What Have You Jackasses Done...

[rkbabang]

"2016 is such a surreal year."

 

It is the turning point away from tyranny that people like yourself, billionaires and the media have brought on us. All over the world people are saying no more of this BS.

 

The S&P is now up by the way as I suspected and mentioned. Just proof that all these lies from the Left to induce fear was all it was.

 

Cardboard

 

Yes I love this year. First Brexit now this. Next up Europe please?

 

I'm hoping for the secession movements to really pick up some steam.

 

The US:

CA: http://www.yescalifornia.org/

NH: http://nhindependence.org/

TX: https://www.texassecede.com/

VT: http://vermontrepublic.org/

AK: http://www.akip.org/

 

Canada:

  Alberta: http://www.republicofalberta.com/

  Quebec: http://www.mlnq.org/

 

Scotland and a bunch of other movements in Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_separatist_movements_in_Europe

 

 

Oregon & Washington state:

http://www.kiro7.com/news/local/after-trump-victory-oregonians-submit-petition-to-secede/466091749

[Guest Schwab711]

Human induced climate change is a complete lie.

 

Would you mind explaining your rationale?

 

If "human induced" is the sticking point than it seems moot. We could argue about the % of human contribution but if one accepts the evidence of climate change and the science behind the various mechanisms, it's a minor detail.

 

If you ascribe to the Breitbart article then I wonder why you think the US and UK would purposefully destroy their manufacturing bases to help the Chinese and hurt themselves? Where's the incentive? US manufacturing was in severe decline before the late 80's and early 90's when climate change science was in its infancy. What's the evidence, how sure are you, and why?

 

I'm saying humans have no signficant influence either way. The climate goes through cycles induced by many subcycles such as many cycles of the sun, cycles of the liquid core of the earth etc many of which we haven't discovered as the cycles have periods of millenia. The periodic changes of climate are natural and we can't even predict them yet, let alone influence them.

 

Have you read the scientific papers behind the "climate change mantra"? They are based on extrapolations which are not statistically valid. They are only out there because academic institutions get subsidies and monetary gifts if the produce papers claiming climate change is real. Institutions who claim the opposite see their incone streams dry up. There's a lot of people who are making a shit ton of money of off the climate change lie and all the retards in the world are eating it up. Sorry for the language but it's really frustrating to see everyone be manipulated this easily.

 

And yes I have an academic background (phd). Not that that's an argument but nowadays people don't believe you're competent unless you show a certificate given out by the politically corrupted and scientifically hollowed out institutions known as universities.

 

EDIT:

 

I attached a more detailed rationale with sources (not written by me)

 

Thanks for the response.

 

Who do you think benefits from academically supporting climate change? Most industries are hurt by climate change research. I do agree that disincentives appear frequently in academics, but there's not a lot of incentive to support this topic. That's what makes me uncomfortable with my cautious position. Why should we halt all research or efforts? I don't understand the evidence for that.

 

I agree on the dangers of extrapolating a rate of change because it leads to exponential errors. But even if the derivative flat lines we have a potentially large issue. When it comes to do we need to resolve it and how, I have no clue.

 

How did you get comfortable with zero threat? From a statistical viewpoint, there's a chance acceleration remains >= 0. If that liklihood is the "true" future outcome, we really do have an issue.

 

I will say, it sucks that there's becoming just two camps on the issue. Most folks assume there is either a massive problem or a massive cover-up/conspiracy. I think a reasonable argument could be made that we are seeing some natural fluctuations, some human influence, and some noise. I'm not sure if that's my position (or if I'm smart enough to have a position), but I think it's a reasonable argument.

 

Either way, interesting topic and it's nice to understand where others come from, thought process-wise.

[rb]

The thing is that there really isn't a middle position. Just like you can't be just a little bit pregnant. If climate change is happening then it's a huge problem. Moreover, even if you don't believe in climate change switching to clean/cleaner fuels has other benefits as well. Health benefits come to mind quickly. Does anyone want to live next to a coal power plant? From the health economics aspect alone: clean tech prices are coming down and health care prices are going up. So you have an improving economic argument for that. Not to mention the social/personal benefits of not getting sick.

 

On the other side I think the opposition to clean energy has less to do with facts then feelings. I don't think that the people that create or buy rolling coal for example do that based on a socio-economic analysis of clean energy.

[Packer16]

There is a middle position that the climate change has always happened and will happen in the future & why spend good tax money subsidizing an industry if it is economically viable?  The opposition is not against the technology but subsidization using taxpayer money.  The subsidy is also paying out cash versus just paying less tax in the case of other alternatives.

