The failings of Climate Science are not exceptional – nor unique |
Guest essay by Eric Worrall – One of the most common arguments against suggestions that Climate Science is dysfunctional, is an attack on the credibility of the suggestion, that a large group of scientists are wrong. Why, of all the fields of science, is Climate Science special? Why is it different? How can it be credible to believe that mainstream Climate Science produces defective results, when the scientists involved are as much a part of the scientific establishment as any other mainstream branch of science?
The answer, of course, is that the failings of Climate Science are not exceptional.
“The Trouble with Physics” is a controversial book by one of the giants of Quantum Physics, Lee Smolin. In an eerie parallel to the failings of climate science, Smolin argues that a fundamental error at the heart of String Theory, and rampant groupthink, has diverted uncounted scientific man hours of effort down a blind alley. Physicists are wasting lifetimes of effort constructing ever more elaborate mathematical models, models which can never hope to be reconciled with real world observations.
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trouble_with_Physics
The fundamental error, according to Smolin, is that String Theory is background dependent. String Theory assumes a Universe in which time and space is constant – a Universe in which Einstein never discovered General Relativity.
The reason for this error goes back to the origins of Quantum Physics. The pioneers of Quantum Physics had to do their calculations by hand – horrendous mathematical transformations, which in some cases took weeks of effort to perform, even when attempted by the most capable mathematicians and scientists on the planet. Adding General Relativity to the mix made the equations impossibly difficult – and for most purposes at the time, for say calculating the shape of the electron field around a hydrogen atom, or designing a transistor, the effect of Relativity on the calculated result was so small that it simply didn’t matter.
The problems with this convenient simplification only emerge when you attempt to reconcile Relativity and Quantum Physics – when you try to create a theory of everything, to calculate what happens in the vicinity of a black hole, to work out what really happened during the Big Bang, to understand why physical constants have those particular values, or say try to build a wormhole – a gateway through time and space, and a possible solution to interstellar travel. In these extreme conditions, a background dependent theory simply doesn’t work.
It is at this extreme edge of reality that String Theory begins to break down – it produces (or fails to produce) solutions which have no applicability to the real world. Trying to eliminate the paradoxes it yields spawns the need to pile on ever more complicated additional dimensions and forces, artefacts which, so far at least, cannot be reconciled with observations.
So String Theorists go model happy. They play with the giant atom smashers when they can, but at the end of the day it doesn’t matter that the String Theory models cannot be reconciled with observations, because String Theory is almost infinitely adjustable. Somewhere, researchers hope, in the unimaginably vast landscape of possible adjustments, at the core of this gargantuan edifice of ever more intricate and complex theory, is the kernel of truth which will unlock the final secrets of the Universe.
One of the themes of Smolin’s book, is the unfortunate way that String Theory has choked off other and potentially more profitable lines of inquiry – efforts to go back to the foundations of Quantum Physics, and try to incorporate Relativity into the fundamental assumptions. Because String Theory utterly dominates the Quantum Physics effort, because so many senior professors built their reputations on their contribution to String Theory, anyone who questions String Theory, or challenges it, is looked on as a crank, an outsider. It is much easier to secure tenure and funding by enthusiastically embracing String Theory, than by challenging it, or by pointing out that for the last few decades, Theoretical Physics has stalled.
The truth is, scientists are human, they have the same triumphs and weaknesses as the rest of us. The image of science and scientists as objective seekers of truth was only ever an ideal. Science, it is true, has mechanisms for self correction which are unique in human endeavour – but those mechanisms rarely work smoothly.
For example, scientists were aware of the paradoxes which produced the need for Einstein’s Relativity since at least the 1860s, when Maxwell formulated his famous equations – equations which implied the speed of light is constant, no matter what the location and velocity of the observer. Scientists ignored this issue, or tried to disprove this implication, by testing whether the speed of light varied if you were moving towards or away from the source. It took Einstein, working in the early 1900s, to resolve the paradox, and finally lay the issue to rest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell’s_equations
Climate Science will eventually become a science again. The wider world of academia is becoming increasingly aware of the embarrassing failures and poor practices. Sooner or later students will tire of producing the same defective results, year after year, and someone, somewhere will make the leap – will find a way to produce a model which works, an Einstein moment which transforms our understanding of global climate.
