"So...do the current climate models properly predict the entirety of the past climate performance? If not, then they are all invalid."
Under that definition all models (not just all climate models) are "invalid", I mean do orbital models properly predict the entirety of the past solar system? There is no such thing a absolute certainty and claiming a model is "invalid" becuse of imperfection says nothing about how usefull it is.
For about 30yrs now, climate models have had an excellent track record of predicting future temprature trends, C02 concentrations, ice melt, ect, they have even predicted new phenomena before they were observed (polar amplification being the prime example). A major failure of the models predictions is methane concentrations, but (as is the nature of science) there is a lot of filed work being done to find out why the models got the methane levels wrong - (perhaps there is an unknown "methane sink"? - nobody knows at the moment).
Dyson's strawman is the exact opposite to what he is preaching, his "problems with the models" are described as "poorly understood" in the IPCC reports yet his strawman implies climatologists have not even thought about it, he says that climatologists do nothing but "sit at desks" - yet even a cursory look on the net will find mountains of climate data that has been collected over the last 100yrs.
Sorry but with this particular article Dyson has failed "Heritics 101" in that he has not been the least bit skeptical of his own assumptions. Climate scientists and their models are no diffrent to any other hard science, it just has a lot of intense and well funded FUD that orbits around it.
"What Freeman Dyson is saying about the need for heretics in science makes complete sense."
I agree, my original point that is now modded flamebait is that "skeptisisim" is more than just bad mouthing some other field that you admit you don't know much about and I included a link to Sagan's excellent book on the subject. Dyson's example of a "heretical position" is bogus and insulting to the entire field of Earth Science. The problems he points out in models are acknowlaged as problems (it's as if he cherry picked the IPCC reports and looked for what they freely admit is not well understood), Dyson is (willfully?) ignorant of the fact that solving those problems will not significantly change the prognosis.
Dyson has a point that any half arsed scientist should recognise as the foundation of the scientific method, but in trying to explain it via strawman climatologists he does exactly the opposite to what he is preaching.
"only when heretics are allowed to voice an opinion so we can test all ideas"
Yes he is entitled to air his opinion as am I. To be an effective heritic one must first be skeptical of one's own ideas,
unfortunately TFA doesn't offer any ideas that can be tested, it just throws a bunch of ad-homs at an incorrect assumption, very few ideas have ever been systematically tested as rigourously as the AGW idea.
"Only then can we finally have a world at peace."
That's what the spanish inquisition said but peace requires that you attempt to understand your fellow man, Dyson has demonstrated he prefers sterotypes. Did he ever stop to think that the 100+yr old idea that our C02 emmissions are warming the planet was itself a "heretical position" up until just over a decade ago?
Cute, but that's your personal experience, perhaps your grandfather remebers the "dustbowl" years. Perhaps you have also heard of the Sahara jungle, the Indus valley, the Myan's,....all of them (except Easter Island) collapsed from a change to the mico-climate that had nothing to do with the sun or ice ages.
Sure we might get our feet wet if the ocean rises but that is just infrastructure that can be rebuilt on higher ground (unless you live in Bangladesh where there is no high ground). The most fickle part of climate is regular rain over catchments and crops, see the recent drought in SE Australia for what happens when storm tracks drift away from their seasonal paths for just a few years.
"Things are different when you're talking about a highly complicated system."
No, regardless of the complexity you still cannot say any model will work in the future. All you can do is put an estimate on how certain you are that it will still work tomorrow.
When you construct a model it's necessary to test it's predictive ability on new data, that was not used to construct the model.
For a start the data is not part of the model so it is not "used for construction", data is used for testing - period! Go back and have a look at how well the climate predictions have turned out for the 30 odd years computer models have been making them. If that's too much effort I will summarise: temprature was predicted extremely well, prediction of methane concentration not so well.
Why do you assume that climatologists don't know how to build models? How do you explain the fact that models can reproduce randomly selected data sets?
"Such tests say nothing about the accuracy of future predictions"
So...? I mean that's like saying there is no gaurentee the sun will rise tomorrow morning, it's true but what use is it? We base all future decision on past experience, even the everyday ones like filling the car with gas when we could be totalled pulling out the servo, there is no rule that says things have to make sense in the future and as such putting a social value to a scientific assesment of risk is in the realm of personal choice and politics.
