When I have talked about global warming with LDS folks one consistent response I have gotten has been that the Last Days are coming, so why worry about it? In fact, they think, maybe global warming is a sign of the last days. There’s also a great deal of skepticism about science in that same group of people.

I think the last days are coming, so I’m not worried about it.

As a mormon scientist who has problems with the global warming debate I’m happy to illustrate some of the problems I have with Gore’s message.

The chief one is that he persistently confounds “weather” with “climate.” Showing pictures of “extreme weather events” like tornadoes and claiming that they are the effects of global warming is in my mind (and I think in the minds of most people) sloppy and irresponsible science. As far as I know, even climatologists who are proponents of global warming won’t defend his claims he makes in this regard.

Here in Europe they are convinced that the dry winter they are having in the Alps is the result of global warming. This sounds great until you consider the snow deluge in Colorado.

This is the problem with the global warming debate right now. We credit every new high temperature while ignoring the lows. We pay attention to every fluctuation in weather while ignoring that it isn’t synonymous with climate.

I personally do think that “greenhouse emissions” probably will have a deleterious effect on the environment. But when you consider that we currently are in the middle of warming trend that started four hundred years ago, it becomes almost impossible to determine the contribution from human sources.

I mostly just get frustrated at the sloppy science and reporting that is used to justify the media hype.

People shouldn’t confuse weather fluctuations with long term climate change. The International Panel on Climate Change estimates that the total average increase in surface temperature in the northern hemisphere over the entire 20th century was about 1 degree farenheit.

danithew,

All I know is that it’s feeling like Spring here in NYC right now. I just hope it isn’t hotter/muggier in the summer.

I heard. What was it 71 degrees in Central Park! Dang, we shouldn’t have left NYC!

Clark,

Given the descriptions of the last days I read, simply saying “the last days are coming” seems to indicate we ought to fear more if we actually believe that.

Well, to clarify a little, the current phenomenon we are experiencing here in America is due to El Nino in the Pacific. This cyclical pattern tends to create wild weather out west (as noted in the Rockies and Seattle), and very mild winters in the northeast. Here in Pennsylvania, we’ve yet to have any snow fall on the ground, when, by this time we should normally have at least one foot of snow on the ground.

Dan, I was more thinking of the response by individual Mormons. If you really believe that the Second Coming makes such questions moot it seems bad reasonings since it is entirely rational to fear the last days when the world goes to hell. I think we ought do all in our power to prevent or postpone such events.

Paula/Annegb – that is my concern that Mormons think who cares the last days are here. Well there are issues with that thinking – 1) the last days are here could be 200 years in the future and we may have self-destructed as a race by then 2) as stewards of the earth do we want to give God back a destroyed earth? 3) It seems a bit arrogant to push the problem back to God.

Oh this one is just toooo easy. The answer is obvious and in spite of the fact that this topic gets talked to death a million times a day. How about these questions instead? Why didn’t everyone evacuate from new Orleans before Katrina in spite of all the warnings? Why didn’t the people of Pompeii decide that there were better places to be then at the foot of an active volcano? Why do people in California think its a good idea to live right alongside one of the most active faultlines in the world?

Because people deep down don’t really believe that something will happen to them? I’ve been okay up until now, so why should I worry? I can’t control what’s going on around me, all I can do is control my direct circumstances and frankly I like my circumstances the way they are. These arguments have been around since cave man Ug decided it was a good idea to live at the base of a cliff. “No rocks fall on Ug straw house yet, so why should Ug worry?” In todays Caveman Gazette: Large rock fall on Ug house today. Ug inside chewing on Mammoth tusk when rock bigger then house fall directly on it. No more Ug. Services today when big yellow thing is in middle of the big blue thing. In other news, big ice mountain seem to be going away. Shaman all over say we in deep sabertooth poo.

BTW this coming from a skeptic (though not the kind you’re thinking of). Global warming (and cooling) have been in constant effect since the earth was first formed. During the Jurassic period Carbon Dioxide levels were three times higher than they are now. So, the cold, dark reality of the matter is that in spite of what a person believes, that even if we instantaneously stopped all human activity on the planet right now that the planet would continue to get warmer. Then, when the next ice age hits, it would continue to get cooler. I don’t debate global warming. I debate that when it comes to things much larger than our pitiful selves, such as orbital motion of the planet, the Sun and other fun variables such as these play a much more fundamental role in what happens to our planet’s climate. Scientists like to think that we are the cause of all of it, because if we are not, then what’s going to happen will happen in spite of us. No one likes to believe they are that insignificant and even worse have no control whatsoever over their own fate.

Nature will eventually repair itself. The planet will somehow survive. The only trick? We might not survive whatever “the fix” is (massive volcanic activity, a big ol’ comet/meteor hammering into the earth, a sunstorm big enough to destroy all communication forcing us back to the bronze age etc.) Only the Lord knows for sure.

we wouldn’t want to have to consume less. it might be uncomfortable.

A problem is that if we are confronting a dire calamity, then little touches of conservation to reduce emissions a few percent here and a few more there are irrelevant. Nothing short of wholesale abolition of combustion will make a difference that matters. Take it back, Prometheus.

Tom – good answers. I think you have some interesting answers to the questions. I would rather see the Church spend money on promoting President Kimballs mantra of recylcing than fighting against gay marriage for example – the Church can and should be more involved in issues like these.

All – I am amazed at the number of us who think God can magically fix the damage we do. God is not a magician and helping the earth receive its pardisical glory may take longer than 1000 years if we continue screwing it up. CEW-SMOKE is right, the earth will survive and eventually repair itself but we may not be around.

#5 Herodotus – You say it is impossible to quantify the human impact – perhaps it is, but the question is not whether we are having an impact, but what can we or should we as Mormons do about it?

I agree with John that it will be hard, probably impossible, to meaningfully reduce emissions. The fact is that there is a lot of oil, gas, and coal, and somebody is going to want to burn it…if not us, then the Chinese, Indians, Indonesians, etc. We can’t really stop them, and even if we could, it wouldn’t be fair.

On the other hand, I think it is quite possible that we could find other technological solutions to reduce warming, perhaps by incresing the albedo of the earth or atmosphere somehow.

Clark/Ed/Jared – a little bit pessimistic, but probably close to the truth. It does all come down to $$$. I wonder if the next war will be with the Chinese over access to oil…

I would support more power from a nuclear source. We’ve put dams on to many rivers and now the fish suffer.

herodotus,

I’m not saying I disagree that Gore uses hype to push his message. But you’d be better served to leave Colorado out of this. It proves nothing.

Colorado typically gets its heaviest snowfall in early or late winter. To get this kind of snow at this time of year is highly unusual. In fact, it’s been almost 100 years since Colorado had this kind of snowfall in December-January. The cause of the storm climatologists are pointing to are this year’s El Nino patterns.

Climatologists actually point to the winter storms in Colorado as mildly corroborating evidence of global warming.

“I would hate to have questions around my destruction of the planet come up at the judgement – I have enough other issues to deal with there.”

I think this is why the church per se doesn’t make a big deal about it, although we’ve had enrichment meetings about recycling, etc. through the years. The church’s mission has higher priorities.

Our family has a hybrid car, and we try to minimize our car trips around town. I bicycle to work and lots of errands. We have the smallest garbage container for our trash collection, because we recycle and compost and don’t use a lot of prepared foods. We also used cloth diapers. It’s not much, but if everyone did such things, it might make a difference.

A few times when I’ve rented a car for work, the agency stuck me with a SUV as that’s all was available, and I was astonished at how much gas those things burned through. Shudder. I don’t want to live like that.

A few times when I’ve rented a car for work, the agency stuck me with a SUV as that’s all was available, and I was astonished at how much gas those things burned through. Shudder. I don’t want to live like that.

Love my Pathfinder. We bought a small car for around town and I hate driving that thing. We also often still run out of space. Especially on trips.

CEW-Smoke #28 – I think your response makes a lot of sense. I agree with your assertion that people would much rather risk dying of something horrible than miss the latest American Idol. I like the three groups. I see three types of Mormons in those groups
Group 1 – Do nothing ’cause there ain’t nothing to do. Traditional McKonkie Mormon who thinks God will fix everything. Eat, Drink and Be Merry.
Group 2 – Change the human species way, or it will be changed for us. The Environmentalist Mormon – sort of the exact opposite of the John Birch Mormon
Group 3 – You can’t change it at all, so begin preperation for the possible worst case scenarios. John Birch Mormon – build your bomb shelter and stock food and get US out of the UN…

And yet, I’m still not worried, because it’s the second coming.

Critics of religion often separate religious believers into two camps: moderates and extremists. Extremists are to be feared for the lengths they’ll go to to defend or promote their beliefs (i.e. war, terrorism, etc.); Moderates are relatively harmless because they don’t force their beliefs on others, or so the thinking goes.

These I’m-not-worried-because-of-the-Second-Coming answers make me wonder if there is any difference between Moderates and Extremists when it comes to endangering the world? If the latter doesn’t nuke it into oblivion, the former will passively consume it into oblivion.

Furthermore, every generation since the time have Christ has been sure the Second Coming would happen in their generation. The first five Mormon prophets were pretty certain Christ would return in their lifetimes. Meanwhile, the years keep ticking by. Those whose confidence that such an event is nigh must have pretty sound evidence, I assume? If so, please share the good news with the rest of us so we can all go out and buy Hummers.

So, just because you believe the Second Coming is right around the corner does not mean the rest of us who share this planet hold the same belief. Lets work together to keep this beautiful planet green and blue. Wouldn’t God want it that way?

For those of you looking for scriptural ammunition against the eat, drink, and be merry crowd, consider the following:

D&C 51:17 And the hour and the day is not given unto them, wherefore let them act upon this land as for years, and this shall turn unto them for their good.

I think good people living decent lives are relatively not messing up the environment and this is just one more issue that polarizes and brings contention and God would rather have us concentrate on more important things. I don’t think the planet is in all that bad a shape in the first place.

what’s that word that’s used when people try to justify there actions, however lame they may be by saying it’s not so bad… i don’t…

like when your sister is dating a jackass but refuses to see how toxic (no pun) the relationship is?

hmmm, it’s right there

#41
what is living a decent life?

what do you consider bad shape?

seriously?

So what if Al Gore is a putz? Are Al Gore and Global Warming synonymous? Can Al Gore be a putz AND Global Warming still be credible?

FWIW, I liked “An Inconvenient Truth,” but would have strongly preferred another person as the figurehead and spokesperson. The documentary should be about the issue, not the person. It was obvious that too many people would discount both the movie and the issue as soon as they saw the messenger. It’s an age old phenomenon… witness the multitudes who dismissed the BOM and the gospel as soon as they learned it came from Joseph Smith.

annegband what are the “important things”?

funding for education is important

health care for everyone is important

good public transit is important

Well Anne, at least you are honest and consistent. I hope for the earth’s sake that Pres Hinckley will make a statement someday so you and Bill and everybody else will jump on the bandwagon. I’m not holding my breath though. The Church is usually behind the curve on these kinds of issues, waiting until the rest of the world has figured it out before officially acknowledging reality.

Oh, and all that work there are members…from my home ward.

These are site from across the US. Data that widespread is hard to ignore…especially from a country that puts out some much CO2. I just think people are making too much out of something we really know very little about. Very little.

Amy,

See I see what you are writing, but then I see a report like this, which shows that 2006 was the hottest year on record in the United States. Furthermore, it caps a nine year rise in temperatures in the United States.

Last year was the warmest in the continental United States in the past 112 years — capping a nine-year warming streak “unprecedented in the historical record” that was driven in part by the burning of fossil fuels, the government reported yesterday.

According to the government’s National Climatic Data Center, the record-breaking warmth — which caused daffodils and cherry trees to bloom throughout the East on New Year’s Day — was the result of both unusual regional weather patterns and the long-term effects of the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

So it would be nice to compare this to whatever evidence you have of cooling going on in the United States.

Well, let’s add more fun facts to the list. I just finished reading a story today that said Eastern Europe is experiencing one of the coldest winters on record. So, we can point out little things like that out all day. They don’t amount to much, because we don’t really care what happens in a single year (or even over a few years). We care what is happening over a much longer scale of time.

Why do I think the world is slowly getting warmer (cyclically, not human global warmingly)? Goes back to my earlier questions. Why is Egpyt not the land of milk and honey anymore? Why is the Tigress and the Euphrates not a “bread basket” anymore? Why are the deserts growing at such an alarming rate in Africa. One year a village is in a field of wild grass, the next it is a desert death trap. These trends started long, long before human intervention. What does that mean? It means that the climate changes and we must adapt. We have been doing that as a species for many, many thousands of years. The good ol’ USA used to be glacier central. Where did they go? Well, they melted the last time we had “global warming”. Go have a long talk with your neighborhood paleo-climatologist. It might open your mind to some new ideas and concepts. Absolutely fascinating stuff.

Or check out the Sarah Scaife Foundation’s 2003 Report

and note that the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change is listed as a recipient.

Oops, how about this Wiki entry

Statistics can be made to say different things depending on the period of time you choose to observe and many other variables. It’s not really disputed in the scientific community whether global warming is actually happening. The mere fact that Republican congressmen have managed to drag up a few fringe scientists denying the overall trend doesn’t say much.

In all fairness though, scientists freely admit that very few of them are sure what actual global effects global warming will have. For instance, few are willing to link blizzards in Colorado, hurricanes in Louisianna, or tornadoes who knows where else – with global warming per se.

Like I said, while I accept the general idea of global warming, and that it IS human-caused, I’m not too interested in it. I find the problems of energy scarcity and security of world energy supply to be more pressing.

I realize I am late to this discussion, but nobody has mentioned my viewpoint, so for what it’s worth, I’ll chime in.

I have believed for years that the Church has taken a strong position on our responsibilities as stewards of the earth, but has done so in a way too subtle for many to catch it.

In over 100 buildings scattered throughout the world, there is a Church-produced film that thousands of recommend-holding members watch on a regular basis. An introduction to that film tells members to consider themselves as if they were actually playing one of the parts of the main players. The film then shows us, as one of the main players, agreeing that the world on which we live is “glorious and beautiful.” Shortly after this declaration, we move in to this glorious and beautiful world with our husband or wife, and are told that our main responsibilty with regard to it is to “till and take care of it.”

I haven’t seen “An Inconvenient Truth” because I can’t stand Mr Gore. No matter how hard he tries, he comes off as a smug, sanctimonious hypocrite. But I have seen, many times, a movie where I am told to take care of the glorious and beautiful world that God personally created as my home. That is why I care.

#62: As I understand it, the Center is stating that all the talk of global warming may be unfounded. I haven’t worked there is years, so I may be off the mark. They review tons of paper that show how much vegetation loves CO2 and things along those lines. The reason they went back so far is that if it truly is global warming – it would take many, many years for it to truly take effect.

