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.
What is needed is more Symmetric Group think.
The trouble with physics, climatology, etc. is that their practice was shifted from a scientific domain to a universal domain. Scientists have increasingly failed to distinguish between science and other philosophies. The scientific method was intended to constrain frames of reference in time and space, but the method was circumvented through acceptance of models, speculation, induction, and a uniformitarian doctrine. And they are doing it for precisely the same reasons as traditional faiths, with precisely the same consequences.
“Science is made by men, a self-evident fact that is far too often forgotten” — Werner Heisenberg
too often
[ Fixed. -ModE ]
I think the original blogger got too deep into the merits and demerits of string theory, and the “crackpot” accusers also miss the point. What Smolin quite credibly described was the way in which string theory zoomed from an obscure (some would say “crackpot”) idea to become de rigeur in the relevant scientific community within a few years. As Smolin pointed out, physics graduates were bludgeoned into string theory because, suddenly, their faculty was not interested in anything else. Grant money was awarded for little else. Academic journals would not publish about anything else.
I think the analogy to the academic suppression of research which might throw doubt on climate change orthodoxy is a close one and a good one.
Jeez. When I was doing high energy physics. string theorists were considered borderline crackpots.
That was all of ten years ago.
“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.”
String theory is not a scientific theory at all. It is a collection of facts and arguments combined with the hopes and dreams of some physicists that such a theory exists. String theory is not too difficult to solve. Nobody even knows what equations to solve. Scientific theories can be right or wrong. String theory isn’t even wrong. Read the book “Not Even Wrong” by Peter Woit.
“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”
This is a failure of imagination by physicists. Even after the experiment of Michelson and Morley in 1887, they still denied that light has a constant speed. Lorentz and Poincare developed the equations of special relativity theory before Einstein. But Einstein was credited for inventing the theory. The two physicists held the bizarre time dilation and length contraction are mere illusions. Einstein held they are real and classical mechanics had to be reformulated. He believed this even without empirical data. Einstein claimed when he formulated the theory, he was not even aware of the Michelson-Morley experiment. He was a rationalist.
Einstein’s rationalism let him down when quantum theory was starting up. He opposed it and so Bohr bested him in the famous Bohr-Einstein debates. Einstein went from radical upstart to old fuddy-duddy in the space of 25 years.
Their debate was about the interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is more a philosophical debate. They all agree on the results of real experiments and the equations of quantum mechanics. They debated on thought experiments. Other physicists thought it was a waste of time.
Steven Pinker wrote an entire book on academic dogma and the corruption of science. Well, the subject matter was a little more narrowly defined, but ….
http://www.amazon.com/The-Blank-Slate-Modern-Denial/dp/0142003344
What he of course didn’t point out was that most sociologists are of a temperament type that, more than anything, wants to “save the world” and/or “make a difference.”
Feel free to start making connections.
Do you recognize Pinker’s cover image? It is also used on the cover of my edition of Barrow and Tipler’s The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, Head Exploding by Salvador Dali 1951
Haha …. I guess I left myself wide open for that one …. making connections based on cover art. I’ll assume it was meant in humor.
But unlike your referenced book, which a quick peek leads me to believe is a complex/sciency form of mysticism, Pinker’s purpose is to battle the tendencies toward both mysticism and enforced group think which are so prevalent in the social sciences.
__________
On my point about making connections: It is becoming ever more apparent that the tendencies toward sciency, veiled mysticism and enforced group think keep popping up wherever the disciplines/organizations/institutions are predominated by people of Idealist temperament. It has long been the case in religious denominational hierarchy, but is also true of the social sciences, most activist groups (PETA, WWF, Greenpeace, etc.), journalism courses, the euphemistically named field of “women’s studies,” and yes, now climatology.