 

Packer

[rukawa]

The thing is that there really isn't a middle position. Just like you can't be just a little bit pregnant. If climate change is happening then it's a huge problem.

 

I am not sure exactly  how you come to this conclusion. If the climate system has very small sensitivity to C02 then climate change is not a major problem. If the sensitivity is high than its a big problem. So its not like pregnancy at all. There is a continuous range of possibilities and all of them depend on the climate sensitivity.

 

There are two mechanisms of heat energy transfer in the atmosphere: radiative transfer and convective transfer. Radiative transfer is basically the transfer of  energy by light or infrared between layers of the atmosphere. Convective transfer occurs because of flows of air, for instance warm air rising. Now suppose you completely suspend all convective transfers of energy with a magic wand and in addition there are no clouds in the sky, no change in water vapour, no aerosols, then all you have is radiative transfer between layers of the atmosphere. In this situation, if you add C02 into the atmosphere, it will warm and this piece of physics is basically very well understood, well known and not under dispute by anyone including well-informed skeptics.

 

Now the amount of warming you get for a doubling of C02 given this clear-sky assumption is 1C (more complicated but reasonable assumptions about the atmosphere give you 1.2C). Current concentrations of C02 are 400ppm and the current rate of increase is 2ppm per year. So for C02 to double it will take 200 years if we maintain our current levels/mix of fossil fuels consumption (replacements of coal with nat gas lowers this number, economic growth may increase this number). And after that 200 years, based purely on the clear-sky assumption above, we should have temperatures increase by 1.2 degree.  This is not catastrophic. To get 2.4 degrees you would have to go from 400ppm to 1600ppm ... you need C02 to double twice.

 

To get catastrophe you need much larger increases in temperature when C02 doubles and to get those you need to incorporate various feed-backs. Here scientists rely on GCMs where they create grids of cells for the atmosphere and within each cell they assume all state variables are constant (pressure, temp, wind velocity, water vapour etc). However the problem with GCMs is that the grid cell sizes are on the order of 100kmx100km. This means that you can't properly simulate convection processes with this size of grid cells since storm processes occur on scales below this cell size. You also can't properly simulate clouds both because of the size of the cells and additionally because cloud formation processes are not well understood.

 

The way GCMs deal with clouds is they guess. The basically use the pressure, temp and other variables in the grid cell to make some guess as to what type and extent of clouds you will have. The guesses are based on empirical studies of clouds and are essentially statistical models of what type of clouds you tend to observe given temp, pressure, water vapour etc. Of course this isn't real physics...its fake bullshit but its the only thing you can do because we can't model clouds. As far as the convection process going on below 100km, the GCMs have no way of dealing with this and just kind of assume it doesn't matter. However anybody competent knows it does matter enormously but again we don't have any way of modelling this due to computational constraints.

 

As far as I am concerned the GCMs are a piece of shit. The code is ugly, badly written, and looks like shit. The assumptions are ridiculous and would never be accepted in any other area of numerical modelling. There are important processes we simply can't model. And nearly every scary prediction comes from these models: more droughts, more severe storms etc. The worst thing of all is that the models don't even have the ability to model storms at all. SO HOW THE HECK CAN THEY BE USE TO SHOW THAT STORMS WILL GET MORE SEVERE WHEN THEY HAVE GRID CELLS SIZES OF 100KM THAT MAKES MODELLING STORMs IMPOSSIBLE. Its garbage like this that makes me angry.

 

But all the catastrophic predictions come from these models. And what is really interesting is that the models are running too hot. The actual increase in temp we see don't match most of the GCMs except for the ones that predict the smallest temperature increases. So the least scary models have the best match to what we are currently seeing.

 

The only part of the science I really place trust in is the 1.2C warming per doubling of C02 which comes from the clear sky approximation I discussed earlier. And to me that just isn't a big deal.

 

And finally lets discuss sea level rise. Sea level rise used to occur at about 2mm/ year and now its basically 3mm/year. So instead of rising 30 cm over 100 years they would have risen 20 cm over 100 years if we didn't have global warming. Big deal. A additional 10 cm rise over 100 years should be easy for anyone to adapt to.

[vinod1]

Taleb has a good approach of how we should think about climate change:

 

THE POLICY DEBATE with respect to anthropogenic climate-change typically revolves around the accuracy of models. Those who contend that models make accurate predictions argue for specific policies to stem the foreseen damaging effects; those who doubt their accuracy cite a lack of reliable evidence of harm to warrant policy action.