I should have stated early, I do not claim to be proficient in this field. Far from it. But, many scientists will say that we just don’t know enough. 2006 is the warmest on record — that is a fact. I don’t deny that. But climate deals with long, long term data – not just one year. 9 years could be the start of a trend, it’s true, but we just don’t know for sure. And I, personally, will not get all hot and bothered about a “maybe”. Not worth my time right now.

#66: They work on grants. That how they get $$. Who do you think would like what they’re saying?? I know for a fact that they aren’t saying it for the $$ – the money is coming because of what they are saying. They have not been bought. They are honorable members in good standing. Great people.

As to the notion that “the money is coming because of what they are saying”, I would apply Tom’s standard from above: “I’m not interested in hearing what Al Gore or anybody else who has something to sell thinks about climate change.” And, yes, I’m aware that all research is funded in one way or another. I agree with Ed’s view that there are folks arguing in bad faith on all sides of this issue.

I’m not one to imagine corporate boogeymen as the source of our woes. On the contrary, I feel dismayed, not delighted, at any apparent evidence of US companies adopting losing strategies. I have no strong opinion or sense of where the truth lies in the global warming debate, but it seems painfully obvious to me that US interests would be much better served if our companies would seriously fund green technology development rather than spending on these old-school PR efforts. We can’t export PR, but there’s a huge market opening up for green tech, and I’d hate to see our companies miss out in the same way our auto industry has so far, by assuming they’d always be able to manage US consumer demand through PR operations rather than stepping up innovation. No doubt the US continues to innovate in impressive ways, I’m absolutely not dissing the US, but if we are not open to the possibility that our all-too-human industrial leadership is capable of strategic blunders, we have no chance of ever being part of any possible solution.

Veritas, I hear you, I live in Taiwan, have spent the last 12 years living/working around Asia, mostly for American- and Taiwan-owned outfits. I see folks up above talking as if there is some kind of inevitable conflagration with China looming. Bummer, what a bunch of fatalists. I always pegged Americans for being practical types who could take lemons and make lemonade, not the types to shrug their shoulders and assert there’s nothing to be done, the die is cast, waah waah … I particularly pegged Mormons as being not only practical but fairly astute at business to boot … in any case, I’d suggest it’s not all gloom and doom, but frankly we’ve been poorly served by our recent political and industrial leadership … it’s been all fear, all the time, for way too long, until now even the Mormons have started talking like they’re hapless subjects of some twilight militaristic empire lumbering towards an uncertain future, crikey, half the world wants to buy an iPod and the other half already owns one, goodness, how much more of an advantage do you need before you start looking outward with a little less trepidation … anyway, as far as I can tell, the resource base simply does not allow for China and India to reach full development using current technology, there’s simply not enough steel and oil to get them from where they are now to a US standard of living unless we start getting creative along the way. Not to mention, China is becoming so polluted so quickly that they’re going to start seeing that impact on their GDP, and when that starts happening, you know there are going to be some huge contracts signed to bring world-class green technology to the country so as to keep growth on track … Taiwan is already ramping up its solar capabilities in the expectation of supplying the Chinese (and world) market … man, it’d just be nice to see a little more enthusiasm for the future from the US side … as China, India and others develop, it’s going to create new markets for our products and services, but we need to be vigilant about keeping up with where the world’s headed if we’re going to maximize these new opportunities … If Americans, by clamoring for and adopting green tech in their own lives, thereby demonstrate to US companies that there is a home-grown domestic demand for greater fuel efficiency, lower emissions, etc., etc., this will in turn help our US companies to make better choices and consequently improve their global sales potential … especially for those of us who live in the extremely crowded bits of the planet, we’re going to desperately need green vehicles, green homes and offices, and I expect we’d be quite happy to look to the US to lead the way, but if you end up having nothing we want to buy, I hope it’s not down to your own domestic consumers being such exceptionalists that they can’t even see where their own benefit lies in adopting new and greener technologies …

Chino and Veritas – great points. I think that it can and should start with consumers who demand green and clean technology now or we are screwed in the future – whether global warming, pollution or something else it is not a pretty picture.

Seth R – glad you drink the Republican Kool-Aid, but the reality is that at current economic growth China will surpass the US in GDP in 20 years or less. India could as well as some point. Not to call them superpowers or emergent is silly and inward looking. We must prepare now and determine how we are going to address it. If the US is such a superpower we are sure not showing it in our current foreign debacles…

Conservative Christians interpret the Book of Revelation literally, as a prophecy:

“after the last tree is felled, Christ will come … ”

To Christians, as written in their statements of faith, the Bible is the inerrent word of God. We realize through the JST, revelation and common sense that there are likely errors that came about in translation.

You can actually follow US policy making on environmental issues by reading the views of Dominionists that counsel Pres. Bush (including Robertson, Falwell, Buchannan, Colson and Dobson).

Compassionate conservatives like Osteen, Hunter and Warren ARE concerned about our world and have shifted their focus to environmentalism and poverty.

Heh.

Interesting move for them.

i watched an INCONVENIENT TRUTH last night.

i don’t know Al Gore, just that he was VP when i was in HS and that he lost to bush.

so, i thought the movie was brilliant. i thought he presented the facts very clearly and for anyone to understand. (and i do know how stats can be manipulated, but when you go back 650,000 years, i don’t know how you can mess with that)

i’ve heard a bit about him in this thread, as if he has no business talking about global warming, and i’ve heard much about weather vs. climate.

1. why do some call him names and for that reason not see the movie?

2. i didn’t think he was focused on “weather” patterns as much as some have mentioned. so to those critics, have you seen the movie? if so, have you looked into those “things” that you think are manipulated?

nice work on my part eh? the computer wins!

mfranti – Glad you liked the movie – I think many people just don’t like Big Al and so dismiss the movie. However, he does a pretty credible job of explaining the science in lay terms. While people can argue about his conclusions about the effects of the CO2 buildup the data was pretty sound. I am sure others on this post have other thoughts, but overall I liked it, but I like Big Al and I am also a pro-environment type…

devyn,

“Heck, where would all of us get our cheap clothes and electronics”

read between the lines, eh?

you speak the truth.

“The bigger fear is that all we do is continue to consume and destroy the environment in the process…”

i keep seeing the scale, gold on one side, earth on the other…

i think i said something at the beginning of this thread about not wanting to have to CONSUME less, it might be uncomfortable.

i notice no takers(from the other side) on my questions.

Well, maybe we can start terraforming Mars or something by the time Earth’s truly finished eh?

Bush is all over the Mars thing – just a bit expensive at $1T, but would be pretty cool to send people there. Of course, $1T could be used in a lot better ways here on earth. That would certainly create some cleaner technologies…

Chino Blanco – thanks I saw that in the Wall Street Journal. Guess maybe Exxon is going to start playing the game like BP does – at least talk the green talk…

Thanks Seth – some interesting articles with some frightening statistics and predictions – China, India and Russia as the axis of oil. The next 20-30 years should be very interesting on the global stage…

Jared – I agree – regardless of what one might think of Al Gore, he is doing a good job of bringing this to the public’s attention. It is also something he has been doing for many years. Hopefully, it will give a new life to the environmental movement

http://www.jamesspann.com/blog.htm

Devyn S. For someone with a PHD in Molecular Biology from Harvard Medical School, I am stunned that you are concerned with the human production of carbon dioxide. First off, I think you have confused carbon dioxide (CO2) with carbon monoxide (CO). Since I did not attend Harvard I could not speak to the quality of education but I can speak to the difference between carbon dioxide (CO2) and carbon monoxide (CO). I would like to ask you some questions:

1. Other than breathing how do human produce carbon dioxide?
2. How does carbon dioxide harm the environment?
3. If we reduce the amounts of carbon dioxide in the environment – will plants benefit or suffer? Side note here – is carbon dioxide necessary for plants to perform photosynthesis?

Devyn: What your links say is really not all that clear and you will find all the questions answered at the following:

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/

Enjoy

The main problem is that scientists in this day and age are still attached to the flawed Baconian model which posits that corroborating evidence strengthens a theory.

Thus, you get all of these climate models by computers that are written specifically to predict the past several decades of whether, and some scientists are stupid enough to accept the idea that there’s even the slightest probability that their predictions concerning the ensuing decades are correct.

I’ve told this to scientist after scientist, and they all argue that the models mean that there’s at least some reasonable likelihood that the correlations posited by warming models hold. Earth to scientists: it doesn’t.

I’ll tell you what: Create a model that predicts with a reasonable degree of reliability every twist and turn of the New York Stock Exchange or any the major currency exchange markets or any commodity or commodity future or other derivative market. Then use that model to do real trading and see if it proves as predictive in the future as it did in the past. (I’ll let you in on a little secret: These types of models have been designed, and they generally work less well than the more traditional approaches to trading.)

The shame is that even scientists from Harvard maintain this superstitious attachment to these “climate models.”

As far as the “science” of it, even those who believe in anthropogenic global warming disagree on what is being measured by current “global temperature” measurements. (here, here, and here; please take careful note of the bibliographies). Any reasonable scientist has to concede that the current metrics used to measure global warming are dreadful. Our cloud microphysics and ice physics are among the worst of those on any habitable planet in the Intergalactic Confederation. When it is so easily shown of global warming that it cannot be measured, I will not admit that theories describing it are scientific.

It’s also a shame that Harvard scientists, to a man, opposed Star Wars based on the proposition that it’s scientifically impossible. It’s also a shame that scientists of every stripe pushed the AIDS hysteria by predicting heterosexual AIDS epidemics in North America (or even predicting that there would ever be a vaccine). I could go on and on. Lesson: Sometime between the Manhatten Project and the outset of the Thatcher-Reagan economic/military program, academic scientists transformed themselves into a political lobby peddling sensationalist doomsday scenarios.

For a list of scientists who disagree with the global warming consensus, look here. Not all of them are notable. But you can’t credibly claim that they’re all hacks.

The bottom line: Whether or not there’s such a thing as global warming, it is not a scientific position. It is a political position.

ARJ, actually, that’s false. It’s true of models that never obtain widespread use.

In 1989, I designed several currency exchange models that accurately predicted the highs and lows of the 5 major currency markets since 1972 (it’s astonishingly simple — you’d be shocked; at the time, I was helping with a book on how to analyze cross-currency exchange rates, e.g., yen vs frank vs mark instead of yen vs dollar and frank vs dollar and mark vs. dollar, which is the way that folks tended to think of foreign exchange back then). You can use them to create trading systems that make successful trades with upwards of 90% reliability. They simply do not work for predicting the market beyond the date that they’re made.

The reason for this is simple. First, for any given state of affairs, there are an indefinite number of theoretical explanations that can adequately explain it (this is known as the Quine-Duhem thesis, which is considered conventional wisdom nowadays).

Second, let’s posit a hypothetical sampling of 6 explanations for the currency markets with the following date ranges:

1. 1972-1989
2. 1972-1979
3. 1972-2005
4. 1972-1991
5. 1972-1988
6. 1972-2023

My data set in 1989 would eliminate #2 and #5 right out of the shoot, but it would provide no way of differentiating #1 from #3, #4, or #6. So the data set has radically underdetermined the predictive validity of my explanation. So it is with climate models designed to predict global warming.

Back to trading: Since there are an indefinite number of such explanations, the chances of choosing one with any long term predictive validity are miniscule — even if one doesn’t use it to make money and thus condition the market to it. They are so small, in fact, that it’s safer to actually trade using more traditional means.

I’m not positing anything revolutionary here. This is all reasonably mainstream philosophy of science. There is some sense in which the fact that scientists are ignorant of this makes them under-qualified. But there’s also a sense in which scientists have always ignored these types of factors, so that it’s just business as usual.

No. I’m not saying that algorithmic analysis doesn’t work. All trading systems are algorithmic by nature. The question is which one to use when. This winter, for example, would have been a bad time to use the cyclical algorithm on oil commodities and its derivative markets. But cyclical algorithms can still be used to great effect. Graph analysis is also liable to anomalies, and calculating when to abandon the pursuit of a given pattern is as important as understanding the pattern that you’re trying to identify. But I know of several very successful FX funds that use nuts-and-bolts graph analysis to identify buy/sell opportunities.

Computer based trading models can mimic standard analysis rather easily. More specialized and elaborate computer-based systems have run into problems. Traditionally, these problems with computer-based trading systems have been two-fold: (a) that they work well in volatile markets, but not steady-up or steady-down markets, and (b) it’s difficult to create an algorithm which predicts long term trends that can effectively dictate aggressive trades — the need to lengthen the scope of the analysis has invariably resulted increasingly conservative trading approaches. Recent work has created algorithms that work within steady up and steady down markets as well as formulae that detect long term trends while allowing for more balanced trading triggers.

The fact remains that such algorithmic trading bears no resemblance to the kind of models that I’m discussing. This kind of algorithmic trading is not designed to predict long term behavior or estimate the impact that some specific parameter might have on long term trends, For example, they can’t tell you “if the dollar continues to weaken relative to the Euro, what will be the impact be on the Yen in 5 years.” (climate models pretend to be able to parameterize climate in a manner similar to this). Trading systems are used to make snap decisions. Such algorithms are analogous to predicting weather, not predicting climate.

No, it would be better if we all put our attention where it is really needed and follow the prophet if and when he speaks.

Blake,

I stand all amazed that you agree with DKL. ;>)

statUs quo.

Devyn, I don’t think that China and India are emergent super-powers any more than Russia is. It’s not GDP that matters, it’s per-capita GDP insofar as it correlates to distribution of wealth among a populace. That’s why Isreal has been able to repeatedly hold its own against numerous Arab neighbors with more wealth.

That said, by any estimation, it will be no more than 75 years (and possibly as few as 45) before China and India approach or surpass US per-capita GDP.

But if you’re worried about fending off an aggressive China, the solution is simple: Re-arm Japan.

DKL – as for the tirade against sicentists in general, I have a few rebuttal points. Star Wars – yes, it may work at some point, but what a waste of money, AIDS hysteria – without the drug cocktails developed by scientists we would have a much larger problem in the US than we do have. It is a huge problem in the developing world. Most scientists think we will get to a vaccine eventually…

Perhaps scientists are sometimes bullish where they should not be and sometimes bearish when they should not be, but I tell you there are a lot of really good, sincere scientists that I have met who don’t care about money, greed or power – they are just interested in understanding the world around us and making it a better place.

Devyn: however we can look at past behavior of the earth and make somewhat reasonable predictions about the future. This is the entire basis of science.

This is the flawed Baconian outlook, and it is incorrect both on an historical and a theoretical level. The fundamental basis for science lies in the bare fact that generalizations can succeed. Generalizations that can be refuted by critical examination are scientific generalizations, but they needn’t be based on observing past behavior and they needn’t be liable to predictive validity. There’s no reason a scientific theory couldn’t originate in a dream, and natural selection does not yield predictable results outside of formal systems that make such predictions a priori by subsuming natural selection into their axioms.

