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If history has taught us anything, the idea of "settled science" is as anti science as it comes.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
adrianN 3y ago
Asimov has refuted this argument more eloquently than I could here: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~dbalmer/eportfolio/Nature%20of%20Science_Asimov.pdf https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~dbalmer/eportfolio/Nature%20of%20...
- galangalalgol 3y ago
  Thanks i like that! Likewise, the relativity of wrong reactions to our situation needs to be considered I think. There seemsnto be consensus now that it is too late to address the problem only in the right way. We should still do all of those things. But to avoid mass suffering, it is well past time we considered planet scale climate engineering as a valid approach. It is risky, but risky is, like wrongness, relative. And the wrongness and riskiness of acting without knowing all the effects is relatively less, not just than continuing on the current path, but even than adopting all the right behaviors at this late hour with no other steps.
- lucb1e 3y ago
  That's a rather huge document just to respond to a single sentence (with someone's highlights, not sure if those are yours or whether to otherwise heed them). Feels a bit asymmetrical in the amount of effort one has to put in to understand your comment/point. From reading the first page, I would say that this could be a summary / an answer to the statement of the person above you: > when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together. (The document seems to assume that you know the earth is an oblate spheroid or something: rather close to spherical, but off enough that it's noticeable under certain circumstances such as spaceflight.) If that is indeed what you meant to say, I would recommend citing that part and adding the link for reference. That probably helps more people than just posting the document link by itself
- somenameforme 3y ago
  That seems to be an uncharacteristically poorly thought out argument from Asimov, who I have immense respect for otherwise. He's engaging in a simple strawman! The issue is him (Asimov) being critiqued for thinking we have finally gotten everything, more or less, correct - finally. The critic alleges to Asimov that he's falling for what I call 'the arrogance of the present.' For great minds in past centuries also certainly thought they had finally, more or less, worked everything out, and were invariably proven wrong. So what makes now different, beyond the fact that 'now' is the time we live in? Asimov's argument is that modern ideas are 'less wrong' than those of times past. He then goes on to talk about flat Earth and geocentric views of times past, going so far as to literally suggest his critic, refusing to accept any certainty, might believe the Earth could be determined to be a cube next year. That's just deeply disingenuous by Asimov, and I suspect the issue flustered him. The critic was obviously not suggesting that next year we might decide the Earth is cubical, but referencing modern theories like the luminiferous aether [1]. Asimov would have certainly been aware of such, but as I suspect you might not - it's an extremely interesting tale. The aether was had a tremendous amount of science and support around it. And it was also completely and absolutely wrong. Not incomplete, not even less wrong, just plain wrong. It was only proven to be wrong in the famous (and quite elaborate, by the standard of the times) Michelson-Morley experiment. [2] Yet so strongly supported was the aether, that Michelson actually assumed he made an experimental mistake when he failed to detect the aether. He rejected his own discovery! He has a very famous quote: --- "The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote... Our future discoveries must be looked for in the sixth place of decimals." --- That quote was made in 1894, 7 years after proving the aether (and ultimately centuries of established science prior) wrong! He was still under the belief that he simply had yet to achieve the precision necessary to measure the aether! In fact so compelling was it, that it was really finally only put to rest by relativity, which showed the absurd nature of our reality - that the speed of light is a constant from all frames of reference. That only kicked off in 1905. And indeed there's every reason to expect that some, if not much, of what we think today may simply end up being seen as the aether of our times - well supported, logical, wrong. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_exper...
lucb1e 3y ago
Correct words, but blatantly misleading as a concept. As an example: sure, Einstein found in the 1900s that Newton's theory of gravity from the 1600s was wrong, but it's wrong to such a degree that it doesn't matter for everyday applications and we still use and teach Newton's law of universal gravitation because it's a very good approximation with a very simple formula. If we had based the mechanism of climate change on the "faulty" formula and adjusted our emissions based on that, then found out that it's incorrect to the same degree, we'd have been so close to the truth that it would have worked out perfectly (to well within the error margins of global measurements). The point of science is that it's about testable predictions. You can say "if I drop a mass from 1m height at sea level in a vacuum chamber, it will impact the surface after 0.10204 seconds" and then go and measure that and you can find that it's right to within your measurement's error margins. We've been doing the same for climate mechanisms and a whole host of other things. If the scientific method didn't work, we couldn't have reliable vehicles, let alone airplanes or useful GPS results. Don't let yourself be mislead by attention-grabbing headlines of "scientists found out they were wrong all along" which we see all too often. Read the article if it's from an otherwise good source, or click through to the source if it's not, and make up your own mind
- graemep 3y ago
  How do you test the predictions of climate science models? I have never found a satisfactory explanation. There is insufficient data for backtesting models of that complexity. Arrhenius's original model have help up pretty well, but it is also simple. Some models from decades ago including some that were very widely publicised in the 80s/90s have been badly wrong.
  - lucb1e 3y ago
    Answering that to the detail that I feel it requires to prove beyond doubt, would likely take about as much time as doing a meta-analysis on the topic. Here's some starting points: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/what-evidence-exists-earth-warming-and-humans-are-main-cause https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/what-eviden... > We know this warming is largely caused by human activities because the key role that carbon dioxide plays in maintaining Earth’s natural greenhouse effect has been understood since the mid-1800s. Unless it is offset by some equally large cooling influence, more atmospheric carbon dioxide will lead to warmer surface temperatures. Since 1800, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased from about 280 parts per million to 410 ppm in 2019. We know from both its rapid increase and its isotopic “fingerprint” that the source of this new carbon dioxide is fossil fuels, and not natural sources like forest fires, volcanoes, or outgassing from the ocean. [...] no other known climate influences have changed enough to account for the observed warming trend If you're wondering how to establish causality in the first place, when we can't do experiments (we could hardly add and remove a significant amount of emissions at will to see what effect it has), this article provides two methods: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7081045/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7081045/ The problem is not unique to climate science. Quoting the "background" section: > In clinical medical research, causality is demonstrated by randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Often, however, an RCT cannot be conducted for ethical reasons, and sometimes for practical reasons as well. In such cases, knowledge can be derived from an observational study instead. In this article, we present two methods that have not been widely used in medical research to date. Beyond global warming, much easier to study is the effect that air pollution has on humans. Stopping coal power plants and combustion engine vehicles in cities would also extend millions of people's healthy years of life every year. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution > Outdoor air pollution attributable to fossil fuel use alone causes ~3.61 million deaths annually, making it one of the top contributors to human death The solutions we have today (using wind, water, sun, and fission) that reduce warming and improve health are not perfect, but my understanding is that they are better