"I could have a perl script randomly choosing factors from women hat sizes"
The rest of your post accepts Dyson's strawman at face value and suffers from the same hubris.
"He's old, so he doesn't know what he's talking about."
I suggest you look at the "coolness" of my other posts before putting words in my mouth, as for being a "kid" let's just say I'm closer to Dyson's stage of life.
Yeah that's right - everything is random anyway. Think how much easier geometry would be if we legislated the value of PI to be exactly 1 and forced people to observe it.
All models have flaws of varying sizes, that is why there are so many of them. However Dyson is arguing a strawmam of his own construction. Putting to one side his ad-homs against climatologists, the IPCC reports specifically state that there is a low level of scientific understanding (LoSU) in the areas he picks on (see for example the attribution graph in the 2007 IPCC SPM). Even if we had a perfect model for the things he objects to it would not significantly change the basic attributions that lead to usefull models.
Sorry but Dyson can't argue for the scientific method and then argue that the models constructed using said method are "not science" simply because they conflict with his opinion.
Your model had a bug and we discarded it as an outlier, potential bugs are the main reason why we talk about "the models" in a plural sense since there are many different implementations with varying resolutions and a wide array of probable emmision senarios. The IPCC itself recognised this as a problem in the 90's. The only way to test the models is to test against random multi-decade historical records and check what the models (plural) predict (been done for 2-3 decades now so you can go and check the old predictions yourself if you are so inclined, you will find "missing methane" is the only major discrepency).
"i suggest you stop talking about models right now good sir."
Do have a better suggestion of how science can proceed without the use of models, or are you one of those who thinks a bridge colapse means all engineering is a waste of time?
Far be it from me to argue the authority of the great Dyson but last time I checked baseless ad-homs on strawman "climatologists" are not part of the scientific method.
Perhaps arrogant would have been a better word to use for his take on the "scientific method", he simply has the opinion that only he can judge it and is on a crusade to enlighten others, yet freely admits he knows little about their subject (ignorance). If he were talking about politics and mass media I would agree but he is not.
If he does trully understand "the republic of science" and it associated procedures then I can only assume he is deliberately ignoring it when he infers that models are useless and climatologists are not "real" scientists. If either were true then ALL models and their results would be useless, science would be reduced to a series of anecdotes passed down by old people trying to sell books.
Jokes aside, the meaning of the word skeptic has been twisted as much as the meaning of the word "hacker". All scientists by definition are aiming for heretical status every time they write a paper or perform an experiment. By attempting to use AGW as an example of "group think" in science (as opposed to politics) the author simply demonstrates his ignorance of both the scientific method and the subject at hand.
"And in response to the parent (grandparent?....I guess I would count as the exception to your rule? I was a freakishly articulate child"
To quote Captain Jack, "it's more a guideline that a rule" but I was talking about the level of maturity and background knowledge of a 6yro not "freakish" party tricks. Myself, I could tell the time when I was three, do simple arithmetic, "read" encyclopedias, all before I went to school. However I'm old enough to recognoise I was still absorbing the world around me, I was not simply a litte version of my current self for the simple reason that much of my life hadn't happened in 1965, in the same vein I am not the "same person" I was at 21 either. The constant evolution of "who you are" is a "fact of life" many 21yr old's can articulate but don't trully comprehend.
As someone once lamented: "Youth is wasted on the young".
Yes it is ridiculous, typical of the 60's and something I laugh about with my mum. I agree swearing is totally harmless, but as a matter of personal taste I don't like hearing little kids talking like the guys down at the local bar. Reagardless of personal taste, there is no getting around the social reality that "being polite" is a reliable first strategy when a kid is learning to deal with adults.
"Kids are not as stupid and ignorant as some lawmakers and parents make them out to be."
I don't think kids are "stupid" but they are by definition "ignorant". For example, ask a pre-schooler how old they are and they might answer "three", to totally confuse them just ask "three what?" - after a bit of thinking you might get an answer like "and a half" or "just three".
The point of my post however was: no matter how mature a person thinks they were at six, reality is different.
"I think they should take the same approach in this situation."
