Your analogy was bad, plain and simple. Here's the quote I made, in regards to using isotope ratios as some sort of anthropogenic marker:
"BOTTOM LINE: If the C13/C12 relationship during NATURAL inter-annual variability is the same as that found for the trends, how can people claim that the trend signal is MANMADE??"
You replied with a thermostat analogy, which not only doesn't follow, but was prima facie false - anyone who knows anything about heaters and thermostats knows that the thermostat controls whether the heater turns on or off - it doesn't guarantee that the actual heat in the room will arrive at the temperature indicated on the thermostat.
You claim that there is some sort of flaw in pointing out your bad analogy and mistaken understanding of heaters and thermostats, but you haven't actually spelled it out...
As for ad hominem, I think your comments have already proven my point:)
Guess I can still be wrong.
Let me assure you, you were wrong, and still are wrong:)
I'm trying to get you to admit that low sensitivity is sufficient, but not necessary, for falsifying AGW and CAGW.
Okay, low sensitivity (unspecified in magnitude here) is sufficient to falsify both AGW and CAGW.
And, low sensitivity (unspecified in magnitude here) is not *necessary* for AGW and CAGW to be falsified (particularly true for CAGW, since if warming is beneficial, the "C" goes away).
I'm trying to get you to *specify a magnitude* of what you consider "low sensitivity" and then justify why slightly higher sensitivity is not a falsification.
I think you don't have either a specification, nor do you have a cogent rationale to justify why a slightly higher sensitivity would not be a falsification. Plainly put, you don't understand the weakness of your train of argument here.
I'm saying that AGW and CAGW can be falsified by observations that have *nothing* to do with climate sensitivity.
I get it. But you specifically called out "low climate sensitivity" as a falsification criteria, then failed to specify a value or an argument.
I'm asking you to defend *one* out of the three things you said, ( something that might actually make sense if you can defend it). (Note, CO2 being a greenhouse gas is trivially shown as insufficient - you can't logically assert that the radiative properties of a single trace gas inevitably lead to AGW or CAGW.)
So I've made a bet with my gf whether you get it this time or not.
My wife already won the bet she made with me about you not getting it yet:)
Wait a tic, you assert that AGW and CAGW are both falsifiable by observations of low climate sensitivity, but then you insist that I accept your premise as true before being willing to discuss low climate sensitivity, how it is measured, and why a specific value of it would be considered a falsification?:)
Please, explain why order matters here, especially if the question being asked (specific falsification criteria based on low climate sensitivity), is germane to your claim of falsifiability:)
"Hi, HS, if you want to talk about what "x" is in "x+2", then you first have to admit that "x+2" = 4."
You're trying to prove that x+2=4, but you don't want to specify x until I admit that it's true?
1) define what "low climate sensitivity" is by your falsification criteria (a specific C/doubling) 2) explain why that arbitrary value should define the definition of falsification in this case -> argue against +0.1 or -0.1 as being a more proper falsification.
My point here is that you're not really specifying a falsification if you can't *specify* it.
So wait, what you're saying is that the falsification only happens if *all* the things you mention are observed?
Your quote, for your reference, uses the word "or":
" If we show that climate sensitivity is low, or that CO2 isn't a greenhouse gas, or that humans didn't put it there"
Did you mean "and"?
Of course that doesn't make sense - if we showed climate sensitivity was 0C/doubling of CO2, but CO2 was still a greenhouse gas (just overwhelmed by natural climate variations and feedback systems), you'd still insist on AGW or CAGW?
This kind of imprecision is *exactly* why I keep demanding the canonical, necessary and sufficient, falsifiable hypothesis statement. Hell, I'll even take a non-canonical one, but let's at least agree what we're talking about first:)
Wait a tic, you assert that AGW and CAGW are both falsifiable by observations of low climate sensitivity, but then you insist that I accept your premise as true before being willing to discuss low climate sensitivity, how it is measured, and why a specific value of it would be considered a falsification?:)
Are you trying to win the argument before it starts by attaching preconditions?:)
Look, if you're having a hard time coming up with a specific "low climate sensitivity" value that would be a falsification, that's understandable - I doubt you could make an argument that 1.5C/doubling is too low to be "consistent" with your hypothesis, but 1.51C/doubling would be okay. But c'mon, at least admit that you're unable to answer these questions, rather than teasing "I'll only tell you if you admit I'm right first":)
You have yet to state or quote a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement for CAGW or AGW - you've given examples of some specific observations that would be a falsification (say, if the earth didn't exist), but you haven't shown any logical reason why the absence of those specific observations would mean that AGW or CAGW must be true, and all other explanations false.
