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Mainstream Science.
Why do some people disbelieve the current scientific consensus regarding e.g. evolution or man-made global warming? There are people who cherry-pick comments from a tiny minority of scientists so as to find stuff that supports their own views. Where do their views come from if not from an instinct that tells them that mainstream science is against their religion or that it must be wrong simply because it is mainstream?
There is sometimes a view expressed that everybody laughed at so-and-so and called him a crank; and then he was later vindicated. I don't think that 'cranks' are usually right, I think they are usually wrong. Lets face it, mainstream science has led to an understanding of the solar system and powered flight and electronics and social media. Most of the crank stuff has disappeared when it became obvious that it didn't work.
Can anyone name one 'crank' who was later vindicated?
There is sometimes a view expressed that everybody laughed at so-and-so and called him a crank; and then he was later vindicated. I don't think that 'cranks' are usually right, I think they are usually wrong. Lets face it, mainstream science has led to an understanding of the solar system and powered flight and electronics and social media. Most of the crank stuff has disappeared when it became obvious that it didn't work.
Can anyone name one 'crank' who was later vindicated?
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I can't be bothered to go through all of birdie's points in this thread, which is perhaps a shame because they'll deserve a full reply at some point, but I was interested in this one:
"5. The ability of CO2 to trap heat is logarithmic and we're at the downward trough of that curve. Adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will result in an ever decreasing temperature increase."
What does this even mean exactly? Taking the first part of it as true, that the ability of CO2 to trap heat is logarithmic, then the rest fundamentally misunderstands how a logarithm works. In particular, there is no "downward trough" in a logarithmic curve; and, while an "ever decreasing increase" might lead people to think that there is a fundamental limit to the contribution of C02 to temperature increase, this would be a mistake: log(x) tends to infinity extremely slowly, but it still gets there, and therefore if x represents amount of CO2, this is tantamount to admitting that it will always be a problem, and will always drive temperatures upwards.
To be blunt, this is mathematically illiterate, not to mention self-defeating. I'm curious how birdie didn't notice this themselves.
"5. The ability of CO2 to trap heat is logarithmic and we're at the downward trough of that curve. Adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will result in an ever decreasing temperature increase."
What does this even mean exactly? Taking the first part of it as true, that the ability of CO2 to trap heat is logarithmic, then the rest fundamentally misunderstands how a logarithm works. In particular, there is no "downward trough" in a logarithmic curve; and, while an "ever decreasing increase" might lead people to think that there is a fundamental limit to the contribution of C02 to temperature increase, this would be a mistake: log(x) tends to infinity extremely slowly, but it still gets there, and therefore if x represents amount of CO2, this is tantamount to admitting that it will always be a problem, and will always drive temperatures upwards.
To be blunt, this is mathematically illiterate, not to mention self-defeating. I'm curious how birdie didn't notice this themselves.
I was gonna say that this is going to degenerate into the usual crazy vaxxer thread
and Karolina - who sums up the inductive scientific method then screws it by saying Darwin was vilified in this life time
he wasnt - the fact that Mrs Darwin thought he wd go to Hell is irrelevant
ho hum - normal thread for AB
I was gonna volunteer - Lovelace Gaia hypothesis
Rontgen and X rays - thought to be fake - they werent
Contemporary M rays - thought to be fake and were.
Franklin and Lavoisier and oxygen ( not straightforward)
the reqd reading for this is Structure of Scientific Revolutions Kuhn. True now as it was. Never went thro a period of vilification
// Most of the crank stuff has disappeared when it became obvious that it didn't work.// seems a good rule to go by
try it and see
and Karolina - who sums up the inductive scientific method then screws it by saying Darwin was vilified in this life time
he wasnt - the fact that Mrs Darwin thought he wd go to Hell is irrelevant
ho hum - normal thread for AB
I was gonna volunteer - Lovelace Gaia hypothesis
Rontgen and X rays - thought to be fake - they werent
Contemporary M rays - thought to be fake and were.
