Guest opinion: Dr. Tim Ball
President Trump did the right thing by withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. It was a bad deal for the United States. Despite this, polls claim a majority of Americans opposed his action. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Secretary Scott Pruitt is trying to take what appears to be a more balanced political and legal approach by allowing a debate presenting both sides of the science. It will have little to no effect because most of the public doesn’t understand the science. The big problem is it begs the question; Why is it necessary to provide a forum for balance? Why does the global warming story not go away after exposure to the corrupted science of the major players behind the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) through leaked emails, exposure of bureaucrats deliberately adjusting the historic record, and worst of all, the failed forecasts?
The answer is simple and therefore profound and makes an answer essential. I know from experience that after you explain to an audience what and how the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) deception was achieved the next question is inevitable. What was the motive? Unless you answer that question, people become a little more skeptical but remain, at best, undecided. They can’t and don’t want to believe that scientists would be involved in anything nefarious or even misleading. They can’t believe that so many of them were misled, which is why the 97% consensus claim was so effective.
Attacks on people who try to explain the motive indicate how threatening it is to the perpetrators of the deception. It intensified as the challenges grew. For example, the charge of “global warming skeptic” is far less vindictive and isolating than “climate change denier” with all the holocaust connotations. Similar nastiness is inferred in calling people who identified the motive conspiracy theorists. Definitions of conspiracy indicate why that term causes problems.
- An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act
- An agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action.
There is nothing illegal about the objective of proving AGW, so it was not a conspiracy. However, there was illegality in what some of those involved did, as the emails exposed. For example, a definition of conspiracy as a noun says
“A conspiracy to manipulate the results: plot, scheme, plan, machination, ploy, trick, ruse, subterfuge;”
They even introduced a semblance of a conspiracy by calling themselves “The Team.”
Hoax was another term incorrectly applied to what happened, partly because nobody wants to talk about the motive. It is not a hoax because although it may have a malicious effect, it is primarily a humorous pricking of pomposity. There is nothing humorous about the AGW story.
An appropriate appellation for the AGW deception is a cabal.
A small group of intriguers, especially one formed for political purposes.
In the case of AGW, the cabal was the Club of Rome (COR). There is nothing wrong with a political view or agenda, but the difference with the COR agenda was the misuse of science to promote it. Misused science is not science or even pseudoscience. Science and its practice must be apolitical and fact based. As a result, scientists prefer to avoid politics. Similarly, most politicians avoid science precisely because it is about facts.
An intriguing and telling part of the AGW war was that it quickly became political and a person was labelled based on their view. If you questioned the AGW claim, you were right wing, if you accepted it you were left wing, regardless of your actual political views. Ironically, the way to take the politics out of the scientific and debate is to identify the political motive. Here is a summary of what that is:
- COR expanded the Malthusian idea that overpopulation would exhaust food supply to all resources.
- They claimed each person used resources and the number of people was increasing so the demand would increase.
- Those who achieved development used resources at a greater rate and more nations were developing. They had to be stopped, and development curtailed overall.
- Development was achieved by use of fossil fuels and must be eliminated.
- A parallel population reduction program was essential, hence the Cairo conference in 1994.
- Beyond potential resource exhaustion (Limits to Growth), they needed a vehicle to manipulate people toward their agenda: a fear factor with a global threat.
- Through Maurice Strong, COR member, they set up the IPCC to prove that the use of fuels produced CO2 that was causing runaway global warming.
The global impact transcended nations that only a global government could resolve. Elaine Dewar summarized by Strong’s actions at the UN: “Strong was using the U.N. as a platform to sell a global environment crisis and the Global Governance Agenda.”
Their motive is acceptable as a form of socialism with which you can agree or disagree. The problem is they made it virtually impossible for people to make that choice by misusing the science and silencing those who challenged that misuse. A measure of that dilemma is a socialist scientist who doesn’t accept AGW.
It is quite straightforward. Scott Pruitt should abandon his attempts to present the other side and explain why only one side was presented. To do this, he must explain the motive and only then can people properly decide what the truth is about AGW.
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Having debated those on the Left much of my life I believe we are beating around the proverbial bush here. Before AGW the socioeconomic left and the environmental left had a hard time coming together for very long. Nothing could rally them together. There was no unifying force. With AGW they could see a tool to attack what they believe is the evil in the world, capitalism and the USA as the primary representative of capitalism. I shouldn’t need to detail what the various supporters of socialism want. For environmentalists it is a different story. They see corporations as the destroyers of the environment while paradoxically at the same time some of their biggest funder. How do you destroy capitalism, reduce, raise the cost of or eliminate entirely cheap energy. As they see it that is fossil fuels in its many forms. Carbon dioxide and other human caused greenhouse emissions are the perfect stick. The AGW crowd HATES it when the true cost of renewables is detailed anywhere. The bigger question for me as a trained scientist is why has this so corrupted science and been so responsible for suppress good honest scientific debate?
Unfortunately this kind of debate falls flat as soon as you hold both sides accountable to bad evidence and deceptive behaviour. When you do that, those vying to convince us that global warming is not human caused have far more to answer for. So much in fact it paints a very clear picture and begs a question. What was their motivation. Yes, you can ask that question both ways you know.
Example A, Exxon. Vested interests. Exposed cover up.
Let me know how many more you want and we will keep them rolling.
The question is why it continues without empirical evidence. Typical drive by troll.
Perhaps you meant to use a different word. We have tons of empirical evidence for human caused climate change. It is actually the main type of evidence we have. It is a change of evidence that supports the case. We do not have a way to test it, as we do not have another earth to conduct tests on.
Do you think smoking is a cause for lung related diseases? If you do, you accept the evidence in the case. You accept the strong correlations. Yet nobody has conducted clinical trials to prove that smoking causes lung disease. Do we need to?
