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Nah, when the science is settled it becomes a law. Like the Laws of Thermodynamics. Those things take hundreds of years. We don’t even have a working model of

by _3u10 4y ago

Nah, when the science is settled it becomes a law. Like the Laws of Thermodynamics. Those things take hundreds of years. We don’t even have a working model of climate change which is why they average out hundreds of them. The science on climate change is far from settled. It’s pretty easy to take any given climate change model and watch it give inaccurate predictions.

driverdan 4y ago
> when the science is settled it becomes a law That's not how it works for most of science. Most consensus ideas are theories because they are impossible to prove well enough to call them a law.
- _3u10 4y ago
  Couldn’t have said it better myself. Climate change is an unproven theory, far from the certainty that the political side of science makes it out to be. For all intents and purposes until we have better modeling climate change is largely a political topic. People for the most part have a pet form of energy generation they want the world to switch to and use wildly inaccurate climate models to beat everyone who disagrees with them over the head with. See Germany and switching to oil and gas over climate friendly nuclear and trying to get gas added as a renewable form of energy and nuclear removed.
Retric 4y ago
Laws aren’t based on consensus or age as we have plenty of Laws that are known to be wrong and stuff gets called a law fairly early. F=MA fails really obviously at high velocity but the error doesn’t go away at low speed it just becomes small enough to be ignored. Even the most known Law of conservation of energy fails in expanding space time. The basic rule of thumb is can you write a useful equation? And for climate change it’s just too complex for that.
dlivingston 4y ago
> …when the science is settled it becomes a law. This is absolutely and completely wrong. “Hypothesis -> Theory -> Law” is not actually the scientific pipeline. Theories and laws not only can co-exist, but often do. From Wikipedia [0]: > Scientific theories explain why something happens, whereas scientific law describes what happens. An example of this is the theory of gravity [1], which contains laws of gravity [2]. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_law [1]: https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/ESSAYS/Bekenstein/bekenstein.html https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/ESSAYS/Bekenstein/bekens... [2]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton's_law_of_universal_gravitation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton's_law_of_universal_gr...
- _3u10 4y ago
  Ok, Newtons law of gravity is settled science but also wrong. The “settled” science of climate change makes wildly inaccurate predictions on earth, during time periods we have lots of data on. Aren’t we past the point of no return 8 times over now?
  - dlivingston 4y ago
    To your points: 1) Newton's Law of Gravity is not wrong, it is just incomplete. Newton's Law of Gravity is a critical formula used for calculating rocket trajectories and behaviors. It is correct but has 'boundaries' where Einstein's General Theory of Relativity takes over. 2) I'm not sure what this means. 3) I'm not sure what this means.
    - mechanical_bear 4y ago
      This is my interpretation of his statement: 3)Dates for “Certain Doom”, with regards to the climate, have been proffered by prognosticators of climate science. Much like those that predict the religious End Of Time, these dates invariably pass with no notice or fanfare.
      - Retric 4y ago
        That’s a serious straw man argument. Where exactly do you see some “Certain Doom” prediction in say an IPCC report that’s predicted something beyond X equivalent CO2 results in Y temperature? The 2022 version for example basically says 1.5C above preindustrial levels by 2025. That’s not some doom that’s basically exactly where we are now and only relevant because the keep updating past predictions. Go back to reports from 1990 and 1.5C in 2025 is well within error bars. We are experiencing negative effects that could have been avoided in 1990, then again things could also have been worse before now without quite a lot effort into improving efficiency etc. Predictions further into the future assume net emissions continue and therefore the effects will be worse. That’s not some “doom” that’s cause and effect. 1.5C, 2C, 2.5C, and even 3C, as long as net emissions continue we well eventually reach all of those milestones. Arguably what’s changing is 2025 and 2040 etc don’t seem to be in the distant future they way they seemed in 1990. Kids today are thinking they could be around in 2100.
mhh__ 4y ago
Broadly speaking laws are a thing of the past. Also modelling basically anything is hard. Applying the laws of thermodynamics to a kettle well enough that you can predict it's exact dynamics is not a simple task.

by _3u10 4y ago

driverdan 4y ago

> when the science is settled it becomes a law That's not how it works for most of science. Most consensus ideas are theories because they are impossible to prove well enough to call them a law.

_3u10 4y ago
Couldn’t have said it better myself. Climate change is an unproven theory, far from the certainty that the political side of science makes it out to be. For all intents and purposes until we have better modeling climate change is largely a political topic. People for the most part have a pet form of energy generation they want the world to switch to and use wildly inaccurate climate models to beat everyone who disagrees with them over the head with. See Germany and switching to oil and gas over climate friendly nuclear and trying to get gas added as a renewable form of energy and nuclear removed.

Retric 4y ago

Laws aren’t based on consensus or age as we have plenty of Laws that are known to be wrong and stuff gets called a law fairly early. F=MA fails really obviously at high velocity but the error doesn’t go away at low speed it just becomes small enough to be ignored. Even the most known Law of conservation of energy fails in expanding space time. The basic rule of thumb is can you write a useful equation? And for climate change it’s just too complex for that.

dlivingston 4y ago

> …when the science is settled it becomes a law. This is absolutely and completely wrong. “Hypothesis -> Theory -> Law” is not actually the scientific pipeline. Theories and laws not only can co-exist, but often do. From Wikipedia [0]: > Scientific theories explain why something happens, whereas scientific law describes what happens. An example of this is the theory of gravity [1], which contains laws of gravity [2]. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_law [1]: https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/ESSAYS/Bekenstein/bekenstein.html https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/ESSAYS/Bekenstein/bekens... [2]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton's_law_of_universal_gravitation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton's_law_of_universal_gr...

_3u10 4y ago
Ok, Newtons law of gravity is settled science but also wrong. The “settled” science of climate change makes wildly inaccurate predictions on earth, during time periods we have lots of data on. Aren’t we past the point of no return 8 times over now?
- dlivingston 4y ago
  To your points: 1) Newton's Law of Gravity is not wrong, it is just incomplete. Newton's Law of Gravity is a critical formula used for calculating rocket trajectories and behaviors. It is correct but has 'boundaries' where Einstein's General Theory of Relativity takes over. 2) I'm not sure what this means. 3) I'm not sure what this means.
  - mechanical_bear 4y ago
    This is my interpretation of his statement: 3)Dates for “Certain Doom”, with regards to the climate, have been proffered by prognosticators of climate science. Much like those that predict the religious End Of Time, these dates invariably pass with no notice or fanfare.
    - Retric 4y ago
      That’s a serious straw man argument. Where exactly do you see some “Certain Doom” prediction in say an IPCC report that’s predicted something beyond X equivalent CO2 results in Y temperature? The 2022 version for example basically says 1.5C above preindustrial levels by 2025. That’s not some doom that’s basically exactly where we are now and only relevant because the keep updating past predictions. Go back to reports from 1990 and 1.5C in 2025 is well within error bars. We are experiencing negative effects that could have been avoided in 1990, then again things could also have been worse before now without quite a lot effort into improving efficiency etc. Predictions further into the future assume net emissions continue and therefore the effects will be worse. That’s not some “doom” that’s cause and effect. 1.5C, 2C, 2.5C, and even 3C, as long as net emissions continue we well eventually reach all of those milestones. Arguably what’s changing is 2025 and 2040 etc don’t seem to be in the distant future they way they seemed in 1990. Kids today are thinking they could be around in 2100.

mhh__ 4y ago

Broadly speaking laws are a thing of the past. Also modelling basically anything is hard. Applying the laws of thermodynamics to a kettle well enough that you can predict it's exact dynamics is not a simple task.