There has been a development over the last 10-15 years or so in the scientific peer reviewed literature that is short circuiting the scientific method.
The scientific method involves developing a hypothesis and then seeking to refute it. If all attempts to discredit the hypothesis fails, we start to accept the proposed theory as being an accurate description of how the real world works.
A useful summary of the scientific method is given on the website sciencebuddies.org.where they list six steps
- Ask a Question
- Do Background Research
- Construct a Hypothesis
- Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
- Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
- Communicate Your Results
Unfortunately, in recent years papers have been published in the peer reviewed literature that fail to follow these proper steps of scientific investigation. These papers are short circuiting the scientific method.
Specifically, papers that present predictions of the climate decades into the future have proliferated. Just a two recent examples (and there are many others) are
Hu, A., G. A. Meehl, W. Han, and J. Yin (2009), Transient response of the MOC and climate to potential melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet in the 21st century, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L10707, doi:10.1029/2009GL037998.
Solomon, S. 2009: Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Published online before print January 28, 2009, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0812721106
Such studies are even reported in the media before the peer reviewed process is completed; e.g. see in the article by Hannad Hoag in the May 27 2009 issue of Nature News Hot times ahead for the Wild West.
These studies are based on models, of which only a portion of which represent basic physics (e.g. the pressure gradient force, advection and the universal gravitational constant), with the remainder of the physics parameterized with tuned engineering code (e.g see).
When I served as Chief Editor of the Monthly Weather Reviews (1981-1985), The Co-Chief Editor of the Journal of Atmospheric Sciences (1996-2000), and as Editor-in-Chief of the US National Science Report to the IUGG for the American Geophysical Union (1993-1996), such papers would never have been accepted.
What the current publication process has evolved into, at the detriment of proper scientific investigation, are the publication of untested (and often untestable) hypotheses. The fourth step in the scientific method “Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment” is bypassed.
This is a main reason that the policy community is being significantly misinformed about the actual status of our understanding of the climate system and the role of humans within it.
Re: Arthur Glass (05:44:06)
It’s not about race (beware the hazards of confounding (in the statistical sense)) – it’s about:
a) culture (including education culture (& system)).
– and –
b) easy access to support (such as from well-educated parents (when the system fails)).
“At many universities, you can get a Bachelor’s in English without having read a word of Chaucer or Shakespeare, Milton or Joyce.” Arthur Glass (14:31:00)
I think I’d like to see examples of that; at this point it seems rather like you’re talking through your hat.
Arthur Glass (05:44:06) “[…] what passes for College Algebra in many universities in the States dealt with subject matter that they were familiar with from the equivalent of 8th grade.”
This is not a trivial matter.
Maybe it used to be adaptive (& convenient) for those in power to keep most of the population in the dark, but in light of emerging developments, this strategy is becoming too risky for everyone, including those interested in retaining power. What we need to do is raise the bar for everyone. This will not threaten natural leaders.
Due to the depth of focus required, it is important – & efficient – to develop technical & mathematical foundations during the sheltered stage of life before one reaches the stage when heavy obligations begin forcing intense prioritization & complex maturity.
There is a limit to trust, which is not always deserved. With will, we could organize a society (a few generations out) in which the majority of citizens would be capable of reviewing science-publication-submissions. Widespread model-literacy (including the ability to pinpoint untenable assumptions) will be essential to any society considering leaning sensibly (& possibly more heavily) on modeling in matters of broad concern.
A note for those interested in helping bridge disciplines:
New people need to have good experiences.
Pace, pace, pace.
E.M.Smith (14:27:51) : Though the recent election in Great Britain means they seem to be catching a clue…
You wouldn’t think that if you lived here, and had to endure the flood of pro-AGW talk in the media and from the government. I stopped reading newspapers a few years ago to get away from it. Now I’ve stopped watching TV too. All I have now is a radio, but AGW comes leaking out of that too.
I think that in Britain there’s a deepening disenchantment with the entire political class, and with authority in general, and in particular the authoritarianism of the Labour government, with the flood of petty rules and regulations it has generated. AGW is just one other thing it’s been ramming down people’s throats. And it’s not so much that people are sick of AGW, as sick of having things rammed down their throats. And they’re sick of the hypocrisy that has been highlighted by the MPs’ expenses scandal, and the even worse hypocrisy and scandal MEPs’ expenses.
The British political class no longer represents the British people. It has its own separate agenda. It wants to buy into the even bigger political club of the EU, while the British people see the EU as just the source of yet another asphyxiating layer of petty rules and regulations. AGW just means more rules and regulations, and that’s what will kill AGW. That, a few more overcast summers and cold winters.
