Duke’s Recent Comments

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  This has clarified my thinking

  Scientific method begins with a hypothesis which implies testable predictions. Experiments are performed to test the hypothesis by testing the predictions. One negative experimental outcome is sufficient to disprove the hypothesis. No amount of positive experimental outcomes can ever conclusively prove it . That is not my principal point. I merely include it for completeness of discussion about scientific method.

  A hypothesis which passes several tests becomes a theory, like The Theory of Relativity. A hypothesis which passes many tests becomes a law, like The Law of Gravity. A law of science is properly regarded as established truth. We put men on rockets and launch them into space, confident that our calculations can place them in the correct orbit. That confidence is justified. We have tested those calculations in many, many experiments; and they have always proved true, without one single exception.

  Isaac Newton would be the first to tell you that even today, one single negative experimental outcome would be sufficient to disprove The Law of Gravity. But that is not my principal point. My point is that scientific method is based on empirical experiments. A properly constructed scientific experiment is the most powerful evidence in the world. It puts to silence all dispute, being incontrovertible. No matter how many times the experiment is performed, it always produces the same result. Any scientist who performs it will obtain the same measurements.

  Dr. Naomi Oreskes is trying to persuade us that The Global Warming Theory is established with an authority equal to The Law of Gravity. But she does not cite a large number of experiments without one single negative outcome. She cites a large number of peer-reviewed papers without one single disagreement against the consensus.

  When The Theory of Relativity was new and controversial, some of the most prominent scientists in the world wrote a book entitled, "Fifty Scientists Against Einstein". The author of Relativity Theory replied, "Why fifty? If I were wrong, one would be enough to prove it."

  Isaac Newton would certainly agree that one good experiment is worth more than all the consensus in the world. But The Global Warming Theory is not even a real theory. It is merely a hypothesis. There  has never been one experiment to provide that first tentative confirmation. It is not possible to perform such an experiment. In the first place, the uncertainties are so great that scientists disagree vigorously about the measurements. In the second place, there are many other variables involved, any one of which has sufficient force to completely change the magnitude and direction of any experimental outcome. You will rarely get the same result twice from any experiment.

  Climate catastrophe happens, sometimes catastrophically. We recover more quickly than our ancestors because of our wealth and technology, both of which are critically dependent upon an inexpensive and abundant supply of energy.On An excerpt from a new book by George Monbiot posted 2 years, 11 months ago 36 Responses

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  An example of what I mean

  Here is an article that I just read in the Tampa Tribune. I cannot figure out how to do hyperlinks on this site. Here is the URL:

  http://www.tbo.com/news/metro/MGBHKNBE0VE.html

  It is a short article, so I will post the whole thing here. It demonstrates my point that the behavior of the climate involves so many variables that it is impossible to devise meaningful experiments or to make reliable predictions.

  Begin quote from Tampa Tribune:

  It was not the hurricane season we expected, thank you.

  With cataclysmic predictions that hurricanes would swarm from the tropics like termites, no one thought 2006 would be the most tranquil season in a decade.

  Barring a last-second surprise from the tropics, the season will end Thursday with nine named storms, and only five of those hurricanes. This year is the first season since 1997 that only one storm nudged its way into the Gulf of Mexico.

  Still, Florida was hit by two tropical storms, Alberto and Ernesto. But after the pummeling of the previous two years, the storms barely registered on the public's radar.

  So what happened? Lots.

  Storms were starved for fuel after ingesting masses of dry Saharan dust and air over the Atlantic Ocean. Scientists say the storm-snuffing dust was more abundant than usual this year.

  In the season's peak, storms were curving right like errant field goals. High pressure that normally hunkers near Bermuda shifted far eastward, and five storms rode the clockwise winds away from Florida.

  Finally, a rapidly growing El Nino, a warming of water over the tropical Pacific Ocean, shifted winds high in the atmosphere southward. The winds left developing storms disheveled and unable to become organized.

  As they say about the stock market: Past results are no indication of future performance.

  This year's uneventful season provides no assurance that next year will be as calm:

  *The Atlantic remains in a 20- to 30-year cycle of high hurricane activity that started in 1995. Water temperatures are above normal.

  *El Nino probably won't be around to decapitate storms.

  *There's no promise that the Saharan dust will be as abundant.

  End quote from Tampa TribuneOn An excerpt from a new book by George Monbiot posted 2 years, 11 months ago 36 Responses

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  You misunderstand my point

  You misunderstand my point, namely, that there is no way to test the global warming hypothesis. There never  has been any empirical evidence to support it. There are simply a lot of "peer-reviewed" papers alleging the opinions of "most scientists". Post-modern scientific method is based on consensus, not empirical verification. For Naomi Oreskes, the global warming theory has been "proved" because she and her colleagues have formed a "consensus" about it.

