The Webb, the early galaxies, and the Big Bang
“Science deniers” is a phrase that’s anti-science, because scientists are always supposed to entertain disagreements and answer them with facts and proof – unless you apply “science-denier” to those people who literally say that all science is bunk and must be ignored. But that’s something very few people actually say. The rest of “science denial” is usually disagreement with and challenge to science orthodoxy, and it’s part of the manner in which science has always advanced.
This article about science denial, the Webb telescope, and the Big Bang theory focuses on the word disproven. But discoveries that don’t conform with the predictions of a theory- therefore representing at least somewhat of a problem for that theory – either have to be resolved and reconciled with the theory or it’s generally back to the drawing board for that theory. The Webb has indeed presented some problems for the Big Bang in that regard, particularly about early galaxy formation, which is both fascinating and exciting. Its findings have certainly not disproved the theory, but they certainly haven’t confirmed all of its predictions either.
Here’s an article in Scientific American about the Webb’s findings concerning early galaxies:
…[I]nitial projections [for the Webb, here referred to as JWST] estimated the first galaxies would be so small and faint that JWST would find at best a few intriguingly remote candidates in its pilot investigations. Things didn’t quite go as planned. Instead, as soon as the telescope’s scientists released its very first images of the distant universe, astronomers like Naidu (at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) started finding numerous galaxies within them that, in apparent age, size and luminosity, surpassed all predictions. The competition for discovery was fierce: with each new day, it seemed, claims of yet another record-breaking “earliest known galaxy” would emerge from one research group or another. “Everyone was freaking out,” says Charlotte Mason, an astrophysicist at the University of Copenhagen. “We really weren’t expecting this.”
In the weeks and months following JWST’s findings of surprisingly mature “early” galaxies, blindsided theorists and observers alike have been scrambling to explain them. Could the bevy of anomalously big and bright early galaxies be illusory, perhaps because of flaws in analysis of the telescope’s initial observations? If genuine, could they somehow be explained by standard cosmological models? Or, just maybe, were they the first hints that the universe is more strange and complex than even our boldest theories had supposed?…
…“You build these machines not to confirm the paradigm, but to break it,” says JWST scientist Mark McCaughrean, a senior advisor for science and exploration at the European Space Agency. “You just don’t know how it will break.”
The whole article is worth reading.
This quote in particular caught my eye: “were they the first hints that the universe is more strange and complex than even our boldest theories had supposed?” The first hints? Hardly. Shakespeare had Hamlet say it long, long ago: “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Neo-
When I learned the scientific method. It was basically understood as such
Step 1) Conjecture-an opinion or conclusion formed on the basis of incomplete information.
Step 2) Hypothesis- a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.
Step 3)Theory- a well-substantiated explanation of an aspect of the natural world that can incorporate laws, hypotheses and facts.
With the idea being at ANY step. Something can prove falsifiable.Even well thought out theory has been so in the past.
As I see it too often scientists confuse their personal beliefs with these steps. And like Dr. Fauci believe you are contradicting THEM , not the evidence.
And sadly the press generally plays along. And lacks even the basic understanding of these steps.
Take the idea of Climate Change. The reason I consider it a religion having nothing to do with science. Is that is comes with an non-falsifiable premise. To believers any climate event simply reinforces their core belief. Never mind that at this point the entire system for this idea. Is far closer to conjecture than even a solid hypothesis. As it cannot be experimentally proven They have simply ignored that fact. And run the process past Theory into fully formed belief system.
The rest of “science denial” is usually disagreement with and challenge to science orthodoxy, and it’s part of the manner in which science has always advanced.
I would add only that there is informed disagreement, which advances science, and uninformed disagreement which wastes everyone’s time, as these disagreements have been asked and answered many times over decades, and every physicist whose email is public can tell you how much of a time-waster it can be. Most of the physicists who engage try to be patient and don’t want to come off as closed-minded, but at some point you have to cut it short or you’ll be doing nothing else–and even if you convince one–a big if because many are not arguing in good faith, or don’t have enough math or science background to understand what’s wrong–there’s thousands more waiting to argue with you.
My degrees were for computational physics and condensed matter physics. I’m not a cosmologist. Unless I put a lot of reading in, I could only offer uninformed disagreement… but in general I don’t pay attention to anything physics related in the general media since they get so much so badly wrong.
+1 for Frederick, and for Mythxx comments with regard to “climate change”. Not much more to be said.
‘…“You build these machines not to confirm the paradigm, but to break it…”…’
And here I thought we had to “follow the science”—I mean leader—until “the science” changes, whereupon we just have to redefine everything to conform to “the updated science”—I mean leader….
Hypothesize, test, confirm (or not), break?…Scientific method???
I do believe that these astronomers had better watch their step.
(If not, they might well end up playing dice with one another in forced retirement…)
physicsguy-
Thank you.