Disappointing that WUWT is wasting time and space promoting the writings of this crackpot. Ask Lubos Motl about him…
I would never ask Lubos Motl about anything, after he professed that he is a spineless coward and Putin’s back-kisser.
So you got a chip on your shoulder, we get that; please stop now polluting the thread.
DirkH,
Who appointed you to moderate this thread?
No- this is simply untrue, and a dangerous belief. Science has mechanisms for self-correction, but they are not unique. They depend on honesty and humility, just like any other human endeavor that attempts to establish facts about the world around us. It isn’t sufficient to be able to test scientific results to uncover mistakes and frauds- the body of the scientific world must also be willing to listen to counter-evidence in an even-handed way and open-minded way, and I think this is exactly where scientists fail, maybe more consistently than other professional classes. I think scientists are more susceptible to self-delusion precisely because they think science has unique mechanisms for uncovering mistakes and frauds. I am scientist myself, and I think we are just as honest as any other random collection of human beings, but I doubt we rank very high on the humility dimension.
Maybe that’s the difference. In engineering (and/or business in general) when (not if) you make a mistake you learn humility very fast. And, if at all competent, you learn from your mistakes rather than just denying them.
And a lack of humility makes one quite susceptible to the logical fallacy of appeal to authority.
Feynman put it more strongly, saying the honesty must be radical, and encompass or stand on unstinting effort to expose to view and to document every flaw in your own hypotheses. Humans capable of this are unfortunately rare. In it’s absence, we are forced into the long, drawn-out compromise of believing and hoping accumulated microchallenges will leave something close to the Truth standing.
in its absence …
When funding of challenges is cut off, one may assume science is not being done.
…Someone, somewhere will make the leap – will find a way to produce a model which works, an Einstein moment which transforms our understanding of global climate…
And, if history is any guide, that someone will be around 22 years old, not deeply connected with a university department, and perhaps a bit slow at memorising text-books….
– 22 years old – too young to have put much investment into supporting the ‘conventional’ ideas…
– Not deeply connected with a University – not forced to follow groupthink in order to build a career…
– Bit slow at memorising – needs to go back to first principles a lot and work things out fundamentally rather than simply applying a formula…
Ah, but grasshopper, but recognizing and rewarding that 22-year old independent thinker is EXACTLY what the most-hollowed gaol) (er, hollowed grail; no uhm – hallowed goal) of all academia is trying to prevent!
‘Appeal to authority” – Filtering ALL knowledge through the anonymous, invisible, all-powerful gate-keepers of the “anonymous peer-reviewed scientific journals” IS the and first resort and the most-powerful resort of those in control of the CAGW propaganda.
The highest, most revered goal of all academia is “tenure” – the possession of a continuous, reliable guaranteed government payroll with seniority and the absence of any duties or contact with the real world of students, parents, grant renewals and – most of all – the threat of being fired after one’s mistakes are found.
Well, obviously the “Guest Blogger” has recently read an interesting book. I know, because I still keep recommending it since I had read it at the time it was published a few years ago.
In the meantime, string theory has made some progress and despite its issues, there are very good reasons to believe that there is ‘something to it’.
I only thought of this book last night, as I was watching a talk by Brian Greene on the state of string theory – isn’t that fitting?
Since it is mentioned here, a few things he touches are progress re. singularities and black holes:
The thing is, string theory can be shown to be wrong, or at least certain versions, and of course people are not simply following the trail of research money like zombies, these things are open to investigation and are in fact investigated.
Smolin obviously has an agenda like everybody else and he wrote a book to lobby for it – look at that!
I know my ‘opinion’ is not very relevant when I say as a non-physicist that I never believed in ST after reading so many pop-science books on the subject – but I do now since I have read Susskinds Black Hole Wars. It is not that it explains ST and I claim to have ‘understood’ it – it has to do whith what ST could contribute to solving problems and explaining the world. – That cannot be a coincidence. And so I changed my mind, and it turns out I am in good company 🙂
The cognitive dissonance involved in simultaneously rejecting the consensus of Big Pharma conventional medicine while embracing the consensus of Big Enviro climate science, which seems to be a common practice of many AGW enthusiasts, is worthy of Big Lewandowsky research.
The fear of lawyers or death seems to be the big motivator in both examples. Death may be real in medicine but unsupported speculation in the case of Global Warming.
Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine” principles of disaster exploitation for financial gain (which she capitalizes on in her subsequent “This Changes Everything”) demonstrates that both real and imaginary disaster is equally effective.
