Jonathan

From the Popper article:

"However, these ideas are intended to guide how we do science, but are not really intended to impose a set of rules that we never violate."

No, they're actually rules that can't be violated. They're the defining elements of real science. They're not suggestions, or sort of kind of rough, optional guidelines which we can ignore if we feel that we want to be free to color outside the lines. Without them, we have pseudoscience.

The fact that so-called scientists are beginning to advocate the idea of eliminating falsifiability, or at least sometimes skirting its requirements when things aren't working out well for their theories, is quite telling.

"In most cases, the systems we’re considering are too complex for a set of simplistic rules to be applicable."

Ah, the rules that govern science are "simplistic" when we want our theories to bypass them, huh? I would imagine then that logic would also be icky poopy "simplistic," since it's really no different from the notion of falsifiability. Why can't science just be about feelings? After all, it's too complex and advanced for most childish idiots and the stupid logic stuff that they believe from grade school!

Are there other scientific principles which will also soon be too stinking simplistic? Perhaps prediction and testing? I mean, how inconvenient! Gosh, the little people with their elementary school ideas of science just don't understand the complexity involved in something as grand and important as our work in climate science, so their foolish rules about prediction and testing should be reconsidered. We're scientists, after all, and they're just stupid nobodies, so why should they tell us what to do? So let's skip the predictions and tests part, and just go from hypothesis to analysis. My analysis is that I feel really good and confident in the brilliance of my hypothesis! I'm amazing, and it's settled science.

22 hours ago, william.scherk said:

 

 

When I'm told by people who have very strong beliefs in AGW that I'm anti-science and a flat-earther (while I'm asking them to show me the science that they think they're talking about), I naturally ask "well thought out questions" to stimulate Thought Provoking dialogue and critical thinking skills. I like to cite a brief identification of what the scientific method is, quickly touching on the importance of observation, experimentation, falsifiability, and most importantly, prediction and repeatability/verification. And then I ask them to show that method successfully being applied to AGW.

Thats usually when they start talking about "consensus" instead of delivering the science.

I like to try to get the discussion back on track, sometimes by quoting a favotie of mine from Crichton:

“Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

“There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.

“… Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E = mc². Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.”

And then I ask again for examples of AGW models successfully predicting reality. Let me see just one successful model, the whole thing, the program, the data, the equipment, the locations, the process, the whole ball of wax. Free and open review. I've found that insisting, persisting, and dragging the discussion back to the issue that they don't want to talk about seems to have the best chance of being effective.

Some people are very stubborn, but persistence often wears down their support crew and convinces them to at least abandon the snarky certainty and name calling.

J

P.S. And the same is generally true of cultish Objectivishes.

16 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I wouldn't mind leaving them alone to live out their pathetic little delusions of grandeur, but they keep getting government power and screwing up the world, including my corner of it.

That's definitely proof of your mental illness. These people know better than you how to manage your life. To reject the care they're offering, out of the goodness of their hearts, is insane. We're all basically helpless children who can't choose what's best for us. We need theses superior beings to guide us and to decide for us. We have to let them control us, and confiscate the fruits of our labors, to protect us and keep us safe. To not want to surrender to the warm embrace of their care, and to prefer the danger of your own deficient thinking, is the definition of crazy. Accept what's best for you.

Not so smooth without the teleprompter. If iii iii if ii if ii i ii i ii i if.

But you know what? To the "experts" it wasn't evidence of the Messiah's possible mental decline, but proof of his brilliance! Obama was said to have an "intellectual stammer." His mind was so superior, so godlike, that his mouth couldn't keep up. He was the most intelligent entity that has ever existed, and everything that he did was proof of it, most especially his errors and failures.

The opposite is true of Trump (and of anyone not on the political left).

Indeed, various "failing" predictions can be found, but the long-failed ones are much harder to dig up. And, technically, and in fairness, the "failing" ones haven't quite failed yet, but are merely appearing to be approaching failure. I don't count those as failure until those chickens actually fail to hatch. And there are always new sets of predictions to take the place of the failed ones, including ones which now hypothesize about the long "pause" that reality naughtily dumped on the scientists' models, and whether it is real or not, and, if so, what caused it, or didn't.

