Benja's TakeOnIt

The idea of truth being relative is that given two ideas, you can't say that either is the right one - they are both equally valid. Newton's theory and Einstein's theory are not equally right - Einstein's theory is a superset of Newton's (where Newton's only works well for speeds much less than the speed of light).

Hi Jim,

I just what to chime in and say I really appreciate the fact that you've brought up the importance of a testable hypothesis. I think this is an inherent weakness in climatology. Andrew Dessler does try to head on talk about that problem here: http://www.grist.org/article/Looking-for-validation

Just to clarify your statements:

1. CO2 becomes less effective at increasing concentrations.
2. CO2 saturates at 200 ppm, becoming negligible in effect.

The IPCC agrees (roughly) with 1, but would dispute 2.

Regarding paleoclimates, the IPCC does more than wonder about the high concentrations of CO2 in these times: they study it. These climates were so radically different to today's one (even the sun was once far less hot) that intuitive apples to apples comparisons are perhaps interesting in terms of turning a hunch into a formal hypothesis, but no conclusions can be drawn from them.

Also, to avoid confusion for anyone reading this - the overall role of clouds in the climate system is not simple. In fact, the IPCC acknowledges that this is the biggest source of uncertainty in their models. As a bystander in a scientific debate, it can seem ironic that the skeptics Christy, Spencer, and Lindzen present such a sure footed understanding of the most complex aspect of climate, while simultaneously criticizing the IPCC for being too sure of what they know.

I agree both strategies will be part of the solution. Hopefully as we get a deeper understanding of the workings of our climate, we can choose a geo-engineering strategy that minimizes side-effects (e.g. ozone loss).

Thanks for your comments Oluseun. You've obviously got some background in this area, so your opinion is most appreciated.

As a skeptical person, it's difficult for me to fully embrace the IPCC's assessments when the error margins are as large as 50%. I also feel suspicious - maybe my feelings are unfounded - as to the degree to which the IPCC is willing to make their models testable. If one year doesn't match their predictions, they will say it's an anomaly. Perhaps this is fair enough - these are long term models, which are also intrinsically imprecise due to the somewhat heuristic nature of the domain. But what about 3 years? Or a whole decade? What prediction are the IPCC willing to make, which must come true for them to claim their models are correct?

What I'd looking for - and I think great scientific theories have this - are some predictions that would be highly improbable to guess.

Guessing a change in sea level and being off by 50% is not an impressive validation of the theory, even if it turns out that the general basis for the theory is correct.

I say all of this with caution. I'm equally skeptical of the skeptics when they have all-too-easy dismissals of a very serious issue.

What if:

* I had a theory we can bungee jump without cords?
* I had a theory on how we could get rich, that involved you first depositing all your money into my account?
* I had a theory that you're dreaming right now, and I've been sent into your psyche to wake you up?

Under dictionary.com's definition, you'd have a closed mind if you rejected my theories. The dictionary's job is to tell you how a word is used ordinarily, even if that ordinary usage has circumstances where it makes no sense at all.

Ouch. Man those professors were wrong.

Thanks for your thoughts.

I agree with you that the belief that we have a soul, as in have a sense of identity, awareness, sense of meaning etc., is a matter of experience. However, to say that we have an *immaterial* soul is saying something very different. It's saying that our soul - however you prefer to define it - isn't contingent upon our physical bodies. That's not a question you can settle by appealing to experience. It's a question whose answer depends on evidence and reasoning.

No doubt there's some arguments against the existence of an immaterial soul that beg the question, which assume that the soul must be material. But as you say, strawmen arguments are no good, so let's not use bad arguments for the opposing position as evidence to support our own position (the so called fallacy-fallacy). Tbe good arguments against the soul certainly don't assume that the soul must be material. Rather, they say that the soul, whether it be immaterial or material - must interact with the material world. If it wasn't the case, we couldn't even be talking about it - because parts of our body - such as our lips and tongue and fingertips - are able to communicate the message of the soul, as I'm doing right now (assuming I'm not a calculating machine ;)).

So we know that the soul does interact with the material world. The question then becomes: how? At this point we can speculate about how an immaterial soul interacts with a material body (presumably the link is in our brain), but this seems awfully 17th century thinking; a hangover from the days of Descartes' dualism. Surely the simpler explanation is that our brain *is* the substrate of our soul, rather than a mere transmitter/receiver to an immaterial world. And sure enough, when we look at the human brain, we don't find structures looking like radio parts, we find neural connections that hold memories; i.e. we find the underpinnings for our soul purely in the material world.

Nice comparison with art.

Scientists claim beauty is a signifier of evolutionarily beneficial traits. Given that they might be right, this implies beauty is a matter of survival and reproduction, a matter which is difficult to dismiss as skin deep.

7 months ago Chris Richardson, a respected economist, was mocking others for "huffing and puffing" about an upcoming recession. Now he's saying it's no surprise to anyone (well, so long as they weren't LISTENING TO HIM).

The politicians against storing waste at Yucca mountain are conspicuously silent about a comparison of the alternatives:

1) Find another site in the US to store waste.
2) Ship the waste to another country.
3) Let the waste pile up at nuclear power plants.

Yet those same politicians are keen to look at expanding the nuclear energy industry. It's interesting to see Barack Obama's energy secretary, Steven Chu, is going out on a limb, by not supporting his boss's belief that Yucca is a bad idea (he is awaiting the results of yet another study). However, I would expect that the government will use whatever interpretation of the study they want to get the conclusion that is politically expedient. The process of quantifying risk is highly susceptible to spin.

An observation: perhaps it's inconsistent that The Economist does not state an opinion on abortion, yet vouches for a political candidate. They deliberately avoid having an opinion, but do describe the issue as polarizing (polarizing to their subscribers?).