10 ms·

Diamond planets, climate change and the scientific method

89 points by evolve2k 15y ago

hartror 15y ago
I've had friend doing his biology PHD say effectively the same thing as this to me. It is frustrating that science communication is such a PR game to the detriment of the general public's understanding of what science is in reality.
zeteo 15y ago
> there is actually no difference between how science works in astronomy and climate change – or any other scientific discipline for that matter. We make observations, run simulations, test and propose hypotheses, and undergo peer review of our findings. Things change a lot when your scientific theories need to be transformed into policies, though. If these same authors had also proposed, say, spending a significant proportion of world GDP to send a spaceship to the said diamond planet, their theories would be received more critically, I imagine.
- ars 15y ago
  That sentence isn't even correct. There is a MASSIVE difference between simulation based science and experiment based science. I consider simulation based science interesting as theory (theoretical science), but it should NEVER be taken as accepted fact.
  - me_again 15y ago
    Climate science isn't entirely based on simulation. For example, long-term geological records show a correlation between CO2 and global temperatures - see http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/360/1793/659.short http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/360/1793/659.... for example.
  - nl 15y ago
    I consider simulation based science interesting as theory (theoretical science), but it should NEVER be taken as accepted fact. It depends on the field and the degree of accuracy. For example, hydrodynamic simulations are pretty much accurate for standard(ish) shapes. Same with lighting simulations (ie, ray tracing).
    - ars 15y ago
      Those are based on experiments. Only after the experiments were the simulations added. And with those it's possible to compare a simulation and a realization and improve the accuracy of the simulation. i.e. the science is based on experiments, not simulations. After the science was learned, simulations were added, but the science was not learned from the simulation.
ChuckMcM 15y ago
TL;DR version - our press was positive because their is no political agenda in astrophysics at the moment. It then goes to pity climate scientists who are pilloried because politicians have chosen to use their words to enact and enforce policies that their constituents don't like. Astrophysics was a lot tougher discipline to be in if you were Galileo. Again the science was was being perverted to show support for what the government wanted to be true, rather than what was true. I suspect that if someone could have sold the church on a way to 'fix' difference between what science was telling them, and what they wanted to be true, they would have wasted millions doing that too. Galileo knew that no matter how hard they wished it, the planets would not suddenly stop in its orbit and the universe begin to rotate around it. No more than any amount of wishing, better behaviors, and offerings of gold could stop the seasons (or the climate for that matter) from changing. Not sure we've learned all that much about mixing science and policy since Galileo's time.
robryan 15y ago
One big problem is that usually the person with the loudest voice gets the most attention, even if they are from the fringes of science. The real climate scientist don't want to use absolute certain language as that's not what the results tell them and their conclusions are harder to whittle down into a 30 second news report. Those without so much evidence to back them up are more than happy to deal in absolutes.
hugh3 15y ago
This thread is relevant to my interests. On the subject of the "diamond" planet, I'm actually surprised to see the lead author of the paper in question referring to it as a "diamond planet". I thought that was just a media label. I read the paper when it came out, and all that was indicated was that an extremely large (Jupiter-mass) extremely dense (much smaller than Jupiter) body was detected orbiting a pulsar. The density was consistent with something reasonably close to diamond, but I would have thought that there always has to be some other elements in there... and in any case I wasn't convinced that the vast majority of the interior would be cool enough to be crystalline rather than liquid carbon. So while I'm very confident that there's some extremely massive, extremely dense planet orbiting that star, I'm yet to be one hundred percent convinced that "diamond" is the correct label for it. Which brings me neatly to the actual point of the article, on climate change. I'm somewhat out of my field here, but no more than the author is. The reason I'm skeptical about the hypothesis "burning fossil fuels is likely to cause significant and disastrous climate change in the future" is that it's all based on simulations which can't be tested against experiment. And I do simulations for a living, so I know enough about them to be very skeptical whenever confronted with simulations in the absence of experiment. Maybe it's true, and I wouldn't be surprised if it were, but I'm certainly not willing to talk about it as if it's as strongly supported as... well, the vast majority of other stuff that we mean when we talk about 'science'. The strength of a scientific theory is (and I'm still working on figuring out exactly how to phrase this) determined by the question of "If this turned out to be false, how much experimental data would suddenly be very difficult to explain?" If evolution were false, then pretty much all of biology is suddenly very difficult to explain. If the hypothesis "big dense planet thing orbiting PSR J1719−1438" turns out to be false, then there's a bunch of measurements which are very hard to explain. On the other hand if the hypothesis "diamond planet orbiting PSR J1719−1438" is false then it's not at all difficult to explain. And if the hypothesis of significant anthropogenic climate change turns out to be false, then this makes very little difference to our ability to explain existing experimental data.
- pbreit 15y ago
