3 ms·

If you're questioning the existing data, you're doing science! That's all I'd like to see. And if that data is being collected for the very first time, isn't th

by robg 17y ago

If you're questioning the existing data, you're doing science! That's all I'd like to see. And if that data is being collected for the very first time, isn't that the point? Then re-evaluate each year thereafter. What's interesting to me about science in a democracy is the experiments can only be as grand as the public allows. The interventions now being discussed, even cap and trade, are more like small fixes. And look at the political difficulty of passing that! The difference with bearskins and crystals is you can measure and contrast effects. The system may be too complex to truly pull it apart and reduce it, but I still don't get what you're against exactly. You're for nuclear plants and for measurements. What's the problem then? Doing science is simply about trying to isolate causation. With more data and more interventions, it should be possible to see if man can have a causal effect on global temperatures. Most climate scientists think that we'll see positive changes. If they're wrong, we'll find out in our lifetimes. What's the alternative hypothesis you're pushing? Giving out large numbers of sky god dolls and watching for an effect? I don't think you really want to cut all research funding in the area, do you?

DanielBMarkham 17y ago
Yes. Absolutely continue the science -- data gathering, looking for patterns, proposing hypotheses, and testing. I'm all for all of that. Perhaps in a few hundred years we'll know enough to have something interesting. Lord knows it took Physics longer than that. Perhaps the climatologists will get lucky. Who knows? Although if I understand Wolfram's work, some chaotic processes may be simply incalculable. I think there's a huge gap between "continue the science" and "turn over large sections of the world's economy to climatologists to make the earth their private lab" My contention is twofold: the use of the word "science" to describe the barest minimum of data collection when science is much more than that, and the mingling of scientists and politics. Flimsy science with a lot of unknowns and public policy are a really bad marriage. Sounds to me a lot like the medieval church and the early nation-states. When Newton observed an apple falling, he didn't need a theory of gravity because he could take a million more apples and make them do the same thing. That means that even though the theory of gravity is in the same epistemological place that global warming is, we can have a lot more confidence in it. We only have one earth, and little data. Right now we have science-based conjecture, which is nothing as firm as proven theories. That means I'm not supporting huge changes in public policy. If we were talking an asteroid coming towards earth, you can better believe I'd have a much different position.
- robg 17y ago
  We're not that far apart then. But I don't see where "turn over large sections of the world's economy to climatologists to make the earth their private lab" is true. That sounds like a scare tactic itself. And Physics did pretty decent work in it's first 100 years. The next 100 were even more revolutionary. I see no reason why Climate Science, with 30 - 50 years under its belt, can't mine important insights, and suggest and test changes, within our lifetimes. As to the connection between science and politics, I really think it's inevitable. Politicians fund science in every democracy. We need to lobby them on the importance of the work. Unfortunately that sometimes means grandstanding and fear mongering. But the alternative is the science doesn't get funding. I sort of have skins in the game so here my own objectivity gets dicey. I agree with you on your philosophy of science. But I don't see huge changes in public policy. Kyoto hasn't done much. What's the real risk of cap and trade? Some marginal costs go up? Even as it may appear scientists are running roughshod over and through debates, they're constrained by political and economic pressures, as they should be. The bigger the change in America, at least, the harder it is to pass through Congress, even with one party holding a supramajority. More problematic for climate scientists is the need to get all nations on-board, including developing nations. I don't see that happening. Debates among nations will prevent what you're most worried about up until it's clearly an asteroid. Just coming back to your main point, on conjecture versus hypothesis-driven research, it seems pretty clear to me what the prevailing hypothesis is: Humans are responsible for some measurable, and significant, changes in the climate. I'm still unclear on the alternative hypothesis and, more importantly, how it can be tested. Can you enlighten me?
  - DanielBMarkham 17y ago
    Apologies for the hyperbole, but I believe your position is that we should adjust the inputs -- control gas emissions -- and then see what happens. If I've misunderstood you please explain. Assigning that kind of political power isn't something one does lightly. The science and politics thing is indeed dicey. I would suggest that a set of ethical guidelines be established to keep both parties honest, much like we have with the doctor-patient relationship in psychoanalysis. There's simply too much temptation for each side to use the other for their advantage. We don't want to end up with one party "scientifically" proving the other party is a bunch of morons (substitute much more PC adjectives here). We certainly don't want politicians announcing that scientific or political debate is "over" for a particular topic. E-gads man, that's a travesty. Last time I had a AGW discussion on HN (several months back), somebody pointed out that we've actually been seeing a cooling trend, not a warming one. If the current year continues that trend, the original models will have been invalidated -- the actual observed data will fall outside of the 95% confidence range. I know this sounds like stalling for time, but since I'm not in a hurry anyway, I'd like to see the current year's data. I'm not a climatologist, and of course it's not incumbent on me to put forth any alternatives. I am, however, aware of several. (I've spent some time researching this issue). There's the 1500-year cycle theory, that since the last great ice age we've seen regular 1500-year cycles. There's the average-global-temperature-is-primarily-a-result-of-solar-radiation crowd. I think those guys, Russians if I recall, made a bet back in 2000 that the next decade would see cooling, not warming. Perhaps they'll get paid? I don't know. There are theories that cosmic radiation is responsible for cloud coverage and that cloud coverage is the primary ingredient in climate. My personal half-baked theory is that since we are talking about a mixed chemical and biological system, with hundreds of thousands of variables, the climate is probably a chaotic system with an attractor based around solar input. This means that small inputs could have large effects, but it also means that large inputs may have no effect at all. With a little more research I'm sure we could find a lot of other ideas out there. The smoking gun in current model application is the fact that all of them have runaway conditions at the end. This has been interpreted as portraying some pending doom, but any computer science nerd who has played around with chaotic and CA systems can observe that the default behavior is runaway systems. So on general principle I'm skeptical that we're not seeing much more than experimentation noise.