*runs off to prepare for the hate mail*
The Trouble with Physics – Another branch of science captured by groupthink
A few years ago I spent a lot of time,( could have written a thesis), reading up on the AGW models, assumptions and projections. At the time I was appalled at the bad use of mathematics and physics and data that was explored in the AR4 paper , chapter on physics. It is disturbing that on this very popular blog opinions are stated setting string theories at the level of AGW studies.
1) string theories are rigorous mathematical theories with axioms theorems and results. They explore the behavior of strings in many dimensions. They may not have been popular with mathematicians but since physicists found them possibly useful a lot of mathematical development has been going on.
2) Mathematical theories become physics theories by the addition of extra axioms, called postulates, which connect the physical situation under study to the mathematics. For example the postulate that the square of the wavefunction gives the probability of finding the particle under consideration connects Schrodingers equation, a mathematically solid wave equation, to the measurements in the lab.
3) String theories have not reached point 2 yet in a unique way. There are proposals, that try from the thousands of possibilities to pick one that would connect smoothly with the models we already have known and tested for particle physics, particularly the standard model ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Model )
—-
What string theories have and so are attracting the best minds in theoretical physics and are watched carefully by experimentalists, are two very basic things that any new theory that wants to be the theory of everything needs:
a) Allow smoothly the quantization of gravity
b) Embed the above linked standard model
String theories are the only theories I have heard of that can do this. Their draw back is the great plethora of possible models , and it is true that the new experimental constraints/signatures that have been proposed ( and they have been proposed) have not yet been found in the LHC data. The people who bet on string theories are basing their confidence on a) and b) above.
One of the predictions from a string theoretical model was the large extra dimensions ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_extra_dimension ) and another is to look for a signal in dijet events ( http://arxiv.org/abs/arXiv:1407.8120 ) , which would be the signature for spin 2 gluons, a unique prediction of strings. I am sure other predictions exist also, these are just the ones that came to my attention ( attending lectures while in retirement).
I think then that the book, or the way the book is presented here, is carrying a chip on the shoulder and is disingenuously trying to besmear the potential for discoveries using a string theoretical model with the mess of non-theories of AGW.
I am not familiar with the research of the book’s author, but I do know that loop quantum gravity is not Lorentz transformation compatible and I have not heard how it would embed the standard model of particle physics..
I suggest you read this book
http://www.amazon.com/Not-Even-Wrong-Failure-Physical/dp/0465092764
The grandiose visions of string theorists may see a glimmer of hope once they make the first little step – figure out which one of the 10^500 string vacua represents our universe. Then they will have a set of equations to talk about. After 30 years it’s still all big talk but no real solutions and no real experiments.
They say space is 9 dimensional. All observations show it’s just 3. Well then, all observations are wrong and the undefined theory of strings is correct. To think otherwise would be a failure of imagination. It’s too beautiful to be wrong.
I have heard of the book, and your descriptions do not entice me to read further . Seems to me that the title is appropriate for the content.
The grandiose visions of string theorists may see a glimmer of hope once they make the first little step – figure out which one of the 10^500 string vacua represents our universe. Then they will have a set of equations to talk about. .
The number of mathematical theories that are not fit for physics models is beyond count. The physics models were not found by the theorist thinking deep thoughts on the top of the mountain. It is experiments that defined the theory, even though in the beginning of the formulation, the theory contradicted the sense of “wrong” of the majority of physicists at that time. And of course the theorist should comprehend what the experiments mean.
After 30 years it’s still all big talk but no real solutions and no real experiments.
The solution will be tied to experimental evidence. It is very rarely in the history of physics that the theory found a solution before an experimental verification existed. I can only think of General Relativity that hit the jack pot. Usually people peddling such theories suffer the fate you assign to string theorists now.
As I said, the attraction of string theory comes because it can accommodate both quantized general relativity and the standard model. I do not think another such proposed set of mathematical models exists currently . Logic tells me that a unified theory will be described by a subset of these models. No other models have been proposed that can do this. If they are , they will be a good competition to string models and more power to them. ( I think one or two possible proposals ended up as subsets of string theories). String theories are a class of mathematical sets in the way differential equations were the set where the Schrodinger equation agreed with data, the Klein Gordon, and the Dirac. It was the data that picked these equations up out of the large number of possible wave equations.
