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It is laughable that all this is based on imprecise models and simulations and not actual science. There is nothing provable with any of this or for that matter

by SeanDav 13y ago

It is laughable that all this is based on imprecise models and simulations and not actual science. There is nothing provable with any of this or for that matter disprovable. Alter the inputs and weighting in the models by merest fractions, or try take new factors into account and the whole house of cards comes tumbling down, yet on the basis of this Billions, if not Trillions of dollars are being moved around and new laws are being made, among many other side effects. Who decided exactly what inputs are needed for calculations and which should be left out? Who decided their relative weightings? Who decided the exact nature of the interactions inside the models? It is just crazy.

IanDrake 13y ago
Yes, predictive modeling is easy when the you don't have to prove you're accurate. They just keep building more models yielding new predictions to cover all the bases so, when the future does come, they can claim success and forget all the failures.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
tfgg 13y ago
Scientists? People who study the physics of the system in question by building models, simulating them and comparing to data? I'm not sure what else you expect. I'll take them for big policy decisions any day over some blogger cherry picking data.
- ttflee 13y ago
  Sounds like an economist's job, to me. No offense to economists.
- talmand 13y ago
  Seems to me that everyone involved is cherry picking the data to support their own interpretation. There's even been accusations of cherry picking of how the data is collected in the first place.
  - demallien 13y ago
    If that's how it seems to you, you are not paying enough attention. Scientists are providing full data sets, and denialists are cherry-picking. I can't convince you just by saying so, but seriously, this is an important issue. Set aside some time (a day or two) and read some if the key papers characterising climate change. You will come away with a very different idea on where the truth lies in this "debate".
    - talmand 13y ago
      Scientists are most certainly not providing full data sets across the board. There's been a scandal or two of scientists withholding data, even committing criminal acts in some cases. I know it hasn't happened within the last few months so I'm sure it's easy to forget. Oh wait, "denialists" made those accusations. We can ignore them right? After all, who cares about an opposing viewpoint when you can give them condescending names? Just mock them until they shut up. I mean, real science doesn't need people with different viewpoints duplicating the results, right? You display your bias like a badge of honor. What good is a full data set if it was collected in a way to push an agenda in the first place? Which I notice you don't address at all in responding to my post. I can go out and get you data that says whatever you want it to say, provided I'm allowed to question the motives of anyone that says my data collection protocols might be faulty. I'm sure you would like me to read just the "key" papers that support your contentions. Let's ignore "key" papers that might disagree or even agree with a slightly different viewpoint that doesn't present such a drastic outlook. Heck, we should even go out of our way to prevent opposing papers from being even considered in peer-reviewed journals, right? Sorry, that's old news not worth considering anymore I guess. You seem to be an example (granted, I admit I could be wrong as I don't know you, just going off your condescending words) of what's wrong with this "debate" that has people already deciding what is truth or not. You have no freaking clue what my opinions on this matter are nor what I've read. You see that I might possibly disagree with you and therefore I must be spoken down to as someone who isn't paying enough attention nor is reading the correct materials. But you are correct in one thing, this is an important issue that could heavily influence the future of people around the world. I, for one, want to at least attempt to get it right because if we're wrong then at best we waste resources and at worst we multiply the problems. To get it right definitely includes listening to people who may have different ideas or even opposing viewpoints.
davidjohnstone 13y ago
I have a feeling that "imprecise models and simulations" is exactly how actual science is done much of the time these days. The trick is to answer those questions of what data is used and how things are weighted etc. well, and that's exactly what the scientists who work on these models do.
- gd1 13y ago
  Difference is, most models can be validated against reality. I might model a car crash impact in LS-DYNA, then I eventually crash the real thing and compare. Unless you have a spare Earth lying around and a few centuries, then climate modellers can't do that. Instead they have maybe 80 years of reliable temperature data at best (which is just one variable), on a planet 4 billion years old. The radiative physics can tell us a lot about basic climate sensitivity, but modelling the feedbacks inherent in such a complex system must be near impossible. Saying that climate change is "simple radiative physics" is very misleading, it is a little bit like saying that if I kick a ball it will accelerate away from me and that is "basic Newtonian physics". Well yes, but I may be standing at the bottom of a steep valley, in which case the larger system exerts a negative feedback, and the ball rolls back to my feet.
sek 13y ago
Maybe what you say is true, but it has the positive side effect that we prepare ourselves for Peak Oil what will happen anyway.
jtheory 13y ago
Is all science required to be "provable" now, then? Most science doesn't really work on proof, unfortunately; it's levels of certainty, not stamping something "proven" and being done with it. It's building models of reality and testing their accuracy as far as possible. Public policy decisions cannot be based on "proof". There is never going to be proof positive of what the climate will do in the next 100 years until we arrive at 2113, and even then there will be aspects of the picture that will be unclear; not everything is easily measurable, and not everything you might like to know will be measured. Actual science covers more ground than schoolwork where you have one variable and everything else is controlled. Climate change is a global-scale issues with innumerable variables that can not be controlled. That's not the same as saying we can know nothing about it, or that we must make no decisions about what we can figure out with some reasonable level of certainty. > Who decided exactly what inputs are needed for calculations and which should be left out? Who decided their relative weightings? Who decided the exact nature of the interactions inside the models? Are you saying that because you don't know how to do this stuff, no one can make predictions with a reasonable margin of error?
- SeanDav 13y ago
  >> Is all science required to be "provable" now, then? This is the whole basis of Science. It is required to be provable, or it is just someone's opinion, and my opinion might be different to yours. Perhaps you should research the Spanish Inquisition and the many atrocities committed by various religions for further insight into why this matters. EDIT: Strictly speaking Science must be falsifiable
  - jhaywood 13y ago
    Science is never required to be "provable". Scientific theories should be "falsifiable". Those are not the same thing.
    - JackFr 13y ago
      That is the difficulty. When your conclusions are based on models which seem to be infinitely malleable or at least have many "estimated" parameters, the models become unfalsifiable. If you've got a conclusion which is invariant under all possible evidence, it stops being science.