The scientific process seems to be something given lip service these days. Then promptly ignored when it comes time to apply it. In service to ego and money.
Too many people in that community I think feel too much pressure to conform. When some of our greatest discoveries have been by those refusing to.
Barry Meislin-
When doing this type of research. You need to remember that a huge majority of the work done in the field. Is completely derived through math proofs. And it sometimes take generations to find a way to confirm things in a controllable experiment.
They problem with doing so. Is that once something like this is accepted as true . Often contradictory evidence tends to be ignored or discarded. This can send huge swaths of further observation and experimentation down a long road. Where one wrong hypothesis generally accepted. Can then lead to two, then four, then sixteen etc.
Fred Hoyle, call your office.
First book I read on the subject, as practically a kid,IIRC.
BB has two questions, as I see it. What was it before the Bang, and why Bang. It was sitting around doing its Before thing, humming contentedly, I imagine, containing everything and then Something Else woke it up. How could there be Something Else, or did a kind of indigestion finally–excuse the term–bubble up?
Up until Webb, I was a Denier and then, while I was sleeping, I became legit.
…keeping in mind that playing dice in retirement might be far more profitable…
(Just ask Dr. “I Am The Science” hisself…)
“Unmasked: Documents Reveal Fauci’s Staggering Pandemic-Period Profits”—
https://www.dailywire.com/news/unmasked-documents-reveal-faucis-staggering-pandemic-period-profits
H/T Instapundit.
Please don’t cite Scientific American as a serious source on scientific matters. They have been politiced “science-benders” for quite some time now.
From the space.com article Neo linked: “Science denial has gotten worse because it’s now more of a threat to the wellbeing of our society,” McIntyre said. “Denialism costs lives.”
Kirkpatrick echoes McIntyre’s line of thinking. “In this case, it’s pretty benign if someone thinks the Big Bang didn’t happen, but you see the same kind of thing with things that really matter, such as COVID vaccines and climate change,” she said. “If we start getting all these conspiracy theories in astronomy, if people are willing to believe those, does it make them more willing to believe other conspiracy theories?”
So no other theories about the beginning are allowed. It’s the Big Bang or you’re a science denier. And not accepting the Big Bang leads to not accepting any other “expert” theories such as COVID vaccines or climate change and people will die.
Apparently that is science in the 21st century.
“In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth” seems more likely the more we investigate the universe.
I find that more often than not, the “denier” suffix is essentially a strawman that lumps anybody who may have a well thought out and perfectly reasonable disagreement about an idea with those who hold highly unreasonable and often absurd ideas. So anyone who is skeptical of a theory is lumped in with idiots and crazy people, shutting down all useful debate. As such I strongly dislike the proliferation of the “denier” suffix that has occurred over the past few years.
@nonapod:lumps anybody who may have a well thought out and perfectly reasonable disagreement about an idea with those who hold highly unreasonable and often absurd ideas…
Judging by the last time Neo posted on this, the entire spectrum from reasonable to absurd is going to be replicated in this little comment thread.
When I had students I used to ask “When you’re driving, what creates the force that makes the car go forward?” Almost all of them gave wrong answers. By the end of the course they all knew what I said the answer was, obviously, but most of them never really believed it, or internalized it, so that they could answer different questions correctly (such as “what forces act on a baseball that’s been thrown but not caught yet”).
The principles that tell you how to arrive at the correct answers to such questions are explicitly taught, but you have to practice them diligently for years before it becomes natural to answer all physical questions in the same way. It’s not a question of taking a college course and getting a B.
The misunderstandings people have about what they read about science sometimes are rooted that far back, and criticisms based on those misunderstandings are what waste the time. There’s so much work to do to even understand why some ideas are wrong before you can get to understanding why other ideas are right.
“…lumps together…”
“…the “denier” suffix is essentially a strawman…”
THIS has become the Democratic Party’s M.O.
If you don’t like “Biden”‘s economic policies because of the hyperinflation it “seems” to have created, then you are AN EXTREMIST.
If you don’t like “Biden”‘s pushing CRT and transgenderism in the schools and in sport, then you are AN EXTREMIST.
If you object to any of “Biden”‘s policies then you are AN EXTREMIST.
neo: “Science deniers” is a phrase that’s anti-science, because scientists are always supposed to entertain disagreements and answer them with facts and proof – unless you apply “science-denier” to those people who literally say that all science is bunk and must be ignored.
That is not the usual definition.
denialism: the practice of denying the existence, truth, or validity of something despite proof or strong evidence that it is real, true, or valid.
Denialism usually entails one or more of the following: conspiracy theories, cherry picking, false experts, moving the goalposts, or fallacious reasoning. That doesn’t mean the denialists are necessarily wrong, but they refuse, for one reason or another, to grant the validity of the scientific evidence which does exist.
