Save the environment! ... From what?

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Re: Save the environment! ... From what?

Postby godix » Sat Nov 28, 2009 11:57 pm

Since you mention heliocentric theory....

Copernicus proposed the sun was the center of the universe. He was right. Was he right enough that we could send a craft to Jupiter using nothing more than what he published though? Hell no. Even though he was right, he wasn't specific enough to actually spend money on practical applications of his ideas.

Two hundred years later, Newton came up with quite a few laws. Was he right? Well, kinda sorta. He was right enough that newtonian physics can (and has) gotten spacecraft throughout the solar system. Relying on just his physics can cause problems in some areas though, Newton's laws do not correctly predict Mercury's movements for example.

Three hundred years after that, Einstein came along. With his theories we finally had science that would accurately predict the movements of pretty much anything in the solar system. We can send stuff to other planets with the confidence that they won't fail because the physics was wrong. They might have an accident, or been poorly designed, or have some idiot who doesn't know the difference between metric and imperial measurements, but they won't fail because the physics was wrong.

I feel that climatology is only slightly past the Copernicus stage. Climatologist say that man is changing the climate. Are they right? Probably, evidence certainly suggests it's possible, but there's enough unknowns that I don't discount they may be proven wrong either. Is the science specific enough that we can put the science to the practical application of stabilizing the climate? Hell no. Before we spend trillions on what climatologists claim, climatologist have to at least get up to the Newton level of accuracy.

Before anyone tries claiming they're already there, let me point out that over the last eight years or so global temps have been fairly stable. That's a long enough time period we're talking climatology rather than meteorology. I've heard several explanations of why this happened and how it doesn't disprove global warming, mostly based on the oceans acting as bigger heat traps than anyone thought. Fine, it's entirely possible that is true and global warming will kick our asses in a few years. My point is though, no one predicted this. If you look at the IPCC reports from the 90's, even their best case said temps would raise over the last decade when reality is they haven't. Incidently, their best case was based on if we pretty much stopped pumping any CO2 in the atmosphere immediately. In reality, we've been pumping out CO2 on level of the IPCC's worst case scenario, so their predictions are even more off than it first sounds like. Obviously climatologist had a huge lack of understanding about some rather important things when they made those predictions. That doesn't mean AGW is wrong, but it does mean if I bet money on what they predicted then I would have lost. There are other examples, astronomers are launching satellites to study the sun because they don't understand enough specifics of it, yet at the same time global warming proponents are saying there is no possible way the sun caused recent warming. Isn't it odd how climatologist claim they understand the sun so much better than astronomers do? Some predicted that the antarctic ice would melt and raise sea levels, yet measurements show that in 90% of the antarctic the ice is actually getting thicker (which, by the way, may be attributed to global warming).

Now keep in mind I'm not saying this is 'proof' global warming is wrong. What I'm describing here is how science should work. Make a theory, test it with real observations and facts, refine the theory based on those tests. There's nothing wrong with this. It's not like I agree with deniers when they go 'Ah ha! We found one mistake therefore the entire field of science must be wrong!' I just believe we should let the test/refine theory process go on for awhile until climatology hits a point it can make accurate predictions. Acting on what climatologists have now would be just as stupid as plotting a course to Jupiter with nothing more than Copernicus saying maybe the earth isn't the center of the universe as a guide.
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Re: Save the environment! ... From what?

Postby guy07 » Sun Nov 29, 2009 1:10 am

Actually, to have a valid scientific THEORY on anything, don't you have to be able to make a prediction about what will happen and be fairly accurate in your prediction before it is even considered a real/possible theory?
So what we're being feed as "facts" aren't even a valid THEORY. Wut? :|
I suggest we all become scientists and set things right. Well, everyone but me. I don't even trust myself to drive alone, let alone solve the worlds problems. :nose:
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Re: Save the environment! ... From what?

Postby Athena » Sun Nov 29, 2009 2:59 am

guy07 wrote:Actually, to have a valid scientific THEORY on anything, don't you have to be able to make a prediction about what will happen and be fairly accurate in your prediction before it is even considered a real/possible theory?
So what we're being feed as "facts" aren't even a valid THEORY. Wut? :|
I suggest we all become scientists and set things right. Well, everyone but me. I don't even trust myself to drive alone, let alone solve the worlds problems. :nose:


I'm a philosopher, not a scientist. I specifically like asking questions we normally tell children not to ask. I am currently enamored with the question of what would happen if 1 and 2 decided they didn't want to play together anymore and stopped being 3. Is that possible? Would the world collapse? I don't know, but the idea of 1 and 2 just saying, "fuck you guys, we're going on holiday, SEPARATELY" is highly amusing.