The main claim of this post is framing an issue based on a failure in presentation of facts. Yet this is happening in far greater frequency and to much greater extremes on the side of those rejecting the case for human caused warming.
*chain of evidence that supports the case…
“….We have tons of empirical evidence for human caused climate change…..” then give me one gram of such “evidence”.
“give me one gram of such “evidence”.”
In simple terms, using various tools and methods we have observed an increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. We have also observed an increase in population and activities that directly contribute to CO2 emissions. There is a well established and accepted result of what this does to the earth.
For reference, meaning of the word ‘Emprical’
“Relying on or derived from observation or experiment. Verifiable or provable by means of observation or experiment. Of or being a philosophy of medicine emphasizing practical experience and observation over scientific theory.”
If you have a specific contention in the chain of evidence, lets discuss this one point at a time. This is what I did when investigating this issue for myself as I was once not convinced of the claims either.
David:
“Verifiable or provable by means of observation or experiment” is a property of a model for which there is an underlying statistical population. For the global warming models of the United Nations IPCC there is no underlying statistical population. Therefore, the claims that are made by these models are not verifiable or provable.
Needed in support of the public policy on global warming is a model for which there is an underlying statistical population. Currently, such a model does not exist. With political pressure from concerned citizens such as yourself we might succeed in coaxing the government of the U.S. to produce one.. This, then would provide the scientific basis for making public policy on global warming that does not currently exist..
Terry – “Verifiable or provable by means of observation or experiment” is a definition for the word Empirical. This was addressing the claim “there is no empirical evidence”. Yet there are many forms of evidence that meet this definition.
Making the case for climate change is about collection of such evidence and presenting as a case. It is not ‘dependent’ on models. These are only a part of chain evidence. However, the way models are tested and verified is by checking that they work in hindcasting. We can validate as best possible that models match what has happened in the past. But as you would know, modeling climate is an extremely complex task.
We have public polices on smoking. Did we need to have causality proven? What was used? Yet we claim to have a scientific basis for making such policies based off the observations and correlations that clearly show a pattern that is worth acting on.
David:
Thank you for taking the time to respond. You argue that
Verifiable or provable by means of observation or experiment” is a definition for the word Empirical. Yet
there are many forms of evidence that meet this definition.
This argument is an example of an “equivocation,” that is, an argument in which one or more terms change meaning in the midst of the argument. The terms that change meaning are “empirical” and “evidence.”
To draw a conclusion from an equivocation is the “equivocation fallacy.”aka “bait and switch fallacy.” You draw such a conclusion when you assert that “…there are many forms of evidence that meet this definition.” If you wished you could avoid application of the equivocation fallacy by disambiguation of the language in which your argument is written such that each term has a single meaning. It would then be impossible for this argument to apply the equivocation fallacy.
Terry
What I said is written above and it is clear.
There was challenge that there is no “empirical evidence” made by Markl. Based on the definition of ‘Emprical’, we certainly do have this kind of evidence, that much is very clear. However it is something that gets said a lot and often by mistake. What is correct to say is that we cannot provide an experimental example to support the claims. And there is good reason for this as you know. We only have one earth.
You want to dance around the use of words here, though it is actually quite clear. ‘Empircal’ has no default state implying that an experiment must be carried out. I actually made a point of saying in a previous reply that perhaps a better word should be used to describe the issue Markl has since using a word.
There is nothing corrupt or deceptive about how I am using the word Empirical in this case.
If you have some contention about the issue at large, something on point with what we have been discussing such as the use of models, the evidence or particular claims in the climate debate lets look at them one by one. I would be happy to discuss them with a view to finding the best understanding. However, jumping around to new points and semantics is not going to be very productive.
David:
The question under discussion is not whether what you have written is “clear” but rather is whether terms of the argument that you make are ambiguous. By the definition of “ambiguous” some of these terms are ambiguous. Do you oppose disambiguation of these terms?
Terry: I think my last reply covers any sense of ambiguity. The definition of the word ’empirical’ is written out for all to see. I made clear in my reply that what I provided as evidence fits the definition.
Here is another definition from a different source.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empirical
1: originating in or based on observation or experience empirical data
2: relying on experience or observation alone often without due regard for system and theory an empirical basis for the theory
3: capable of being verified or disproved by observation or experiment empirical laws
4: of or relating to empiricism
In what way is the example evidence I gave NOT empirical?
Terry:
I should add. That in the case for climate change, the evidence does include experiments that validate the claims. Things such as what green house gas does and how it works to warm things. That HAS been tested and proven through experiments.
David:
That Earth’s climate changes follows from the definition of terms thus being at issue only among mental defectives. At best, what greenhouse gas does and how it works is not a fact but rather is a theory. This theory cannot be tested unless and until the statistical population underlying this theory is identified. That it is identified is not currently the case.
Terry: There are experiments though.
Such as using an Infrared thermometer outside. When pointing straight up, you will get a cooler reading than when you point it towards the horizon. It is in line with more greenhouse gases when you point toward the horizon and so it will be warmer. That is a test that has been performed and you can do yourself. As such, this would meet your terms of it being a fact.
Please also watch this experiment on how CO2 (a greenhouse gas) effects temperature
Moderator:
In my previous post, the following text should be indented, minus the quotation marks::
“Verifiable or provable by means of observation or experiment” is a definition for the word Empirical. Yet
there are many forms of evidence that meet this definition”
[sorry, can’t make that indented formatting work in comments -mod]
David:
When you say that “the evidence does include experiments that validate the claim” the terms “evidence” and “validate” have multiple meanings. This property of the two terms makes of your argument an example of an “equivocation.” An equivocation looks like a syllogism but while the conclusion of a syllogism is true, the conclusion of an equivocaion is false or unproved. Thus, while it is logically proper to draw a conclusion from a syllogism, it is logically improper to draw a conclusion from an equivocation. To draw such a conclusion is the “equivocation fallacy.” In concluding that “the evidence does include experiments that validate the claims” you are guilty of application of the equivocation fallacy.
