And yet we keep trying, because what else can one do?
Comment on Science is not about certainty by pokerguy
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Comment on Science is not about certainty by john
“The schism between philosophy and science is arguably one of the problems.”
should say:
The schism between philosophy and science is the central problem.
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Comment on Science is not about certainty by A fan of *MORE* discourse
Even mathematics is *not* about certainty:
The virtue of a logical proof is not that it compels belief but that it suggests doubts. The proof tells us where to concentrate our doubts. (Forder, Foundations of Euclidean Geometry, 1927)
So where *DO* we find certainty?
That’s easy: in factional politics and dogmatic religion. 
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Comment on Science is not about certainty by Greg House
JC comment: This essay resonated with me, since I am struggling to understand why climate science doesn’t seem to me to be working so well. Apart from the politicization of climate science, which has torqued the science in unfortunate ways, I have an (unformulated) sense that we are missing something in the way we are approaching this very complex scientific problem.
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You are absolutely right, Judith. I can tell you what it is: asking cardinal questions. I’ll give you one example. When my attention was drawn to the “global warming” and evil CO2 by the press not so long ago, I very soon asked myself an important question: what about experiments? So it took me like 2 hours to find this on the internet: http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/wood_rw.1909.html .
What you see in this article, Judith, is pure science called physics. No statistics, no speculations, just one clean experiment. Now you know the truth: the back radiation can not cause any significant warming.
I understand, that it might be painful to realise, that this has been known since 1909 after the “greenhouse” hypothesis had already existed for 50 years.
It would be quite natural, if you wished to further elaborate the issue of the Wood’s experiment on your blog. If the CO2 and thus the mankind have an alibi, why ignore it?
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Comment on Science is not about certainty by lolwot
“You know damn well the sun’s role in climate has been consistently minimized in favor of Co2″
So what’s the evidence that is being suppressed? The IPCC report covers TSI, cosmic rays and sunspots.
What’s your evidence that the Sun has a larger role?
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Comment on Science is not about certainty by lolwot
Didn’t you notice that in your same ling it points out the wrror in Wood’s experiment?
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Comment on Science is not about certainty by Greg House
I do not see any error in the Wood’s experiment.
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Comment on Science is not about certainty by Bart R
Sorry, Jim. A lot of people plead guilty to things there’s no case for.
I believe the judge would let you walk on the charge of empiricism without entertaining a plea.
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Comment on Science is not about certainty by Beth Cooper
Stanford writes, ‘Underdetermination and Scientific Theory’ that contrastive under determination involves the possibility that there might be other theories that are equally as well confirmed by the evidence as the existing theory. The history of scientific enquiry supports this.
At the time, nothing was certain than that Newton’s theory was true. Alexander Pope could write:
‘Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night: God said,
‘Let Newton be!’ and all was light.’
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Comment on Science is not about certainty by NW
Willard that is it. Thanks. Don’t know how I missed it, I searched that too.
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Comment on What separates science from non-science? by Bob K.
The NSF and other federal agencies that fund academic research are extensions of the political system. There’s no use complaining about it, that’s the way it is. If NSF’s overseers (i.e. Congress) decide to put science money into a program to investigate squishy, touchy-feely or intrinsically unscientific areas of investigation, that is their prerogative. Researchers should be happy that once a funding program has been established decisions on who gets funded are made by a peer-review system that, while not perfect, actually works reasonably well.
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Comment on What separates science from non-science? by NW
“What separates science from non-science?”
Three letters and a hyphen?
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Comment on What separates science from non-science? by A fan of *MORE* discourse
Quantum physicist David Deutsch, in his book <i>The Fabric of Reality</i>, characterizes science as <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=2LqEPNf9jXsC&pg=PT280" rel="nofollow">an evolutionary creative process that quests for knowledge</a>:<blockquote>"Knowledge does not come into existence fully formed. It exists only as the result of creative processes, which are step-by-step, evolutionary processes, always starting with a problem and proceeding with tentative new theories, criticism and the elimination of errors to a new and preferable problem-situation. This is how Shakespeare wrote his plays. It is how Einstein discovered his field equations. It is how all of us succeed in solving any problem, large or small, in our lives, or in creating anything of value."</blockquote>By Deutsch's epistemological criterion, the familiar brand of climate-change skepticism that often is called "denialism" is *NOT* any kind scientific process, on the grounds that the quibbling, cherry-picking, isolationism, and slogan-shouting that characterize denialism are non-creative activities that (by often-unconscious intent) do not lead to new knowledge, but rather serve to protect a safe and unchallenging state of comforting, willful ignorance.
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Comment on What separates science from non-science? by kim
…and be quaint.
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Comment on What separates science from non-science? by ceteris non paribus
The F-22 is without value? The nice folks at Lockheed Martin & Boeing will be shocked to learn that…
It is perhaps you who misses the point. Politicians are clearly not the best judges of the quality of either combat equipment or scientific research. Most of them train as lawyers, very few have experience in the military or in a research lab. The law of averages dictates that, occasionally, they do something smart, as well as expedient.
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Comment on What separates science from non-science? by John another
How about defining ‘science’ as that which follows the scientific method as it was defined for hundreds of years?
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Comment on What separates science from non-science? by kim
I just transcribe; it writes itself.
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Comment on Science is not about certainty by Greg House
Steven Mosher | May 31, 2012 at 2:06 am
So earth radiates from a higher cooler place.
That entails surface warming. You see how back radiation isnt even mentioned?
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Steven, your statement is as logical, as this one: “2×2=4, that entails surface warming, back radiation isnt even mentioned”.
To get warmer the SURFACE needs more energy, this is a most simple physics. The energy comes to the SURFACE from the Sun, you know that. If no additional energy comes, there will be no additional warming.
Now, the AGW hypothesis says the “greenhouse gasses” absorb some portion of the IR radiation the surface radiates and emit a part of it back to the SURFACE thus warming it (in comparison to the absence of this effect). The “greenhouse gasses” are indeed capable of absorbing and emitting some IR radiation. But the crucial question is, whether this effect can cause any significant warming of the SURFACE and the air near the SURFACE .
The answer given by the Wood’s experiment back in 1909 is “NO”. The effect is extremely weak.
And the “global warming” is about SURFACE temperatures, not about a “higher cooler place” temperature or whatever.
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Comment on Science is not about certainty by steven
If the amount of co2 in the atmosphere increases the size of the sink, and we know it does, and the increase in the size of the sink created is a large percentage of the co2 in the atmosphere than you can have a net positive natural increase and a net positive anthropogenic increase and still have less left over than the initial anthropogenic contribution to the atmosphere. I’m not inclined to go step by step. It isn’t my nature and my nose ring seems to be misplaced. Make your argument or not. We can see where we disagree if and when you make it.
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Comment on What separates science from non-science? by Diag
wrong question. “soft” science is actually harder than “hard” science — much more complex problems, fewer tools and maths to support it, the difficulty of doing experiments. Have pity on our poor relations.
The right question is how to deal with the excess of publications which are substandard. Don’t fund the people who publish junk. Strengthen peer review. Increase post-publication criticism.
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