Franklin and Lavoisier and oxygen ( not straightforward)
the reqd reading for this is Structure of Scientific Revolutions Kuhn. True now as it was. Never went thro a period of vilification
// Most of the crank stuff has disappeared when it became obvious that it didn't work.// seems a good rule to go by
try it and see
Co2 upake is logarithmic
news to me
" The logarithmic relationship predicts that the surface warming potential will rise by roughly the same amount for each doubling of CO2 concentration."
strikes me as obviously contrary to fact but ho hum who am I?
a logarithmic relation which is why Jimbo is having a fit grows slower than any power of X - including x to the power of 0.00000000001
(that's pretty small power boys and girls)
news to me
" The logarithmic relationship predicts that the surface warming potential will rise by roughly the same amount for each doubling of CO2 concentration."
strikes me as obviously contrary to fact but ho hum who am I?
a logarithmic relation which is why Jimbo is having a fit grows slower than any power of X - including x to the power of 0.00000000001
(that's pretty small power boys and girls)
To reply to the main question, "mainstream science" is such a difficult concept to discuss because it's so vague or empty of meaning. I suspect a lot of the reaction to it has to do with a suspicion of "groupthink", and perhaps a failure to appreciate that scientists are usually their own biggest critics, both individually and as a community. The scientific consensus has emerged because, despite this constant introspection, there are agreed objective criteria for an idea to be more or less accepted: namely, experimental evidence, interpreted according to robust statistical methods, that allows mathematical models to be tested. In principle, at least*, all of this ought to be replicable by any other person with the same access to equipment and the same appreciation of the mathematics used to make and to test those predictions.
By definition, all of the ideas of "mainstream science" have passed this test. That doesn't mean that they will continue to do so. All of this is also couched in probability and statistical interpretation, so it necessarily follows that there is always a chance that a future test, and future scrutiny, will change that picture. The problem seems to be that critics of the mainstream seize upon this chance and inflate it to a virtual certainty, which it is not.
*In practice, this can be difficult, particularly because the resources required for modern science are often expensive. There's also a problem that the "replication studies" are less prestigious, so sometimes just aren't carried out.
By definition, all of the ideas of "mainstream science" have passed this test. That doesn't mean that they will continue to do so. All of this is also couched in probability and statistical interpretation, so it necessarily follows that there is always a chance that a future test, and future scrutiny, will change that picture. The problem seems to be that critics of the mainstream seize upon this chance and inflate it to a virtual certainty, which it is not.
*In practice, this can be difficult, particularly because the resources required for modern science are often expensive. There's also a problem that the "replication studies" are less prestigious, so sometimes just aren't carried out.
good wiki on group think
in politics - suez and bay of pigs
scientific group think - - oh, the reluctance of scientists to accept the new system. -- - see Kuhn, severe resistance and then it goes floop! ( newton, einstein, Clerk Maxwell are exemplars) paradigm shift
Kuhn again ( really recommended) Oh Mr Planck, your ideas are very modern how did you get all the old professors to accept them (*)
Herr Planck - they died ..
(*) Woofie Jim TheProf ( moi) will all have seen old professors who had invested too much in the old ways to change at age 55-60 y and so WON'T ! rather than say "oops there goes twenty y darn da toob!!!")
in politics - suez and bay of pigs
scientific group think - - oh, the reluctance of scientists to accept the new system. -- - see Kuhn, severe resistance and then it goes floop! ( newton, einstein, Clerk Maxwell are exemplars) paradigm shift
Kuhn again ( really recommended) Oh Mr Planck, your ideas are very modern how did you get all the old professors to accept them (*)
Herr Planck - they died ..
(*) Woofie Jim TheProf ( moi) will all have seen old professors who had invested too much in the old ways to change at age 55-60 y and so WON'T ! rather than say "oops there goes twenty y darn da toob!!!")
