Climate Science: Is it currently designed to answer questions?

[Poptech]

In fact you failed to do even the most basic of research on the publication you cited repeatedly.

LMAO! Wikipedia. The journal is Peer-Reviewed. ISI is an indexing company where people used to have to pay to get what Google provides for free. What ISI subjectively chooses to index is just that.

 

[fsol]

None of the journals are crack pot and they have not been refuted. Some have had comments made of which replies to them have been given.

Care to discuss the Beck paper?

 

[D'rok]

Not at all

Excellent. We can dismiss those sources as irrelevant to the argument then. Let us know when you have some sources that you would like us to consider as authoritative on AGW.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

Astronomy comes to mind. Perhaps we're lunatics for using computers to predict orbits and other events faaar intooo the fuuuuutuuuure...

I’d advise against flying, since the airplane will have been designed using a computer model, and never, NEVER go into a skyscraper because the computer models used to design them are totally unreliable.

In that case I suggest you put the computer away, after all it was designed using just a physical model, the fact that you are using it to browse the internet must be purely your imagination. I’d advise against flying, since the airplane will have been designed using a computer model, and never, NEVER go into a skyscraper because the computer models used to design them are totally unreliable.

And the nuclear arsenals should be mothballed, because they were only proven to be safe by computer simulation. eg: Feynman's contributions.

Thread won.

 

[blutoski]

I am well aware of what passes for science education today. Don't question the subjective "experts".

I didn't talk about science education at all, so I'm not sure why you're bringing it up.

I'm talking about using critical thinking skills in any venue where applicable. Critical thinking can be used in the natural sciences, of course.

Who defines "legitimate" and how is this determined?

That is called 'critical thinking'. The decision is situational.

For example, I suspect that Jenny McCarthy is incorrect about the relationship between autism and vaccination because she has not been able to cite research that has been vetted by organizations composed of people with medical qualifications and at the same time, these organizations composed of people with medical qualifications have rejected her claim.

I'm curious: how do you make these determinations? You earlier said that things have to be proven empirically (whatever that means)... have you personally replicated every experiment whose results you accept? Conversely: are you agnostic about facts you have not personally verified through empirical experimentation? (eg: are you agnostic regarding the claim that autism may be caused by vaccinations?)

Skepticism as is science is about facts and reproducible results, it has nothing to do with appeals to authority.

Skepticisim is applied critical thinking. Appeal to authority is a tool of critical thinking.

Skeptics who are not critical thinkers are regarded as pseudoskeptics.

If you have not personally conducted the experiment, you are appealing to authority by definition. Probably many authorities, actually: the paper is likely published in a peer-reviewed journal, which means the journal hired people to screen the submissions, then evaluate them for quality, all based on their reputation as authorities in the subject matter. A good history of this means the journal is regarded as an authority in the subject matter of their speciality. eg: Cell is a high-impact journal for cell biology.

 

[lomiller]

ISI is an indexing company where people used to have to pay to get what Google provides for free.

Scientists publish so others can build on their work, the work that is useful and convincing gets used and cited in other papers. ISI is key to this process because it brokers the citations.

Google, on the other hand indexes the pretty much the entire WWW where anyone can write anything they want. If you used google in place of ISI you could find articles that "prove" just about anything.

BTW as a libertarian are you suggesting you would prefer a government agency to back the citation process? If so, which government, and which politician would you put in charge?

 

[Safe-Keeper]

I am well aware of what passes for science education today. Don't question the subjective "experts".

So now you're throwing anti-intellectualism into the mix as well. Wow.

 

[blutoski]

Other then argument ad-nasium you refused to demonstrate your sources were valid. In fact you failed to do even the most basic of research on the publication you cited repeatedly.

I'm also confused about why he provided citations at all, if he feels that argument from authority is invalid. He isn't listed as even one of the authors of these papers.

 

[lomiller]

I'm also confused about why he provided citations at all, if he feels that argument from authority is invalid. He isn't listed as even one of the authors of these papers.

Apparently it’s only an argument from authority when they are saying something he doesn’t want to hear? I would assume credibility of sources are determined on the same basis?

 

[blutoski]

LMAO! Wikipedia. The journal is Peer-Reviewed. ISI is an indexing company where people used to have to pay to get what Google provides for free. What ISI subjectively chooses to index is just that.

Ah... a graduate of googleversity.

 

[lomiller]

Ah... a graduate of googleversity.

Yeah but he’s talked to so many hot 16 year old girls that way. To bad whenever he arranges to meet them there is always some creepy old man there scaring them off.

 

[Improbable Joe]

I'm also confused about why he provided citations at all, if he feels that argument from authority is invalid. He isn't listed as even one of the authors of these papers.

Poptech has presented a completely irrational and contradictory position... in that he should not be able to take ANY position at all. You can't say "I don't trust experts, therefore..." well, nothing. You can't get to a "therefore" using Poptech's method. It is garbage. If you reject experts that disagree with you, you have to also reject experts that agree with you... it is all or nothing. If it isn't, then you can't criticize others for trusting experts while you rely on other so-called experts.