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Asimov has refuted this argument more eloquently than I could here: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~dbalmer/eportfolio/Nature%20of%20Science_Asimov.pdf https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~dbalmer/eportfolio/Nature%20of%20...

galangalalgol 3y ago
Thanks i like that! Likewise, the relativity of wrong reactions to our situation needs to be considered I think. There seemsnto be consensus now that it is too late to address the problem only in the right way. We should still do all of those things. But to avoid mass suffering, it is well past time we considered planet scale climate engineering as a valid approach. It is risky, but risky is, like wrongness, relative. And the wrongness and riskiness of acting without knowing all the effects is relatively less, not just than continuing on the current path, but even than adopting all the right behaviors at this late hour with no other steps.
lucb1e 3y ago
That's a rather huge document just to respond to a single sentence (with someone's highlights, not sure if those are yours or whether to otherwise heed them). Feels a bit asymmetrical in the amount of effort one has to put in to understand your comment/point. From reading the first page, I would say that this could be a summary / an answer to the statement of the person above you: > when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together. (The document seems to assume that you know the earth is an oblate spheroid or something: rather close to spherical, but off enough that it's noticeable under certain circumstances such as spaceflight.) If that is indeed what you meant to say, I would recommend citing that part and adding the link for reference. That probably helps more people than just posting the document link by itself
somenameforme 3y ago
That seems to be an uncharacteristically poorly thought out argument from Asimov, who I have immense respect for otherwise. He's engaging in a simple strawman! The issue is him (Asimov) being critiqued for thinking we have finally gotten everything, more or less, correct - finally. The critic alleges to Asimov that he's falling for what I call 'the arrogance of the present.' For great minds in past centuries also certainly thought they had finally, more or less, worked everything out, and were invariably proven wrong. So what makes now different, beyond the fact that 'now' is the time we live in? Asimov's argument is that modern ideas are 'less wrong' than those of times past. He then goes on to talk about flat Earth and geocentric views of times past, going so far as to literally suggest his critic, refusing to accept any certainty, might believe the Earth could be determined to be a cube next year. That's just deeply disingenuous by Asimov, and I suspect the issue flustered him. The critic was obviously not suggesting that next year we might decide the Earth is cubical, but referencing modern theories like the luminiferous aether [1]. Asimov would have certainly been aware of such, but as I suspect you might not - it's an extremely interesting tale. The aether was had a tremendous amount of science and support around it. And it was also completely and absolutely wrong. Not incomplete, not even less wrong, just plain wrong. It was only proven to be wrong in the famous (and quite elaborate, by the standard of the times) Michelson-Morley experiment. [2] Yet so strongly supported was the aether, that Michelson actually assumed he made an experimental mistake when he failed to detect the aether. He rejected his own discovery! He has a very famous quote: --- "The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote... Our future discoveries must be looked for in the sixth place of decimals." --- That quote was made in 1894, 7 years after proving the aether (and ultimately centuries of established science prior) wrong! He was still under the belief that he simply had yet to achieve the precision necessary to measure the aether! In fact so compelling was it, that it was really finally only put to rest by relativity, which showed the absurd nature of our reality - that the speed of light is a constant from all frames of reference. That only kicked off in 1905. And indeed there's every reason to expect that some, if not much, of what we think today may simply end up being seen as the aether of our times - well supported, logical, wrong. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_exper...