However, a theory is created when you test, and get the same results over and over. Prior to that, it's merely a hypothesis. There is enough evidence for global climate change being man made that we have at least the beginnings of a theory. I'd say we're much closer to the Newton stage than godix does, but I like his analogy. There is still a lot we do not understand about climate over time. We simply don't have the records.
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Re: Save the environment! ... From what?

Postby Knowname » Sun Nov 29, 2009 3:11 am

Kionon wrote:Knowname, whether you were serious or not, that does bring up a great philosophical question: do we have the right to assist in the extinction of a species, such as narwhals, for humanity's benefit? I'm not framing this as if I have one belief or the other, rather I am interested in how seriously you take the view you put forward.


I am serious. I'm not totally of the 'FUCK the police' chain of thought, but, yeah. I'm not gonna do it, but if somebody thinks they have the right to, and a majority agrees, than who am I to stand in their way? Like I said times are changing, I am sick of panicking on every little thing. I'm sure drilling through the earth (thus sacrificing a few deep sea species or maybe even terestrial species indirectly affecting human kind) would net us new discoveries, maybe new species in itself! I don't say this without hesitation killing off the shrimp leads to death of whales leads to death of sharks leads to overpopulation leads to... what not... so like guy07 said, I basically don't know what the fuck I'm saying I'm just saying we hadn't blown up the world yet and won't in the near future o.0
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Re: Save the environment! ... From what?

Postby godix » Sun Nov 29, 2009 4:24 am

guy07 wrote:Actually, to have a valid scientific THEORY on anything, don't you have to be able to make a prediction about what will happen and be fairly accurate in your prediction before it is even considered a real/possible theory?
So what we're being feed as "facts" aren't even a valid THEORY. Wut? :|
I suggest we all become scientists and set things right. Well, everyone but me. I don't even trust myself to drive alone, let alone solve the worlds problems. :nose:


You're misunderstanding the basic idea of scientific theories. Here's how science is supposed to work in general:

1) Observe whatever it is you're studying
2) Come up with an idea to explain what you're observing
3) Test your explanation
4) Refine your idea based on the test results.

Notice the idea came before the tests. Now your theory may be proven wrong in step 3, but that's later. Also note that not all tests involve predictions. Many do, and that's one of the best ways to test the idea, but prediction isn't absolutely required. Some things just aren't all that predictable, it's rather hard to come up with a conclusive prediction with a theory that says there are limits to what you can predict, as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle does. Also some predictions take a long time to determine. Relativity didn't correctly predict anything until years later since we had to wait for a convenient solar eclipse to check. Scientists don't just twiddle their thumbs while waiting decades to see how a prediction works out, although general laymen and policy makers should.

There's also the fact that an accurate prediction usually doesn't prove much. An inaccurate one shows you were clearly wrong, but an accurate one might mean you just had a lucky guess. Or that your theory happened to work for that prediction despite the theory being wrong. Or that there were twenty wrong predictions and one right one and everyone jumps on the right one while ignoring the wrong. Or that the prediction was modified after the fact to force it to fit test results. Or any of hundreds of other possible explanations.

I suppose it's worth noting that I'm using the word theory rather loosely, half the times I really mean hypothesis. There is a difference between the two, but I think it's a rather nitpicky difference that takes a language nazi to care about. I'll leave that to Kionon, when he's not busy anthropomorphizing numbers.
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Re: Save the environment! ... From what?

Postby BasharOfTheAges » Sun Nov 29, 2009 10:25 am

godix wrote:I suppose it's worth noting that I'm using the word theory rather loosely, half the times I really mean hypothesis. There is a difference between the two, but I think it's a rather nitpicky difference that takes a language nazi to care about.

