USA Today: Could we be wrong about global warming?

[Denny Crane]

Peer review is problematic.

People are taught a specific thing in school by professors with vested interests (they write the textbooks, they get the grants).

Groupthink is no substitute for real Science (the metaphysical kind!). In fact, there's a very unscientific resistance to anything that challenges the status quo. This gets to where Gore and his flock are most dangerous - if he was around when Einstein was developing his theories of Relativity and General Relativity, Gore would have gotten the Nobel Prize and Einstein would have been ridiculed because he didn't agree with the status quo.

 

[Minstrel]

I'm not confused. I'm talking about the COMPUTER models that the chicken little crowd are using as concrete proof that global warming is going to flood all the coastal cities, yada yada. Like the ones at wikipedia I linked earlier.

Your confusion was conflating specific statistical simulations with scientific models. Pointing to various specific simulations and/or specific predictions as wrong tells us nothing about the value of the large and accepted model of climate change.

 

[Denny Crane]

Your confusion was conflating specific statistical simulations with scientific models. Pointing to various specific simulations and/or specific predictions as wrong tells us nothing about the value of the large and accepted model of climate change.

There's nothing observable, other than taking temperatures over asphalt, that support any model of man made global warming.

Scientists believing their computer models are what is driving the whole Big Lie - not the metaphysical kind! More like the McCarthy kind. You can't accept their argument if you don't accept the computer models.

 

[barfo]

Peer review is problematic.

And yet it is the best system that we've come up with.

This gets to where Gore and his flock are most dangerous - if he was around when Einstein was developing his theories of Relativity and General Relativity, Gore would have gotten the Nobel Prize and Einstein would have been ridiculed because he didn't agree with the status quo.

So, your claim is that no one questioned Einstein? You'd be wrong.

barfo

 

[Minstrel]

There's nothing observable, other than taking temperatures over asphalt, that support any model of man made global warming.

Scientists believing their computer models are what is driving the whole Big Lie - not the metaphysical kind! More like the McCarthy kind. You can't accept their argument if you don't accept the computer models.

Your criticisms are very legitimate if we accept your conspiracy theories that the worldwide scientific community is skewing their conclusions to further a political agenda.

I don't buy your claims of "the Big Lie of science," but good luck in your cause.

 

[Denny Crane]

Chicken Little!

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/roulette-0519.html

Climate change odds much worse than thought

New analysis shows warming could be double previous estimates

David Chandler, MIT News Office
May 19, 2009

The most comprehensive modeling yet carried out on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth's climate will get in this century shows that without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago - and could be even worse than that.

The study uses the MIT Integrated Global Systems Model, a detailed computer simulation of global economic activity and climate processes that has been developed and refined by the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change since the early 1990s. The new research involved 400 runs of the model with each run using slight variations in input parameters, selected so that each run has about an equal probability of being correct based on present observations and knowledge. Other research groups have estimated the probabilities of various outcomes, based on variations in the physical response of the climate system itself. But the MIT model is the only one that interactively includes detailed treatment of possible changes in human activities as well - such as the degree of economic growth, with its associated energy use, in different countries.

 

[Ed O]

I had to pull this out to digest it again. Where did you learn this information? It makes no sense.

I can't speak where he pulled it from, but it's pretty common sense.

Science changes all of the time... not the scientific method, but the understanding of how the world works.

Science, then, doesn't provide Truth (capitalized to indicate objective, immutable truth). Science encapsulates our best understanding of Truth in the form of rules and theories.

Ed O.

 

[Denny Crane]

"I am a skeptic…Global warming has become a new religion." - Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.

"Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly….As a scientist I remain skeptical. "The main basis of the claim that man’s release of greenhouse gases is the cause of the warming is based almost entirely upon climate models. We all know the frailty of models concerning the air-surface system" - Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology, and formerly of NASA, who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called "among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years."

Warming fears are the "worst scientific scandal in the history…When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists." - UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.

"The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn’t listen to others. It doesn’t have open minds… I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists," - Indian geologist Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia at Punjab University and a board member of the UN-supported International Year of the Planet.

"So far, real measurements give no ground for concern about a catastrophic future warming." - Scientist Dr. Jarl R. Ahlbeck, a chemical engineer at Abo Akademi University in Finland, author of 200 scientific publications and former Greenpeace member.

