Empiricism and logic are only two components of the philosophy of science.

Sadly this is altogether too true

Yeah, for example, there are an awful lot of scientists who will, sometimes for a quick buck, deny global warming, and their views do tend to be put out ahead of others by the current administration, even though they are clearly in the minority, along with propping moral tacticians who think throwing unused embryonic cells in the trash is better than using them to save lives. But distorting facts, be it by omission or by laser-like focus, in order to make money and galvanize the loyalty of the ignorant public is hardly anything new. (Indeed, doing otherwise would so break the status-quo that it would be considered a revolution in and of itself.)

The whole idea that religion and science are at odds is not new either, but anyone who that mindset has lost sight of the purpose of both science and religion – which is sadly, not at all uncommon. Be it the extreme atheist snob or the bible thumper who thumps others with his bible, the reason is the same: to put one over others in one’s own mind. If you have to deny basic logic or hate people you’ve never met, all the better.

But that’s another core-attribute of civilization that stems from the baser tendencies of humanity: the capacity to strip humanity from others, and accountability from yourself, by calling your own better than their own. Nationalism is often just an extension of that natural propensity towards hatred, turned towards a specific set of targets, be it Philistines, Jews, or “durka druka”, the demeaning of others always sells, and makes it easier to do the nasty evil things you have to do to others ensure the nation’s survival, or at least, maintain the integrity of its power structure.
_________________
"I don't watch TV. It's a cultural wasteland filled with inappropriate metaphors and an unrealistic portrayal of life created by the liberal media elite... Did I say that right?" - Jenna Helms
Thothie

I don't disagree with you thoth, but I do want to point out that climate change != the phenomenon popularly referred to as "global warming."







Oh and "global warming" is a hoax.


*runs*

Agreed. Def, there are various people who would argue against that statement (that science only focuses on observation and logic); perhaps the most-cited example is The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn coined the (in)famous phrases "scientific revolution" and "paradigm shift" as applied to the history of science. In essence, he argues that science is defined by the culture and background of scientists, rather than pure observation and logic.

Often, ad-hoc "rules" are posited in scientific fields by experimentalists until theorists tackle the problem. (In other areas, the opposite happens: theorists propose wild theories, but they can't be proven or falsified until the experimentalists catch up and create a test method.)

Seriously, take a quick read of the speech by Feyerabend linked in my previous post - even if you don't agree, it's quite amusing, as he's VERY passionate about his views. I tend to agree with him that scientists, as practitioners of a way of thinking, are highly oppressive when it comes to alternative views (Eastern medicine, astrology, etc). Scientists are often just as closed-minded as fundamentalist religious thinkers, even when their own ideology tells them to doubt. Why must we only be skeptic about other ideologies? Can't we be skeptic about the underpinnings of Science as well?

skeletor is right on the money.

Yeah yeah, nothing's perfect.



There's no demonstratable evidence that there's anything to astrology and Eastern medicine is a mixed bag.

The underpinning's of science is fine, but there are a lot of idiot scientists. Science isn't perfect, and unfortunately there are people out there that believe science is. Oh well.

1000 years ago the best science thought the earth was the center of the universe. We've improved a bit since then.


Whatever, you guys know my bent -- I'm a scientist by education, and a Catholic by upbringing.

Postmodernism is an "alternative" to scientific inquiry (albeit a retarded one). So is (unfortunately) a purely deistic explanation of the material 'verse. They have, at their heart, untestable hypotheses - the former assumes that our empirical observations are fundamentally "tainted" (very coarse generalization here) and the latter assumes that no generalized theory can be used to predict phenomena because the causal relationship is infinitely complex (i.e. the mind of god).

Now, with regard to "alternative" forms of medicine (or astrology, but eww, astrology?!), that's a (largely) different story. Except when medicine or astrology or psychics or lucky charms stray outside the realm of testability (e.g. "taking this root every day will give you a better afterlife"), they do not present "alternative views" to science. So long as you believe that a combination of observation and theory can be used to predict future observations and the result of future manipulations, then testable hypotheses do not fall outside the purview of scientific inquiry.

Now, when it comes to folk medicine, many scientists argue very forcefully that we have to race to preserve our knowledge thereof. Sagan and many others, for example, described effective folk medicines as the result of a massive, multigenerational experiment involving tens of thousands of subjects under thousands of manipulations with ethical violations that would make it impossible today. Losing that source of knowledge would be terrible.

However - that does not mean folk medicine of the falsifiable sort presents an "alternative view". A medicine works, or it does not. Many have been shown to be effective to some degree in treating their traditional target illnesses, but almost never (though it's to my knowledge, always never) in ways matching the extant folk explanations. Also, most folk medicines tested to date have been shown to give results par with spontaneous remission at best, and to be in some cases actively harmful. You say it works? Prove it.

