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I think the idea is that we don't really know the consequences of our effects on the climate, whether they will actually be catastrphic or not. The geocentric

I think the idea is that we don't really know the consequences of our effects on the climate, whether they will actually be catastrphic or not. The geocentric model, the heliocentric model, keplers laws, newtons laws, the luminiferous aether...all of these were established scientific concepts that later turned out to be inaccurate. When you learn a new thing and discover a new model, the previous state of the art is necessarily wrong to some degree.

DCKing 11y ago
The things you mention are either not 'completely wrong' (i.e. Newton's Laws, Kepler's Laws, the heliocentric model) or not based on multiple sources of evidence (the geocentric model, luminiferous aether). I will absolutely grant that scientists for centuries have made prevailing wisdom out of untested hypotheses. I'm just pointing out that climate change is neither prevailing wisdom (of that kind) or an untested hypothesis. I'm quite sure that there's a lot more to discover in climate change akin to how there was a lot more to discover after Newton described his laws of motion. That does not mean we should commit the Nirvana fallacy and disregard our current efforts as fruitless, untrue or unhelpful when they are the complete opposite.
- powera 11y ago
  Nobody is claiming that climate change is "completely wrong". On the other hand, the claim that rising CO2 levels are responsible for a majority of the changes in the earth's temperature could be "completely wrong". ... and in what sense is "the sun is the center of the universe" not completely wrong?
  - deciplex 11y ago
    > ... and in what sense is "the sun is the center of the universe" not completely wrong? In the sense that you can make a lot of really accurate predictions about the motion of the planets, with a heliocentric model. For that matter, you can get a lot done proceeding from the assumption that the Earth is flat because, to a reasonable approximation, Earth is flat. http://hermiene.net/essays-trans/relativity_of_wrong.html http://hermiene.net/essays-trans/relativity_of_wrong.html
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    > ... and in what sense is "the sun is the center of the universe" not completely wrong? In a sense that there's no obvious preferred reference frame (and if you believe Einstein, there's none at all) for the universe, so you may as well pick up the sun to be (0, 0, 0). Also, as long as you adjust for the observable evidence, the only difference between heliocentric and geocentric model is how much are you willing to complicate your maths. Those two descriptions can always be translated into one another. This is really an important point many people miss about science, and well, about thinking itself. There are many equivalent ways to describe a given phenomena, taking into account all available evidence, and the model we pick as "official" is usually the simplest one.
  - xlm1717 11y ago
    >Nobody is claiming that climate change is "completely wrong" I think the fact that the climate is changing isn't what some people have a problem with. Of course it is changing, we see it happening and know about cases throughout history (the "Little Ice Age", the Medieval Warm Period). What people have a problem with is being told they have to do something about it.
npunt 11y ago
To note, he specifically asked for concepts that had "result of different sources of experimental evidence". Those concepts were attempts to explain observation, but did not have strong experimental evidence.
- foota 11y ago
  Isn't observation exactly the same as experimental evidence?
  - resu_nimda 11y ago
    I was going to say something along those lines...you can draw an arbitrary line for what constitutes "real" experimental science, but I think that's missing the point of the original comment.
  - scott_s 11y ago
    No. In this instance, an observation is the thing used to construct the theory. You cannot test a theory with the same thing used to make it. Scientific theories make predictions, which are things which should happen if the theory is correct, but have not yet been observed, and hence cannot have been used to construct the theory itself. Testing those predictions is "experimental evidence."
    - foota 11y ago
      Essentially you're saying that one thing (the observation) is what you don't understand initially that causes you to formulate some theory that then predicts some result that you observe and call experimental evidence?
      - scott_s 11y ago
        I have difficulty following your grammar, so I'll just restate what I think is the case, using a similar progression as what I think you wrote. You initially observe some phenomenon. You do not have an immediate explanation for it. You come up with an explanation for that phenomenon. You cannot then use the original phenomenon to support your explanation. In order to test your explanation, you must figure out what else must happen if your explanation is true. You then devise experiments, or find other, different observations, which can falsify your explanation. That is, if the experiments come out a certain way, or you observe certain things, you can rule out your explanation. If, instead, you cannot rule out your explanation, but the other things your explanation predicts to happen does happen, then those new observations are experimental evidence that support your explanation.
JacobJans 11y ago
> whether they will actually be catastrphic or not The consequences already are catastrophic. But the impact doesn't directly affect most people, and even if it does, the reasons can still be obscured.
- jusben1369 11y ago
  > The consequences already are catastrophic How so? BTW please don't highlight normal catastrophic things like droughts or hurricanes as those have obviously always been with us.
  - wtallis 11y ago
    "Don't tell me about the shifted mean, because the variance has always been non-zero"? By that logic, you're essentially trying to maximize the chances of not taking action until it's too late; early indicators of a trend are always going to be fuzzier and less certain than later mountains of evidence.
    - jusben1369 11y ago
      I was objecting to hyperbole. Sadly it is about shifting means but that doesn't make for good headlines so we get hyperbolic statements.
  - nitrogen 11y ago
    Ocean acidification due to increased CO2 destroys marine ecosystems.
    - joeclark77 11y ago
      Acid rain is not caused by CO2 but by pollutants (such as SO2 and NO) which may also come from coal burning. Even if CO2 were implicated, this issue has absolutely zero to do with the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.
      - 11y ago