 

These two alternatives are not exhaustive. One can sidestep the "skepticism" of those who question existing climate-models, by framing risk in the most straight- forward possible terms, at the global scale. That is, we should ask "what would the correct policy be if we had no reliable models?"

 

We have only one planet. This fact radically constrains the kinds of risks that are appropriate to take at a large scale. Even a risk with a very low probability becomes unacceptable when it affects all of us – there is no reversing mistakes of that magnitude. Without any precise models, we can still reason that polluting or altering our environment significantly could put us in uncharted territory, with no statistical track- record and potentially large consequences. It is at the core of both scientific decision making and ancestral wisdom to take seriously absence of evidence when the consequences of an action can be large. And it is standard textbook decision theory that a policy should depend at least as much on uncertainty concerning the adverse consequences as it does on the known effects.

Further, it has been shown that in any system fraught with opacity, harm is in the dose rather than in the nature of the offending substance: it increases nonlinearly to the quantities at stake. Everything fragile has such property. While some amount of pollution is inevitable, high quantities of any pollutant put us at a rapidly increasing risk of destabilizing the climate, a system that is integral to the biosphere. Ergo, we should build down CO2 emissions, even regardless of what climate-models tell us.

 

This leads to the following asymmetry in climate policy. The scale of the effect must be demonstrated to be large enough to have impact. Once this is shown, and it has been, the burden of proof of absence of harm is on those who would deny it.

 

It is the degree of opacity and uncertainty in a system, as well as asymmetry in effect, rather than specific model predictions, that should drive the precautionary mea- sures. Push a complex system too far and it will not come back. The popular belief that uncertainty undermines the case for taking seriously the ’climate crisis’ that scientists tell us we face is the opposite of the truth. Properly understood, as driving the case for precaution, uncertainty radically underscores that case, and may even constitute it.

 

 

http://fooledbyrandomness.com/climateletter.pdf

 

Vinod

[wachtwoord]

If we consider we don't have a working model it should not affect our decision either way. I mean extra CO2 (or any of the other "poluting" substances) is just as likely to be beneficial as detrimental to human life on this planet. Not increasing it might cause global warming or a global ice age. Same goes for increasing it. We just don't know. We lack any evidence.

 

So we should just do whatever we'd do if we knew for certain it had no effect as any actions we take cost wealth (renewables are more expensive) and don't bring value (detrimental effects are as likely as beneficial ones).

[CorpRaider]

The other polluting substances are just as likely to be beneficial?  Isn't there a demonstrable and even pretty quantifiable link to emissions and respiratory illness and cancers (San Francisco, circa 1987, alleges there are other costs as well).  Maybe a repeal of the tax credits to both renewable and fossil fuels and then analysis of an excise tax to be used to offset costs of water contamination and healthcare costs externalized on society at large should be studied.  I bet the Chinese are looking into that right now.  I bet their citizens wish they looked into that a decade ago.

[rukawa]

These two alternatives are not exhaustive. One can sidestep the "skepticism" of those who question existing climate-models, by framing risk in the most straight- forward possible terms, at the global scale. That is, we should ask "what would the correct policy be if we had no reliable models?"...

Further, it has been shown that in any system fraught with opacity, harm is in the dose rather than in the nature of the offending substance: it increases nonlinearly to the quantities at stake. Everything fragile has such property. While some amount of pollution is inevitable, high quantities of any pollutant put us at a rapidly increasing risk of destabilizing the climate, a system that is integral to the biosphere. Ergo, we should build down CO2 emissions, even regardless of what climate-models tell us.

 

You can't get something from nothing. You can't derive a policy action from ignorance. For all we know the C02 could be preventing an ice age from happening. If we adopt your framework the biggest fear of all is NOT global warming. Its global cooling. And in that case we should be doing everything we can given the huge and horrific damage of an ice age to warm the planet to prevent it.

 

We also don't know what "high" quantities are. You say high quantities of C02 are 400ppm. I say they are 1000 ppm. We are just guessing.

 

Without any precise models, we can still reason that polluting or altering our environment significantly could put us in uncharted territory, with no statistical track- record and potentially large consequences.