"Anyone who claims that the debate is over and the conclusions are firm has a fundamentally unscientific approach to one of the most momentous issues of our time." - Solar physicist Dr. Pal Brekke, senior advisor to the Norwegian Space Centre in Oslo. Brekke has published more than 40 peer-reviewed scientific articles on the sun and solar interaction with the Earth.

"The models and forecasts of the UN IPCC"are incorrect because they only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity." - Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico

"It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don’t buy into anthropogenic global warming." - U.S Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA.

"Even doubling or tripling the amount of carbon dioxide will virtually have little impact, as water vapour and water condensed on particles as clouds dominate the worldwide scene and always will." – . Geoffrey G. Duffy, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering of the University of Auckland, NZ.

"After reading [UN IPCC chairman] Pachauri's asinine comment [comparing skeptics to] Flat Earthers, it's hard to remain quiet." - Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society's Probability and Statistics Committee and is an Associate Editor of Monthly Weather Review.

"The Kyoto theorists have put the cart before the horse. It is global warming that triggers higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, not the other way round…A large number of critical documents submitted at the 1995 U.N. conference in Madrid vanished without a trace. As a result, the discussion was one-sided and heavily biased, and the U.N. declared global warming to be a scientific fact," Andrei Kapitsa, a Russian geographer and Antarctic ice core researcher.

"Nature's regulatory instrument is water vapor: more carbon dioxide leads to less moisture in the air, keeping the overall GHG content in accord with the necessary balance conditions." – Prominent Hungarian Physicist and environmental researcher Dr. Miklós Zágoni reversed his view of man-made warming and is now a skeptic. Zágoni was once Hungary’s most outspoken supporter of the Kyoto Protocol.

"For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?" - Geologist Dr. David Gee the chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress who has authored 130 plus peer reviewed papers, and is currently at Uppsala University in Sweden.

"Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp…Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact." - Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch UN IPCC committee.

"The quantity of CO2 we produce is insignificant in terms of the natural circulation between air, water and soil... I am doing a detailed assessment of the UN IPCC reports and the Summaries for Policy Makers, identifying the way in which the Summaries have distorted the science." - South Afican Nuclear Physicist and Chemical Engineer Dr. Philip Lloyd, a UN IPCC co-coordinating lead author who has authored over 150 refereed publications.

"Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined." - Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh.

"All those urging action to curb global warming need to take off the blinkers and give some thought to what we should do if we are facing global cooling instead" - Geophysicist Dr. Phil Chapman, an astronautical engineer and former NASA astronaut, served as staff physicist at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

"Creating an ideology pegged to carbon dioxide is a dangerous nonsense…The present alarm on climate change is an instrument of social control, a pretext for major businesses and political battle. It became an ideology, which is concerning." - Environmental Scientist Professor Delgado Domingos of Portugal, the founder of the Numerical Weather Forecast group, has more than 150 published articles.

"CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or another….Every scientist knows this, but it doesn’t pay to say so…Global warming, as a political vehicle, keeps Europeans in the driver’s seat and developing nations walking barefoot." - Dr. Takeda Kunihiko, vice-chancellor of the Institute of Science and Technology Research at Chubu University in Japan.

"The [global warming] scaremongering has its justification in the fact that it is something that generates funds." - Award-winning Paleontologist Dr. Eduardo Tonni, of the Committee for Scientific Research in Buenos Aires and head of the Paleontology Department at the University of La Plata.

"Whatever the weather, it's not being caused by global warming. If anything, the climate may be starting into a cooling period." Atmospheric scientist Dr. Art V. Douglas, former Chair of the Atmospheric Sciences Department at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, and is the author of numerous papers for peer-reviewed publications.

"But there is no falsifiable scientific basis whatever to assert this warming is caused by human-produced greenhouse gasses because current physical theory is too grossly inadequate to establish any cause at all." - Chemist Dr. Patrick Frank, who has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed articles.

"The ‘global warming scare’ is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes and decision making. It has no place in the Society's activities." - Award-Winning NASA Astronaut/Geologist and Moonwalker Jack Schmitt who flew on the Apollo 17 mission and formerly of the Norwegian Geological Survey and for the U.S. Geological Survey.

"Earth has cooled since 1998 in defiance of the predictions by the UN-IPCC….The global temperature for 2007 was the coldest in a decade and the coldest of the millennium…which is why ‘global warming’ is now called ‘climate change.’" - Climatologist Dr. Richard Keen of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado.