Actually it's that mis-understanding that anti-science people use most often to seem credible to the dumb-as-bricks US population. They use it all the time in anthropogenic climate change discussions, they use it in evolution discussions, they use it to make people think the LHC is going to kill us all, etc. etc. By actually forcing the point that there is a difference between an hypothesis (an untested idea) and a theory (an idea that has been tested to hell and back and proven quite soundly with the preponderance of the data) you educate the dumb-as-all-fuck US population (I single out the US here, because just about everywhere else in the world there isn't this huge anti-science bandwagon that, typically, scared religious folks jump on because they somehow fear science).
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Re: Save the environment! ... From what?

Postby Otohiko » Sun Nov 29, 2009 2:46 pm

ITT:

Cartesian positivism vs. hippie gaia-ism vs. Al Gore worship vs. narcissism

I know which one wins :roll:
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Re: Save the environment! ... From what?

Postby godix » Mon Nov 30, 2009 12:59 am

BasharOfTheAges wrote:By actually forcing the point that there is a difference between an hypothesis (an untested idea) and a theory (an idea that has been tested to hell and back and proven quite soundly with the preponderance of the data) you educate the dumb-as-all-fuck US population (I single out the US here, because just about everywhere else in the world there isn't this huge anti-science bandwagon that, typically, scared religious folks jump on because they somehow fear science).

If someone got through high school science without understanding the difference between hypothesis and theory then there's little chance they're gonna learn it from me no matter what.

Also, while I won't disagree about the US being full of dumbfucks, it's not like other countries are actually any better. My hypothesis to explain humanity is that 95% of people anywhere at any time are mindless idiots and the 5% that actually can think are what prevent the world from becoming a Mad Max type shithole. I have yet to see any evidence to disprove my theory, although admittedly I haven't looked all that much because it'd be depressing as hell if I was proven right.
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Re: Save the environment! ... From what?

Postby Athena » Mon Nov 30, 2009 2:18 am

godix wrote:Also, while I won't disagree about the US being full of dumbfucks, it's not like other countries are actually any better. My hypothesis to explain humanity is that 95% of people anywhere at any time are mindless idiots and the 5% that actually can think are what prevent the world from becoming a Mad Max type shithole. I have yet to see any evidence to disprove my theory, although admittedly I haven't looked all that much because it'd be depressing as hell if I was proven right.


Plato also believed this. So did Machiavelli, although for very different reasons.
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Re: Save the environment! ... From what?

Postby Otohiko » Mon Nov 30, 2009 4:20 am

So, more importantly, did Nietzsche. And it's a classic ploy to deny (or rather demonize) any notion of the collective and support some (rather laughable) notions of individualism and, politically, libertarianism and inevitable social/environmental/universal irresponsibility that follow from it. To quote Tarkovsky - "Calling themselves intellectuals, those writers and scientists! [...] Every minute they only think about how not to become cheap - how to sell themselves a little more expensively, so that everything of theirs would be paid for, every emotional movement! They know that they were "not born in vain", that they were "called upon" - after all, they live "only once"... Can people like that believe in anything?"

While people are obviously stuck in categorical thinking (that's just a physiological fact), the constant categorization of a lot of these things strikes me as just a pathetic unwillingness and fear of associating with the other. The fact is that for the most part, we (as still largely modern Western people) are scared shitless of the environment, of other people, and of our own inner selves in equal measure, because once you take off the decals we really have no fucking idea of what goes on in there and, it strikes me, most don't want to approach it without the decals. We don't know what goes on in 95% of the universe - I mean, we literally don't even really know what 95% of the universe is even made of. Does that mean 95% of all of the universe is shit? (dark energy = shit? fascinating theory). We sure don't know what goes on in 95% of people, so they must be shit. And we don't really have a solid grasp what goes on in 95% of our own psyche, what actually makes us tick and how we really develop. So what we do is throw out that 95% of shit, put everything else in neat little bricks with decals on them, and put a nice little invention called "individual" on top of it, and safely delineate it from the "other" which is "shit" or, translated to a more neutral term, which we are completely fucking terrified of and need to burn with fire if we possibly can. Sadly, given what little we do know, it's hard to deny that the individual is kind of a pathetic, if not entirely valueless decal too. We live in a fucking collective and we're completely and utterly useless without it - and even if we succeed at blocking out the little humans from our view and tell society to fuck off, we still haven't successfully left the collective. On the one hand, we probably have technology (hello delegated-humans). On the other hand, we still definitely have the environment that is inescapably shared with and shaped by the collective, unless we live on the moon (in which case, hello technology and thus humans that got us there). We share that environment with 6-odd billion humans now. Yeah, okay, I think global warming is a red herring. It may well also be bullshit. People love to argue about it, because it's necessarily categorical. It's either yes global warming or no global warming.