 

And I can equally argue that NOT emitting C02 puts us into uncharted territory given that we have been emitting C02 for decades. And there could be potentially massive consequences for NOT emitting C02. Your assumption is that this planet is a safe place as long as we do nothing to interfere with its natural process. But this assumption is false. This planet has undergone mass extinctions and ice ages. The no interference strategy is no guarantee of safety.

 

C02 isn't a pollutant. Its actually necessary for plant growth and it acts as a plant fertilizer. Plants have these small holes in their leaves and when they try to get C02 they lose enormous quantities of water. So what plant do is they suck up large quantites of water every year to replace the water they lose when they try to obtain C02. This process is called transpiration. When you increase levels of C02 in the atmosphere, plants are able to obtain C02 more easily and so they close their small holes (stomata) more often and thus lose less water. Thus increased C02 => plants need less water to grow and this contributes to the greening of the Earth which has already been observed. This also means plants are increasingly able to grow in very dry areas of the Earth like deserts. BTW, If C02 levels are too low all the plants on this Earth will die...so I might want to keep C02 levels extra high just to avoid this potential disaster under the framework you propose.

 

And finally if you really want to adopt a risk management framework based on ignorance my view is that the mantra should be: Be Adaptable. The tail of probability distributions is filled with all kinds of unlikely events you can't predict and won't see coming. THe problem is almost never the thing you plan for or are concerned about. Its the thing you never saw coming. You say the problem is global warming...I say you have no clue what the problem is. In that case you want as much adaptability to unexpected events as possible. That means you need technology and you need increased investment into robust technologies, backups, food storage, water storage etc. You want to ask questions like:

 

How would we function if plane couldn't fly?

Suppose all electronics stopped functioning tomorrow?

Suppose the electricity system were disabled?

Suppose the internet broke?

Suppose plants stopped producing food?

 

The idea of avoiding disaster or trying to prevent it is stupid. Disasters are low probability events and they come from places you never see. You want your systems robust enough to adapt AFTER they hit.

[RichardGibbons]

The idea of avoiding disaster or trying to prevent it is stupid. Disasters are low probability events and they come from places you never see. You want your systems robust enough to adapt AFTER they hit.

 

Wow, we should stop wasting all that money on traffic lights, air traffic controllers, IT security.  There's so much waste in trying to avoid disasters.  Don't bother to maintain those dykes and dams to prevent flooding. Just buy a bunch of mops!

 

Heck, forget exercise or healthy eating--just install personal defibrillators. Short Gold's Gym!  Buy Coke!  Buy Defibtech!

 

If we follow your suggestion, I imagine we'll be able to free up at least 10% of the capacity of the economy, leading to golden age of prosperity.

[Packer16]

The point is that we should not spend alot of resources on speculative outcomes with low probabilities of occurring when you can spend the money on higher return for investment activities.  Global warming is happening but the question is there an cost effective action we can take versus the other malodies that effect man on earth.  Cool It by Bjorn Lomborg provides the best cost/benefit I have seen.  If there are others who provide an alternative framework it would be interesting to examine.

 

Packer

[rukawa]

The idea of avoiding disaster or trying to prevent it is stupid. Disasters are low probability events and they come from places you never see. You want your systems robust enough to adapt AFTER they hit.

 

Wow, we should stop wasting all that money on traffic lights, air traffic controllers, IT security.  There's so much waste in trying to avoid disasters.  Don't bother to maintain those dykes and dams to prevent flooding. Just buy a bunch of mops!

 

Heck, forget exercise or healthy eating--just install personal defibrillators. Short Gold's Gym!  Buy Coke!  Buy Defibtech!

 

If we follow your suggestion, I imagine we'll be able to free up at least 10% of the capacity of the economy, leading to golden age of prosperity.

 

Nearly every example you have given is for stuff where we have an abundance of empirical data and we have actually seen the disaster happen repeatedly. In fact I think every single example is one where we have enough data that we have seen the event happen thousands of times (traffic accidents, deaths due to heart disease, plane crashes).

 

We only started developing ways to prevent each of things you alluded to AFTER they had already happened hundreds of times. How many plane crashes did we have before we developed air traffic controllers? How many accidents before traffic lights?

 

My comment was in the context of the discussion which was referring to risk events that happen once in 30 years or once in 100 years. Very low probability events that we have poor information on and poor models of because they almost never happen or if they did happen would be catastrophic.

 

So if we lived in an intergalatic civilization with a billion planets and on these planets we had empirical data about the long term effects of 100 years of global warming then we could devise a preventative solution like traffic lights. The problem is that we don't have that. We have poor models, poor data and poor understanding. So none of what you wrote applies.