In the language of global warming climatology, the term “validate” has two meanings. This ambiguity of meaning has been eliminated by the IPCC by the disambiguation in which the term “validate” is used in reference to testing in a sample drawn from a statistical population and the term “evaluate” is used in reference to testing in a global warming time series. Currently, in every case in which a model has been tested this has been in a times series and not in a population but it is testing in a population that imparts to a model the property of falsifiability. Currently, no model can be tested in a population as there is no such population. Thus, no model can have the property of falsifiability. It follows that no model supplies a regulatory agency such as the EPA with information about the outcomes of events and that such an agency is incapable of regulating Earth’s climate though many such agencies pretend to do so.
Terry: You clearly rejected that there was an experiment that proved what happens with greenhouse gases.
“At best, what greenhouse gas does and how it works is not a fact but rather is a theory” – Wrong here Terry. I gave two examples.
Are you rejecting that there is evidence for how greenhouse gases affect temperature? If so, see the experiments given. If you are rejecting something about those experiments, state your case.
Regardless of the IPCC use a term in a specific case, the context in which I used the term applies the chain of evidence and an example of an experiment that validates the claim of the evidence it provides. If you want to dance around the correct use of words here, no problem. This however will not remove the relevance of the experiment or that it is evidence or that it is a “fact” that we know how greenhouse gases work. Which you claim we don’t.
If you have some specific quibble with the chain of evidence for climate change, state it clearly and we will address it, point by point. You don’t seem to want to do this.
We do not need to rely on models to support the claim that climate change is being caused by CO2 levels. Nor do we need models to support the claim that human caused CO2 is increasing. Nor do we need models to support the claim that other variables besides CO2, like the sun, also cause warming in the past but currently are in decline.
David:
You have raised a semantic issue. In this case, the issue is resolved by usage.
In scientific usage a “theory” is a procedure for making inferences under incomplete information for a conclusion to be reached deductively. A “theorem,” on the other hand, is a procedure for making inferences under complete information for a conclusion to be reached deductively. When information is gained via repeated trials of an experiment laws of probability theory and statistics tell us that this information is incomplete; thus in scientifically proper usage a procedure for making inferences when the information is gained by repeated trials of an experiment is called a “theory” rather than being called a “theorem.”
Terry (Slow reply as I have been at work)
You said “In scientific usage a “theory” is a procedure for making inferences under incomplete information for a conclusion to be reached deductively.”
This is not correct.
In scientific terms a theory can be a few things, but in a formal sense it is: “a coherent group of tested general propositions, commonly regarded as correct, that can be used as principles of explanation and prediction for a class of phenomena:”
In science, you start with a hypothesis. When carefully observed facts prove the hypothesis, it becomes known as a ‘Theory’. The ‘Theory’ explains the facts. Such as the theory of gravity
You said previously “At best, what greenhouse gas does and how it works is not a fact but rather is a theory”. This is wrong. The facts are the tested observations. The observed temperature change from CO2 is a fact.
Lets not confuse maths based terms with terms relating to the science to physics.
Yet again Terry it seems to me you are more interested in debate on its own than debating the validity of claims around climate change and the evidence.
So I will ask again. Is there is a specific point you can identify that changes the outcome of the science supporting climate change? If so, what is it?
If you cannot reply with a point of contention that you want to honestly examine, I will assume you are just here for debate sports and I will leave your replies alone. It is a waste of time and nothing will be learned from either of us. As I have stated already. I am happy to change my views based on evidence. an objective debate is welcomed.
David:
By stating that “You said ‘in scientific usage a ‘theory’ is a procedure for making inferences under incomplete information for a conclusion to be reached deductively'” and responding to the contrary that “a ‘theory’ is ‘a coherent group of tested general propositions, commonly regarded as correct, that can be used as principles of explanation and prediction for a class of phenomena'” you make of ‘theory’ a polysemic term in relation to our debate. That this term is “polysemic” means that ‘theory’ has more than one meaning. In the philosophical literature, when a term is polysemic and changes meaning in the midst of the argument as ‘theory” does in the midst of your argument this argument is an example of an “equivocation.” Though an equivocation looks like a syllogism it isn’t one. Thus, while a conclusion can logically be drawn from a syllogism an argument cannot be logically drawn from an an equivocation. To draw such a conclusion is the “equivocation fallacy.” In your response to me I note that you draw a conclusion from an equivocation thus being guilty of application of the equivocation fallacy. Thus you fail to prove whatever conclusion that it is your purpose to prove making our debate a waste of my time and yours.
Houston, we have a problem.
Polls are not science. They are the product of special interest groups, rife with unreliable sampling, if not dry-labbed, and strongly biased analyses. For the most part they are an output of mainstream media. They are fillers purchased to fill slow news days and propaganda spots disguised as news. Example: Hillary to win by a landslide.
P.S. Polls are the archetype of fake news.
People are skeptical that scientists and politicians would possibly be motivated to support a such a poorly supported theory. Nonetheless this appears to be the case. Dr. Ball has initiated an excellent discussion proposing (identifying) some of the motivations. It seems incredible – but, then, who would have thought that the German people and the Lutheran and Catholic Churches of that time would fall in line with Hitler ‘s crazy theories.
This happened before in the first half of the twentieth century (a junk science consensus).
See my latest article for more:
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com
The title should be “Continued Failure to Explain … ”
Much easier to read that way.
Get Attention
Get Money – grants & subsidies & activist salaries
Get Power — more government power is always the “solution”
It’s always about attention money and power … and sometimes girls
Contrary to Dr. Ball’s assertion there are no failed forecasts. There cannot be any for the projections of the models are not falsifiable.