Arthur Glass: At many universities, you can get a Bachelor’s in English without having read a word of Chaucer or Shakespeare, Milton or Joyce.
C.P. Snow was writing 40 years ago, and it’s been 40 years since I was an undergraduate, so no doubt things have changed. But the C.P. Snow arts-educated generation, which I knew very well, is now running the country. And it shows.
I dread to think what it will be like when the post-modernists, and students of Derrida and Foucault climb into the pilot’s seat. Or maybe it’s happening already…
@ur momisugly Dave Middleton (11:00:03) :
“Your crystallizing magma models are heavily constrained by known properties of elements, compounds, minerals, the rock cycle and the phase relationships within various different melts (brings back 30-year old phase diagram nightmares from igneous petrology).”
Not as constrained as you would think. And who doesn’t like eutectics?
oms (08:02:45) :
“You might take a numerical simulation as the high-ticket version of what used to be called a “thought experiment.”
Where I come from we call that “drinking your own bathwater.”
Benjamin P. (10:09:34) :
“So when I use math to predict the effects of a theory it’s not a model?”
You mean like if you came up with a theory that increasing levels of manmade CO2 in the atmosphere would cause runaway global warming and then wrote a computer model that showed it to be case when the real world evidence didn’t support the theory? You mean like that kind of model? Yah, you can call that a model. It’s useless but it’s a model.
In retrospect I realize that I shouldn’t be surprised that a relatively obvious statement of fact should result in so much intense discussion. But those who are in the AGW camp are heavily invested in models since that is really the only “proof” they have of what they say will occur. An “attack” on a climate model is an attack on the theory of AGW. With so much of their argument built on such a weak foundation it’s amazing that the theory has gotten as far as it has.
But I’m done with this thread. I don’t see any point continuing this. Those who get it, get it. Those who don’t, probably never will. My argument is not an indictment of computer models. My argument is an indictment of the people who would use computer models that cannot even reasonably reconstruct current and past climate as primary evidence of future climate. My argument is an indictment of the notion that computer models can be used as proof of theories when in fact they are just representations of what we know or think we know. Computers only do what we tell them to do. And they do it how we tell them to do it. It would be the equivalent of a self-fulfilling prophecy to write a computer program that proved a theory you thought of.
I suppose if it was too constrained, it wouldn’t be any fun…;-))
Benjamin P, are there magma flow models for the Earth’s crust that demonstrate circulation patterns? Just wondering…
About Leif Svalgaard
I’m new here….could someone tell me who, exactly is he and is he stuck in his own domain. It has been my experience that many very good scientists are stuck in their own world. Am I right?…or….please tell me I’m out of line. Just want to give him a fair shake here!
JB
@ur momisugly idlex (05:09:07) : asks,
“are there magma flow models for the Earth’s crust that demonstrate circulation patterns? Just wondering…”
Not really? There are some loosely constrained models for individual volcanoes, but really, its a pretty chaotic process, which is typically going to be different from place to place. Depending on the types of rocks containing the magma chamber, the properties of that rock, the properties of the magma’s being produced, and preexisting structures (faults and fractures) that may or may not be there (and a host of other properties).
But in reality, you can’t think of the earth’s crust as having large scale circulating magma chambers. While there are certainly areas in the crust where we have active magma’s, the bulk of the “Circulation” happens in the mantle. Unless I am not understanding what you are interested in when you say circulation.
There is certainly evidence that magma chambers are dynamic places. We can see flow alignment of minerals and other textures which suggest inter-chamber magma flow, but its really a difficult thing to constrain numerically.
@David Holliday (22:07:42)
“My argument is an indictment of the notion that computer models can be used as proof of theories when in fact they are just representations of what we know or think we know.”
That’s exactly what they are simulations and representations of what we know and think we know. Honestly, and I am sure I will get flamed for this comment, talking with some of my climate friends, I don’t think any of them would say that the “proof” for their ideas of climate are the outputs from their models.
Models are a powerful way to try and predict what may happen. I think the vast majority of folks understand that the models they use are less then ideal and can always be improved upon.
I think a lot of folks are disingenuous here when they try to paint the “warmists” as folks who just made something up and then made a model to try and support it. Its really not how it works.
“At many universities, you can get a Bachelor’s in English without having read a word of Chaucer or Shakespeare, Milton or Joyce.” Arthur Glass (14:31:00) ”
“I think I’d like to see examples of that; at this point it seems rather like you’re talking through your hat.
A gantlet thrown! How can I refuse? This will take a little research, and still will not be comprehensive enough to be definitive. Buy let’s start with this from my erstwhile employer, Rutgers, The Land-Grab University of New Jersey.
http://english.rutgers.edu/undergraduate/major/index.html
No specific mention of the Big Four.
