Ready for SS's 1st Great Debate?

[patandchickens]

Look, it is a basic element of human nature that we ALL want to feel like we know how the world works and what's goin' on. EVERY ONE of us. That is just the way our species is wired; it's who we are. You, me, everyone.

But what we often want is mostly to FEEL LIKE we know how the world works. It would seem that this is generally of equal or greater importance to the human mind than actually determining, as much as physically possible, how the world really DOES work... given how hard it is for most people to say 'gee, I really don't know' or 'looks like I was wrong'.

Here is the thing about science. Being wrong on a regular basis -- it is only slightly flippant to say 'being wrong as often as possible' -- is actually what makes science WORK.

Science is absolutely NOT a matter of gradually chipping away at the world to uncover one gemlike unyielding Crystal Of Truth after another. Not in the slightest.

Science uses as its raw material empirical data, obtained in as unbiased a way as possible given inherently-human scientists and an often-inconvenient world. It uses those data to construct multiple testable hypotheses about how the world seems to be or work; and then (this is what people often forget) the point is to go out and TEST those hypotheses to see in what ways they seem to be correct and in what ways they fail. Then this information is used to construct next-generation hypotheses, which in turn are tested, and generate additionally-tweaked new hypotheses, and so on and so on. Lather, rinse, repeat forever.

So actually the whole point of science, as distinguished from most other ways that people may use to form their ideas of how the world works, is to be wrong Because only by finding out where you're wrong can you change those bits and gradually sidle closer to whatever actual truth there is in this world.

Therefore it is ridiculous to EXPECT that science should reveal absolute truths on a regular basis; or to expect that all scientists should agree how to interpret things; or to expect that scientific consensus should never change or reverse itself.

It is also ridiculous to expect science (the process or product, as opposed to scientists as people) to have anything to say about what we should DO. That is a personal judgement. It depends on what you want and what your priorities are, your values and ethical beliefs, your ideas about risk-management and risk-vs-payoff are, and all sorts of other infinitely human complications like that.

Why do the two have to be tied together (global warming and pollution)?

They don't "have to", of course, but there are some really really good reasons why they have BEEN. If you come home and discover your front window broken, and you see a buncha kids playing baseball on the street in front of your house and hitting the balls every whichway into other peoples' yards, you're going to reaaaallly wanna investigate the possibility that's how your window got broken, right?

Likewise, if you notice a change in global temperatures that, based on what data are available, seems to suspiciously match what you'd expect if post-industrial-revolution human activities were the cause, and if there are known processes that could quite reasonably be expected to be capable of causing that, then you would be going Hmmmm in a big ol' suspicious kind of way. Same thing.

And then, having gone Hmmm, science (the process) goes on to find ways to test that hypothesis (well actually it is a whole flock of related hypotheses) and tweak the parts that seem to have potential and discard or severely modify the parts that seem to have bigger holes in them, and on it goes.

What the media and various organizations (private, corporate and governmental) have decided to say and do about the issue (which is to rope it in as the donkey to pull a whole big cartload of other issues) is a whole nother separate issue. Although IMO it's one that is not difficult to understand to a reasonable degree, as being an obvious combination of conviction and self-interest <shrug>

You know what? (And note that I say the following as a scientist.)

For most things in everyday life I really do not think we need scientific studies to be able to figure out what the best thing is to do, if we are just honest with ourselves and have an ounce of basic sense. Most of it we knew by the time we were fourteen.

"Share."

"Play nice, and try to be fair even if the other person isn't."

"If you make a mess, clean it up."

"Just because it's fun doesn't necessarily mean it's a good idea."

"Don't grasshopper away the summer on the assumption that the ants are always going to be well-disposed."

"Don't piss in the well, neither yours or others'."

"And don't eat yellow snow."

I know it sounds very cutesy and shallow on first glance, but really, there are powerful truths there. Yeah, science matters for deciding what to do with respect to the DETAILS, and for a particular very *few* larger issues, but the great majority of choices in life are just basic horse-sense if you look 'em square in the face.

Anyhow that's the way it looks to me.


Pat

 

[reinbeau]

Likewise, if you notice a change in global temperatures that, based on what data are available, seems to suspiciously match what you'd expect if post-industrial-revolution human activities were the cause, and if there are known processes that could quite reasonably be expected to be capable of causing that, then you would be going Hmmmm in a big ol' suspicious kind of way. Same thing.

Pat

The data is inadequate, which is my whole point. And ignoring the global climate of the earth over the eons it has existed while using inadequate data does not make for very good science. The good scientists who have used these methods properly are all saying the same thing - we need more data, and the trend is towards CO2 not being the 'cause' of global warming, but an effect. The bad scientists who are going for the grants and funding are all toeing the political line and wailing we're causing global warming by raising the CO2 levels.

I know you are/were a scientist of some sort, I'm just a well-read amateur, who has always been interested in climatology on a global scale, historical trends, the cycles of the earth and of the sun (let's ignore the solar cycles while we're at it ), astronomy, nature and the environment.