Anybody have a link or the names of “the team” members?
JAck Davis… this just in: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2017/08/cooler-conditions-slow-melt/
My Dad was a great believer in Malthus. I would point to education and the expansion of Western culture into the third world as being strong influences that could check or postpone such a catastrophe.
However, he would rather see his children be able to take advantage of ever increasing commodity futures than concede that shortages of raw and recycled materials would never materialize in his lifetime, much less systemic shortages due to population growth.
Pruitt can avoid offending the religious sensibilities of the followers of Malthus, while leaving unmolested the minds of the more productive members of society at large, by focusing on photosynthesis as being an active component of earth’s energy budget, rather than focusing on the diminishing, asymptotic contribution, if any, of greenhouse gasses, Radiative energy budget reveals high photosynthetic efficiency in symbiont-bearing corals, linked with Rising carbon dioxide is making the Earth GREENER: Extra plant growth caused by greenhouse gases could cover the USA twice and with Rising carbon dioxide is making the world’s plants more water-wise, for example.
Such is analogous to the dance that some Catholics feel obliged to do: A Catholic can believe in human evolution, so long as the Catholic also believes that God imbued man with spirit at some point in time, to satisfy the Pope, agruably the head Malthusian. See Magisterium Is Concerned with Question of Evolution For It Involves Conception of Man.
Similarly, it would not be stretch for Pruitt to retain full confidence that CO2 does not cause global warming, so long as he entertains the notion that Malthus might be right at some horrific moment in the future.
In this way, Pruitt could become a card-carrying member of the Club of Rome, and at the same time, denounce climate hysteria.
Two points: First, Malthus was the Climatologist of his day, albeit computer-less. Regardless, both encourage belief systems, and neither demonstrates an iota of predictive power, the requirement of science.
Second, atmospheric CO2 contributes to warming as sure as thermodynamics and radiation theory have predictive power. What no one, from commenters and Dr. Ball to the whole of IPCC, realizes is that man has no power to alter the atmospheric concentration of CO2. That concentration is regulated by Henry’s Law (IPCC has yet to admit that it discovered Henry’s Law, and which time IPCC promptly concealed it). If man could actually sequester an appreciable amount of CO2, the ocean would just put it back.
Oh, man CAN change the rate of change of atmospheric concentration. He can do so in the ratio of his CO2 emissions from fossil fuels, etc., to the concentration in sea water (~6 parts in 31,000 per year) in the near term of a few millennia, or in the ratio of those emissions to the total sequestered in ocean sediment (6 parts in 121,000,000 per year) in the long run.
What the warmists need to do is figure out how man might change the ocean temperature. That would work.
Oh again, except for the fact that global warming from any cause, including especially the blanket effect of long wave radiation resistance, is mitigated by cloud cover. An increase in average surface temperature causes an increase in humidity (courtesy of Clausius & Clapeyron), followed by an increase in cloud cover (the atmosphere always has an excess of condensation nuclei), increasing cloud albedo (the dominant albedo, which IPCC models as a constant and not a feedback), and turning down TSI. And vice versa.
The ocean regulates atmospheric CO2 concentration and cloud cover regulates surface and lower atmospheric temperature. These are feedbacks missing from the warmists’ model.
Malthus had a similar problem with missing feedbacks, but feedbacks he never could have predicted. Man produces a surplus of food (of questionable quality: too digestible and too sugary), resulting in gluttony in a big chunk of the world, followed with a few decades lag by obesity and diabetes, and a rising death rate from both. Food production doesn’t remove the death rate from starvation, it gradually replaces it with disease.
The socialists have a plan to fix all surpluses in the long run: drive the producers of everything into extinction, including babies, and drive themselves into power. It’s a naturally occurring fatal disease of democracy.
The lack of predictive power of global warming models is guaranteed by the lack of the statistical populations underlying these models. Is the lack of the underlying statistical population characteristic of Malthus’s model?
Terry Oldberg, 9/2/2017 @ur momisugly 8:33pm said The lack of predictive power of global warming models is guaranteed by the lack of the statistical populations underlying these models. Is the lack of the underlying statistical population characteristic of Malthus’s model?
IPCC pedicts/projects/forecasts, take your pick, a change-our-world-as-we-know-it rise in Global Average Surface Temperature in one century (t – 100 years and holding).
The ultimate aim is, of course, to model as much as possible of the whole of the Earth’s climate system so that all the components can interact and, thus, the predictions of climate change will continuously take into account the effect of feedbacks among components. Bold added, TAR, Technical Summary of the Working Group I Report, Box 3: Climate Models : How are they build and how are they applied, p. 48.
IPCC assesses that rise from model runs as the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) parameter:
The equilibrium climate sensitivity is a measure of the climate system response to sustained radiative forcing. It is not a projection but is defined as the global average surface warming following a doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations. It is likely [P > 66%] to be in the range 2ºC to 4.5ºC with a best estimate of about 3ºC, and is very unlikely [P < 10%] to be less than 1.5ºC. Values substantially higher than 4.5ºC cannot be excluded, but agreement of models with observations is not as good for those values. Water vapour changes represent the largest feedback affecting climate sensitivity and are now better understood than in the TAR. Cloud feedbacks remain the largest source of uncertainty. AR4, SPM, p. 12.
An expert assessment based on the combination of available constraints from observations (assessed in Chapter 9) and the strength of known feedbacks simulated in the models used to produce the climate change projections in this chapter indicates that the equilibrium global mean SAT [Surface Air Temperature] warming for a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), or ‘equilibrium climate sensitivity’, is likely to lie in the range 2°C to 4.5°C, with a most likely value of about 3°C. AR4, Ch. 10, Executive Summary, p. 749.