[mcliu]

We only started developing ways to prevent each of things you alluded to AFTER they had already happened hundreds of times. How many plane crashes did we have before we developed air traffic controllers? How many accidents before traffic lights?

 

I guess, the difference here is, there's only one plane, and we're all on it. ::)

[rukawa]

We only started developing ways to prevent each of things you alluded to AFTER they had already happened hundreds of times. How many plane crashes did we have before we developed air traffic controllers? How many accidents before traffic lights?

 

I guess, the difference here is, there's only one plane, and we're all on it. ::)

 

That obviously increases the urgency of action but it doesn't tell you what to do.

[Jurgis]

Great example of discussion which should be conducted by experts rather than relying on "I'm smart so I can comment on atmospheric science and you should listen to me because I happen to be on this forum and I have strong opinion.".

 

Maybe someone should also opine about dark matter, string theory and quantum computing while we're at it.  ::)

[Aberhound]

The trouble with experts, and most people is that they fail to set aside their pre-conceived beliefs without ever examining the possibility that they as humans are fallible and so are their professors and other scientists, even famous scientists of great renown. I guarantee that in 20 years half the prevailing theories will be disproven if only because the pace of scientific advancement is accelerating.

 

We have all learned from Munger and others the many psychological errors in logic we all fall for while investing. You have to empty your cup before you can fill it with knowledge. Otherwise new information which opposes your pre-conceived beliefs tend to be ignored. Nothing should be added to the cup before it is proven, preferably with examples from nature, and until you have followed Munger's advice and examined the opposing viewpoints to challenge your own beliefs.

 

Now the topic is whether Americans are jackasses for electing someone who they believe will better their interests. Obviously not. I also commend the wisdom of those behind the scenes who allowed the voters to achieve their desire to vote for change. It is better to allow the tide to flow both ways.

[rukawa]

Great example of discussion which should be conducted by experts rather than relying on "I'm smart so I can comment on atmospheric science and you should listen to me because I happen to be on this forum and I have strong opinion.".

 

Maybe someone should also opine about dark matter, string theory and quantum computing while we're at it.  ::)

 

Ya we should never listen to some unemployed, loud, obnoxious guy living with his parents like this guy:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Heaviside

 

Or some crazy lunatic that was put in an insane asylum:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis

 

Naw just keep listening to the experts.

 

[Jurgis]

Great example of discussion which should be conducted by experts rather than relying on "I'm smart so I can comment on atmospheric science and you should listen to me because I happen to be on this forum and I have strong opinion.".

 

Maybe someone should also opine about dark matter, string theory and quantum computing while we're at it.  ::)

 

Ya we should never listen to some unemployed, loud, obnoxious guy living with his parents like this guy:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Heaviside

 

Or some crazy lunatic that was put in an insane asylum:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis

 

Naw just keep listening to the experts.

 

So you are claiming to be at the level of Oliver Heaviside or Ignaz Semmelweis?

[rukawa]

Great example of discussion which should be conducted by experts rather than relying on "I'm smart so I can comment on atmospheric science and you should listen to me because I happen to be on this forum and I have strong opinion.".

 

Maybe someone should also opine about dark matter, string theory and quantum computing while we're at it.  ::)

 

Ya we should never listen to some unemployed, loud, obnoxious guy living with his parents like this guy:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Heaviside

 

Or some crazy lunatic that was put in an insane asylum:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis

 

Naw just keep listening to the experts.

 

So you are claiming to be at the level of Oliver Heaviside or Ignaz Semmelweis?

 

Please read what I wrote. I didn't claim anything about myself at all. You are the only one who has done that. I just pointed out the absurd implications of your argument that we should only listen to experts.

[Jurgis]

Please read what I wrote. I didn't claim anything about myself at all. You are the only one who has done that. I just pointed out the absurd implications of your argument that we should only listen to experts.

 

Unfortunately, the farther we get into specialized sciences, the more we should listen to the experts.

 

Your examples show that sometimes the general expert opinion is wrong. And sometimes people who are not mainstream experts are right. But in most cases that is not true. And in most cases non-experts can't even decide whether expert arguments are right or wrong - and whether people objecting to experts have a clue or are spouting complete nonsense or are making slight but important errors that make their arguments invalid.