  I don't see how the man-mad warming camp can make-such-matter of fact assertions such as in http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/09/07/krugman-shape-of-earth http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/09/07/krugman-shape-of... when the evidence does not seem to be conclusive. It's even more alarming that the other side is belittled. Surely there must be something more compelling than "An Inconvenient Truth" on the matter?
kapilash 15y ago
If they want some "People on the fringe of science" to be quoted as "opponents of their work", they should try saying that the existence of a diamond planet 4000 light years away from the earth is a proof that God did not create the universe or some such. But to me, it does not seem a well-thought blog. Who says a "scientific-method" that works for identifying the structure of a planet 4K light years away would also work for climate on earth?
orblivion 15y ago
Well, it's an unfortunate fact that diamonds in space are not as politically charged. In a vacuum it's unfair to give more scrutiny to climatologists, but given that it is politically charged, there's reason to question people's motives (and to be fair, people who will go overboard in the questioning).
natmaster 15y ago
The author states, "...that suggests man-made activities are responsible for changes in concentrations of CO2 in our atmosphere." Notice the difference between that statement, and "OMG we're all going to die a giant heat death 5 years from now if we don't give up all our liberties!"
Tim_Benham 15y ago
There are no pure carbon white dwarfs. There are carbon-oxygen dwarfs. Crystalline C/O doesn't sound as sexy as diamond. Scientists shade the truth for publicity all the time.
gavanwoolery 15y ago
The funny thing about climate change is how people treat it like a RELIGION. I have nothing against religion, but I do not like it when people treat science like a faith - that is, take the facts for granted, and assume they are true, rather than trying to do what REAL scientists do, and prove their hypotheses false. I see a lot of scientists trying to prove that humans are a major cause of global warming. I see very few of them looking for holes in their arguments, or trying to prove their hypotheses wrong. Do humans warm the earth? Absolutely, no question about it. The question is whether or not we have a significant impact. The earth has had dramatic warm and cold periods long before we even existed, what makes us think that we are the catalyst for everything? Is it not a bit concerning that many so-called scientists tried to hide data that went against their research?
- guelo 15y ago
  > I see very few of them looking for holes in their arguments, or trying to prove their hypotheses wrong. Where have you been looking at the scientists' work? Have you been following their peer-reviewed publications to reach the conclusion that they don't question these theories?
  - gavanwoolery 15y ago
    Being peer-reviewed is a joke - especially when it is so easy to falsify or hide data, as was done in ClimateGate. Being peer-reviewed is also a joke when your peers all sip the same cool-aid.
    - guelo 15y ago
      You did not answer my question, where did you get your information that the scientists have not tried to disprove the warming theories?
      - gavanwoolery 15y ago
        I'm going to repaste this for the sake of convenience: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the... If any study can address all of the concerns quoted here, I'll shut my mouth. In the face of some of gaping inconsistencies, I would think that many studies did not try to question their hypotheses thoroughly enough.
kevinpet 15y ago
Anyone in climate science who does not understand why their work is controversial is living in a cave or willfully ignorant at this point. 1. Many climate scientists claim authority to make policy recommendations, something which is outside the realm of science. (Science ideally informs policy, but policy is about tradeoffs which climate scientists have no privileged insight into.) 2. The public face of climate science is akin to a political attack ad. Anyone who questions the policy recommendations of climate scientists is painted with the same brush as creationists or conspiracy theorists. 3. Climate scientists have mislead the public about their own science. When we have a cold winter, then "weather isn't climate", but when we have heat wave, then "we can't rule out the possibility that this is related to global warming". Of course, some climate scientists are careful to outline the limits of their knowledge. It's just a few bad apples spoiling it for the honest 2%.
- Tichy 15y ago
  "When we have a cold winter, then "weather isn't climate", but when we have heat wave, then "we can't rule out the possibility that this is related to global warming"." Are you sure that is the scientists talking, and not just the "common folks"? I never had the impression that climate science is terribly interested in singular spots of measurements. The public of course reacts immediately. If there is a warm winter, they all become believers in climate change, if there is a cold winter, they become convinced it is all bunk. Never mind that the climate change could indeed lead to some regions of the world to actually become colder. Maybe the problem is that everybody thinks they are experts on the weather, too, after all, they can sense it with their own senses - not.
praxeologist 15y ago
Diamond or not, that's a cool discovery. The author though is making a mistake when he says that "The scientific method is universal. If we selectively ignore it in certain disciplines, we do so at our peril." Science is broader than those disciplines where the hypothetico-deductive method is appropriate ("the natural sciences"). Science is the quest for knowledge, and epistemology, or the "science of knowledge", informs us of another particular method, the axiomatic-deductive, appropriate for "the social sciences". The first rule of "the scientific method" is there is no scientific methoD. There are scientific methodS. The author has fallen victim to the all-too-common "scientism" that has swept the globe from the 19th century onward. Should it be enough that there is wide agreement in peer reviewed journals to really make something so? In a similar situation, there's wide agreement from economists on what makes the world tick, yet these folks with little job prospects outside of government or academia manage to repeatedly fail to create models which display predictive power. In the case of economics, the 'scientific method' chosen, that of mathematical economics, is inappropriate since human action "plays by different rules" than pulsars. Climate scientists similarly have the ability to influence politics. At least they are using the correct type of method, but to say that X number of peer reviewed journals establishes the anthropocentric warming hypothesis as true is a logical error. Climate scientists need to exhibit predictive power and the fact is they haven't been able to do that. Historical evidence also doesn't lend itself to the idea that small amounts of warming will lead to disaster. It's a great story to put people into a panic and manipulate them but there is just not the necessary proof. For more details see Howard Hayden's one-letter disproof of global warming claims: http://www.stephankinsella.