I'm happy to be proven wrong, but I'm not going to lower the burden of proof for you:)
There are many different *observations* that would disprove AGW and CAGW
Observations that wouldn't be responded to with an ad hoc special pleading? Observations, which lacking, would logically mean that all other explanations are excluded besides AGW and CAGW?
Here's the problem - there are lots of *observations* that would disprove astrology - let's say, all the stars just disappeared, or any particular subset. Yes, this would be considered a falsification, but the simple existence of stars does not logically lead to the conclusion that astrology must be true. The same thing about say, the radiative spectrum of CO2 - of course, if we discovered in the lab that our numbers were wrong, and CO2 was actually magically transparent to all radiation, that would be considered a falsification, but the simple existence of a radiative spectrum of a given element does not logically lead to the conclusion that AGW or CAGW must be true.
This is a tricky concept to grok, I get it, but it's an important one - falsification must not only be theoretically possible, it must be such that without those observations the only possible conclusion is the proffered hypothesis. It's not just "show me some fanciful ways you could be falsified", it's "show me some ways you could be falsified, such that without those observations logically your explanation is the only one left standing".
Now, if you want to talk about CAGW and AGW in terms of "low climate sensitivity", put a number on it, and defend why that number is an inflection point between the truth or falsity of your proposition. Of course for CAGW you have the added burden of showing overall harm (not just quoting specific moments of harm that may be outweighed by moments of benefit), but if you're going to actually claim that an observation of low climate sensitivity will refute your hypothesis, shouldn't you have both a definition of climate sensitivity (in this case, I'm assuming CO2), but also a specific value of sensitivity that you're claiming?
So, you'd like to point out a flaw in the logic of my argument, but you don't care about my argument?:)
There is a relationship between the thermostat on your wall, and your heater - it controls when your heater will turn on, and when it will turn off. This *contributes* to the temperature of your house, but is not the sole factor, or even the primary factor sometimes (as in, your heater wouldn't be able to cool the temperature - you'd need to add an AC for that).
But you can still disprove AGW by showing a low sensitivity.
I'm just asking for a specific definition of "low climate sensitivity" that you would assert falsifies AGW. 2C per doubling? 1.5C per doubling?.8C per doubling?
Frankly, I'd be surprised if the change in climate sensitivity would be met with surrender rather than an ad hoc special pleading - but that's the problem here, nobody has actually written out the necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement that would explain why 1.5C per doubling supports AGW, but 1.49C per doubling doesn't.
The estimated sensitivity hasn't changed much in 100 years.
If you had intellectual integrity, you would now admit that CAGW and AGW are both falsifiable theses, since they make predictions, and rely on theories that can be disproven
If you had any intellectual integrity, you'd admit that by any judgment of CAGW and AGW theses, their predictions *have* been falsified, but ad hoc special pleadings to account for "the pause" and other deviations from observation have been put in place to protect the central conceit here. Hell, so much froth has come out of CAGW and AGW, sometimes asserting *the complete opposite result*, that it's almost trivial to take a look at any observation and say, "see, our AGW paper said so" - that kind of shotgun prediction and cherry picking isn't science by any stretch of the imagination:)
So, if one CAGW paper says that warming will cause more cyclonic activity, and another CAGW paper says that warming will cause less cyclonic activity, isn't there a real problem with the CAGW hypothesis? Where is the canonical list of CAGW papers, that don't contradict each other, and if a single one is refuted, the whole palace falls?:)
Relying on theories that can be disproven is one thing - but being a hypothesis that can be disproven by observation is what really counts. Of course astrology could be disproven if it was shown that the north star was actually in a completely different position than previously observed - but just because the position of the north star is *necessary*, doesn't make it *sufficient*.
