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Why String Theory Is Not Science (forbes.com)
StartsWithABang writes: Earlier this month, a conference was held devoted to the question of whether untestable scientific ideas like string theory and the multiverse are actually science or not. While many opinions were stated and no one changed their mind, the answer is apparent: unless you're willing to change the definition of science to include "this thing that isn't science," then no, string theory is not science. It's a theory in the sense of a mathematical theory — like set theory, group theory or number theory — but it isn't yet a scientific theory. Of course, it could become science, but that would require that it actually do the things a scientific theory does: make testable predictions that can be validated or falsified.
The condition for science is that it has to be testable in principle, NOT that it has to be testable within the limits of current technology. When Higgs came up with his theory there was no accelerator capable of testing it (although we did not know that at the time). So would that make the Higgs mechanism non-science until the 21st century when we built the LHC? Clearly not. So, unless String theory is completely untestable in principle, regardless of potential future technological advances, it is science albeit science which is currently impossible to test with current technology.
Obligatory: Unscientific
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Hypothesis is proposed science and theory is more tested and proven science. Whatever. A reasonably well developed hypothesis is still science.
a theoretical physics model?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Didn't take long for the peanut gallery to weigh in.
String theory, or any idea, for that matter, should not have its merit determined solely by how scientific it is. Science is a good hammer for testable hypotheses, but not everything is a nail, and claiming that everything not a nail is irrelevant will have us missing out on two of the three types of knowledge.
No. Climatology, even if you are the biggest skeptic, makes testable predictions all the time. For example, predictions that the earth will be two degrees warmer in 100 years. That is completely testable: it will take 100 years to test it, but that's irrelevant.
An untestable theory is one that can never be tested, even with infinite time and resources. For example, "the universe was created as-is five minutes ago." Maybe that's true, but there's no way to test it. Even if you had a time machine, it still couldn't be tested. There is no experiment that can be imagined to test this.
In the case of string theory, the author claims that string theory makes no predictions that distinguish it from the standard model. That is, if you perform an experiment, you will not know if it is supporting string theory, or if it's just a natural result of the standard model.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
First, there is no string theory. There are a bunch of theories we call string theory. There are a bunch of theories that we call string theory, abut no basic priciples that are clearly laid out yet.
Second, even if we had a specific theory, we still do not know how to make calculations.
Third, general relativity was in the same situation. For a long time all it predicted was Mercury's perihelion precession and that could be done with alternate theories of gravitation or even extra planets. It wasn't until Eddington that relativity was really tested.
The reason that general relativy was largely untested was basically the same reason string theory is untested. The calculations are hard to do and the experiments are difficult to preform. It is conceivable that a race with an average IQ of 1000 and sufficiently advanced technology could in test string theory.
So we say string theory is not a physical theory because of our shortcomings?
That being said, string theorists have brought it on them selves. I think they spend too much time chasing their own tail and are crowding out other avenues of research.
There are a lot of pseudo scientists out there and it is not helped by masses of typically arrogant people that think they know what science is in the first place.
People confuse POLITICS with science. Bring up something about science and they'll say stupid things like "well X number of people agree with me" which isn't science. That is politics. Or you'll see something along the lines of "look at my nifty idea... all the numbers add up"... great... still not science... not unless you want to include Dungeons and Dragons min max builds in "science"... because there is a tautology in any formal logic that doesn't root itself in empirical evaluation. And then you get people that say "well, I can't provide evidence because its really hard... so I don't have to."... Not my problem.
Point being... ANYTHING that can't be tested is merely a hypothesis and that is fine... have your hypothesizes... that's super. It remains not science until its been tested with methodology that is pessimistic, cynical, skeptical, and exhaustive. That is... you propose a hypothesis... then you try to disprove it. DISPROVE. When you FAIL to disprove it... look for any fallacy in your position with the intent to find one. If you can neither disprove the position nor find a fallacy in your argument... THEN you submit it for peer review giving your peers full access to everything you did and how you did it so they can find problems if they exist.
When it has surpassed all that... you pretty much have science.
What we often get is nothing resembling that which is why it isn't science.
Pretty math? Sure... slow clap for that. But the reason this sort of science generally never does anything useful is because as Richard Feynman said... "It looks like science except it doesn't work". That is the issue here.
Cargo Cult Science:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Not science anymore than a guy with coconuts on his head is a tower control operator.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
It's a theory in the sense of a mathematical theory — like set theory, group theory or number theory — but it isn't yet a scientific theory.
No, it's not.
All of those theories are based on sound, logical axioms.
String theory is a pile of bogus sh!t piled onto an ever-growing foundation of illogical, arbitrary, nonsensical "axioms".
String theory doesn't even get the meaning of a dimension correct. It's not just not science, it's not even math either.
Here's an entertaining read explaining it much better than I ever could: http://milesmathis.com/string....