"I have yet to see credible proof of carbon dioxide driving climate change, yet alone man-made CO2 driving it. The atmospheric hot-spot is missing and the ice core data refute this. When will we collectively awake from this deceptive delusion?" - Dr. G LeBlanc Smith, a retired Principal Research Scientist with Australia’s CSIRO.

 

[mobes23]

So, a model that has to literally encompass the entire globe, and all of its variables, is accurate?



Which is why I presented data compiled by people who do have an education in climate science.

We have posters in this thread smearing people who actually work in the field. What is your point, other than to insult one group of posters, yet not insult another group of posters?

Ad hominem attacks are a sure sign of being flustered. I don't need an education in climate science to see that some data doesn't line up with what is being presented to the general public as a fact, do I?

I love it.

Sentence #1: experts and their models suck.
Sentence #3: outrage at OTHER posters for smearing experts.

 

[mobes23]

Are all parties basically arguing that we don't know if CO2 emissions are related to global warming and need more data. If so, can we all call it a day?

 

[Denny Crane]

Your criticisms are very legitimate if we accept your conspiracy theories that the worldwide scientific community is skewing their conclusions to further a political agenda.

I don't buy your claims of "the Big Lie of science," but good luck in your cause.

I don't claim there is any kind of conspiracy behind this. It's more of an institutionalized sort of thing that has evolved over centuries.

You can start with a great deal of friction between science and the church centuries ago. The church did what Al Gore tries to do - squash the differing view that was perceived as a threat to the status quo. Gradually, the church lost most of its dominance over society and has basically been supplanted by science. One group says, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth," and the other group says, "In the beginning, there was a great big bang..."

While I do think Science is asking the really big questions and finding a very different and Reasoned explanation for things, they aren't actually answering the ultimate questions. Evolution doesn't explain how life started, just how it evolved. The Big Bang theory doesn't explain how all the "stuff" that makes up the universe first got there. Or even "we know that the speed of light is 186,000 miles/sec, but WHY is it 186,000 miles/sec?" (How did the laws of Math and Physics get written in the first place?)

I'm not looking for any sort of spiritual answer to these questions. I realize things are what they are. But it's not my job to explain such things, it is Science's ultimate tasks.

As a group, scientists have been mostly immune to the big Wars and the Cold War. Part of the scientific "way" is to share observations and results, and to seek peer review. Even if you're an American and the peers are Commie Pinkos. What I'm saying is there's a natural lack of respect for nations and borders built in to their world.

Also built in to their world view (and ours) is a sort of pedestal we put them on; they're the great oracle. Somehow, the scientific way (and community) is above bias and misconduct; it would make a mockery of Science itself. We put more trust in these people - witness Barfo's protestations about anyone disagreeing with them not possibly being experts. We appreciate that Discipline and Reason are the foundation of their lives' work.

Perhaps Science started to become a perversion of itself with the two World Wars (and even until now). In World War I, science's contribution to the effort was not .1% better bullets or .1% bigger bombs; WMDs in the form of poison gases.

In World War II it was the A-Bomb. Einstein epitomized my earlier description of science. He didn't want to be bothered by the war, had friends who worked at places like the Max Planck Institute in Nazi Germany, and so on. When he was told his colleagues over there were working on the A-Bomb, he wrote a letter to FDR:

Sir:

Some recent work by E.Fermi and L. Szilard, which has been com-

municated to me in manuscript, leads me to expect that the element uran-

ium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the im-

mediate future. Certain aspects of the situation which has arisen seem

to call for watchfulness and, if necessary, quick action on the part

of the Administration. I believe therefore that it is my duty to bring

to your attention the following facts and recommendations:

In the course of the last four months it has been made probable -

through the work of Joliot in France as well as Fermi and Szilard in

America - that it may become possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction

in a large mass of uranium,by which vast amounts of power and large quant-

ities of new radium-like elements would be generated. Now it appears

almost certain that this could be achieved in the immediate future.

This new phenomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs,

and it is conceivable - though much less certain - that extremely power-

ful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed. A single bomb of this

type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy

the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory. However,

such bombs might very well prove to be too heavy for transportation by

air....