They say space is 9 dimensional. All observations show it’s just 3. Well then, all observations are wrong and the undefined theory of strings is correct. .
Actually all physics observations say they are 4. ( I am a retired experimental particle physicist) Physics is not about the five senses. It is about measurements and our experiments have measured time as the fourth dimension. And it is a misrepresentation to say that string theorists are saying that all observations are wrong .All particle physics observations are included in string theories that is what “embed the standard mode”l means . They have the group structures to be able to do tha,t and this in a sense is an experimental validation for the string models..
String theoriests are claiming that new observations will confirm a string model, which has not yet happened. This is not unusual in particle physics. It took a long time for the great physicist Feynman to accept that QCD fitted the data better than his parton model. ( I lived through that period). That the real progress in science takes a long time to reach the hoi polloi, particularly if such and similar books are popular, is shown by your still thinking that we are observing only three dimensions.
To think otherwise would be a failure of imagination. It’s too beautiful to be wrong
It is true that ever since mathematical models are used for physics ( thermodynamics, mechanics, electrodynamics) mathematical beauty affects physicists as much as mathematicians. It comes from the old desire for the “music of the spheres” that pythagoreans proposed . Humans seek harmony, so string theories are beautiful in that way and attract strong minds in physics theory. But nobody thinks that it is too beautiful to be wrong . A model can be wrong, i.e. be falsified by the data. Mathematics can be proven wrong, and string theories are not wrong in that sense. Models may be falsified, and I have linked in my answer above two models that await falsification.
People who do not like string theories as a proposal for a theory of everything should be working like hell to embed the standard model in their theory and make sure that they include quantized gravity and give us a specific model from their theory to test in our experiments, as string theories are doing.
Don’t be a killjoy. Roger Penrose finds it compulsive reading. Perhaps he’s just a realist and sees the Emperor has no clothes despite all the praises.
“The number of mathematical theories that are not fit for physics models is beyond count.”
What other physical theory has 10^500 versions? In the history of physics, physicists find the correct theory without going through 10^500 versions. String theory is the exception.
“The solution will be tied to experimental evidence.”
If only our particle accelerators can do the job. But keep dreaming.
“Actually all physics observations say they are 4.”
Time is not space. Spacetime is 4 = 3 + 1 Had I included time, it would have been 10 dimensions not 9. BTW it’s good you mentioned Feynman because up to his death, he maintained string theory is nonsense.
Keep the faith. What’s another 30 years or 300 years? With 10^500 versions, the universe will end before string theorists find the right equations. Or hopefully they all retire and the new generation will not be as foolish.
You do not understand:
> With 10^500 versions, the universe will end before string theorists find the right equations. Or hopefully they all retire and the new generation will not be as foolish.
It is not the theorists who will find the right equations. It will be experiments, experiments trump theory every time. It is true though that experiments in particle physics now take generations. Elbow grease is needed for experiments , and for theories that aim at a theory of everything. they could try to whittle down the false vacua until experiments come up with the answer ( whether validation of falsification of a specific model).
No experiment shows that space is 9 dimensional. That alone tells the theory is wrong. They should be working on 4 dimensional theories (including time). But no it must be 9 and we must look for empirical data to support it or make up excuses why data do not support it. That is not science. That is akin to theology. Start with a metaphysical assumption, then look for observational support. If none, make up excuses but keep the faith.
What, no one has posted Planck’s dictum yet?
Science advances, one funeral at a time…..
I love that quote!
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” (Wissenschaftliche Selbstbiographie. Mit einem Bildnis und der von Max von Laue gehaltenen Traueransprache. Johann Ambrosius Barth Verlag (Leipzig 1948), p. 22, as translated in Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers, trans. F. Gaynor (New York, 1949), pp. 33–34 (as cited in T. S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions))).