… While absolutely blaming all opposition to Big Climate Government Control to “Big Oil” money …
There is much hypocrisy in demonizing genetically modified organisms (plants) while simultaneously adhering to climate alarmist “science”.
The required mental maneuver to reconcile this hypocrisy is to live by the assumption that Mankind and his prosperity are evil.
It’s all based in misanthropy.
@mpainter
..
How can you tell the difference?
Good observation. And ironically, big pharma companies are compelled to use much more rigorous quality assurance mechanisms in their research than academic researchers. This includes an obligatory stage of reproducing and verifying any experimental studies by academic researchers that would seem to provide the basis for developing a novel kind of drug. This work is performed before any serious resources are committed, and indeed, more often than not, the academic studies fail to be confirmed at this stage.
IMO all research in industry, business, etc. is of better quality than what is produced in academia, this opine re-enforced by comments here at WUWT.
@mpainter
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Do you mean like all the research that the tobacco industries conducted that said smoking was safe?
No. I refer to comments here by scientists who perform research in the private sector.
@mpainter
..
How can you tell the difference?
mpainter, your statement is so overly general that it must be false. Sometimes, one can read similar things here from engineers, who also claim that their profession is somehow immune to malfeasance. Pride goes before a fall.
Michael Palmer:
Scientists working in the private sector are fired when they produce faulty work, usualy, while those in the public sector are not subject to such constraints. That makes a huge differenceYou speak of engineers. Well this profession relies on modeling and gets excellent results. They must because failure entails such adverse consequences. No such consequences for academia or government workers. Otherwise, how do we get climate models? Under industry standards the model at the head post would never have been presented ( the absurd cold fresh water current). Several times on this blog I have read reports of researchers in the pharmaceutical labs who complain of the frequent irreproducibility of academic studies. Same thing in the electronics area. This is not to say that academia never produces top quality work, or that science in the public sector is universally bad. Many quality science professionals are found there. It is simply a matter of the constraints and the standards which are applied and the consequences entailed in faulty work. There is a big difference.
@mpainter
…
The problem with your admiration of scientists in the private sector is that the private sector does very little research into basic sciences. There is very little private investment into things like particle physics and planetary exploration due to the fact there is no profit in these endeavors. That is why CERN and NASA exist. When was the last time Exxon-Mobil was able to profit from an archeological dig of homo-erectus bones?
Becklybud:
I admire good science wherever it is found . My complaint is that there is too much of the other kind in the public sector. A remedy is needed. Do you not agree?
“””””…..
beckleybud@gmail.com
October 13, 2014 at 9:00 am
@mpainter
…
The problem with your admiration of scientists in the private sector is that the private sector does very little research into basic sciences. ….”””””
Well it is because those private sector companies focus on profitable science, that there even exists grant monies to fund academia.
And don’t kid yourself, that the private sector doesn’t do research on basic sciences. Look at how many (recent) Nobel Physics prizes were awarded to private sector researchers, into basic science.
In the private sector, one of the most important scientific research results, is that the company has no business wasting more resources on some hare brained idea that won’t work.
65% of ALL US PhD graduates in Physics, NEVER get a paying job in their “specialty”. The reason is they chose a PhD specialty, that absolutely nobody has any interest in (besides the new Dr.) 30% of those graduates chose to do research in “specialties” that companies are willing to pay for, because they need that science for their business.
The 65% are doomed to spend the rest of their “working” careers as post doc fellows in some institution or other, often teaching their “specialty” to some other soon to be doomed candidate.
And climate “science” is as good a place to bury yourself and publish away, because nobody cares if in 35 years, your work will be shown to have been a bunch of rubbish. By then you will be retired on a taxpayer funded pension. Paid for by the efforts of those who looked for useful contributions to mankind.
Here’s a good rebuttal to Klein’s Shock Doctrine
http://reason.com/archives/2008/09/26/defaming-milton-friedman
I have read a book by this gentelman in German. I see that he has now also published in English.
link: http://www.alexander-unzicker.com/research.html
He covers a wide range of topics. His descriptions of the problems with Physics Establishment – (or Established Physics?!/i>) not only echo, but possibly even dwarf those of climate science.
