10 ms·

Alright, I've just read the paper and I'm surprised that it got published in Nature. I mean, as far as crystal ball gazing goes, saying that "shit might, y'know

• runako 14y ago
  The link does not work outside the ivory tower. (But thanks for posting anyway.)
• bzalasky 14y ago
  "Instant access to this article: $32"
  • daenz 14y ago
    But scary headlines that link to the article: Free
• SwellJoe 14y ago
  The paper is pretty calm and careful about predictions, as far as I can tell. What assertion from the paper (which is behind a paywall at Nature.com, but can be found free online via sneaky methods like googling the title), specifically, do you feel is unsubstantiated or overblown? Current models of the entire planetary ecosystem are admittedly quite primitive, but they often have proven to be predictive. That which is predictive and reproduce-able is science, by my reckoning. And, this paper is drawing on expertise across an extremely broad spectrum of real research, not merely models or educated guesstimation.
  • huggyface 14y ago
    Current models of the entire planetary ecosystem are admittedly quite primitive, but they often have proven to be predictive What have they predicted?
    • planetguy 14y ago
      I don't know, but I also want to point out that "often proven to be predictive" is pretty weak cheese. I mean, I have a model for predicting the result of coin flips which is often predictive. It's called "heads".
      • SwellJoe 14y ago
        Are you suggesting that models are not a useful scientific tool?
        • bgilroy26 14y ago
          Going from "We can be confident in our models" to "We can be confident in our planetary models" is a big step up in scale and complexity.
        • ars 14y ago
          Yes, somewhat. Models are a useful tool to see what happens when the science is known. They work well to check if you understand your theory well: You model it and experiment with it at the same time. If you model matches the real world then you are good to go. But if you try to make a model based only on your observations, without also being able to experiment, then that's not science, that's tautology. Your model will do whatever you want, and you have no way of knowing if it has anything to do with the real world because you can not run multiple experiments. In some cases if you wait long enough you may randomly get enough variation in the real world to be confident in your model (for example stellar evolution). But using a model to predict something you have never seen in the real world? That's not science, that's speculation.
          • 14y ago
• gringomorcego 14y ago
  Dude, did you read the thesis? It's the main blue part at the top, like every paper in Nature. It says that local ecosystems are known to go through critical transitions, and that what's make these transitions remarkable is that the tipping point is so hard to identify or predict. They are extrapolating this and saying that a global tipping point may exist as well. That's it. You are right, it's incredibly vague and there isn't any awesome undeniable evidence. That's the whole point of the paper. "Hey guys, we might be screwing up our shit more than we think, we need to start taking more measurements" is basically the entire gist of the paper.
  • droithomme 14y ago
    The article then states that "This study concludes we better not exceed the 50 per cent mark of wholesale transformation of Earth’s surface or we won’t be able to delay, never mind avert, a planetary collapse", as if that is a fact, and then claims that "We’ve already reached the 43 per cent mark through our conversion of landscapes into agricultural and urban areas" (maybe that is so for their definition). And then therefore concludes that "governments undertake five actions immediately", the first example being "Society globally has to collectively decide that we need to drastically lower our population very quickly" - so mankind must enter into a global depopulation program. We all know exactly what that is. It doesn't look like scientific claims at all, it looks like irrational hysteria with an agenda.
    • jcdreads 14y ago
      The authors do not say "drastically lower our population very quickly" anywhere in the paper. The closest I can see that they come to saying this is in the conclusion, where they talk about, "reducing world population growth and per capita resource consumption" (among other things) as being "vital". Please save your accusations of irrational, hysterical agendas for them that advocates hysteria and the abandonment of reason.
      • ceol 14y ago
        I believe the parent was referring to the very last part of the SFU article. In full: > “Society globally has to collectively decide that we need to drastically lower our population very quickly. More of us need to move to optimal areas at higher density and let parts of the planet recover. Folks like us have to be forced to be materially poorer, at least in the short term. We also need to invest a lot more in creating technologies to produce and distribute food without eating up more land and wild species. It’s a very tall order.”
• Florin_Andrei 14y ago
  I can predict your political orientation with fairly high confidence based on this comment alone.
  • reedlaw 14y ago
    So in other words, this is such a politicized issue there's no way to have any discussion about the facts?
    • Florin_Andrei 14y ago
      "no way" - maybe not. But it's certainly getting harder and harder. This is the age of irrationality.