Aye, there's the rub. First, only one planet. Second, difficulties with the "awhile" parameter. Make it too short and you're just testing long-range *weather* forecasts which is not where the controversy is. Make it too long and the theory changes so that the argument becomes "that's an old model, we know better now". Do they really know better, or are they just moving the goal posts?
I think climatology is in a grey area in this regard. In theory, it's testable and thus science. In practice, it's political, not well tested, and thus not living up to its potential as science.
This image should clarify things.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
David Deutsch argues that it is core:
https://www.ted.com/talks/davi...
Also, string theory is surely as testable as quantum mechanics. It's just currently impossible to say which is more valid.
They start with the premise that string theory is untestable, and come to the conclusion that it is untestable.
You seem to be confused about which side is taking a lot of money to fudge the data.
The author claims that there is no test that can be done that would prove String Theory true as opposed to other theories.
Unfortunately the author has proven many times that he does not understand particle physics in previous posts. The problem with String Theory is that there are far too many possible theories to consider (last count I heard it was around 10^500) to make detailed, concrete predictions. The second that we get an experimental signature for something like String Theory that number would collapse and theorists would be able to start studying the detailed predictions of a vastly smaller number of models. This would undoubtedly lead to some clever theorist coming up with signatures unique to String Theory which other, competing models would not have.
If you can't come up with ANY difference it would mean that the theories must be mathematically equivalent for all situations which are possible. We have had this happen in physics before. Matrix mechanics and wave mechanics are both different ways of doing the same Quantum Mechanics. Nobody worries about which is the "right" way because both make mathematically equivalent predictions.
I submit the answer to the theoretical basis of control systems is fuzzy logic, which happen to be very robust and pragmatic.
Only I can judge you.
String theory and multiverse theories are far from science. The comparison to religion is a good one. "You can't prove god doesn't exist." They are at best guesses of how multiple universes and dimensions could work, if they ever did exist. As far as I am concerned there is more concrete evidence of ghosts than string theory. Adding a little math into something made up doesn't make it real.
Tiny vibrating strings? That explains everything! But why not tiny vibrating llamas? I bet the math would still work out, plus that would make the theory somewhat interesting.
Do you see what I did there?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Government grants to institutions + the money available to speculators like Goldman Sachs through trading idiotic carbon credit schemes, makes it pretty one-sided. And then of course the energy companies themselves get in on the act, hovering up huge subsidises (again from the tax payer - notice how it's always muggins who pays the bill?) for "clean energy" and we have a winner.
Yes. Astrology makes valid, testable scientific predictions. Therefore it is a scientific theory (or hypothesis, if you like it that way).
It is unfortunate that it has been proven false many, many times, but not every scientific theory has to be true.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
In that case wouldn't it be a hypothesis? It's untested and, beyond filling some gaps in quantum theory and relativity, it hasn't been mathematically proven.
So it's a hypothesis, right?
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Somewhere on Earth, it's cold. Therefore global warming can't be happening. If it was happening right now, it would be warm everywhere. QED
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Conflating hypothesis with theory
For example, the theory that all matter is made up of small, indivisible bits (atomos) is unscientific. Whenever you find a new smallest building block (atom) there's a chance you'll find they're built by even smaller blocks (a core of protons and neutrons surrounded by electrons) and that protons again are made from even smaller particles (quarks). And maybe the quarks are built from superstrings. And maybe the superstrings are build from something we don't even have a name for yet. That doesn't make them bad ideas to guide scientific research and design experiments. Just like causality is a rabbit hole with no end, even if we could explain the whole formation of the universe back to the Big Bang we'd always be looking for what caused the Big Bang. And what caused that which caused the Big Bang. Scientific exploration is an educated guesswork, you take some observations and try to find a system or pattern or formula and if the results don't contradict reality, great. It's obviously even better if you can predict something new, but if I find that E = mc^2 and show a few reproducible examples it's up to the rest of the scientific community to find a contradiction where E != mc^2. I feel it's a bit like that with superstring theory, if we got multiple theories that both come to the same results then either they're different formulations of the same model or there will be distinct differences that are at least hypothetically testable.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It worked great when we really did not understand anything about the Universe. But now when quite a lot is already known, there is a hell of a to less you can predict. Like all the current accepted theories, they predicted things, but now their predictions are just known facts, so if someone come up with the theory of tectonic plates today, it could never be a science, as all predictions you can make with the theory are already known facts. It just seems wrong, that if a prediction is not made in time, then an entire branch of what could of been science, is now a pseudo science that can never really be proven.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
The definitions of the two are conflated by English. Hypothesis is kind of clear, but theory has many definitions in acceptable use.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You're joking, but that is actually what a "Warm Earth" (i.e., not an ice age) looks like: no year-round ice anywhere. It doesn't get much warmer at the equator, but it gets a lot warmer at the poles.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
You might have missed the implication that the purpose of a falsifiable theory is that you can forget about it once it is, indeed, falsified. Astrology is a fine scientific theory that has been shown to be wrong. Many more reputable scientific theories have gone that way.
