rectangle within the green grid mentions "2500" scientists. That number includes a lot of sociologists and economists from the "social" sciences as well as biologists getting grants for "doom and gloom" predicions.
You wrote that you're a physical chemist. Your precocious granddaughter might want to elaborate on the paucity of physical scientists making the IPCC "Concensus" in a future elaboration.
LOL....the fact that these so-called intellectuals consider creating and falsifying data to be “science” is laughable.
The Rutgers guy doesn’t do science. He measures and records things,, then makes sweeping predictions. Can anyone name a single REPEATABLE EXPERIMENT he has performed which supports his Human caused global warming hypothesis?? It should be something that can also falsify his theory, something that different groups can repeat.
Water boils at 212F. You can devise experiments that prove it, and which will falsify any alternate hypothesis. Nobody can deny it.
But measuring and jumping to conclusions without experimental PROOF of causality is poor science. I bet can take measurements and then use the numbers to prove that everytime AlGore farts, someone on China dies of a heart attack. I could probably prove it to a 100% correlation. But that wouldn’t prove his flatulence is actually a risk factor for Chinese heart failure.
It would be like doing a study, and proving that shopping malls cause teenage girls to appear out of thin air,,,.
Without strict demands for proving causality, statistics are not within the scientific method as a sole method.
That’s why his warming “science” isn’t science at all.
And the only “McCarthyite” thing i see in the story is the Rutgers “scientist” trying to silence Inhoff’s Questions by saying that it was possibly illegal for him to spread the stolen emails.
It would be nice to see him address Inhoffs concerns directly, instead of trying to scare him into silence. Tells you all you need to know about the Rutger guy’s position.
“McCarthy was obnoxious, loudmouthed, and alcoholic”
And he was correct. There were many communists and spies in the State Department. The Venona cables proved that most of what he said was true. But that doesn’t matter,,, you see, he would drink after work. Thats the important thing.
Good analogy. McCarthy was dead right, but all that matters is that he was loud, and a drinker. They don’t try to argue his facts, just his personality. Good point.
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