Connecting pollution to global warming is wrong because when the global warming madness goes away, and people realize the two had nothing to do with each other (remember the coming ice age back in the 80's??), they'll resume their polluting ways. Stop polluting because it's poisoning the planet, that's a more direct line of logic. Tough to convince people of it, though.

 

[Cassandra]

So far, us geeks have tried to educate laypeople on the following issues, with minimal success:

Hey, Rosalind, did you intend to make it sound like you think are way smarter than everyone who doesn't agree with you?

Pat, I have a question. (A serious one.) What are scientists trying to do to prove or disprove global warming? In my mind, the only way to prove it beyong any doubt would be to do nothing to prevent it and see what happens. Sort of a foolish risk to take to prove a point, wouldn't you agree? LOL

"Haha told you so! BOOM!"

Are they using computer models and all that? Or are they making up new kinds of math like that dude with the calculus. (I mean, SHAME on him, seriously! ) I'm not asking for step by step or any lengthy explanation, but I have always wondered what they do.

Cassandra

 

[Nifty]

I'm not disposed to one arguement or another. That said, I think this video is well done:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF_anaVcCXg

 

[patandchickens]

Pat, I have a question. (A serious one.) What are scientists trying to do to prove or disprove global warming?

Well that's the thing -- the media, and other interested parties, may have framed that as the question of the day, but science isn't TRYING to 'prove or disprove global warming' as such... it is a matter of bricks, not houses, if you will.

Science frames actual specific, limited hypotheses to test, like "some certain measure, which there is some reason to believe is correlated to annual mean temperature, has/hasn't changed its average value from <whenever> to now". Or, "the average date at which <some plant species> opens its first flowers of the year has/hasn't changed, overall, from <whenever> til now." Or, "these particular several variables, which other evidence suggests reflect the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, do/don't have an overall trend over the past <however many> decades". That sort of thing.

Bricks.

Only when you put a jillion of them together into a larger structure do you get anything resembling a house

Also, as several others on this thread have very correctly pointed out, there are two separate things here that get horribly conflated in public discussion. One is, What is global temperature/climate doing these days? (That is the question of global warming per se). The other is, has what it's doing been partly caused by human activities. (That is the question whose answer has the biggest effects on policy decisions).

If you want to know how the evidence looks to me personally, I would say that it is fairly unequivocal that there IS global warming occurring ie. things are going thru a warm spell in recent generations (esp. the past coupla decades).

Is that just regular ole 'business as usual' type natural fluctuations in climate, or is it being caused by human activities, or is it (why oh WHY does this third option usually seem to be ignored?) a combination of the two? The evidence I'm familiar with looks to me like a very good case can be made that human activities are likely to be contributing, although there is just no good way to tell how much of a contribution.

Overall I would argue that we do not absolutely "know", in any conventional meaning of the word, what's going on; but that there are some very very legitimate reasons for concern. Since they are concerns about things that a) would be really really bad for us all if they should happen, and b) would be much much better to avoid or minimize if at all possible, and c) if they are indeed partly due to things we're doing, it's from things that there are plenty of OTHER reasons we should't be doing 'em ANYWAY, I therefore think we oughta be changing what we're doing Just In Case and for numerous other reasons as well.

That's just the way it looks to me.

The data is inadequate, which is my whole point.

Technically, all data are always inadequate - it is just a question of how badly

we need more data, and the trend is towards CO2 not being the 'cause' of global warming, but an effect.

I've never ever heard any scientist claim we do not need more data on the subject.

As for the rest, my reading of things is that that's not *exactly* what's being said -- it's that the relationship works both ways (which is indubitably true), and thus CO2 levels can be affected by global warming as well as vice versa, which makes it significantly more difficult to untangle causality (how much is A driving B, how much is B driving A, and how much is a complex mess of both and/or neither)

You have to remember that scientists are more or less people There will always be some who find themselves carried away by convinctions that do not stem entirely from openminded reading of the data. So what, big deal. That is why, as per my initial longwinded pontifical post , you have to separate what the EVIDENCE is, what the INTERPRETATIONS of that evidence might be, and what the POLICY RAMIFICATIONS of that oughta be.

If nothing else, there will always be a strong element (at the policy level) of vicious disagreement between those who think staying the course is a generally safer strategy and those who think early preventive action to head off possible threats is the safer strategy. This is a basic dichotomy in lots and lots of policy arguments, no different in this issue than in anything else.

Connecting pollution to global warming is wrong because when the global warming madness goes away, and people realize the two had nothing to do with each other (remember the coming ice age back in the 80's??), they'll resume their polluting ways. Stop polluting because it's poisoning the planet, that's a more direct line of logic. Tough to convince people of it, though.

I absolutely completely thoroughly agree with every word of this. The same goes for a whole slew of other things too (e.g. tying recycling to allegedly-diminishing landfill space; wildlife conservation to charismatic megafaunal umbrella species like pandas and jaguars; etc). It makes me NUTS.