Regarding the liberal/conservative thing: I am a scientist.
There are many scientists who don't think scientifically, and I'll assert that the test is whether or not they understand the importance of a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement:)
This is absurd. If we show that climate sensitivity is low, or that CO2 isn't a greenhouse gas, or that humans didn't put it there, that that there are negative feedbacks -- any of those lines of evidence will falsify AGW, and therefore CAGW as well.
Here's the problem - lacking any sort of specificity as to what "low climate sensitivity" is, or the specific nature and magnitude of both negative and positive natural feedbacks, you setup a "heads I win, tails you lose" proposition.
Here, a few things for you to think about:
1) how has IPCC's estimate of climate sensitivity changed over the years? 2) what negative feedbacks have been excluded from existence?
You do bring up an interesting point on motivated reasoning - say for example, we were heading into a little ice age, and we believed that the only way to stop it was to force people to increase the burning of natural petroleum products...BAGW (beneficial) as it were. Do you think at that point, the liberals would be pushing bigger government programs to force people to use fuel, and the conservatives would be bashing the idea of a colder world being a dangerous one? All too often it happens that Democrats support ideas only under a Democrat president but despise them under a Republican administration (and vice versa) - do you think that maybe if all the data were reversed, we'd have people sitting on the same sides, or would they all switch?
Hi hs, it seems to me that some motivated reasoning is going on here. We both established that Pb has a short time-course, so paleolithic measurements of Pb aren't really relevant.
Actually, I think it is relevant - say we've established a hump in Pb concentrations during the 20th century, attributable to the use of leaded gasoline. What if other natural events create similar humps in some utopian paleo record we could reference? While from our limited point of view, an increase in a trace element from some small fraction to some larger fraction may seem very scary, it becomes less so if there are other historical perturbations of the same magnitude without human intervention.
Of course, the *real* thing missing here is "are the trace levels observed here actually dangerous in any way?" That's being implied, but isn't shown.
Also, it is important to realize that *everything* is a proxy.
Of course everything is a proxy, but certainly you'll agree that some proxies are more accurate than others:)
You strike me as the type of person who is scientific only insofar as it jives with your politics
I think that's really the problem now for both sides now, isn't it? You'll get otherwise rational "separate church and state" atheists believing in catastrophic anthropogenic global warming because it jives with their idea of a benign liberal and expansive government, but they're violently against creationism or "intelligent design" and can see right through that as unscientific. And of course, vice versa, with otherwise woo-woo fundamentalist christians suddenly being skeptical about everything but their own beliefs.
As it stands, I'm a person who is scientific no matter what the consequence to my politics - but, you could also read that as having my politics driven by science. Politically, I'm about as socially liberal as you can get, and fiscally conservative as you can get. I believe that Bastiat did a great job of pointing out the bane of socialism in "The Law", but also believe that Paine did a great job skewering the church in "Age of Reason".
I am indeed a skeptic's skeptic, and discern myself from both the extreme left wing and their belief systems as well as the extreme right wing and their belief systems, by applying my skepticism ruthlessly even to my own hard held beliefs.
As an example, I was raised believing that gays were uniformly promiscuous child molesters, and shouldn't be allowed to serve in the military. Applying reason and logic to the issue, and questioning the beliefs I held for so long as a child, I had the wonderful experience of discovering, and accepting, that my prior beliefs were completely wrong. I had similar experiences with discovering atheism in 1st grade, and discovering the evil of carbohydrates and the failure of "calories in, calories out" in 2007 with Gary Taubes' "Good Calories, Bad Calories".
Have you ever truly believed something, with all your heart, then upon further reflection or study, stopped believing it? It's not a skill I think everyone has, but I think it's vital if anyone is to have a hope of thinking scientifically all the time.
The article in question didn't seem to include any of that significance or skill testing at all though.
That kind of thing should probably be mandatory for papers which are basing their discussion on particular applications (and possible misapplications) of statistics.