I can’t believe that hardcore cranks like that may borrow your influential blog to write about a completely unrelated topic in this way, Anthony.
Well Lubos, some people label you as a “hardcore crank” but I cite you just the same. On the plus side, you don’t seem to have fallen into any groupthink pigeonhole.
Perhaps, but it has elicited some interesting replies, which I assume was the intent.
[Snip. Anna makes a good point below. Post a verifiable identity if you’re going to make such a personal attack. ~ mod.]
Moderators, I think that such ad hominem attacks should not be anonymous. Lubos Motl signs with his full name and it is pusillanimous behavior to bad mouth him like this hiding behind a pseudonym. You should not allow it..
Stavros Girgenis is my name, if that makes a difference
Now it’s time Anna makes her identity also verifiable
I am not bad mouthing anybody behind my partial anonymity.
And Stavros, I have been following Lubos on a physics blog and respect him a lot as a physicist, the depth and breadth of his physics knowledge . Personal histories do not a physicist make, a physicist is known from the mastering of the subject of physics. Incidentally I am a retired experimental particle physicist, also greek..
So, ultimately, string theory boffins are trying to find a needle in a haystack…by….. PILING ON HEAPS MORE HAY, yet are too absorbed by their own self-importance to understand that there IS NO NEEDLE IN THAT PARTICULAR HAYSTACK! Holy crap! What has happened to these people? Ah yes, socialistic group think – “:but officer, everybody else was speeding, so it can’t be wrong, so that li’l old granny that was struck down, that must be her own fault” – absolves one of personal responsibility for one’s own bad ideas and their consequences. All bow to the great high priests, or be damned as heretical deniers!!!
BRIAN: “You are ALL individuals!”
CROWD (in perfect synchronisation): “We are ALL individuals.”
LONE VOICE IN CROWD: “I’m not.”
WTF is this …?!
I thought this blog is supposed to be a climate blog and now I see it featuring a rant of a pompous arrogant layman who has not the slightest technical clue about fundamental physics but who feels entitled do rant about it and insult people who work on such topics anyway? And of course the comment section is dominated by the corresponding usual ignorant lynch-mob.
Fundamental physics is not arts or literature, where it is legitimate for everybody to have his own opinion. Fundamental physics is about how nature works and not about “opinion”. Good physicists understand the laws of nature, the laws of natures are unique, and not a matter of taste, preferences etc…
So that physicists in the know agree with each other has absolutely nothing to do with any “Groupthink” etc …
Is it really needed that such nonsense pops up even at placese where it is completely off-topic?
[Are you bringing up Einstein’s background again? He was most definitely neither pompous nor arrogant, but definitely was a layman … .mod]
String theory has started its career as a possible theory of strong forces, then it changed to a would-be theory of everything, now it is virtualy nothing more than a frame of thinking, producing extravagant mathematics with no practical applications to the real physical world. It has all the hallmarks of a religion with its priests and fanatics. Physicists have lost almost thirty years, pursuing a miracle that is always around the corner, but it never comes.
Mathematicians study complicated and incredible thought patterns that have absolutely no relation to the physical world . That theoretical physicists are exploring a challenging mathematically problem of string theories is on par with a lot of what physicists had done in generations past. One should not forget the contribution to mathematics of physicists. The years are not lost when mathematical knowledge is increased.
In addition, as I stated above , string theories are the only theories that can embed all the known particle data and at the same time quantize gravity. Theoretical physicists are correct in pursuing this research and people who are talking about religion an priests are way our of their depth and understanding what physics is about.
Physics is about gathering data, modeling it mathematically in order to predict and control new behaviors. If a better mathematical set can fulfill the goal of a unified theory for elementary forces in nature be sure that physicists will adopt it. When QCD first appeared there was some resistance of the general physics body because the great Feynman had proposed the parton model. Very soon the validation from the data converted even Feynman ( the father of the parton model) to QCD. The same will happen if a competing and more efficient model can be made for a TOE that includes known data and predicts and is validated by new data..