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/HaydenToJackson.pdf http://www.stephankinsella.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Ha...
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
MarkPNeyer 15y ago
for those interested, i interviewed several climatologists with some questions i had about global warming. The results are on my blog: http://www.markpneyer.com/wp/2009/12/10/climate-change/ http://www.markpneyer.com/wp/2009/12/10/climate-change/
blendergasket 15y ago
My perspective on this is that, at least for people like myself, believing or disbelieving in human caused climate change is completely an act of faith. We can look at the situation, try to wade through the journal magazines, blogs etc to find a reality behind it. But what we get, unless we have massive time to invest, is basically all we get. We pick a perspective on it that we feel defines us somehow, or fits with our worldview, and then dig in, surrounding ourselves with media that fits the image. I believe in global warming because it seems that the interests backing the antiglobalwarming campaign have massive financial motivations for doing so. Also, as an avid urban cyclists anything that gets more cars off the street or at least regulates emissions, and pushes people towards smaller cars. I trust the government and universities more than I trust big corporations and I know corporations are absolutely willing to pay people to find/make science that fits their preconceptions. So in short I don't know. I took a guess, and I did so after weighing what I assume to be the motivations of the actors, and the outcomes if either side is wrong. If we prepare for global warming it will turn the world into a better place whether or not there is such a thing as global warming.
- hugh3 15y ago
  So in short I don't know. I took a guess, and I did so after weighing what I assume to be the motivations of the actors Well, that's precisely the wrong thing to do. The right thing to do, when you don't have enough evidence, is to say "I don't know". You can then go on to say "I think the preponderance of evidence is on one side or another", but you certainly shouldn't go round believing things. Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen.
  - blendergasket 15y ago
    I don't have all the evidence. I weigh the evidence I have, and believe the preponderance of evidence is on one side or another. You call it think, but really there's no difference between that and believing. If you think so you're living a lie that perpetuates this masquerade of believing we're partaking in science and in effect elevates this swinish political discussion to the level of science.
cormullion 15y ago
In case you haven't seen this, here's one programmer's perspective on working in climate science: http://www.scribd.com/doc/23379965/Harry-Read-Me http://www.scribd.com/doc/23379965/Harry-Read-Me
aangjie 15y ago
Ok, long discussion, i cannot add much given my non-familiarity with climate change science, but will point out this quote, i wrote some time back. "One generation's science is the another generation's religion"
viggity 15y ago
"I take the hard view that science involves the creation of testable hypotheses" - Michael Crichton A computer simulation is not a testable hypothesis, never has been, never will be. There are millions of variables that go into our climate, to say that a computer simulation can capture all of them is naive at best. In regards to the diamond planet, nobody is suggesting we radically alter the world economic system over a guess about a "diamond planet". The "climate change" crowd has an entire legion of people dedicated to killing the world economy over a bunch of un-testable computer simulations.
gavanwoolery 15y ago
Going to throw this in the mix - this is definitely something to think about when considering global warming. Consult Google for these numbers - I checked a couple sources to find rough estimates. Please correct me if I made an error. Obviously, this is a gross simplification... The atmosphere has 5×10^18 kg of mass. That is 5,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms of mass for people who like to see the zeros. Just by breathing, the human race produces about 2.2 trillion kilograms of CO2 annually. However, humans are only a fraction of the earth's CO2-producing biomass, about less than 1/1000 by some estimates. So that means that earth's creatures probably produce over 2 quadrillion kilograms of CO2 annually! Human technology (cars, power plants, etc) produce 27.2 trillion kilograms of CO2 annually. Let that sink in for a second - just by breathing, we produce a magnitude greater amount of CO2 than fossil fuel ever will. Wow. So where is it all going? My guess is photosynthesis is doing a pretty good job of keeping things in balance, but I am open to suggestions.
mckoss 15y ago
Unlike astrophysicists, climate science has some very vocal members trying to form policy decisions. The result of these decisions can mean spending Trillions of dollars. So we don't get to have dispassionate debate in the facts, as the stakes are extremely high and incorrect conclusions can have enormously expensive consequences.
- m104 15y ago
  Also, unlike astrophysicists, climate science has some very vocal critics trying to keep current policy decisions intact. The result of these decisions can ensure billions in corporate profits over the coming years. And so, as you say, we don't get to have dispassionate debate in the facts, as the stakes are extremely high and incorrect conclusions can have disastrous consequences.