PP I had the advantage of being in a "young" professsion so not too many old farts around. We had the opposite problem when I was younger (well middle aged) in that research was all and the professional journal was filled with statistical toot which if you read it through meant very little but was couched in the "right" language. It was good for us though and I guess a phase that all young professions grow through. It did scrape off the moss and enable us to define the bedrock of our principles though and then when the research was done, the basis was solid and the outcome mostly useful even if often it was just confirming what we already knew empirically. it must have been as annoying as heck for the young blood at the uni who would visit us to present their latest piece of research and then ask us afterwards how it would change our practice only to find that we had been doing it that way for years because it works. Oh god.....maybe I was one of the old'uns and didn't know it.
Not all evidence is created equal. Rebuttals to most or all of his points are not difficult to find.
There's no sense in pretending that this post doesn't come across as terse and dismissive, and for that I'm sorry. All I can do is refer you to the volume of literature that has established a link between CO2* and Climate Change, and a link between human activity and CO2, stretching back over a century. The controversy about the science is to a great extent manufactured, and probably stretches back only to the time when people realised that they might have to change their lifestyle in order to deal with it. Reactionary anti-science movements are a common feature in history: you could also add homeopathy, Young-Earth Creationism, Flat Earth theories etc.
*and, indeed, many other greenhouse gases, some of which, like CFCs, are necessarily man-made
There's no sense in pretending that this post doesn't come across as terse and dismissive, and for that I'm sorry. All I can do is refer you to the volume of literature that has established a link between CO2* and Climate Change, and a link between human activity and CO2, stretching back over a century. The controversy about the science is to a great extent manufactured, and probably stretches back only to the time when people realised that they might have to change their lifestyle in order to deal with it. Reactionary anti-science movements are a common feature in history: you could also add homeopathy, Young-Earth Creationism, Flat Earth theories etc.
*and, indeed, many other greenhouse gases, some of which, like CFCs, are necessarily man-made
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I'm well aware of how logarithms work. The part I was confused about was your use of "downward trough", which, as I have I hope made clear, is utterly nonsensical. A logarithm is always increasing, even if the increase is slow: there is, therefore, no "downward trough" in a logarithmic curve, and to suggest otherwise is mathematically illiterate. Maybe you just worded things badly, but in either case it's worth owning up to that fact.
To "rebut" your points, then:
1. True, but one could be forgiven for thinking that the "just" in "amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is just 0.04% of the total" is extremely loaded. Nobody disputes this figure, and the fact that the concentration of CO2 is small compared to, say, oxygen, is neither here nor there in terms of the discussion.
2. This is another case of being extremely misleading. Roughly speaking, human activity accounts for about 30-40 gigatonnes of CO2 (GTC) annually, compared to around 750 (GTC) annually from natural sources. However, this is to ignore the fact that while natural sources dump 750 GTC into the atmosphere, they also suck it all back in again, eg because plants use CO2 in photsynthesis. Natural processes are in various variations, so it isn't true that the sum is exactly zero annually; instead, in some years natural activity would increase CO2 levels, and in other years it would decrease. There are also seasonal variations in CO2 levels. But in any case, the *net* natural changes to CO2 levels are measured in a handful of GTC.
There are few aspects of human activity, if any, that act as natural CO2 sinks. Therefore, the 30-odd GTC we dump into the atmosphere annually cannot be entirely absorbed again by the natural carbon cycle. The result is that, while human activity is directly responsible for around 3% of gross CO2 emissions, it leaps up to a much higher percentage of the net change in CO2 levels per year. Owing to natural variations, there is no sense in giving an exact percentage, but the most generous assumptions would show that human activity is responsible for around as much again as the largest natural change in any given year. Human CO2 emissions are, by the way, still increasing. Even in the last decade, we went from around 38 GTC to 43 GTC.
See, for example, https:/
3. True, not worth rebutting, except to state that since Climate Change is a global problem then obviously it will require a global solution. I don't believe that there's anybody labouring under the delusion that the UK alone can solve the problem.