I'm sure he's a libertarian... once you buy into THAT stupidity, your mind is pretty much incapable of filtering out every other bit of nonsense that comes its way.

 

[macdoc]

Should we take up a collection for a Nature subscription...

 

[technoextreme]

Virtual reality propability only applies to the virtual world. The one thing you can be sure of is everything happened 100% in the empirical experiment whether you understood it or analyzed it correct or not.

Ehhhh gads that isn't close to being correct. Whenever you perform an experiment you always introduce uncertainty. Come on.

You think you do. What you wind up getting more often is the wrong assumption. Of course you would use a model that was 100% accurate because you can run theoretical experiments you could not in the real world. Creating a 3D model to visually represent data can be useful, creating one to explain reality cannot unless it is identical to reality.

Congratulations. Using your stupidly wrong logic everything you use would fall apart because our models don't mesh up with reality 100% and vice versa. And why the hell did I learn about the simple capacitor model in college when it necessarily mesh up with reality?

 

[Belz...]

Sorry my area of expertise is computer science and no amount of peer-pressure is going to change how computers work, least of all from people who have no remote understanding of it.

Who's talking about peer pressure here except you ?

I thought skepticism is not based on appeals to authority and a lack of understanding of computer systems?

Again, who's appealing to authority ? Do you even know what an appeal to authority is ? Saying that a specialist in meteorology knows what he's talking about in his own field in not an appeal to authority.

Have you read paper?

No, I tend to read words printed or written on paper, instead. White wood paste doesn't interest me.

 

[Belz...]

Some calculation on a piece of paper is no more scientifically valid unless it is proven (my definition) empirically.

So it's as I said: you deny the very possibility of knowledge.

 

[Belz...]

Good question. I, too, have been wondering just what models are out. What about scale models of aircraft in wind tunnels? Seeing it's just a scale model and just a wind tunnel, not a real to-scale aircraft actually flying, surely the model is worthless, right?

See:

Scale models experiments are performed in reality.

Apparently, computer simulations don't run in reality.

I listed over 100 (I have more) that dispute everything from the IPCC to CO2 as a primary driver and yes climate models.

See the dissonance ? HE can make appeals to authority and popularity, but not us.

 

[Belz...]

LMAO! Wikipedia. The journal is Peer-Reviewed. ISI is an indexing company where people used to have to pay to get what Google provides for free. What ISI subjectively chooses to index is just that.

And as we all know EVERYTHING one finds on google is true, especially if your search leads you to Youtube.

 

[blutoski]

Saying that a specialist in meteorology knows what he's talking about in his own field in not an appeal to authority.

Actually, it is a good example of an appeal to authority.

It's not an example of a fallacious appeal to authority, aka "appeal to questionable/unqualified/false authority."

 

[MattusMaximus]

Virtual reality propability only applies to the virtual world. The one thing you can be sure of is everything happened 100% in the empirical experiment whether you understood it or analyzed it correct or not.

Huh? What? So you're going to claim there is no use whatsoever for any kind of computer modeling work - across the board, for everything? Despite the fact that in a wide variety of fields such computer modeling has helped us expand our boundaries of knowledge by orders of magnitude?

And what exactly do you mean by throwing around this 100% number? You seem to be applying multiple meanings to it in an effort to be intentionally vague.

And do you also realize that even in an, as you call it, empirical experiment, there is still never 100% accuracy? As anyone who has done any reasonable amount of empirical lab work can tell you, uncertainty in data and analysis can never be avoided. So, by this unrealistic criterion and to be logically consistent, you must also conclude that there is also never a trustworthy empirical experiment since no such experiment can meet your bar of 100% accuracy. Are you willing to conclude this in order to keep your arguments logically consistent?

If so, then welcome to the end of science. You're effectively killing the entire process.
If not, then you are a hypocrite and not interested in doing science at all. You are simply attempting to misuse science, play word games, and advance a non-scientific agenda.

You think you do. What you wind up getting more often is the wrong assumption. Of course you would use a model that was 100% accurate because you can run theoretical experiments you could not in the real world. Creating a 3D model to visually represent data can be useful, creating one to explain reality cannot unless it is identical to reality.

Uhm, if we could create models identical to reality, then why create them in the first place? You already have reality. The whole point of creating models is to deal with things - like prediction - that you cannot do in reality. You seem to want to miss the entire point of modeling.

Again, you are missing and/or ignoring the earlier & important point made by many about how no model in any field is 100% accurate.

Reality is not unrealistic only computer climate models.

Nice quip. I notice that in that statement you single out climate models as being unrealistic, but in order to be consistent in your arguments, you should also be stating that all computer models of any kind are not trustworthy in the least. Are you actually saying this? Or are you just trying to make a lousy argument against climate science that you seem to have an ideological problem with?