So we built his bomb and used it and won the war. With all this power comes consequences, though, and Einstein and other scientists, along with political leaders had to deal with the genie let out of its bottle. The scientists wanted an international organization to take control over the whole shebang, and no nations would possess such power. There's a sort of arrogance there that persists to this day. FDR had big plans for the UN, and according to the book "The Conquerers," he was planning on leaving the presidency to become the president of the international government.

http://www.amazon.com/Conquerors-Roosevelt-Destruction-Hitlers-1941-1945/dp/0684810271

As I see it, this is one source of the institutionalized Big Lie. It's the culture, the nature of the beast (Science).

There's more to it, though. Ike warned us of the Miltary-Industrial-Scientific Complex - the word Scientific was removed from his speech at the last moment. What these three things have in common is a heavy reliance on government for funding and other support. While the Left vilifies the first two (Military, Industry), they are overly in love with the third. Yet Ike was right, they're all a similar threat or positive force; as a threat the worst kind of force.

Today, Science has lost its way as I've posted quite a few times. It hasn't just supplanted religion, it's become one. Complete with origin stories, miracles, and a god named Mathematics. Like the church did hundreds of years ago, it is stifling the dissent to the status quo. It is quite obviously tied heavily to govt. for funding and lionization.

I'm OK with Science being oblivious to borders and nations. I am not OK with them wanting everyone else to have no borders or nations. What is Kyoto all about?

Of course there are plenty of folks who see opportunities in what Science is doing and take advantage. Enter Al Gore and the IPCC. Politicians. Influencing Science. Perverting it.

You may think I spammed a bunch of right wing talking point type quotes from scientists a few posts ago, but there are a few phrases within that are troubling.

"I am a skeptic…Global warming has become a new religion." - Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.

"Creating an ideology pegged to carbon dioxide is a dangerous nonsense…The present alarm on climate change is an instrument of social control, a pretext for major businesses and political battle. It became an ideology, which is concerning." - Environmental Scientist Professor Delgado Domingos of Portugal, the founder of the Numerical Weather Forecast group, has more than 150 published articles.

Both talk about Science being a religion. The second guy is telling you what's really going on.

"Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly..."

He is outing the system. If you want funding, don't rock the boat!

"Anyone who claims that the debate is over and the conclusions are firm has a fundamentally unscientific approach to one of the most momentous issues of our time."


He's downright saying that Science is being perverted. No longer fundamentally scientific.

"It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don’t buy into anthropogenic global warming." - U.S Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA.

He's calling it a blatant lie, I call it a Big Lie.

"The Kyoto theorists have put the cart before the horse."

He's pointing out the agenda.

"Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined." - Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh.

The lie is so big, it can't really be stopped.

&c

 

[yakbladder]

Are all parties basically arguing that we don't know if CO2 emissions are related to global warming and need more data. If so, can we all call it a day?

No, I am specifically claiming that man-made emissions cause climate changing. I've never said global warming. I've said climate change. And I stand by that.

But since other people will never change their views, yes, I can call it a day.

 

[barfo]

FWIW, I worked for the USGS modelling ground water flow for 3 years. I took graduate courses in computer modelling (and did an NBA simulation for an A+ in one of those). What I really learned is models are a load of crap.

There's a thing called Chaos that breaks your models every time except for the simplest of things (baseball isn't so simple). That's why I also pointed out why they're crap - ARod could get hit by a bus. He could go on a hot streak and hit .500 the rest of the season, and no model would predict that. The govt. budget is a model, but they always seem to go over (Chaos strikes again). The Fed uses a model to model the economy and doesn't get it right - they're always reacting to why their model broke down and trying for "soft landings."

The model I roughly started for baseball could be refined and refined and refined. I tried to illustrate that by adding refinements (like accounting for the pitching). Every refinement costs more computing power. You might do that fist 1000 AB simulation in .1 seconds on a modern desktop. Doing the average of BA and BAA 10000 times might take 3 seconds. The more refinements, the closer you are to needing a super computer to run your model, which is where some of the more sophisticated models are at these days.

But there isn't enough super computer to model something with convincing results. To truly model baseball, you would need to model the weather, and for every microsecond of each at bat. You'd have to model the dust that might blow into the eye of the batter in a small gust of wind. You'd have to model the bacteria on that steak ARod had for dinner the night before (maybe he got a belly ache affecting his performance).