lucb1e 3y ago

Correct words, but blatantly misleading as a concept. As an example: sure, Einstein found in the 1900s that Newton's theory of gravity from the 1600s was wrong, but it's wrong to such a degree that it doesn't matter for everyday applications and we still use and teach Newton's law of universal gravitation because it's a very good approximation with a very simple formula. If we had based the mechanism of climate change on the "faulty" formula and adjusted our emissions based on that, then found out that it's incorrect to the same degree, we'd have been so close to the truth that it would have worked out perfectly (to well within the error margins of global measurements). The point of science is that it's about testable predictions. You can say "if I drop a mass from 1m height at sea level in a vacuum chamber, it will impact the surface after 0.10204 seconds" and then go and measure that and you can find that it's right to within your measurement's error margins. We've been doing the same for climate mechanisms and a whole host of other things. If the scientific method didn't work, we couldn't have reliable vehicles, let alone airplanes or useful GPS results. Don't let yourself be mislead by attention-grabbing headlines of "scientists found out they were wrong all along" which we see all too often. Read the article if it's from an otherwise good source, or click through to the source if it's not, and make up your own mind

graemep 3y ago
How do you test the predictions of climate science models? I have never found a satisfactory explanation. There is insufficient data for backtesting models of that complexity. Arrhenius's original model have help up pretty well, but it is also simple. Some models from decades ago including some that were very widely publicised in the 80s/90s have been badly wrong.
- lucb1e 3y ago
  Answering that to the detail that I feel it requires to prove beyond doubt, would likely take about as much time as doing a meta-analysis on the topic. Here's some starting points: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/what-evidence-exists-earth-warming-and-humans-are-main-cause https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/what-eviden... > We know this warming is largely caused by human activities because the key role that carbon dioxide plays in maintaining Earth’s natural greenhouse effect has been understood since the mid-1800s. Unless it is offset by some equally large cooling influence, more atmospheric carbon dioxide will lead to warmer surface temperatures. Since 1800, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased from about 280 parts per million to 410 ppm in 2019. We know from both its rapid increase and its isotopic “fingerprint” that the source of this new carbon dioxide is fossil fuels, and not natural sources like forest fires, volcanoes, or outgassing from the ocean. [...] no other known climate influences have changed enough to account for the observed warming trend If you're wondering how to establish causality in the first place, when we can't do experiments (we could hardly add and remove a significant amount of emissions at will to see what effect it has), this article provides two methods: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7081045/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7081045/ The problem is not unique to climate science. Quoting the "background" section: > In clinical medical research, causality is demonstrated by randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Often, however, an RCT cannot be conducted for ethical reasons, and sometimes for practical reasons as well. In such cases, knowledge can be derived from an observational study instead. In this article, we present two methods that have not been widely used in medical research to date. Beyond global warming, much easier to study is the effect that air pollution has on humans. Stopping coal power plants and combustion engine vehicles in cities would also extend millions of people's healthy years of life every year. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution > Outdoor air pollution attributable to fossil fuel use alone causes ~3.61 million deaths annually, making it one of the top contributors to human death The solutions we have today (using wind, water, sun, and fission) that reduce warming and improve health are not perfect, but my understanding is that they are better