As for the Big Bang, the latest observations call into question the understanding of early galaxy formation, but not the Big Bang itself, which is supported by many different lines of evidence. Indeed, the latest observations support the Big Bang.
Similarly with climate science. The fact is that there is strong scientific evidence across multiple fields of study in support of anthropogenic global warming. Sure. The scientists could be wrong, but they have a great deal of scientific evidence to support the claim. Climate denialism means refusing to grant the validity of this vast amount of confirming evidence.
Mytix: Someone once asked Fermi if he used the scientific method. “ If I can’t think of anything better”. Of course, he was known as “The Pope of Physics” by the physicists who knew him.
Regarding “Climate Change”, it’s a religion AND a racket. The racket is what keeps it going, the ability to sell lots of useless, expensive stuff like fields of solar panels and acres and acres of wind turbines. The extra benefit is that it gives politicians an excuse to grab more power “for the good of the people and to save the Planet”.
As for the “science”, about ten years ago the executive committee of the American Physical Society came out with one of those statements “the science is settled, carbon dioxide is evil, blah, blah..” and suddenly had a massive revolt with very distinguished members of the society publicly resigning. They had to retract the statement. As Iver Giaever, Nobel Prize in Physics, said “I looked into climate science and was horrified by what I found”.
Koonin’s book “Unsettled” gives a decent overview of all the problems. Just the chapter on the models should be enough to permanently sink “climate science”.
Case in point:
Paul in Boston: {The American Physical Society} had to retract the statement.
American Physical Society: “Multiple lines of evidence strongly support the finding that anthropogenic greenhouse gases have become the dominant driver of global climate warming observed since the mid-twentieth century.”
Zachriel,
I resigned my APS membership due to that statement; not that I mattered too much. There’s so much contrary evidence, and for the APS to make such a statement that actually goes against some basic physics such as the 2nd Law was a bridge too far. But it also shows just how much money is involved. It was also the beginning of the APS trying to be “woke” and run with the “cool” crowd.
From a real physicist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL6-x0modwY
“Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.”
Richard P. Feynman
ever notice how the biggest apostles go Global Warming have little scientific knowledge ?
Similarly with climate science. The fact is that there is strong scientific evidence across multiple fields of study in support of anthropogenic global warming. Sure. The scientists could be wrong, but they have a great deal of scientific evidence to support the claim. Climate denialism means refusing to grant the validity of this vast amount of confirming evidence.-Zachriel
And here lies one of the issues. If you read the literature you quickly come to several conclusions.
1) Often said evidence is the product of wildly different interpretations and methods. For instance using tree rings and comparing them equally with instrument readings.
2) Much of said “proof” is through the extensive use of modeling. The issue being is that the models often cannot measure the inputs and weight them accurately. For instance many use sun output as a constant. When we know it can be highly variable.
3) Regularly mistaking correlation for causation and treating them equal. Which can lead to what is an input vs what is an output problem.
Basically you are living in the middle of the climate experiment. And the actual outcome of any of these inputs cannot possibly be known until the proper time frame has run its course.
Instead you propose that humanity simply accept that the evidence of the experiment is proof of the conclusion you wish to draw from it.
physicsguy: There’s so much contrary evidence, and for the APS to make such a statement that actually goes against some basic physics such as the 2nd Law was a bridge too far.
The American Physical Society didn’t notice that global warming violates the laws of thermodynamics? Heh. Seriously? No, the greenhouse effect does not violate the laws of thermodynamics. Without the greenhouse effect, the Earth would resemble a snowball. If you increase the concentration of greenhouse gases, the surface will tend to warm while the stratosphere cools. And that is what is observed.
Mythx: 1) Often said evidence is the product of wildly different interpretations and methods. For instance using tree rings and comparing them equally with instrument readings.
They are compared through statistical means which are then peer reviewed. But climate science doesn’t depend on tree ring evidence.
Mythx: 2) Much of said “proof” is through the extensive use of modeling.[
As George E. P. Box said, “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” But climate science doesn’t depend on computer modeling (though it can be said virtually all science is based on models).
Mythx: 3) Regularly mistaking correlation for causation and treating them equal.
Global warming is based on causation due to the greenhouse effect, the basics of which have been known for over a century. See Arrhenius, On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground, London, Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science 1896.
I thought he was overly kind 🙂 But he did keep it simple and avoid speculating about what was missing. His overall conclusion (IIRC) was that we can adapt and that would be the least destructive solution if there were a problem.
Zachriel,
Ever hear of chaos theory? A butterfly in the jungle flaps its wings and two weeks later there’s hurricane in NYC. That refers to the computer programs that try to model the weather, which is a nonlinear dynamical system, and not the weather itself. Prof. E. Lorenz of MIT discovered this in 1963. If you put in slightly incorrect temperatures, pressure, and so on, into your program, the prediction goes crazy after a while. Guess what, the climate models are an example of this problem.
