Primer Caps and Heavy Pendulums
20th April 2012
Freeberg looks at ‘climate change’.
I’m having a problem with my observation of the scientific method being applied to the question of an approaching climate-change cataclysm. I characterized my problem as a “Clark Kent and Superman” problem, by which I mean, I’m seeing these two components but never in the same room at the same time. I see people applying the scientific method to figuring out what’s going on with the climate, and I’m seeing prognostications of doom. But the scientific method and the doomsaying are never in the same room at the same time.
April 20th, 2012 at 11:43
What a poorly chosen metaphor. Clark Kent and Superman were never in the same room because the were the same person. But the scientific method and the doomsaying are never in the same room for the opposite reason – because they are totally unconnected.
This is really the “Sherlock Holmes and Superman” problem. There are good stories about each, but they are never the same story.
April 20th, 2012 at 12:46
I love how lay persons are so quick to dismiss the work of scientists as being ‘unscientific’.
Do you stand over your plumber or electrician and tell them how they’re doing it all wrong, too?
(Wives, of course, are exempted from this criticism…it’s how they’re constituted.)
April 20th, 2012 at 12:53
If my electrician or plumber threw away the original measurements for my system, and expected me to believe the new ones that were accepted by the industry for all systems, then yes, I would tell him that he’s doing it all wrong. When the official measurement site for Dallas weather was moved from Love Field to DFW Airport, the temperatures went up and the rainfall went down. Global Warming (TM)? No, the site was moved west to a warmer and drier area. That means that comparing earlier records from Love Field to current records at DFW is comparing Granny Smith apples with Red Delicious apples. They’re both the same type of thing, but completely different from each other.
April 23rd, 2012 at 12:32
“I love how lay persons are so quick to dismiss the work of scientists as being ‘unscientific’.”
Agreed. I particularly love how lay people quote the statement that Global Warming ™ is “settled science”, whenever a scientific report comes out showing that it isn’t.
And no, I don’t stand over my plumber or electrician when they’re working, just as I don’t stand over researchers when they are researching or writing papers. But yes, I do judge their work when they are finished. I know that my electrician is competent because my house hasn’t burned down. I know that the global scientists of the 1990s are incompetent because the world hasn’t.
In this case, all global warming predictions made in 1998-2002, except for those who questioned the assumptions of the computer models being used, showed accelerating increased warming throughout the time from 2002-2012. That has been proven to be false. Science is a process of making predictions, and then seeing if they are correct. The people measuring the predictions to see if what they predicted came true are scientists. People who made predictions and then don’t want them critiqued in this way are *not* scientists, no matter what letters follow their name.