The problem with judging climatology based on average temperature after X years is this: All you have to do is come up with a hand full of models in a reasonable distribution around where we already are. The more models, the better chance you have of being "uncannily accurate". See the problem? It's just like the old stock market trick of finding 256 analysts who make buy/sell recommendations on 8 stocks. Then you interview the "genius" who made 8 correct calls.
In the case of climate, the model is much more convincing if you judge it based on more data points. We want to see a model that has a very close match to the *curve* of the actual data.
In the case of stock-market analysts you want to see enough picks over a long enough time frame so that the odds of the analyst being lucky as opposed to good are astronomically low.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
If you find yourself talking to a person who dismisses talk of multiverses or string theory as no better than talk of the supernatural, just ask them what a person would see while falling into a black hole. They will proceed to tell you their version. Then ask if someone outside the hole can ever verify anything they just said. They will say no, communication won't work from inside an event horizon to the outside. Then ask, if everything they said is all based on conjecture and extrapolating known laws, and can't be experimentally verified, why do they feel it merits discussion?
That's a difficulty for sure. It's just a difficulty though, the predictions are still testable.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I think we have to be careful here, as the atom was only a theory for over a hundred of years.
There is also an issue that classical physicists would not want to believe that their theory fits into anything larger, as Newtonian physicists likely did not want to believe in relativistic physics, as religious types did not want to believe....
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
The coal industry, natural gas industry, oil industry, big agriculture, real estate agents who sell ocean front properties or places where hurricanes are common, etc.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
http://www.amazon.com/Not-Even...
The fact that the unthinking moders of /. have reduced this to zero is a sad reflection of the lack of understanding of what constitutes science. The reality is that most of geology and palaeontology are on the same level as history, as being theories about recorded facts, rather than 'science'. This doesn't make them worthless - as a hard scientist who is now working for an MA in history I've got a dog in this race - but their claim to be 'science' is dubious.
You do not understand what evolution is. "Create life" is not in the description.
Actually, the 100 years is very important. The actual prediction is more likely to be something like: "if we continue to burn fossil fuels at the same rate, then ...". The prediction relies the values of other factors, which are not controlled. An experiment in which all the variables are not controlled is not a valid experiment.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Yeah, you are right, it's more complicated.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The problem with your stock analogy is that you assume there is a way to beat the averages long term. Replace the stock market with flipping a coin. If you have a room of 1024 people that all pick different permutations of heads and tails you will get one person that picks 10 in a row. Are they good at it? No, the odds are still even on each toss. This is the problem with finding a stock picker. You can find someone with a perfect record but as soon as you invest with them they have no better odds at picking stocks than anyone else.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
What's really sad is that people in Congress have actually said (basically) my post with a straight face as an argument against global warming.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
You have misunderstood the meaning. This comment may help you.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
More reputable? I certainly doubt that. Some form of astrology was a valid hypothesis either causing or associated with natural behavior believed by almost every member of civilization at one point. That sounds pretty reputable to me. Astrology isn't even gone, we still utilize our study of the stars and their behavior to explain how things work and came to be here on Earth and Astronomy is a direct descendant. Astronomy is Astrology what Alchemy is chemistry, or what plate tectonics is to continental drift, or relativity is to Newtonian physics.
The people who practiced astrology and alchemy in their day were people who would practice science either theoretical or applied today and it could be argued that without their pursuits the scientific method would never have been devised.
Astrology and Alchemy aren't science but they are most definitely pre-science and the pre-cursors of science. If you follow the scientific method you are doing science, but nothing which predates that method could possibly have followed it. Further not all aspects of astrology were ever reached and/or tested within the framework of the scientific method.
We shouldn't go back to them but we shouldn't spit on the graves of those who came before us just because someone finds it entertaining to read what some nut wrote down for their daily horoscope in the newspaper.
Hurricane activity has fallen over the last 30 years. Unlucky.
"Astronomy is Astrology what Chemistry is to Alchemy, or what Newtonian Physics is to Relativity."
;)
Whoops I flipped the ordering around somewhere in the middle here and fixed above. You got the point anyway
Not necessarily because the stock market is not random. If someone has a strong enough record their predictions can become self fulfilling prophecies as millions of people buy when they buy and drive up the price of whatever they bought and then sell when they sell.
As long as enough people with enough dollars believe in the prophet his prophecies will come true. Of course at some point the whole thing mathematically becomes a pyramid scheme that comes crashing down.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Approximate yes, but in theory the approximation diminishes until such time as it is indistinguishable from the actual answer.
Our short lives and limitations do cause us to have attachment to things that have stood extremely tiny tests of time and perspective though. Relativity has been around for how long again? Could you show me how big that mark is on even the tiny geologic timescale let alone the believed age of our universe? Measurements of radiation seem to match it? Cool. But the timescale we believe that represents it is itself part of the model and instruments used to do the testing were built with the model. Does it all still work if we keep measuring on a relatively small sample like over the course of a million years from multiple points 100 million light years apart?