4. Another extremely misleading bullet point. There are two basic replies. The first is that, even while water vapour does account for the majority of the warming effect (around 60%), that doesn't negate the importance of the other 40% or so. The second is that water vapour levels are in practice an effect, not a cause, of temperature. See https:/
5. Already rebutted to the extent that the second half of your point is mathematically meaningless. But the other point is that this ignores that the rate at which CO2 emissions are increasing is growing itself. Thus, even while doubling CO2 levels has less and less of an impact overall, we're taking a more or less constant time to double anyway. See also https:/
6. Another fact taken somewhat out of context. The rate of change is also relevant, and there is also no claim being made that CO2 concentrations are the only factor in determining the climate. 500 million years ago the distribution of landmass was also very different, and, for that matter, most animal life was ocean-bound, so that higher atmospheric temperatures were less relevant in affecting life.
Continued...
1. True, but one could be forgiven for thinking that the "just" in "amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is just 0.04% of the total" is extremely loaded. Nobody disputes this figure, and the fact that the concentration of CO2 is small compared to, say, oxygen, is neither here nor there in terms of the discussion.
2. This is another case of being extremely misleading. Roughly speaking, human activity accounts for about 30-40 gigatonnes of CO2 (GTC) annually, compared to around 750 (GTC) annually from natural sources. However, this is to ignore the fact that while natural sources dump 750 GTC into the atmosphere, they also suck it all back in again, eg because plants use CO2 in photsynthesis. Natural processes are in various variations, so it isn't true that the sum is exactly zero annually; instead, in some years natural activity would increase CO2 levels, and in other years it would decrease. There are also seasonal variations in CO2 levels. But in any case, the *net* natural changes to CO2 levels are measured in a handful of GTC.
There are few aspects of human activity, if any, that act as natural CO2 sinks. Therefore, the 30-odd GTC we dump into the atmosphere annually cannot be entirely absorbed again by the natural carbon cycle. The result is that, while human activity is directly responsible for around 3% of gross CO2 emissions, it leaps up to a much higher percentage of the net change in CO2 levels per year. Owing to natural variations, there is no sense in giving an exact percentage, but the most generous assumptions would show that human activity is responsible for around as much again as the largest natural change in any given year. Human CO2 emissions are, by the way, still increasing. Even in the last decade, we went from around 38 GTC to 43 GTC.
See, for example, https:/
3. True, not worth rebutting, except to state that since Climate Change is a global problem then obviously it will require a global solution. I don't believe that there's anybody labouring under the delusion that the UK alone can solve the problem.
4. Another extremely misleading bullet point. There are two basic replies. The first is that, even while water vapour does account for the majority of the warming effect (around 60%), that doesn't negate the importance of the other 40% or so. The second is that water vapour levels are in practice an effect, not a cause, of temperature. See https:/
5. Already rebutted to the extent that the second half of your point is mathematically meaningless. But the other point is that this ignores that the rate at which CO2 emissions are increasing is growing itself. Thus, even while doubling CO2 levels has less and less of an impact overall, we're taking a more or less constant time to double anyway. See also https:/
6. Another fact taken somewhat out of context. The rate of change is also relevant, and there is also no claim being made that CO2 concentrations are the only factor in determining the climate. 500 million years ago the distribution of landmass was also very different, and, for that matter, most animal life was ocean-bound, so that higher atmospheric temperatures were less relevant in affecting life.
Continued...
To continue point 6, it is also important to recognise that changes in climate tend to affect life as it exists before without ruling out the possibility that *different* life can exist afterwards. In this sense, nobody can be taken seriously who suggests that the present period of Climate Change will be apocalyptic for life on Earth in the most abstract sense. On the other hand, species who have adapted to the current conditions cannot be expected to keep pace with the faster-than-usual rate of change. Life as a whole will adapt, but many species will not. Since, as I have pointed out (see point 2), the fact is that humanity's 3-4% of gross GTC is a significant and indeed dominant contributor to increases in CO2 levels, then it follows that we would be responsible for this.
The changes could also be destructive for large numbers of individual humans, but not the species as a whole. Sea level rise is a generally-expected effect of temperature increases, and there are a large number of cities based near coasts that would be affected by these rises. Current models suggest that the sea level rise to be expected in the next century is between 0.3 and 2.5 metres (https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/publications/techrpt83_Global_and_Regional_SLR_Scenarios_for_the_US_final.pdf , p14; see also references therein).