There is nothing about priesthood and religion in the sociology of physics, and it is libel to call trends/schools in theoretical physics religion. There may be schools and fashions but physicists, are convinced by proofs and data , not by authority.
If physicists want to study mathematics, by all means but please don’t call it physics. Physical theories must be connected to reality. Studying the 9 dimensional shape of a unicorn is fun but it’s not physics. Physicists who say string theory is theology are the ones who really understand what physics is. One of them is Sheldon Glashow. Nobel laureate in Physics and co-founder of electro-weak theory. Another is Feynman, one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century. String theorists are a confused bunch. They think physics, mathematics and theology are all the same. Their theory is science fiction in mathematical form.
To the mod – Are your remarks intended to be humorous? (they are otherwise completely irrelevant) Einstein was a layman? No, he wasn’t. Neither pompous nor arrogant? Yes he was – how else could he tell God how the world should be made? Shouldn’t a moderator have a bit more basic knowledge than those who simply comment? Or do you, like most of those above, think that all laymen are Einsteins?
You are missing the point, I think. The question is not about interpretation, but hypothesis. It is quite natural that groupthink prevails over alternative views of what, as you say, is actually going on. What is the fundamental physics, anyway? “Opinions”, gentlemen?
And don’t even get me started on confirmation bias. Suffice it to say, it is like certain things beginning with an “a”: we all have one.
We are so flawed and so human and so fallible that we need Scientific Method to protect us against ourselves. The theory is that humanity (as in HSS) started out with the social structure of the nogu. (Not pretty.)
Groupthink? Some damnwell interesting science on that, too.
So, Ook-Ook, I’m off to do science (scritch-scratch). Tally-ho.
Reblogged this on The Renaissance Mind Attempt and commented:
Interesting read. I love it when cognitive psychology crosses with science. Also, I’m pretty sure Thomas Kuhn has already made it clear that scientific revolutions aren’t as logical or objective as they should be or claim to be.
http://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Pajares/Kuhn.html
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/aug/19/thomas-kuhn-structure-scientific-revolutions
“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.
Well for one Smolin is nowhere near to a “giant” of Quantum Physics.
The proof for that is to look at the number of quotes and the number of papers (eliminating self quotes) compared to true QFT giants like Witten, Pauli, Weinberg, Dirac, Heisenberg, Susskind etc.
You don’t need to take me on my word, just verify by yourself (scholargoogle).
For two the author of this (selfcensored) apparently doesn’t publish or work in the domain of fundamental physics so that his opinions have little value in this domain. At least I found no trace of his name in HEP research. I must say that the quoted sentence gave a strong hint that this would indeed be the case.
For three Smolin is a certified climate alarmist and a progressive activist (a M.Mann light) . It makes no sense to make a parallel between Smolin and climate anti science. In reality if Smolin was allowed to post here, you would see that regarding the climate “science” he is as much in the group think as the cranks Lewandovski, Hansen & Co. Clearly not somebody you would like to meet here.
As for the fundamentals.
AnnaV made an excellent job at explaining what the debate was about. As a HEP experimenter she knows what she’s talking about even if apparently several posters didn’t understand her contribution.
L.Motl whose understanding of these domains flies far above our collective heads made a good post http://motls.blogspot.fr/2014/10/who-is-bigger-hater-of-fundamental.html?m=1 too.
I would like to add just a short summary from the QFT point of view which could make the things clearer for the readers interested and having at least the basics of QFT.
String theory is a mathematical construction explaining the physics at Planck scales e.g scales where gravity unifies with other forces. It is consistent with everything we know about physics today. It gives the right classical limit at low energy scales e.g the general relativity and it is of course Lorentz invariant.
It predicts supersymmetry and a certain number of compact small spatial dimensions.