“The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future exact climate states is not possible. Rather the focus must be upon the prediction of the probability distribution of the system’s future possible states by the generation of ensembles of model solutions.”
IPCC 2001, Technical Summary of the Working Group I Report, G.1 Data,
https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/07/WG1_TAR_TS.pdf
This is a remarkable statement. Beyond correctly admitting that the models cannot make long term predictions, they claim that averaging multiple models will produce a better prediction than any one of them. How do they know which, if any of them, produce results that are close enough to reality to make meaningful averages? An average of bad results is still a bad result.
We know that there are at least 30 climate models none of which agree with the global satellite temperatures for the last 40 years and they don’t agree with each other either. Yet we’re supposed to make massive changes in the world’s energy sources based on models that make incorrect predictions.
And don’t give me your standard mealy mouth bland whitewash (yeah, I read your disingenuous stuff on Maggies Farm) about the use of “denialism”. It’s meant to invoke the Holocaust and you know it. There are a number of other words that would be more appropriate in a scientific debate such as skeptic, doubter, and questioner but they are never used because they don’t evoke an emotional reaction and indirectly brand the skeptic as an accomplice to a war crime.
Finally, that statement by APS that you quote was what caused the uproar. Just because a committee makes a statement doesn’t make it true.
“One could write a history of science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest authority about what could not be done and could never happen.” Robert Heinlein
“I can state flatly, that heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” Lord Kelvin 1895
“There are two ways of forming an opinion. One is the scientific method; the other, the scholastic.
To the scientific mind, experimental proof is all-important, and theory is merely a convenience in description, to be junked when it no longer fits.
To the academic mind, authority is everything, and facts are junked when they do not fit theory.” Robert A. Heinlein
But climate science doesn’t depend on tree ring evidence.
Thankfully, as Mann’s tree ring series showed decreasing temperatures after the cutoff date. Hence the phrases “hide the decline” and “Mann’s Nature trick”.
Remember when scientific consensus said eating fiber prevented colon ca?
Remember when scientific consensus said margarine was better than butter?
Remember when scientific consensus said eggs were bad?
Remember when scientific consensus said carbs were good and fat was bad?
I do.
I was also accepted into Lorenz’s MIT at age 16 and can attest that “Climate Scientists ” are the Village Idiots of Science
They are compared through statistical means which are then peer reviewed. But climate science doesn’t depend on tree ring evidence. Zachriel
But climate science doesn’t depend on computer modeling (though it can be said virtually all science is based on models). Also Zachriel
So here we are. Compared through statistical means…is the basis of a model. And then you state It does not depend on computer modeling and contradict yourself yet again.
Basically instead of looking at the evidence for yourself. You have farmed that part out as an appeal to authority. You wish us to believe the conclusion you have already drawn. And when pointed out that conclusion is based on several unproven assumptions. You simply agree with the people who made such assumptions.
I freely admit that it is POSSIBLE they are correct. But the methods in which they currently use to prove said assumption are shaky at best.
So that leaves three possible choices.
1) Do nothing. In which case if they hypothesis is correct. Would then lead us to possible calamity.
2) Follow the prescriptions of the “Climate Authority”. Sans an actual outcome to the experiment. At which point if they are correct would likely bankrupt much of society. And depending upon who’s models you believe. It may be too late to do much of anything.
3) Follow the path Bjorn Lomborg suggested. And adapt to issues as they appear. That allows for the possibility the truth is somehow in the middle. And that either outcome is possible. It also allows more time to better understand such science. Allow advances in things such as energy generation by other means. And economically hedges the bet either way.
While you have played coy in the matter. I strongly suspect you subscribe to method number 2. In which case congratulations on your newfound religion
Zachariah,
My statement on the 2nd Law refers to the climate crowd claiming hurricanes etc will increase with global warming. If true, global warming will decrease the average temperature difference between the tropics and higher latitudes. Hurricanes are heat engines and as the 2nd Law states, take energy from a high temp reservoir and transfer to a lower temp reservoir. For hurricanes that means from lower latitudes to higher. As the efficiency of a heat engine depends on the delta T between the reservoirs, if the delta T is lowered, the engines do not function as well. The prediction of more hurricanes violates the 2nd Law if the average temperature rises. Internally inconsistent.
Paul in Boston-
The problem is the complexity of the system.
In other words a system with one variable can be modeled fairly accurately.
And each variable you add multiplies the ways in which you can be wrong.
Yet we take this step far further in modeling climate. Not only are their thousands of known variables. There is a fair amount of unknown ones. Also there is wide variance giving the WEIGHT of the variables that we are aware of. Each improper weight can throw off the predictions on orders of magnitude.