89 points by evolve2k 15y ago

I've had friend doing his biology PHD say effectively the same thing as this to me. It is frustrating that science communication is such a PR game to the detriment of the general public's understanding of what science is in reality.

zeteo 15y ago

> there is actually no difference between how science works in astronomy and climate change – or any other scientific discipline for that matter. We make observations, run simulations, test and propose hypotheses, and undergo peer review of our findings. Things change a lot when your scientific theories need to be transformed into policies, though. If these same authors had also proposed, say, spending a significant proportion of world GDP to send a spaceship to the said diamond planet, their theories would be received more critically, I imagine.

ars 15y ago
That sentence isn't even correct. There is a MASSIVE difference between simulation based science and experiment based science. I consider simulation based science interesting as theory (theoretical science), but it should NEVER be taken as accepted fact.
- me_again 15y ago
  Climate science isn't entirely based on simulation. For example, long-term geological records show a correlation between CO2 and global temperatures - see http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/360/1793/659.short http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/360/1793/659.... for example.
- nl 15y ago
  I consider simulation based science interesting as theory (theoretical science), but it should NEVER be taken as accepted fact. It depends on the field and the degree of accuracy. For example, hydrodynamic simulations are pretty much accurate for standard(ish) shapes. Same with lighting simulations (ie, ray tracing).
  - ars 15y ago
    Those are based on experiments. Only after the experiments were the simulations added. And with those it's possible to compare a simulation and a realization and improve the accuracy of the simulation. i.e. the science is based on experiments, not simulations. After the science was learned, simulations were added, but the science was not learned from the simulation.