by SeanDav 13y ago

IanDrake 13y ago

Yes, predictive modeling is easy when the you don't have to prove you're accurate. They just keep building more models yielding new predictions to cover all the bases so, when the future does come, they can claim success and forget all the failures.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

tfgg 13y ago

Scientists? People who study the physics of the system in question by building models, simulating them and comparing to data? I'm not sure what else you expect. I'll take them for big policy decisions any day over some blogger cherry picking data.

ttflee 13y ago
Sounds like an economist's job, to me. No offense to economists.
talmand 13y ago
Seems to me that everyone involved is cherry picking the data to support their own interpretation. There's even been accusations of cherry picking of how the data is collected in the first place.
- demallien 13y ago
  If that's how it seems to you, you are not paying enough attention. Scientists are providing full data sets, and denialists are cherry-picking. I can't convince you just by saying so, but seriously, this is an important issue. Set aside some time (a day or two) and read some if the key papers characterising climate change. You will come away with a very different idea on where the truth lies in this "debate".
  - talmand 13y ago
    Scientists are most certainly not providing full data sets across the board. There's been a scandal or two of scientists withholding data, even committing criminal acts in some cases. I know it hasn't happened within the last few months so I'm sure it's easy to forget. Oh wait, "denialists" made those accusations. We can ignore them right? After all, who cares about an opposing viewpoint when you can give them condescending names? Just mock them until they shut up. I mean, real science doesn't need people with different viewpoints duplicating the results, right? You display your bias like a badge of honor. What good is a full data set if it was collected in a way to push an agenda in the first place? Which I notice you don't address at all in responding to my post. I can go out and get you data that says whatever you want it to say, provided I'm allowed to question the motives of anyone that says my data collection protocols might be faulty. I'm sure you would like me to read just the "key" papers that support your contentions. Let's ignore "key" papers that might disagree or even agree with a slightly different viewpoint that doesn't present such a drastic outlook. Heck, we should even go out of our way to prevent opposing papers from being even considered in peer-reviewed journals, right? Sorry, that's old news not worth considering anymore I guess. You seem to be an example (granted, I admit I could be wrong as I don't know you, just going off your condescending words) of what's wrong with this "debate" that has people already deciding what is truth or not. You have no freaking clue what my opinions on this matter are nor what I've read. You see that I might possibly disagree with you and therefore I must be spoken down to as someone who isn't paying enough attention nor is reading the correct materials. But you are correct in one thing, this is an important issue that could heavily influence the future of people around the world. I, for one, want to at least attempt to get it right because if we're wrong then at best we waste resources and at worst we multiply the problems. To get it right definitely includes listening to people who may have different ideas or even opposing viewpoints.

davidjohnstone 13y ago

I have a feeling that "imprecise models and simulations" is exactly how actual science is done much of the time these days. The trick is to answer those questions of what data is used and how things are weighted etc. well, and that's exactly what the scientists who work on these models do.

gd1 13y ago
Difference is, most models can be validated against reality. I might model a car crash impact in LS-DYNA, then I eventually crash the real thing and compare. Unless you have a spare Earth lying around and a few centuries, then climate modellers can't do that. Instead they have maybe 80 years of reliable temperature data at best (which is just one variable), on a planet 4 billion years old. The radiative physics can tell us a lot about basic climate sensitivity, but modelling the feedbacks inherent in such a complex system must be near impossible. Saying that climate change is "simple radiative physics" is very misleading, it is a little bit like saying that if I kick a ball it will accelerate away from me and that is "basic Newtonian physics". Well yes, but I may be standing at the bottom of a steep valley, in which case the larger system exerts a negative feedback, and the ball rolls back to my feet.

sek 13y ago

Maybe what you say is true, but it has the positive side effect that we prepare ourselves for Peak Oil what will happen anyway.

jtheory 13y ago

Is all science required to be "provable" now, then? Most science doesn't really work on proof, unfortunately; it's levels of certainty, not stamping something "proven" and being done with it. It's building models of reality and testing their accuracy as far as possible. Public policy decisions cannot be based on "proof". There is never going to be proof positive of what the climate will do in the next 100 years until we arrive at 2113, and even then there will be aspects of the picture that will be unclear; not everything is easily measurable, and not everything you might like to know will be measured. Actual science covers more ground than schoolwork where you have one variable and everything else is controlled. Climate change is a global-scale issues with innumerable variables that can not be controlled. That's not the same as saying we can know nothing about it, or that we must make no decisions about what we can figure out with some reasonable level of certainty. > Who decided exactly what inputs are needed for calculations and which should be left out? Who decided their relative weightings? Who decided the exact nature of the interactions inside the models? Are you saying that because you don't know how to do this stuff, no one can make predictions with a reasonable margin of error?

SeanDav 13y ago
>> Is all science required to be "provable" now, then? This is the whole basis of Science. It is required to be provable, or it is just someone's opinion, and my opinion might be different to yours. Perhaps you should research the Spanish Inquisition and the many atrocities committed by various religions for further insight into why this matters. EDIT: Strictly speaking Science must be falsifiable
- jhaywood 13y ago
  Science is never required to be "provable". Scientific theories should be "falsifiable". Those are not the same thing.
  - JackFr 13y ago
    That is the difficulty. When your conclusions are based on models which seem to be infinitely malleable or at least have many "estimated" parameters, the models become unfalsifiable. If you've got a conclusion which is invariant under all possible evidence, it stops being science.