Guest essay by Dr. Tim Ball
Steve Burnett’s “Hard vs. the Soft Sciences” essay is interesting but misses the problem in studying climate and other generalist areas in an era of specialization. It also misses information about the nature of the brain and what it is to be human.
A book that addresses the issue is Antonio Damasio’s Descartes Error subtitled, Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain published in 1997 and followed by a sequel in 2003, Looking for Spinoza. Responses to this Burnett’s essay would usually include complaints about being off topic but because it speaks to the few who demand it stick only to “hard” science it will likely stand. People’s reaction to the essay will be tempered by their abilities and training.
“There is no more common error than to assume that, because prolonged and accurate mathematical calculations have been made, the application of the result to some fact of nature is absolutely certain.” – A.N.Whitehead. (1861 – 1947) British Mathematician, Logician and Philosopher.
As far as the laws of Mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. – Albert Einstein
I am sorry to say there is too much point to the wisecrack that life is extinct on other planets because their scientists were more advanced than ours. – John F Kennedy
The problem is encapsulated in the names climatology and climate science. The former is a generalist study trying to put the pieces of a vast puzzle together; the latter is the work of individual specialists that include the hard sciences. This battle has gone on ever since the word scientist was applied to certain specialist areas. Darwin is now considered a scientist but in his lifetime he was a naturalist. At that time only two faculties existed in western universities, the Natural Sciences and the Humanities. Today Social Sciences, which those in the ‘hard sciences’ consider an oxymoron, are the largest faculty. As a climatologist I take a systems approach and try to put each specialist piece in the general puzzle. If it doesn’t fit I want to know why and too often “hard” scientists are unable to offer an answer.
This was the theme of my presentation at the first Heartland Climate Conference in New York. Weaver and Mann inferred it was an issue in their lawsuits against me. The problem the “hard” scientists have is an inability to explain what is wrong with the political use of climate because generally 80 percent of the population doesn’t understand, avoid the topic, or are proud of not understanding “hard” science. Sadly, Gore exploited this reality with great effect.
Burnett’s essay smacks of the superiority of those who think because they can practice the “hard” sciences their knowledge and understanding is superior. Lord Kelvin was even more narrow, “All science is either Physics or stamp – collecting.” This can become almost pathological, as we have witnessed in the climate debate. However, it is only true because “hard” science has convinced society it is superior. The adjectives “hard” and “soft” illustrate the point. The former is sharp precise immutable, while the latter is vague, imprecise, pliable and therefore subject to change. Burnett’s title doesn’t advance the debate much because the very title is combative and divisive.
Burnett’s essay is based around an introspection of his abilities and life experiences. Ironically, they provide information that would interest many people in different subsets of the “soft” sciences especially psychology, but especially psychoanalysts. It appears his view is tempered by his abilities and life experiences. We all see the world through the prism of our nature and nurture.
I experienced several examples of the battle between “hard” and “soft” climate over the years and Burnett’s essay illustrates it continues. When I began studying climate it was to deal with the lack of long term records. Hubert Lamb set up the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) to address the problem.
“…it was clear that the first and greatest need was to establish the facts of the past record of the natural climate in times before any side effects of human activities could well be important.”
Lamb understood you couldn’t do “hard” science without data. One of the IPCC solutions is to create “data” in a computer model, parametrization, and inject it as real data in another model. As Sherlock Holmes, through his author Arthur Conan Doyle said,
I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.
That is a good description of the activities of the “hard” scientists at the IPCC.
I wrote an Honours Thesis on why the “hard” sciences ignored the role of humans as an agent of change. The Masters thesis measured and scientifically analyzed energy inputs in creating depositional environments. My doctoral thesis combined the Arts and Sciences by using scientific quantification and analysis of historical sourced data. It was categorized as historical climatology, which only fit into Geography in the academic discipline divisions. After a presentation to the Faculty of Forestry at the University of Alberta in Edmonton I was asked by a “hard” science faculty if it was true I was denied funding by the two major government-funding agencies. I was not denied because I never asked. The “hard” science funding didn’t cover the historical and “soft” science funding didn’t cover climatology. Fortunately the National Museum of Canada, which tries to explain the world, recognized the problem and provided funding.
