Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Daily Caller – The New York Times has provided one of the most inane reasons ever for why we should trust alarmist climate predictions.
Should You Trust Climate Science? Maybe the Eclipse Is a Clue
Justin Gillis
BY DEGREES AUG. 18, 2017
Eclipse mania will peak on Monday, when millions of Americans will upend their lives in response to a scientific prediction.
Friends of mine in Georgia plan to drive 70 miles to find the perfect spot on a South Carolina golf course to observe the solar eclipse. Many Americans will drive farther than that, or fly, to situate themselves in the “path of totality,” the strip of the country where the moon is predicted to blot out the sun entirely.
Thanks to the work of scientists, people will know exactly what time to expect the eclipse. In less entertaining but more important ways, we respond to scientific predictions all the time, even though we have no independent capacity to verify the calculations. We tend to trust scientists.
For years now, atmospheric scientists have been handing us a set of predictions about the likely consequences of our emissions of industrial gases. These forecasts are critically important, because this group of experts sees grave risks to our civilization. And yet, when it comes to reacting to the warnings of climate science, we have done little.
…
The scientists told us that the Arctic would warm especially fast. They told us to expect heavier rainstorms. They told us heat waves would soar. They told us that the oceans would rise. All of those things have come to pass.
Considering this most basic test of a scientific theory, the test of prediction, climate science has established its validity.
…
I don’t ever recall hearing an astronomer claim that we should trust eclipse predictions because climate science is valid. But then, Astronomy enthusiasts probably don’t feel a burning need to cloak the failed predictions of their heroes with a shaky veneer of pan-scientific solidarity.
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Issac Newton is rolling over in his grave.
Just as climate science predicted he would.
Bravo sir! You win +1000000 Internets today! Exceedlingly well done!
And Richard Feynman.
“The scientists told us that the Arctic would warm especially fast. They told us to expect heavier rainstorms. They told us heat waves would soar. They told us that the oceans would rise”
What? Where? When?
Cheers
Roger
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
I know how to end global warming. Very simple. If someone says he’s a climate scientist, pounce on him and sew his mouth shut. That should cut his carbon contribution by BILLIONIS of cubic feet of twaddle and hot, CO2-loaded air.
Hey, my shot of the eclipse was only possible because the clouds in my area finally parted and I got the moon halfway out of covering the sun. We only had a partial eclipse where I am, but of course, it had to be cloudy, just like the Farmers Almanac had predicted.
It’s even easier than that. Just dry up government funding of climate research. Everyone knows that government research of funding is the true cause.
That is the sort of understanding of “science” an English Lit or Poli Sci or Women’s Studies major has, and they seem to be the people hired to write for the Grey Lady.
Don’t overlook or ignore the way journalism majors fit into this grouping of “science scholars.”
Spot the difference. Scientists who make falsifiable predictions about eclipses get it right. THAT is why people believe them.
Those who predict Arctic will be “ice free by 2014” or Manhattan will be under 6ft of water and get it wrong we do not believe.
yes , we USED TO TRUST scientists. We are now waking up from this idyllic Victorian image of science.
The problem is “climate science” is populated largely by liars and goofs, not scientists.
Or hired to work for Berkeley Earth as a “scientist”, cf. Steven Mosher, the failed UCLA Eng. Lit. PhD candidate.
tw2017. are you suggesting that only people with “appropriate” qualifications should be allowed to comment on climate? who is to decide which qualification is “appropriate”?
I prefer to judge the quality of the contribution on its merits, rather than to look at a persons first degree to judge.
“I prefer to judge the quality of the contribution on its merits,”
So you agree that Mosh is nothing but the equivalent of a used car salesman.
Well done.
tw, Mosh hasn’t made a comment here. Disagree with something he said, as I and others have at times, but this strikes me as a personal attack coming out of nowhere.
Perhaps you didn’t mean it that way but that’s how it sounds.
You should have passed calculus.
I read that the Aztecs were able to predict eclipse. I’m certain the NYT would be ok if we adopted all the other science of the Aztecs, their eclipse-sophy proves all their other science is equally reliable. Of course, Aztec science on sustainability is a bit problematic.
When do the sacrifices start? Volunteers?
Also, as with science discoveries everywhere, the ancient Chaldeans were able to predict the same through their own independently derived techniques.
Who peer reviewed the Aztecs research? We all know it’s only valid science if it’s been peer reviewed.