Add in the fact that in this particular experiment their is no control with which we can compare the results. And you need to unduly truncate the data to ignore times in just the last millennia. In which it has been WARMER than it is now. Shows just how far off the path of science, the climate discussion has wandered. Add in the now massive financial benefits of projecting the most dire circumstances. Gives most people who read the information coming from both sides. The idea that we may be being had
“Science denial has gotten worse because it’s now more of a threat to the wellbeing of our society,” McIntyre said. “Denialism costs lives.”
I was once acquainted with Dr. McIntyre and liked him personally. I suspect with his most recent book he’s invested in some viewpoints he shouldn’t have. I could not help notice that he’s got chapters on ‘climate deniers’ and none of the prominent critics of the IPCC, the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, Michael Mann, &c are to be found in the index or the bibliography.
Denialism usually entails one or more of the following: conspiracy theories, cherry picking, false experts, moving the goalposts, or fallacious reasoning. That doesn’t mean the denialists are necessarily wrong, but they refuse, for one reason or another, to grant the validity of the scientific evidence which does exist.
And if that were the definition of “denier” or “denialist” being bandied about, then you’d have an argument. But it’s not. As neo (I think it was neo) said, anyone who expresses any doubt, with any level of detail or expertise, on any subject that the (weirdly) ruling class has declared Settled, is now a Denier or Denialist.
As for climate. Climate changes. There have been ice-free periods and ice ages, with and without animal life. With or without human action, the climate today would not be the climate of a millennium from now, and perhaps even a shorter timeframe than that. When every publicized remedy for “ACG” requires Americans and Europeans to take it in the shorts, gives China a pass, and relegates the developing world to dung cooking fires – because nuclear is off the table – to say nothing of the invocation of ACG for every ill anyone ever suffers, pardon me if I doubt that there’s no agenda at play other than saving the world for humanity.
If the science of remediating climate change says something different, then the Great Consensus of Climate Scientists needs to step up and stop allowing their field to be run over by politicians without cavil. Me, I’m for nuclear, plus natural gas as a bridge fuel, plus renewables as they make sense and no more than that, and a clear-eyed view of the costs of them, plus the Option 3 approach that Mythxx (I think it was Mythxx, or Frederick) noted.
As the old saying goes, Science advances one funeral at a time.
…“You build these machines not to confirm the paradigm, but to break it,” says JWST scientist Mark McCaughrean, a senior advisor for science and exploration at the European Space Agency. “You just don’t know how it will break.”
You go where the evidence leads you, and the evidence determines whether the paradigm has to be replaced or endures, and whether you become a pathbreaking visionary or another patient toiler in the mills of ordinary or “normal science.”
Also, that “confirm” seems out of place. If the paradigm holds, you are using your tool to add new information to your understanding of the world. That would be the purpose of the new tools if the “normal science” and the existing paradigm hold up, and more and better knowledge isn’t nothing.
To go further, if you could “prove” the Big Bang, wouldn’t that also be a major advance for science? Providing an established theory with new confirming evidence is also not nothing. And of course, non-scientist me will point out that whatever the science is, at the bottom of it all, there’s a mystery.
Zachriel, responding to Neo:
—-
neo: “Science deniers” is a phrase that’s anti-science, because scientists are always supposed to entertain disagreements and answer them with facts and proof – unless you apply “science-denier” to those people who literally say that all science is bunk and must be ignored.
That is not the usual definition.
denialism: the practice of denying the existence, truth, or validity of something despite proof or strong evidence that it is real, true, or valid.
—-
Your argument is a valid dictionary definition, but divorced from actual current usage. Neo’s is in fact the operative definition among those who throw the “denier” charge around. It’s a typical leftist use of language. It began with the term “Holocaust denier,” meaning just what it says–one who denies that the Holocaust happened. So attaching “denier” to anyone who disagrees with you is a way not only of saying they’re wrong but of associating them with Nazi genocide.
It’s just another instance of the standard leftist practice of casting opposition not simply as wrong but as so depraved as not to be considered legitimate. You don’t argue with Nazis, they would say–you shut them down. This is pretty clearly the view of most of today’s left.
What was I going on about with ACG?! Oh well. You know what I meant.
Nice discussion of climate science and science deniers. Glad we have some physicists on the site. Lends some authority to the discussion.
I studied geology in college, so I’m no expert on climate science. But I’m aware that the Earth has had many different climates over its existence and has had two ice ages and interim warm periods during the existence of modern humans. Obviously, these climate changes had nothing to do with human activities. And guess what? Humans adapted to these changes and began to thrive after the Earth began its most recent warm up. That’s when agriculture and animal domestication were developed.
Every day here on Earth the temperatures can vary from 100 degrees F or more to -60 degrees F or less. And people live in these places. They have learned to adapt to those climates. And many more [people live where it’s warm than in the cold places. So, will an increase of 2 degrees C in average Earth temperatures be something we can’t adapt to? My answer is that with affordable, reliable energy it’s very possible. I agree with Bjorn Lomborg.