“Hard” science people use the accusation of being a geographer as a put down to denigrate my skepticism about global warming and latterly climate change. The University of London determined that I graduate with a science degree but through the Geography Department because there was no Climate Department.
The underlying theme of the essay is redolent of logical positivism and that is fine up to a point. It is based on the idea of the ability to measure, but as Jacob Bronowski noted, that also determines the limit of our understanding. Consider the changes to our ‘understanding’ of the world caused by the introduction of the microscope and telescope.
The IPCC is a bizarre product of all these biases and prejudices complicated by deliberate misuse and misdirection. Burnett’s claims about purity for the “hard” sciences were grossly distorted by the IPCC. They built computer models supposedly built on “hard” science with completely inadequate data. They created data called parameterization, which is supposedly based on “hard” science but creates different results depending on which “hard” scientist is in charge. As the IPCC notes,
The differences between parameterizations are an important reason why climate model results differ.
The results of this “hard” science are merged with “soft” sciences, particularly economics, in the Reports of Working Groups II and III.
The dominance and arrogance of the “hard” sciences are displayed in the adage that, “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist”. This assumes rocket scientists are smarter than everyone else. I substitute a different area of work to illustrate the societal bias. “You don’t have to be a farmer” brings laughs but I challenge people to run a modern farm. They would learn that it requires a generalist approach combining a multitude of specializations from soils through marketing.
I learned as a child that if I heard a rocket, the German V I “doodlebug”, I went directly to an air raid shelter. That rocket was sent courtesy of a “hard” scientist, Wernher Von Braun. Mathematician song writing satirist Tom Lehrer wrote about Wernher and used the verse ,
Don’t say that he’s hypocritical
Say rather that he’s apolitical
“Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down
That’s not my department,” says Wernher Von Braun
The problem is not the “hard” science per se, but how it is achieved and then used.
In the laboratory strict adherence to the methods and procedures of science is required, which the IPCC failed. When you claim your “hard’ results are valid and promote them to influence public policy through the vague imprecision of “soft’ science, another set of responsibilities apply.
This value difference between “hard” and “soft” science provides proof that the IPCC is not practicing proper “hard” science. “Hard” science makes predictions, which if wrong indicate the science is wrong. “Soft” science makes predictions that invalidate themselves. For example, an economic study identifies issues and makes predictions. People read and react seeing economic and political opportunities that invariably counteract the study and invalidates the predictions.
Burnett implies that today’s “hard” science is definitive – it is settled, but it isn’t yesterday’s “hard” science and it won’t be tomorrow’s. It also implies that all “hard” scientists agree. The IPCC conclusions are based on the conclusions of “hard” scientists in Working Group I The physical Science Basis. It is “hard” scientists who disagree with their work, but there is even disagreement among these skeptical “hard” scientists.
Elvin Stackman said,
Science cannot stop while ethics catches up – and nobody should expect scientists to do all the thinking for the country.
No, not all the thinking but at least some. Surely, the problem with the IPCC “hard” scientists is they are trying to do all the thinking for the world. The leaked emails called it “the cause”, which was the original political objective of those who created the IPCC.
Would you rather have your aircraft/auto designed by hard science or soft science?
This is like when the AGU last year struck from its bylaws the words Geophysics, Geophysicists and Geophysical and inserted the phrase ‘Earth and space science’.
So the AGU went from a “Hard Science” to a soft science.
No doubt AGU is using membership money to fund their Political activism and legal funds of Gleick and Mann.
And we still hve to deal with morons like Kerry: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/kerry-says-wrongly-some-temps-week-broke-every-record-s-ever-been
dorsai123 says:
May 23, 2014 at 12:02 pm
“..since Burnett’s was trained in both the hard and soft sciences I’d say his essay weights them both and finds the soft sciences wanting in rigor, consistency and data …”
Agreed. Burnett’s essay to me is a valuable contribution in terms of where climate science is indeed. I plead guilty to having in the past argued that geography fulfilled it’s mission over a century ago when the earth had been “graphed” and today it is remapped hourly. I take nothing away from the great Ptolemy, Mercator, et al – remarkable stuff- but the reason we can map it hourly is the work of physicists and engineers. Similarly, climate science should be a matter for the “hard” sciences if we are looking for theoretical explanations of phenomena, forecasts of where we are going, and a foundation for making policy. “Soft” sciences gather data such as it is, fiddle with it and see what simple patterns can be teased out of it – usually leaving a scattering of other variables out of consideration. Sketchy data and lack of consideration of other variables makes it possible to argue any political philosophy, economic school of thought, direction for educational policy… Their product is largely qualitative prose about an apparent tendency for this or that.