/sarc
What a sad, sad,sad reflection on ‘climate science’ and the saddest aspect of it is that it really is at least 97% accurate.
Thankyou NYT, you know not what you have done. Lots of climate of socialist propaganda and nil scientific logic.
It should be called Climate Political Science !
I saw this. It sums up just how ignorant they are.
…it’s embarrassingly sad
I heard it on the BBC World Service, which ended its otherwise very good coverage with the statement: “there are no eclipse sceptics”, together with a celebration of the gender equality of the scientists they talked to.
Surely they jest. Doesn’t anyone at the Times read/gather/acknowledge real news anymore?
Obviously not. And yet, “the moNkeYs wriTe.”
I thought there must have been an article like this out there somewhere because the trolls at several of the news sites I read were using exactly that rationale as a general put-down for anyone they disagreed with. “How can you be such a science den–r but you believe in the eclipse…” was found in just about every board about the eclipse yesterday. Obviously the talking points went out somewhere. The fact that one is based on very long observation with no data manipulation required while the other is still at the state of epicycles and whirlygigs has absolutely nothing to do with it!
i saw a similar opinion letter to editor in the local paper.
this “logical” attack on “deniers” must have been choreographed ahead of time between some of the echo chamber groups to get it into the papers the day following the eclipse.
Hey, don’t knock epicycles and whirlygigs, they generally made much more accurate predictions than climate science.
Definition: “Climate Prediction”
A guess or an assumption – especially one made by a climate prophet or under divine inspiration.
Wish I had a whirlygig!
A friend of mine posted from Neil deGrasse Tyson on Aug 11th:
“Odd. No one is in denial of America’s Aug 21 total solar eclipse. Like Climate Change, methods & tools of science predict it.”
My response:
“On the 21st the calculations based on proven math will be proven correct. It’s a little different than ‘my model what has never predicted anything correctly in the present nor the past says your HEMI is going to kill us all in 100 years'”
So in addition to his other faults, Dr. Tyson is a common tr0ll.
Even better- imagine Dr. Tyson, circa 1400 A.D.: “Odd. No one is in denial that the plague is caused by mortal sin. Like the flatness of earth, methods & tools of science confirm it.” Neil would have been a very enthusiastic inquisitor.
I wonder if Tyson is aware that the temperature can drop up to 28F during a solar eclipse according to Google. Has anyone checked to see if the rate of temperature drop has decreased as CO2 has risen? Yeah, I know. Time, temp and details of atmospheric condition. But it hasn’t!
He was on the Jim and Sam show on SiriusXM a few months back. The bits I listened to were funny, and he was engaging. I didn’t hear any discussion of climate change thank goodness.
Then in the final few minutes, they brought up Bill Nye and mentioned that there was a portion of a past episode that Nye did on gender and genetics that has been deleted. Neil quickly went into “I don’t know anything about that so I don’t want to comment” territory, and after the situation was explained to him, he went into, “Well maybe the science has changed since then”…blah blah blah. “Scientist”…pfffft.
Proper comprehension of this issue actually depends on having a sufficiently high intelligence quotient. Neil de Grasse Tyson’s I.Q. isn’t that high, after all.
“because the trolls at several of the news sites I read”
Good deduction, Owen.
Posting on multiple discussion boards, I see a lot of comments that seem orchestrated. Given that there are a lot of underemployed post-high school people around nowadays, there is plenty of “person power” to provide the necessary labor force, either for free or at relatively low cost.
Climate Sorosist
To my mind their science is more like a whimmy diddle than a whirligig. Stroke the data in one direction and you get things goin’ gee, stroke it in t’other direction and it turns haw. All you flatlanders can google ‘whimmy diddle’ if’n ya wonder whut it is. Whimmy diddles don’t accomplish much but they do amuse small children for hours.
There was a Neil DeGrasse Tyson tweet, which I’m sure spurred many of those postings.
List of failed Climate Change Catastrophies
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/02/the-big-list-of-failed-climate-predictions
Thanks, It would be good to see this list updated to 2017.
This person needs to take a course in logic. The statement reduces to: Some (many / most) scientific theories are valid; Global Warming is a scientific theory; therefore Global Warming is valid.
Definitions of Fact, Theory, and Law in Scientific Work from National Academy of Sciences
Science uses specialized terms that have different meanings than everyday usage. These definitions correspond to the way scientists typically use these terms in the context of their work. Note, especially, that the meaning of “theory” in science is different than the meaning of “theory” in everyday conversation.