“In principle, the scientific approach is to advance a general theory with a view to testing it against every possible sort of evidence that might tell against it…Good scientists who have risen to the top of their profession become attached to, and partisan about, the theory they have created or helped create, and obstinate in defending it…..Their students and acolytes at a lower level, while in a general sense ‘intelligent’, are inclined to an acceptance of the last generation’s breakthrough and novelty, and the as a barely criticisable orthodoxy. This is particularly true when academic advancement becomes dependent on validating the last theory….“ Robert Conquest, “Reflections on a Ravaged Century” (1999) Pg. 232
Smolin once wrote that the trouble with science lies in what it accepts without proof. He then went on to write of his belief in the existence of black holes. Ironically, they have been accepted without proof. Sure, there are astronomical objects compact enough and dark enough to be black holes, if such exist, but there is no proof at all that any of them possess the quintessential feature of a black hole; namely, an event horizon. The “firewall” problem at an event horizon occurs exactly at the intersection of general relativity and quantum electrodynamics. My bet is that the theory that predicts the occurrence of an event horizon will have to be modified to eliminate that possibility. The odds are that quantum mechanics, which is the most accurate theory known to humanity will trump a theory that has never really been tested except in weak gravitational field limits.
So, let’s assume a black hole exists, and is formed by the simple accumulation of large amounts of conventional matter in ever-smaller volumes.
If such a black hole exists, according to conventional “black-hole-general-relativity-theory” it must have an event horizon around it where inbound physical objects like dust, asteroids, planets, suns, gasses, plasma’s, etc cannot accelerate past the speed of light, but only infinitely-slowly/infinitely-ever closer approach the speed of light around the black hole.
So, how does the black hole accumulate more and more matter (as at the center of galaxies) when that matter apparently never gets through the event horizon to make the black hole ever larger and more massive? Is it not the event horizon which is accumulating matter/mass around the black hole, and not the black hole itself?
If so, then a black hole (once it is formed) then cannot get larger than the first event horizon around the smallest possible black hole. It could only be the “halo” around that first black hole (the first event horizon – which is much larger that the first black hole itself) that could accumulate more mass.
True, eventually, the first halo may become large enough with matter approaching the speed of light that IT becomes a black hole – which means it cannot become larger, but that its second event horizon is the “black hole” attracting more outside matter.
Regardless, if Hawking is correct about mass escaping a black hole quantumly, then that mass can re-appear outside the black hole’s gravitation trap, and so some matter from the center of all black holes in the universe must be re-appearing in normal space at some average rate of re-appearance. Which, after all is said and done, is the basic missing requirement of a steady-state universe.
Well, if these strangely equipped black holes are cosmic recycling machines, they must somehow convert astronomical detritus, hot dogs, tofu and all, back into hydrogen to replace what is burning up in stars. Then you might get a steady state universe. Even Hawking’s information would not be lost, it would just be reassembled by the time the next generation of matter falls into a recycling bin eons later 😉
Not a problem, not a problem at all.
But, please remember: When something “burns” here in our simple vocabulary of an earth-atmosphere system, simple compounds and atoms (carbon, hydrogen, sulfer, nitrogen, iron, etc) combine with other simple atoms (oxygen most often) to form more complex atoms and molecules with a different molecular binding (chemical) energy. The difference is released as heat, or used as heat energy to break up molecular binds into free atoms again. (CO2 can be broken up by allpying energy to form carbon agian and free O2 molecules, for example)
In a star, the most fundemental atoms in a ion form (no electrons needed nor wanted) are combined “up” into more complex atoms and isotopes. Two 1H1 form 1H2, three 1H1 form 1H3 (tritium), two 2He4 form .., a 6C12 fuses (eventually) with a 2He4 to form 8O16, etc….
So, if in a black hole, only the fundemental nuclear particles or the fundemental isotopes can escape (or the particles (gluons and quarks or colors or whatever-you-want-call-them) that make up those isotopes) and re-appear in normal space near stars, then all of the more complex isotopes can be formed over time inside those stars later. And you have the advantage that billion-year less-than-light-year passage of heavy particles from one super-nova to the next future super-nova is needed either. Particles will be appearing conveniently near their next forge, to be fused up into larger and larger isotopes in the short time conventional wisdom thinks is available for a 4.5 billion year old planet from our 13.5 billion year old universe. Less time is needed to make the 10^70 heavy isotopes we know exist in our little isolated solar system.