The Ancient Greeks had science. Anaxemander theorized that a force akin to gravity kept the earth in place and Democritus invented the notion of the atom. I could go on and on. Almost none of science of Ancient Greece had anything to do with looking at “past behavior” and “reasonable predictions about the future.” Nor is this what scientists do today, even if many of them operate under the mistaken belief that it is.

Besides, when it comes to using past behavior as a basis for future behavior, the question isn’t whether successful generalizations are possible, it is how you determine which generalizations are both successful and useful. You don’t do this by offering after-the-fact explanations, as is done by climate models.

Your point about the financial markets is no objection at all. Nothing in my 113 is peculiar to financial markets. Feel free to reread it and substitute any reference to financial markets with the appropriate climatological verbiage.

DKL – lets take evolution as an example. Darwin formalized what a lot of others had been dancing around in the 1800s into evolution / natural selection. All advances since that time in this field have built on his work. For example, now we know that nearly all of the genes found in a fruit fly exist in the human in some form or fashion and the genes involved in making the fruit fly appendage are roughly the same as those involved in making the human appendage. All of these discoveries built off of the work of Darwin and the countless others since his time. The other area in evolution where predictions are done all the time based on past knowledge is in paleontology. They find a little bone and determine what the bone is and what type of creature it came from then posit a probable time period it lived as well as some of its behavior. Subsequent finds of bones like that build off of their models. It is all based on previous research and pushing the envelope forward just a tiny bit more. In my mind this is no different from the climate change models.

DKL – I would have to respectfully disagree with you. Many people had danced around evolution, but Darwin put it all together into a cohesive digestible theory leveraging the work of others. And it provides predictive information in spades – that is the beauty of evolution, we now have a way to explain the seeming randomness of the world around us. I don’t see the difference, you are using scientific theories to both build on past discoveries and make predictive hypotheses of future events/findings. That is the scientific theory.

It does matter how it came to Anaxemander – if a scientist had a dream that resulted in some new grand theory, no one would buy it unless it was based on previous scientific data/principles. It would receive no credibility in the world.

DKL,

You’re perilously close to nonsense now. Why even come up with a theory if there aren’t past observations to explain?

arj, when you ask, “Why even come up with a theory…”, you’re talking about what motivates you to come up with a theory. I will not venture to enumerate all the different motivations that people have for theories.

Theories serve a variety of purposes. I may invent a theory about how a certain piece of yet-to-be-written software code might work. Such a theory may come to me as the result of, say, hearing the lyric of a song or reading a line in Hamlet. And it is often fruitful to vet such theories using critical scrutiny before submitting it to empirical tests (like proof-of-concept prototypes or even full-on development).

Since we see (ostensibly) near photo-realistic drawings of our solar system from a reasonably remote point of view, it’s easy to forget how abstract this topic really is, an to imagine that when people describe how the earth is situated in the universe that this somehow relates back to their experience. Needless to say, when Anaxemander (and those like him) posited that there are actually bodies of matter larger than the earth that were outside of his direct experience and that exert force on the earth to maintain the earth’s position in the universe, he was not leveraging previous experience.

There’s no basis for such an assumption, unless it’s just a question-begging determination to explain everything in terms of past experience.

What’s just as likely is that Anaxemander noticed that everything is somewhere, and proceeded to ask the question, “Where is the earth?” It distorts the nature of this question to try to cage it in terms of something in his previous experience.

Moreover, Anaxemander’s theory doesn’t have any necessary relationship with the regularity of solar and lunar cycles. And why would anyone equate large bodies of matter with the bright lights in the sky based on the experiences available in Ancient Greece?

Lastly, I think that it’s odd that you’d say “the only source of inspiration is a line of poetry.” I’ve used dreams as an example, and I’ve also plainly stated that previous observations can be used as the inspiration. My point is that the genesis of an idea has no logical relationship to its validity. It can come from anywhere — literally.

As I’ve stated, the basis of science is the success of generalizations subjected to critical scrutiny — not previous experience.

Here is an interesting overview of the report coming out in two weeks on global warming. Seems like a bunch of smart scientists (600) have contributed to this report using 19 different computer models. DKL – what are your thoughts?

‘Smoking gun’ report to say global warming here
POSTED: 10:27 a.m. EST, January 23, 2007
Story Highlights• Global warming report will warn of bleak future for planet
• Scientists to offer an “explosion of new data”
• The report will be released to the public on February 2

Adjust font size:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Human-caused global warming is here — visible in the air, water and melting ice — and is destined to get much worse in the future, an authoritative global scientific report will warn next week.

“The smoking gun is definitely lying on the table as we speak,” said top U.S. climate scientist Jerry Mahlman, who reviewed all 1,600 pages of the first segment of a giant four-part report. “The evidence … is compelling.”

Andrew Weaver, a Canadian climate scientist and study co-author, went even further: “This isn’t a smoking gun; climate is a batallion of intergalactic smoking missiles.”

The first phase of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is being released in Paris next week.

This segment, written by more than 600 scientists and reviewed by another 600 experts and edited by bureaucrats from 154 countries, includes “a significantly expanded discussion of observation on the climate,” said co-chair Susan Solomon a senior scientist for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

She and other scientists held a telephone briefing on the report Monday.

That report will feature an “explosion of new data” on observations of current global warming, Solomon said.

Solomon and others wouldn’t go into specifics about what the report says.

They said that the 12-page summary for policymakers will be edited in secret word-by-word by governments officials for several days next week and released to the public on February 2. The rest of that first report from scientists will come out months later.

The full report will be issued in four phases over the year, as was the case with the last IPCC report, issued in 2001.

Global warming is “happening now, it’s very obvious,” said Mahlman, a former director of NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab. “When you look at the temperature of the Earth, it’s pretty much a no-brainer.”

Look for an “iconic statement” — a simple but strong and unequivocal summary — on how global warming is now occurring, said one of the authors, Kevin Trenberth, director of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, also in Boulder.

The February report will have “much stronger evidence now of human actions on the change in climate that’s taken place,” Rajendra K. Pachauri told the AP in November. Pachauri, an Indian climatologist, is the head of the international climate change panel.

An early version of the ever-changing draft report said “observations of coherent warming in the global atmosphere, in the ocean, and in snow and ice now provide stronger joint evidence of warming.”

And the early draft adds: “An increasing body of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on other aspects of climate including sea ice, heat waves and other extremes, circulation, storm tracks and precipitation.”

The world’s global average temperature has risen about 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit from 1901 to 2005. The two warmest years on record for the world were 2005 and 1998. Last year was the hottest year on record for the United States.

The report will draw on already published peer-review science. Some recent scientific studies show that temperatures are the hottest in thousands of years, especially during the last 30 years; ice sheets in Greenland in the past couple years have shown a dramatic melting; and sea levels are rising and doing so at a faster rate in the past decade.

Also, the second part of the international climate panel’s report — to be released in April — will for the first time feature a blockbuster chapter on how global warming is already changing health, species, engineering and food production, said NASA scientist Cynthia Rosenzweig, author of that chapter.

As confident as scientists are about the global warming effects that they’ve already documented, they are as gloomy about the future and even hotter weather and higher sea level rises.

Predictions for the future of global warming in the report are based on 19 computer models, about twice as many as in the past, Solomon said.

In 2001, the panel said the world’s average temperature would increase somewhere between 2.5 and 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit and the sea level would rise between 4 inches and 35 inches by the year 2100. The 2007 report will likely have a smaller range of numbers for both predictions, Pachauri and other scientists said.

The future is bleak, scientists said.

“We have barely started down this path,” said chapter co-author Richard Alley of Penn State University.

DKL –
First – yes I realize it was not a scientific treatment, but I am very interested to read the report and see how credible or noncredible it seems.

Second – I think we will have to disagree to disagree on this one. I believe that predictive (at least directionally) models can be created, while you do not.

Third – it does have to do with Darwin. This is evolution and natural selection at its best. Will we survive? What species will besides rats, house flies, and cockroaches?

Fourth – I don’t disagree there. I am usually in that camp as are many of my scientific colleagues…

Sadly, you are right, sometimes it is hard to distinguish between the rats, cockroaches, and humans…

Thanks, arj. In my continuing attempt to remain the most tasteful blogger in the ‘nacle, I was hoping to avoid such vulgar terms as “butt,” “ass,” “asswipe,” and “asshead.”

BTW, Devyn, it’s worth noting that you’re statement that market models fail because we can’t predict human behavior is a text-book example of the fallacy of composition.

SilverRain – Your approach is probably the correct one, but it is kind of fun to bash the Publicans…

Anyone else enjoy the latest Economist ? “The greening of America” …

Chino-

Encouraging, though it’s sad to think that we, as a church, are being left behind. But that seems to be our MO.

nofolete

thank you for your thoughts!

it seems like good common sense to protect the environment (our home) and yet…

I’m sorry annegb, but if you think we agree on anything, I’m afraid you misunderstood me somewhere. I don’t think we should live merely decent lives, but rather exemplary ones, meaning radical change. If the rest of the world were to live up to our standards the results would be appalling. In the US we consume 20,030,000 barrels of oil per day. That’s more than China (6,391,000 bbl/day), Japan (5,578,000 bbl/day),Russia (2,800,000 bbl/day), Germany (2,677,000 bbl/day), and India (2,320,000 bbl/day) combined. Those countries are the top five oil consumers after the US, and have a combined population of 2,790,097,000. Nearly half the world’s population. Actually, about 300,000,000 shy of half, which happens to be the US population. As proud citizens of the USA we use, individually, .0667 barrels of oil per day. That doesn’t sound like much, but if our other buddies in the top six were to consume just as much their combined usage alone would top 186,285,476 barrels a day, or 67,994,198,877 bbl/year. And if the rest of the world were to live up to our standard, well, I don’t even want to do the math. The numbers for energy consumption, CO2 production, water consumption, waste accumulation, etc are just as grim.

Much of the clean living, natural beauty, health, and happiness we enjoy in the US are the result of shipping our problems elsewhere. I happened to serve my mission in one of those places (the Dominican Republic) and I live in one now. On the flip side much of the clean living, natural beauty, health, and leisure we enjoy in the US are the results of work done by wacko environmentalists, labor organizers, and other lefty nutcases endorsing radical change.

That said, I wonder why the second-coming isn’t here yet? Maybe God is giving us a chance to repent and clean up Lake Baikal on our own. After all, the atonement is contingent upon our repentance.

Happy to oblige.

Devyn S: Sorry for my absents; I do not have time to play everyday on the internet and from time to time miss some follow-up. Allow me to talk a little real science.

1. What happens when a heat sink (space) completely surrounds a heat supply (earth)? There is a heat transfer – true or false?
2. If the heat source increases (becomes hotter) will the heat transfer increase or remain the same? Is slowing down the heat transfer the only way that heat can be increased at the source? (global warming)
3. Is radiation the only way heat can be transferred from a heat supply to a heat sink? What does your PHD tell you? Your sources said radiation is the only way heat can be transferred through carbon in the atmosphere and you tell me that with your PHD, you believe, radiation is the only way heat can be transferred from our atmosphere to space? I say BUNK. In fact, I say double BUNK! Heat can be conducted directly into space without any “radiation”.

All that your sources (links) said is true. When heat is absorbed into atmosphere with carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide heat is not radiated at the same rate but conduction must be added to the equation because the wave length of the heat is changed and by definition cannot be called radiation. So carbon does not radiate heat into space but heat is still transferred my friend and not one of your “government” links or your PHD seems to understand these simple laws of physics. WHY? Because there is not a biography? Please! All of these simple laws of physics were explained in my link and well as any “real” text book on thermal dynamics. Do you even have one? (Meaning a text book on thermal dynamics) Have you looked at it? Do you understand the difference between radiation and conduction?

Please show me anywhere in your “official government” links that I can read about heat being “conducted” (not radiated) from earth carbon atmosphere into space. If you can do that I will apologize to you and eat crow.

BTW – I worked on “stars wars” and it will not work. In fact our ICBM are not the answer many think and cannot be fired over the North Pole and accurately hit a target. Is there anything in your PHD that will tell you why? Would you like me to tell you? Do you know why we do not hear much about ICBM anymore? Sorry these questions are off topic.

Jonathan M

Mfranti: So you are a nut case environmentalist. I have dealt with your type concerning the environment before. Yes. I was living in Seattle when St. Helens erupted and millions of usable board feet of lumber was knocked down. When the evil lumber industry tried to salvage the lumber the nut case environmentalist (Sierra Club) blocked it in the courts claiming the forest would return better if the lumber was left on the ground – which was not true. You failed to consider the environment before your own selfish political agenda. Please understand we can improve the environment by intelligent management which can be much better than no management or leaving nature alone to manage it.

Jonathan M

Wouldn’t ignoring global warming count as “no management” as opposed to “intelligent management?” Or is this just part of broader plan to get rid NYC, Holland, Bangladesh, New Orleans, South Florida, and Tuvalu, all of them veritable blights on our globe, and true enemies of freedom. If only Iraq were below sea level.

jonathan,

do you suppose that blowing off the tops of mountains for coal (very very dirty stuff too)intelligent management?

Some things:
There have been several “natural” disasters that have had far more detrimental impact on the environment of the earth (including climate) than anything and all things done by man. Nature has lost far more species than human under have.

Mfranti: It is you that called yourself a nut case environmentalist type. I thought you might have sympathy for the Sierra Club type environmentelest and identify with them. Please clarify if you are Sierra Club environmentelest nut case type. If you are not this type – I apologize. If you are that type – please take note that I have proof that you guys are too extreme and too politically self serving for me to be impressed.

To other posters – not everything mankind has done in the environment is intelligent – Why are you asking about stupid things? Are you unaware of any intelligent things?

Something else Devyn – just because someone is smarter than me does not mean they are right. I have learned, by sad experience, to ask smart people questions before I buy what they are selling. It is nice that they are smart but if they cannot answer my questions they are of no use to me. I learned in college that most professors do not know what is in the text book that they wrote themselves and if I asked them about what appeared as a mistake in a text book that they wrote – I expected them to answer correctly and honestly. If they insist in the “I am the professor and I am the one teaching” mombo jumbo stuff. I would just reply that I was paying to be taught and I would find a teacher capable of teaching this subject.

Understand – I agree there is global warming. I am not sold on the idea that it is all (or mostly) because of greenhouse gases.

I would point to Antarctica that has an average temperature rise of 3 degrees, the highest warming on the planet. Check your web sites my friends, a few years back Antarctica was the poster child for greenhouse global warming. Anyone, other than me, checked this out – What is the cause of global warming in Antarctica – Big clue – it is not greenhouse gases, despite that prior to a real scientific investigation every environmental scientist (all of which are most like smarter than me) agreed that it was because of greenhouse gasses. The world’s best and smartest experts made a mistake. Anyone know what that mistake was?