DCKing 11y ago

The things you mention are either not 'completely wrong' (i.e. Newton's Laws, Kepler's Laws, the heliocentric model) or not based on multiple sources of evidence (the geocentric model, luminiferous aether). I will absolutely grant that scientists for centuries have made prevailing wisdom out of untested hypotheses. I'm just pointing out that climate change is neither prevailing wisdom (of that kind) or an untested hypothesis. I'm quite sure that there's a lot more to discover in climate change akin to how there was a lot more to discover after Newton described his laws of motion. That does not mean we should commit the Nirvana fallacy and disregard our current efforts as fruitless, untrue or unhelpful when they are the complete opposite.

powera 11y ago
Nobody is claiming that climate change is "completely wrong". On the other hand, the claim that rising CO2 levels are responsible for a majority of the changes in the earth's temperature could be "completely wrong". ... and in what sense is "the sun is the center of the universe" not completely wrong?
- deciplex 11y ago
  > ... and in what sense is "the sun is the center of the universe" not completely wrong? In the sense that you can make a lot of really accurate predictions about the motion of the planets, with a heliocentric model. For that matter, you can get a lot done proceeding from the assumption that the Earth is flat because, to a reasonable approximation, Earth is flat. http://hermiene.net/essays-trans/relativity_of_wrong.html http://hermiene.net/essays-trans/relativity_of_wrong.html
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  > ... and in what sense is "the sun is the center of the universe" not completely wrong? In a sense that there's no obvious preferred reference frame (and if you believe Einstein, there's none at all) for the universe, so you may as well pick up the sun to be (0, 0, 0). Also, as long as you adjust for the observable evidence, the only difference between heliocentric and geocentric model is how much are you willing to complicate your maths. Those two descriptions can always be translated into one another. This is really an important point many people miss about science, and well, about thinking itself. There are many equivalent ways to describe a given phenomena, taking into account all available evidence, and the model we pick as "official" is usually the simplest one.
- xlm1717 11y ago
  >Nobody is claiming that climate change is "completely wrong" I think the fact that the climate is changing isn't what some people have a problem with. Of course it is changing, we see it happening and know about cases throughout history (the "Little Ice Age", the Medieval Warm Period). What people have a problem with is being told they have to do something about it.

npunt 11y ago

To note, he specifically asked for concepts that had "result of different sources of experimental evidence". Those concepts were attempts to explain observation, but did not have strong experimental evidence.

foota 11y ago
Isn't observation exactly the same as experimental evidence?
- resu_nimda 11y ago
  I was going to say something along those lines...you can draw an arbitrary line for what constitutes "real" experimental science, but I think that's missing the point of the original comment.
- scott_s 11y ago
  No. In this instance, an observation is the thing used to construct the theory. You cannot test a theory with the same thing used to make it. Scientific theories make predictions, which are things which should happen if the theory is correct, but have not yet been observed, and hence cannot have been used to construct the theory itself. Testing those predictions is "experimental evidence."
  - foota 11y ago
    Essentially you're saying that one thing (the observation) is what you don't understand initially that causes you to formulate some theory that then predicts some result that you observe and call experimental evidence?
    - scott_s 11y ago
      I have difficulty following your grammar, so I'll just restate what I think is the case, using a similar progression as what I think you wrote. You initially observe some phenomenon. You do not have an immediate explanation for it. You come up with an explanation for that phenomenon. You cannot then use the original phenomenon to support your explanation. In order to test your explanation, you must figure out what else must happen if your explanation is true. You then devise experiments, or find other, different observations, which can falsify your explanation. That is, if the experiments come out a certain way, or you observe certain things, you can rule out your explanation. If, instead, you cannot rule out your explanation, but the other things your explanation predicts to happen does happen, then those new observations are experimental evidence that support your explanation.

JacobJans 11y ago

> whether they will actually be catastrphic or not The consequences already are catastrophic. But the impact doesn't directly affect most people, and even if it does, the reasons can still be obscured.

jusben1369 11y ago
> The consequences already are catastrophic How so? BTW please don't highlight normal catastrophic things like droughts or hurricanes as those have obviously always been with us.
- wtallis 11y ago
  "Don't tell me about the shifted mean, because the variance has always been non-zero"? By that logic, you're essentially trying to maximize the chances of not taking action until it's too late; early indicators of a trend are always going to be fuzzier and less certain than later mountains of evidence.
  - jusben1369 11y ago
    I was objecting to hyperbole. Sadly it is about shifting means but that doesn't make for good headlines so we get hyperbolic statements.
- nitrogen 11y ago
  Ocean acidification due to increased CO2 destroys marine ecosystems.
  - joeclark77 11y ago
    Acid rain is not caused by CO2 but by pollutants (such as SO2 and NO) which may also come from coal burning. Even if CO2 were implicated, this issue has absolutely zero to do with the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.
    - 11y ago