Science is the process wherein one seeks to disprove a hypothesis by testing. Much "science" is no science at all, most especially much climate "science".
(1) Basically, this is correct. Any proper scientific experiment has a null hypothesis, which is the default. The default is that the hypothesis is incorrect. The purpose of a null hypothesis is twofold: to help design the optimal experimental methodology, and to guard against confirmation bias. (2) I don't know how this second statement relates. It seems to dismiss the scientific method in favor of a political policy position. But while you may feel strongly that if science undermines your political preferences it must not be "real" science, it might be helpful if you could produce an actual, peer-reviewed scientific paper from some respected journal, and go into a little detail as to how that paper is not science. An actual example is worth a thousand hand-waves.
Not at all. To me, nothing is ever so much proved as it is that all of the other ideas that I have considered have been disproved. What remains is what I am left to believe, then that is tested, and so on, and so on. The data that I have read and the reasoning behind the varying assessments of that data leaves me to believe that the "concensus' is political and not scientific. I'm just being honest. Is it so hard to believe? I do remember a lot of the information started to become more understandable to me while reading a few books by Bijorn Lormborg. BTW, requesting "peer-reviewed scientific paper" in support at this level of discourse just makes you the nerd at the party. If you want to dig your heels in, here's your opportunity to vouch for the integity of contemporary climate science. No peer-review papers required, Sheldon.
Scientific method includes experimentation that validates the hypothesis. Climate science has yet to do this.
You're too far ahead of me here. I don't know what this refers to. I can't relate this comment to anything. I can't even guess what you're referring to. Science can never prove anything. "All the ideas" anyone might have, is hardly comprehensive. There's always a lot nobody's thought of yet. When you say "that" is tested, what are you referring to? Which consensus do you mean? Are you talking about how consensus works in science generally, or about anything in particular? I'm sure you're being honest, but you're also being confusing. I'm not sure what you're trying to say. A lot of WHAT information? Information about how science works, information about how research is done, information abourt null hypotheses, information about climate simulations? The good thing about those papers is, they follow a very strict recipe. The topic being researched must be narrowly constrained, the null hypothesis being used must be feasible and justified, the experimental design must meet a good many requirements, and so on. And of course most important, the conclusions (tentative as they are) must be supported by the results, and cannot exceed what the results support. Every effort must be made to avoid ambiguity. But the peer-reviewed papers, taken altogether, ARE the integrity of the science. There's no requirement that they all agree, and often peer-reviewed papers draw mutually exclusive conclusions - that is to say, the cannot both be correct (though both can be wrong). And there's a great deal of value in this sort of disagreement, because it pinpoints exactly the nature of the disagreement, and simplifies the task of constructing research that can resolved the differences. Which wouldn't be possible if the rules of scientific methodology and publication had not been followed. I think the great danger here is for people to say "I'm convinced that X is true, and therefore science either ratifies my convictions or science is too seriously flawed to be worth respecting." People always say that they want to go wherever the evidence leads, but in Real Life most people decide that if it don't lead where they want to go, then it ain't evidence in the first place!
This is incorrect and very misleading. I think the problem people have with climatology is, climatologists are trying to predict conditions several generations into the future. Now, hopefully even those who are convinced all they say is nonsense can understand that the future is very difficult to experiment on directly. It hasn't happened yet. The immediate hypothesis is that the atmospheric CO2 levels are increasing. It's not all that hard to measure them directly, and sure enough they're increasing. Another hypothesis is that in the past, high CO2 levels have corresponded generally with higher global temperatures. There are many ways to examine this, and it is generally found to be the case. But climate is extremely complex, and there's a lot of chaotic interaction going on. Precise predictive models are impossible in principle. No climatologist could possibly say something like "every year is going to be the hottest on record." It doesn't work that way. So what do you mean by "the hypothesis", and what sort of experimentation would you suggest to attempt to validate it? After all, if you do not know what hypothesis you mean or what experimentation you have in mind, how can you possibly know that what you say is true?
Espoused on the internet by someone calling themselves "bricklayer" World shaking that revelation……...
Really? And you know this how………….? There is a little internet saying "Just because YOU have never heard of it does not mean it does not exist" Now there is such a thing as "Google Scholar" and it will give you directions if not to the papers themselves at least to the abstracts where you can see that in fact there have been a multitude of hypothesis tested and found false that leaves the inescapable conclusion that the current warming is being caused by man
The hypothesis is that humans cause global warming. If that is true, humans should be able to conduct experiments that actually change the climate at will. - - - Updated - - - If you have a citation please post it. Otherwise cut the B.S.