It's not falsifiable if every falsification is met with some ad hoc special pleading. Practitioners most often make predictions that *cannot* be tested (i.e., "cancers are usually honest, but sometimes lie"), but the faith of astrology (and other non-falsifiable hypotheses) is based on waving away those controlled studies as outliers, or insignificant compared to the vast weight of other "evidence".
I'm always interested in people who give actual cites:)
That being said, my concern is this - without a *pre industrial baseline* it's difficult to make sure you haven't made the wrong assumptions about your isotope sourcing/sinking logic. Given Pb is reactive (to the tune of "living" 50-200 years), it makes not only direct measurement iffy, but with the 10k year resolution of proxies, you're left with a lot of holes. Even your first cite only shows what, 9 sample areas? Given that we *know* Pb isn't well mixed, that seems like an awfully tiny resolution to base firm conclusions on.
At the very least, it would've been nice to see some sort of uncertainty bars on the proxy measurements - that kind of stuff is just basic, even if it detracts from the illusion of certainty. I'm especially concerned in Fig 4, where they assume a *constant* background Pb level - that makes the maths simpler, but it's sloppy.
I know it's frustrating to recreate truth with proxies - we need to accept that though, and not only do our best, but be very careful about pointing out the sources of possible error or misdirection.
Which one of those search results do you believe has the answer?
Let's look at the top three:
1) ice: Trace metal suites in Antarctic pre-industrial ice are consistent with emissions from quiescent degassing of volcanoes worldwide
2) 20th century measurements (aka, after the industrial age) Lead in corals: reconstruction of historical industrial fluxes to the surface ocean
3) a model, not data Global 3-D land-ocean-atmosphere model for mercury: Present-day versus preindustrial cycles and anthropogenic enrichment factors for deposition
I know it's not as sexy as paleo CO2 levels, but surely there has to be some paper defending proxies to guess at ocean Pb content before we actually observed it, right?
Slashdot Mirror
Your analogy was bad, plain and simple. Here's the quote I made, in regards to using isotope ratios as some sort of anthropogenic marker:
"BOTTOM LINE: If the C13/C12 relationship during NATURAL inter-annual variability is the same as that found for the trends, how can people claim that the trend signal is MANMADE??"
You replied with a thermostat analogy, which not only doesn't follow, but was prima facie false - anyone who knows anything about heaters and thermostats knows that the thermostat controls whether the heater turns on or off - it doesn't guarantee that the actual heat in the room will arrive at the temperature indicated on the thermostat.
You claim that there is some sort of flaw in pointing out your bad analogy and mistaken understanding of heaters and thermostats, but you haven't actually spelled it out...
As for ad hominem, I think your comments have already proven my point :)
Let me assure you, you were wrong, and still are wrong :)
Okay, low sensitivity (unspecified in magnitude here) is sufficient to falsify both AGW and CAGW.
And, low sensitivity (unspecified in magnitude here) is not *necessary* for AGW and CAGW to be falsified (particularly true for CAGW, since if warming is beneficial, the "C" goes away).
I'm trying to get you to *specify a magnitude* of what you consider "low sensitivity" and then justify why slightly higher sensitivity is not a falsification.
I think you don't have either a specification, nor do you have a cogent rationale to justify why a slightly higher sensitivity would not be a falsification. Plainly put, you don't understand the weakness of your train of argument here.
Wow. You deny the actual observed temperature record, you deny that climate sensitivity estimates have changed, and *I'm* the denier? :)
Poor Tobias. You remind me of Buster :)
You think they made more than one argument? This particular thread is on the "perfect thermostat" analogy.
Are you responding to some other thread?
A bad analogy was made. I pointed it out. The response was ad hominem.
Who has the cognitive blinkers on?
I get it. But you specifically called out "low climate sensitivity" as a falsification criteria, then failed to specify a value or an argument.
I'm asking you to defend *one* out of the three things you said, ( something that might actually make sense if you can defend it). (Note, CO2 being a greenhouse gas is trivially shown as insufficient - you can't logically assert that the radiative properties of a single trace gas inevitably lead to AGW or CAGW.)