Sofar it is the only theory having the consistence features which are necessary for any physical theory.
.
Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) is another theory created by Rovelli and Smolin jumped on the bandwagon even if he spends more time writing books than scientific papers.
It doesn’t predict supersymmetry and small compact spatial dimensions. It is not proven that it is consistent and its classical limit is right e.g general relativity. And it is not Lorentz invariant.
Because of the latter most physicists reject it because all experimental evidence we have collected over 100 years confirms Lorentz invariance.
But even the former may be decided by experiment – if the LHC finds supersymmetry then it would be one more confirmation that ST is on the right track and LQG not. Future LHC runs at 14 TeV next year may tell.
.
So those who want to really take the pain to read and understand the issues, will necessarily observe that the debate ST vs LQG is purely scientific and based on both theory and experiments and has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the climate “debate” which is based on politics and pseudo science.
The fact that a greater number of brilliant students study ST instead of LQG has everything to do with the objective evaluation shown above that ST has much greater probability to be true than LQG.
Of course les brilliant students may not understand this difference and loose their time with inconsistent theories.
Climate Science will eventually become a science again.
Yes.
Shame on Anthony Watts for posting this crap.
[right, talking about something and allowing debate to bring out weaknesses in arguments is a complete waste of time, which is why climate alarmists don’t do it to their own crappy papers -mod]
There’s some mighty high-horses on this thread. How dare Non-physicists comment on physics.
Sound sfamiliar to me. Arrogant degree holders dictating what others should think. First Climate Science now Physics. What’s next, some PHd in Geology telling me I can’t talk about rocks?
Comments on physics are welcome, even though they may show the level of ignorance, as I am sure that comments on rocks will be welcome by geologists. . It is the sociological comparison between physics and climate “science” that is unacceptable.
Climate “science” has a long way to go to become a rigorous science worthy of the name. It is a politicized tool at the hands of the fuzzy left trying to gain mob influence, and some politicians with their aiming at the hoi polloi pockets ( carbon tax etc, politicians are happy when they can tax the air we breath in and out ). The very name “climate change” shows how unscientific the discipline is, it is an oxymoron, as climate always changes.
It is hubris to put at the same level physics and climate “science” sociologically. Physics has rigorous theories that fit the data, climate “science” has sloppy computer models that predict Armageddons which do not fit the data, as this site has shown over and over again, and then are used to line the pockets of sharps through the taxation of the public and cornering carbon markets.
To the mod (again!) – Talk, debate, and argument which is to the point should always be welcome; when it is not to the point it should not be welcome. Those who provide forums for such debates, and those who moderate them, should know the difference.
Thanks TomVonK and Anna V. At least some islands of sanity here.
This is my first post on here, and while I feel like an interloper interjecting myself into this thread, please understand that it is because this particular thread has engrossed me and impressed me by its brilliance, its deference to fact-based arguments, it’s willingness to post links supporting or refuting the points being offered – but mostly for the genteel, calm and courteous tenor of the discussion. Even the mini-flames on here are mild, and quite polite.
My first job out of college was as an Environmental Laboratory Analyst testing effluent from a now-defunct textile mill water treatment plant cerca 1991. I had at that time not developed a theory on AGW, but assumed the doomsaying that I had heard throughout college, in the media and in popular culture must have had a solid scientific basis. It didn’t take long to discover the overkill of environmental regulations that had already begun to impose itself upon the textile industry, which would aid their rapid transition into industrial graveyards within a decade.
It was in 1993 that I read Leon Lederman’s “The God Particle,” which launched my interest as a non-physicist into what might be considered “layman’s physics” books. I believe I read Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time,” and then began clipping every article on the subject in a folder which I still possess.
Around 1995 I found a cassette of Michio Kaku giving a very interesting lecture that was at the level of a TED talk – geared toward the layman. But it was in that lecture that he mentioned the burgeoning field of String Theory, and I have tried to follow the developments ever since. I was a regular watcher in the last few years of “Through the Wormhole,” which does a decent job of popularizing the latest theories of smashing membranes, multiverses, string theory’s latest advances and the lead up to the CERN confirmation of the Higgs boson – at least for those of us whose time is constrained to bite-sized portions of the latest in physics and cosmology.