Jonathan

Jonathan M, I can’t believe you seriously claim to have a physics background. Conduction of heat requires atoms, which are in short supply in the vacuum of space. Thus, the only method for heat to escape the earth is through blackbody radiation.

Oh, and it’s thermodynamics, not thermal dynamics.

love, your friendly, local paleoclimatologist.

Chinito-

No kidding, cellulosic ethanol? The man’s gone off the deep end. As for picking on annegb, I realize it’s a bit unfair (I’ve read some of her posts, and I’m sure we’d get along fine in meat space, any friend of Emily Dickinson is a friend of mine), but my beef in my initial response was with people who imagine that the church or its teachings somehow excuse them from taking responsibility for the environment. People who want to argue on political or imagined scientific grounds have plenty of other places to do so.

Kristine N-

I thought about responding to him, but the amount of CO2 and waste heat my computer would have generated in the process would have contributed to both global warming and the eventual heat death of the universe. So I decided against it.

nofelete, I didn’t mean that we were in agreement. I meant that your post about the situation in Thailand echoed one point I was trying to make in that the US is more eco-friendly than much of the rest of the world. America certainly didn’t contaminate Lake Baikul or force Thailand into whatever is occurring there.

Americans are, on the whole, clean and industrious people.

What is beginning to trouble me about this interchange is the assumption that those of us who are not worried about the environment are sitting around on our butts eating bon-bons and watching soap operas. There are many important issues in the world today, environmentalism is only one of them. No one can do everything and my refusal to jump on what I perceive to be an extremist bandwagon does not necessarily equal ignorance or complacency.

Perhaps those who espouse, rather harriedly, a total activism on the part of the environment will balance out with those who espouse, rather harriedly, other important issues, like the murky environment in the soul entertainment, for instance.

I truly do believe that God will take care of things. I just do. I also believe that those of you who go overboard in making your point are coming from a place of fear and insecurity rather than faith.

We can all agree that we need to care for our own backyards, be it in southern Utah or Afganistan. There is no need for polarity. There is much to be done in the world besides trading in ones’ vehicle for a bicycle.

Concerning Greenhouse gasses and reradiation of infrared radiation they adsorb.
This is an unfortunate expression that is all too common. Absorbed radiation is transformed to either kinetic or potential energy and, as such, no longer exists in its original form — hence, it cannot be “reradiated.” When molecules absorb infrared radiation they are said to become excited (”hot”). Such molecules can release energy usually in one of three ways: by chemical reaction (uncommon, since greenhouse gases are pretty stable and non-reactive); quenching (transferring energy to cooler molecules, increasing their temperature) and; emission (usually at lower energy [longer wavelength] radiation than the energy previously absorbed). Once more, since the absorbed energy has been transformed it cannot be said to be “reradiated”.

Simple physics demonstrates that gas molecules containing carbon are heaver than other molecules commonly comprising air and thus are not expected to be at the levels of space. Note that carbon molecules in a room are to be expected at the floor and not at the ceiling. Thus the greenhouse gases will not comprise the majority of atoms of the higher atmosphere. Also note that the temperature of molecules drop significantly as altitude is increased.

Kristine N. Why do you insist that carbon molecules can only conduct or give off energy directly to outer space and nowhere else????? Why do you discredit any other view point???? Please deal with the physics of the issue.

Since we are concerned with greenhouse gases absorbing energy and not passing (conducting) heat on to other molecules in the atmosphere as unproven and I say with authority that I do not believe that it does not or cannot happen. I think those that say it does not or cannot happen are making a grave and silly mistake.

BTW Kristine – Thanks for the spelling lesson – That is very much a weakness of mine. Sometimes I make fun of my problem and tell people that if they only know one way to spell something they are uneducated. But for now I apologize and accept your rebuke of my spelling.

Again I would point out that all the world experts have from time to time been wrong. The posters here seem to be concerned about global warming. I ask again for the reason for warming in Antarctica which is the greatest example of global warming on earth. All the experts, with out exception blamed greenhouse gases up until about 5 years ago. What changed their minds and why is there no recent information anywhere about global warming in Antarctica currently? I challenge anyone to provide a link – It took me 4 years to find one and it would make a difference to the nut-cases on this forum – I will provide it but if you are going to hold to a unsupported view and blindly blame opposition then I would just as soon you continue to look the fool and remain ignorant.

Come on you experts this is a simple question – if someone cannot answer this question about global warming they are not qualified – AT ALL – to force a political agenda concerning global warming. It is simple my friends. If they cannot answer this question they are fools that have not investigated the matter. They lie when they say they are informed. I do not care how expert they are or claim to be they just do not know what they are talking about.

Devyn: I think of myself as a human individual with agency – I am not a human lemming following the all experts over some intellectual or popularized cliff. Why can’t you consider global warming as the result of anything other than greenhouse gases? I do find it ironic that many environmental types say they believe the experts when they agree with them but then turn around and say that experts cannot help make the environment better. Saying only nature, on it own should have input to environment change – I find that thinking contradictory.

Jonathan

annegb- “I love to read and lay around and watch TV and eat junk food. I don’t have too many aspirations beyond getting the dishes done and serving dinner to my food-slut husband.”

Sorry if I got the wrong impression. Look, I don’t expect you to go out and become an environmental activist, nor do I think most members of the church should. There is plenty of good that can be done in the world, and I’m sure you’re anxiously engaged in your own area of concern. What I am asking is that those of us who do chose to focus on those particular issues not be antagonized by fellow members of the church. Especially when there is scriptural precedent for concern and action over environmental issues, and plenty of overlap in values between environmentalism (values I listed earlier, like frugality and self-sufficiency) and the church. I don’t think changing out your incandescent light bulbs for compact fluorescents is extremist. I don’t think recycling is extremist. I don’t think conserving water, electricity, or gasoline is extremist. Nor do I think they are based on feelings of fear or insecurity when they are in accordance with some of our core values as members of the church.

Each of us has been endowed with our own free agency (as you well know), and the world we create emerges from each of those individual actions. I don’t want to limit the good you do in the world, please don’t try to limit the good I do by saying there’s no point.

Thank you for your last comment, I feel I have a better idea where you’re coming from.

One more point, of general interest, on the rest of the world living up to our standards. As cleaner, lighter-weight substitutes for current technologies are deployed in developing nations, I actually think there is at least a (teensy-weensy) chance that they might do better than us. In the US our switching cost is greater since we are tied to our current infrastructure. It’s possible to envision a near future where currently struggling nations far outstrip us in quality of life while we struggle to catch up. Oh, the irony.

Nofolete: Thank you for your interest in my ideas and concerns. If you (or others) have ever dealt with the “experts” in the medical profession you should understand the importance of a second opinion. The reason for a second opinion is not to see if you can get the same information form a different source – The reason is to get a different view and hopefully different information in order to arrive at a more conclusive result. Alternate opinion is essential to scientific method producing solid scientific results.

An infrared heating source experiment. Try this yourself. Using an infrared heating source experiment – take an object that will adsorb infrared heat (like dirt from the earth’s crust or even some glacier ice – or if you do not have glacier ice try packed snow) and see what happens when it is exposed to a infrared source (you can use a red light like they use at McDonalds to keep your food warm). What happens if you increase the intensity of your heat source? – Easy answer, your ice and dirt will become hotter.

Another experiment. Take hot exhaust from your car (lots of CO) and expose it to cold air. What happens? Does the CO retain heat? It looks to me that CO is as happy to give up heat as other gasses in air.

My understanding => more radiant heat results in increased heat especially at the point (earth surface) where the heat is absorbed.

Second thought. Has earth experience climate change without modern man’s help? Answer = yes. Is climate change (because of man) within the parameters of what happens without man? Answer = yes.

Final thought: I believe there are a lot of bad things we are doing to the environment as humans. What I do not believe is that the current levels of CO or CO2 are the biggest and worse problem. I have listened to the crowd that calls themselves environmentalist. At one time I was even a member of both the Sierra Club and Green Peace. I am convinced that what we are seeing is more the results of politics of power than Science or true care.

Does politics play in science? You better believe it – 50 years ago the scientific community told us that Dinosaurs were cold blooded reptiles. This is because of the opinions of the top experts – not because of science. Anyone with a different opinion was considered “outside” the community of experts.

One short story for those that do not mind. 30 years ago I was part of a group providing information for legislation concerning drug use by minors to the state of Washington. I presented and testified concerning death rates among minors from immediate anaphylactic shock related to tobacco products (not even considering long term effects). There were powers in the legislature that did not like this information. My testimony and statistics were stopped and voted to be removed from proceeding. They no longer existed. It was published that a number of things were agreed to – but missing was the data and information I brought. The public was never informed that the drug tobacco caused more deaths among minors (by anaphylactic shock) within the last year in the state of Washington than was caused by the drug that was being banned for the last 10 years in Washington. It was not about saving the lives of our minors – it was about politics.

There is a principle of Communism that says that if the masses are told something enough times (regardless of its truth or relative truth) they will believe it – not because it is true but because they have heard it so many times. I have yet to see any data – I repeat: any data that indicates CO and CO2 is the cause of global warming and that by reducing CO and CO2 will change the global warming trend. In fact from all that I know H2O (clouds) in the atmosphere has much more of a greenhouse effect but no one will admit that H2O could contribute at all to the problem. Why??? Could it be politics – shame on me for suggesting such a thing.

Jonathan M

dhasterok – thank you!!!! Nice comment with real science.

You guys are awesome. I ♥ scientists.

I have not seen any scientific study that points directly to any hard conclusive data that demonstrate that CO and CO2 are the primary greenhouse gases causing global warming and that by singling out CO and CO2 we can completely eliminate any and all problems associated with global warming. If anyone knows of such a study – please supply the links.

Proof that H2O is the major contributor to global warming and everyone can observe this proof. If we are to visit a desert (low humidity) during the hot summertime we will find the days hot and the nights cool. This is because of the lack of the global warming greenhouse gas H2O. If however we are to visit a tropical area or area of high moisture (high humidity) we will find both hot days and hot nights (less change between day and night). This is because of the presents of the greenhouse gas H2O. I submit this will be experienced even with or without the higher concentrations of CO and CO2 that is making all the fuss.

kristine N: Since you do not like me and my post please read dhasterok’s post #180 since you like him and his posts; that H2O is a greenhouse gas that absorbs infrared radiation. Sorry dhasterok I apologize for my spelling of absorb.

As for Antarctica: it was discovered a few years back that there is a giant volcano (world’s second largest next to Yellowstone) that is active and heating up the area in preparation for an eruption. It is estimated that when it erupts (sometime within the next 500 years – a very short time geologically which means anytime) that it could likely melt enough of the southern polar ice to raise the oceans from 12 to 20 feet. This will cause 80% of the world’s human population to find new homes. It will flood over 90% of the world’s shipping ports, over 90% of the world oil refineries and over half the nuclear facilities. But this would not be a real problem right?? It will also change the salinity of the ocean more that what is claimed in current models of global warming and thus be far more the problem. But who cares??? Global warming with CO and CO2 is much more the “Political” issue. So try to find a link about the volcano in Antarctica – good luck.

I obtained my degree in Math and minor in Physics from Brigham Young University.

Jonathan

I want to say something. As a high school graduate, I’m frustrated by the contradicting assertions of scientists. One “expert” has all kinds of facts and statistics to back up her or his position, which directly contradicts the other “expert’s” position, which is backed up by facts and statistics.

Some people are convinced one way, others, the other. Even if you guys dumbed it down, both arguments are convincing. I have no clue what to believe.

“kristine N: Since you do not like me and my post please read dhasterok’s post #180 since you like him and his posts”

So, is this the bloggernacle equivalent of my favorite schoolyard insult, “well if you like him so much, why don’t you marry him?”

“I have not seen any scientific study that points directly to any hard conclusive data that demonstrate that CO and CO2 are the primary greenhouse gases causing global warming and that by singling out CO and CO2 we can completely eliminate any and all problems associated with global warming. If anyone knows of such a study – please supply the links.”

First of all, I’m not sure why you keep bringing in CO. Nobody is mentioning it as a greenhouse gas except you.

Second, your statement creates an impossibly high bar for evidence. It’s the equivalent of tobacco companies claiming that because not everyone who smokes gets cancer, tobacco isn’t the cause. We have a mechanism for CO2 warming the atmosphere (explained in detail by dhasterok) and we see a very good correlation between temperature and CO2 concentrations over the last 400,000 years (see this figure).

Greenhouse gas
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Greenhouse gases are components of the atmosphere that contribute to the greenhouse effect. Some greenhouse gases occur naturally in the atmosphere, while others result from human activities. Naturally occurring greenhouse gases include water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone.

I just wanted to point out that water vapor is a greenhouse gas – is more abundant in the atmosphere than CO2 and will hold mor heat than CO2 and that both accure naturally – without man

Jonathan

dhasterok: I saw a number of comments concerning modeling earlier in this blog. Quite appropriately someone mentioned the strawman argument using stock forcasting.

Yes. Those would be mine. I’m wondering if you actually read them, or if you only saw them.

dhasterok: Quite appropriately someone mentioned the strawman argument using stock forcasting. This is a very poor comparison with scientific modeling which is based on a set of rigorously determined physical rules which stock forcasting is not.

Two logical flaws in this assertion:

1. You’re begging the question; viz., whether or not there are rigorously determined rules behind long term, parameterized climate models. You can’t just identify a mechanism for CO2 warming the atmosphere in a comparatively closed system, and then extrapolate indefinitely in an open system. Just to start with, it ignores the question of thresholds and diminishing returns as well as emergent dependent and countervailing factors and out-and-out externalities. Moreover, data gathered from historical analysis of CO2 (and other gas) quantities presents additional challenges. It is incumbent on the scientist to demonstrate that (say) data collected for some certain period in which previous warming occurred isn’t merely non-causal epiphenomena.

2. You’re arguing beside the point. I’ve said in an earlier comment that if the notion of stock models makes you uncomfortable, then you’re free to simply substitute the appropriate climatology verbiage in my comment #113. The stock market example is not a strawman, because it demonstrates a very general principle that is not specific to securities markets; viz., that you can only test models by comparing them to data sets that are different from the known data set that they were devised to explain — otherwise you’ve no predictive validity at all, just after-the-fact explanations and auxiliary hypotheses.

