Guest “Surely you can’t be serious” by David Middleton
“I am serious and don’t call me Shirley!”
H/T to Willie Soon for the article and the catchy phrase: Critical Rock Theory!
UW-Madison to remove 70-ton boulder some view as reminder of campus’ racist past
From the Chamberlin Rock: Rediscovery and removal series
Erin Gretzinger Aug 5, 2021Erin Gretzinger
UW-Madison will remove a 70-ton boulder from the heart of campus Friday morning following calls over the past year from students of color who view the rock as a symbol of the university’s racist past.Chamberlin Rock, located on top of Observatory Hill, is named in honor of Thomas Crowder Chamberlin, a geologist and former university president. But for some students of color on campus, the rock represents a painful history of discrimination.
[…]
Wisconsin State Journal
I don’t know if this deserves a Larry the Cable Guy or a Ron White award?
Or maybe, just a Tommy Lee Jones…
Although, I have to admit that I am surprised that it took them this long to cancel T. C. Chamberlin… He’s probably the main reason why geologists tend to be skeptical of Gorebal Warming and all other dogmatic hypotheses.
When I was studying geology, way back when The Ice Age Cometh in the 1970’s, we were taught to avoid getting hooked on paradigms or “ruling theories”. Geology, as a science, has very few unique solutions. Climate “science” has an even larger susceptibility to “non-uniqueness”.
This is why we were were taught to embrace Chamberlin’s Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses:
The following is a modern reprise of T.C. Chamberlin’s famous paper on Multiple Working Hypotheses. Chamberlin’s paper is too long, too high-blown, and too sexist for modern students, but Chamberlin’s idea of multiple working hypotheses is, in my opinion, more important than ever (see Geology 1990 v. 18, p. 917-918.) If you want to generate paper copies, there’s also a PDF file. The text below was written in about 1990, was made available on-line in the mid-1990s, and was published in the Houston Geological Society Bulletin (v. 47, no. 2, p. 68-69) in October 2004 at the request of the editor of that publication.
T. C. Chamberlin’s “Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses”: An encapsulation for modern students
L. Bruce Railsback
Department of Geology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602-2501 USA
Introduction
Scientific study designed to increase our knowledge of natural phenomena can follow at least three different intellectual methods. These can be called the method of the ruling theory, the method of the working hypothesis, and the method of multiple working hypotheses. The first two are the most popular but they can, and often do, lead to ineffective research that overlooks relevant data. Instead, the method of multiple working hypotheses offers a more effective way of organizing one’s research.
Ruling Theories and Working Hypotheses
Our desire to reach an interpretation or explanation commonly leads us to a tentative interpretation that is based on relatively hasty examination of a single example or case. Our tentative explanation, as such, is not a threat to objectivity, but if we then begin to trust it without further testing, we can be blinded to other possibilities that we ignored at first glance. Our premature explanation can become a tentative theory and then a ruling theory, and our research becomes focused on proving that ruling theory. The result is a blindness to evidence that disproves the ruling theory or supports an alternate explanation. Only if the original tentative hypothesis was by chance correct does our research lead to any meaningful contribution to knowledge.
Seemingly less insidious is the working hypothesis. The working hypothesis, we are told, is a hypothesis to be tested, not in order to prove the hypothesis, but as a stimulus for study and fact-finding. Nonetheless, the single working hypothesis can imperceptibly degenerate into a ruling theory, and our desire to prove the working hypothesis, despite evidence to the contrary, can become as strong as the desire to prove the ruling theory.
Multiple Working Hypotheses
The method of multiple working hypotheses involves the development, prior to our research, of several hypotheses that might explain the phenomenon we want to study. Many of these hypotheses will be contradictory, so that some, if not all, will prove to be false. However, the development of multiple hypotheses prior to the research lets us avoid the trap of the ruling hypothesis and thus makes it more likely that our research will lead to meaningful results. We open-mindedly envision all the possible explanations of the phenomenon to be studied, including the possibility that none of explanations are correct (“none of the above”) and the possibility that some new explanation may emerge.
The method of multiple working hypotheses has several other beneficial effects on one’s research. Careful study often shows that a phenomenon is the result of several causes, not just one, and the method of multiple working hypotheses obviously makes it more likely that we will see the interaction of the several causes. The method also promotes much greater thoroughness than research directed toward one hypothesis, leading to lines of inquiry that we might otherwise overlook, and thus to evidence and insights that single-minded research might never have encountered. Thirdly, the method makes us much more likely to see the imperfections in our knowledge and thus to avoid the pitfall of accepting weak or flawed evidence for one hypothesis when another provides a more elegant solution.