The changes could also be destructive for large numbers of individual humans, but not the species as a whole. Sea level rise is a generally-expected effect of temperature increases, and there are a large number of cities based near coasts that would be affected by these rises. Current models suggest that the sea level rise to be expected in the next century is between 0.3 and 2.5 metres (https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/publications/techrpt83_Global_and_Regional_SLR_Scenarios_for_the_US_final.pdf , p14; see also references therein).
submitted too early, hang on...
Current projections for sea level rise by 2100 tend to predict a rise of between 0.3 and 2.5 metres, with at least an estimated 50% probability of exceeding 0.5 metres: https:/
Whatever the case, assuming a rise of only half a metre, cities with populations of millions would be affected by this: the Netherlands is an obvious place where even a modest rise would be devastating, along with Miami, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, Osaka, and many others. And this is only by 2100, and only assuming relatively small rises. It is no exaggeration to suggest that hundreds of millions of people would be displaced within a century, and this is itself just one effect of rapid climate change.
7. This is another one of those points that strikes me as irrelevant. There is no dispute that CO2 is vital for the existence of life. I'm not sure that 180 is a necessary minimum, but clearly if there were no CO2 at all then plant life would cease to exist, and everything else would rapidly follow. Why does this discussion have any relevance to the debate about whether levels are changing fast at the moment (no debate: they are), and whether that is largely down to human activity (see point 2, but in short yes it is to a high degree of probability).
8 (on a further discussion of the logarithmic dependence on CO2 levels of temperature): setting aside the fact that I don't need logarithms explained to me (and see also the earlier link on this point), it's bad form to be so patronising, especially when, as I had made clear, the criticism was of the phrase "downward trough", which is still meaningless.
But anyway, the other problem is that this ignores the wider picture. For example, there are a lot of CO2 sinks that can be expected to dump their CO2 if the temperature rises. For example, there is a great deal of trapped CO2 in permafrost, which will be released as that melts (approximately 10% of the total by 2100, and this may be an underestimate: https:/
In short, the key factor you are overlooking by focusing on the logarithmic fit is the rate of increase of CO2 emission. This is approximately exponential for the time being, which would sadly serve to mitigate the "saving grace" of a roughly logarithmic dependence of temperature on CO2 levels.
Current projections for sea level rise by 2100 tend to predict a rise of between 0.3 and 2.5 metres, with at least an estimated 50% probability of exceeding 0.5 metres: https:/
Whatever the case, assuming a rise of only half a metre, cities with populations of millions would be affected by this: the Netherlands is an obvious place where even a modest rise would be devastating, along with Miami, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, Osaka, and many others. And this is only by 2100, and only assuming relatively small rises. It is no exaggeration to suggest that hundreds of millions of people would be displaced within a century, and this is itself just one effect of rapid climate change.
7. This is another one of those points that strikes me as irrelevant. There is no dispute that CO2 is vital for the existence of life. I'm not sure that 180 is a necessary minimum, but clearly if there were no CO2 at all then plant life would cease to exist, and everything else would rapidly follow. Why does this discussion have any relevance to the debate about whether levels are changing fast at the moment (no debate: they are), and whether that is largely down to human activity (see point 2, but in short yes it is to a high degree of probability).
8 (on a further discussion of the logarithmic dependence on CO2 levels of temperature): setting aside the fact that I don't need logarithms explained to me (and see also the earlier link on this point), it's bad form to be so patronising, especially when, as I had made clear, the criticism was of the phrase "downward trough", which is still meaningless.
But anyway, the other problem is that this ignores the wider picture. For example, there are a lot of CO2 sinks that can be expected to dump their CO2 if the temperature rises. For example, there is a great deal of trapped CO2 in permafrost, which will be released as that melts (approximately 10% of the total by 2100, and this may be an underestimate: https:/
In short, the key factor you are overlooking by focusing on the logarithmic fit is the rate of increase of CO2 emission. This is approximately exponential for the time being, which would sadly serve to mitigate the "saving grace" of a roughly logarithmic dependence of temperature on CO2 levels.