IPCC prefers to call its catastrophic forecasts projections to indicate that they are scenario dependent. The ECS is not scenario dependent. It is the result in models of doubling the concentration of atmospheric CO2, predicted for any scenario. ECS is an immediately available prediction; we don’t have to wait a century to check the validity of its model.
Enough data have been available for a while now to estimate the ECS at 0.7ºC/2xCO2. Lindzen & Choi (2011). IPCC’s estimates (guesses) of 1.5º (10%), 2º (17%), 3º (50%), and 4.5º (83%) form a straight line on a logarithmic chart, so 0.7º has a confidence value of 2.2%. In other words, we have enough in the “statistical population” to be 97.8% confident that the AGW model is invalid.
It’s time for IPCC to melt and re-pour its Greenhouse Effect/radiation balance model, based on available data and IPCC statistics.
Previously the Greenhouse Effect, a misnomer, was called the Callendar Effect. Weart, S., Discovery of Global Warming: Guy Stewart Callendar. The name came from the work of this “little known pioneer”, specifically The Artificial Production of Carbon Dioxide and Its Influence on Temperature, 1938. Callendar put the ECS at 2ºC. In the discussion section of that paper, reviewer Sir George Simpson [1878-1965], Director, Meteorological Office [1920-1938] snarkily offered this constructive criticism, per the editor’s interpretation:
Sir GEORGE SIMPSON expressed his admiration of the amount of work which Mr. Callendar had put into this paper. It was excellent work. It was difficult to criticise it, but he would like to mention a few points which Mr. Callendar might wish to reconsider. In the first place he thought it was not sufficiently realised by non-meteorologists who came for the first time to help the Society in its study, that it was impossible to solve the problem of the temperature distribution in the atmosphere by working out the radiation. The atmosphere was not in a state of radiative equilibrium, and it also received heat by transfer from one part to another. Callendar (1938) p. 237.
In short, no amount of augmentation for “the lack of the statistical populations” is likely to fix the AGW model, and certainly not in Simpson’s view. It’s toast.
Re Malthus, his work was a social narrative based on little more than the mathematical fact that any positive growth rate will exceed some carrying capacity on its route to infinity. Terry Oldberg’s model seems to assert the dubious proposition that enough data will fix any failed conjecture.
Jeff Glassman
You imply that predict, project and forecast should be treated as synonyms. I disagree.
Predict and forecast should be treated as synonyms but project has a distinct meaning.
Vincent Gray provides a history of the usage of these and related words in the paper that is entitled “Spinning the Climate.” Early in its existence the IPCC claimed its climate models to be “validated.” From his studies of mathematical statistics Gray know that “validate”aka “cross validate” had a precise meaning in the terminology of mathematical statistics and that the models could not have been validated because the statistical population underlying the model that was required for validation did not exist. When he reported his findings to IPCC management they indicated that they understood what he was saying for they changed the word “validate” to the word “evaluate” in subsequent versions of their assessment reports. In an evaluation, a global temperature time series was plotted on X-Y coordinates and compared to the time-global temperature relations that were the output from selected climate models. No statistical population was required or useful.
A controversy erupted over whether the models made “predictions” or “projections.” In a post to the blog of “Nature,” Kevin Trenberth” insisted that the models did not make “predictions” but rather made “projections.” Over time professional climatologists accepted the IPCC/Trenberth disambiguation of the related terms. Under this disambiguation, in an “evaluation,” “projections” were compared to a global warming time series. “Predictions” could not be made by the climate models as this required the existence of the underlying statistical population and there wasn’t one.
Of interest to me is a conclusion from information theory under which it is impossible to build a model for which the mutual information is non-nil absent the statistical population underlying this model. It follows that for the IPCC climate models the mutual information is nil. Non-nil mutual information is, however, required by a regulatory agency if it is to regulate Earth’s climate system.. The important conclusion emerges from this argument that a regulatory agency cannot regulate Earth’s climate system while the statistical populations underlying the models remain non-existent.
Re Terry Oldberg, 9/5/2017 @ur momisugly 8:07 am:
IPCC has taken command of the AGW movement that says a climate catastrophe is coming in 100 years, close enough to scare the policymakers, but hopefully far enough in the future to avoid validation before trillions are committed. IPCC’s Third Assessment Report said its models make predictions; the Fourth Assessment Report upgrades them to projections. Mox nix. What these upcoming events are called, or who makes the call, is quite irrelevant because the model is invalid. That model derives the ECS as part of its output, an upcoming parameter for which data are available. The analyses of those data happen to be wrong, but they err on the conservative side. The situation is far worse than reported.
What Lindzen & Choi, like others since, measure is the rise in CO2 following a rise in temperature. ECS is a rise in temperature following a doubling of CO2. AR4 Glossary, p. 943. It works that way in the models, of course. But both good and bad earth scientists have yet to come to grips with science: a cause must precede each of its effects. The definition does; it is OK. It shows the requisite causality, a principle of science, that is baked into the movement.
What L&C measured is “minus ECS”. No one in the climate community seems to be estimating leads and lags among its parameters. What L&C are estimating is actually an ECS of -0.7ºC. Fortunately for the public, ECS in nature isn’t, say, -3ºC or -4ºC, because then what climatologists measure would have confirmed the movement’s ersatz model.
AGW warrants the label “junk science”. I predict its downfall — in 4 or 5 election cycles.
Jeff Glassman
Thank you for taking the time to reply and for sharing your ideas. By stating the proposition “mox nix” (“there is no difference” in German) you imply that that there is not a meaningful difference between “prediction” and “projection.”. There is, however, a meaningful difference. The difference is that underlying a set of predictions is a statistical population but underlying a set of projections is no statistical population. Consequently the predictions can be cross validated but not the projections. A model that makes predictions has the scientifically significant property of falsifiability but not a model that makes projections. According to Karl Popper, falsifiability is the mark of a theory that is “scientific.”