Now, climate warming alarmists are pushing a transition to wind and solar pawer to provide our electricity for an electric power dependent society. I say, great! Show us a small city where the experiment can be run. Show us that it works and provides affordable, reliable electricity 24/7 365. Then, when it has been demonstrated on a small city, run the same experiment on a major city like say, Chicago. Then, and only then should we consider transitioning to wind and solar for our power generation.
On the other hand, why not do the same with the new nuclear power generators. Build them and see if they ca help us transition off fossil fuels for our electricity. Make sure they’re safe and reliable.
Unfortunately for the climate alarmists, they are pushing an unproven form of energy generation on the West while giving China and India a pass. Anyone who has done much reading about wind and solar knows they are not ready for prime time and may never be.
My message to the climate alarmists is – show us a successful green powered city and maybe we will listen to you.
In re renewable energy, which is supposed to save us all (or at least those the elite allows to continue living):
Powerline’s bloggers have been on the case for a long time. This is a good recent post on why that “successful green powered city” is not going to come along any time soon, or ever.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/04/why-wind-and-solar-energy-are-doomed-to-failure.php
Zachriel: I think the physicists on this thread have done a nice job explaining why climate “science” is not worth much, but let me add this:
(1) the climate models can’t even hindcast.
(2) John Von Neumann joked that with four parameters he could model* an elephant, and with five he could make it wiggle its trunk. (* I think he said this about an equation for drawing the elephant, which is a graphic model). The point being, when you have a model with dozens (hundreds?) of parameters, which you are allowed to “tune,” you can make it say and do pretty much anything. It becomes not a representation of underlying reality but a propagandist’s toy.
(3) The climate models fit the description in (2). We aren’t supposed to question them —even though, heavily tuned, they can’t even hindcast.
(4) Other than the models, what does climate “science” consist of? Unfalsifiable projections. Their proponents are careful not to call them “predictions” (because that would mean they can be tested for truth or falsity; and (see (1)) they can’t even hindcast). So they call them “projections,” not offered as evidence of the climate’s actual future state, but only as lurid scenarios of the catastrophe we face if the “global average temperature” (itself a non-physical figment) should increase by a degree or two in the next century.
(5) Do read Koonin (and Shellenberger; and Lomborg; and Curry; and many others).
Cheers.
Paul in Boston (quoting): IPCC 2001: “The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future exact climate states is not possible. Rather the focus must be upon the prediction of the probability distribution of the system’s future possible states by the generation of ensembles of model solutions.”
That’s right. The evidence strongly supports anthropogenic global warming, but how the heat will be distributed is highly chaotic. It’s like adding heat to a boiling pot of water. You can’t easily predict where the bubbles will form (though you can model the turbulence), but you know that the water will be converted to steam.
physicsguy: My statement on the 2nd Law refers to the climate crowd claiming hurricanes etc will increase with global warming.
You had said the APS statement went against the 2nd law, but the APS statement doesn’t mention hurricanes.
Geoffrey Britain: “I can state flatly, that heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” Lord Kelvin 1895
Heh. Funny story. Kelvin was wrong about the age of the Earth too. But the evolutionary biologists had the right answer.
Mythx: Compared through statistical means…is the basis of a model. And then you state It does not depend on computer modeling and contradict yourself yet again.
All scientific theories are models, but not all models are computer models. However, you ignored the actual point raised.
The greenhouse effect is based on fundamental physics, as has been known for over a century. Without the greenhouse effect, the Earth would be a chilly -18°C rather than the balmy +15°C that it is. If you increase the concentration of atmospheric greenhouse gases, the Earth’s surface will tend to warm, while the upper atmosphere will cool. And that is what we observe.
Out of respect for neo’s forum, we’ll let you have the last word.
Zachriel, Nice deflection.
Of course the APS statement doesn’t SPECIFICALLY mention hurricanes. It is a broad statement of agreement with all the claims of the climate change crowd. That includes, by default, increased hurricanes, and any other conclusions that have been published.
So now, please refute my argument on the violation of the 2nd Law by the prediction of increasing hurricanes. BTW, you may want to look at the actual DATA by Ryan Maue on hurricane frequency and intensity for the past 100 years….just a suggestion in following the scientific method as so wonderfully outlined by Feynman.
OH…no one here is denying the existence of the greenhouse effect and it’s relation to the earth’s temperature. What is in dispute is the anthropic contribution by CO2 production. Water is, by far, the primary greenhouse gas. Its effects greatly outweigh CO2’s contribution. And don’t cite “positive feedbacks”; just more parameter twiddling by the computer models.