J

3 hours ago, william.scherk said:

I am confused by your approach. 

Did you read and gain anything from the extract and page from Weart's book?

Yeah, um, did I miss something? I was asking to be shown actual scientific models/experiments which accurately predicted future observations, not an outline or summation of someone's opinions of how the science is possibly suggestive and potentially useful.

4 hours ago, william.scherk said:

I am not clear at all what your baseline of knowledge is -- where we begin to address disagreements.  What particular  modeling have you set aside as useless (in that they are not to your mind 'actual real science')?

I haven't declare anything "useless." Even failed models/experiments can have great use. Science is very much about learning from failed predictions.

4 hours ago, william.scherk said:

Can you name one or two of these models so  I know  exactly what you are describing?

I don't know. I haven't made a catalog of failed AGW predictions/models over the years/decades, and they don't tend to remain easily publicly accessible once they've seriously gone down in flames. They just kind of disappear, much like Obama's statements about keeping your doctor or saving $2500 quietly disappearing from government healthcare websites. Maybe do a Google search for "climate model fail"? Sorry that I don't have time to be more helpful.

J

22 hours ago, william.scherk said:

When you ask me 'where are the models' that predict most accurately or reliably and repeatedly, I think you might mean something like a Global Climate Model, but if not, can you offer more detail?

Yes, I mean something like a global climate model. I mean a set of predictions based on a hypothesis. I mean a proposal to be tested, such as, "If mankind produces X amount of substance Y, then temperatures will increase to Z over the specified period of time." I mean actual, real science. Testable explanations and accurate, repeatable predictions. I mean hypotheses, experimentation, observation, and, of course, the inclusion of falsifiability.

J

As I've asked before, where might I review the "settled science"? Where are the models which have accurately, reliably, repeatedly predicted anthropogenic global warming? All of the models that I've seen have failed in their predictions.

J

10 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

Nobody in the TrumpCampaign is pushing back on the misleading spin fueled by the acid meme. At least not yet. 

Yeah, yet. It's an invitation, though, to delve into Hillary's finances, which is going to be fun. Pot calling kettle black.

J

Try this: write that book you've been threatening to write. Pour a year or two of your heart and soul, your blood, sweat, and tears, into it. Publish it, which doesn't cost a lot these days. Then announce its availability to OL members. Even better, get a well-respected, prolific thinker and writer on OL to praise your book's merits and to recommend others buy it.

That's a great idea. I'd love to see Phil announcing on OL that he has produced and is selling something which he has poured his heart and soul into for a year or two.[....]

I love reading O'Rourke's stuff, but I can't stand listening to him talk, at least not when he's speaking extemporaneously. I caught a little bit of his appearance last night on the Laura Ingraham show and had to shut it off due to the annoying staccato "uh-uh-uh-uh-aw-aw-aw-aw-aw"-ing that O'Rourke uses to fill space while selecting the words that he might use in a sentence: "I think that Obama is not to be uh-uh-uh-uh-aw-aw-aw-aw-aw trusted, a-a-a-a-a-a-a-and I think he's uh-uh-uh-uh-aw-aw-aw-aw-aw less than uh-uh-uh-uh-aw-aw-aw-aw-aw honest." It almost makes him sound more haughty and phony than Bill Buckley.

Psyche and the Mentalist are both shows that have detectives who are very good observers. People watching them think they have esp. Of the two show I like The Mentalist more. Simon Baker projects a wonderful benevolence.

Psyche while it has the wonderful Dule Hill as Gus. The lead James Rodale just comes across as brash.

I must it is nice to see TV shows that debunk esp rather than giving the character super powers.

I haven't seen The Mentalist, but I'll look for it now. I really enjoy Psych, and don't find the character of Shawn to be too brash. I love his (and Gus's) quick 80s pop culture references. It's also kind of fun to watch the show and then catch either an old episode of The West Wing, in which Dulé Hill practically looks like a baby in the role of Charlie, or a recent episode of Mad Men, in which Elisabeth "Zoey Bartlet" Moss is all grown up and not the sweet and innocent president's daughter that Charlie dated. :-)

J