I’ll be back!
“I dread to think what it will be like when the post-modernists, and students of Derrida and Foucault climb into the pilot’s seat. Or maybe it’s happening already…”
The post-modernist version of the swine-flu, with its notion that ‘race, gender and class’ are the governing factors in making judgements about law and justice, has long since infected law schools. Witness the legal thinking of the ‘wise Latina’ who is a product of this ‘philosophy’, and who has been nominated to sit on the highest court in the land.
It is ‘happening already’!
” Ironically, modern practicing astronomers [and engineers – at JPL] do not care one whit about philosophical issues and have resorted to the epicycle within epicycle within epicycle within epicycle within epicycle … formalism. An abbreviated description of Jupiter’s motion [which is enough for ordinary navigation – the full theory has an order of magnitude more terms] operates with 498 epicycles…”
The medievalist in me rejoices at this vindication of the great Ptolemey. I also rejoice in the assurance that practicing scientists do not, as such, give a fig about the philosophy of science–it’s really not their ballpark. This does not, however, necessarily mean that philosophy of science is not a legitimate and potentially rigorous discipline.
Whenever I think about C.P. Snow’s ‘two cultures’, I think about Vladimir Nabokov, who did manage to cross that great divide. In addition to producing some of the greatest fiction of the 20th c. in two languages, he made a substantial contribution to mapping out the species of lepidoptera (v. __Nabokov’s Blues__ by Kurt Johnson and Steve Coates).
” When I was at university in Britain in the 1960s, studying Architecture (when I wasn’t chasing girls) most of the ‘fun’ people studied humanities subjects – English, history, philosophy, etc -. They were the ‘hippies’ and ‘radicals’ who marched and protested. They talked Marxism and politics and literature and art and music. The science students were relatively uninteresting, and generally conservative, and not much bothered with politics and literature. Each had no little contempt for the other.”
As a literary guy who ‘did the ‘sixties’, with all that implies (no, I was not at Woodstock; I was 5,500 miles away in August of ’69, in the northern foothills of the Alaska Range), I can’t argue with this as a description of liberal arts students in the early ’70’s.
Unfortunately, these are the ‘tenured radicals’ who have been running the asylum for the past thirty years.
“Richard Feynman recounts how important the Brooklyn schools he went to were for him, so I’m not alone in thinking that things were better a while back.”
Richard Feynman is one of my intellectual heroes. He was also a fine writer who was concerned with communicating to laymen a sense of his passion for scientific inquiry. I find more enjoyment and illumination in reading and re-reading his __Six Easy Pieces__ than I do in reading much of contemporary fiction, let alone the pretentious, narcissistic noodling of contemporay ‘poetry’.
He definitely left us too soon.
Arthur Glass (11:16:55),
I did the sixties in Viet Nam [it was two words back then]. Most of my high school friends went to college and majored in Education in order to get the draft deferment. I think that’s why there are so many older teachers & profs today trying to justify dodging the draft by saying American soldiers were the bad guys.
But they probably see it differently, I don’t know. That was a long time ago.
Arthur Glass (10:56:02) :
This does not, however, necessarily mean that philosophy of science is not a legitimate and potentially rigorous discipline.
I can live with that as long as they stick to their discipline and it has no effect outside of that.
“The passion of the scientist and the precision of the poet.”–Vladimir Nabokov
” The simplest theory [‘most adequate’ in your terms] is that Angles push the planets around according to God’s wishes, end of story.”
Angles and Saxons and Jutes, O my!
I hate it when stories end.
Seriously, I agree whole-heartedly with the addition of ‘predictive power’.
Arthur Glass (11:46:32) :
” The simplest theory [‘most adequate’ in your terms] is that Angels push the planets around according to God’s wishes, end of story.”
Angles and Saxons and Jutes, O my!
I’m on the wrong side of Snow’s divide 🙂
Quite hard to believe, Evan.
It’s what I saw, and I was taking an active interest. In Essen there were plenty of pigeons, but they all looked the same. Not even black or white or piebalds, but complete uniformity (they were somewhat smaller than the NYC variety). I did not see a single sport the whole time I was there.
J. C. Squires after Alexander Pope
Nature and nature’s laws lay hid in night
’til God said “Let Newton be” and all was light
It did not last, the Devil crying “Ho
Let Einstein be!” restored the status quo.
And probably by our old friend Anonymous in the 1930’s
I dislike the family Stein
There’s Ep and there’s Gert and there’s Ein
Ep’s statues are junk
Gert’s novels are bunk
And nobody understands Ein.
Kindest Regards