We are in the middle of the biggest experiment of it's type - and all the data to date is showing that the climate will change in response to CO2 rise. "A" citation??? Mate - there are THOUSANDS!!! But let us look at just ONE - spectrum of greenhouse gas emissions http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-global-warming.htm
Great link Bowerbird. Lots of good graphs. In addition there is this one on ocean warming from the intermediate section. http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/ocean-heat-2000m.gif And then this one from the side, shows you the problem with terminal short term denialism, like the loudly and often blathered 15 year supposed cooling. http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=47
Actually it requires emperical evidence to support the theory and manmade global warming has emperical evidence to support the theory. Computer models, which provide emprical evidence, support the theory that the destruction of nature and the increase in manmade atmospheric CO2 emissions support the theory that mankind is responsible for tipping the scales which has resulted in increased global temperatures. Virtually 100% of the scientists actually involved in researching climate change agree that mankind is responsible for global warming. The only dissident opinions in the scientific community are coming from those not actively involved in the actual research. They have provided nothing but rhetoric in response to the scientific theories on our current climate and rhetoric has little meaning in science. There are no scientific models that result in the climate change we're experiencing where manmade atmospheric CO2 pollution and the destruction of nature are not necessary for the changes. If destruction of the forests and the manmade CO2 are eliminated from the calculations then the current global warming does not occur in any scientific model but we know that the global warmins is occurring as it is measureable. The equations only work when CO2 emissions and destruction of the forests are included.
Pleased to meet you. Been slinging a trowel since '79. Joined the union 10 years ago, pretty much took all the fun creativity aspect away, turns you into a numbered machine. I'll be giving up the bricks,blocks and rocks soon enough.
Just think, the first things we built way back then are still brand new, in masonry terms. My first chimney is just starting to get a patina on it. I wish that we aged as well as our work.
There are a lot of people who don't know what science is if they believe the nonsense that the OP is proposing.
So astronomy is not a science, as no one has conducted an experiment with a black hole, gotcha.... Why don't you state the obvious, that you don't consider anything that conflicts with the revealed wisdom of your cult to be "scientific"......
Where do you get the "should"? Seriously. Where do you get this idea? Do you feel that science should be able to swing the earth's magnetic field about? There is abundant experimental data, btw, to show that C02 behaves in the lab as a "greenhouse gas". Those who "dont trust science" today, perhaps because of algore or because of some political leaning, I wonder how this scenario would play out... It is revealed thro leaked email that the govt has been long messing with climate thro "chemtrails" and release of vast quantities of C02 and methane. Then it comes out that glaciers have been rapidly melting, and ocean C02 rising.
This is the problem in a nutshell. We observe that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. We observe that high CO2 concentrations in the past correlated with warmer temperatures. We observe that CO2 levels are rising fairly rapidly. We observe that essentially all the additional CO2 is being generated by human activities. We observe a gradual global warming trend. What can we possibly conclude from all of these closely-related observations? Why, science is a crock! What ELSE could they mean?
We can do that!!!! We can stop all manmade CO2 emissions and replant millions of acres of rain forests and the global warming would stop. Let's try it because we know that this experiment would work based upon computer models. Or we can trust the computer models that predict this will happen. Take your choice.
We're not seeing a gradual warming trend. We're seeing a dramatic global warming trend that is unprecedented in natural history of the planet. Global temperatures changes that typically required thousands of years have occurred in less than 150 years and it's accellerating and there is direct correlation to the increase in manmade CO2 as well as the destruction of the rain forests that absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. This isn't even hard to understand. We're using fossil fuels that stored carbon produced millions of years ago and we're rapidly releasing it into the atmosphere. CO2 that was previously absorbed by the planet over tens and hundreds of millions of years has been released into the atmosphere over the last 150 years and it has overwhelmed the ability of the planet to re-absorb it. As also noted we've also destroyed much of the most effective means of absorbing that CO2 which is plant life. Think of this fact. All of the coal that we're mining and burning today was once CO2 in the atmosphere that plants absorbed over millions of years and we're releasing it rapidly back into the atmosphere much faster than the plants can absorb it. - - - Updated - - - We're not seeing a gradual warming trend. We're seeing a dramatic global warming trend that is unprecedented in natural history of the planet. Global temperatures changes that typically required thousands of years have occurred in less than 150 years and it's accellerating and there is direct correlation to the increase in manmade CO2 as well as the destruction of the rain forests that absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. This isn't even hard to understand. We're using fossil fuels that stored carbon produced millions of years ago and we're rapidly releasing it into the atmosphere. CO2 that was previously absorbed by the planet over tens and hundreds of millions of years has been released into the atmosphere over the last 150 years and it has overwhelmed the ability of the planet to re-absorb it. As also noted we've also destroyed much of the most effective means of absorbing that CO2 which is plant life. Think of this fact. All of the coal that we're mining and burning today was once CO2 in the atmosphere that plants absorbed over millions of years and we're releasing it rapidly back into the atmosphere much faster than the plants can absorb it.
