Tim Streater wrote:
In article ,
Roger Chapman wrote:

I trained as an engineer, not a scientist, so I am much more open to
practical propositions than to either abstract theory or belief
systems unconnected with reality.

Theory is not abstract. A theory is based on a hypothesis that explains
current observation and that can make *testable* predictions. Relativity
is a good example of this.

But AGW is not testable.

We don't have a spare planet to run as a control. That in a philsophy se
sense makes it less scientific and more metaphysical.


So whilst there's no denying that it got warmer between 1960 and 2000,
and the CO2 in the atmosphere increased dur8ing that timem, thats really
the limit of the testable FACTS and we cant say that it was due to any
given thing with certainty.

At best we can say that having elminated a lot of things it almost
certainly wasn't (largely) due to, there is a large signal and the only
explanation so far put forward is CO2.

IF it is down to that and ONLY down to that - and those are in real
terms pretty sizeable IFS. THEN even so, the numbers dont add up
without a multiplier. Which is held to relate to some noumenous
mechanism that has never been pinned down.

That's where I get bothered. We have tow big IFS followed by an AND ALSO
before the thing matches the reality of the past 50 years. Ok, we can
run with that, BUT if we then extend the multiplier back in time, we get
nonsense figures for - say - the last ice age.

That is while IPCC are spectacularly successful at fitting a curve to
the last 50 years, they are average to completely crap in the greater
historical picture, depending on what data sets you take.

And really that's all AGW is - a curve fitting exercise on the best
guesses as to what drives climate. Or that's what it WAS till it become
political, and there common sense caution and good science flew out of
the window, and hundreds of BILLIONS of our money have been spent on the
assumption that it was in fact broadly correct.

Can you imagine what it would do to the green economy, and the careers
of politicians and people who have supported it to the hilt and beyond,
if it became fashionable to believe that something else was in fact
happening?

Do you REALLY believe they are going to say 'gosh, sorry, all those
solar panels and windmills, and all these climate change awareness focus
groups are a complete waste of time and money, so basically we will all
resign and go and do something more socially useful' ?



What gives you the idea that science has anything to do with belief
systems unconnected with reality?


What gives you the idea that AGW is a scientific theory?

In Popper's terms its borderline pseudo science because it is almost
irrefutable as its predictions are so broad, and there is no possibility
of running a control.


Its probably nearer creationism in that respect, than physics.

As such you take it on trust, or you don't. That's faith and belief, not
fact based irrefutability.

And in reference to your own question "What gives you the idea that
science has anything to do with belief systems unconnected with
reality?" the answer is 'a pretty intensive study of metaphysics and the
philosophy of science will enable the understanding that all ontologies
are based at some level or other on untestable assumptions: In fact that
may be said to be their defining feature, and there are sound logical
reasons to to with recursion and reflexivity why this is necessary, and
this can be seen in the particular case of mathematics and formal
ontologies through Godel's incompleteness theorem, and in the case of
algorithmic analysis Turings completion problem, and I strongly suspect
on qauntum physics in the observation problem.

In each case the problem arises when an ontological system is used to
analyse itself for correctness or for some other quality. It gives rise
to infinite feedback..science is such a system It cannot in the end know
whether the ontology of which it is a study - and a careful meticulous
study - is in fact anything like a 1:1 mapping with reality - the
'whatever is the case' of Wittgenstein.

However that has no bearing on the actual AGW theory: we must take the
premises of the physical world as out starting point, in order to do
science at all.

The question of just how scientific a theory AGW is, is in the end
extremely open to question.

You must apply Popper's test, and ask yourself 'what conditions would
amount to its refutation, and how may we proceed to demonstrate that
whatever we do, it is never refuted?

Well its stopped getting warmer since 2000, whilst C02 has increased,
but that, apparently, is not enough.

Last winter was the coldest for 49 years. That, apparently, is not enough.

Let's say we crash build loads of nuclear power stations and it doesn't
get any warmer? would that 'prove' AGW?

Let's say we don't. renewable energy fails utterly as it must to make a
dent in CO2 and it goes up another 50% and in the next ten years, it
doesn't get any warmer..would that 'disprove' AGW?

I don't think it would, to its promoters.

That is the point when I would say it passes completely from science to
metaphysics and becomes what is known as 'pseudo science'. It is no
longer an analytic of an ontology, it is the basis of a new ontology.

A pure act of faith.