In this way, you make of your argument an example of an equivocation, that is, an argument in which a term changes meaning in the midst of an argument. The term that changes meaning is the word-pair “prediction/projection.” From this equivocation you draw a conclusion; The conclusion is “mox nix.” In doing so your argument is guilty of application of the equivocation fallacy. As it makes application of a fallacy this argument is illogical.
Re Terry Oldberg, 9/6/2017 @ur momisugly 1:22 pm, takes two proper synonyms I used, interprets them to have different meanings, then accuses me of equivocation. Cute. Here are those same words in ordinary English senses from en.oxforddictionaries.com, bold added:
projection : noun : 1. An estimate or forecast of a future situation based on a study of present trends.
prediction : noun : 1. A thing predicted; a forecast.
Now IPCC makes a distinction between these words for its purposes, which offends no principles. It inserts:
Climate projections are distinguished from climate predictions by their dependence on the emission/concentration/radiative forcing scenario used, which is in turn based on assumptions concerning, for example, future socioeconomic and technological developments that may or may not be realized. AR5 Glossary, p. 1451
In IPCC usage, a climate projection is a subclass of climate prediction. That is, a climate projection is a climate prediction with an added element. So when writing about the ECS, which is not a projection, ECS is a scenario-free forecast by IPCC models. Like any scenario-independent output of an IPCC model, ECS is a prediction.
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Jeff Glassman:
Thank you for taking the time to reply and for sharing your views.
Your attempt at proof of your conclusion is not true to the nature of the equivocation fallacy. Did you read up on this nature of this fallacy before replying? If not I recommend that you do so at your earliest convenience.
In a description of this fallacy, the terms “monosemic” and “polysemic” play key roles. A term that is “monosemic” has one meaning. A term that is “polysemic” has more than one meaning. An “equivocation” is an argument in which a term changes meaning in the midst of the argument. Note that the term that changes meaning is necessarily polysemic. Thus, disambiguation of terms in the language of an argument is preventative of application of the equivocation fallacy by this argument. Under this fallacy, a term changes meaning in the midst of an argument and a conclusion is drawn from this argument.
In your argument of Sept. 6 you draw the conclusion “Mox nix” from your argument. In this way you conclude that whether or not a statistical population underlies a climate model does not matter. In doing so, you draw a conclusion from an argument in which a term designating the output of a climate model possessing no underlying statistical population and a term designating the output of a climate model possessing an underlying statistical population are treated as synonyms. To treat them as synonyms in making a global warming argument is to apply the equivocation fallacy. To cite examples of ambiguous terms in the IPCC reports, Oxford dictionaries or English vernacular is not to prove that the distinction is unimportant between a climate model possessing no underlying statistical population and a climate model possessing such a population but to make this distinction is quite obviously important. If it sounds unimportant the apparent unimportance results from application by your argument of the equivocation fallacy.
Regarding ECS, it is the proportionality constant in a purportedly linear functional relation. This relation relates the logarithm of the change in the logarithm of the atmospheric CO2 concentration to the change in the global surface air change at equilibrium aka steady state. As the latter change is not observable, the underlying statistical population cannot exist, the model provides the EPA with no information and this model cannot be cross validated. As the EPA has no information it cannot regulate but this does not prevent it from preventing it from pretending to regulate. To pretend to regulate is accomplished through applications by the EPA and IPCC of the equivocation and reification fallacies.
Terry Oldberg, 9/6/2017 @ur momisugly 1:22 pm relies on Popper as authority —Karl Raimund Popper [KRP] (1902 – 1994), generally regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century [SEP 2/5/2013].
Popper was an irrational metaphysician. As to irrational, Prof. David Stove, Popper and After: Four Modern Irrationalists (1982), is sufficient. As to metaphysician, note for example that KRP found Darwin’s natural selection to be of great scientific interest, a most successful metaphysical research program. Or, for example, My criterion of demarcation thus seems to agree here quite well with the general use of the word ‘metaphysical’. Or Popper placing metaphysics alongside mathematics and logic: The problem of finding a criterion which would enable us to distinguish between the empirical sciences on the one hand, and mathematics and logic as well as ‘metaphysical’ systems on the other, I call the problem of demarcation. Popper LSD (1934/1959) pp. 10-11.
As Popper confessed, he was neither a scientist nor a historian, yet he cast himself as a scientist to write about the practice of science in the first person plural.
Popper was uneasy about definitions, explicitly to dislike them. They were either unnecessary or unconscious conventional dogmas. Thus he embraced equivocation as a valid tenet of his reasoning.
KRP, once Professor of Scientific Method, London School of Economics, wrote, and wrote principally, about empirical science, yet was expressly opposed to pragmatism. He appeared to believe, and his notorious student, Paul Feyerabend, made explicit, that the Scientific Method was a serial recipe, when it was a logical organization They both taught that the method was a myth. Bacon’s … myth of a scientific method … .
Popper excluded causation from his model of science. He was correct that causation was a deductive principle, but then concluded it was metaphysical, and at odds with KRP’s strictly inductive-3 (en.oxforddictinaries.com) model of science. He determined that the objectivity of scientific statements lies in the fact that they can be inter subjectively tested, where inter-subjective testing refers to the triad of subjective criteria comprising peer-review, publication in professional media, and consensus support, each within a cloistered, certified, professional community.