Possible Drawbacks of the Method
The method of multiple working hypotheses does have drawbacks. One is that it is impossible to express multiple hypotheses simultaneously, and thus there is a natural tendency to let one take primacy. Keeping a written, not mental, list of our multiple hypotheses is often a necessary solution to that problem.
Another problem is that an open mind may develop hypotheses that are so difficult to test that evaluating them is nearly impossible. An example might be where three of our hypotheses are testable by conventional field work, but a fourth requires drilling of a deep borehole beyond our economic resources. This fourth hypothesis need not paralyze our research, but it should provide a reminder that none of the first three need be true.
A third possible problem is that of vacillation or indecision as we balance the evidence for various hypotheses. Such vacillation may be bad for the researcher, but such vacillation is preferable to the premature rush to a false conclusion.
An Example
The field discovery of a breccia provides an excellent example of the application of the method of multiple working hypotheses. A breccia may form in many ways: by deposition as talus, by collapse after dissolution of underlying evaporites or other soluble rocks, by faulting, by bolide impact, or by other means. Each of the possibilities can be supported by various field evidence, for which we could look if we were evaluating all these hypotheses. However, if we chose just one hypothesis, we might ignore other evidence more clearly supportive of a different hypothesis. For example, if we hypothesized that our breccia was the result of cataclasis during faulting, we might find that the breccia occurred along a fault. We would then accept our single hypothesis and quit looking for additional information. However, if we were using multiple working hypotheses and looked for evidence supporting or disproving all our hypotheses, we might also notice that the breccia was localized in a circular pattern along just one part of the fault. Further examination might show that it was accompanied by shatter cones. Armed with this additional information, we would be more inclined to an interpretation involving an impact that was by chance coincident with a fault. By looking for evidence supportive of a variety of hypotheses, we would have avoided an incorrect interpretation based on coincidence.
Summary
In using the method of multiple working hypotheses, we try to open-mindedly envision and list all the possible hypotheses that could account for the phenomenon to be studied. This induces greater care in ascertaining the facts and greater discrimination and caution in drawing conclusions. Although our human tendencies lead us toward the method of the ruling theory, the method of multiple working hypotheses offers the best chance of open-minded research that avoids false conclusions.
T.C. Chamberlin and the method of multiple working hypotheses
The geologist Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin (1843-1928) was president of the University of Wisconsin, director of the Walker Museum at the University of Chicago, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the founder and editor of the Journal of Geology.
Chamberlin read his paper on “The method of multiple working hypotheses” before the Society of Western Naturalists in 1889, and it was published in Science in 1890 and the Journal of Geology in 1897. It was reprinted in several journals during the subsequent seventy years.
This is a short modern encapsulation of some of the ideas in Chamberlin’s original paper, and it should not be considered an adequate substitute for the original paper. This encapsulation is based on a version of the original paper republished in Science in 1965.
Chamberlin, T.C., 1890, The method of multiple working hypotheses: Science (old series) v. 15, p. 92-96; reprinted 1965, v. 148, p. 754-759.
Chamberlin, T.C., 1897, The method of multiple working hypotheses: Journal of Geology, v. 5, p. 837-848.
To a web-based copy of Chamberlin’s paper (apparently from the 1965 reprint)
Back to Railsback’s main page
Back to the UGA Geology Home Page
L. Bruce Railsback
Now that I think of it, Chamberlin was probably cancelled back in the 1990’s or early 2000’s, when CO2 suddenly became the long-term driver of Phanerozoic climate change… Because… Models!
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“Surely you can’t be serious”
“I am serious and don’t call me Shirley!”
How often must this lame joke be recycled before Americans get tired of it?
Think of the children!
It depends… Americans who know who said it and what movie it’s from, will probably always think it’s funny. Americans and foreigners who don’t know what movie it’s from or worse yet, don’t think it’s funny, surely must be losers… 😎
Truer words were never spoken.
Indeed.
In most cases it will fly right over their heads!
As this is one of the classic all-time great comedy lines, up with Abbott and Costello, this poast gets a minus-one.
Looks like RoHa picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.
What do you make of this?
Just because Europeans don’t have a sense of humor, don’t blame us.
While understanding that a large number of students are or pretend to be hurt by seeing the rock, perhaps the best thing about bringing this fact to worldwide attention is that it makes us remember the multiple hypotheses technique.
Let’s commemorate Chamberlin by applying that technique to the hysterical nonsense that is climate science. I have heard (but cannot trace the attribution) that a climate scientist once said ‘it must be CO2, we can’t think of anything else’. What a dull scientist!
Let’s think of something else.
I can, for example, think of an alternative explanation for warming which includes the isotope signal. And, come to think of it a further warming explanation that doesn’t do the isotopes.