Yes, there are strong arguments to be made that modern medicine needs to focus more on long-term consequences and wholistic health. However, first, this is not a fundamental flaw in the scientific methodology, but an issue with the present medical zeitgeist. Second, this issue exists mostly because showing things work in the long-term or wholistically or on odd measures like "quality of life" is... REALLY HARD.



Scientists can be overly dogmatic. One day, we may look back on string theory as an example of extreme dogmatism at work (or, if it turns out to be emprically valid, we'll probably view it as a model for quality persistence). However, this in no way puts non-empirical, non-falsifiable "ways of knowing" on par with scientific inquiry. You can argue with the details (and, Hell, my last paper did exactly that), but that doesn't change the fact that falsifiability is the cornerstone of human civilization.

There are really two different ideas at work - the idea that science is not truly objective (which it's not, and is a key point that Kuhn makes) and the idea that other methodologies are "on par" with science. There may, one day, be a grand realization that reveals a better "way of knowing", but it hasn't happened yet. Science is sensitive to the zeitgeist, to obfuscation and miscommunication and hubris and quite possibly Satanic influences, but like democracy, it's the worst system there is, except every other one.

Further, the cornerstone of science is not doubt, but skepticism. These are not the same. When we systematize our credulity, we get lovely statistical tests with null hypotheses and alpha levels, we get predictions and generalizations, we get falsifiability. When we run with doubt, we end up with nothing but a headache and a PhD in the Comparative History of Ideas.



While possibly circular, there are attempts by the "softer" sciences like anthropology and social psychology to apply their methods to scientific inquiry. Further, there have been attempts (albeit not really successful, imho), to apply statistical models and particularly hierarchical Bayes type stuff to study the scientific method. We try man, we try.

P.S. For those who haven't, if you read SSR, be very careful. Kuhn, being a philosopher at the time and long removed from his physics days, fails to properly define his terminology, resulting a hodgepodge of meanings assigned to each term.

Say something positive!

For once!

--Locane

Give me a reason to!

Gads, don’t bring Kuhn into this, as much as I love to overcomplicate things.

Simply put, like Spaz says, science is not the problem, scientists are – or more specifically, people are. People will, as with religion, use the scientific method to their own ends. People will bend religion or science to find what they want to find, and get the answers they want to hear.

The same is true with analytical reasoning, logic, or anything really – in the end there’s a human pulling the strings, making the decisions. Not even Socrates was immune to this folly.

Some would give science that it changes more quickly, and has no pre-supposed definitions, or the ilk, and while science has a habit of getting hung up on a wrong idea for a hundred years or so, religion has the habit of getting hung up on such ideas a thousand or so years at a time. But both science and religion are changing so rapidly these days, that it doesn’t really apply.

Ideally, again, they should be two entirely separate fields. Science should not dictate your spiritual life, and religion should not tell you the mechanical functions of the universe. There’s no conflict there, unless you create one for your own ends.

Science, in its defense, is not completely closed minded to “alternative” medicine, for instance. There’s a lot of scientific studies attempting to prove homeopathic medicine works (albeit, all horribly flawed IMO – but the attempt is there). There’s a lot of Science studying ancient medicine (eastern or otherwise), and quite often they find that something works, due to some chemical or other, rather than the power of Dodgda or what not (the power of Dodgda being harder to scientifically quantify and all). There’s also a lot of Science centered around determining what chemicals make the placebo effect so effective (which applies to everything from homeopathy to prayer), and so on, and so forth. In the non-medicinal fields there’s just as much fringe science that occasionally finds something to bring back into the main stream. There’s even efforts to go back to debunked science, and see if it can’t be un-debunked (the new Ether movement is rather entertaining). Not all of it is good science – but the effort is there. The blinders are on, but people do occasionally peak.

But yeah, toss enough money into anything and you’ll get the answer you want, even if it’s the wrong answer. We’ve a lot of bad science we rely on that’s been built on such efforts, and the results will hinder future efforts for a long time to come. New such bad science is purchased daily which compounds the problem.

On an unrelated side note: Is it just me, or is the fact that theoretical physics is currently hung up on the idea that 90% of the universe is made up of stuff we can’t detect that has properties unlike anything we’ve ever seen, suggest that maybe it’s time to revisit some of our older, incomplete theories, rather than wasting so much time looking for said material? (Which also brings us back to Aether – if you have to add mythical stuff to make your theory work, you know said theory is in trouble.)