I later became a think tank public policy analyst and writer, and published my first debunking article on AGW in one of the major city newspapers back in 1995. And when I went back and re-read it recently, I was happy to see that it had aged well, and proved to be prescient, especially since it was researched and written prior to the rise of junkscience.com, Climate Depot, WUWT, and the others that now form the front lines of an effective counter-alarmism force.
I’m at the point where I feel I can eschew much of the AGW scientific claims, the insouciance of the warmists, and the ferocity of the defense of the AGW monolith to break down my skepticism to the basics of the scientific method. Please let me know if my derivation to these basic questions are unscientific, naive or just impolitic in the current environment:
What is the null hypothesis proffered by the AGW proponents that can be readily tested? If there is none, am I right in assuming that the theory is automatically invalid, or at a minimum, those proposing it lack the confidence or integrity to do the basic scientific step of proffering one? And if that is too much to ask, why is there no Poisson distribution offered; for example, if atmospheric CO2 reaches x ppm, there is a 95 percent probability that surface temperatures will rise by 1 degree Fahrenheit within 10 years? It seems to me, that the claims to valid modeling would require at least a couple of testable predictions of that ilk. Why are none of the warmists required by their professional associations, their university departments, or the pressure from scientific rationalists to at least put something testable on the table?
Big Bang, Evolution/natural Selection, String Theory. These have become dogma. Does being dogma mean they are incorrect? No. But it is unscientific to treat them as dogma.
When your criteria for science comprise these five,
(1) Falsification (truth value in lieu of probability),
(2) Peer-review by and Publication in approved journals,
(3) Established a Type II error rate (disregarding Type I errors),
(4) Claimed a consensus in some community, and
(5) Respected the social consequences of your model,
then you have replaced scientific deduction by Cause & Effect with induction, and satisfied all of the following:
(a) Popper’s major criteria for science, generally his overarching “intersubjective” criterion,
(b) Four of the Daubert v. Merrill Dow criteria for scientific knowledge in the courtroom (excepting #5),
(c) The requirements of Post Modern Science, and
(d) Dogma.
I’ve never heard “that guy”: talk but I’ll agree with Brian about the crackpot label. I read Smolin’s “Time Reborn, From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe”.
He writes ” … we need a new conception for a law of nature, valid on the cosmological scale, which avoids the fallacies, dilemmas, and paradoxes and answers the questions that the old framework cannot address.
Moreover, it must be a scientific theory–that is, it must make falsifiable predictions for new, but doable, experiments.”
Great, this should be book about science but Smolin demolishes his credibility with an epilogue that descends into the religion of climate warming catastrophe and apparently, global government.
Excerpts below:-
[Blockquotes added since those are a copy of the author’s words, not your paraphrase of his words. .mod]
thallstd October 12, 2014 at 11:43 am
I read somewhere a long while ago that Communism is a much better framework for pure science than Capitalism since there is no profit motive to contend with.
This was realized long ago in the famous pair of inscriptions on the back of a old wooden lecture chair in the legendary MIT 10-250 lecture hall
Note — Although the two inscriptions are similar types of crude carvings they appear to have been created by different hands and presumable separated in time — however to date — no one has been able to establish the causal sequence
So here are the two — labeled 1 and 2 for convenience without any intent to imply a time line
1) Plotting is a Communist Science
2) Science is a Communist Plot
circa no later than 1970 when I observed them personally
Under Communism there is still nepotism, racism, and simply being “PC” to survive, e.g. Lysenkoism.
Communism didn’t let the purest of sciences thrive – Mathematics. Edward Frenkel’s book “Love and Math” is an illustration. http://math.berkeley.edu/~frenkel/