KRP taught that all the statements of empirical science (or all ‘meaningful’ statements) must be capable of being finally decided, with respect to their truth and falsity; we shall say that they must be ‘conclusively decidable’. Scientific propositions to Popper were not simply logic statements, but at least equivalent to Universal Generalizations. His hallmark phrase, All Ravens Are Black, illustrates. UGs do occur in science, but only as definitions, and no scientist worthy of the title ever proposed such a model for the real world. Since Aristotle, the reason has always been that affirming UGs requires infinite regression, a fact Popper, too, recognized. Aristotle employed infinite regression, while simultaneously rationalized it away. As used by Aristotle, induction is reasoning from particulars to the universal, chaining causes and effects back to first causes, ending eventually in his indefinable essentials of the real world.
The question whether inductive inferences are justified, or under what conditions, is known as the problem of induction. [¶] The problem of induction may also be formulated as the question of the validity or the truth of universal statements which are based on experience, such as the hypotheses and theoretical systems of the empirical sciences. Popper LogSciDisc (1934/1959) p. 4.
Just two pages later (693 words) later, Popper announced his decision:
My own view is that the various difficulties of inductive logic here sketched are insurmountable. So also, I fear, are those inherent in the doctrine, so widely current today, that inductive inference, although not ‘strictly valid’, can attain some degree of ‘reliability’ or of ‘probability’. According to this doctrine, inductive inferences are ‘probable inferences’. … Popper LogSciDisc (1934/1959) p. 6.
Before completing this paragraph of finality, note Popper’s use of quotation marks around strictly valid, reliability, probability, and probable inferences. These are so-called quotes, used in argument by the less-than-particular to brand opposing language as implausible, to deprive the opponent of vocabulary control. It is one of two Prof. Stove’s hallmarks of irrationality, which he calls the method neutralizing success words.
Popper continues, employing now ordinary marks of quotation:
‘We have described’, says Reichenbach, ‘the principle of induction as the means whereby science decides upon truth. To be more exact, we should say that it serves to decide upon probability. For it is not given to science to reach either truth or falsity … but scientific statements can only attain continuous degrees of probability whose unattainable upper and lower limits are truth and falsity’. Footnotes deleted, id.
Popper relies on Causality and Probability (1930), Prof. Hans Reichenbach (1891 – 1953) UCLA since 1938, to support KRP’s conclusion that inductive logic cannot possible apply to science. Reichenbach would have agreed — up to that point. But Reichenbach wasn’t finished. His imbuement of induction with a probabilistic output was a conditional, a necessity which would have derived from the fact that scientific propositions are real valued – probabilistic – not truth valued. Or, as Popper would write, ‘probabilistic’.
Reichenbach was still not finished. He suggests that in the unattainable limits of probability, a correspondence exists between 1 and true and between 0 and false. If that were so, Popper would have a fifth version of truth to add to his expositions on truth. Reichenbach wrote three years before Kolmogorov published the first axiomatic basis for probability theory. Reichenbach’s hypothetical equivalence between numerals and truth values requires the invention of an axiomatic theory of probability that encompasses what is called the truth predicate. That is an open area of study by modern logicians and mathematicians, and apparently as yet an elusive goal.
In his autobiography, Popper says,
I understood why the mistaken theory of science which had ruled since Bacon — that the natural sciences were the inductive sciences, and that induction was a process of establishing or justifying theories by repeated observations or experiments—was so deeply entrenched. The reason was that scientists had to demarcate their activities from pseudoscience as well as from theology and metaphysics, and they had taken over from Bacon the inductive method as their criterion of demarcation. … But I had held in my hands for many years a better criterion of demarcation: testability or falsifiability. …
The parts in bold are wrong. Bacon’s model was not mistaken (see Kant, below), and what scientists could take from crispy Bacon was successful predictions from candidate Cause & Effect propositions. Valid predictions are the proof of the pudding between science and nonscience. Continuing Popper’s nebulous narrative,
Thus I could discard induction without getting into trouble over demarcation. And I could apply my results concerning the method of trial and error in such a way as to replace the whole inductive methodology by a deductive one. …This view implied that scientific theories, if they are not falsified, for ever remain hypotheses or conjectures. Bold added, Popper Unended Quest (1992) p. 88.
Thus Popper, claiming that science was forever doomed to hypotheticals, denied four centuries of scientific progress. That fulfills the other tine of Stove’s two-pronged criteria for irrationalism. And Popper could discard induction from science, while keeping it for his falsification conjecture.
As to the role of Bacon, Kant was of a much different opinion:
Natural science was very much longer [than mathematics, post logic] in entering upon the highway of science. It is, indeed, only about a century and a half since Bacon [1620], by his ingenious proposals, partly initiated this discovery, partly inspired fresh vigour in those who were already on the way to it [citing Galileo, among others]. In this case also the discovery can be explained as being the sudden outcome of an intellectual revolution. In my present remarks I am referring to natural science only in so far as it is founded on empirical principles. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (1781), pp. 19-20.
Thus Kant erected a statue of Bacon to honor his role in the development of science, a monument for Popper to pull down. Bacon may not have created Modern Science (he wasn’t much of an experimentalist), but his Novum Organum is the initial description and enduring development of Modern Science.
In Novum Organum, Bacon called Aristotle’s induction silly and childish, all to soften his reader for its replacement with true induction. Bacon’s true induction is no more than deduction, an embryonic word in the 17th Century. Bacon’s distinction fits the Oxford Dictionaries online definition of induction. Aristotle’s version is induction-3 and Bacon’s replacement is induction-2.
Popper’s model of science rests on several core misconceptions. Not only are scientific propositions never Universal Generalizations, scientific propositions are never truth valued. Modern Science maps existing facts onto future facts. Demarcation is a universal requirement of definitions, found in modern linguistics and logic, and dating from Aristotle (diaphora). Popper omitted demarcations from his definitions of both definitions and science, to create a pair of vacuums he could fill with falsification He explained falsification as a criterion of demarcation, but not of meaning, but then couldn’t define meaning. Popper overlooked that induction has two meanings in ordinary English, one of which is infinite regression and other is deduction, and then overlooked Bacon’s usage and distinction. Popper overlooked the principles of Modern Science which assure objectivity in its propositions: sufficient description of the experiment to maximize its reproducibility, and reliance on facts, observations reduced to measurements and compared to standards.
