--Sophie Lewis"Methods aren’t always necessarily falsifiable"
I had to do a double take there too. She really does mean it. Sophie Lewis called computer models such as General Circulation Models, GCMs 'methods'. She believes these GCMs discover facts about the world! She is not left-field either. A recent climatology textbook I read described computer model runs as experiments.
Q: What ideas go into the programs making GCMs? A: In a sense the GCMs are cherry-picked physics working in a particular way to describe the climate; built using some established Scientific Theories. That is why the self-styled climate consensus call their climate models and ideas 'simple physics'.
But I would call a GCM a hypothesis (and not a scientific one either). Because the way it assembles physics theories was never tested against the real world. GCMs have no falsifiability criteria either. So modeling has become a new way to pretend to do science. All the while claiming to be doing 'settled science'.
Q: What do mainstream scientists mean by the term 'settled science'? A: 'settled science' is science developed by framing testable hypotheses (that is: by establishing falsifiability rules for hypotheses) then validating those hypotheses experimentally or observationally such that no facts contradict the hypotheses. Hypotheses which pass their falsifiability criteria are then called Scientific Theories, or 'settled science'.
The terminology of 'settled science' in climatology is just a ruse for doing pseudoscience, or fake science (AKA GCMs and climate models). But getting paid for it while avoiding critics. All the while, calling your critics climate deniers, shills and flat-earth believers. Explaining to other climate scientists, observing and experimenting that their science is wrong in some way when their facts contradict your models.
A scientific hypothesis must be framed with falsifiability criteria. Otherwise it's just speculation because:
The scientific worldview began 2600 years ago in Ionia on the Aegean shore when Thales, followed by Anaximander, began their systematic projects to explain the world in terms of things, of this world. They were no longer prepared to let story-tellers, and religious leaders dominate the narrative with tales of Gods and nature spirits moving the stars. How did it go? The Greeks made some quick gains leading to ancient Greek science, then it got stuck. Western civilization went two millennia with precious little scientific progress. Then just over 400 years ago a few practical people like Galileo began a new way of science. They falsified many establishment laws of nature, by experimentally showing how things really worked. Ideas of Aristotle and Ptolemy, so-called natural law were refuted with facts. This scientific revolution gave us our modern world, with magnificent advances in technology, life-span, health, welfare, education, wealth, travel. Civilization everywhere on earth is now predicated on a scientific model explained best by the likes of Popper and Feynman. They propose a model of how science is best done, based on how science best advanced.
You can say you have another 'model of science' but nothing shows your model will work. The 16th century scientific revolution led by the likes of Galileo worked because it created a model for scientific discovery leading to certain understanding. Advanced speculation does not work. For example: millions of person-hours spent "advancing" String Theory gave us nothing of material value; because the speculatively made hypotheses of String Theory were not falsifiable, and there are billions of possible String Theories.
That's just one example of how science goes wrong. There are many ways to break science whilst pretending to do it. Bad statistics is another way. Most published science is false. Science does not need post-normal science, and bad modeling to invent new ways to get things wrong. We already know there is only one route to do working science. The route explained by Popper and Feynman. The route taken by scientists who actually discover and invent useful technologies. It pains me that our universities produce so many scientists ignorant about the basics of what their their craft should be.
No comments:
Post a Comment