Fact: In science, an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as “true.” Truth in science, however, is never final and what is accepted as a fact today may be modified or even discarded tomorrow.
Hypothesis: A tentative statement about the natural world leading to deductions that can be tested. If the deductions are verified, the hypothesis is provisionally corroborated. If the deductions are incorrect, the original hypothesis is proved false and must be abandoned or modified. Hypotheses can be used to build more complex inferences and explanations.
Law: A descriptive generalization about how some aspect of the natural world behaves under stated circumstances.
Theory: In science, a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses.
Source – https://ncse.com/library-resource/definitions-fact-theory-law-scientific-work
Not a Theory yet. They Skipped a Step somewhere, since the Hypothesis stage hasn’t been verified, tested or corroborated.
Yep. Anthropogenic Global Warming is a hypothesis… A hypothesis that has been repeatedly falsified by the climate models.
The funny thing is that the AGW hypothesis could be confirmed if they simply devised climate models which reflected a realistic climate sensitivity to CO2. Then they would at least have a functioning theory. They would simply have to sacrifice their “cash cow”… the climate change crisis.
Climate models cannot falsify the AGW hypothesis. Similarly, climate models cannot be used as evidence for the validity of the AGW hypothesis. All climate models are wrong, but some are more useful than others.
They seem to be in “lock step” even about the missteps.
We had much smarter people determining eclipse events long before we had the non scientific catastrophic global alarmists. To make any connections shows absolute ignorance. Suggesting that skepticism about global warming indicates a disbelief about real science and physics is pure ignorance
step and fetch is always very articulate but dumb as a hammer …
Except that global warming isn’t even a theory. At best it’s a group if hypotheses without any possibility of falsification.
Or to put it another way— it’s possibly right but probably rubbish. Time will tell.
My take would be it’s definitely rubbish with just a speck of a chance that they got it right by dumb luck.
If there had been 20 years of predicting an eclipse in the US every year, but it never happened – would people still believe the predictions or the ‘scientists’ making them?
If there had been 20 years predicting large temperature increases and the temperature showed no statistically significant increase – would people still believe the predictions or the ‘scientists’ making them ?
QED
“If there had been 20 years predicting large temperature increases and the temperature showed no statistically significant increase –”
Have you actually seen the temperatures recently? They have increased. All the temperature data sets show an increase.
I am interested in why you think the temperature has not increased. Can you explain to me why you think this is the case? It is something of a mystery to me and I would welcome an explanation.
https://realclimatescience.com/2017/08/new-video-getting-started-with-unhiding-the-decline/
Not an explanation, but a succinct correlation of various parameters in an interesting variety of ways.
Damn those facts.
Seaice1 :-
I am sorry that you are puzzled (or is it disappointed?) that predictions of global warming have failed to materialise. Perhaps you should consult the IPCC which publicly accepts that there has been no statistically significant increase in global temperarures for 20 years or so.
Presumably you disagree with the IPCC ?
Perhaps you should look at the graph of the CMIP-5 model predictions helpfully provided by Janice Moore, these show how every single prediction has failed to materialise.
The Central England temperature record shows a Decline in temperatures between 2000 and 2015 of ~0.51 C.
https://judithcurry.com/2015/11/25/the-rise-and-fall-of-central-england-temperature/
The Chinese Government recently reported a 20 year Decline in temperatures across eastern China.
Temperatures have increased? Maybe. Maybe the past adjustments are now being done “realtime”?
Either way, “The Cause” is the mystery.
Yep, Old England.
QED
We have been through this many times before, I am surprised we have to do it again. You have to compare like with like- surface to surface and you have to be up to date. Your plot seems to end at 2014.
Anyway, the claim was that temperatures had not risen. Can you show me a surface temperature data set that does not show rising temperatures?
1. The point is made with the graph I provided.
2. Do. Your. Own. Homework.
How many times….
seaice1 is trying to pull the old switcheroo. Moving from man made CO2 warming to just warming.
Nice try old chap but NO CIGAR!
“…the claim was that temperatures had not risen…”
No seaice1, that was not the claim. The claim was there had been a 20 year period as such (ok, so it was over 19 yrs and less than 20 maybe?). The actual quote is below. You are either being deceitful or failing to comprehend a very simple statement.