ChuckMcM 15y ago

TL;DR version - our press was positive because their is no political agenda in astrophysics at the moment. It then goes to pity climate scientists who are pilloried because politicians have chosen to use their words to enact and enforce policies that their constituents don't like. Astrophysics was a lot tougher discipline to be in if you were Galileo. Again the science was was being perverted to show support for what the government wanted to be true, rather than what was true. I suspect that if someone could have sold the church on a way to 'fix' difference between what science was telling them, and what they wanted to be true, they would have wasted millions doing that too. Galileo knew that no matter how hard they wished it, the planets would not suddenly stop in its orbit and the universe begin to rotate around it. No more than any amount of wishing, better behaviors, and offerings of gold could stop the seasons (or the climate for that matter) from changing. Not sure we've learned all that much about mixing science and policy since Galileo's time.

robryan 15y ago

One big problem is that usually the person with the loudest voice gets the most attention, even if they are from the fringes of science. The real climate scientist don't want to use absolute certain language as that's not what the results tell them and their conclusions are harder to whittle down into a 30 second news report. Those without so much evidence to back them up are more than happy to deal in absolutes.

hugh3 15y ago

This thread is relevant to my interests. On the subject of the "diamond" planet, I'm actually surprised to see the lead author of the paper in question referring to it as a "diamond planet". I thought that was just a media label. I read the paper when it came out, and all that was indicated was that an extremely large (Jupiter-mass) extremely dense (much smaller than Jupiter) body was detected orbiting a pulsar. The density was consistent with something reasonably close to diamond, but I would have thought that there always has to be some other elements in there... and in any case I wasn't convinced that the vast majority of the interior would be cool enough to be crystalline rather than liquid carbon. So while I'm very confident that there's some extremely massive, extremely dense planet orbiting that star, I'm yet to be one hundred percent convinced that "diamond" is the correct label for it. Which brings me neatly to the actual point of the article, on climate change. I'm somewhat out of my field here, but no more than the author is. The reason I'm skeptical about the hypothesis "burning fossil fuels is likely to cause significant and disastrous climate change in the future" is that it's all based on simulations which can't be tested against experiment. And I do simulations for a living, so I know enough about them to be very skeptical whenever confronted with simulations in the absence of experiment. Maybe it's true, and I wouldn't be surprised if it were, but I'm certainly not willing to talk about it as if it's as strongly supported as... well, the vast majority of other stuff that we mean when we talk about 'science'. The strength of a scientific theory is (and I'm still working on figuring out exactly how to phrase this) determined by the question of "If this turned out to be false, how much experimental data would suddenly be very difficult to explain?" If evolution were false, then pretty much all of biology is suddenly very difficult to explain. If the hypothesis "big dense planet thing orbiting PSR J1719−1438" turns out to be false, then there's a bunch of measurements which are very hard to explain. On the other hand if the hypothesis "diamond planet orbiting PSR J1719−1438" is false then it's not at all difficult to explain. And if the hypothesis of significant anthropogenic climate change turns out to be false, then this makes very little difference to our ability to explain existing experimental data.

pbreit 15y ago
I don't see how the man-mad warming camp can make-such-matter of fact assertions such as in http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/09/07/krugman-shape-of-earth http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/09/07/krugman-shape-of... when the evidence does not seem to be conclusive. It's even more alarming that the other side is belittled. Surely there must be something more compelling than "An Inconvenient Truth" on the matter?

kapilash 15y ago

If they want some "People on the fringe of science" to be quoted as "opponents of their work", they should try saying that the existence of a diamond planet 4000 light years away from the earth is a proof that God did not create the universe or some such. But to me, it does not seem a well-thought blog. Who says a "scientific-method" that works for identifying the structure of a planet 4K light years away would also work for climate on earth?

orblivion 15y ago

Well, it's an unfortunate fact that diamonds in space are not as politically charged. In a vacuum it's unfair to give more scrutiny to climatologists, but given that it is politically charged, there's reason to question people's motives (and to be fair, people who will go overboard in the questioning).

natmaster 15y ago

The author states, "...that suggests man-made activities are responsible for changes in concentrations of CO2 in our atmosphere." Notice the difference between that statement, and "OMG we're all going to die a giant heat death 5 years from now if we don't give up all our liberties!"