We can't help how little time we've actually been around and the even smaller amount of time we've been doing science. We can't help that currently we are limited to doing it from a relatively tiny perspective in a massive space. But what we can do is acknowledge those things are true and that we do not even have the perspective to comprehend a statistically relevant sampling how things work so our attachment level to the best we've found so far should be no more or less than playing a devil's advocate role of criticism.
Are our models wrong? The answer is almost certain that they are wrong but at least in the near term are useful.
Or would the OP claim that mathematics is not science? That would be rather stupid. String theory, as a mathematical theory, is very obviously science. Mathematical theory does not care about applicability to any real universe. String theory as a possible model of the physical universe is science as well. What string theory is not is a known-good model of the physical universe due to the lack of verification of its applicability. That this verification may be impossible has no impact of its status as science.
Sure, if verification is actually not possible at all then it is not science that has useful applications, because that also would mean it cannot be used for predictions (that being one of the ways to verify whether a model does apply to reality).
I should also point out that both Quantum Theory and Relativity, the two foundations of modern phsics, are neither complete nor completely verified to be accurate. In fact, history would suggest that at some time in the future, both will have to replaced by more refined theories as there is a good chance that when trying to verify the currently unverified aspects, effects will be found that do not quite fit into them as they currently are. That does not make them useless. Classical mechanics is known to be wrong, yet very useful. You just need to known under which conditions it becomes inaccurate enough to matter.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Well, that arrogant and condescending fucker has not place in my universe. As for you, just like anybody else with some marbles missing upstairs, I can just ignore you.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Weather isn't the issue. Climate is. You can't predict a roll of the dice, but over time you can get a pretty good prediction of a pattern. And when those patterns start changing, it isn't the weather on any given day that's the issue.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Everything you said just annoys me.
Liberals don't receive any more money from government than do Conservatives. I can't speak for everyone, but WE don't ask for "bigger government" just to get more -- a lot of us might not get welfare. We just have a bigger tribe; meaning, we care about things beyond our family, team, church, country. People. None of us want "more regulations" -- just the RIGHT ones. You know who sponsors most of the regulations? Big companies. You know who does MOST of the Medicare fraud? About 70% or more (if memory serves) by large institutions. "Big" government means nothing. There are about 1 million people employed due to Bush (OK, half of them, maybe) who are in the security, intelligence, and other cloak and dagger organizations. I want that to shrink because MY THEORY of human behavior is the best security is being fair to people and they will not blow you up because they have a shared future and a stake in the community they are now a part of. It's not 100% perfect, but it's a lot better (with historic justification) than the security via intimidation and heavy handed law enforcement.
"view it as a humanitarian crisis so you can convince yourselves (ie rationalize) you are doing the right thing despite fleecing citizens through idiotic taxes, regulations, etc." None of those whine points have much to do with each other. How is Climate Change NOT going to cause a humanitarian crisis? People who can't eat or who are displaced by rising tides or drought will go where they can survive. Not being able to live is a Humanitarian issue, a million people migrating is a crisis. Regardless of "Liberalism" or "Democrat" -- it's going to happen.
"idiotic taxes, regulations, etc. whose costs get passed down to them despite being levied on evil oil companies."
So by this logic, no taxes and no regulations would make things great. I don't like idiotic taxes. Government pays 54% of the bill for medical care in this country, and we spend about 4 times more per person than Germany. I'd much rather pay about 10% more in taxes and stop fearing sickness or retirement. So we pay MORE to get crap. Your co-pay usually is the real value of the service, and the Insurance companies negotiate and pay, then charge the doctors and hospitals more for insurance and pay radio show hosts to talk about torte reform. If they were good for the system; why would they have incredibly huge profits? Paying less than you paid for the insurance is how you make profit. It's an idiotic system. Hospitals also can vary over 9 times in cost for the same procedure -- the competitive market to lower costs is not in effect.
What's idiotic is those Republicans who think they can have two Santa Klaus's. They can get stuff which they happily take advantage of, and not pay for it. Patriotism and fairy dust solves everything. So while you might hear about this or that wasteful boondoggle -- just understand those are tiny fractions of the budget, and usually it's due to a politician paying back a supporter on the country dime. Like the Republicans just in office paying 10X more for mercenaries and failing consultants to provide services that the military provided. That raked in a lot of cash. Just tell us where you would cut the budget to reduce the stupid. Would you let seniors die of starvation or go homeless? You want to shut down the military? How about roads and water? Education? Law enforcement? I mean, seriously, can you just look at a budget sometime and not see that things are allocated for things you get a benefit from?
"costs get passed down to them despite being levied on evil oil companies."