  My point is that the global warming theory does not fall within the class of hypotheses which can be proved or disproved by empirical experiment. Let me repeat the argument from my previous post:

  "In all likelihood the climate is a chaotic system which cannot be represented by a mathematical model. Probably we will never know for sure. There are so many variables that we cannot devise competent experiments to test our hypotheses. Suppose that you could accurately measure atmospheric carbon dioxide. You cannot, but suppose you could. Suppose that you could accurately measure the effect of human emissions on atmospheric carbon dioxide. You cannot, but  suppose you could. Suppose that you could accurately measure the change in global temperature. You cannot, but suppose you could. You still could not know whether any particular change in temperature was caused by a corresponding change in atmospheric carbon dioxide, because you cannot know what the change in temperature would have been if there were no change in atmospheric carbon dioxide."On An excerpt from a new book by George Monbiot posted 2 years, 11 months ago 36 Responses

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  Modern science, good; post-modern science, not so

  There are narrow, particular facts of climate science which can be proved by narrow, particular experiments. When I say that there is no such thing as climate science, I mean that there is no body of theoretical knowledge supported by a history of successful predictions about climate change. Climate science has not made the leap from knowledge of particular facts to an understanding of universal causes. It is not possible to make that leap without transcending the boundaries of science. By the very definition of scientific method, science is limited to the narrow and the particular. It is limited to hypotheses which can be proved or disproved by empirical experiment. Climate change does not fit within that class of hypotheses.

  Since the beginning of official record-keeping in the late 19th century, climate scientists have made dire predictions with emphatic certainty. None of those predictions has happened. That is merely fortuitous, of course. There are only two possible outcomes, so you have a 50% chance of being right. Either the current trend reverses itself, or it continues to catastrophe. Someday one of these dire predictions will come true. It happens periodically throughout history. We do not know why.

  Maybe the ultimate cause is pure chance. But if, within the framework of an integrated philosophical vision, you understand the full implications of everything that exists, then sin makes more sense than anything else. That is Al Gore's position. Climate catastrophe happens because man has sinned against the environment. That is consistent with biblical teaching. But the proper response to sin is repentance before God and prayer to God. Modern man has arbitrarily defined science to include everything, so he no longer has any language to contemplate God. For Al Gore, the environment is God; but big as the environment is, it is not THAT big. There is not much point in praying to the Impersonal Everything. It makes more sense to pray to yourself or to your neighbor. At least you would be praying to a personal being. (That is the end result of Gore's agenda, incidentally. One man will be worshipped as God. But I am getting off the topic.)

  Science is trying to explain things which are beyond the ability of science to explain. But the philosophical presuppositions of modern science do not permit the existence of such a category. So scientists publish their explanations anyway. At this point we have moved beyond science into philosophy. In the debate about global warming, none of the general conclusions has any foundation in empirical verification. Nor do modern climate scientists see any need for such a foundation.

  No one disputes the physics of the greenhouse effect, although it is misnamed. A greenhouse works by blocking convective air flow, not by trapping radiation. This can be proved by experiment. It is possible to construct a greenhouse which allows convective air flow, but which would still trap radiation. There is no greenhouse effect in a greenhouse. But there is a greenhouse effect in the Earth's atmosphere.

  The greenhouse effect is logarithmic, which is the inverse of exponential. There is a saturation level. As the concentration of a greenhouse gas increases from zero, the greenhouse effect increases rapidly, then quickly levels off at the saturation level. Any further increase in concentration has no further effect. Furthermore, each greenhouse gas absorbs energy only within a certain spectrum. 95% of the greenhouse effect is from water vapor, which absorbs energy in the same spectrum as carbon dioxide; so that spectrum is already near saturation. However large the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide might become, its total greenhouse effect is forever limited to a small value; and most of that effect is already present in the atmosphere.

  The statements in the preceding paragraph are not controversial. But this is one of those points in this bizarre debate where climate scientist abandon all pretense of objectivity. They compete with each other to see who can devise the most outrageous imaginary mechanism to amplify that small effect into a large effect more suitable to their political purposes. It is nonsense. The amplification factor would apply with equal force to any increase in temperature from any other cause. In previous centuries the Earth has been much warmer than today, and the amplification factor did not happen.

  This is one of several facts, each one of which taken alone is sufficient to disprove the global warming theory. That is why it was so imperative for the hockey stick graph to dispose of the Medieval Warm Period. But that period is so firmly established in history, and the hockey stick was such an egregious scientific fraud, that in the end it could not be defended, despite the fact that until the very end it enjoyed the full and unwavering support of the entire monolithic peer-review establishment.

  As a matter of science, the global warming theory is disproved. But nothing is ever disproved in philosophy. God can do whatever He chooses to do. So climate scientists continue confidently on their course, undismayed by any amount of contrary scientific evidence.

  In all likelihood the climate is a chaotic system which cannot be represented by a mathematical model. Probably we will never know for sure. There are so many variables that we cannot devise competent experiments to test our hypotheses. Suppose that you could accurately measure atmospheric carbon dioxide. You cannot, but suppose you could. Suppose that you could accurately measure the effect of human emissions on atmospheric carbon dioxide. You cannot, but  suppose you could. Suppose that you could accurately measure the change in global temperature. You cannot, but suppose you could. You still could not know whether any particular change in temperature was caused by a corresponding change in atmospheric carbon dioxide, because you cannot know what the change in temperature would have been if there were no change in atmospheric carbon dioxide.