“…If there had been 20 years predicting large temperature increases and the temperature showed no statistically significant increase…”
“…you have to be up to date. Your plot seems to end at 2014…”
It was never stated that the 20 year period was through present day. You have to be literate.
Seaice said, “Anyway, the claim was that temperatures had not risen.” But, this is the the claim he was responding to – “If there had been 20 years predicting large temperature increases and the temperature showed no statistically significant increase –”
I’m way too slow Michael J
A mythical scenario:-
If Model A says it will be 1º warmer
Model B says it will be 3º warmer
The average says it will be 2º warmer
And it turns out to be 1º warmer.
Are the models then wrong?
Why would an average be used as the projection to be falsified?
Janice, it’s really not a good idea to average model outputs the way Bob has. It’s an invalid use of the statistic.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0800578/
If Jungle Jim was a climate scientist the superstitious natives would have cut their fracking heads off… And they probably wouldn’t have waited through 30 years of failed predictions of catastrophic warming.
Old England,
You seem to have rattled the cage of seaice. He/she seems to be having a meltdown!
Funny article.
“If the science were brand new, that might make sense, but climate scientists have been making predictions since the end of the 19th century. ”
I trust scientists whose predictions come true. It shows that the theories they’re working from have predictive power.
That hasn’t been climate “scientists” to date. The list of so called “correct” predictions….ha.
Note the writer does not say “correct predictions”. Those omissions are important to take note of.
“correct predictions” absolutely right. What if the moon eclipse only showed up sometimes, in some places, other times not. When the moon eclipse does not show up it then would take years to explain where it went. When scientist STILL could not find the moon would explain it was hiding behind Jupiter with no way to verify empirically. Finally to keep everyone’s interest, would next predict when moon did come back eclipses would more frequent than initially estimated.
“In less entertaining but more important ways, we respond to scientific predictions all the time, even though we have no independent capacity to verify the calculations. We tend to trust scientists.”
Um….MILLIONS of people independently verified the scientific calculations regarding the time and place of the eclipse.
And MILLIONS of people are independently aware that the “scientific calculations” done by AGW climate scientists are UNTRUSTWORTHY.
Newest Pew Research poll shows less than 1/3 of Americans tends to “trust” climate scientists.
Perhaps the NY Times will need to send another one of their science editors to the fashion dept, as they did the last time one of them made a horrific blunder. This indescribably inane article ranks right up there.
Should we mention that astronomers have been successful with good models and math, while “climate scientists” using rigged models have not been sucessful on predictions.
Maybe it was just a lucky guess that they got the path of the total eclipse right. Perhaps if the “climate scientists” keep guessing they may themselves get lucky yet.
I got to thinking the other day, if climate models are so good why don’t they write similar models for roulette?
That way the casinos would provide the funding for their efforts.
Didn’t the people who came up with this https://www.livescience.com/60144-antikythera-computer-predicted-eclipses.html
Also come up with the geo-centric theory- which was completely wrong?
People have known about eclipses since people. climate science is in total infancy compared to that.
Greek astronomers knew that the Earth was spherical, that the Earth moved around the Sun, and had a pretty good figure for the diameter of the Earth. The people who designed the Antikythera mechanism likely knew all of that.
And even then, the ability to predict eclipses was a millennium old at that point. Even the builders of Stonehenge knew that; that’s why they BUILT the thing, as an eclipse calculator.
Stonehenge was built in stages over thousands of years. Likely not by the same group of people.
They don’t understand that celestial mechanics is an old and by now well known discipline. When it comes to climate we have barely begun to scratch the surface with it’s myriad of factors and parameters that might amplify each other sometimes and sometimes work at cross purpose. The House of Cards guy on twitter pointed to the fact that both used math as an argument as to why his claim was valid.
I can change the value of a constant. The equation will still be mathematically correct but it may no longer correctly model the physical reality which he doesn’t seem to grasp.
OR, the thing you thought was a constant is just an abstraction of a partial differential that in “normal” environments is differentiating along a line and so can be approximated by a constant in MOST circumstances near the surface. As soon as those circumstances are not true, the “constant” can become a highly perturbable function nothing like constant in that region. Linearlity is a key assumption of most everything in climate science and very little of it actually is.
The eclipse is a physical science phenomena.
AGW climate scientists are a money grasping political phenomena.
As valid as the [political/social] consensus.
Unlike the Earth’s climate system, the trajectory of objects can be sufficiently characterized, modeled, and the results reproduced.