If something costs a certain amount, and every company gets charged the same amount, it becomes the cost of business. IF the costs get passed on, then people will need higher wages, companies that depend on Oil or whatever will raise prices. It's been shown that over time, it creates no real burden as the market adjusts to the higher prices of whatever good. Less oil might be used.
On the other hand, if th
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
ok, I have no problem when you use words the way you want to.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
From 1959, a subtle but well defined and reasonably commonly understood test. There are not a whole lot of philosophical razors that have been this sharp for this long. And we are moving to what exactly? A gap for string theory to slip into. What else will slip into this gap? Could we ever trust scientists again?
Problem is, supersymmetry (SUSY) is the only theory that even attempts to explain why the masses of particles are as small as they are -- including the Higgs particle. Without SUSY, the Higgs, W, and Z bosons become nearly infinitely massive due to loops in their feynmen diagrams.
Not quite. Only the Higgs is affected since it is the only scalar particle. Its mass does not become even vaguely close to infinite they just get dragged up to the Planck-scale at 10^19 GeV. SUSY is not the only possible explanation: Large Extra Dimensions solves the problem by reducing the Planck scale to ~10 TeV or so (but introduces other problems like why do protons appear stable).
Sparticles are a good candidate for dark matter, but they're unlikely to be detected by the LHC.
Only the lightest sparticle is good candidate for Dark Matter and, if produced, it can be detected at the LHC by the missing momentum which is carries which is a typical signature in almost all SUSY searches. However to confirm that it is Dark Matter we need the underground experiments to see it as well since all the LHC will be able to tell is that it lived long enough to escape the detector i.e. about 50ns if travelling close to the speed of light. However to be Dark Matter it needs to be stable enough to last ~13.8 billion years without appreciable decay.
If no sparticles are found at higher energy levels, then someone will have to explain what's wrong with particle physics in general
That depends. Suppose I tosh a coin and keep getting heads. How many heads in a row do I need to get before you become suspicious that something is not right (e.g. that I'm lying or tossing a two headed coin)? 10 heads in a row? 20 heads? Even if you are suspicious how many heads do I need to tosh before you are certain that something is wrong? This is the problem that the Standard Mode faces. It is not impossible that the light Higgs came about by really phenomenal luck but the chance of that happening is about the same as tossing ~110 heads in a row. In my subjective opinion that means that there must be some physics we are missing but this is a subjective opinion and you still cannot completely rule out that it could be just down to phenomenal chance.
Science is undertaken to advance our ability to make life better - in the many ways it might. Has all the money/man-years we've invested as a culture in ST yielded any benefit outside the realm of ST itself? As a tax payer who indirectly funds such esoteric endeavors, I want to know what this is doing for science. Hey.. Sheldon even left the field...
Time for a new Political party in the US (or two!) One is off the rails Other cant pony up a leader.
Sad you were taken as a troll. The science is as clear as it can be - we are emitting more CO2 than ever before - CO2 is a greenhouse gas - measured temperatures are rising. No other thoroughly investigated possible link to measured warming is viable except rising levels of CO2. Geez some people here are scientific fuckwits. Some of you fuckheads need to read some real science, not the crap poured into the media by fox etc. who inform the blogs of non-scientists. Do you actually believe that Mockton has something useful to say? Frankly he's a fraud who - amongst other crap - claims to be a member of parliment when he cannot be because his peerage is inherited.
The author suggests it's not a theory but a hypothesis. But isn't having an hypothesis part of science? How far would science get without them?
I'm a liberal and I'm not asking for big government at all.
Also you are speaking of a larger "tribe" as if you have some greater humanity than others. Well I don't trust you. I'd rather we have a society that has collectivised the protection of individual rights and doesn't require armchair warriors to bleat in comment sections to keep us safe or focus on causes to affect change.
You're not a liberal and are misusing the term.
You can - you're as thick as two short ones.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Welp... They're all passed out and you've now given me a good idea. I am going to go downstairs, lay on my comfy couch, and go to sleep with Wonders of the Universe playing on an actual television. (I ripped it and can stream it from my house.)
Thanks! Merry happy.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
To be fair, presumably there are some people for whom astrological predictions will be right. Science would actually collect *that* data, normalize it, and say that "Astrology, for unknown reasons, is accurate __% of the time, with this, that and the other things, and is an entirely idiotic way to make predictions because it's as good or worse than an equivalent placebo in which we wrote randomized predictions based on the position of the stars and then tracked the results. We also did a test with participants who were aware of the predictions and those who were unaware of the predictions and this ____ is our result."
(And more...)
See? I mean, if we're gonna be pedantic about what is and isn't science then I suggest we be intellectually honest with ourselves. And someone's probably already done that study. But, it *could* be studied in a much more rigorous manner than you indicated. We don't have to know how it works - we can simply start by seeing if there is any correlation and, if so, we can investigate further for causation or make some predictions as to why there's causation (if there is some of any meaningful amount). By which I mean we can probably say the correlation and predictions made by astrologers are worse than a controlled group and, perhaps, a double blind study. (I'm kind of assuming that's how the results would be - I've done no research on this.)