I'm an Aussie with two grown kids and a partner who selects students for a university degree in the state of Victoria. I can attest to the fact that your post describes the way the system works in Australia fairly accurately, the math to determine the final "score" is quite complex and the "score" cannot be determined before all year 12 students in the state have taken the test.
Truth is some people can't do math just like some people can't kick a football or paint a picture. To be able to do the "hard math" in the final year (year 12) the student must do the preparatory "hard math" in the preceding two years, if (as many do) they can't cope with the year 10-11 "hard math" I can understand why teachers suggest a less demanding course. It's the same as a kid who never practiced football but suddenly wants to be picked for the school's senior team, it's simply not going to happen that quickly.
Personally I dropped out of high school at 16 and ended up going to uni at about age 30, however having dropped out of HS I could not just waltz in as a mature age student, I had to do a year 12 math course by correspondence and sit the HS "hard math" test to meet the selection criteria (also it was a good way for the uni to see if I was serious).
A good high school "score" is important when you are young because it gives you an advantage over others entering the workforce/uni. It's basically societies reward for your efforts to complete the "grasshopper" stage. It's not a guide to "intelligence" or "wisdom" any more than a fat wallet is, and it's most definitely not a "make or break" moment that follows you around society for the rest of your life.
I get your point but I'd be pretty impressed with a 6yro who could read CNN and discuss how it's "community discourse" differs from that of MySpace. An average 6yro might call you a "mother fucking poo-bum-head" but I doubt they would recognise the words in text without prior coaching.
After 40 odd years, I still vividly remeber getting a slipper thrown at me the first time I said "oh fuck" in front of my mum, I had no idea what it meant I was just parroting the "big kids".
The loan I was thinking of was not a "personal loan" it was to set up a lab, she could not get the loan by herself but her husband could.
"You have to be a pretty big asshole to get a loan without clearing it with your spouse first."
Having survived a 20yr marriage, I would say it's suicidal. The point I was trying to make is that even though society recognised her remarkable abilities she was still a woman. She was thus required to have a gaurentor becuse women were considered irresponsible with money regardless of any other talent they had.
By your standards the vast majority of men in those days were "pretty big assholes" since men rarely bothered to inform their wives what they did with the money. Husbands simply provided a set amount of "housekeeping" for the wife to run the household, everything else was "none of her business" because "she wouldn't understand it anyway". Women's lib is relatively new, I was brought up in the 60's and some of those attitudes (as opposed to legalities) lingered well into the 70's, similar attitudes are still common in some otherwise modern nations.
I don't know of anyone else who has a nobel for chemistry and another one for physics, OTOH she still had to get her husband to authorise a loan from the bank.
"It's generally true that socialized systems have longer waits for elective procedures and shorter waits for required procedures and primary/preventative care."
Exactly, who gets treated first is a medical decision not a financial one. I think the politicians over here have more or less treat that as a bi-partisan "truth", the arguments are about how to spend the set amount of money on resources.
In Australia, public hospitals are "free", private hospitals must lease operating rooms, scaning equipment, ect to the government as part of their license to run a hospital. A private patient cannot "jump the queue" for an "elective" (nothing significant anyway-maybe a couple of days). Nor do you get a "better specialist", in fact the private/public procedure is usually performed by the same "team", using the same equipment, booked thru the same system. The main difference is - do you sleep alone or in a 4 bed ward?
BTW: As with any other developed nation, the quality of our doctors ranges from "fraudulent" to "world's best". I would argue that is just "life" and the only way to recognise incompetence (before it's too late) is to educate yourself (yes, second, third, fourth, Nth opinions are also "free").
"You mention infected water. People were actually aware of this problem, and had a strategy to avoid it: they only drank alcoholic beverages. In pre-industrial times most western people were (by modern standards) total lushes."
Trivia: Plymoth rock was chosen as a landing place because they ran out of booze and had to go ashore to look for water.
Slashdot Mirror
"So...do the current climate models properly predict the entirety of the past climate performance? If not, then they are all invalid."
Under that definition all models (not just all climate models) are "invalid", I mean do orbital models properly predict the entirety of the past solar system? There is no such thing a absolute certainty and claiming a model is "invalid" becuse of imperfection says nothing about how usefull it is.