Holding that the product of empirical science was truth-valued propositions, Popper failed to recognize that what science actually produces are predictions for validation with fresh experiments. Further in the belief that no single scientist could be objective, even in the environment of the scientific method, he created a new model for science. In this model, Popper replaced objective standards and model validation with testing by his triad of group subjectivity. In the new science, successful models no longer had to work, predictions and validations were gone. In fine philosophical fettle, Popper deconstructed Bacon’s Modern Science into Popper’s Post Modern Science. Of course, PMS was ignored in industry where trade secrets trump publicity, and where science is driven by the profits that flow from success. But it thrived in the publish or perish environment of academia.
E.g.: climatology and the AGW movement.
Jeff Glassman:
Your claim that “Terry Oldberg relies on Popper as an authority” is not supported by the evidence. All that I said about Popper is contained in one proposition. The proposition is that “According to Karl Popper, falsifiability is the mark of a theory that is “scientific.” This proposition is true, is it not?
By falsely claiming that I rely on Popper as an authority you set up a strawman argument. Subsequently you knock this strawman down.
Re Terry Oldberg ; September 10, 2017 at 5:48 pm:
(1) In answer to Terry Oldberg’s question, the proposition is true – Popper did make that claim. For what it’s worth, though, it’s the claim that’s nonsense:
1.1 Popper never showed how any nonscience could not produce falsifiable propositions.
1.2 Scientific models are real valued —they possess accuracy, not truth, so are immune to falsification.
1.3 Definitions require definienda (diaphora to Aristotle).
Popper defined science as a set of Universal Generalizations (e.g., All Ravens … ) but omitting any definienda. He didn’t abide definitions, making it difficult for him to make any good ones. But with the two features he inserted, he could kill two birds with one stone — discover falsification, the common solution to the two problems purely of his own making: an empirical test of UGs (the only one logically possible), and demarcation (silently assuming nonscience couldn’t be falsified).
(2) Terry Oldberg’s 3d sentence quotes the exact evidence he claims is missing in his 1st sentence.
(3) Taking another page from Popper, Terry Oldberg sets up an incomplete narrative so that he can invent a solution. And to boot, he quotes from Popper! Prophetic, eh? On the other hand, maybe not, maybe just predictable. AND
(4) Terry Oldberg thinks yours truly set up a strawman!
Re: Your claim that “Scientific models are real valued —they possess accuracy, not truth, so are immune to falsification.”
“Science” is polysemic. thus failing to support meaningful debate absent disambiguation..
Jeff Glassman:
Re “For what it’s worth, though, it’s the claim that’s nonsense.”
What’s your argument?
Jeff,
Popper changed his mind about natural selection, which is what he meant by “evolution” in your citation. After he learned more about it, he concluded that it was indeed testable and falsifiable:
“The fact that the theory of natural selection is difficult to test has led some people, anti-Darwinists and even some great Darwinists, to claim that it is a tautology. . . . I mention this problem because I too belong among the culprits. Influenced by what these authorities say, I have in the past described the theory as “almost tautological,” and I have tried to explain how the theory of natural selection could be untestable (as is a tautology) and yet of great scientific interest. My solution was that the doctrine of natural selection is a most successful metaphysical research programme. . . . [Popper, “Natural Selection and the Emergence of Mind.” Dialectica, 32:339-355 (1978), p. 344]
“I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation. . . . [p. 345]”
Sixto, 9/11/17 @9:48 am
Please note that I only cited the positive and enduring part of Popper’s opinion on natural selection:
As to metaphysician, note for example that KRP found Darwin’s natural selection to be of great scientific interest, a most successful metaphysical research program.
As your citation shows, what Popper recanted were irrelevant parts about the testability and logical status of the theory of natural selection. My citation was strictly for Popper’s metaphysical connections.
And I didn’t mention evolution at all in my essay.
Darwin’s exposition on natural selection can appear superficially tautological. But read more particularly, it reveals a much more serious aspect. Natural Selection is a misnomer — Darwin’s version should be called Supernatural Selection. That’s because he made it a sentient being, possessing a purpose and a plan for every species, giving small changes a positive cumulative effect, having foresight to know what is going to be needed for survival in a changing environment, and able to coordinate acquired changes with genetic changes. It’s all in the Book. No, no. Not the Good Book! On the Origin of the Species.
Some years later, Darwin compounded the problem when he adopted Spencer’s label of survival of the fittest, as if the natural world could measure fitness and grade progress according to standards.
On the most elementary level, Darwin rankled religious fundamentalists simply by positing a theory contrary to scripture. His offense, though, was far greater than that. His natural selection was a god with a lower case G. That should have been enough to rankle scientists, too, but the biologists to a man (person, sorry) bought into Darwin’s sub-theory to the theory of evolution.
Popper was close to the truth before he changed his mind. Just as his conjecture for scientific propositions cannot be affirmed experimentally, being Universal Generalizations, Darwin’s Natural Selection could never be affirmed, being supernatural. Now that IS untestable. That property places Darwin’s version of NS outside Modern Science, which admits no supernatural elements. The solution is the Gause’s Law of Competitive Exclusion. Once a niche fills, extinction begins. Within a few generations the species with the greatest net population growth rate in the niche will become the sole occupant. Extinction and speciation are mathematical, requiring few assumptions more than the niche and viability. It’s the survival of the most prolific.
These observations take little from Darwin’s great contributions. It’s just past time to recognize Darwin 2.0.
And to get Popper completely off the stage and out of the theater.