IOW, long-term eclipse-prediction is truly “basic physics,” long-term temperature-prediction is not.
The way I see it is that the climate scientists haven’t predicted eclipses, astronomers have.
I saw this same argument on another thread. It would have more meaning if I could see the equation for the global temperature in degrees C as a function of the concentration of carbon dioxide in units of parts per million and then a few test runs to prove it was true. Until I see that, I’m not impressed.
The eclipse proves the sun controls the climate. I was at the top of Strawberry Mtn in Oregon and the temperature dropped 15-20 degrees when the eclipse occurred.
Yes. A bit more dramatic temp drop because the 10:19am time (Madras, OR) had not allowed significant day time heating of ground, plants, and air, I suspect.
I was just north of Madras. Very ‘cool’ to see the solar aurora, prominences, and implied magnetic fields through binoculars during totality.
With regard to astronomy, there are proven mathematical equations that are even beyond the point of theory all the way to law. If they couldn’t predict the eclipse accurately, it would be a crisis of competency.
“The scientists told us that the Arctic would warm especially fast. They told us to expect heavier rainstorms. They told us heat waves would soar. They told us that the oceans would rise. All of those things have come to pass.”
This is the best they have? The Arctic was already warming especially fast, so is not a prediction. Heavier rainstorms haven’t arrived, so is a failed prediction. Heat waves have not soared, so also a failed prediction. Where oceans were already rising, they have continued to rise at an unchanged rate. Where oceans were falling, they have continued falling at an unchanged rate. where oceans were not changing level, they have continued not changing their level. “Oceans rising” is a three-way prediction failure.
For eclipse predictions to compare predicted eclipses would have to fail to happen, while successful eclipse “predictions” would be announced only after an eclipse was observed to be starting.
SR
Didn’t they tell us most of those things after the data was in? It wasn’t a prediction, it was fitting the theory to what was happening. Until the melting sea ice, most seemed to believe the rate of warming would be even over the planet since CO2 concentration is said to be equal. Uneven warming is a problem. It was also claimed that “local” changes were not relevant, until the Arctic lost ice. Suddenly, local was the canary in the coal mine.
Actually, their initial predictions was that the arctic would NOT warm faster than the rest of the globe.
Never seen a more inane illogical statement. Could equally have used Einstein relativy since GPS works. Or the germ theory infectious disease because antibiotics work. And so on.
The problem with climate science is it doesn’t work. Huge discrepancy between CMIP5 and observations, per Christy congressional testimony 29 March. Huge discrepancy between modeled and observational sensitivity. Huge discrepancy between predicted and observed sea level rise. As for AGW cause and effect, except for the now mostly cooled 2015-16 El Nino blip, no warming this century, a period also comprising 35% of the increase in atmospheric CO2 since 1958.
Ever notice when Christy or other skeptic testify before Congress, the Dems send in only one attack dog armed with 97% and other silly claims. The rest of the Democrat members do not attend because they are afraid of any truth that destroys their religious like beliefs.
They probably know that they are running and supporting a scam and don’t want to be exposed to science.
I’ve been blasting some numbnut on TreeHugger who is quoting the 97% meme, who then posted an infographic showing “consensus” among climate researchers, all of which are 93% or higher.
I’ve pointed out that Oreskes 2004 and Cook et al. 2013 all begin with a false premise of assessing only those abstracts that begin with an endorsement of AGW and continue by asking the researchers whether humans are inducing human-caused AGW, and make an analogy that such loaded queries is akin to asking only those who think strawberry ice cream is the best flavor of ice cream whether or not strawberries are integral to making strawberry ice cream. All I get back is, “BUT THE CONSENSUS!! . . . .”
They’re too thick to even understand where their logical reasoning has gone circular.
The astronomers of ancient Babylon and China were able to predict eclipses (2000 BC even). Climate scientists don’t do observations like these astronomers did over centuries in order to understand. If anything, climate scientists just make up their “observations” and don’t want to actually understand. They just want the religion followed.
More to the point, the ancient Astrologers made accurate predictions of the positions of heavenly bodies, including eclipses. Does that “prove” that Astrology is a “settled science”?
Mesopotamian “scientists” had eclipses figured out a couple of thousand of years ago but i don’t recall them fretting over climate change
Is that why much of it is desert today?
Scientists can add 2 plus 2….
…climate change is real
Film at 11……….
Yes,but some of them end up with 22 as the answer.