Perhaps our gracious host could run a thread seeking to harness the combined intellectual might of WUWT
JF
(Ocean smooths, Willis, ocean smooths)
‘Too high-blown … for modern students’. Meaning they are just utterly dumb. An accurate assessment, unfortunately.
Could it be that it’s not about racism, but to discredit “white priviledged” Chamberlain, who certainly did not embrace groupthink …
I doubt those who are protesting ever even heard of Chamberlain, much less knew anything about his work.
Perhaps some of the skeptics here might like to include ‘climate change is real’ as one of their set of working hypotheses?
I know that’s how I started off. It didn’t take long before I realised that it was a failed hypothesis with no merit. The weight of scientific research and observation is against it. This ‘Climate Science’ that you are so fond of referring to is no more than misinformed opinion and fear – the advocates of this view are simply preying on the fears of the population to advance their political agenda. Perhaps you should practice what you have just preached and include ‘Climate Change is not real, just an unscientific failed hypothesis with no merit’ as one of YOUR working hypotheses – it might open your eyes, Griffy.
Of course climate change is real, you nincompoop. The climate has always changed, and always will.
Most do accept climate change as real. You might try including, as part of your working hypotheses, that skeptics are skeptical of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.
Pretty much all skeptics include “climate change is real” as pretty much no one on the skeptic side denies that the climate changes, always has, always will regardless of what man does or does not do. It’s you alarmists that deny that climate changes without man to cause it to change.
Climate change is real, and has been going on since the earth first formed an atmosphere.
CAGW as a hypothesis has already been ruled out by the evidence.
BTW, if it isn’t catastrophic, it isn’t worth doing anything about.
The issue is the quantitative contribution that humans make to the ever-changing climate.
Which is completely unknown and certainly not significant enough to be actionable, as any of the proposed actions will be far more damaging to humanity that the imaginary “crisis.”
Congratulation to UW-Madison on removing the most intelligent thing off the campus!
How the menacing rock looks to the woke…
How one asks questions often determines the answers one will receive or develop. If you are Albert Camus, you would rather ask ‘if life has meaning’ than ask ‘what that meaning is’. That second question implies that life has meaning. Even the choice of ‘if’ instead of ‘does’ puts any possible meaning on shaky grounds. If you are more upbeat, you might instead ask ‘how can I make my life meaningful’. Note all the changes in hidden assumptions.
A test of a hypothesis is basically a wording of a question. One should also take care to examine one’s tests to make sure that biases aren’t interfering with possible answers. Unfortunately, honesty at this stage may cut your funding, or prevent your publication. Because wrong answers won’t be tolerated.
Often, these biases are moved straight to the hypothesis. But they are easier to call out from a hypothesis. So hiding them in tests unless you need to waive them openly to be accepted.
Both hypothesis and tests are full of implications from prior knowledge and from assumptions. Laying these out and identifying them is also important in making sound hypotheses and tests.
There even assumptions that go into the creation of mathematical theories. Take geometry. If one changes the ‘one and only one’ assumption of lines through a given point not on a line that are parallel to the first line to ‘no’ one moves from Euclidean Geometry to a geometry more like the surface of a sphere. It took thousands of years to make that change thinkable.
As scientists, we think that making sure the test is measurable is all we need to do to be fact based. But we often forget that our language and our use of language has a dominant role in our thinking. And we are quite frequently expanding our language to express our scientific thinking.
The thoughts above were the result of someone examining the limitations of preexisting ways of thinking and creating an alternative while also examining that alternative. We should expand such examination to all parts of the scientific process. Especially our questions and tests.
I have read the Wikipedia entry for Chamberlin and reread the article but I can nowhere find a reason for why minorities would find him a symbol of racism. Perhaps it is because he was President of the university at a time of rampant racism? If so, keep the rock as a symbol of his science and eliminate the university.
Had nothing to do with Chamberlain, had to do with a previous nickname (in a nearly century old journal article) for the rock subsequently known as Chamberlain Rock.
What a bunch of bull schist. What else can they dig up from the past to be “upset” about?
You should be made to play tennis against a giant blancmange while wearing full tartan garb.
Not grateful for what they have. And how much money did that cost to remove the rock?
How do they remove the spot where the rock was placed for a long time. And change how stupid this looks to the world.
By that line of thought the entire Earth should be removed because slavery of all races were committed on it in the past and exists now in some parts of the World.
Ridiculous Yes
Ascribing one’s grievances to inanimate objects and expecting everyone to cave to your singular perception. See also, Confederate Flag, Abraham Lincoln and the Cleveland Guardians..