Geography’s classical contributions to climate are descriptive “it never rains in southern california”, “the prairies average 25″ of rain a year”. Back when that was what we were interested in as far as climate goes it was a part of geography, like coffee grows in Brazil. If you honed all the right tools but circumstances forced you to get degrees in an anachronistic discipline, don’t plead the case for geography, convert yourself to a hard scientist. BTW, there is no such thing as a rocket scientist… ah that would be engineer.
This was an interesting read, I am feeling that both essays were dealing with somewhat different subjections. They were both personal and delved into areas of research be it hard science or soft science and perhaps murky grey areas where the two collide. I liked Burnett’s story of dropping a book during a lecture to provide a demonstrable experiment that gravity exists, hard science, to counter the lectures premise that nothing could be definitively proved. I found that very human. I am not sure there is much disagreement with these two essays, they are both pointing to a kind of failure of the “sciences” and the end result of media, policy, and professions and politics being at cross purposes with very deep pockets engineering settled science to advance agenda. If this is correct then indeed…”Houston, we have a problem!”
The way I see it is it’s nothing but groups playing follow the leader.
“You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” – Rahm Emanuel.
And that’s all it is.
I believe the scientists, politicians, the media, bureaucrats and their unions, academia, the green industry, the financial industry and ngos et al are finding what they need in CAGW and they’ll not let their purpose nor their causes go to waste.
Whether it’s selling more newspapers or controlling trillions in hedge funds… chasing the money or following your dream, it’s there in CAGW. Even if it means denying reality.
The problem is they just inch along in the same direction getting their way as they say “See, the climate’s changin’, Gimme Gimme.” This will be very hard to stop.
I think the first thing that must be exploited is the legal system. As long as judges recognize our US Constitution the takers can be stopped or at least slowed down. Somehow, as Mark Steyn and Tim Ball are showing this is our greatest hope and we must create ways to stop the tide there.
Actions like Brandon’s in the face of UoA bullying show they know they don’t have a leg to stand on.
We need to keep forcing the FIOA and scream to the heavens and their superiors when they start pushing citizens around. They tend to be a bit hypocritical about bullying.
Another thing that might slow things down is to push their differences.
Bird choppers must have some natural enemies. Some greens are pro-nuke and at least some in their movements must truly care for the poor. We need to somehow use that capital.
cn
Theo Goodwin says:
May 23, 2014 at 12:45 pm
******
I agree with everything you said except the last sentence:
There is no such law and there never will be.
.
Now to discuss what we do agree with. If we use the narrow definition of science as stated by you, which I fully agree with, then those who discover such universals are called scientists, which by that very definition are very very few. But we have many many who study and use the discoveries of the very few. Are they scientists by that definition, or is anyone outside being the discoverer of universal principles a scientist?
SK says:
May 23, 2014 at 1:16 pm
*****
Then, will the “soft” sciences graduate to “hard” sciences?
Precisely – I believe Theo has answered that question. The problem with this discussion is that everyone has a different understanding/definition of science, hard science and soft science.
Which is harder: the “hard problem” of consciousness, or that of proving the existence of the Higgs boson? At the moment, the consensus is that the former has not been solved (and may prove to be inherently insoluble) and that the latter has.
“Hard” science tackles problems that can be comparatively easily framed and tested and are usually susceptible to mathematical modelling. The modelling and test equipment may be very sophisticated, and few may be able to grok the physics, so it’s hard in that sense, and also in the sense that there is some hard evidence. But the objects of study are simple in the sense of being fundamental or elementary.
Mathematical models are useful, but they aren’t reality itself. No one has a clue what, say, gravity or electrons represent: they are understood in terms of the models. The harder we look at the fundamental elements of reality, the more insubstantial they become, even though there may be very precise mathematical descriptions of them. “Shut up and do the maths” may be the advice to students of QM, for example.