It's cool that you did some computer modeling, but you seem to be missing a very fundamental point, which is that models such as these try to predict probabilities, not events. Predicting the future, at the level you are suggesting in your examples, is indeed impossible - but no one seriously expects that. You don't write a program to predict that ARod will hit a double in the third inning on August 19, 2010. You write a program to predict what the chances of that happening are. And if you think getting hit by a bus will change the probabilities in a meaningful way, you could add that in easily enough - take the fraction of people killed by busses last year, adjust it if you think baseball players are more or less likely to be hit by busses than the average person. (I'd guess they are less likely).

barfo

 

[PapaG]

No, I am specifically claiming that man-made emissions cause climate changing. I've never said global warming. I've said climate change. And I stand by that.

But since other people will never change their views, yes, I can call it a day.

Define climate change, and how reducing emissions will impact how the climate changes.

 

[PapaG]

I love it.

Sentence #1: experts and their models suck.

Again, that's not what I said. I asked a question, and once again you refuse to answer it.

Sentence #3: outrage at OTHER posters for smearing experts.

Which experts did I smear? I hate to say it, but there is really no use for the two of us to continue conversing. You have no interest in a discussion, and you instead address every post at the poster, and not the topic at hand.

 

[PapaG]

I can't speak where he pulled it from, but it's pretty common sense.

Science changes all of the time... not the scientific method, but the understanding of how the world works.

Science, then, doesn't provide Truth (capitalized to indicate objective, immutable truth). Science encapsulates our best understanding of Truth in the form of rules and theories.

Ed O.

Minstrel said that science provides models. It is my understanding that science provides answers, and the models are a way to help construct what an unknown "Truth", or answer, is.

Relying on the results of models is not science. It is educated guessing.

 

[Denny Crane]

It's cool that you did some computer modeling, but you seem to be missing a very fundamental point, which is that models such as these try to predict probabilities, not events. Predicting the future, at the level you are suggesting in your examples, is indeed impossible - but no one seriously expects that. You don't write a program to predict that ARod will hit a double in the third inning on August 19, 2010. You write a program to predict what the chances of that happening are. And if you think getting hit by a bus will change the probabilities in a meaningful way, you could add that in easily enough - take the fraction of people killed by busses last year, adjust it if you think baseball players are more or less likely to be hit by busses than the average person. (I'd guess they are less likely).

barfo

"to gain insight into the operation of those systems, or to observe their behavior"
"enable the prediction of the behavior of the system from a set of parameters and initial conditions."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_simulation

A computer simulation, a computer model or a computational model is a computer program, or network of computers, that attempts to simulate an abstract model of a particular system. Computer simulations have become a useful part of mathematical modeling of many natural systems in physics (computational physics), chemistry and biology, human systems in economics, psychology, and social science and in the process of engineering new technology, to gain insight into the operation of those systems, or to observe their behavior.[1]

Traditionally, forming large models (spelt 'modeling' in American English) of systems has been via a mathematical model, which attempts to find analytical solutions to problems and thereby enable the prediction of the behavior of the system from a set of parameters and initial conditions.

 

[Minstrel]

Minstrel said that science provides models. It is my understanding that science provides answers, and the models are a way to help construct what an unknown "Truth", or answer, is.

Relying on the results of models is not science. It is educated guessing.

You don't understand the use of "model" in science. You, like Denny, are confusing it with something like computer simulations. All of science is models...the theory of gravity is a model, evolution is a model, physics and chemistry are each a model. They are models because we don't know the underlying rules of the universe, we only know what we can observe. We see what we see and model it the best we can.

Newton was trying to model how the universe works when he created the foundations of physics. Since then, his work (the Newtonian model of physics) has been refined by physicists who have had the benefit of humanity's expanding knowledge. Einstein's theory of gravity was a new model of how gravity worked (a curvature of space) and it was found to have better explanatory and predictive power than Newton's model of gravity (a mutually attractive force between masses).

So, yes, science is all about models, rather than absolute truth. Newton's work was certainly science, but it clearly wasn't an absolute truth. Einstein's work was certainly science, but also surely not absolute truth. Models are expected to be replaced by superior models as knowledge expands, so they cannot be absolute truths. Scientists attempt to build the best explanatory and predictive models of the world and universe around us not offer absolute truths.

 

[PapaG]

You don't understand the use of "model." You, like Denny, are confusing it with something like computer simulations. All of science is models...the theory of gravity is a model, evolution is a model, physics and chemistry are each models. They are models because we don't know the underlying rules of the universe, we only know what we can observe. We see what we see and model it the best we can.