The fact that we all have allowed it to stoop to a yes/no debate on global warming is a fucking disgrace. Look, we are doing something with technology right now and we really have no idea where we're taking it. At a time when we know, for fact, that we can successfully destroy our own collective as we know it - this is actually fucking terrifying. So instead of - from both sides of this debate - facing up to this fact, we're just trading yes/no back in forth. And looking to science to solve everything for us.

Science will not save us when people who have the brains to argue epistemology build a collective cosmology on the assumption that 95% of everything is shit and the only salvation is shutting out the facts and riding out whatever non-flood will befall us aboard The Individual. Except shockingly, the same 95% of people in our collective believe in that very same 95% figure, because of course that 95% is outside anything they can make sense of and they'd rather all of it be disregardable shit than be forced to see the other-ness of their own collective nature. This is the beginnings of alienation, the mother of all inequality, us-and-them thinking, and it is the beginnings of our glorious scientific ethics which have got us to a point where we have been a few button presses away from the end of civilization as such.

You have to be insane to believe that this is the finest that we as a race can do and that this is what will save us from our own glorious march into autoegotechnocratic fuckwhat that surely awaits us sooner rather than later if we keep going at that pace. We're fighting that 95%. We'll soon purge it all successfully. 95% of everything is dead to us already. There should soon be some pure 5% white daffodils on the grave.
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Re: Save the environment! ... From what?

Postby Athena » Mon Nov 30, 2009 4:52 am

Otohiko wrote:This is the beginnings of alienation, the mother of all inequality, us-and-them thinking, and it is the beginnings of our glorious scientific ethics which have got us to a point where we have been a few button presses away from the end of civilization as such.


Read much Marcuse, do we?
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Re: Save the environment! ... From what?

Postby Garylisk » Mon Nov 30, 2009 8:22 am

But let's talk about real controversial issues, like diet and nutrition! I eat almost nothing but protein, fat, and vegetables.

This might seem like an unrelated derailment attempt, but there is a point, and I wonder if anyone will catch it. Hint: It has to do with scientific method.
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Re: Save the environment! ... From what?

Postby Athena » Mon Nov 30, 2009 8:30 am

Garylisk wrote:But let's talk about real controversial issues, like diet and nutrition! I eat almost nothing but protein, fat, and vegetables.

This might seem like an unrelated derailment attempt, but there is a point, and I wonder if anyone will catch it. Hint: It has to do with scientific method.


No, let's not.

There is no one scientific method. There are many. Which scientific method is best is a philosophical question, not a scientific one.
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Re: Save the environment! ... From what?

Postby godix » Mon Nov 30, 2009 1:20 pm

Otohiko wrote:stuff

I think I prefer it better when you're telling stories that end in horrible, but funny, injuries to yourself. Be my clown.
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Re: Save the environment! ... From what?

Postby Garylisk » Mon Nov 30, 2009 5:39 pm

Kionon wrote:There is no one scientific method. There are many. Which scientific method is best is a philosophical question, not a scientific one. [/size]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

Although procedures vary from one field of inquiry to another, identifiable features distinguish scientific inquiry from other methodologies of knowledge. Scientific researchers propose hypotheses as explanations of phenomena, and design experimental studies to test these hypotheses. These steps must be repeatable in order to dependably predict any future results. Theories that encompass wider domains of inquiry may bind many independently-derived hypotheses together in a coherent, supportive structure. This in turn may help form new hypotheses or place groups of hypotheses into context.

You probably mean:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific ... of_science

Paul Feyerabend similarly examined the history of science, and was led to deny that science is genuinely a methodological process. In his book Against Method he argues that scientific progress is not the result of applying any particular method. In essence, he says that "anything goes", by which he meant that for any specific methodology or norm of science, successful science has been done in violation of it. Criticisms such as his led to the strong programme, a radical approach to the sociology of science.


Damn philosphers, always fucking with shit.

But, regardless, when you do research, you do need to stick to a consistent method. A lot of research on diet and nutrition has been done inconsistently and with much bias. It draws more parallels to climate change research in that respect than you would think. That was my only point.
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