 

Let's take you as an example. Maybe what you said is completely correct and mainstream models have drawbacks you indicated. However, nobody on this forum can know this. They can take your side or take opposite side, but they don't know the science and they cannot know whether you said something meaningful or spouted nonsense or made some errors that you are not aware of. It seems meaningful, but that doesn't mean much. I can write up ten paragraphs in areas where I'm an expert that are completely meaningless or have slight errors in them and nobody here will be able to say whether it is or isn't (apart experts in the same areas). So ... sure ... there might be climate scientists who do not agree with mainstream opinion ... and they might be even right ... but they have to discuss this with experts and convince them rather than going populist and presenting their theories to people who cannot judge their correctness and can only use their feelings and ideology to agree or disagree.

 

Edit: Blame part of the above to the fact that sciences become more and more specialized and more and more complex. There are proofs of math theorems that are understood by a handful people on planet ... and even then possibly incompletely. Yeah, they could be wrong... and if they affected feelings and lives of millions of people (like climate science does) they might be as contested as climate science. But that still wouldn't mean that people who are not experts in the field and who don't understand the proofs can offer legitimate opinions about their validity.

 

Trying to simplify arguments and counterarguments for general public's level of understanding is a slippery slope. Take something like Fermat theorem and its proof. Try to simplify it so public would believe that you really proved it. Take some experts who claim that your proof is broken. Try to simplify their arguments. Can this be resolved at that level of discourse? If the error is within complex models or constructs, it is pretty impossible for public to make informed opinion based on simplified arguments about field they don't know or know on non-expert level. The arguments and counterarguments have to be at the expert level (like it was actually with Fermat theorem's proof: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiles%27s_proof_of_Fermat%27s_Last_Theorem ).

[rukawa]

Please read what I wrote. I didn't claim anything about myself at all. You are the only one who has done that. I just pointed out the absurd implications of your argument that we should only listen to experts.

 

Unfortunately, the farther we get into specialized sciences, the more we should listen to the experts.

 

Your examples show that sometimes the general expert opinion is wrong. And sometimes people who are not mainstream experts are right. But in most cases that is not true. And in most cases non-experts can't even decide whether expert arguments are right or wrong - and whether people objecting to experts have a clue or are spouting complete nonsense.

 

Let's take you as an example. Maybe what you said is completely correct and mainstream models have drawbacks you indicated. However, nobody on this forum can know this. They can take your side or take opposite side, but they don't know the science and they cannot know whether you said something meaningful or spouted nonsense. It seems meaningful, but that doesn't mean much. I can write up ten paragraphs in areas where I'm an expert that are completely meaningless and nobody here will be able to say whether it is or isn't (apart experts in the same areas). So ... sure ... there might be climate scientists who do not agree with mainstream opinion ... and they might be even right ... but they have to discuss this with experts and convince them rather than going populist and presenting their theories to people who cannot judge their correctness and can only use their feelings and ideology to agree or disagree.

 

This are ways to resolve this. And indeed questions like this have to be resolved all the time by everyone.

 

I can view all science as a series of black boxes that I don't understand and indeed don't care to understand. I then I can ask an elementary question:

 

These people that are claiming they can do X with their black box thingamagigy. How many times have the successfully done the thing they are claiming they can do?

 

We do this all the time in areas where we don't have expertise. For instance, you hire a pilot name Burt to fly a plane. Now you are not the world's leading expert on Burt. You did not get a PhD in Burtology. So how do you know Burt can fly the plane? Well you base it on how many times he has flown a plane before. For instance, if he was a charter pilot for 13 years and flown 1 thousand flights and has 10000 hours of flight time...well then you have a basis for believing Burt can fly a plane.

 

The question for climate science is:

How many times have climate scientists successfully made 100 year climate predictions. The answer is zero.

 

I can judge every science in this manner even if I don't understand it. I for instance don't really have any understanding of how planes fly...I"m not an expert in it. I base my trust in planes on the actual fact that planes successfully fly thousands and thousand of times in the past not on a study of aerodynamics. Similarly I have never studied the structural physics keeping my home standing and I probably never will but I do know that Greenpark has built tonnes of homes successfully and my home has been around for >20 years.

 

But lets say for the sake of argument you decide you are going to trust the climate experts with their 100 year predictions. Fine. But what exactly are you going to trust them with? Are you going to trust them to tell you whether invest in Microsoft. Obviously not. You will obviously trust them in the area they have expertise in. That is climate science.