Newton was trying to model how the universe works when he created the foundations of physics. Since then, his work (the Newtonian model of physics) has been refined by physicists who have had the benefit of humanity's expanding knowledge. Einstein's theory of gravity was a new model of how gravity worked (a curvature of space) and it was found to have better explanatory and predictive power than Newton's model of gravity (a mutually attractive force between masses).

So, yes, science is all about models, rather than absolute truth. Newton's work was certainly science, but it clearly wasn't an absolute truth. Einstein's work was certainly science, but also surely not absolute truth. Models are expected to be replaced by superior models as knowledge expands, so they cannot be absolute truths. Scientists attempt to build the best explanatory and predictive models of the world and universe around us not offer absolute truths.

Computer simulated climate models are what are used for the topic being discussed in this thread. If you'd like to talk about science in general, I don't think you're going to find anyone who disagrees with the above post, but the above post has nothing to do with the "science" being discussed in this thread. I read your initial answer as being related to GW/climate change; now that I see that you were approaching it from a macro view, we really have nothing to disagree about, at least in how it pertains to the above post.

Can you at least see how a few posters may be confused about "models" since the models discussed in this thread are computer generated and are used to predict a "scientific" answer (or even Truth?) in the future?

 

[Denny Crane]

Minstrel said that science provides models. It is my understanding that science provides answers, and the models are a way to help construct what an unknown "Truth", or answer, is.

Relying on the results of models is not science. It is educated guessing.

Minstrel's use of "model" isn't a physical model, like you'd create with a spreadsheet or a stats program.

A model in his usage is a concept, like the atom has protons and neutrons in the nucleus and electrons orbiting the nucleus. That model has evolved over time so electrons do exist in the space around the nucleus but they're not in a known location but rather a cloud of probability. The valence model works for chemistry, even though the model is not at all a realistic representation of atomic structure.

 

[Denny Crane]

Minstrel,

I'm not confusing the use of the word Model.

We've been talking about computer models, because computer models are what climate scientists are basing their predictions of the end of the world.

I think it is you who are confused because you brought up the scientific model strawman.

 

[PapaG]

Minstrel's use of "model" isn't a physical model, like you'd create with a spreadsheet or a stats program.

A model in his usage is a concept, like the atom has protons and neutrons in the nucleus and electrons orbiting the nucleus. That model has evolved over time so electrons do exist in the space around the nucleus but they're not in a known location but rather a cloud of probability. The valence model works for chemistry, even though the model is not at all a realistic representation of atomic structure.

Yep, read my above post. I didn't realize he was talking outside of the GW debate. I was narrowly thinking of the computer-generated climate models that are being used as scientific answers.

 

[Denny Crane]

Like post #396

 

[Minstrel]

Computer simulated climate models are what are used for the topic being discussed in this thread. If you'd like to talk about science in general, I don't think you're going to find anyone who disagrees with the above post, but the above post has nothing to do with the "science" being discussed in this thread. I read your initial answer as being related to GW/climate change; now that I see that you were approaching it from a macro view, we really have nothing to disagree about, at least in how it pertains to the above post.

Can you at least see how a few posters may be confused about "models" since the models discussed in this thread are computer generated and are used to predict a "scientific" answer (or even Truth?) in the future?

The thing is, there is a climate change model (in the way I was using "model" in my previous post) and then there are computer simulations that attempt to make predictions. The computer simulations (at least the ones I've heard about) don't seem very good. That highlights where the climate change model is currently weak: scientists aren't sure what the ultimate effect of man's actions will be.

What most scientists do feel has been demonstrated is that mankind is affecting global temperatures. What that will end up meaning, most scientists do not know (or claim to know). But past epochs in the Earth's history (prior to humans and even during the existence of humans) have shown that temperature change can lead to drastic effects, so there's reason for some concern. Whether there's reason for urgent concern or high-level fear is, of course, a very different thing.

 

[Minstrel]

We've been talking about computer models, because computer models are what climate scientists are basing their predictions of the end of the world.

We've been talking about various things, including the model of climate change that the field is working on and which is what convinces most in the field that man-made global warming exists.

I think it is you who are confused because you brought up the scientific model strawman.

Not at all, I was responding to your claims that science was about Truth and religious belief. It's not about Truth, it's about the best models of what we see around us and, since those models are continuously replaced when better models come along, is clearly not considered Truth by the scientific community.

 

[Denny Crane]

We've been talking about various things, including the model of climate change that the field is working on and which is what convinces most in the field that man-made global warming exists.