Some people, especially those who can understand our physical models of reality, think those models *are* reality rather than utilitarian ways of describing it. That they aren’t reality itself is demonstrated by the fact that they change over time, whereas reality itself, whatever it might be, presumably doesn’t. Indeed, isn’t that built into the philosophy of science?
Precise understandings of complex realities like consciousness or the climate system or organisms or human behaviour or global economics are well beyond the reach of current “hard” science. This is where the truly “hard” problems lie. Their study can’t yet be modelled in precise mathematical terms, and who knows, may never be. So: should we not study them, or label them as “soft” in a pejorative sense on that account?
The issue as I see it is that so-called “soft” scientists, who in actuality attempt to study the most difficult problems, think they can be understood by superficially mimicking the approaches of “hard” science like physics. Alas, the objects of their study aren’t elementary forces, particles, waves etc.
Moreover, it isn’t clear whether all complex systems can be reduced to physics: the opinion that they can is based on the utilitarian success of physics working at the elementary level. It’s a metaphysical assumption that everything is reducible to physics, but even if it is, we still don’t know what the actual reality of elementary forces, particles, waves etc. is. The whole thing is a human construct, limited by the capacity of the human mind. The true nature of reality, for all we know, may be inherently beyond human capacity to understand.
I sense in some contributors here that they think, possibly because they are skilled in physics and/or mathematics, that they see a truer reality than those who aren’t so skilled. I think Tom Ball is on the money when he says: “Burnett’s essay smacks of the superiority of those who think because they can practice the “hard” sciences their knowledge and understanding is superior”, though I might have put it a little more diplomatically. Indeed, I actually did try to do that in Burnett’s thread.
There are different ways of trying to understand reality, and the application of physics/mathematics is but one. But useful and clever as it is, it hasn’t elucidated one iota of information about what reality, in and of itself, is. We’re no further forward in that than our cavemen ancestors, and still ask the same questions they did, because physics and mathematics as currently conceived of are inherently unable to answer them.
Will this ever change? I remember reading a story by a science-fiction author whose name I can’t recall which posited a society which had advanced to the point that it could deterministically predict human behaviour and future outcomes of their present actions. I sometimes think that many “hard” scientists (admittedly not all–some have more humility and subtlety of thought) think that in principle that’s possible; that everything will eventually dance to the tune of their present ways of grokking reality: but it ain’t necessarily so.
The difference between soft and hard science is like a man holding a gun pointed at another human being. It’s hard science that dictates what happens when that trigger is pulled 100% of the time. But soft science is just trying to determine what made the man decide to pull the trigger and somehow try to control his behavior.
cn
Sorry DR. Ball, there are too many soft scientists that know how to sound good but their ideas are not testable or disprovable yet these ideas are spread as if they are fact. This is the problem with “soft” science, it is not science at all!!!!!
v/r,
David Riser
You can argue about hard sciences and soft sciences, but on the face of it “soft sciences” were simply the sciences that run into difficulties with precise answers to “how”, “why” or “when” soonest. Soft sciences rely almost solely on qualitative data and drivel like the recent “data” collected to characterize AGW sceptics as kooks, filtered carefully and craftily or incompetently through statistics. They are thus inherently fuzzy and generalizing.
Sociology and anthropology encountered the problem almost immediately after stepping out of the door. They are (well ‘were’) able to study “savages” living far away (if the subjects lived far away, they were subjects for study almost by definition – and you got travel too), but you couldn’t stroll into someone’s home next door, especially one of the moneyed elite, to see how things worked there. They also carried profound baggage with them, the kind that Bacon’s empirical and laboratory methods would not help with. Your average European social scientist was just as certain about how things “ought to be” as your average Baptist, Democrat, Republican, Marxist, Climate Team, or Tea Party member is. As long as one is quite certain how things ought to work, you are frequently blind to the reality that while things are “wrong” they are still working. The “ought” then is neither universal nor diagnostic nor natural law.