My wife already won the bet she made with me about you not getting it yet :)
Wait a tic, you assert that AGW and CAGW are both falsifiable by observations of low climate sensitivity, but then you insist that I accept your premise as true before being willing to discuss low climate sensitivity, how it is measured, and why a specific value of it would be considered a falsification? :)
Please, explain why order matters here, especially if the question being asked (specific falsification criteria based on low climate sensitivity), is germane to your claim of falsifiability :)
"Hi, HS, if you want to talk about what "x" is in "x+2", then you first have to admit that "x+2" = 4."
You're trying to prove that x+2=4, but you don't want to specify x until I admit that it's true?
Step out of ad hominem mode and realize I don't care about your name calling and am just pointing out the flaw in your logic :)
Okay, then please:
1) define what "low climate sensitivity" is by your falsification criteria (a specific C/doubling)
2) explain why that arbitrary value should define the definition of falsification in this case -> argue against +0.1 or -0.1 as being a more proper falsification.
My point here is that you're not really specifying a falsification if you can't *specify* it.
So wait, what you're saying is that the falsification only happens if *all* the things you mention are observed?
Your quote, for your reference, uses the word "or":
" If we show that climate sensitivity is low, or that CO2 isn't a greenhouse gas, or that humans didn't put it there"
Did you mean "and"?
Of course that doesn't make sense - if we showed climate sensitivity was 0C/doubling of CO2, but CO2 was still a greenhouse gas (just overwhelmed by natural climate variations and feedback systems), you'd still insist on AGW or CAGW?
This kind of imprecision is *exactly* why I keep demanding the canonical, necessary and sufficient, falsifiable hypothesis statement. Hell, I'll even take a non-canonical one, but let's at least agree what we're talking about first :)
Wait a tic, you assert that AGW and CAGW are both falsifiable by observations of low climate sensitivity, but then you insist that I accept your premise as true before being willing to discuss low climate sensitivity, how it is measured, and why a specific value of it would be considered a falsification? :)
Are you trying to win the argument before it starts by attaching preconditions? :)
Look, if you're having a hard time coming up with a specific "low climate sensitivity" value that would be a falsification, that's understandable - I doubt you could make an argument that 1.5C/doubling is too low to be "consistent" with your hypothesis, but 1.51C/doubling would be okay. But c'mon, at least admit that you're unable to answer these questions, rather than teasing "I'll only tell you if you admit I'm right first" :)
You have yet to state or quote a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement for CAGW or AGW - you've given examples of some specific observations that would be a falsification (say, if the earth didn't exist), but you haven't shown any logical reason why the absence of those specific observations would mean that AGW or CAGW must be true, and all other explanations false.
I'm happy to be proven wrong, but I'm not going to lower the burden of proof for you :)
Observations that wouldn't be responded to with an ad hoc special pleading? Observations, which lacking, would logically mean that all other explanations are excluded besides AGW and CAGW?
Here's the problem - there are lots of *observations* that would disprove astrology - let's say, all the stars just disappeared, or any particular subset. Yes, this would be considered a falsification, but the simple existence of stars does not logically lead to the conclusion that astrology must be true. The same thing about say, the radiative spectrum of CO2 - of course, if we discovered in the lab that our numbers were wrong, and CO2 was actually magically transparent to all radiation, that would be considered a falsification, but the simple existence of a radiative spectrum of a given element does not logically lead to the conclusion that AGW or CAGW must be true.
This is a tricky concept to grok, I get it, but it's an important one - falsification must not only be theoretically possible, it must be such that without those observations the only possible conclusion is the proffered hypothesis. It's not just "show me some fanciful ways you could be falsified", it's "show me some ways you could be falsified, such that without those observations logically your explanation is the only one left standing".
Now, if you want to talk about CAGW and AGW in terms of "low climate sensitivity", put a number on it, and defend why that number is an inflection point between the truth or falsity of your proposition. Of course for CAGW you have the added burden of showing overall harm (not just quoting specific moments of harm that may be outweighed by moments of benefit), but if you're going to actually claim that an observation of low climate sensitivity will refute your hypothesis, shouldn't you have both a definition of climate sensitivity (in this case, I'm assuming CO2), but also a specific value of sensitivity that you're claiming?