Point being, we can test for this. Do certain types get along better than others? Is one more inclined to favor a flower? Does one have a number that has had significance - that they've noted? Etc... Hell, I'd be kind of surprised if nobody has studied this. Unfortunately, Google is so very far away and I am lazy. And mildly intoxicated. Also, I should be sleeping.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Then the damage done to science in general is irreparable and people turn towards superstition and religion instead of leaning towards rational thinking.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Caused by warming seas, not a warming atmosphere. Given the oceans have 1000x the heat capacity of the atmosphere, the idea that the latter is driving the former is kind-of laughable.
A proper analogy would be to roll dice with hundreds of surfaces, only 3 of which you can actually see. You don't know how many surfaces there are or how big each surface is. You make predictions (getting government grants to do so of course) into the future and continually go back (hind cast) to make sure your model looks like it has skill) as actual results come in. When the model you made 10 years ago is compared to empirical data, you find it fails.
Oh dear.
[climatology] is yet to make a successful prediction.
1. Polar amplification.
2. Stratospheric cooling
You now have two well known examples of large scale natural phenomena first observed in climate models, there are many more, google is your friend, my community service is done.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
It SNOWED last Winter. Therefore global warming is obviously a MYTH!
Government grants to institutions + the money available to speculators like Goldman Sachs through trading idiotic carbon credit schemes
And in the other corner we have the most powerful economic force on the planet, the fossil fuel industry, can anyone even think of another industry that can bring a superpower's military machine to it's knees?
However, political/economic muscle will never let the facts get in their way, so why adopt them? Forget political/financial arguments, they are aimed at your emotions and as such only have a 50/50 chance of being right. Find out HOW the scientists know what they claim to know.
BTW: Government grants to institutions have very little effect on the conclusions of researchers. If they did, the science would change whenever the government changed. (Hint:it doesn't).
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Most scientists are in fields where there is little, if any, net reward for unethical work. When you look at fields where there are such rewards, like climatology, economics, or pharmaceuticals, then the behavior changes.
"Given the oceans have 1000x the heat capacity of the atmosphere, the idea that the latter is driving the former is kind-of laughable"
Yeah, right, kind of.
Not.
I have studied what the scientists say about this for ten years. But I've also made a point of studying what the sceptics say, looking at the model results compared to actual reality and squaring the science with the hyperbolic press and political statements. Let me tell you, there's a huge discrepancy here. It's almost as if the science is (on the whole) being manufactured to order. This isn't new. It happens in social "science" all the time.
Seems they have been doing predictions for a while, and the time frame is set: Transitions between glacial and warm climates — and back again — might come in a matter of only a few centuries if not faster. So as you can see we have not even approached a single test's time frame, although the effects of the predictions appear to be happening more or less.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Just like math is science. But it is not physics. It is a physics ispired math.
Actually some of the basic premises of astrology have been proven correct.
Premise number one is that you can use the stars as a calendar, I doubt that anyone would deny that now.
Premise number two, that the time of birth affects someones success in life. Originally the idea that someone born in times of plenty (varies in region and livelihood) will have more success then someone born in times of famine such as late winter. Not sure of studies on this but it seems reasonable and worth studying. Presently there has been studies that show that children born closer to the beginning of the school year have more success then those born towards the end of the school year. So time of birth does affect success in life.
Premise number three, that the stars are causative in the success in life department. This is where astrology fails but the premise was worth following given numbers 1 and 2 above.
There was also the predicting the movements of planets that astrology got good at and predicting the future which was mostly a failure though the calendar part did allow some climate predictions such as colder in winter type of predictions.
So mostly astrology failed due to mixing up causation and correlation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
do you have any proof that a majority of models fail? And if they do fail, how? because failing because it didn't predict the severity of empirical data is not a 'failure' in terms of predicting climate change...
Climate prediction is certainly a complex issue, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
But back to models, please show us that a majority of models overstate climate change effects...
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Astrology *was* science at one time. A huge number of early scientists circa 1800s were into astrology. And it has its footprints in a lot of earlier work that became modern science. Astrology made a lot of predictions. Eventually, we discarded it. It is an _invalid_ scientific theory. It is one of the dead ends of science research, but that doesn't invalidate the history.
Proof? A simple sanity check, comparing the ensembles to actual measured data is more than enough. The models run consistently hot. Of course they do. They're parametrized to run hot.
http://www.scientificamerican....
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
http://www.theguardian.com/sci...
and on and on and on...
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
the question was your claim that the models are overstating effects. You do or do not have supporting arguments that a majority of models do this?
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Newtonian physics is the precursor to Relativity and therefore the relationship holds. Astrology actually does successfully track and predict the movements of the sky quite well. It was astrologers who learned to predict eclipses for instance. The same can be true for much of chemistry. The only difference is that these arts were pre-science and therefore when the scientific method came about they were tested and the parts that fit the models were then contained within scientific models whereas Newtonian Physics was not developed post science.