  Climate scientists do not understand this fundamental principle of high school physics. They need remedial work before beginning to study science at the college freshman level. This is a professional scandal of the first magnitude. I used to think that these scientists were simply lying to further their political agenda. I did not think it possible for anyone with a Batchelor's Degree in science to be so incompetent. But as I read more of their arguments, I am beginning to suspect that I might have been wrong.
   On An excerpt from a new book by George Monbiot posted 2 years, 11 months ago 36 Responses

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  You do not understand science

  Coby Beck is a master debater. I am no match for his rhetorical skills. He makes the worse argument seem like the better. But I understand science better than he does.

  Scientific method begins with a hypothesis which makes testable predictions. Experiments are performed to test those predictions. One failed experiment is sufficient to disprove a hypothesis, while no amount of successful experiments can ever conclusively prove it. If a hypothesis survives several tests, it becomes a theory; if it survives many tests, it becomes a law; but even a law, like the law of gravity, might be disproved on the next experiment.

  There is no such thing as climate science. There is no body of theoretical knowledge which has been painstakingly verified by scientific method. There is no body of hypothetical predictions which have been proved by experiment. The branch of human knowledge which will one day be known as climate science is still struggling to develop adequate methods for measuring basic parameters.

  Climate science is not ready for prime time. Policy makers should pay no attention to it. Your job is to warn us that a hurricane is coming whenever you actually see a hurricane coming. I engage this debate not from an interest in urgent policy matters, but from an interest in the advancement of an infant science. I urge Coby Beck and his members to do the same. Abandon your political agenda to enact international laws for controlling climate change. Listen to my arguments with an open mind, and see if you do not agree that I am presenting the best methodology for evaluating a body of data that is full of uncertainties and inaccuracies in measurements.

  It is possible to cite peer-reviewed articles,  piecemeal and out-of-context, to support an erroneous point. But the OISM paper does not do that. Each article is cited with sufficient completenes that the context is preserved. An example is my post earlier in this thread, when I  mentioned the graph of weather stations in California. That graph makes two points: 1) when you look at the California stations, the Urban Heat Island Effect is very evident and is quite significant; and 2) when you look at the station-values which NASA/GISS selected for their study, it is clear that they ignored this well-documented effect, and have produced a study biased towards  high warming rates. Coby Beck does not allege that the data is wrong, or that we have interpreted it wrong. He simply says that the highest warming rates are found in non-urbanized parts of the world, where the Urban Heat Island Effect is not operative. But the OISM paper says plainly that the Urban Heat Island Effect cannot account for all the warming in the NASA/GISS study. Our point is that the study uses a flawed methodology that is biased towards high warming rates. Remember, in this infant science, we are still struggling to develop adequate methods to conduct basic measurements.

  Different studies need to measure different things. The global warming hypothesis has two parts: 1) human activity is causing an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide; and 2) that increase is causing an increase in global temperature. In this particular study, we are interested in the effect which global atmospheric carbon dioxide has on global temperature. Therefore we want to eliminate all local factors. It would not be sufficient to average rural and urban temperatures. The NASA/GISS study does not even do that; but for this particular type of analysis, the rural stations give the most accurate measurements, period.

  Most of the Earth's surface is ocean, and those temperatures are especially problematic. Some studies use sea water inlet temperatures, but different ships have their inlets at different depths. Some have seamen put buckets over the side, but some use wooden buckets and some use leather. Measurements from buoys have similar problems. Sea water temperatures are an important part of climate science, but for this particular study they are neither interesting nor relevant. We are interested in the temperature of the atmosphere above the ocean.

  I once saw the data from a weather station on a coral atoll in the Pacific, just barely above sea level, for from any human habitation. It showed a flat profile for temperature during the 20th century. The source which produced that can show a large number of stations with similar results. That agrees with the rural stations in California. It agrees with the data from the National Climate Data Center for annual mean temperature of the contiguous United States. It agrees with the satellites and weather balloons. Any objective, unbiased analyst would surely conclude that this is our best measurement of global temperature trends: during the 20th century, there was very little warming or cooling.

  Soon the Earth will begin warming or cooling again, as it  has always done throughout its history. When the temperature does begin to change significantly, the primitive condition of climate science today is nowhere near being able to determine the cause of that change. You can theorize about it, but you cannot conduct measurements to test your theories.

  Modern scientists do not really understand scientific method. Their methodology is based not on empirical verification, but on consensus. The leaders in climate science have agreed on a consensus among themselves, and they peer-review each other's publications. For a scientific paper which challenges this consensus, it is almost impossible to pass peer review.

  Two examples are the hockey stick graph, and the article by Naomi Oreskes in Science  magazine. Everyone in this thread is certainly armed with the consensus argument on those two cases, but I will not get into that. These debates have raged on the internet until even the ultra-liberal National Academy of Science has been forced to admit that the hockey stick is wrong; but through all that heated debate, Science magazine serenely refused to give its readers the slightest indication that there was anywhere any challenge to the peer-reviewed consensus.On An excerpt from a new book by George Monbiot posted 2 years, 11 months ago 36 Responses