There is a type that is worse than a science denier and that is a “science” accepter. One day Neil deGrasse Tyson was being interviewed and he was defending Climate Science. He basically said we are able to put space probes on Mars so trust the conclusions of climate science. I found that less than compelling since we have pretty clear models of ballistics that allow us to mathematically chart the positions of planets in the solar system with a very high degree of accuracy. In fact we have used said math to find small bodies such as Pluto by variations in the positions of larger bodies. Climate science however doesn’t use a clean calculus based math to make it’s predictions it uses iterative models that are well known to have very limited predictive power over any but the shortest of time periods. Plus we haven’t used our ability to predict the locations of planetary bodies for political gain since Columbus tricked a bunch of native Americans into giving him stuff by predicting a lunar eclipse in 1504.
Physicsguy. That reminds me of an analysis I did two decades ago of hurricane frequency. At the time there had been a large number of hurricanes making landfall in the US and the climateers were making a big deal out of it, we’re all gonna die.
Using the last 100 years of hurricane counts it turned out that on average about 5 hurricanes a year hit the US. The analysis requires using something called the Poisson distribution for random processes. (It’s used in queuing theory all the time. Suppose you have a small diner and on average there are 5 customers at 3 pm every day. What are the chances that no one will show up, or you suddenly have ten? The Poisson distribution will tell you.) I plotted up the hurricane data and the fit was excellent. A PD also predicts that the time between hurricanes would follow an exponential distribution. It did.
How gracious and big of Zachreil; that he will “let” someone else “have the last word.”
Sounds like a “denier” to me, or a “concensus coercer,”
a policeman of thought, crimes and otherwise.
“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
It’s a great sentiment. Minor quibble, Hamlet was supporting the existence of ghosts, not the discoveries of science.
@Martin – Tyson also said bats were blind, so there’s that.
Paul in Boston and physicsguy: great comments. Is it worth mentioning that the greenhouse effect is logarithmic with concentration? So most of the effect has already been experienced. We’ve gone through many doublings of atmospheric CO2, from 1 ppm to 2, from 2 to 4, etc. Now we’re at 2 ^ 8.7 (going from 256 ppm to 512 ppm, currently 400-405 ppm. Getting us another full doubling —from 400 ppm to 800 ppm —will take many centuries (and most/all of the planet’s remaining fossil fuel). It may warm the planet by, oh, 2 degrees C.
With winter coming on, I am OK with that.
Here is an interesting idea, comparing how neuronal networks are organized vs. how the galaxy appears to be organized.
See https://www.resonancescience.org/blog/The-Universe-Organizes-in-a-Galactic-Neuromorphic-Network
Owen,
Yes Beer’s Law has nearly reached saturation for CO2 greenhouse effect. This is mainly due to the one absorption band of CO2 at 15 microns. If CO2 had the multiple absorption bands like water; different story. Which again is why water is the dominate greenhouse gas. Getting down into the nitty gritty here of counter arguments against the official narrative. But note as soon as those arguments show up, the opposition runs away, ala Zachriel. I doubt we hear anymore from him.
I have a simple question of those scientists alarmed about the consequences of AGW. I am a lawyer so evidence is a big deal for me. What actual evidence is there that atmospheric CO2 is the control knob of the climate?
stu @ 11:46: “…What actual evidence is there that atmospheric CO2 is the control knob of the climate?”
I am not a physicist (and I don’t even play one on TV). But in my defense I am a science geek and a longtime fan of Richard Feynman and similar super-clear thinkers. So, subject to comments from the real physicists on this thread, I would answer your question as follows:
The question may not be well formulated. It assumes there IS a ‘control knob,’ that is, a single variable in this complex, chaotic, dynamic system called the global climate. And it assumes further that the single variable not only (a) exists but also (b) can be ‘controlled’ (i.e. by us humans: in a reasonable time span with reasonable feedback/calibration at reasonable cost in energy/resource/political and other agreement). I’m not sure there is such a thing, but my guess is, the driver of the system is inbound solar energy and a (the) main ‘control knob’ is the negative feedback loop from the hydrological cycle. All that sunshine gets converted into mechanical work (evaporating and transporting water) and then the heat is carried to the poles and stratosphere and leaves the system. Water is the big dog in this story. CO2 and other GHGs count for a few percentage points.
The claim that CO2 is the ‘control knob’ is IMHO a piece of bootstrapping. Until the system’s various other elements have been considered one by one and eliminated as the putative ‘control knob’ (and how would you ever do that?) you can’t claim that CO2 is the culprit.
“Nature World News, September 14: “Due to the Increase of Oil Prices, Switching To Renewable Energy Could Save Trillions Than Using Fossil Fuels.” “An Oxford University study claimed that switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy might save the world $12 trillion (£10.2 trillion) by the year 2050. . . . However, the researchers asserted that the declining cost of renewable energy means that going green currently makes financial sense.”
There are dozens more of these out there should you care to do an internet search.