Tim_Benham 15y ago

There are no pure carbon white dwarfs. There are carbon-oxygen dwarfs. Crystalline C/O doesn't sound as sexy as diamond. Scientists shade the truth for publicity all the time.

gavanwoolery 15y ago

The funny thing about climate change is how people treat it like a RELIGION. I have nothing against religion, but I do not like it when people treat science like a faith - that is, take the facts for granted, and assume they are true, rather than trying to do what REAL scientists do, and prove their hypotheses false. I see a lot of scientists trying to prove that humans are a major cause of global warming. I see very few of them looking for holes in their arguments, or trying to prove their hypotheses wrong. Do humans warm the earth? Absolutely, no question about it. The question is whether or not we have a significant impact. The earth has had dramatic warm and cold periods long before we even existed, what makes us think that we are the catalyst for everything? Is it not a bit concerning that many so-called scientists tried to hide data that went against their research?

guelo 15y ago
> I see very few of them looking for holes in their arguments, or trying to prove their hypotheses wrong. Where have you been looking at the scientists' work? Have you been following their peer-reviewed publications to reach the conclusion that they don't question these theories?
- gavanwoolery 15y ago
  Being peer-reviewed is a joke - especially when it is so easy to falsify or hide data, as was done in ClimateGate. Being peer-reviewed is also a joke when your peers all sip the same cool-aid.
  - guelo 15y ago
    You did not answer my question, where did you get your information that the scientists have not tried to disprove the warming theories?
    - gavanwoolery 15y ago
      I'm going to repaste this for the sake of convenience: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the... If any study can address all of the concerns quoted here, I'll shut my mouth. In the face of some of gaping inconsistencies, I would think that many studies did not try to question their hypotheses thoroughly enough.

kevinpet 15y ago

Anyone in climate science who does not understand why their work is controversial is living in a cave or willfully ignorant at this point. 1. Many climate scientists claim authority to make policy recommendations, something which is outside the realm of science. (Science ideally informs policy, but policy is about tradeoffs which climate scientists have no privileged insight into.) 2. The public face of climate science is akin to a political attack ad. Anyone who questions the policy recommendations of climate scientists is painted with the same brush as creationists or conspiracy theorists. 3. Climate scientists have mislead the public about their own science. When we have a cold winter, then "weather isn't climate", but when we have heat wave, then "we can't rule out the possibility that this is related to global warming". Of course, some climate scientists are careful to outline the limits of their knowledge. It's just a few bad apples spoiling it for the honest 2%.

Tichy 15y ago
"When we have a cold winter, then "weather isn't climate", but when we have heat wave, then "we can't rule out the possibility that this is related to global warming"." Are you sure that is the scientists talking, and not just the "common folks"? I never had the impression that climate science is terribly interested in singular spots of measurements. The public of course reacts immediately. If there is a warm winter, they all become believers in climate change, if there is a cold winter, they become convinced it is all bunk. Never mind that the climate change could indeed lead to some regions of the world to actually become colder. Maybe the problem is that everybody thinks they are experts on the weather, too, after all, they can sense it with their own senses - not.

praxeologist 15y ago

Diamond or not, that's a cool discovery. The author though is making a mistake when he says that "The scientific method is universal. If we selectively ignore it in certain disciplines, we do so at our peril." Science is broader than those disciplines where the hypothetico-deductive method is appropriate ("the natural sciences"). Science is the quest for knowledge, and epistemology, or the "science of knowledge", informs us of another particular method, the axiomatic-deductive, appropriate for "the social sciences". The first rule of "the scientific method" is there is no scientific methoD. There are scientific methodS. The author has fallen victim to the all-too-common "scientism" that has swept the globe from the 19th century onward. Should it be enough that there is wide agreement in peer reviewed journals to really make something so? In a similar situation, there's wide agreement from economists on what makes the world tick, yet these folks with little job prospects outside of government or academia manage to repeatedly fail to create models which display predictive power. In the case of economics, the 'scientific method' chosen, that of mathematical economics, is inappropriate since human action "plays by different rules" than pulsars. Climate scientists similarly have the ability to influence politics. At least they are using the correct type of method, but to say that X number of peer reviewed journals establishes the anthropocentric warming hypothesis as true is a logical error. Climate scientists need to exhibit predictive power and the fact is they haven't been able to do that. Historical evidence also doesn't lend itself to the idea that small amounts of warming will lead to disaster. It's a great story to put people into a panic and manipulate them but there is just not the necessary proof. For more details see Howard Hayden's one-letter disproof of global warming claims: http://www.stephankinsella.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/HaydenToJackson.pdf http://www.stephankinsella.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Ha...