Yes, yes that’s right-black holes explain it all, even black matter…..I think .. 🙁
There is more to black holes than matter. Space itself is distorted. Light can’t escape it because this distorted space only affords a way in, not a way out.
I’ve been trying to understand the “Beautiful Universe” concept:
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/tamari/vladimir/bu1.html
It’s certainly interesting and quantum mechanics/general relativity are derived easily from it.
String theory, dark matter are the things you come up with after frustrating decades of casting about for something to break the deadlock of quiet in the science. These are a product of a large number of bright folks with no new ideas to tease out of their discipline.
I don’t think for a moment that we are at the end of days. There will turn out to be fertile fields that have gone unnoticed, probably because of the obsessive drive to find something, anything, perhaps, like trying your darnedest to remember some persons name only to have it pop into your head when you give up.
The place to look, always, is back at the earlier science where there are still problems or question marks with otherwise fairly solid science (Newton vs Einstein sort of thing). This is probably going to be more difficult with the insulation of so much unsatisfactory filler of the last half a century or more and the vested interests – whole careers producing frustrata.
Science is about models with predictive power. Models that make nontrivial predictions are theories or laws. Other models at best may be conjectures or even hypotheses, but many are just off-the-scale non-scientific claptrap. String Theory is misnamed; it is the Stringy Conjecture. Dark energy and Dark Matter are fudge factors to balance cosmological equations. Man observes neither the universe nor Now, but instead sensible projections of the universe from Then. That the Red Shift is Doppler has yet to be confirmed. Laws are man’s creations, approximations to observations reduced to facts and not discoveries lying about in nature.
The problem rises out of the nonsense that models are mostly about publication, peer-review, and consensuses, and secondarily about falsification, Type II error rates, and social significance. This is Popperism run amok, where facts are now truth not measurements, where science consists of inductive propositions tested by Intersubjectivity, designed to replace deductive models based on Cause & Effect. It is a plan that dove-tailed perfectly with Publish or Perish, what “most scientists believe” infecting the synergistic bureaucracies of academia, government, and the media.
It’s objective vs subjective, right vs. left, benefaction vs. fame, knowledge vs. faith, respectively and equivalently.
“Dark energy and Dark Matter are fudge factors to balance cosmological equations.”
Ahh! Fresh from a recent arguement with Lief S on this topic, I cannot agree with you more. Just the very nature of their “convenience” in answering observations which do not fit with general relativity ( dark matter, not so much dark energy, as GR predicted an expansion of the universe) should cause one to wonder. Also, observations change with the advance of technology so fitting a theory to observations always requires flexibility to change the theory when more precise observations appear. Most of all, though, we must stop stating theory as fact, which seems to be rampant now days.
Dark Energy is a fudge factor. Dark Matter is as much of an observational fact as anything else, motivated by galactic rotation curves, and verified observations such as the “bullet cluster” and baryon oscillations in the galaxy density power spectrum. Don’t conflate the two, even if both are similarly mysterious from the perspective of particle physics.
Dark Energy may be a fudge factor but I look at it merely as a name which represents the cause(really unknown) of the expansion predicted by GR which Einstein, himself, fudged out of his theory due to the inability of astronomy in those days to see the expansion. Now one can argue the accuracy of “red shift” as used today and that there is no expansion but that is another arguement.
Dark matter is more of a pure fudge factor as the proof of its existence is, like dark energy, merely the effects that no one can explain, but unlike dark energy, it is supposed to be a physical commodity (of sorts) and no one can as yet find any. The BAO and all of the other theoretical/mathmatical proofs of both are little importance as in both cases their existence is still theoretical, as yet unproven. In the case of dark energy, if I have to go along with theory I prefer Einstein to others. And the fact that the expansion of the universe was, in his case, an unwanted side effect of his theory, all the better. I suppose one could look at dark matter in the same way, though, since it exists due to the violation of the rules of gravity intrinsic in his theory of GR which we can only just recently observe.
I continue to wonder, however, if anyone has truly applied the curvature of space time on a massive scale to the problem or if only Newtonian gravity has been used. I suspect someone has.
Count_to_10 writes “Dark Matter is as much of an observational fact as anything else, motivated by galactic rotation curves, and verified observations such as the “bullet cluster” and baryon oscillations in the galaxy density power spectrum.”
One could say “curved space” is the observational fact and we assign “dark matter” to curve the space. But thats only because we dont know of any other way to curve space.