So, you'd like to point out a flaw in the logic of my argument, but you don't care about my argument? :)
There is a relationship between the thermostat on your wall, and your heater - it controls when your heater will turn on, and when it will turn off. This *contributes* to the temperature of your house, but is not the sole factor, or even the primary factor sometimes (as in, your heater wouldn't be able to cool the temperature - you'd need to add an AC for that).
Do you see the flaw in the logic of your analogy?
Try putting your thermostat up to 500, and see if the heater ends up matching the thermostat :)
Try putting your thermostat down to -500, and see if the heater ends up matching the thermostat :)
There's a relationship, to be sure, but it's not necessarily as linear and straightforward as you might expect for all ranges :)
I'm just asking for a specific definition of "low climate sensitivity" that you would assert falsifies AGW. 2C per doubling? 1.5C per doubling? .8C per doubling?
Frankly, I'd be surprised if the change in climate sensitivity would be met with surrender rather than an ad hoc special pleading - but that's the problem here, nobody has actually written out the necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement that would explain why 1.5C per doubling supports AGW, but 1.49C per doubling doesn't.
Please, check your references:
http://object.cato.org/sites/c...
http://online.wsj.com/news/art...
If you had any intellectual integrity, you'd admit that by any judgment of CAGW and AGW theses, their predictions *have* been falsified, but ad hoc special pleadings to account for "the pause" and other deviations from observation have been put in place to protect the central conceit here. Hell, so much froth has come out of CAGW and AGW, sometimes asserting *the complete opposite result*, that it's almost trivial to take a look at any observation and say, "see, our AGW paper said so" - that kind of shotgun prediction and cherry picking isn't science by any stretch of the imagination :)
So, if one CAGW paper says that warming will cause more cyclonic activity, and another CAGW paper says that warming will cause less cyclonic activity, isn't there a real problem with the CAGW hypothesis? Where is the canonical list of CAGW papers, that don't contradict each other, and if a single one is refuted, the whole palace falls? :)
Relying on theories that can be disproven is one thing - but being a hypothesis that can be disproven by observation is what really counts. Of course astrology could be disproven if it was shown that the north star was actually in a completely different position than previously observed - but just because the position of the north star is *necessary*, doesn't make it *sufficient*.
There are many scientists who don't think scientifically, and I'll assert that the test is whether or not they understand the importance of a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement :)
Here's the problem - lacking any sort of specificity as to what "low climate sensitivity" is, or the specific nature and magnitude of both negative and positive natural feedbacks, you setup a "heads I win, tails you lose" proposition.
Here, a few things for you to think about:
1) how has IPCC's estimate of climate sensitivity changed over the years?
2) what negative feedbacks have been excluded from existence?
You do bring up an interesting point on motivated reasoning - say for example, we were heading into a little ice age, and we believed that the only way to stop it was to force people to increase the burning of natural petroleum products...BAGW (beneficial) as it were. Do you think at that point, the liberals would be pushing bigger government programs to force people to use fuel, and the conservatives would be bashing the idea of a colder world being a dangerous one? All too often it happens that Democrats support ideas only under a Democrat president but despise them under a Republican administration (and vice versa) - do you think that maybe if all the data were reversed, we'd have people sitting on the same sides, or would they all switch?
Actually, I think it is relevant - say we've established a hump in Pb concentrations during the 20th century, attributable to the use of leaded gasoline. What if other natural events create similar humps in some utopian paleo record we could reference? While from our limited point of view, an increase in a trace element from some small fraction to some larger fraction may seem very scary, it becomes less so if there are other historical perturbations of the same magnitude without human intervention.
Of course, the *real* thing missing here is "are the trace levels observed here actually dangerous in any way?" That's being implied, but isn't shown.
Of course everything is a proxy, but certainly you'll agree that some proxies are more accurate than others :)
I think that's really the problem now for both sides now, isn't it? You'll get otherwise rational "separate church and state" atheists believing in catastrophic anthropogenic global warming because it jives with their idea of a benign liberal and expansive government, but they're violently against creationism or "intelligent design" and can see right through that as unscientific. And of course, vice versa, with otherwise woo-woo fundamentalist christians suddenly being skeptical about everything but their own beliefs.