 

HOWEVER they do not have expertise in policy or economics or good/bad outcomes. Thus they may be able to tell you what will happen with the climate. But they can't tell you what to do about it or even whether the outcome is good/bad/catastrophic. Because physical science has no concept of good or bad. Or what is the best course of action to take. Thus even if you trust them you are still left with two big problems:

 

How bad is the problem?

 

What should you do about the problem?

[Spekulatius]

How did you come up with the artificial threshold of prediction the climate 100 years in advance. you know full well that this would have required somebody in 1916, when there were no computer or computer models at all, not even reliable data, to make a prediction what the climate would look like in 2016? How would that be possible?

 

[Jurgis]

I feel that we are going farther and farther away from the initial topic of why non-expert discussions about deeply scientific topic are not very useful.

 

However to comment on what you wrote:

 

The question for climate science is:

How many times have climate scientists successfully made 100 year climate predictions. The answer is zero. .

 

I disagree with this approach. The fact that John Smith never proved Fermat's theorem before does not mean that his current proof is incorrect. The fact that John Smith proved other math theorems does not mean his proof of Fermat's theorem is correct.

 

You cannot use past success as a metric to judge a novel scientific model/theory/claim.

It's particularly meaningless in this case where newest models need data and computers that did not exist 100 years ago.

 

I guess you could argue that we should wait 10-20-50 years to see how the predictions of current models work out. I agree that this makes some sense, though clearly if there is an issue that needs to be addressed, waiting may have quite negative consequences.

 

But lets say for the sake of argument you decide you are going to trust the climate experts with their 100 year predictions. Fine. But what exactly are you going to trust them with? Are you going to trust them to tell you whether invest in Microsoft. Obviously not. You will obviously trust them in the area they have expertise in. That is climate science.

 

HOWEVER they do not have expertise in policy or economics or good/badness outcomes. Thus they may be able to tell you what will happen with the climate. But they can't tell you what to do about it or even whether the outcome is good/bad/catastrophic. Because physical science has no concept of good or bad. Or what is the best course of action to take. Thus even if you trust them you are still left with two big problems:

 

How bad is the problem?

 

What should you do about the problem?

 

These are good questions. :)

 

The answer to second question depends on the question "How bad is the problem?", which might be partially answerable within climate science domain. Clearly if scientists predicted temperature drops that would cause ice age, it would be "really bad problem". Similarly if they predict temperature rise that is significant enough to cause big issues based on experts in other fields (e.g. ecology, oceanology, agriculture, etc.) then it can be considered "really bad problem".

 

If it is "really bad problem", then experts within respective fields in cooperation should consider what could and should be done about such problem. They should prepare recommendations how to address the problem.

 

If it's difficult to decide whether prediction causes "really bad problem", then situation is more difficult. I would still suggest that experts within respective fields in cooperation should consider what could and should be done and what/how should be monitored to see if problem is getting worse or not.

 

What you might be driving at is that ultimately "people" (non-experts) would have to make decisions within political/economic framework (In politics/economics it's much harder to decide who is an expert...). My hope would still be that governments or politicians would make these decisions based on expert opinions rather than trying to make their minds based on feelings, or non-expert understanding of the field.

 

In reality, things usually happen quite differently from above picture.

[SharperDingaan]

This is actually bang on topic.

 

Gurus don't like their ideas challenged - either by peon, or expert; it disturbs the universe.

Whether its hard science (Galileo), or soft science (Management) - if it's not the existing 'convention', we don't want to hear it.

 

Ultimately every idea is worth precisely zero if nobody uses it. I have the cure for cancer, but nobody believes it - so we all die instead.

But if I'm willing to try it, I'll live - and its just the rest of you that will shuffle off. Of course I'll be pressured to deny my view, right up until it saves your life.

 

We don't have to believe; we just have to be willing to experiment - and let the results speak. All those folks who had already flown with Burt were the experiment(s), they all safely reached ground again with no mishap (results); flying with Burt seems like a reasonable prospect. It's not an absolute guarantee, but it is an acceptable risk.

 

You fly with Burt to your destination, and the guru walks ...... couldn't move on

 

SD

 

I feel that we are going farther and farther away from the initial topic of why non-expert discussions about deeply scientific topic are not very useful.

 

However to comment on what you wrote:

 

The question for climate science is:

How many times have climate scientists successfully made 100 year climate predictions. The answer is zero. .

 

I disagree with this approach. The fact that John Smith never proved Fermat's theorem before does not mean that his current proof is incorrect. The fact that John Smith proved other math theorems does not mean his proof of Fermat's theorem is correct.