For about 30yrs now, climate models have had an excellent track record of predicting future temprature trends, C02 concentrations, ice melt, ect, they have even predicted new phenomena before they were observed (polar amplification being the prime example). A major failure of the models predictions is methane concentrations, but (as is the nature of science) there is a lot of filed work being done to find out why the models got the methane levels wrong - (perhaps there is an unknown "methane sink"? - nobody knows at the moment).
Dyson's strawman is the exact opposite to what he is preaching, his "problems with the models" are described as "poorly understood" in the IPCC reports yet his strawman implies climatologists have not even thought about it, he says that climatologists do nothing but "sit at desks" - yet even a cursory look on the net will find mountains of climate data that has been collected over the last 100yrs.
Sorry but with this particular article Dyson has failed "Heritics 101" in that he has not been the least bit skeptical of his own assumptions. Climate scientists and their models are no diffrent to any other hard science, it just has a lot of intense and well funded FUD that orbits around it.
"What Freeman Dyson is saying about the need for heretics in science makes complete sense."
I agree, my original point that is now modded flamebait is that "skeptisisim" is more than just bad mouthing some other field that you admit you don't know much about and I included a link to Sagan's excellent book on the subject. Dyson's example of a "heretical position" is bogus and insulting to the entire field of Earth Science. The problems he points out in models are acknowlaged as problems (it's as if he cherry picked the IPCC reports and looked for what they freely admit is not well understood), Dyson is (willfully?) ignorant of the fact that solving those problems will not significantly change the prognosis.
Dyson has a point that any half arsed scientist should recognise as the foundation of the scientific method, but in trying to explain it via strawman climatologists he does exactly the opposite to what he is preaching.
"only when heretics are allowed to voice an opinion so we can test all ideas"
Yes he is entitled to air his opinion as am I. To be an effective heritic one must first be skeptical of one's own ideas, unfortunately TFA doesn't offer any ideas that can be tested, it just throws a bunch of ad-homs at an incorrect assumption, very few ideas have ever been systematically tested as rigourously as the AGW idea.
"Only then can we finally have a world at peace."
That's what the spanish inquisition said but peace requires that you attempt to understand your fellow man, Dyson has demonstrated he prefers sterotypes. Did he ever stop to think that the 100+yr old idea that our C02 emmissions are warming the planet was itself a "heretical position" up until just over a decade ago?
Cute, but that's your personal experience, perhaps your grandfather remebers the "dustbowl" years. Perhaps you have also heard of the Sahara jungle, the Indus valley, the Myan's,....all of them (except Easter Island) collapsed from a change to the mico-climate that had nothing to do with the sun or ice ages.
Sure we might get our feet wet if the ocean rises but that is just infrastructure that can be rebuilt on higher ground (unless you live in Bangladesh where there is no high ground). The most fickle part of climate is regular rain over catchments and crops, see the recent drought in SE Australia for what happens when storm tracks drift away from their seasonal paths for just a few years.
"Things are different when you're talking about a highly complicated system."
No, regardless of the complexity you still cannot say any model will work in the future. All you can do is put an estimate on how certain you are that it will still work tomorrow.
When you construct a model it's necessary to test it's predictive ability on new data, that was not used to construct the model.
For a start the data is not part of the model so it is not "used for construction", data is used for testing - period! Go back and have a look at how well the climate predictions have turned out for the 30 odd years computer models have been making them. If that's too much effort I will summarise: temprature was predicted extremely well, prediction of methane concentration not so well.
Why do you assume that climatologists don't know how to build models? How do you explain the fact that models can reproduce randomly selected data sets?
"Such tests say nothing about the accuracy of future predictions"
So...? I mean that's like saying there is no gaurentee the sun will rise tomorrow morning, it's true but what use is it? We base all future decision on past experience, even the everyday ones like filling the car with gas when we could be totalled pulling out the servo, there is no rule that says things have to make sense in the future and as such putting a social value to a scientific assesment of risk is in the realm of personal choice and politics.
"I could have a perl script randomly choosing factors from women hat sizes"
The rest of your post accepts Dyson's strawman at face value and suffers from the same hubris.