[QUOTE FROM ARTICLE]”Our desire to reach an interpretation or explanation commonly leads us to a tentative interpretation that is based on relatively hasty examination of a single example or case. Our tentative explanation, as such, is not a threat to objectivity, but if we then begin to trust it without further testing, we can be blinded to other possibilities that we ignored at first glance. Our premature explanation can become a tentative theory and then a ruling theory, and our research becomes focused on proving that ruling theory. The result is a blindness to evidence that disproves the ruling theory or supports an alternate explanation. Only if the original tentative hypothesis was by chance correct does our research lead to any meaningful contribution to knowledge.” [END QUOTE]
This sounds like an excellent description of Anthropogenic Global Warming theory. In the late 1980’s (shortly before the above quote was written), some scientists noted that between about 1970 and then, average global temperatures had risen, as had the CO2 concentration in the air, so that a “tentative explanation” was that the additional CO2 was absorbing IR radiation and “causing” the warming. This later became a “ruling theory”, and “research [became] focused on proving that ruling theory”, to the exclusion of all other possible causes, such as sunspots, El Nino / La Nina, cosmic rays, etc.
So, in order to “prove” the ruling theory of warming due to CO2 (and scare people away from fossil fuels), computer models were developed that were calibrated on the 1970 – 1989 climate change, and temperature records since then were fudged to “hide the decline since 1989” for over 30 years in order to cling to the “ruling theory”. Never mind that actual temperatures are rising much more slowly than what the theory (climate models) predicted–the theory must be guarded at all costs!
Even though Thomas C. Chamberlin probably never heard of global warming theory in 1889 (Svante Arrhenius’ original work was published in 1896) and worked in a different field of study, he was about a century ahead of his time in predicting how a “tentative explanation” can morph into a “ruling theory” that blinds researchers to other possible explanations for what is observed in nature.
A 70-ton boulder placed at the University of Wisconsin in his memory represents a huge stumbling block to the promotion of global warming theory. I wonder how much CO2 was emitted by the crane and truck used to move this huge boulder somewhere else (couldn’t they just leave the boulder there and remove the plaque that dedicates it to Chamberlin?).
But you gotta be woke in Mad-town, and who cares about hypocrisy?
I think they should remove every rock on campus. This to mitigate the very real risk other rocks could be mistaken for this Very Bad and clearly Racist rock. And just to be safe, prohibit the playing of any Rock and roll music.
Since I went to school there, I was in the vicinity of that rock many times without knowing any of its history. The fact that partially buried black roughly round rocks were referred to in the past as @iggerheads is just a historical fact which cannot be expunged. Bringing it up in the way they have and making a fuss about it is no more than stirring the schist to see if it stinks.
Maybe they misunderstood when someone called it rock-schist?
I’m still laughing at the title, thanks DM.
This website has really started down the tubes. Retard flame wars, lame enabling woktard articles like this one that can be found on a dozen other sites, myopic inspection of parochial data sets that are inane and boring really have little to contribute.
Near-Earth influences from solar cycles, flares, magnetism, huge interstellar radiation bursts, Earth Ice Age Cycles are ignored in almost all analyses.
I am a long-time reader and despite these few minor foibles, “I’ll be back!”
So an article about Chamberlain’s theory’s regarding multiple hypothesis has your panties in a wad?
Trigger warning: the seriousness of what we’re facing calls for strong language, and you will find it below aplenty. Turn back now, if you are easily offended by historical analogies.
Of course, this is not about rocks or science or racial epithets or logic. Or even history. It’s about deliberately making trouble, spreading and maintaining dissent between one group and another.
Colonial troops had a cruel pastime: tying two cats together by their tails, and dangling them over a clothesline. The cats would fight it out, each one thinking the other was the enemy and was intentionally clawing him. They would fight thus until one was dead. The real enemy, the soldiers, would pay off their bets and look for two more cats.
Every faction, every minority, every group and camp in America is being tied to its opposite and exhorted to fight by emotion-based propaganda. The blacks are told that whites are the enemy, and vice versa. There is little current truth to these exhortations, which is why the evils of 100, 200 and 300 years ago must be constantly brought up in the media, and why “microaggressions” are “a thing” to be taken seriously, no matter how minuscule.
The real enemy is not the other cat; it’s whoever is promoting this demonic, evangelism, along with the media who uncritically, even enthusiastically, report it without even a token attempt at competent analysis.
Nicely put. The “politics of division” is disgusting.
That boulder looks like an “Erratic”, which (according to Wikipedia) is a glacially deposited rock, differing from the size & type of rock native to the area in which it rests. There are many Erratics on & around Rügen in the Baltic Sea. The Schwanenstein is linked to far more ominous legends & stories than the subject of this article. Should it be craned out?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwanenstein
Perhaps I have become too cynical. It would not suprise me at all if the removal of the rock is to place a parking lot or a building in its place without the usual opposition.