@RACookPE1978 October 12, 2014 at 9:37 am
…Someone, somewhere will make the leap – will find a way to produce a model which works, an Einstein moment which transforms our understanding of global climate…
Dodgy Geezer
October 12, 2014 at 9:10 am (after quoting the above)
And, if history is any guide, that someone will be around 22 years old, not deeply connected with a university department, and perhaps a bit slow at memorising text-books….
– 22 years old – too young to have put much investment into supporting the ‘conventional’ ideas…
– Not deeply connected with a University – not forced to follow groupthink in order to build a career…
– Bit slow at memorizing – needs to go back to first principles a lot and work things out fundamentally rather than simply applying a formula…
Ah, but grasshopper, but recognizing and rewarding that 22-year old independent thinker is EXACTLY what the most-hollowed gaol) (er, hollowed grail; no uhm – hallowed goal) of all academia is trying to prevent!
Er…exactly. I wonder if the reason that we have had so few fundamental advances in Physics over the last 60 years is because the ‘powers that be’ have successfully suppressed quite a few young thinkers?
It is interesting to note that the rise of Government/Industry funding of science since WW2 has coincided precisely with a dearth of fundamental advance, and also with a cornucopia of short-term technological advances, all of which have been very profitable…
IIRC, Smolin once argued that his approach was correct because it was socially progressive. I don’t believe that he has any theoretical successes to his name, but in this case I will defer to people in the field. Unlike climate change, cutting edge theoretical physics requires specialized training and mathematical talent to know what is going on.
He predicted the maximum mass of a neutron star so far observed.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1010.5788v1.pdf
on being a “crackpot”
Einstein was a crackpot and so was the guy who claimed the continents move. So was the guy who claimed the planets go around the Sun and not the earth. So was the guy who claimed little bitty unseen organisms could make a man ill.
Science moves forward by the fresh discoveries of the outsiders. The group and its consensus are just lab rats awaiting a real scientist. I think we might have only a few real scientists come along every generation. And what if we impede their work by building up a giant government funded science-university edifice that seeks to protect the status quo — how much knowledge and wisdom does mankind lose in the process?
The “Slayers’ are vilified on this very site. Even by the mods. WUWT??
Every site has those that they will not allow to heard. For example, I will not allow any talk of the WWII Holocaust at my site because I have German family (some in Germany) and there are certain laws about that topic in that country that might come into play if I ever were to visit.
I had never heard of those you mention until our host when ballistic one day to someone and told the fellow never to mention that stuff here. So like anyone, I went to Google to see what it was all about. I found out about the talkshop site in much the same way. In a way it is like telling teenagers to never, ever watch a certain movie — that will ensure they do.
The “Slayers” basically misapply basic physics to generate arguments against the AGW that are ultimately easily refuted, and give AGW proponents a means to paint any skeptic as ignorant.
Count-to-10, I view the capitulation that Co2 causes “some warming” as just as damaging as you view the slayers “misapplication of physics”. Sounds to me like you bought into the marginalization without fully understanding what is being discussed.
One thing that crackpots often do is fail to apply logic. For example, just because a few unconventional theories turned out to be correct, that does not mean that every nut who pens a book critical of contemporary physics must be correct. To insist, or even imply, such means that one doesn’t understand logical reasoning, much less the scientific method.
The problem with Smolin, and people like him, is the he doesn’t provide any new, original insight, unlike the groundbreaking theories of Einstein, plate tectonics, etc. He’s basically a guy who is angry because he realizes that he is not smart enough to understand certain parts of modern physics, so he sits outside the circle and does nothing but throw rocks at those inside. In other words, he has chosen to become a professional crank. Well, that might make him, and the people who are foolish enough to waste their money on his books, feel better, but it does nothing to advance scientific knowledge.
Fortunately for him, his strongly liberal views and his well-honed reputation as a “rebel” have managed to secure him a career in academia and guaranteed him a certain degree of popularity with other mediocre academics and many people who like to read pop-science books.
” … just because a few unconventional theories turned out to be correct, that does not mean that every nut who pens a book critical of contemporary physics must be correct …”
The outsiders often are at odds with each other as well as with the establishment orthodoxy. We are not to “believe” them on blind faith just as we should not “believe” the orthodoxy on blind faith. But the advances will come from the outside — so we should give a listen to those theories that are unconventional. We should never censor anyone just because we do not want to believe that they might be right.