Not at all, I was responding to your claims that science was about Truth and religious belief. It's not about Truth, it's about the best models of what we see around us and, since those models are continuously replaced when better models come along, is clearly not considered Truth by the scientific community.

Unfortunately, there is no man made climate model (in your use of the term). The models you talk about actually do help us to understand things like how molecules are made. Any climate change model does not have the "molecules" that we can reproduce in the lab or in products - every time.

And your models are about a Truth. The best Truth that we can have for now. A changing Truth. And while you concede that the computer models aren't very good, they are what the scaremongers are using as the bulk of the support for their belief. See post 396, it's there in black and white from one of our top scientific institutions (MIT).

So when they advertise their model (your sense of the term) as the best Truth, but it isn't even a valid model, then what? It's an outright lie.

 

[Minstrel]

Unfortunately, there is no man made climate model (in your use of the term).

There are climate models, of how CO2 and other atmospheric molecules affect temperature and how events, both natural and man-made, change the make up of the atmosphere. These climate models have satisfied the rigor of the scientific community (which is highly competitive and always extremely critical of proposed models...luminaries like Einstein and Hawking have been at the center of storms of controversy when they've proposed their models and theories) that man's actions have some effect. What the ultimate results of those effects are is not considered known by the scientific community.

And your models are about a Truth. The best Truth that we can have for now. A changing Truth.

In other words, not truth or Truth. Walk it back as you like.

And while you concede that the computer models aren't very good, they are what the scaremongers are using as the bulk of the support for their belief.

The "scare-mongers," as you dub them, speak for themselves. If you want to criticize Al Gore, feel free. Using Gore as a representative for "climate science" isn't valid, since he's not the representative. He's a non-scientist with an opinion.

So when they advertise their model (your sense of the term) as the best Truth, but it isn't even a valid model, then what? It's an outright lie.

They don't advertise it as any kind of truth. Science is constantly striving to provide the best explanatory models possible with the information that exists. It's left to governments to decide how best to use them to guide policy, in the knowledge that the models aren't 100% certain and can never be.

 

[barfo]

Relying on the results of models is not science. It is educated guessing.

Even if true, that is better than uneducated guessing, which seems to be the alternative being offered here.

barfo

 

[barfo]

"to gain insight into the operation of those systems, or to observe their behavior"
"enable the prediction of the behavior of the system from a set of parameters and initial conditions."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_simulation

A computer simulation, a computer model or a computational model is a computer program, or network of computers, that attempts to simulate an abstract model of a particular system. Computer simulations have become a useful part of mathematical modeling of many natural systems in physics (computational physics), chemistry and biology, human systems in economics, psychology, and social science and in the process of engineering new technology, to gain insight into the operation of those systems, or to observe their behavior.[1]

Traditionally, forming large models (spelt 'modeling' in American English) of systems has been via a mathematical model, which attempts to find analytical solutions to problems and thereby enable the prediction of the behavior of the system from a set of parameters and initial conditions.

I think this wikipedia entry is more relevant:

A computational model is a mathematical model in computational science that requires extensive computational resources to study the behavior of a complex system by computer simulation. The system under study is often a complex nonlinear system for which simple, intuitive analytical solutions are not readily available. Rather than deriving a mathematical analytical solution to the problem, experimentation with the model is done by changing the parameters of the system in the computer, and study the differences in the outcome of the experiments. Theories of operation of the model can be derived/deduced from these computational experiments.

Examples of common computational models are weather forecasting models, earth simulator models, flight simulator models, molecular protein folding models, and neural network models.

barfo

 

[barfo]

I don't claim there is any kind of conspiracy behind this. It's more of an institutionalized sort of thing that has evolved over centuries.

You can start with a great deal of friction between science and the church centuries ago. The church did what Al Gore tries to do - squash the differing view that was perceived as a threat to the status quo. Gradually, the church lost most of its dominance over society and has basically been supplanted by science. One group says, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth," and the other group says, "In the beginning, there was a great big bang..."

While I do think Science is asking the really big questions and finding a very different and Reasoned explanation for things, they aren't actually answering the ultimate questions. Evolution doesn't explain how life started, just how it evolved. The Big Bang theory doesn't explain how all the "stuff" that makes up the universe first got there. Or even "we know that the speed of light is 186,000 miles/sec, but WHY is it 186,000 miles/sec?" (How did the laws of Math and Physics get written in the first place?)