As it stands, I'm a person who is scientific no matter what the consequence to my politics - but, you could also read that as having my politics driven by science. Politically, I'm about as socially liberal as you can get, and fiscally conservative as you can get. I believe that Bastiat did a great job of pointing out the bane of socialism in "The Law", but also believe that Paine did a great job skewering the church in "Age of Reason".
I am indeed a skeptic's skeptic, and discern myself from both the extreme left wing and their belief systems as well as the extreme right wing and their belief systems, by applying my skepticism ruthlessly even to my own hard held beliefs.
As an example, I was raised believing that gays were uniformly promiscuous child molesters, and shouldn't be allowed to serve in the military. Applying reason and logic to the issue, and questioning the beliefs I held for so long as a child, I had the wonderful experience of discovering, and accepting, that my prior beliefs were completely wrong. I had similar experiences with discovering atheism in 1st grade, and discovering the evil of carbohydrates and the failure of "calories in, calories out" in 2007 with Gary Taubes' "Good Calories, Bad Calories".
Have you ever truly believed something, with all your heart, then upon further reflection or study, stopped believing it? It's not a skill I think everyone has, but I think it's vital if anyone is to have a hope of thinking scientifically all the time.
The article in question didn't seem to include any of that significance or skill testing at all though.
That kind of thing should probably be mandatory for papers which are basing their discussion on particular applications (and possible misapplications) of statistics.
It's not falsifiable if every falsification is met with some ad hoc special pleading. Practitioners most often make predictions that *cannot* be tested (i.e., "cancers are usually honest, but sometimes lie"), but the faith of astrology (and other non-falsifiable hypotheses) is based on waving away those controlled studies as outliers, or insignificant compared to the vast weight of other "evidence".
And frankly, the social sciences are pseudo-science.
http://www.livescience.com/272...
I'm always interested in people who give actual cites :)
That being said, my concern is this - without a *pre industrial baseline* it's difficult to make sure you haven't made the wrong assumptions about your isotope sourcing/sinking logic. Given Pb is reactive (to the tune of "living" 50-200 years), it makes not only direct measurement iffy, but with the 10k year resolution of proxies, you're left with a lot of holes. Even your first cite only shows what, 9 sample areas? Given that we *know* Pb isn't well mixed, that seems like an awfully tiny resolution to base firm conclusions on.
At the very least, it would've been nice to see some sort of uncertainty bars on the proxy measurements - that kind of stuff is just basic, even if it detracts from the illusion of certainty. I'm especially concerned in Fig 4, where they assume a *constant* background Pb level - that makes the maths simpler, but it's sloppy.
I know it's frustrating to recreate truth with proxies - we need to accept that though, and not only do our best, but be very careful about pointing out the sources of possible error or misdirection.
...you tell the difference by looking for the necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement.
Not falsifiable? Not science. Falsification criteria doesn't exclude other explanations? Not sufficient.
Creationism is not falsifiable, evolution is.
Astrology is not falsifiable, astronomy is.
Now, for bonus points, what pseudoscientific idea did the article submitter defend as scientific, without realizing it?
Science:
http://iopscience.iop.org/1755...
Pay close attention to the caveats about Pb and paleo measurements of it.
Nope, that was intentional :)
So was that :)
Which one of those search results do you believe has the answer?
Let's look at the top three:
1) ice:
Trace metal suites in Antarctic pre-industrial ice are consistent with emissions from quiescent degassing of volcanoes worldwide
2) 20th century measurements (aka, after the industrial age)
Lead in corals: reconstruction of historical industrial fluxes to the surface ocean
3) a model, not data
Global 3-D land-ocean-atmosphere model for mercury: Present-day versus preindustrial cycles and anthropogenic enrichment factors for deposition
I know it's not as sexy as paleo CO2 levels, but surely there has to be some paper defending proxies to guess at ocean Pb content before we actually observed it, right?