Astrology, Alchemy, and Newtonian Physics can all be used to make predictions which are good enough for some purposes. They are also ALL known to predict inaccurate and therefore incorrect predictions. You are going to have a hard time explaining the functional calendars of ancient cultures developed in a time when all study of the sky was astrology and there was no such thing as astronomy while still claiming astrology fails to predict the behavior of macro objects. All early astronomical models are actually astrological models.
I honestly don't care who he is or what he believes. Is his graph correct or not?
Seriously? The idiotic study that didn't take into account tuning of the models with past data? How do the models do if you take today's data and hindcast? The Guardian, Post and SA are heavily vested in the paradigm. Of course they're going to big up that paper. Why wouldn't they?
What, you mean apart from the fact that the IPCC has continually adjusted its measure of sensitivity to Co2 downwards?
Still waiting for your showing that the majority of studies are flawed. data that shows it....or don't you actually have that?
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
From this and your other responses, pretty sure you don't have any evidence. One last chance. You saying something means little. Show peer reviewed studies proving your claims...
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
I mean 10 years ago it stated a different, higher temperature increase in future for a doubling of CO2. Today that temperature is far lower. They lower it with each report. Why? Because actual data confounds their previous predictions. Eventually they'll find the minima and I expect that to be between 1 and 1.5C. Note: this is not a catastrophic temperature increase.
Now more importantly the debate is so political today especially in the US (I'm from the UK where although it is political, it's not quite so left-right) that it's very hard to disambiguate the truth from the gigantic wall of bullshit erected by every pressure group, vested interest (there are plenty on both sides), institutional press-release (spin) and outright fraud. Cook's 97% paper for example, was an absolute disgrace yet it's quoted by pretty much everyone from the President of the United States to the ignoramuses writing comment columns in national newspapers. When the truth eventually emerges, how much damage will have been done to public trust in scientific integrity? I suspect quite a lot.
I'm already reeling from being told eating a boiled egg every morning isn't going to kill me, or that over 75% of all psychology papers cannot be replicated.
Who's going to study or publish papers rubbishing this stuff? Someone who wants tenure? Someone keen to attract government money to his institution? It's interesting, isn't it, that most sceptics (Judith Curry and Richard Lindzen are rare exceptions) are retired academics.
With respect to models not matching the actual temperature rise, here's a paper. Does that sate your lust, or are you going to find a reason to dismiss it because it goes against your already strongly held opinions?
No negative or positive finding tests string theory, it just suggests more knobs to twiddle. The one shining hope is that if we don't find supersymmetry, it is dead as a theory since it cannot accommodate a universe without.
You just contradicted yourself there. There is a negative finding which tests String Theory: not finding SUSY would exclude it as a viable model. That is the one test which we know about so far but the problem is that String Theorists are overwhelmed by the number of possible models and also lack the tools needed to extrapolate from the Planck-scale down to the LHC-scale.
This is why there are no concrete signatures indeed last I heard there were no candidate theories which even generated the know physics of the Standard Model because they had no way to figure out how the models look at low energy. Once they have the maths to do this the number of possibilities will rapidly reduce and we can start on whittling away the rest.
Since is a process, not a state. Some ideas might be not testable or verifiable yet, but formulating such ideas does not make den nonscientific if their goal is to explain 'the way things work'.
I'm certainly not a Liberal, because I remember growing up with them and they were very tactful, never spoke in sweeping generalizations, and were polite. I'm just not happy enough nor educated enough to be a true Liberal. I don't quote Keats nor do I have one sweater vest (OK, just the one).
I'm a Progressive. I'm a pissed of Liberal who believes in Democratic Socialism and enough to make sure nobody slips through the cracks but not centralized planning or a perfectly level playing field that Communism requires (note: Communism does not require central planning). I know we have to guarantee rights and I think going back to stronger restrictions on corporations, as the Founding Fathers intended, is an absolute necessity.
If you did not intend the meaning that your words implied, I apologize, But what I said still applies to what impression most people would construe by your post.
Socialism is the only path right now for America if we want to avoid the dystopian world I believe we are headed for -- and ending the "dollars = votes" lobbying system. Do people honestly think most people will be able to have a decent income in the labor force 10 years from now? Self-driving cars means self-driving trucks and taxis. We can't even count on fast food burger flipping. Free education and healthcare aren't even enough to deal with the indentured servitude we will be facing.
PS.
I'm not sure why I'm making these comments in a discussion of String Theory.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
Kinda sounds like you don't know very many scientists either. They hate to shill and they hate those who promote lies. Scientists are also overwhelmingly ethical people.
Obviously you don't know many scientific people. I guess I'm a bit jaded, I've seen scientist after scientists caught red handed by NSF with bullshit studies. But don't take my word for it, open a newspaper sometime. Plenty of examples.