 

You cannot use past success as a metric to judge a novel scientific model/theory/claim.

It's particularly meaningless in this case where newest models need data and computers that did not exist 100 years ago.

 

I guess you could argue that we should wait 10-20-50 years to see how the predictions of current models work out. I agree that this makes some sense, though clearly if there is an issue that needs to be addressed, waiting may have quite negative consequences.

 

But lets say for the sake of argument you decide you are going to trust the climate experts with their 100 year predictions. Fine. But what exactly are you going to trust them with? Are you going to trust them to tell you whether invest in Microsoft. Obviously not. You will obviously trust them in the area they have expertise in. That is climate science.

 

HOWEVER they do not have expertise in policy or economics or good/badness outcomes. Thus they may be able to tell you what will happen with the climate. But they can't tell you what to do about it or even whether the outcome is good/bad/catastrophic. Because physical science has no concept of good or bad. Or what is the best course of action to take. Thus even if you trust them you are still left with two big problems:

 

How bad is the problem?

 

What should you do about the problem?

 

These are good questions. :)

 

The answer to second question depends on the question "How bad is the problem?", which might be partially answerable within climate science domain. Clearly if scientists predicted temperature drops that would cause ice age, it would be "really bad problem". Similarly if they predict temperature rise that is significant enough to cause big issues based on experts in other fields (e.g. ecology, oceanology, agriculture, etc.) then it can be considered "really bad problem".

 

If it is "really bad problem", then experts within respective fields in cooperation should consider what could and should be done about such problem. They should prepare recommendations how to address the problem.

 

If it's difficult to decide whether prediction causes "really bad problem", then situation is more difficult. I would still suggest that experts within respective fields in cooperation should consider what could and should be done and what/how should be monitored to see if problem is getting worse or not.

 

What you might be driving at is that ultimately "people" (non-experts) would have to make decisions within political/economic framework (In politics/economics it's much harder to decide who is an expert...). My hope would still be that governments or politicians would make these decisions based on expert opinions rather than trying to make their minds based on feelings, or non-expert understanding of the field.

 

In reality, things usually happen quite differently from above picture.

[rukawa]

I feel that we are going farther and farther away from the initial topic of why non-expert discussions about deeply scientific topic are not very useful.

 

On this point we are in full agreement. In fact I tried to resist commenting on this...but I failed. I do hereby promise not to comment on this thread ever again.

I disagree with this approach. The fact that John Smith never proved Fermat's theorem before does not mean that his current proof is incorrect. The fact that John Smith proved other math theorems does not mean his proof of Fermat's theorem is correct.

 

You cannot use past success as a metric to judge a novel scientific model/theory/claim.

It's particularly meaningless in this case where newest models need data and computers that did not exist 100 years ago.

 

I guess you could argue that we should wait 10-20-50 years to see how the predictions of current models work out. I agree that this makes some sense, though clearly if there is an issue that needs to be addressed, waiting may have quite negative consequences.

 

Mathematical verification is completely different that scientific modelling. The two aren't comparable

 

As for science I would argue that pass success is the only metric for judging all scientific claims or theories including novel ones. So we can agree that we disagree on this.

 

How did you come up with the artificial threshold of prediction the climate 100 years in advance. you know full well that this would have required somebody in 1916, when there were no computer or computer models at all, not even reliable data, to make a prediction what the climate would look like in 2016? How would that be possible?

 

You right its completely artificial and made up my me. Feel free to make up your own. My question is can you do X (feel free to insert your X here). The only way I know if you can do X is either if you have done X or something very similar to X before. Its not really a threshold of truth, its a threshold of capability. So you are perfectly entitled to reject a test of GCMs that requires them to make 100 year climate predictions. What you are not entitled to do is then later claim that they can make 100 year climate predictions.

 

If you want the test to be: GCMs can match past climate warming. Great you passed the test! But all that entitles you to do is match the past not predict the future. My point is that whatever GCMs have successfully done repeatedly we have confidence they can do again. Whatever they have never done we have no basis for believing they can do.

 

So you might have a baby and you bring him to me and say : "My baby can solve Calculus problems"

And I say: "Oh ya, why don't I give him a calculus problem and he can solve it"

And you say: "Hey no fair!!! That is an artificial threshold. How did you come up with that?! Obviously, my baby will fail since he hasn't even had the time to learn to read/write/speak. But if he could communicate he could solve any calculus problem you gave him"

And I say: "Well I don't have any reason to believe your baby is capable of solving calculus problems then"