Hard sciences run into trouble in a different fashion. When studying geology I took classes with a fellow whose ambition was to see the day that a “real” geologist would never step out of doors. He would literally grind his teeth anytime someone countered that things like plate tectonics could never be discovered in the lab, nor was it likely that earthquakes would ever be predicted unless the lab was on top of the fault, and then only that fault. Among hard sciences there are in fact lab sciences and field sciences and sub-disciplines within sciences, and the competition for funding, rivalry, antagonism and politics is as vicious as anything we might see in climatology or climate science. When you consider “soft” answers, consider just how unnerving it is to discover that a “natural law” doesn’t hold up beyond a certain scale. If we really understood gravity, there would not at present be the flailings about dark matter and Modified Newtonian Dynamics that have been prevalent in cosmology lately. You even see proponents pointing out that MOND is predictive and thus a real theory, while dark matter is prescriptive and therefor risible.
All science is soft when pushed far enough, usually just beyond the lab door. History on the other hand is fiction with footnotes.
Well it seems that I struck a chord.
The original point to the essay was to point out, in a soft voice the fundamental differences in rigor between the two. I am not familiar with Dr. Balls work and he may have the utmost care and respect for the scientific method. That’s also irrelevant.
The point of the essay was not to bash scientists who practice in soft fields but to examine the fields of study themselves. Psychology has ample crap studies and Carol Gilligans work was simply one example of what irritated me in my classes. There have also been some phenomenal experiments with true predictive results.
For instance we know that when subject to indirect pressure to conform a subjects actual perception will change. This was demonstrated in an experiment where a subject was surrounded by confederates and mistakenly identified the longest line when the confederates did the same. In the Zimbardo experiment we discovered that tribalism and the stripping of an individual’s identity makes it far easier to dehumanize them. We even know that only 25% of people will resist a strong authority figure ordering them to progressively harm someone.
While I was studying psychology I had one class, not for the semester but simply as a guest lecture, where they brought in an alumnus working on his masters thesis at another school. The experiment and analysis he presented are both what I would consider “hard” science.
The issue between the hard and soft sciences is not per Se the researchers. As I mentioned it’s not a methodological error. The problem is cultural. If the masters student was representative of the field as a whole perhaps I wouldn’t have felt the need to shower after every lecture.
I have never made such a resounding point as when I dropped the book in my research methods class. Carol Gilligan should be psychologys piltdown man, it’s phlogiston but instead she’s a textbook case for adolescent development. In climate science the hockey stick curves get destroyed within a few weeks of publication. The fact that they pass peer review is exactly the point.
Every field has shoddy researchers. Every field has some very stupid theory or evidence that was accepted for some period of time. Those are teaching moments for the hard sciences. But they are a regular occurrence for the soft sciences. In the hard sciences the research and associated scientists are cast out and forever marked and ridiculed. In the soft sciences the Wagons are circled and for the most popular hypothesis, tenure.
Trying to breakdown and examine the differences between hard and soft sciences is like trying to study a mosaic from the individual tiles. Each individual is irrelevant, it’s only when you step back and look at the whole ensemble do the differences become clear.
Like I mentioned the hard sciences are like a rock. Given time pieces will fall away exposing more rock. The soft sciences are like sand, easy to mold and shape but the next wave washes away any impact.
The success of the hard sciences in advancing society is indisputable. The respect that hard scientists [receives] is why everyone wants scientist or engineer in their title. But as much as custodial engineers may seek the title they are in reality still janitors. Soft sciences by the same token, are still closer to experimental philosophy than they are to the rigors of [naturalistic] determinism.
Any soft scientist is welcome in the hard sciences. I wouldn’t disparage anyone from participating in the field. Just remember to keep your hypothesis testable, your results reproducible and to leave your emotions at the door. The hard sciences are about searching for reality, the idea that perception is subjective is why we use instruments and math.
Everything else is opinion, and opinions are like sphyncters everyone has one. If you don’t accept or expect your field of study to be knowable and predictable than you are no closer to the hard sciences than theology.