"The resulting amount of spam collapsed the universe at one point."
pffft - what's one universe less in an infinite multiverse.
"He's old, so he doesn't know what he's talking about."
I suggest you look at the "coolness" of my other posts before putting words in my mouth, as for being a "kid" let's just say I'm closer to Dyson's stage of life.
Yeah that's right - everything is random anyway. Think how much easier geometry would be if we legislated the value of PI to be exactly 1 and forced people to observe it.
"at the very least the models have a big flaw"
All models have flaws of varying sizes, that is why there are so many of them. However Dyson is arguing a strawmam of his own construction. Putting to one side his ad-homs against climatologists, the IPCC reports specifically state that there is a low level of scientific understanding (LoSU) in the areas he picks on (see for example the attribution graph in the 2007 IPCC SPM). Even if we had a perfect model for the things he objects to it would not significantly change the basic attributions that lead to usefull models.
Sorry but Dyson can't argue for the scientific method and then argue that the models constructed using said method are "not science" simply because they conflict with his opinion.
Wow that was a bold statement I made. (note to self: hit preview next time)
Your model had a bug and we discarded it as an outlier, potential bugs are the main reason why we talk about "the models" in a plural sense since there are many different implementations with varying resolutions and a wide array of probable emmision senarios. The IPCC itself recognised this as a problem in the 90's. The only way to test the models is to test against random multi-decade historical records and check what the models (plural) predict (been done for 2-3 decades now so you can go and check the old predictions yourself if you are so inclined, you will find "missing methane" is the only major discrepency).
"i suggest you stop talking about models right now good sir."
Do have a better suggestion of how science can proceed without the use of models, or are you one of those who thinks a bridge colapse means all engineering is a waste of time?
Far be it from me to argue the authority of the great Dyson but last time I checked baseless ad-homs on strawman "climatologists" are not part of the scientific method.
Perhaps arrogant would have been a better word to use for his take on the "scientific method", he simply has the opinion that only he can judge it and is on a crusade to enlighten others, yet freely admits he knows little about their subject (ignorance). If he were talking about politics and mass media I would agree but he is not.
If he does trully understand "the republic of science" and it associated procedures then I can only assume he is deliberately ignoring it when he infers that models are useless and climatologists are not "real" scientists. If either were true then ALL models and their results would be useless, science would be reduced to a series of anecdotes passed down by old people trying to sell books.
Jokes aside, the meaning of the word skeptic has been twisted as much as the meaning of the word "hacker". All scientists by definition are aiming for heretical status every time they write a paper or perform an experiment. By attempting to use AGW as an example of "group think" in science (as opposed to politics) the author simply demonstrates his ignorance of both the scientific method and the subject at hand.
"And in response to the parent (grandparent?....I guess I would count as the exception to your rule? I was a freakishly articulate child"
To quote Captain Jack, "it's more a guideline that a rule" but I was talking about the level of maturity and background knowledge of a 6yro not "freakish" party tricks. Myself, I could tell the time when I was three, do simple arithmetic, "read" encyclopedias, all before I went to school. However I'm old enough to recognoise I was still absorbing the world around me, I was not simply a litte version of my current self for the simple reason that much of my life hadn't happened in 1965, in the same vein I am not the "same person" I was at 21 either. The constant evolution of "who you are" is a "fact of life" many 21yr old's can articulate but don't trully comprehend.
As someone once lamented: "Youth is wasted on the young".
"pointing out how stupid it is to censor profanity is sort of like shooting fish in a barrel, isn't it?"
Yes, also a strawman if you read my OP post that he was replying to.
"And you don't think that is ridiculous?"
Yes it is ridiculous, typical of the 60's and something I laugh about with my mum. I agree swearing is totally harmless, but as a matter of personal taste I don't like hearing little kids talking like the guys down at the local bar. Reagardless of personal taste, there is no getting around the social reality that "being polite" is a reliable first strategy when a kid is learning to deal with adults.
"Kids are not as stupid and ignorant as some lawmakers and parents make them out to be."
I don't think kids are "stupid" but they are by definition "ignorant". For example, ask a pre-schooler how old they are and they might answer "three", to totally confuse them just ask "three what?" - after a bit of thinking you might get an answer like "and a half" or "just three".