by robg 17y ago

DanielBMarkham 17y ago

Yes. Absolutely continue the science -- data gathering, looking for patterns, proposing hypotheses, and testing. I'm all for all of that. Perhaps in a few hundred years we'll know enough to have something interesting. Lord knows it took Physics longer than that. Perhaps the climatologists will get lucky. Who knows? Although if I understand Wolfram's work, some chaotic processes may be simply incalculable. I think there's a huge gap between "continue the science" and "turn over large sections of the world's economy to climatologists to make the earth their private lab" My contention is twofold: the use of the word "science" to describe the barest minimum of data collection when science is much more than that, and the mingling of scientists and politics. Flimsy science with a lot of unknowns and public policy are a really bad marriage. Sounds to me a lot like the medieval church and the early nation-states. When Newton observed an apple falling, he didn't need a theory of gravity because he could take a million more apples and make them do the same thing. That means that even though the theory of gravity is in the same epistemological place that global warming is, we can have a lot more confidence in it. We only have one earth, and little data. Right now we have science-based conjecture, which is nothing as firm as proven theories. That means I'm not supporting huge changes in public policy. If we were talking an asteroid coming towards earth, you can better believe I'd have a much different position.

robg 17y ago
We're not that far apart then. But I don't see where "turn over large sections of the world's economy to climatologists to make the earth their private lab" is true. That sounds like a scare tactic itself. And Physics did pretty decent work in it's first 100 years. The next 100 were even more revolutionary. I see no reason why Climate Science, with 30 - 50 years under its belt, can't mine important insights, and suggest and test changes, within our lifetimes. As to the connection between science and politics, I really think it's inevitable. Politicians fund science in every democracy. We need to lobby them on the importance of the work. Unfortunately that sometimes means grandstanding and fear mongering. But the alternative is the science doesn't get funding. I sort of have skins in the game so here my own objectivity gets dicey. I agree with you on your philosophy of science. But I don't see huge changes in public policy. Kyoto hasn't done much. What's the real risk of cap and trade? Some marginal costs go up? Even as it may appear scientists are running roughshod over and through debates, they're constrained by political and economic pressures, as they should be. The bigger the change in America, at least, the harder it is to pass through Congress, even with one party holding a supramajority. More problematic for climate scientists is the need to get all nations on-board, including developing nations. I don't see that happening. Debates among nations will prevent what you're most worried about up until it's clearly an asteroid. Just coming back to your main point, on conjecture versus hypothesis-driven research, it seems pretty clear to me what the prevailing hypothesis is: Humans are responsible for some measurable, and significant, changes in the climate. I'm still unclear on the alternative hypothesis and, more importantly, how it can be tested. Can you enlighten me?
- DanielBMarkham 17y ago
  Apologies for the hyperbole, but I believe your position is that we should adjust the inputs -- control gas emissions -- and then see what happens. If I've misunderstood you please explain. Assigning that kind of political power isn't something one does lightly. The science and politics thing is indeed dicey. I would suggest that a set of ethical guidelines be established to keep both parties honest, much like we have with the doctor-patient relationship in psychoanalysis. There's simply too much temptation for each side to use the other for their advantage. We don't want to end up with one party "scientifically" proving the other party is a bunch of morons (substitute much more PC adjectives here). We certainly don't want politicians announcing that scientific or political debate is "over" for a particular topic. E-gads man, that's a travesty. Last time I had a AGW discussion on HN (several months back), somebody pointed out that we've actually been seeing a cooling trend, not a warming one. If the current year continues that trend, the original models will have been invalidated -- the actual observed data will fall outside of the 95% confidence range. I know this sounds like stalling for time, but since I'm not in a hurry anyway, I'd like to see the current year's data. I'm not a climatologist, and of course it's not incumbent on me to put forth any alternatives. I am, however, aware of several. (I've spent some time researching this issue). There's the 1500-year cycle theory, that since the last great ice age we've seen regular 1500-year cycles. There's the average-global-temperature-is-primarily-a-result-of-solar-radiation crowd. I think those guys, Russians if I recall, made a bet back in 2000 that the next decade would see cooling, not warming. Perhaps they'll get paid? I don't know. There are theories that cosmic radiation is responsible for cloud coverage and that cloud coverage is the primary ingredient in climate. My personal half-baked theory is that since we are talking about a mixed chemical and biological system, with hundreds of thousands of variables, the climate is probably a chaotic system with an attractor based around solar input. This means that small inputs could have large effects, but it also means that large inputs may have no effect at all. With a little more research I'm sure we could find a lot of other ideas out there. The smoking gun in current model application is the fact that all of them have runaway conditions at the end. This has been interpreted as portraying some pending doom, but any computer science nerd who has played around with chaotic and CA systems can observe that the default behavior is runaway systems. So on general principle I'm skeptical that we're not seeing much more than experimentation noise.