I'm not looking for any sort of spiritual answer to these questions. I realize things are what they are. But it's not my job to explain such things, it is Science's ultimate tasks.

As a group, scientists have been mostly immune to the big Wars and the Cold War. Part of the scientific "way" is to share observations and results, and to seek peer review. Even if you're an American and the peers are Commie Pinkos. What I'm saying is there's a natural lack of respect for nations and borders built in to their world.

Also built in to their world view (and ours) is a sort of pedestal we put them on; they're the great oracle. Somehow, the scientific way (and community) is above bias and misconduct; it would make a mockery of Science itself. We put more trust in these people - witness Barfo's protestations about anyone disagreeing with them not possibly being experts. We appreciate that Discipline and Reason are the foundation of their lives' work.

Perhaps Science started to become a perversion of itself with the two World Wars (and even until now). In World War I, science's contribution to the effort was not .1% better bullets or .1% bigger bombs; WMDs in the form of poison gases.

In World War II it was the A-Bomb. Einstein epitomized my earlier description of science. He didn't want to be bothered by the war, had friends who worked at places like the Max Planck Institute in Nazi Germany, and so on. When he was told his colleagues over there were working on the A-Bomb, he wrote a letter to FDR:



So we built his bomb and used it and won the war. With all this power comes consequences, though, and Einstein and other scientists, along with political leaders had to deal with the genie let out of its bottle. The scientists wanted an international organization to take control over the whole shebang, and no nations would possess such power. There's a sort of arrogance there that persists to this day. FDR had big plans for the UN, and according to the book "The Conquerers," he was planning on leaving the presidency to become the president of the international government.

http://www.amazon.com/Conquerors-Roosevelt-Destruction-Hitlers-1941-1945/dp/0684810271

As I see it, this is one source of the institutionalized Big Lie. It's the culture, the nature of the beast (Science).

There's more to it, though. Ike warned us of the Miltary-Industrial-Scientific Complex - the word Scientific was removed from his speech at the last moment. What these three things have in common is a heavy reliance on government for funding and other support. While the Left vilifies the first two (Military, Industry), they are overly in love with the third. Yet Ike was right, they're all a similar threat or positive force; as a threat the worst kind of force.

Today, Science has lost its way as I've posted quite a few times. It hasn't just supplanted religion, it's become one. Complete with origin stories, miracles, and a god named Mathematics. Like the church did hundreds of years ago, it is stifling the dissent to the status quo. It is quite obviously tied heavily to govt. for funding and lionization.

I'm OK with Science being oblivious to borders and nations. I am not OK with them wanting everyone else to have no borders or nations. What is Kyoto all about?

Of course there are plenty of folks who see opportunities in what Science is doing and take advantage. Enter Al Gore and the IPCC. Politicians. Influencing Science. Perverting it.

You may think I spammed a bunch of right wing talking point type quotes from scientists a few posts ago, but there are a few phrases within that are troubling.

"I am a skeptic…Global warming has become a new religion." - Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.

"Creating an ideology pegged to carbon dioxide is a dangerous nonsense…The present alarm on climate change is an instrument of social control, a pretext for major businesses and political battle. It became an ideology, which is concerning." - Environmental Scientist Professor Delgado Domingos of Portugal, the founder of the Numerical Weather Forecast group, has more than 150 published articles.

Both talk about Science being a religion. The second guy is telling you what's really going on.

"Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly..."

He is outing the system. If you want funding, don't rock the boat!

"Anyone who claims that the debate is over and the conclusions are firm has a fundamentally unscientific approach to one of the most momentous issues of our time."


He's downright saying that Science is being perverted. No longer fundamentally scientific.

"It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don’t buy into anthropogenic global warming." - U.S Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA.

He's calling it a blatant lie, I call it a Big Lie.

"The Kyoto theorists have put the cart before the horse."

He's pointing out the agenda.

"Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined." - Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh.

The lie is so big, it can't really be stopped.

&c

So, to summarize, scientists are evil because they made the bomb. Therefore they cannot be trusted.
Things politicians do (e.g. Kyoto) show that scientists cannot be trusted. Things Al Gore says show that scientists cannot be trusted.

Your rejection of climate science isn't any different than the Catholic church insisting that the sun revolves around the earth. To hell with science, we are going to believe what we want to believe... Eventually history laughs at those who try this tactic.

barfo