I find it fascinating that self-proclaimed scientists are always among the least likely to successfully make or identify generalizations on their own. This principle in my comment #113 was practically a gimme, because I as much as said that it was an instance of a broader problem. I’ll leave aside the fact that you evidently don’t know much about how securities markets work, and I’ll give you a quick tip on how to approach arguments logically: If you’re going to quibble with the application of some general principle to anthropogenic global warming, it won’t due to merely say that it’s different from stock markets (even if I say that they aren’t).

dhasterok: Let me give a simple example. If a weather forecaster says…

Local weather forecasting bears no similarity to long range global climate models. That’s why there’s no plausible climate model that can predict both global warming and the temperature and humidity on (say) July 4th 2010.

The attempts I encounter to prove that climate models are correct remind me of Hegel’s proof that there are only 7 planets. As luck would have it, the 8th planet was discovered just before Hegel’s proof went to press, giving him the opportunity to revise it accordingly (which is, by the way, another instance of reasoning that demonstrates the error outlined in the general principle described in my comment #113).

Have you ever taken the time to compare the claims made by climate models from 10 years ago to the global temperatures today? How many years have such models correctly predicted the global temperature? Is there any model that has been right every year? What do the models predict happening if humans decrease their greenhouse gas emissions and over what span of time? These are the operative questions. Whenever I’ve sought answers to them in the past, I get lengthy, convoluted attempts to explain why the predictive accuracy of the models doesn’t actually matter (only not in so many words). You claim to be studying science in a field related to this. What do you have to say?

Look, it’s nice of you to login to help kristine N and Devyn. It’s obvious that you know a lot of scientific facts and words. But you don’t seem to know a whole heck of a lot about logic or about how science actually works.

Furthermore, nobody here has even tried to refute my statement in comment 111 that “Our cloud microphysics and ice physics are among the worst of those on any habitable planet in the Intergalactic Confederation.”

annegb, We had summers like that in the Washington, DC area when I was growing up. Record setting highs with droughts with low reservoir levels. Since we moved to Boston, the last two years have been the first two where there hasn’t been either record colds or record snow-falls — everyone told me that I moved to Boston at the wrong time, because winters weren’t usually that severe. This winter in Boston, it was in the high sixties in early January, but this February is no different from any other.

We only see a few dozen examples of each season, so it’s not like we actually have a set of anecdotal experiences large enough to make reasonable extrapolations about global or historical weather patterns. Plus, most of the worlds climate systems cover oceans.

Correlation and Causality
You are correct that correlation does not imply causality. However, if it can be shown that there is a physical link between two phenomena, such as CO2 and temperature, then there is a causal relationship. For those that don’t know what the difference is, correlation occurs when two things appear to happen at the same time. For example, I am hungry in the morning. Am I hungry because it is morning? No, but I am hungry because I haven’t eaten in 12 hours. The fact that I am hungry in the morning is a correlation, but not causality. If instead I said that “I am hungry when my blood sugar falls below some given level” and observed that my blood sugar falls when I sleep and rises when I eat, I can demonstrate a relationship between the two. The value of my blood sugar and my physical feelings of hunger are intimately linked. This is the principle of causality. All of the physical relations I will talk about hencefore are causal.

Feedbacks and Forcings
“Diminishing returns”–You must be an economist.

In science we talk about feedbacks and forcings. Forcings are the physical phenomena that drive a system to change and are determined or estimated by experiment. For example, greenhouse warming is a process related to increasing the concentration infra-red absorbing gases (CO2, H2O, CH4, etc.). We can demonstrate in a laboratory that CO2 is a gas that can slow the transmission of heat by absorbing infra-red radiation and therefore slow cooling. Or in the case of the Earth, which is constantly under a heat lamp (i.e. the Sun) that a higher equilibrium temperature will be reached as a result of increased CO2 in the atmosphere. The greenhouse phenomena, including CO2 and all other greenhouse gases, is the most important climate forcing, besides solar input, in the atmosphere.

Feedbacks are processes that occur when you change a particular forcing and can be positive or negative. Suppose the Earth’s glaciers are growing. If you increase the extent of the glaciers, you raise the albedo of the planet and reflect more incoming radiation, thereby cooling the planet. Because the planet has cooled, the glaciers grow larger, which in turn raises the effective albedo some more and the planet cools more… and glaciers grow and the planet cools and… you get the point. This is a negative feedback. The climate system has many of these. Some try to warm and some try to cool, this is what provides some of the “stability” to the system, preventing it from spiraling out of control. Read about the atmosphere of Venus to see what happens in an out of control greenhouse effect.

Climate modelers try to account for as many of those forcings and feedbacks in their models as possible. These are the physical foundations of these models. Next all we need is an initial condition, that is, what are the current levels of these forcings.

Greenhouse gases and Temperature
For the Earth, we can use ice cores to determine the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere at some particular time in the past. These values can be independently verified by looking at carbonates in sea-floor sediments and other proxies. We can also look at the ice cores to estimate past temperatures over long periods of time. From this we see that temperature increases (using oxygen isotopes as a proxy, a rigorously determined and calibrated method) are correlated with CO2 levels. There are many other ways that we can estimate temperature (tree rings, corals, etc.). We can independently measure the temperature by measuring temperature with depth in the ice (or ground) directly and estimate the past climate in a similar way. The idea here is that if you warm the surface of the Earth it will propagate to greater depth with time. The deeper we measure the further back in the past we look. All of the methods I mentioned are independent ways by which we can estimate climate. These physical relationships can then be used to determine the forcings and feedbacks that I talk about above. All the other forcings can be determined in a similar way. Each independent of the other and rigorously determined independent of modeling the climate system.

Economic vs. Climate Models
Economic and climate models are not analogous. Although there are some similarities, climate models are based on physical and chemical laws whereas economic models are often based on neural nets which have no physical basis. Unlike economic models, we are not trying to determine every future fluctuation in a stock price, only characterize the average temperature. We fully realize that the climate system is too complex given our current understanding, not to mention that it is somewhat chaotic and will therefore never be able to characterize it completely. This is why you will not hear a respected modeler attribute any particular weather event to global warming. You also won’t here them attribute the fact that the second warmest year on record was 2005 as related to global warming. However, you will hear them state that the 10 warmest years on record all occur in the last decade, and in fact, the 1990’s were the warmest decade on record prior to the 2000’s, the 1980’s were the warmest on record prior to the 1970’s (See the figure at the bottom of the article). In climate, we are interested with the multi-decadal long trends whereas in economics you are likely more interested in the much shorter time wiggles, which cannot be predicted at all I might add.

In 113 you state that “for any given state of affairs, there are an indefinite number of theoretical explanations that can adequately explain it.” This is true of the climate system as well. However, we can measure the current state of the climate system and most of the variables that go into it. If we have done this correctly, then one can use it as an initial condition from which to begin the model, assuming of course we understand enough of the physics. These models are then tested on existing data (as you state) so that we can gauge how well our model may be working before accepting them as predictive tools.

Now I said we could measure the initial state of the system. We have significant uncertainty in those measurements and the mesurements of the initial forcings and therefore our models are imperfect. So how do we quantify these uncertainties? Since we know the uncertainty we can use Monte Carlo techniques

to try and estimate our uncertanties in the initial state. If our simulation does not fit what we see, then it is tossed and we ignore it because it is inherently broken. If we get a simulation that approximates reality over the training period, then it is a possibility (one of your “indefinite number” above). When we are done, we may have a better estimate of the uncertainty in our initial state and forcings. What we have done is significantly narrowed the field to those which may be possible. If we take each one of the possible simulations and try to predict the future, we can develop a range of possibilities for the future climate. From this ensample of models we have a bounded estimate of future temperatures. Our result could predict cooling just as easily as warming if the initial conditions warranted such, however, they do not.

To generate the models to predict the future climate system, we develop senarios for future forcings such as CO2 increases or stabilization or decrease. They offer us a possible glimpse into the future to what our given our current and future choices will mean. I’ll also point out now that regardless of what we do with our CO2 emissions, the planet will continue to warm based on current models. This is because we have built up that much ‘inertia’ (if you like) into the system.

In 127 you state that “Anaxemander theorized that a force akin to gravity kept the Earth in place and Democritus invented the notion of the atom.” Yes they did, however, I might point out that Democritus did not realize that there were sub-atomic particles that make up the elements which they could not prove existed. And that Anaxemander did not develop a physical model for gravity that could be tested as Newton had. His model was of course derived from observations contrary to what you say… His argument essentially went something like this “If I throw something into the air it always comes down again and never floats into the heavens.” I might also point out that we still don’t really know what causes gravity, only that there is a force we must reckon with.

By the way, there is another explanation for the force associated with gravity. Although I’m still partial to Newton’s formulation.

You also state, “There’s no reason a scientific theory couldn’t originate in a dream…”, which I agree with. Many great and wonderful thoughts can come while sleeping. In fact, I know a scientist (Dr. Emmit Brown) that came up with a vision of a time travel device after he fell and hit his head on a toilet bowl. However, I would change your word from ‘theory’ to ‘hypothesis’ as it must be rigorously tested first.

There is a big difference between natural philosophy (or logical reasoning about observations of nature) and scientific inquiry (testing hypotheses derived from our understanding of the physical laws). Philosophical arguments are concerned only with the why, while scientific arguments are concerned with both the how as well as the why. Good luck trying to come up with a number using philosophy.

Climate models may have a large degree of uncerainty, but they all indicate significant warming for the future, something which should be alarming to most of us. If you don’t believe that we should care then I’ve got two words for you… SEA LEVEL!

You comment that: “you can only test models by comparing them to data sets that are different from the known data set that they were devised to explain.” If you can’t reproduce what you already see, then how can you determine that your model really works? And you claim that I don’t understand science.

nofolete–those are some great observations. We talked about that exact thing last week here in our climate seminar, though we focused on insects (especially butterflies and moths) and, of course, mammals. very timely.

That actually brings up somewhat of a caveat for comments I’ve made (not necessarily here). It’s expected that climate change, especially abrupt climate change, will lead to species turnover (extinction of some species and expansion of others). The probability for extinction is much higher for animals than it is for plants, though it should also be noted the expected “lifetime” of a species (the approximate amount of time that species successfully reproduces) tends to be much lower for animals than plants. So, it’s fairly probable polar bears will go extinct, or hybridize with grizzlies, but it’s likely most plant species (or at least genera) will survive, though in different ranges.

Yep, weed species will do fine.

We have a similar problem with bark beetles in the west that kill pine, fir and spruce trees. Kind of a blight when you hike through a forest of dead trees. Not to mention the fire hazard. In the west it isn’t the cold weather that no longer kills beetles in the winter. That’s what I once thought too, but my biologist friends have informed me that it is because the temperature stays warm long enough for two generations to go through their full life cycle. The trees can withstand one generation a year, but not two. It may actually be the same thing in the east.

how long does it take for you guys to type this stuff up?

anon, I type really fast. That last one took on the order of 25 minutes. I typed it into a text editor and then pasted it into here.

Mike, you’ll have to forgive me for thinking that your comment is pretty lame. Not only does it fail to leave the slightest indication that you understand how science works, but it fails to identify anything I’ve said that justifies your assertions. Let’s look at some of the areas that I’ve addressed in concrete and non-controversial terms:

1. How causation works
2. The pattern known as “diminishing returns”
3. Why some methods of gauging the predictive validity of models are ineffective
4. The notion of questions that are internal and external to a theory
5. The question of what differentiates scientific inquiry from other forms of inquiry

I invite you to take issue with anything that I’ve said in these areas. I also invite you to identify a single “philosophical circle” that I speak in.

Nothing that I’ve had to say about the above issues represents anything original or controversial. In fact, the position that rejects everything I’ve said in this regard would be quite controversial indeed.

It’s awfully easy to just come in and say of someone that they “clearly, CLEARY, do not understand science.” This approach is resembles the approach of Evangilicals who simply dismiss Mormon Bible-based claims by saying, “you clearly, CLEARLY, do not understand the Bible” as though saying it makes it so.

If everything I’ve said is so palpably ridiculous, then show us what you’ve got.

Mike, I don’t know. Give me something tangible I can apply in my life, that’s reasonable and valid.

DKL

You say “In fact, I have no very substantial education background in any field.”–perhaps then you are just hopelessly uninformed and try to use a lot of big words and terms to try and quiet others into submission.

Dimishing returns is an economic principle. In science, when some behavior “plateaus” or “levels-off” it is asymptotic behavior. Although this may be similar to the economic principle on a general level, they mean two different things.

It is unfortunate that your example, feeding coins to a payphone, to dispute my knowledge of causality is in fact a causal relationship. You said that you first have to assume that there is a system of currency and networks. And I’ll tell you that there is, and similarly in physics there is a system which approximates the mathematical box we have tried to fit within it. You may be right that putting in two quarters does not make it ready for two calls. But the system works on a well defined rule. If you give a payphone coins (not pennies) worth above a threshold, that being a $0.25 (I believe the actual going rate for most is now $0.50 or two quarters), you will be able to place a call. Placing the coins into the phone triggers responses that sorts them, counts them and perhaps many other actions. But there is a causal relationship that exists between placing money in a payphone and the ability to make a call, nevermind that there are 12 steps inbetween or that there may be other rules that allow you to make calls.

An aside from PG…
The “baseline conditions” argument for a causality issue is equivalent to noting that any causal link is assumed to take place within a system. That is, any casual relation that is derived, hypothesized, or guessed, must take place within a defined (perhaps implicitly, like with the payphone example) framework that includes all the relevant parts and exchanges. Note that there are cases where something is studied as an “open” system, which means that we have explicitly CHOSEN not to include all exchanges or parts, BECAUSE WE GET A USEFUL RESULT WITHOUT THEM. “Closed” systems include all relevant exchanges and parts, and are more commonly used. The Earth, in reality and in climate models, is a closed system if we account for solar irradiation and black-body radiation away from the planet (cosmic rays and the solar wind do not contribute significantly to the energy or matter budget to the planet, pretty though they are).
End Aside.

You state “philosophical arguments are not concerned with ‘the why.’”

Do you remember the famous final exam question and only response worthy of an ‘A’? Q. Why? A. Why not?

A ‘why’ question is one that seeks to find the underlying reason some phenomena happens. ‘How’ questions are ones that ask by what means some phenomena happens.

Many of your arguments stem from philosophy. Which I might add is not science. They operate on many difference premises. Philosophy works on the foundation that anything may be described using logical arguments derived from the mind. Following logical arguments occasionally leads one to the wrong conclusion, or may result in the correct conclusion from provably false assumptions (see Kepler’s proof of elliptical orbits).