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

MarkPNeyer 15y ago

for those interested, i interviewed several climatologists with some questions i had about global warming. The results are on my blog: http://www.markpneyer.com/wp/2009/12/10/climate-change/ http://www.markpneyer.com/wp/2009/12/10/climate-change/

blendergasket 15y ago

My perspective on this is that, at least for people like myself, believing or disbelieving in human caused climate change is completely an act of faith. We can look at the situation, try to wade through the journal magazines, blogs etc to find a reality behind it. But what we get, unless we have massive time to invest, is basically all we get. We pick a perspective on it that we feel defines us somehow, or fits with our worldview, and then dig in, surrounding ourselves with media that fits the image. I believe in global warming because it seems that the interests backing the antiglobalwarming campaign have massive financial motivations for doing so. Also, as an avid urban cyclists anything that gets more cars off the street or at least regulates emissions, and pushes people towards smaller cars. I trust the government and universities more than I trust big corporations and I know corporations are absolutely willing to pay people to find/make science that fits their preconceptions. So in short I don't know. I took a guess, and I did so after weighing what I assume to be the motivations of the actors, and the outcomes if either side is wrong. If we prepare for global warming it will turn the world into a better place whether or not there is such a thing as global warming.

hugh3 15y ago
So in short I don't know. I took a guess, and I did so after weighing what I assume to be the motivations of the actors Well, that's precisely the wrong thing to do. The right thing to do, when you don't have enough evidence, is to say "I don't know". You can then go on to say "I think the preponderance of evidence is on one side or another", but you certainly shouldn't go round believing things. Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen.
- blendergasket 15y ago
  I don't have all the evidence. I weigh the evidence I have, and believe the preponderance of evidence is on one side or another. You call it think, but really there's no difference between that and believing. If you think so you're living a lie that perpetuates this masquerade of believing we're partaking in science and in effect elevates this swinish political discussion to the level of science.

cormullion 15y ago

In case you haven't seen this, here's one programmer's perspective on working in climate science: http://www.scribd.com/doc/23379965/Harry-Read-Me http://www.scribd.com/doc/23379965/Harry-Read-Me

aangjie 15y ago

Ok, long discussion, i cannot add much given my non-familiarity with climate change science, but will point out this quote, i wrote some time back. "One generation's science is the another generation's religion"

viggity 15y ago

"I take the hard view that science involves the creation of testable hypotheses" - Michael Crichton A computer simulation is not a testable hypothesis, never has been, never will be. There are millions of variables that go into our climate, to say that a computer simulation can capture all of them is naive at best. In regards to the diamond planet, nobody is suggesting we radically alter the world economic system over a guess about a "diamond planet". The "climate change" crowd has an entire legion of people dedicated to killing the world economy over a bunch of un-testable computer simulations.

gavanwoolery 15y ago

Going to throw this in the mix - this is definitely something to think about when considering global warming. Consult Google for these numbers - I checked a couple sources to find rough estimates. Please correct me if I made an error. Obviously, this is a gross simplification... The atmosphere has 5×10^18 kg of mass. That is 5,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms of mass for people who like to see the zeros. Just by breathing, the human race produces about 2.2 trillion kilograms of CO2 annually. However, humans are only a fraction of the earth's CO2-producing biomass, about less than 1/1000 by some estimates. So that means that earth's creatures probably produce over 2 quadrillion kilograms of CO2 annually! Human technology (cars, power plants, etc) produce 27.2 trillion kilograms of CO2 annually. Let that sink in for a second - just by breathing, we produce a magnitude greater amount of CO2 than fossil fuel ever will. Wow. So where is it all going? My guess is photosynthesis is doing a pretty good job of keeping things in balance, but I am open to suggestions.

mckoss 15y ago

Unlike astrophysicists, climate science has some very vocal members trying to form policy decisions. The result of these decisions can mean spending Trillions of dollars. So we don't get to have dispassionate debate in the facts, as the stakes are extremely high and incorrect conclusions can have enormously expensive consequences.

m104 15y ago
Also, unlike astrophysicists, climate science has some very vocal critics trying to keep current policy decisions intact. The result of these decisions can ensure billions in corporate profits over the coming years. And so, as you say, we don't get to have dispassionate debate in the facts, as the stakes are extremely high and incorrect conclusions can have disastrous consequences.