[This sentence reads oddly: “In the soft sciences the Wagons are circled and for the most popular hypothesis, tenure.” How should it be corrected, if at all? .mod]
It is actually the “hard” scientists who are naïve ,simplistic, and lacking both in common sense and scientific competence when they mistakenly believe that they can make useful predictions of future climate. Only small volumes of time and space and a carefully selected small number of variables are subject to useful analysis by the equations of classical physics. For example – Newtonian -Einsteinian gravity works with great utility at the scale of the solar system but fails hopelessly
at galactic levels. Like the climate scientists the cosmologists are so wedded to their mental constructs that they immediately invent epicycle like theories – in their case dark matter and energy – to preserve their equations which they revere like commandments brought down from the mountaintop.
The GCMs are basically local weather forecasts scaled up to global levels spacially and to time periods well beyond any possibility of accurate computation. Once again see and accept
The notion that climate can be forecast with a handy dandy climate sensitivity to CO2 equation is simply risible . That most of the establishment scientists appear to support, or at least do not dare speak out against, this misguided notion is a sad example of the parlous state of government funded academic science in general during the latter half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st.
Climate science is, in its essentials, an historical science. Readers would do well to read Vol1
of The Geological Time Scale 2012 Gradstein et al Eds Elsevier to gain some understanding of the methods of Historical Science. Do not doubt that this is a hard science in that billions of dollars are spent every year to test the accuracy of its predictions in the oil and mining industry.
For a forecast of the possible coming cooling based on the 60 and 1000 year quasi periodicity in the temperature data and using the Neutron count and 10Be record as a proxy for solar activity see
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com.
This type of prediction is in reality “harder” than anything produced by the IPCC modelers which depend on a myriad of subjective speculative assumptions concerning the variables and processes involved. The validity of the models is given credence merely by the pronouncement of some mystical “expert” consensus achieved at occasional conclaves of self appointed climate cardinals.
The distinction between hard and soft science is itself, at best, soft science. Therefore, my dear hard scientists on this thread, shut up, like Wittgenstein – “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent” – or accept that hard science does not have all the answers we seek, and that there is a legitimate place for soft sciences.
No I object to the term “soft” science. I prefer “Laffy Taffy.”
Much enjoyed Dr. Ball’s article. Always informative and thought provoking. Reminds me of the difference between classical and applied mathematics. One get the exact answer, but can only be applied in limited cases. The other gets and approximate answer, but can be applied to a wide range of cases.
There is no such law and there never will be
===========
Occam’s Razor
The 80-20 rule
No pain, no gain
Bread always falls butter side down.
There is no such law and there never will be
============================
and the grass is always greener on the other side
My training is as a historian (Ph.D., UCSB, 1970) and in finance (MBA, USC, 1975). My reading and studies in these disciplines, plus the material available to me regarding climate, suggest to me that the distinction between “hard” and “soft” science, as usually posited, is not useful. The real distinction should be between information gathering by sound procedures (in history, this is reference to source documents, in finance, it is analysis of business performance), and speculation and empty assertions. I find it really rather easy to differentiate between speculation and empty assertions, on the one hand, and grounding in verifiable, reproducible observed physical data on the other. Some of that verifiable, reproducible observed data, I would hasten to point out, is to be found in the historical sources, the writings and other records of past ages which demonstrate what the climate was like in those past eras.
This is the real distinction worth noting here, I think: basing claims on speculation or empty assertions (i.e., climate models) or on properly systematically gathered physical data (the procedures which I have generally observed climate skeptics to follow, in drawing their conclusions).
Based on my reading of the historical record, I am confident in asserting that in this source alone there is information – hard data – sufficient to debunk the global warming alarmist meme. The hard science concerning CO2, solar activity, ocean currents and the like is a necessary adjunct to this historical evidence, but the historical evidence by itself is sufficient in my view. For this not to be, one would have to deny that farming took place in Greenland in the Middle Ages, or that wine grapes grew in England, or any number of other amply attested events. These are facts at least as hard as any physical property of CO2.
What sense make this does?
[Corrected, thank you. .mod]
“””””…..Dr Norman Page says:
May 23, 2014 at 6:51 pm
It is actually the “hard” scientists who are naïve ,simplistic, and lacking both in common sense and scientific competence when they mistakenly believe that they can make useful predictions of future climate……..””””””
Well I have to disagree.
Real scientists know a priori, that there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of “making useful predictions of future climate”.