The point of my post however was: no matter how mature a person thinks they were at six, reality is different.
"I think they should take the same approach in this situation."
I'm an Aussie with two grown kids and a partner who selects students for a university degree in the state of Victoria. I can attest to the fact that your post describes the way the system works in Australia fairly accurately, the math to determine the final "score" is quite complex and the "score" cannot be determined before all year 12 students in the state have taken the test.
Truth is some people can't do math just like some people can't kick a football or paint a picture. To be able to do the "hard math" in the final year (year 12) the student must do the preparatory "hard math" in the preceding two years, if (as many do) they can't cope with the year 10-11 "hard math" I can understand why teachers suggest a less demanding course. It's the same as a kid who never practiced football but suddenly wants to be picked for the school's senior team, it's simply not going to happen that quickly.
Personally I dropped out of high school at 16 and ended up going to uni at about age 30, however having dropped out of HS I could not just waltz in as a mature age student, I had to do a year 12 math course by correspondence and sit the HS "hard math" test to meet the selection criteria (also it was a good way for the uni to see if I was serious).
A good high school "score" is important when you are young because it gives you an advantage over others entering the workforce/uni. It's basically societies reward for your efforts to complete the "grasshopper" stage. It's not a guide to "intelligence" or "wisdom" any more than a fat wallet is, and it's most definitely not a "make or break" moment that follows you around society for the rest of your life.
I get your point but I'd be pretty impressed with a 6yro who could read CNN and discuss how it's "community discourse" differs from that of MySpace. An average 6yro might call you a "mother fucking poo-bum-head" but I doubt they would recognise the words in text without prior coaching.
After 40 odd years, I still vividly remeber getting a slipper thrown at me the first time I said "oh fuck" in front of my mum, I had no idea what it meant I was just parroting the "big kids".
"Time" refers to the steps in the calculation each of which is assumed to have a fixed physical time to execute.
"Just let the parent post stand on its own"
Good advice, perhaps you should lead by example.
To much to bear?
The loan I was thinking of was not a "personal loan" it was to set up a lab, she could not get the loan by herself but her husband could.
"You have to be a pretty big asshole to get a loan without clearing it with your spouse first."
Having survived a 20yr marriage, I would say it's suicidal. The point I was trying to make is that even though society recognised her remarkable abilities she was still a woman. She was thus required to have a gaurentor becuse women were considered irresponsible with money regardless of any other talent they had.
By your standards the vast majority of men in those days were "pretty big assholes" since men rarely bothered to inform their wives what they did with the money. Husbands simply provided a set amount of "housekeeping" for the wife to run the household, everything else was "none of her business" because "she wouldn't understand it anyway". Women's lib is relatively new, I was brought up in the 60's and some of those attitudes (as opposed to legalities) lingered well into the 70's, similar attitudes are still common in some otherwise modern nations.
I don't know of anyone else who has a nobel for chemistry and another one for physics, OTOH she still had to get her husband to authorise a loan from the bank.
"It's generally true that socialized systems have longer waits for elective procedures and shorter waits for required procedures and primary/preventative care."
Exactly, who gets treated first is a medical decision not a financial one. I think the politicians over here have more or less treat that as a bi-partisan "truth", the arguments are about how to spend the set amount of money on resources.
In Australia, public hospitals are "free", private hospitals must lease operating rooms, scaning equipment, ect to the government as part of their license to run a hospital. A private patient cannot "jump the queue" for an "elective" (nothing significant anyway-maybe a couple of days). Nor do you get a "better specialist", in fact the private/public procedure is usually performed by the same "team", using the same equipment, booked thru the same system. The main difference is - do you sleep alone or in a 4 bed ward?
BTW: As with any other developed nation, the quality of our doctors ranges from "fraudulent" to "world's best". I would argue that is just "life" and the only way to recognise incompetence (before it's too late) is to educate yourself (yes, second, third, fourth, Nth opinions are also "free").
"You mention infected water. People were actually aware of this problem, and had a strategy to avoid it: they only drank alcoholic beverages. In pre-industrial times most western people were (by modern standards) total lushes."
Trivia: Plymoth rock was chosen as a landing place because they ran out of booze and had to go ashore to look for water.