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> Science shouldn't be emotional, and I find that worrying. This, definitely. Was I the only science-minded person that saw the Al Gore presentation and was mo

> Science shouldn't be emotional, and I find that worrying. This, definitely. Was I the only science-minded person that saw the Al Gore presentation and was more convinced that global warming ISN'T an issue? Anytime someone speaks under the guise of science but has to use rhetoric and emotional appeal to prove a point, it makes me instantly doubt it. I don't know what to really think anymore. Clearly we aren't helping the ecosystem out, but to think we can extrapolate any realistic climate future out of just a sliver of information is lunacy. We can't predict tomorrow's temperatures with any reasonable accuracy, but somehow know the whole earth is going to turn into waterworld? We need ecological change and responsibility, but fearmongering and cherry-picking data is not the way to achieve it.

caf 14y ago
We can't predict tomorrow's temperatures with any reasonable accuracy, but somehow know the whole earth is going to turn into waterworld? Hold on a moment. I can't predict tomorrow's lottery numbers with any reasonable accuracy, but I can make an accurate long-term prediction about how often a given number is going to appear over the next decade of lotteries.
- drharris 14y ago
  False analogy. You can indeed predict tomorrow's lottery numbers, or at least their probabilities, with extreme accuracy; the odds are defined and exact. This is why long-term predictions of lottery numbers are extremely accurate, because the day-to-day probabilities are known and exact. Temperatures, however, are not random and probabilistic; they are the explicit result of many factors. These same factors are used to predict long-term climate change. If the climate models that use these factors work so well for the future, why do they not work well for the next week? It's the same model, the same factors. In the analogy of the lottery numbers, if you mess up the near-term probabilities, you can rest assured the error is magnified over a long term.
  - rprasad 14y ago
    For the same reason that we can predict how a large body of mass will react to a collision but can't explain how the subatomic particles will react to that same event, or the overall trend of the stock market without being able to predict the behavior of any individual stock. Scale matters. Most climate prediction software looks at weather on a far vaster, long-term scale than hours, days, or even weeks. Variations over such short periods ultimately have little effect on long-term trends.
  - caf 14y ago
    It's not a false analogy - predicting the precise temperature tomorrow is analagous with predicting the exact numbers tomorrow, not the probabilities of the numbers tomorrow. Climate predictions are predictions of long-run means and weather predictions are predictions of short-run outcomes. Consider that the ball being drawn out of the lottery machine is not truly random and probabilistic, either - it is a direct result of the laws of physics, the starting condition of the ball-drawing machine and the inputs to it. Just like the ball-drawing machine, the short-run weather in the next minute, hour, day or week is a highly noisy process that can be accurately modelled as a random, probabilistic process. This is how weather forecasts work - they'll give the probability of rain in the next 24 hours.
eli_gottlieb 14y ago
The problem is, very little other than emotional appeals and rhetoric get through to the political class and to very many of the masses. Der oylem iz a goylem, as it says on my coffee mug.
jonhendry 14y ago
"We can't predict tomorrow's temperatures with any reasonable accuracy, but somehow know the whole earth is going to turn into water world?" I can predict temperatures in Connecticut next January with a pretty reasonable accuracy. Probably in the 30s for the most part. That's climate.

caf 14y ago

We can't predict tomorrow's temperatures with any reasonable accuracy, but somehow know the whole earth is going to turn into waterworld? Hold on a moment. I can't predict tomorrow's lottery numbers with any reasonable accuracy, but I can make an accurate long-term prediction about how often a given number is going to appear over the next decade of lotteries.

drharris 14y ago
False analogy. You can indeed predict tomorrow's lottery numbers, or at least their probabilities, with extreme accuracy; the odds are defined and exact. This is why long-term predictions of lottery numbers are extremely accurate, because the day-to-day probabilities are known and exact. Temperatures, however, are not random and probabilistic; they are the explicit result of many factors. These same factors are used to predict long-term climate change. If the climate models that use these factors work so well for the future, why do they not work well for the next week? It's the same model, the same factors. In the analogy of the lottery numbers, if you mess up the near-term probabilities, you can rest assured the error is magnified over a long term.
- rprasad 14y ago
  For the same reason that we can predict how a large body of mass will react to a collision but can't explain how the subatomic particles will react to that same event, or the overall trend of the stock market without being able to predict the behavior of any individual stock. Scale matters. Most climate prediction software looks at weather on a far vaster, long-term scale than hours, days, or even weeks. Variations over such short periods ultimately have little effect on long-term trends.
- caf 14y ago
  It's not a false analogy - predicting the precise temperature tomorrow is analagous with predicting the exact numbers tomorrow, not the probabilities of the numbers tomorrow. Climate predictions are predictions of long-run means and weather predictions are predictions of short-run outcomes. Consider that the ball being drawn out of the lottery machine is not truly random and probabilistic, either - it is a direct result of the laws of physics, the starting condition of the ball-drawing machine and the inputs to it. Just like the ball-drawing machine, the short-run weather in the next minute, hour, day or week is a highly noisy process that can be accurately modelled as a random, probabilistic process. This is how weather forecasts work - they'll give the probability of rain in the next 24 hours.

eli_gottlieb 14y ago

The problem is, very little other than emotional appeals and rhetoric get through to the political class and to very many of the masses. Der oylem iz a goylem, as it says on my coffee mug.

jonhendry 14y ago

"We can't predict tomorrow's temperatures with any reasonable accuracy, but somehow know the whole earth is going to turn into water world?" I can predict temperatures in Connecticut next January with a pretty reasonable accuracy. Probably in the 30s for the most part. That's climate.