Paleontologist Niles Eldredge wrote in one of his book about his days as an graduate student and being sent by his major professor to boo, hiss, and heckle the fellow who came up with the idea of continental drift when he came to the university to give a talk. He was later most saddened by his participating in that attack on a man who was ultimately correct and who never really was given the credit he deserved. (this is from memory — so it might have been Gould instead)
You need to learn the difference between censor and censure.
Nobody is censoring Lee Smolin. On the contrary, the guy has made a good amount of money selling his books full of crap to people who are ill-equipped to understand the topic that he purports to critique.
Once again, I must ask, what has this guy contributed to scientific knowledge other than to take a dump on other people’s hard work? You can’t bring an “advance” if you don’t contribute anything substantial yourself. That’s what you fail to understand.
Well said, and very similar to Lubos Motl’s view, as much as I dislike his recent pro-Putin/Russian views.
Have you heard of “Loop Quantum Gravity”?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_quantum_gravity
“Once again, I must ask, what has this guy contributed to scientific knowledge other than to take a dump on other people’s hard work?”
If one is to be open to real advances that will come from the outsiders, then one has to let the outsiders be heard. The fact that you hate this one man is apparent. I don’t know him and don’t care about him, but I do know that all major advances normally come from outside the consensus.
As but one example, the present model of how the earth’s weather system works is obviously wrong and I highly doubt that the gatekeepers of orthodoxy are going to be the ones to find out how the system really works.
You are absolutely right. Success at raising money seems to be the most laudatory skill in academic circles. I fear that the Einsteins are not very good at this new science skill. I marvel that his stuff even got published. Wegener, was vilified and laughed at by the geological establishment for his “Continental Drift” and he died years before the “discovery” of “Plate Tectonics” – the name was changed, of course.
Which leads to the odd phenomena that the personality types that are most suited to doing physics (introspective) are selected against because they are not the personality types most suited to convincing other people to contribute money to their efforts (extrospecitve).
Satisfies my ego somewhat. I’ve been saying this about String Theory since I was a teenager. Nobody ever listened, of course. I’ve been told: “We are scientists, and who are you? We’ve taken into account and calculated everything you are talking about, don’t worry. Big Bang Theory and String Theory are untouchables”.
Good for Dr. Smolin. Only a textbook-corrupted mind cannot see that the “mysteriously accelerating expanding Universe, mysteriously created out of nothing in breach of all conservation laws, pushed by the the experiment-proof dark force, burdened by the experiment-proof dark matter, and reduced by the the experiment-proof hairy re-normalizations to the least common denominator of colliding membranes and elementary vibrations in the experiment-proof eleventh dimension” is bunk that exists on paper only.
Your characterization is a bit ignorant.
Here, attend to Dr. Leonard Susskind and learn at least the basics. His playlist of lectures is 136 videos long, starts with classical mechanics and ends waaay into string theory.
Everytime Dr. Susskind works in a box, or on a subsystem, or presumes time, that is Dr. Smolins entrée.
Anybody can tell anybody else that they are ignorant. Especially not in the face.
Proving it is another matter. I’ve been reading up on the “basics” for 30 years. Granted, I may not understand something, but so may you. Your favorite theories are crumbling, that makes you angry. Find a more constructive way to use your anger energy, Doug.
Cosmology is pretty well tested going back to at least BBN “Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, a bit sketchy around bariogenisis, but has a rather strong case that something inflation-like happened. Anything before inflation is pretty much unknown, with lots of speculation, but very few people have claimed it to be anything but speculation.
When Science Gets Ahead of Itself
http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2014/09/30/352690893/when-science-gets-ahead-of-itself
A worthwhile book is “The Golem: What Everyone should know about Science”:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Golem-Should-Science-Classics/dp/1107604656
The preface begins: “This book is for the general reader who wants to know how science really works and to know how much authority to grant to experts”. See the link above for reviews.
Climate Science will eventually become a science again.
One can only hope…… and mayhaps NASA returns to aero and astrospace science.
That there has been very little progress in fundamental physics in recent decades is unfortunately quite true. It is rather depressing to see that my old textbooks on quantum physics from the ´70s could still be used practically without change. That would definitely not have applied to 1930’s textbooks in the 1970’s!
