Scientific Consensus+GW

[hcap]

Originally Posted by bigmac

So we're clear, if you think mankind has made a contribution with any regard to 'climate change' beyond .1%, you're certifiable.

Man affecting climate? - That's rich. That would be akin to a teaspoon of oil in the gulf and you & your comrades exclaiming "It's an environmental catastrophe!"

Here's an article explaining modern scientific methods. Specifically the peer review process. And why consensus is important.

http://www.alternet.org/books/147668...e/?page=entire


.....History shows us clearly that science does not provide certainty. It does not provide proof. It only provides the consensus of experts, based on the organized accumulation and scrutiny of evidence. Hearing “both sides” of an issue makes sense when debating politics in a two-party system, but there’s a problem when that framework is applied to science. When a scientific question is unanswered, there may be three, four, or a dozen competing hypotheses, which are then investigated through research. Or there may be just one generally accepted working hypothesis, but with several important variations or differences in emphasis. When geologists were debating continental drift in the 1940s, Harvard professor Marlin Billings taught his students no less than nineteen different possible explanations for the phenomena that drift theory -- later plate tectonics -- was intended to explain.

Research produces evidence, which in time may settle the question (as it did as continental drift evolved into plate tectonics, which became established geological theory in the early 1970s). After that point, there are no “sides.” There is simply accepted scientific knowledge. There may still be questions that remain unanswered -- to which scientists then turn their attention -- but for the question that has been answered, there is simply the consensus of expert opinion on that particular matter. That is what scientific knowledge is.

Most people don’t understand this. If we read an article in the newspaper presenting two opposing viewpoints, we assume both have validity, and we think it would be wrong to shut one side down. But often one side is represented only by a single “expert” -- or as we saw in our story -- one or two. When it came to global warming, we saw how the views of Seitz, Singer, Nierenberg, and a handful of others were juxtaposed against the collective wisdom of the entire IPCC, an organization that encompasses the views and work of thousands of climate scientists around the globe -- men and women of diverse nationality, temperament, and political persuasion. This leads to another important point: that modern science is a collective enterprise.

From its earliest, days, science has been associated with institutions -- the Accademia dei Lincei, founded in 1609, the Royal Society in Britain, founded in 1660, the Académie des Sciences in France, founded in 1666 -- because scholars (savants and natural philosophers as they were variously called before the nineteenth- century invention of the word “scientist”) understood that to create new knowledge they needed a means to test each other’s claims. Medieval learning had largely focused on study of ancient texts -- the preservation of ancient wisdom and the appreciation of texts of revelation -- but later scholars began to feel that the world needed something more. One needed to make room for new knowledge. Once one opened the door to the idea of new knowledge, however, there was no limit to the claims that might be put forth, so one needed a mechanism to vet them. These were the origins of the institutional structures that we now take for granted in contemporary science: journals, conferences, and peer review, so that claims could be reported clearly and subject to rigorous scrutiny.

.....Science has grown more than exponentially since the 1600s, but the basic idea has remained the same: scientific ideas must be supported by evidence, and subject to acceptance or rejected. The evidence could be experimental or observational; it could be a logical argument or a theoretical proof. But what ever the body of evidence is, both the idea and the evidence used to support it must be judged by a jury of one’s scientific peers. Until a claim passes that judgment -- that peer review -- it is only that, just a claim. What counts as knowledge are the ideas that are accepted by the fellowship of experts (which is why members of these societies are often called “fellows”). Conversely, if the claim is rejected, the honest scientist is expected to accept that judgment, and move on to other things. In science, you don’t get to keep harping on a subject until your opponents just give up in exhaustion.

[bigmack]

Oh for Heaven's sake, an indication of our eagerness to doubt issues that threaten our very existence & a petition to get Beck to 'stop spreading lies' & then over 18,000 signed.

How fitting. Junk article for junk science.

[Robert Goren]

Like the horse maxim "the race may not always go the swift, but is the way to bet" The same thing applies to Scientific Consensus. I constantly amazed by people here who wager large portions of their personal fortunes on basis of statistical studies, yet pooh-pooh scientific research using the methods.

[hcap]

BM,

So you assume the peer review process that has been used successfully in other fields of science is flawed when it concerns GW?.Since you accept biological evolution, I assume you believe the process works in the biological sciences, but is subject to political pressures in GW..

ALL 20,000 international climate scientists???

[DJofSD]

So, what is your point hcap?

In the cited article, there's this:

So it comes to this: we must trust our scientific experts on matters of science, because there isn’t a workable alternative. And because scientists are not (in most cases) licensed, we need to pay attention to who the experts actually are -- by asking questions about their credentials, their past and current research, the venues in which they are subjecting their claims to scrutiny, and the sources of financial support they are receiving.

Matters of science seems pretty clear to me. What you insist on pushing is political not scientific.

And, oh, by the way, no we must not trust out scientific experts. The basis of the scientific method is distrust. Blind faith does not work for me.