However, the very sad fact of the matter is that these things DO seem to have effects that the 'purer', more accurate statement of the problem does not. So aside from the fact that nobody has yet appointed me Queen of the Universe to control what agendas are pursued and how, I also have to shake my head and admit that the short term benefits do seem real and it remains pure conjecture as to whether there will *really* be counterbalancingly-negative long term effects.

We belong to a perverse and difficult species

Pat

 

[patandchickens]

Are they using computer models and all that? Or are they making up new kinds of math like that dude with the calculus. (I mean, SHAME on him, seriously! ) I'm not asking for step by step or any lengthy explanation, but I have always wondered what they do.

Oops, sorry, I realized I never finished answering your question.

Climatology is one of those sciences, like much of astrophysics, where you just cannot really do experiments. Certainly not within the timespan of a typical research grant, and good luck getting any sort of replication, ha ha

So you are almost entirely restricted to two sorts of science. One is looking for correlations, which taken individually are very perilous to try to interpret in terms of what causes what, but en masse and with as many confounding variables as you can manage being ALSO tracked they can often help you sort things out pretty well. Compare it to detective work. Seldom does one single piece of evidence produce really believable evidence that a person is guilty or innocent of a particular crime -- but when you put all the little bits together, which are basically sort of tiny proto-correlations, you can get a sensible picture of what likely occurred.

The second thing is modelling. (I come from a background sort of in the fringe provinces of ecological modelling, btw, so I have a bit of relevant experience here but it is not my main thing). The main kind of modelling is NOT predictive at all. It is done on past datasets where you know how things turned out, trying to arrive at a structurally-reasonable model (i.e. one that embodies likely-sounding realistic processes) that lets you put in the first half of a known dataset and it spits out something fairly accurately like the actual second half of the dataset. It can be a bitch and a half to get structurally-reasonable ACCURATELY-WORKING models, let me tell you Once you have something that seems promising, you run a different dataset through it (which, as fate would have it, usually requires altering the model somewhat, since datasets are never entirely comparable) and see if it behaves properly THERE. Lather rinse repeat.

Once you have some some reasonable faith in the model's ability to do some things with some degree of adequacy, THEN you can try using it for predictive purposes. (One can also build a model from first principles for predictive purposes, without the reality-checking stages, and this is sometimes done when relevant datasets are unavailable or you just need SOME sort of first-cut guess what might happen - but it is far far far less trustworthy).

But the limitation of models is that they are only as good as our understanding of how the processes work. Given that our understanding is always imperfect, no model will ever give 100% good predictions and even apparently pretty good models can have unexpected Achilles' heels. (Just look at weather forecasting, and consider how many lifetimes have been put into constructing those models of what is really a fairly 'simple' task - just projecting a coupla days' worth of weather in a single place - compared to, say, forecasting climate change )

So while you hear a lot about modelling, and it is undeniably an important part of climatology, it is not perhaps the part that we should rank highest in our attempts to synthesize an understanding of what's going on

Man, I'm having flashbacks to the later part of the Intro Ecology courses I used to teach, where we covered this sort of stuff. Now you're supposed to ask 'but is this going to be on the exam?' <snort>




Pat

 

[Rosalind]

Hey, Rosalind, did you intend to make it sound like you think are way smarter than everyone who doesn't agree with you?

That's pretty much a perfect example. Thanks, Cassandra!

The whole postmodern, "there are no facts, just a bunch of opinions" meme is what makes me give up trying to educate anyone. Why should I try to discover new facts about how the human body works, if it's always going to be "just my opinion"? Why should I try to cure a disease that kills and maims people in horrible ways? After all, it's only my opinion that a pill or an injection will cure that disease. It's not like it's worked several thousand times before or anything.

Hey, do what you like. I can see Pat's objection in that people doing whatever they like affects the rest of us in bad, horrible ways, but I am fatalistic about it.

 

[Cassandra]

So that's a yes?

LOL I'm sorry. Please don't be offended. I'd hate for you to take that more seriously than I meant it.

I guess you are in the medical research field? I asked that in another post.

Cassandra

 

[Beekissed]

I am sooooo glad I don't have to ponder these weighty theories and worry about global warming!

 

[Nifty]

My 2 cents:

What I worry about with "global warming" or "polluting the environment" is this: Even if all the 1st world countries do their darnedest to keep things clean, the 2nd and 3rd world countries will be burning and destroying their locale in an attempt to play catch up.

In a sense it is only fair... all the 1st world countries made their mess during the industrial revolution and this is what helped them spring ahead to being 1st world. To tell the 3rd world countries "do as we say, not as we did" in regards to how to treat the environment seems kinda unfair.

So, where are we left? We've got these countries that "deserve" to become what we've become... should we be allowed to stop them from building a new coal mine every week and from chopping down forests in an effort to get where we are?