As a simple example I will take the powers of zero (I first came across this in R. Kaplan’s book “The Nothing that is”). Lets try to use logic and the properties of exponents to decide the answer. If I take a number, lets say ‘5′, and raise it to the first power (5^1), I get the result 5. If I were to now do 5^2, I get 5*5 or 25. If I wanted to do 5^7 then I would have 5*5*5*5*5*5*5. So you see that when you raise a number to an exponent, then it is that number multiplied that many times, but what about 5^0. Ok, so now we need to figure out what a number raised to zero means. So lets look at negative exponents. 5^-1, which we all know means 1/5 and likewise 5^-2 is 1/(5*5) or 1/25, and we can show that a number ‘a’ to a negative power ‘-n’ is 1/a^n. So how does this help us solve 5^0? If we divide 5^4/5^2 this is 5*5*5*5/(5*5), which I am sure you will agree is 5*5. So, 5^4/5^2 = 5^2. If we then have 5^2/5^2, which is the same as 5^0 (since we can subtract the exponents) and 5^2/5^2 = 1 so must 5^0. So any number a^0 must be 1. Therefore if we extend our rule to 0, 0^0 should be 1.

So let us take another try at finding out what 0^0 is. This time lets use fractional exponents. We’ve shown that 5^2 = 5*5, then what is 5^0.5? Well we know that it is the root of a number. 5^0.5 = 2.236 and if we do it again, 5^0.333 = 1.709. So lets do the same thing with 0. 0^2 = 0, 0^1 = 0, 0^0.5 = 0… as we keep doing this, logic dictates that the answer to 0^0 should be 0.

Great, so using perfectly logical approaches to find 0 in two different ways we have shown that 0^0 is both 1 and 0. So again logic must dictate a paradox in our math system that 0 = 1. Do you follow? That’s a real problem in standard algebras (turns out the answer is 1). If that was confusing, then try to figure out what should 0/0 be?

What is described above is a philosophical argument, but not science.

The Quine-Duhem thesis that you seem so fond of may state that there are an indefinite number of possible explanations to describe an observation, but in science we can often place constraints on which are likely. All evidence supporting theories are inherently undetermined, which is why we spend so much time trying to disprove them. If they survive the test, then they get promoted to the next level and are attacked once again. The more theories we can show are false, the smaller our field of possible theories become. No theory can be entirely proven, only falsified. This is the basis of scientific philosophy today (see below about Goedel). Despite the fact that multiple theories may remain that describe a given phenomena, we need some other measure of discrimination. Although it is not really based in logic, we use Occam’s razor, that the simplist explanation is the best, to select what we feel is the most likely.

Since you like philosophy so much, I’ll bring up another philosophical point, one which bridges the gap between science (I’m using the term loosly here since I am including mathematics as a science) and philosophy. Goedel’s incompleteness theorems, of which there are two, state:

1. For any consistent formal theory that proves basic arithmetical truths, an arithmetical statement that is true but not provable in the theory can be constructed. That is, any theory capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete.

and

2. For any formal theory T including basic arithmetical truths and also certain truths about formal provability, T includes a statement of its own consistency if and only if T is inconsistent.

So what do these mean? Well, I think that they are pretty plain when translated from German into English: any formal system that has a set of formal rules is incomplete and self-consistent (which is the math we use for science) or complete and inconsistent (that is, one fundamental rule can contradict another). Which means that there are things that cannot be proven with math. Physics is derived from math and therefore must be incomplete (from 1) or inconsistent (from 2). We (scientists in general) choose the former. So we can’t prove everything with math. Does this mean that we can’t say anything about our natural world? No. In fact we can still say a great deal about our natural world and I’m probably not articulate enough to make an argument why.

“Science doesn’t care what you already see. In fact, science is often successful at showing that what you think you see is wrong.”

To the contrary, science most certainly does care about what we see, and how it happens. If science shows that what we think we see is wrong, then we saw the wrong thing in the first place and identified our error by a set of new (correct!) observations. The new hypothesis is then advanced which describes what we (now) see. See how circular this is. If we observe something, we develop a hypothesis and test it; if we find that we were wrong (from a new set of tests), we modify the hypothesis or come up with a new one. When we are satisfied that we are very close, we call it a theory. We then modify the theory as needed. If the theory gets too many modifications, then we toss it and go back to the drawing board. All tested by observations–what we see.

There are many philosophical texts and hypotheses regarding science, and we both have mentioned a few. Although each may have a grain of truth to them, they do not and cannot encompass the full flavor of science and how it is done or what it seeks to discover. Using them as arguments to refute global warming is no more than jaw flapping that doesn’t address the issues at hand. Try and be more scientific in your approach if you wish to say that global climate models are wrong.

Now I’ll address what you pass-off as scientific arguements…

“dhasterok: Our result could predict cooling just as easily as warming if the initial conditions warranted such, however, they do not.

This is not a surprising result. It likely originates in inescapable bias created by the fact that we know much, much more about the mechanisms by which the Earth is warmed than those mechanisms by which it is cooled.” [Note that I capitalized Earth in the above sentence; see my previous posts for why.]

Not true in the least; we know a great deal about first and second order (and possibly some third order) mechanisms by which the Earth warms and cools. You are assuming that because we think the Earth is warming we understand more about warming mechanisms. However, a great deal of research has gone into understanding the “Snowball Earth”; a case in which the Earth was once a solid popsicle of ice, how it happened and how the planet could get out of such a situation. Likewise, a great amount of effort has gone into understanding what mechanisms cool the planet in order to try and find a viable solution to cool the planet ourselves and reverse the global warming trend.

I agree that if you develop a model from data sets A and B and then use the theory to describe A and/or B that the argument is circular and thus pointless. However, with regards to the climate system, the physics is determined independently of the climate system. We can then use our understanding of the physics and chemistry to make climate models. Then all that is left is finding the initial condition of our system and determining the appropriate initial magnitudes and/or patterns of forcings. These are then input into the models. This is not circular at all. If you think it is circular, then you are missing something and perhaps should go read about how this works before you come back and make more asinine claims.

Modern Global Circulation Models (GCMs), as well as regional climate models, are developed from the basic physics, using the finest discretizations we can while keeping compute times to months rather than centuries. The GCMs are “spun up” from an arbitrary initial state for several centuries (to stabilize the grids) until the beginning of the high-resolution climate records (typically ~1500 AD). The next 300-500 years are used for “training” – we tweak the initial state, feedback magnifications, and forcing sensitivities to match the period from 1500-1800 (possibly longer) on a global (or regional) scale. The remaining time to the present is used to check the extrapolation of the model into the future, by comparing the model “instrumental” record with the real instrumental record; good coverage of global temperature, precipitation, etc. is only available from ~1870 forward, with the modern surface coverage starting in the 1940s. Assuming the model run produces a close match to the global/regional climate seen in the instrumental record, the run is continued into the future with assumed forcing changes (”business as usual” CO2 growth, no CO2 growth, solar output variations, etc.). A large ensemble of such runs (with different initial conditions, sensitivities, etc.) then provide an ensemble of the likely (not guaranteed) future history of the Earth’s climate. This is an expansion of what I said in a previous post.

You are assuming that you understand the science and how it is performed whereas in fact you seem to know very little about it from what you have written. Or perhaps if you think we all do it incorrectly based on a philosophical basis, then why don’t you try and do some of the research yourself and then tell us what we ‘really’ know.

dhasterok: perhaps then you are just hopelessly uninformed and try to use a lot of big words and terms to try and quiet others into submission.

Indeed. I am, at any rate, smarter than you, so I’d be very careful before I pushed this point very far.

dhasterok: Dimishing returns is an economic principle. In science, when some behavior “plateaus” or “levels-off” it is asymptotic behavior. Although this may be similar to the economic principle on a general level, they mean two different things.

Diminishing returns is a mathematical pattern that (a) occurs in nature, and (b) is not equivilent to a plateau or a leveling-off. You either did not read what I wrote about it or you did not comprehend it. The pattern that I describe advances and then retreats. It does not approach a limit asymptotically. The question of whether this pattern has any application within economics is altogether irrelevant.

One very irritating thing about economists is their tendency to claim that something is economics just because it fits this pattern. Explain how taking heat from water to make it more dense reaches diminishing returns as it approaches 39 degrees and then begins expanding again. Many economists will say that hydrogen bonds are responding to economic laws — as though the fact that they discovered the pattern means that everything that it describes falls within their field of study. Event the Wikipedia article you link to uses an example from nature; viz., the seed example.

This fits this pattern that I see more generally in your comments: You don’t know a lot about diminishing returns, but you sense a chance to correct me. So you rush into it, making several barely informed assertions. In this case, it’s especially tedious, because diminishing returns has nothing really to do with this.

dhasterok: It is unfortunate that your example, feeding coins to a payphone, to dispute my knowledge of causality is in fact a causal relationship.

Since it was my express intent for this to be an example of an actual causal relationship, I’m puzzled that you’d say it’s unfortunate that it actually is an example of a causal relationship. Again, you either failed to read what I wrote, or you failed to grasp it.

It’s actually pretty obvious from your response that neither you nor PG understands causation, and your both simply grasping at known properties of science to try to explain it. What makes this obvious is how totally irrelevant the factors are that you mention.

For example, you do not understand how baseline conditions work. There’s more to the baseline condition than the system or framework that it occurs in. There are contingencies that must be satisfied within the system for the cause to carry through. For example, with respect to a phone, the system must be reasonably free from certain types of glitches at the moment that I insert the coin; e.g., a nearby utility crew might accidentally cut the line or there may be a scheduled outage, and all of this occurs within the framework of a functioning system.

Furthermore, the question of which system you place the payphone into (e.g., a 50 cent vs a 25 cent system or one in which you can make multiple phone calls off of multiple initial insertions) creates a multiplicity of causes. The chess explanation example from my earlier comment can be recycled to show this. What “causes” the computer to make a certain move will be determined by the framework in which the cause is described. This is, in fact, the primary argument against what is known as “modal realism,” which is the fancy term for the idea that causes are actually real.

I don’t know who PG is, but she, too, is wide of the mark. My point about causation does not depend on the distinction betwen open and closed systems. Nor does it have anything to do with the fact that science makes progress by separating salient from non-salient factors. As identified above, there are always contingencies within the system. Plus, the decision of which system to apply determines the nature of the resulting causes every bit as much as the causes themselves.

dhasterok: Many of your arguments stem from philosophy. Which I might add is not science.

This discussion would be more productive if you spent less time criticizing whatever field of interest you’ve lately guessed that I’m attracted to, and more time actually answering my arguments.

Regarding “why” questions on final exams, you should pay more attention to philosophy and less attention to urban legends.

The zero-power issue is old news. If you believe that there aren’t mutually exclusive problem-solving theories that cover overlapping areas both inside and outside of science, than you are ignorant indeed.

There are several answers to 0/0. The systems I work in generally call it NaN. Again: old news.

dhasterok: What is described above is a philosophical argument, but not science.

So what’s your point?

dhasterok: The more theories we can show are false, the smaller our field of possible theories become. No theory can be entirely proven, only falsified.

I’ve been complaining all along about the flawed Baconian model of science, and you come to me with falsification as though it’s news? Either you just learned about it today, or you haven’t been reading very carefully (or both). In any case, this is the first accurate and to-the-point thing that you’ve said about science so far in this exchange — and it supports the point that I made in comment 113. Even so, you’re wrong on a few of the details. Specifically, theories never get “promoted.” After they’ve survived enough attempts at being eliminated, the fact that there are an indefinite number of other theories with the same result becomes irrelevant. At that point, the cost involved in ferreting them out becomes prohibitive; entrenchment has real economic value, and a theory in the hand is worth two in the bush.

dhasterok: I’ll bring up another philosophical point, one which bridges the gap between science (I’m using the term loosly here since I am including mathematics as a science) and philosophy. Goedel’s incompleteness theorems

Nelson Goodman was able to show that it only arises in systems that use discrete numbers as primitives. Furthermore, if you eliminate the set theoretical requirement for some sets to have infinite numbers of members, then you also eliminate Goedel’s theorems, albeit at some cost to mathematical effectiveness.

dhastorek: So what do these mean? Well, I think that they are pretty plain when translated from German into English: any formal system that has a set of formal rules is incomplete and self-consistent (which is the math we use for science) or complete and inconsistent (that is, one fundamental rule can contradict another).

Wrong again. Your statement here indicates that you don’t understand what constitutes a formal system and what it requires in order to do elementary arithmetic. Quantificational logic systems are exceptionally complex formal systems that can be proven to be both complete and consistent. Introducing set theory (with infinite sets and discrete members) is what upsets the Goedel wagon.

Furthermore, Geodel’s theorems only apply to formal systems. Many of science’s conclusions do rely on formal systems, but science itself is not a formal system.

In any case, aside from the fact that your mastery of Goedel’s theorems is less than impressive, this discussion of Goedel’s theorems is pointless. If someone points out an out-and-out contradiction in a mathematical proof, it won’t do to say, “Ah, but you forget about Goedel’s theorems!” Nobody justifies actual contradictions by referring to Goedel’s theorems.

dhastorek: To the contrary, science most certainly does care about what we see, and how it happens.

Wrong again. You’re saying that because the experimental method requires subjective perception to judge the outcome, and because science cares about the outcome, then science cares what you see. That’s simply a non-sequitor.

dhastorek: However, with regards to the climate system, the physics is determined independently of the climate system. We can then use our understanding of the physics and chemistry to make climate models.

The physics and the chemistry do not determine the makeup or the reliability of the models. They are mere components, and trying to reason from the properties of the components of a system to the properties of the system itself is a form of fallacious reasoning called “the fallacy of composition.”

Regarding the construction of GCMs, that may be a fine way to disqualify models to measure against future results to determine their predictive accuracy. But that method only makes predictive accuracy possible — not likely as you assert — for exactly the reasons I describe in comment 113. And you offer no explanation why the approach you describe should be exempted from those reasons. Is it that you believe that the exemption is self-evident? (Coincidentally, the way that you describe the construction of GCMs is identical to the way that most securities market models are put together.)

You still haven’t answered any of the questions I put forth about identifying specific models that have proven accurate.

I could go on and on, and I have, but close to half of what you’ve written has been given over to irrelevant ramblings disparaging some supposed area of intellectual interest of mine. The rest has been replete with rather obvious fallacies and logical errors (as I’ve pointed out repeatedly) and patent demonstrations that you lack a sufficient background to make educated conversation about the topics that have arisen; you don’t have a strong grasp of causation, philosophy, math, Geodel’s theorem, or even science itself. Given this, its astonishing how shrill you’re willing to get about who knows what as well as how eager you are to take strong stances when you lack the knowledge to back it up or even discuss the topic very clearly. There have been a few commonplace scientific principles that you seem to have a grasp on (like open vs. close systems and science as a simplifier), but even these you mis-apply.

I’ve not been following the thread. But I’d intended to write a post on the Quine-Duhem thesis. It’ll hopefully come out later tonight at my blog – so stay tuned.

But I’d disagree with DKL that the Quine-Duhem thesis is conventional wisdom. While I think most are sympathetic to the general problem, the way it is framed is just too radical and universal. A few notes. Duhem’s thesis was limited to physics only and not science in general or logic in general. It’s much more defensible although it has one or two problems. Quine, of course, was defending a general logical assertion. However it is very problematic since it either follows trivially from holism (and thus doesn’t assert much), ignores the ability of induction or other non-deductive rationality to choose between alternative (i.e. ends up being not much different than Hume’s thesis), or else assumes that all ideas are so related they can’t be separated in any way.