[hcap]

I was trying to point out the modern scientific method relies heavily on the peer review process. Successful in so many other scientific and technological fields. And the constant verification of the peer review process seems to me to have a built in political filter. Just as it has a personal bias filter.

[DJofSD]

The peer review process ensures "I's" being dotted and "T's" being crossed -- that there are no errors in the process or the data and that important questions regarding the enquiry have been asked and in some instances, answered. It is not a guarentee of the validity of the conclusion. Additional research only raises the confidence level, it does not prove conclusively the premis (hypothesis) is correct. Only after exhaustive study does the hypothesis become generally accepted but it is always open for questioning and additional research.

Don't confuse general acceptance of a description of natural phenomena for a scientific proof. We know how gravity affects objects with mass but we still do not know exactly what is gravity and how it works.

[hcap]

Originally Posted by DJofSD

The peer review process ensures "I's" being dotted and "T's" being crossed -- that there are no errors in the process or the data and that important questions regarding the enquiry have been asked and in some instances, answered. It is not a guarentee of the validity of the conclusion. Additional research only raises the confidence level, it does not prove conclusively the premis (hypothesis) is correct. Only after exhaustive study does the hypothesis become generally accepted but it is always open for questioning and additional research.

Don't confuse general acceptance of a description of natural phenomena for a scientific proof. We know how gravity affects objects with mass but we still do not know exactly what is gravity and how it works.

Gravity is understood quite well. It can be described mathematically to the point where except for the very large and very small, we can predict the paths of the planets, manned and unmanned spacecraft and know with certainty the celestial mechanics of the solar system. The peer review process works in all areas of physics and the understanding of gravity is one example.

If it was just a matter of "dotting the I's or and "T's" being crossed", we would not be communicating over the internet or using our computers. All understood enough-to make practical use thereof. The physics, chemistry, and and math required was organized and developed by the peer review process. It works well enough.

[DJofSD]

You just proved my point: you are providing me with a description of the effects we can observe. Newton's 3 laws and even Einstein's relativity will give us the means of prediction but they do not tell us what the fundamental mechanism that causes force at a distance to actually work.

P.S. When it comes to celestrial mechanics, no, we can not completely described and predict. Kepler's laws go a long way to allow us to get very, very close in our predictions but we still observe and detect differences.

Have you ever heard of the three body problem? Do you have the mathematical equations that solve it? No, I didn't think so.

[46zilzal]

Originally Posted by DJofSD

Matters of science seems pretty clear to me. What you insist on pushing is political not scientific.

.

Climate change and understanding it are SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS...The REACTION to it is political.....That does not change the science

[DJofSD]

Originally Posted by 46zilzal

Climate change and understanding it are SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS...The REACTION to it is political.....That does not change the science

Yes. However, when the stated assumption is the root cause is anthropomorphic it calls into question everything that follows.

Again, blind faith might be OK as it applies to religion. But when it comes to science and policy (i.e. money) that is based upon it or is used as justification, blind faith is a fools paradise.

[hcap]

The mathematical understanding of gravity is enough to accomplish space travel and predict details of where planets and other bodies will be in the future. The three body problem shows the limitations of an exact solution. Many approximations exist that accomplish close enough solutions.

The fact that we circumnavigated and landed on the moon shows an understanding of how three bodies interact-the earth, moon and spacecraft-well enough What about four body problems? Or n body? Much tougher. Although we cannot solve these and other unresolved issues in science we have certainly progressed over the last 200 years in understanding gravity. Perfection is not required to know if a comet or meteor s on a collision path. Just proper observational data.

What about my point that the peer review process has a political filter? And tends to look at facts not bias?

[Tom]

Originally Posted by 46zilzal

Climate change and understanding it are SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS...The REACTION to it is political.....That does not change the science

GUT reaction out trumps scientific evaluation.

- 46

[hcap]

http://www.esm.vt.edu/~sdross/books/space_book.html

......Furthermore, we develop the computational techniques needed to design trajectories for a spacecraft in the field of $n$ bodies by patching together solutions of the 3 body problem. These computational methods are key for the development of some NASA and ESA mission trajectories

Approximations are sometimes good enough

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrang...point_missions

.....Lagrangian points are the stationary solutions of the circular restricted three-body problem. For example, given two massive bodies in circular orbits around their common center of mass, there are five positions in space where a third body, of comparatively negligible mass, could be placed which would then maintain its position relative to the two massive bodies. As seen in a rotating reference frame with the same period as the two co-orbiting bodies, the gravitational fields of two massive bodies combined with the satellite's circular motion are in balance at the Lagrangian points, allowing the third body to be stationary with respect to the first two bodies.[1]

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by hcap

I was trying to point out the modern scientific method relies heavily on the peer review process. Successful in so many other scientific and technological fields. And the constant verification of the peer review process seems to me to have a built in political filter. Just as it has a personal bias filter.

Yeah...is that the same kind of political "filter" that works the same way as the fox guarding the chicken house?

Boxcar