My main response is: This paper and others like it are exactly why we citizens and taxpayers need to demand a working and fully-costed demonstration project before we allow ourselves all to be used as guinea pigs in the implementation of these preposterous wind/solar fantasies. As I wrote in a post just a few days ago, if this is so easy and will save so much money, then California and New York should show the rest of us how it’s done before everyone else is forced to go along.” -Manhattan Contrarian
JJ suggested we need demonstration projects to prove the viability of relying on renewables. So has Manhattan Contrarian. The elephant, of course, is storage. Until there is a breakthrough technology invented, storage costs make the entire exercise in renewables futile.
The Contrarian does some calculations of what we can expect the costs of Lithium batteries in the foreseeable future and future technologies based on hydrogen.
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2022-9-16-cost-of-the-green-energy-transition-who-you-gonna-believe-me-or-your-lyin-eyes
Many years ago, as the beginning of the push for solutions to “global warming”/”climate change” began, and debates raged, I ran across an article discussing how the climate change computer model a lot of “climate activists/advocates/experts/officials” were relying on–advocates who were furious that anyone could challenge and not believe that such a disaster was upon us, activists who were in favor of drastic action to reverse such climate change–was a model which did not take into account in it’s calculations the effects of the oceans, the 7/10ths of the Earth’s surface that is covered by water–too hard to model don’t ya know.
Well, that was it for me.
Then, of course, there was the entirely separate issue of whether such a push, an effort that was intended to involve the entire world–based on a largely illusory problem which, in any case, actions by humans could not effect in any major way–was, in fact, a disguised attempt by the Left–those, often self nominated “climate activists/advocates/experts/officials”–to advance further toward the goals of the Left, to reorder society, and to see to it that those on the Left acquired ever more control, power, and money as they supposedly fought the supposed “existential threat” of global warming.
Kudos to: “Please don’t cite Scientific American as a serious source on scientific matters.”
I remember when I switched to a new junior high school, and found their trove of Scientific American magazines in the library! I thought I had died and gone to heaven!
Years later, in October of 2008, they delivered to this proud subscriber an issue that contained a paper claiming to prove that Presidential Candidate McCain got better media coverage than Candidate Obama! This seemed unbelievable, until you read the fine print that told you that the data was gathered during the prior year primary season, not during that summer’s election season!
Of course, during the primary season the year before, “Maverick” McCain was the Media’s darling stalking horse set up for Hillary, and Obama was the upstart who was challenging “Her Inevitableness”! So this had nothing to do with their treatment by the media during the actual election season, an issue which it was clearly touted to address!
I cancelled my subscription, and have never looked at the rag since!
P.S. Also of interest were some articles which pointed out that, after the fall of the USSR, a lot of communist officials reinvented/rebranded/transformed themselves into becoming “climate activists.”
I recently saw a collection of curves purporting to show the performance of a dozen or so climate models against actual temperatures over an extended period of several decades.
Interestingly, the model with (by far) the best performance was that of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
This may be some creative data manipulation, or it may (more likely, imho) be that the Russians know better than to use the bs they fabricate for everyone else to use!
“zachriel” is a committed hard left troll who used to pollute Professor Jacobson’s excellent Legal Insurrection blog. Apparently he has been given a new assignment.
There was No big bang. It is a theory. Explosions create chaos.
But note as soon as those arguments show up, the opposition runs away, ala Zachriel. –physicsguy
One of my favorite WF Buckley quotes:
_______________________________
Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.
–William F. Buckley
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Today’s liberals are leftists, who know there are other views and that they lack effective counter-arguments, so they have moved right along to censoring, canceling, prosecuting, and otherwise ruining lives.
They haven’t quite reached gulags and stake-burning yet, but “Scientific American” called Dr. Judith Curry a “climate heretic” in 2010, then blamed her for the lack of civil conversation, so I would guess, when fanatics are in charge, it’s only a matter of time and opportunity before more extreme punishments emerge:
_______________________________
Climate Heretic: Judith Curry Turns on Her Colleagues
Why can’t we have a civil conversation about climate?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-heretic/
I think it’s interesting that about 239 watts/m^2 are coming into the earth’s atmosphere and 239 watts/m^2 are leaving for space. This leads one to think that if the lower layer of the troposphere is heating there must be another layer that is cooling.
The conditions of the primordial soup of a supposed big bang must have had a very low entropy because of the second law. Yet Entropy has the units of joules/kelvin and we know kelvin must have been fantastically high at t=Slightly >0. So how is it that joules can be so low in such a hot soup?
Gravitational waves have energy. They are stretching and condensing matter. If they have energy they have some mass from E= mc^2. Are there black holes so massive that they keep gravitational waves from forming from acceleration of black holes? How would these black holes be detected?
Is there dark matter black holes?
Are there black holes with dark energy expanding their diameters?