And the big unsolved mysteries we were told about in the ´70s, like the quantization of gravity and vacuum energy are still big unsolved mysteries. True there has been progress in some fields like observational astronomy, quantum optics and solid-state physics, but not in fundamental theory.
If anything it seems that quantum physics as strengthened since the late 1960’s with continued proof of theory predictions. Not that there are not any mysteries, such as entangled particles, but not much to falsify the theory. But then probability density functions leave some room for wiggle I guess.
is Climate Science special? Indeed it is, for like Jesus it was born without sin and perfect therefore it could ever be wrong and should never be questioned . In addition its prime methodology could be consider has ‘heads I win, tail you lose’ and its models are better than reality , while the academic ‘quality’ of many of the professionals working in area is lower than would be expected for an undergraduate handing in a essay but that is fine.
Taken together I would say that makes its ‘special ‘
I find this thread to be very dissatisfying to say the least. Comparing faulty climate science with currently accepted physics such as quantum mechanics only serves to diminish the criticism of client science as it currently stands. It’s not that client science has the physics wrong, it’s that they are misapplying it and drawing unjustified conclusions.
“client science”
Yup.
I don’t see any comparison to quantum mechanics. The comparison was to String theory. The Standard model is well tested, string theory is untested.
“… Captured by Groupthink… ” …. well, not all…. .
As demonstrated by so many of you wonderful WUWT scientist-commenters, there IS hope for truth!
In Memory of Harold Lewis — a reprint of his letter published by James Delingpole (and An-tho-ny Watts) in 2010
US Physics Professor: ‘Global warming is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life’
By James Delingpole
London Telegraph
October 9th, 2010
Harold Lewis {was} Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Here is his letter of resignation to Curtis G. Callan Jr, Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society.
{An-tho-ny Watts describes it thus:
This is an important moment in science history. I would describe it as a letter on the scale of Martin Luther, nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenburg church door. It is worthy of repeating this letter in entirety on every blog that discusses science.
It’s so utterly damning that I’m going to run it in full without further comment. (H/T GWPF, Richard Brearley).}
***********************************
Harold Lewis {was} Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, former Chairman; Former member Defense Science Board, Chmn. of Technology panel; Chairman DSB study on Nuclear Winter; Former member Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Former member, President’s Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee; Chairman APS study on Nuclear Reactor Safety
Chairman Risk Assessment Review Group; Co-founder and former Chairman of JASON; Former member USAF Scientific Advisory Board; Served in US Navy in WW II; books: Technological Risk (about, surprise, technological risk) and Why Flip a Coin (about decision making)”
End James Delingpole, 2010.
String Theory is beautiful and exquisite. The ideas are a work of art.
No-one says art is science.
They aren’t provable but they are interesting.
And maybe one day the mathematics will have application in analysing observations of the real world.
Not today, obviously, but maybe one day.
When I heard a physicist named Whitten, on a PBS NOVA program, Say that “M Theory” (a unification of four different types of String Theory.) would necessitate THIRTEEN dimensions. My mind was blown. Think of the possibilities, For instance, Heaven and Hell would be possible.
That program also criticized “M Theory” as untestable. Tantamount to religion.
Mind blowing and thought provoking is all I can say about it.
“…anyone who questions String Theory, or challenges it, is looked on as a crank, an outsider.”
Bullshit. It is just an untested hypothesis and no physicist in particle physics would questioned that fact.
The challenge to ST is that cannot be tested, it is unfalsifiable and thus Popperian nonsense. The challenge to ST is that no falsifiable experiment/test/observation has been proposed in twenty years.
Note that I cast my retort so that a counter-example will be effective.
So, after calling me “ignorant” you say the same thing, using slightly different words. “Unfalsifiable” and “experiment-proof” are the same thing. String theory is unfalsifiable, and, therefore, is nonsense.
Big Bang theory, on the other hand, has been experimentally falsified, many aspects of it. For example — to make a long argument short — there are massive galaxy clusters on the edge of the infrared telescopes’ vision, which would be impossible if the Big Bang timeline would make any sense.
A pair of US scientists proved that the speed of light is constant decades before Einstein.
Einstein didn’t “prove” the speed of light was constant.
He theorized that it is the “same” for any frame of reference.
Which is far more significant contribution!
So did Poincaré with his 1898 light synchronization procedure (light speed is invariant) when he argued that simultaneity is relative. (“La Mesure du Temps”)