Okay… First off, I’m a card carrying member of the “Pave the Earth Society” – a group who purportedly goes to the ocean every year, and pours a ton of concrete into the ocean, in hopes that one day we can drive all across the planet. I don’t give a flying f*ck about the environment, for the most part, and indeed, think may haps the best way to generate some sort of perspective in the general populous, to make humanity evolve into something better, would be an environmental disaster that makes the planet near uninhabitable. So, in the end, I’m all for people destroying the planet, if that’s what it takes for real change to occur.

If we don’t, something else inevitably will, and then it’ll be too late, so it’s best we accelerate the destruction on our own terms before then.

I also think we’ve come a LONG way since the early days of the industrial revolution, and will, inevitably (perhaps unfortunately), become cleaner in our environmental approach over time, despite the drastic efforts of the ilk of the current administration to reverse that trend.

But, despite my applauding the ability of the political establishment to make people believe man-made climate change is a hoax, I don’t allow myself to buy it. I’ve done enough research, imo, not only into the reported facts from both sides of the argument, but where said information is coming from and motivated by, to conclude that global warming, while certainly a misnomer, is not a hoax. Indeed, I think the problem is generally underrated, in the long term, and deliberately so, save maybe by the most extreme alarmists, who still generally fail to see the big picture, and whose cures are invariably worse than the disease, in addition to being completely unviable, and who destroy their own movement by being so easy to make fun of. Sadly, however, I think it’ll work itself out and the impact will not be strong enough, in the end, to force any fundamental change – at best, life will just become much more unpleasant. I suspect mankind will likely not be destroyed by his own hands, but rather by sitting on them for so long.
_________________
"If it cannot break its egg's shell,
a chick will die without being born.
We are the chick, the world is our egg.
If we don't crack the world's shell,
we will die without being born.
Smash the world's shell!
For the revolution of the world!" - Utena
Thothie

I don't even know what the bush administration has to say/has said about global warming/climate change, nor do I care.

I'm only talking about the social phenomenon that claims the current temperature trends spell impending doom, and (more importantly) that we cause them, or can even do anything about them.

It really bothers me how so many people draw conclusions from the fact that right now(from an earth-life perspective (ie, where 20 years is like 1 ms)) X and Y are happening or exist AT THE SAME TIME! That must mean X caused Y! no other possible explanation. THat they abandon hundreds, thousands, millons? of years of historical climatology and geology in favor of a (maximum) 40 year chunk of time. Oh, and they blatantly ignore the leading cause of the "greenhouse effect" that they claim is causing gw.

YES global temperatures are rising
YES they have been for a while
YES they were dropping before that (and there was a "global cooling" media/pseudo-science scare)
YES global temperatures are LOWER than they have been in recent human history
YES there is tons of evidence that our current(oh wait, i mean current as in during ALL OF RECORDED HUMAN HISTORY) warm period is merely the near-end of a small spike in global temperature trends that hold back those damn glaciers (that they care SO much about) from freezing the shit out of us.

OH, and the greenhouse effect:
95% of greenhouse gas is (drumroll please): WATER VAPOR!
95% of recent reports ignore which greenhouse gas: WATER VAPOR!
human effect on water vapor levels: NEGLIGIBLE! (<.01%)
ACTUAL human contribution to greenhouse effect: ~ 1/20th of whatever they tell you!
Money al gore makes off his convenient lie: $50 million!
Odds that in 20 years that $50 million will be worth nothing: 95%!

*sigh* None of which has anything to do with global warming. Granted, the misnomer is built into the name, so go fig, but yeah, that's the typical misdirection that's been working fairly well.
_________________
"When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other." - Eric Hoffer
Thothie

Wait a minute. Thoth, I'm confused. None of that has to do with global warming? Global temperatures don't have to do with global warming? Please, help me here.

String theory is trippy stuff. I suspect that theoretical physicists have less than a decade to put up or shut up - if Fermilab and CERN continue to fail to find evidence of string theory predicted particles, the funding (at least for Fermilab) is soon going to go bye bye. Since CERN has such shiny new facilities, they may not really need much funding for a long time, though.

Now, Erik Myers, after reading your post, I am convinced that you are, contrary to your claims, very much a political stooge. First, point one:



Predicting the impact of predicted climate change is not a social phenomenon - there are certainly rather fervid and uniformed political movements that use certain predictions as a platform, but the predictions themselves arise from climate models. There is very intelligent debate regarding which variables are most important, but we know that with very high probability there are going to be severe consequences.

Since you state:



I should respond that, yes, we all f**king know the difference between correlational and causal relationships. However, first, w.r.t large scale phenemona, almost no scientific field can actually run experiments on the questions. What conclusions we can draw w.r.t causal relationships is often the result of observation and smaller lab experiments. The same applies to climate science. The only real offense committed by climatology is hubris - it's a fairly young field, far too young to be so confident.