As I said, I’m actually very sympathetic to the general idea. (Although I find a more useful approach comes from semiotics ala Derrida’s critique which is remarkably similar to Quine) But in practice it doesn’t quite have the far ranging implications some broach for it.

Clark, you should read Lauden on the topic.

dhasterok: You really are the pompous jack@$$

If this is news to you, then you need to get out more. Even so, it strikes me as curious that you find me to be “hopelessly uninformed,” yet you’re upset that I claim to be smarter than you.

dhasterok: You state “Diminishing returns is a mathematical pattern that (a) occurs in nature.” Please provide me a reference to this.

First of all, this question illustrates of one of the problems of this discussion; viz., you respond to arguments that you don’t bother to read. As I already stated: The Wikipedia article itself uses an example from nature. Specifically, it’s describing the ratio of sewn-seeds to resulting plant-product. You measure the seed and you plant it. You harvest the plant and you measure the harvest. Neither of these is an economic process. The question of the economic value of the seeds or the harvest on the open market is altogether logically independent of this.

Furthermore, I provided the example relating to water density. Where there are ready examples that we both agree on, there’s no point in making appeals to authority.

The Wikipedia definition is very obviously incorrect. Diminishing Returns eventually leads to diminishing overall returns — not merely a diminution of additional returns, and this diminishing overall return entails a falling off from a peek. Thus, when you dump too much seed on a field, you don’t simply get fewer plants for each additional seed. At some point, you actually get fewer total plants.

This is so obvious that it hardly requires a citation. However, I’m nothing if not accommodating (I’m still responding, aren’t I?). A quick google turns up “The Columbia Encyclopedia (”diminishing returns, law of.” The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001–04. http://www.bartleby.com/65/), a real encyclopedia:

in economics, law stating that if one factor of production is increased while the others remain constant, the overall returns will relatively decrease after a certain point.

What is actually identified as “the point of diminishing returns,” (or the point at which the diminishing return trend begins) is the first threshold that I identify (where each additional element contributes less to the overall result than the previous element) and not to the second threshold (where each additional element begins to detract larger and larger amounts from the overall result). This may lead to some confusion concerning the nature of diminishing returns itself. Nevertheless, it is a dual threshold pattern.

For example, check out the article on diminishing returns at Chris Rodda’s Economics for International Students site. It actually graphs a diminishing returns function, and (as you will see) it does not resemble asymptotic functions, because it retreats from its peek (as is shown be the fall of the line measuring TPP in the first graph on that page).

The fact that this occurs in nature is proof that it is not limited to the realm of economics. As I’ve mentioned repeatedly, it is a pattern that can even be shown to exist in water, which is not governed by any principle of production at all.

When you think about it, it’s rather strange that economists seem to think they have a monopoly on this pattern.

A key problem here, though, is that you don’t tend to think about things. Given how little I know about economics, it strikes me as self-defeating that you’ve set yourself up to be on the losing side of an argument with me about economics, and that you continue to pursue it when it has nothing to do with the other issues at hand. Nevertheless, I have an inkling that, in spite of all this, you’ll continue to attempt to salvage your position.

dhasterok: If for some reason there is another variable that has greater influence, that prevents something to happen, the causal relationship between placing coins in a payphone and the ability to place a call is not invalidated.

This is completely beside the point, because I’m not claiming that the cause is “invalidated.” (I don’t even know what that would mean.) I’ll say it again, in hopes that this time you’ll read it: There must be some baseline set of conditions in place in order for a factor to function as a cause. The gun won’t fire unless its loaded. The (corded) phone won’t give you a dial tone unless its plugged in. Pavlov’s famous dog won’t salivate if you ring the bell in a vacuum. Causal relationships are defined in terms of these types of baselines (whether implicitly or explicitly), and there’s no sense in which the cause is “invalidated” when the set of baseline conditions fails to occur. Again, you’re just grasping at straws regarding causation.

Moreover, you fail to address my point about the system or framework determining the possible causes of an event.

dhasterok: Your statement “There are several answers to 0/0. The systems I work in generally call it NaN. Again: old news.” is unfortunately false. In standard algebra, there is only one answer to 0/0, the undefined as pointed out. The multiple answers are only paradoxes that arise from tacking different approaches to finding an answer, but not the correct one, much like my powers of zero example. Hence, using logic alone you cannot always reason the correct result.

I fail to see how pointing out that there is another answer to 0/0 besides NaN contradicts my point that there are multiple ways to solve 0/0.

The multiple answers are not paradoxes, because they exist within mutually exclusive formal systems. As you pointed out, systems (scientific or otherwise) simplify, and not all simplifications are suitable for all types of problems. Hence the need for different approaches which will inevitably yield different results. The numbers in the systems I use are defined by international standards; viz., the cluster of standards surrounding IEEE 754. By these standards, 0/0 = NaN. These standards were not created because of paradoxes; they were created because standard algebra is inadequate for the task.

It’s quite obvious that you haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re talking about here with regard to mathematical systems, or even formal systems in general.

dhasterok: No one has to do so as once an out-an-out contradition occurs, then we all remember that inconsistent systems are complete, and because we pefer self-consistency over completeness, we look for a new set of theorems, one which is self-consistent

This makes no sense at all. Because Geodel’s theorems do not say that a system cannot be both incomplete and inconsistent at the same time, the existence of a contradiction within a system doesn’t imply anything substantial regarding the system’s completeness.

Besides, you’re missing the point. Science is not a formal system. Geodel’s theorem has nothing directly to do with it.

dhasterok: There is no current set of provable physical laws in the securities market.

Listening to you, one might think that investing was equivalent to playing the Lottery. But there’s a reason why insider trading and price fixing are illegal — they work.

I’m glad that you’ve decided to stop disparaging my possible avenues of intellectual interest, but your still fluttering from point to point trying to find areas where you can show that I’m wrong, and you come up dry every time. At this point, we’re not even talking about science anymore, were just trudging through the remaining topics where you think there’s some hope you might appear to be correct. It’s a bit embarrassing to read the mess that you make of such areas as Geodel’s theorem, securities markets, and simple mathematical theory (just to name a few). As ignorant and unschooled as I am, it’s astonishing that you’ve yet to find an argumentative point on which you actually know more than me. You continue to (a) grasp helplessly at principles that you do understand but which are utterly irrelevant, or (b) try to put forth new ideas based on what you read in Wikipedia. I don’t understand why you would think that this is a constructive approach to arguing.

To add, some of Laudan’s reformulations of the D-Q thesis are interesting. I just realized you wrote Lauden and not Laudan (as did I initially). Are we speaking of the same guy? Larry Laudan has a fairly well respected paper, “Demystifying Underdetermination,” which is about the D-Q thesis. He also deals with Gillies’ attempt to reformulate it. Laudan notes, which I think is correct, that the D-Q thesis as used is often problematic because it is so equivocal. Folks use it in a vague and often inconsistent fashion. (Kind of like paradigms by Kuhn and people referring to Kuhn – something Kuhn himself noted in his later works) I should add that Laudan deals well with Kuhn’s use of the underdetermination thesis as well.

“Economic models (including the currency exchange models brought up by DKL) ARE
NOT SCIENTIFIC MODELS. They are based on math, but not physical laws, as
economics (including any and all markets) has no physical laws. Economics is
a purely invented realm that emerges from the numerous interactions of
semi-rational, partly-logical, poorly-informed actors called people with
stuff.”

I don’t want to derail this into a discussion of philosophy of science. I recognize that’s rather irrelevant to whether global warming can be verified scientifically. (I think it has, at this stage, been overwhelmingly verified)

However I’d just note that a scientific model need not entail an universal physical law. Indeed typically they don’t. Further one could point to thermodynamics and say nearly everything you said about economics. For instance is the ideal gas law anything other than a made up realm? Nothing actually behaves that way. Why is it bad in economics but good in physics?

There’s definitely a double standard at work. Now I think there are some great places to criticize the social sciences if one is going to narrow the nature of science down. (As physicists are sometimes want to do) However I think that gets at more the ontology of the ultimate substances – i.e. what is a mathematical artifact versus what is real. Of course that sort of critique presumes one verges towards scientific realism rather than empiricsm or instrumentalism.

DKL: Generalizations that can be refuted by critical examination are scientific generalizations, but they needn’t be based on observing past behavior and they needn’t be liable to predictive validity.

Um, I’d just like to point out that scientific theories are based on observations that really do kinda qualify as “past behavior.” If a model isn’t predictive it tends to be thrown out in favor of better descriptions of the system.

You ask a fair question when you ask if climate models from a decade or so ago accurately predicted the warming we’ve seen. The answer to that is, yes. The warming we see today is well within the envelope of warming predicted in the late 80’s and early 90’s. In fact, it’s reasonably in line with the first climate model that Arrhenius produced more than a century ago. The signal at this point is very small (less than a degree C), but it is more than likely over the next decade or so we will see much more of a signal from anthropogenic greenhouse gases.

Clark, I appreciate you agreeing that global warming is a given. I’m going to quibble with you about the comparison between thermodynamics and economics. Thermo is an approximation (thus the ideal gas law) and it works over appropriate scales. In fact, the ideal gas law works really well for ideal gases, like helium and the other noble gases that don’t interact with each other. It’s even a reasonable approximation for molecules like water and CO2, that do interact with each other in the gas phase. There is a physical reality behind the ideal gas law (determined by the kinetic energy of particles in the gas phase and their interaction with each other) and that reality would be the same if we were on Jupiter, Alpha Centauri, or anyplace in this universe.

I doubt you could truly say the same thing about economics. In fact, I certainly hope you can’t! I would hate to think that the economy of heaven will be the same one that rules our fallen world here.

Dear sirs,

In regards to the definition of diminishing returns, please decide which definition you would like to use. All three you have brought up so far include the asymptotic behavior, but only yours and Sowell’s requires the overall reduction of production. The other two you cited do not, although their examples show overall reduction for illustration of a possibility. I personally prefer definitions which ignore the behavior after the “inflection” point, as it makes the concept more general. I assume you prefer yours for your own reasons.

In regards to the definition of causes: I see we (DKL and I) agree, but I am interested to know why DKL uses the terminology “baseline conditions”; in the scientific world I come from, these have a very different meaning of the initial state of a system, which is not at all related to causality. Is this definition from philosophy?

In regards to Clark’s comments on models: I am curious to hear which scientific models do not entail physical laws? All those I can think of, or have dealth with, are based on computing the evolution of a system due to the laws of physics. Arguably, automata-based systems do not “follow” the laws of physics, but that is a difference of algorithm not intent.

There is not a double standard; if we can derive/define a universal, invariant law of economics that is correct everwhere for all times, then an economic model would be just as good as a scientific one. The problem is not the models, or the math used to build the models, but the underlying systems that the models are attempting to capture.

I pointed out the difference between economic models (which are attempting to capture a system without fixed rules) and scientific models (which are attempting to capture a system with fixed rules), because they illustrate the two end members of modeled phenomena. The contrast between the underlying rules of the systems is the important fact here, and I spent time on them in my first post to try to illuminate the differences. Note that economic models, including securities exchanges, model markets of any type, regardless of who builds or runs the model, and that these markets do not behave according to any known fixed rules. By the same idea, the vast majority of scientific models are built by average people to handle daily life, even though they are not officially called scientists, and they are successful because the physical world does have fixed rules.

Note that there still appears to be a misunderstanding of the need to train models. Part of this could be from terminology: scientific models are not “trained”. They are run forward from an initial state (baseline conditions), evolving according to the specified physics. When we speak of climate model training, what we are actually talking about is the use of a known instrumental record to check the simulation state over time. If the simulation doesn’t match the instrumental record, we change the baseline conditions or the sensitivity of a feedback, not the physics. Proxy, economic, and other transfer-function based models change the rules (physics) of the model to match the training data, as we do not have a set of invariant rules to follow. There are models in science that follow this pattern, and they are used for interpolation only due to the danger of extrapolation; anyone who does curve fitting without an a priori knowledge of the curve form should never extrapolate based on that fit!

Since climate and other complex systems are non-linear and demonstrate emergent behavior, we cannot predict the exact future state of the system with perfect accuracy (see previous post for why). But, we can predict the range of possible states, and their probabilities by combining a large number of simulations to map the possible phase space of the future state of the system. This is exactly equivalent to the inability to express the exact position of an electron, but the ability to state the probabilty density function of the electron’s position with great accuracy; proof of our ability to use statistics to handle this complexity is that we are using computers to chat about this.

So, if one chooses to disregard the difference between systems without time-varying rules (i.e. physics) and those with (i.e. economics), then there is no difference between a climate simulation and a securities model, and their results are of equally tiny value (models which cannot be used for extrapolation are nearly worthless). However, the history of technology shows that there is a difference, and that difference can be exploited to produce models which can predict, with arbitrary precision (given sufficient computing resources and measurements of the baseline conditions) the future evolution of a deterministic system. Since climate (not weather) can be made a deterministic system, we win.

Off to my real job….

“In any case, the way that I’ve used QD here (to show why after-the-fact explanations do not count as evidence of predictive validity) is entirely consistent with an appropriate usage.”

Certainly Laudan would agree with you. I’m not sure I buy his Popperian approach though. But clearly Quine’s assertion that empirical adequacy entails equal support is incorrect, if only because we consider predictive validity more valuable – and thus a second theory that explains the same evidence oddly has less support. I say oddly because there seems to me to be something wrong about reasoning in that fashion – one reason I’m a bit distrustful of Bayesian methods in epistemology.

As I said though, I don’t want to derail the discussion.

Kristine: I’m going to quibble with you about the comparison between thermodynamics and economics. Thermo is an approximation

But the selfish actor within economics isn’t an approximation? The problem with what you say is that these things are developed different from what you assume. Further the whole point of any approximation is that it is now dealing with an imaginary realm. This was one of the points Durhem made about Newton’s claim to have developed his models from Kepler’s. The problem is that if Newton’s laws are true then the solar system is a multibodied problem and Kepler’s laws are wrong. We can say they are an approximation but then they are in some ideal land and not reality.

The double standard is that some scientists allow “fictional realms” in their own discipline and call it “approximations” but when scientists in other fields do exactly the same thing it is something else: usually described disparagingly.

Now it can’t simply be that say physicists have the right models and thus we know these others are approximations to the right answers. Since typically the “approximations” come first and are treated as scientifically valid and only later, as a better description comes, are they then relegated to “approximate” status. So why is the economic view with some assumptions about actors wrong?

There really does appear to be a double standard.