The problem with being able to make predictions; particularly about the future, as folklore says Yogi Berra put it, is that the ability to predict the future endows one with the knowledge necessary to disruptively alter the future; thereby falsifying the prediction.
If I could predict (with certainty), that I was going to die in a car crash, in five years time; I can prevent that from occurring, by jumping in front of a train tomorrow.
Yogi Berra was correct. Predicting the distant future is logically impossible.
The problem I have with soft science is they seem to think that they are doing hard science. When it comes to the global temperature one cannot say if it is truly going up or down, the error bars are far to large, the work to determine it is monumental. The real answer is our best guess at this time is, April may have been the warmest X on record. Yet you never hear that, instead you get April 2014 was the warmest X on record. The reality is our measure stations are full of errors and we really have no idea what UHI is doing to them. I stated to my wife today a real study on UHI would require measuring station in a grid pattern not more than five miles apart running at least a hundred miles out from the city center and if it was a mega city at least two hundred miles. The disturbing thing is we have the technology to do it but no one will spend the time or the money to do it. Instead like the Red River Valley flood prediction comparing today with 50 years ago, back then a dedicated group would spend the entire winter collecting hard data and then would predict the flood forecast, to day they do it with computer and now the go from oh it not a problem this year to hey Fargo you have a week to prepare for the larges flood ever, then after two more large floods science then, last year it was hey Fargo be prepare for a huge flood and it was nothing to worry about, I was driving around during the melt and it was oblivious there simple was not enough water in the snow that was melting to mount any kind of a threat. Computer models are no better than the data feed into them and if you are not will to gather the data instead rely on your assumption instead of hard work you end up with a pile if garbage for output. The reality is the human race all live in micro climates and none of us know how and of it affect the macro. Lastly we occupy such a small part of the earth 78 percent is cover with water, on continent is total uninhabitable as is over 50% of the rest, If you doubt me add up Siberia, the deserts, the tundra, mountain regions and the semi arid regions and see what number you come up with. that leave us puny humans less than 15 of the land mass and yet that is where we measure the temperature and than have the balls to extrapolated it over the entire world. I think we are terribly delusional in what kind of number we really have. The satellite records are the best thing we got we have such little history with them we cannot have any idea what they are telling us. Maybe climatology in it present state should not even be labeled a soft science I think we should create a now label for most of what passes as soft science today , it should be called disillusion science.
Michael Larkin says:
May 23, 2014 at 4:20 pm
“”Will this ever change? I remember reading a story by a science-fiction author whose name I can’t recall which posited a society which had advanced to the point that it could deterministically predict human behaviour and future outcomes of their present actions. “”
————————————————————————————————————————————-
Isaac Asimov,s “Foundation” series?
Theo Goodwin:
I have challenged anyone and everyone to produce from the soft sciences at least one universal generalization that is highly confirmed and is accepted by all scientists as true until further work reveals some prediction from the law that proves false.
Not sure I’m ready to take your challenge, but I would put forward a couple of candidates from my own field (linguistics).
1. The establishment of regular sound change in Indo-European languages (ref: the Grimm Brothers), often referred to as ‘sound laws,’ created quite a stir in the 19th century, as it appeared to be the first major case of human behavior that could be hindcast and verified by further investigation.
2. Roman Jakobson’s Kindersprache, Aphasie und allgemeine Lautgesetze made a case for a very specific development of phonology that describes normal language acquisition by all children, for all languages. Jakobson’s proposals were being taken quite seriously during my grad school days (way back in the 60s), though I haven’t kept up to date.
3. The MIT linguists in the second half of the 20th century have very effectively re-opened the issue of linguistic universals. What is it that is common to all natural languages? The was that there is no known way a child can, on the basis of what he hears in his first years, discover the structure of language that he soon demonstrates. Inference: Significant and specific knowledge about natural languages is ‘built in’ to the human brain. Search is on to specify and verify that knowledge.
I toy with the idea of asserting that at least some part of linguistics could be considered a hard science, ultimately based on empirical evidence. But even though theory is based on observable behavior, attempting to hypothesize and prove underlaying causes involves longer chains of inference than are comfortable. One hopes ultimately for more and better empirical data.