Now, as far as the disastrous consequences of increasing temperatures go, I point you to the failure of the African monsoons and the Sahel drought. In particular, it is known that a major factor in the movement of the tropical rain belt is the differences in temperature between northern and southern oceans. When NOAA factored global dimming into existing climate models, they could accurately predict both the failures of the monsoon (due to aerosol cooling of the southern oceans) and the ensuing rise of temperatures (and restoration of the African monsoons) in the northern oceans dues to the greenhouse effect. ("Simulation of Sahel Drought", Held et all, 2005) Even if you ignore the modeling part, we know that it was temperature changes in the respective oceans that caused the very sudden change in the movement of the tropical rain belt (and thus the Sahel drought) - understanding the cause of the sudden SST changes was an added bonus due to recent empirical results. So, even without the modeling part, you have very strong evidence of the dramatic impact of climate change.

Onto part 2:



We are a significant cause of the present warming (and cooling) trends, AND we can change the trends. Want causal evidence?

We do impact the climate in very dramatic ways:

Consider Travis et. al's 2002 paper on the incredible (immediate) impact of the post-9/11 grounding of commercial airliners, and also the Maldives studies (I don't have them in my filing cabinet, sorry).

Are we a significant cause of the present warming? Well, we know that we're presently on the upper end of the earth's temperature range (while I don't really like citing documenatries, Gore does put up one of the loveliest graphs that come from the Antarctic ice core). We also know that known spikes in the level of greenhouse gases correlate with spikes in temperature - since we have very good information about the causes of some of those spikes (including a big one in the Jurassic, iirc), we can treat the spikes as endogenous variables and then we have pretty good evidence that the spike in gases caused the temperature spike.

But wait! We know more. We can use evidence to rule out sunlight variability, glacial retreat (it never leads the temperature change), volcanic activity, and orbital variance as sole causes.

We also know that deforestation causes localized warming effects (due to what essentially amount to massive numbers of small, semi-random changes in rates of deforestation). So, from that alone we can conclude that humans ARE at least PART of the warming trend.

What we really need, though, is evidence that the greenhouse effect is causing changes in global temperatures, since it is believed to be the dominant cause. Well, we know that greenhouse gases DO warm the earth (in large part because the earth manages to maintain a fairly constant temperature, but also through lab experimentation on greenhouse gases). The real key question is whether man-made greenhouse gases are sufficient to account for the changes in global temperature. However, based on the known properties of greenhouse gases, we know that they DO impact warming.

In the end, the key topic of debate (regarding attribution) is not WHETHER we're changing the temperature, but by how much (and, as importantly, how much increase or decrease in global temperatures is due to each man-made cause). This is a very difficult topic, and I don't think there's strong evidence that we're a majority cause yet (though there is VERY good evidence that we're at least around 20% of the change).

Now, a couple of particular problems with your rambling:



On a super long-term scale, yes, global temperatures have been rising - however, the derivative hit 0 for a short while in the middle of the century due to dimming effects.



This was almost entirely a media sensation. Afaik, not one "global cooling" article even made it into Nature.



FALSE FALSE FALSE. Global temperatures today are higher than they have been in the last 2000 years. Even the "Medieval warming period" was only about half as far above the norm, compared to today. You have to go back to times when paleolithic man was sharpening rocks to find warmer temperatures.



Yes, we are in a warming period (w.r.t long time periods). However, the most recent (100 years) warming has been extraordinarily anomalous, much faster than at any other point in the known temperature record that isn't also correlated with a change in greenhouse gas levels.



This is extremely fallacious. While the vast majority of greenhouse gases are water vapors, water vapor is a) important for regulating global temperatures and b) much less potent of a greenhouse gas. In fact, based on signal-noise analyses, greenhouse gases can only possibly account for a maximum of 60-70% of the greenhouse effect, and likely far less. We produce far more problematic greenhouse gases (in proportion).

Also, we have can have a significant effect on water vapor levels because we shift SST - historically, even small bursts of pollution have managed to shift SSTs by a few degrees, and those effects are believed to be much smaller than the potential shift due to global climate change.



Technically, it's probably much less - but we're not interested in the human contribution to the GREENHOUSE EFFECT, but to the CHANGE in the greenhouse effect. We make a very small contribution to the overall quantity of greenhouse gases, but we've jacked the levels way above anything that's ever been seen in history, as recorded by the Antarctic ice record.

The water rises ~10mm here each year due to non global warming related causes. When you live ~1m above see level THAT IS A FUCKING LOT. DON'T SPEED IT UP!!!