As for MMGW, that's a load of crap. You can go back to the 14th century and read how Venitians were trying to keep the Adriatic out of the city. It's been rising for well over 1000 years. Plenty of other scientific proof what we're experiencing is Weather. Nothing to do with man. It's just man trying to make a buck off of other (stupid) men.
" falsifiable" is sophomoric criteria that people pick up early and repeat. It has a lot more criticism at higher levels then is known in public circles
You made a claim, I've simply been asking for you to back up that claim. After MULTIPLE requests you finally respond with a single source. Something, but nothing near 'most models overstate climate change'.
....but here goes -
So the content of this study is irrelevant
The author Patrick Michaels has been pretty thoroughly wrong about climate for a while now
link 1
link 2
Here's debunking of your two authors climate change opinions
here's another posting by your authors Watts Up With That
And here's another debunking.
So no I don't throw out the paper due to any preconceived ideas, I do tend to discount it because MULTIPLE SCIENCE professionals provide examples of why it's authors have been full of shit on this topic and are paid shills for the CATO institute - a well known political entity with obvious agendas to push.
Unlike you, science doesn't have agendas. Perhaps individual scientists, or 'people', do but science is data and it rules above all else.
Note the deepclimate article above, where it shows your authors clearly cherry picking which parts of a study to quote and what they leave out is the part about how it's easy to be disingenuous if you cherry pick data. Just WOW.
And one more thing - you perhaps noticed Ted Cruz claiming there's been no warming at all for the last 18 years. Funnily it does pan out that 1998 and 2015 are very similar in temps. What's that 18 year period though, seems like a random number right? Well that's the ONLY date range that shows his claim because 18 years ago was one of the hottest on record.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
How sweet. Also extremely naïve and a complete straw man. Science cannot have an agenda. It's a noun. However, people and institutions can have agendas which range from simply needing to pay their mortgage or gain tenure, to promoting a political position (activism). This is the basis of the complete misnomer that is the skepticalscience website. A real sceptic can be found here for example, or here. The former is the guy who debunked Michael Mann's statistical shenanigans that made the medieval warm period "disappear".
And Ted Cruz? He's a politician. Too slick by half. I doubt his authenticity. He has an agenda.
ClimateAudit.org, run by a fossil fuel company exec. Oh yeah, that's not biased at all.
Judith Curry - thoroughly discredited by numerous sources. Same as your other link.
You do know you can google people to find out about them right? or are you just regurgitating the FOX news/Koch Bros koolaid with understanding it doesn't stand up to serious critique?
Ted Cruz is espousing the exact same position as your 'experts'. Perhaps they have an agenda too?
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Nope, that's not, how debating is done. You make an argument, you provide evidence. Until then your claim remains unsubstantiated. Here it goes again:
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
As Bullwinkle said, "This time for sure!"
since when have you ever cared about substantiated arguments?
especially on the topic of the climate, where you repeatedly make unsubstantiated, and even well disproven, statements, even within this very thread ?
no choice but to throw the BS flag on that play.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
The burden of proof is not on me in this thread. It is on the people, who want me to change how I live "for the sake of the planet". If they want me to believe them, they have to substantiate their arguments.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
In a letter to Japan, published in the NY Times, sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund, 21 scientists declared: "Japan's whale research program fails to meet minimum standards for credible science. Also, their whaling is not designed to answer questions relevant to the management of Whales, and Japan refuses to make the information it collects available for independent review. Its research program lacks a testable hypothesis and performance indicators needed for acceptable scientific standards." "While Japan claims the hunt is purely for research purposes, they return to port with hundreds of tons of whale meat PACKAGED and ready for the country's commercial markets. This vividly shows Japan's determination to maintain a "commercial" whaling industry under the guise of science in an internationally protected sanctuary. (Antarctica, established through the efforts of U.S. Vice-President Gore). We can not allow them to continue to flout such international agreements." http://www.stopwhalingnow.com/
again: they already have been, but your typical response to all the proof in the world is to ignore it.
you have never given one flying fuck about substantiated arguments, not truly, thus you are full of shit, and all your pleas for proof, for arguments, are nothing but a smokescreen to mask you own willful blindness.
you are the man who doth protest too much:
"oh where oh whre is the proof?"
here it is, in front of your face.
"no the real proof, substantiated arguments"
they are substantiated, backed by years of research, and collectively peer reviewed until this in the consensus of the community
"no, that's not it."
well then you're a fucking idiot, cause youve already been given exactly what you want. we can lead you to water, can even put in a bucket for you, but if you're too goddamned willfully ignorant to drink it, you can fucking die of thirst.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
and at this point, the burden of proof is not, and has not been, on the climate scientists arguing AGW's existence.
the mountain of proof is so high, so interconnectingly reinforcing, that the burden of proof is on the idiots like you who would deny its very existence.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.