PGGettings: In regards to the definition of diminishing returns, please decide which definition you would like to use.

Don’t pretend that I’m all over the map here. I’ve stuck to one definition, and one interpretation of the verbiage used by others. Sowell is simply more direct than they are. Besides, my only point was that the curve that I describe in my definition is not asymptotic. I brought this up merely to respond to one of dhasterok’s ignorant “In science, it’s called a…” assertions. I’ve stated over and over again that it just doesn’t have any relevance to the argument.

PGGettings: In regards to the definition of causes: I see we (DKL and I) agree, but I am interested to know why DKL uses the terminology “baseline conditions”; in the scientific world I come from, these have a very different meaning of the initial state of a system, which is not at all related to causality.

I’m not sure in what sense we agree. I use the term “baseline conditions” because it’s descriptive, and because it is not necessarily the initial state of the system, and therefore not identical with the term “initial state.”

PGGettings: Is this definition [of a cause] from philosophy?

It’s from my head. I just made it up as I typed it. It reflects my understanding of how causes work, and it ranks among those very elementary pieces of information that I’ve known long enough that I’ve forgotten exactly where I learned it or even if I learned it all in one place.

I should inform you that I write pretty much all of my comments on blogs this way — from the top of my head, though I often have a vague recollection of sources (as I demonstrated by locating the Sowell definition of diminishing returns) and I very occasionally will remember exactly where something comes from. I make no pretense at all to performing research before I comment — in fact, I generally disavow it, because I want the exchange to be as conversation-like as possible.

PGGettings: Proxy, economic, and other transfer-function based models change the rules (physics) of the model to match the training data, as we do not have a set of invariant rules to follow.

I’m done arguing with you over whether market models are models from economics. If you want to get your stock purchasing advice from an economist, feel free.

At any rate, you still don’t understand how securities market models work. I can best illustrate this by constructing a simple securities market model for you illumination (again, off the top of my head — honest, you can’t google this crap). For securities markets governing immediate purchases, you want to buy when the market goes up, and sell when it goes down. This is true simply by virtue of how the market is set up. There are guaranteed ways to anticipate gains and losses in security markets, and these are made illegal by copious laws and regulations.

On to the model: Say we call the price of a security that we wish to buy x. We can say that when x reaches x + y, we buy. Once we own it, we sell it when it declines by z, regardless of the amount of time that has passed. This is simple enough that you can program it into a spreadsheet. If you get the high/low/close data for one year of a given securities item (be it a stock or a foreign currency or a commodity future), you can see how well you will have done. x will be the originating price of the security. You train it to figure out a roughly optimal point for y and z (generally, they’ll be equal), because you’ll want to optimize the profitability per trade in order to offset the cost of trading (which can, of course, be represented within the model; I’ve left it out here for simplicity). If you figure out the reasonable number of price units that y and z should represent, and you implement this model across enough securities (e.g., at least 12 or 15), then approximately 60% of your trades will be profitable over a large enough set of trades. Go ahead and try it for yourself.

As I’ve asserted repeatedly — this has nothing to do with free agency or human choice. Plus, there is no time variance here at all.

In any case, as I’ve stated repeatedly, this is all beside the point. If the physics models worked as you described with regard to climates, then we’d only ever need one climate model, and then the question would be settled. The truth is, we don’t know which physics rules have which impact on the problem, and we’re throwing together rules and adjusting how they interact in the exact fashion that you accuse economic models of doing. In other words, the question needn’t be the underlying physics, but the relative significance of each physical rule being accounted for.

I still think that you’ve failed to demonstrate an adequate grasp on the issues at hand.

“the thing is, approximating all people as selfish actors is a bad approximation”

I disagree. Indeed what is so amazing about economics is despite what I take to be some highly questionable assumptions they actually have a lot of predictive power. Further I don’t think they are much worse than many predictions in physics over the centuries.

The fact you can’t get too specific about the predictions of economics isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. Complaining about that is akin to complaining that Newton’s laws don’t work for subatomic particles or that simplified fluid dynamics can’t explain turbulence. Lots of physical “laws” in physics only work for simple non-chaotic systems. Heaven knows I’ve done enough fluid dynamics and plasma dynamics to see where that’s true.

The trick is simply to know (and test) the bounds of your model.

Note that I do agree with you vis a vis DKL and the predictive power of models. The fact neither economic nor climate models can predict everything says little about what they can predict. Ditto, again, for my fluid dynamic and plasma models.

This is a common objection, but a flawed one. Although I do tend to think it was much truer of many climate models back in the 90’s when I was still a global warming doubter. However I think the science progressed to the point where most of my objections were answered.

Yes, but I think that empirically incorrect. That is one can simply look to the predictions and, in terms of particular claims, see how close the predictions match. Now it’s a tad more complex than that since typically you run the models many (often millions) of times and get patterns. The issue of empirically verifying such distributions is a complex one. My sense is that is what you object to (although I may be wrong). However my personal feeling is that there are patterns within the models that given empirical verification. Much like while models are pretty lousy for predicting local weather a week away, they are pretty good for predicting weather up to three days and so-so for five day forecasts.

But DKL, on what basis do you say this hasn’t occurred. All the evidence I’ve seen says it is. One makes predictions from the models and sees how that pans out over a year or two or from datasets that weren’t included in the original model.

It seems to me that you are asserting this isn’t done whereas most of what I’ve read suggests it is done.

I’ve been absent for a few days and it seems that quite a bit has happened.

DKL,

I see you passed up an opportunity to argue about the real science of climate change. Is that because you don’t actually understand the science that goes into the models? You still hold this belief that they can’t be right because you don’t want them to be? That’s the same type of logic that makes people say “Scientists just believe in global warming because they have an agenda.” I’m actually curious what agenda people think the bulk of scientists have.

I’m surprised to see that after the numerous websites that you have now read about diminishing returns you still fail to acknowledge that it is an economic construct. Regardless of whether it peaks and falls off or does not behaves asymptotically is beside the point (it does seem that there are a number of descriptions which describe both processes). However, every definition explains that it is an “ECONOMIC” law. Or apparently you have missed this. It is a definition within the construct of economics. There are other terms that describe the behavior of similar systems within engineering, science and math.

SOCIAL SCIENCE vs. SCIENCE … or … PEOPLE vs. PARTICLES

DKL, you are still not seeing the difference between a science (esp. physical ones) and a social science (economics, psychology etc.). Let me give you an example of the difference. Scientific principles are deterministic whereas social science principles need not be. Deterministic systems work in this way. If I were to run an experiment, I would get the same outcome every time. If the outcome is different every time, then the system is not deterministic. Now I’ll get to probabilities shortly since that can fuzzy the boundary between a deterministic and non-deterministic result.

Lets take an electron for example. If I send a moving electron through a set of charged plates one negative and one positive, then the electron will always curve towards the positive plate. In fact, it will curve towards the positive plate at a rate proportional to the voltage across the plates. It doesn’t matter how many times I run this experiment I will get precisely the same result. And I can take the electron and strip it off a hydrogen atom to run the experiment or one off of a uranium atom and run the experiment. I still get the same result. I could run the experiment next week, next month, next year or 10 billion years from now. I could try the experiment in Chicago, Timbuktu, or in the Andromeda galaxy. I will
always get the same result. The path of an electron depends upon its initial velocity and position and the voltage between the plates to stunning precision.

Ok, now how about the converse in a social science. Since we’ve been basically talking about economics the entire time, I’ll give you an economic one. Lets say I play basketball every afternoon with three of my closest buddies. After each game, we are all ready for a drink of something cold. My friend Charlie always grabs a Coke and always has. Anne grabs a Mountain Dew some days, a Fresca others and on the days when he just feels like it, he picks up a grape soda. Heidi is really healthy and skips the soda all together and drinks water instead. Lets just say that there is no telling what I will chose and it really just depends on the day. If the machine doesn’t have what any one of us want on a given day then we skip the machine and head to the local market instead. So if you manage the soda machine and stock it once a week, how do you decide what to stock in order to maximize profits? I’m not sure I really know the answer to this one. Ok, lets say that if you watch us for a significantly long period of time you now have a probabilistic distribution for the sodas we drink. Then making the money is easy as pie and it should be easy to choose how much of each soda to stock, perhaps even when.

In cases like this the system (i.e. the four of us and the soda machine) is probabilistic and can act very similar to a physical system. And this is when economics works. When you can develop a model that represents the probabilistic behavior of a market, you can make money.

Ah, but then here is the kicker… Suppose our tastes change; suppose they won’t be the same in five years. So now you have to change your model and it may be a fundamentally different behavior. The people within the system have changed their tastes. This happens all the time and is why a company that works well one year may tank the next. It may depend a great deal upon the market (the people whom you are selling the product), where it is located, the demographics etc. This is again
much like probability (and reasonably deterministic), but the fact that tastes can change so radically from one year to the next or generation to generation suggests that it really isn’t deterministic. You can’t predict what future tastes will be given current ones. If they remain the same, then sure, but if not–forget it.

Now one argument you would use in response to these examples is obvious. You will say that science can certainly be probabilistic in the case of quantum mechanics or even chaotic in the case of turbulence. And I will say that’s true, but you are missing a few important points about deterministic behavior. First, when particles behave according to a probabilistic behavior, it is always the same probability for a given set of conditions. This isn’t true of economics in the slightest. Because human behavior can change the models may have some short term validity, but rarely a long term predictability. If I measure the location of an electron in a hydrogen atom, I will always get the same probability of location for every hydrogen for all time that has the same amount of energy. This isn’t true of people.

For chaotic systems, like turbulence, the behavior is still deterministic. We may not be able to model any one particular particle within a chaotic system, but we can–often–on average predict the behavior of the system as a whole. Hence, from chaos arises order. We can especially predict overall distributions of quantities that are conserved such as mass-energy and momentum. If I had taken any water molecule out of a turbulent stream and replaced it with another water particle in the same position it would have moved in exactly the same way as the original.
We may not be able to describe its motion precisely with an equation, but it will never the less behave the same. The reason we can’t explain the motion of every particle in a system that exhibits turbulent behavior may be because the math is not possible to write down or we were not able to determine the initial state precisely enough to start with. Hence we are stuck with modeling the average of chaotic systems like climate. The system is still entirely deterministic, even if we don’t have enough information to characterize it completely. This is something which, again, cannot be said for people. If you took any person out of any given situation and replaced that person with another, it is quite likely that the actual decisions made will be different.

Social sciences work within a mathematical construct to characterize human behavior. Which cannot be done either completely or even on average for very long term. The latter often requiring that the equations themselves be fundamentally changed. The sciences use mathematics to describe the deterministic behavior of a system, which will always behave in the same manner given the same set of conditions.

MODEL TESTING

In a couple of earlier posts, I explain how modeling works with regards to the climate system. I’ve shown how we validate our ensemble of models and assess their potential as predictive models. And you still say that you are not satisfied. I’m not really sure how we can satisfy you then. It seems to go a long way to satisfying the bulk of the scientific community. Saying that the climate models cannot predict the future because they can’t be proven correct or incorrect doesn’t mean they don’t give a reliable estimate. This is an empty statement. See my first post which contains my definition of an empty statement. If we can predict what we do see based on the physics we have included, then maybe we can predict the future to the same level of accuracy. I’m not saying we capture every process that occurs within the climate system or can predict every last storm, but on a global average we’re pretty good and we’ve been pretty good since the 90’s. In fact we’ve gotten better and we are constantly improving them all the time.

It seems to me that DKL just holds preconceived notions that he is unwilling to let go. There are a number of people that don’t believe that the world is warming. There are also a number of people that don’t believe that we landed on the Moon or that the world is round. There are even people that don’t believe we are genetically related to chimpanzees. All of these doubters believe some set of preconceived notions on how the world MUST work and are unwilling to change their opinions when they can verifiably be proven wrong with scientific observations and arguments. Being a skeptic is fine–in fact it helps make a good scientist–but being skeptical against all evidence is just plain closed-minded.

A CHALLENGE FOR DKL

DKL please–please, give me something which you believe is a scientific reason why we shouldn’t trust our climate models. I’ll take a silence or philosophical ramblings as a confirmation that you can’t since you have shied away at every opportunity that I previously invited you to debate the science previously.

“Look, I’m a logical positivist, and when a logical positivist tells you that you’re being naive in your reliance on empiricism, it’s a pretty safe bet you’ve gone off the deep end.”

LOL.

Okay DKL, what evidence do you, as a self-proclaimted logical positivist, have that we as scientists do not base our models on past behavior of a system? Show me a paper on climate, preferable, since that was the genesis of this post, that’s made it through peer review that isn’t based on observations somewhere.

You propose as an example of a scientific generalization “Bricks wrapped in animal fur have greater tensile strength than bricks wrapped in canvas.” This would barely qualify as a hypothesis and is certainly not a scientific generalization. Why would this be true? What previous observations do you have that suggest this would generally be true? What data can you share with the rest of the world that leads you to this conclusion?

You do not understand the way science works, which is very obvious from your descriptions of the supposed workings of science. You don’t even seem to understand the basics of the scientific method. You have three working scientists telling you the way science works, explaining again and again the way we verify our results, the way we come up with our ideas to test, and you persist in telling us we’re wrong. What arrogance!

DKL–you still haven’t said a single scientific thing.

you “working scientists” continue to make overly brash assertions that you can’t back up, and have little more than snide things to say to those who disagree with you.

You sure you aren’t talking about yourself here?

nofolete,

We actually have a mechanism for readers to get rid of a permablogger. You can vote him out ala Banner of Heaven. In fact DKL was the subject of such a procedure at that blog due to his numerous rude comments towards Miranda.

nofolete: Why do you Mormon Mentality people tolerate a troll as a permablogger?

Because I know everything about everything, of course. Who wouldn’t want that?

nofolete: I’m getting a little tired of reading, “no, you’re stupid,” in 2000 words or less.

I’ve been reasonably polite — at least more polite than any “working scientist” who’s participated. Those “working scientists” have consistently sacrificed substance in the interest of making shrill or snide comments. For my part, if I want to say that you’re stupid, I can do it in a lot less than 2,000 words.

nofolete: you have offered no evidence that global warming is not occurring

All I’ve ever pretended to show about global warming is that there is no scientific basis for considering the climate models to have predictive validity. Nobody has laid a finger on this.

nofolete: Maybe he should write his own post about why positivism kicks a$$

Positivism has nothing to do with global warming. In fact it’s the simplistic approach characterized by scientists who discuss global warming (as you’ve seen here) or predicted that Strategic Missile defense is impossible, or predicted that there would be a heterosexual AIDs epidemic that gives positivism a bad name. That’s what’s commonly labeled positivism. When I say I’m a logical positivist, many people automatically associate me with the kind of moronic approaches to science like the ones that you’ve seen here embodied in the approach of the “working scientists” — and I take great pains to distance myself from it.