jadavison.wordpress.com

I find it hilarious that you regard Einstein’s lifelnng determinism as his downfall. Determinism MEANS certainty which you do not seem to grasp. I find your philosophy to be empty and useless. I have little respect for philosophy, sharing that sentiment with Einstein as well -

“Upon reading books on philosophy, I learned that I stood there like a blind man in front of a painting. I can grasp only the inductive method…the works of speculative philosophy are beyond my reach.”

Apparently you don’t believe in absolute truth. I do. Science is the search for and the discovery of absolute truths. We are poles apart so I see no point in continuing this fruitless philosophical exercise.

“Here I stand. I can do no otherwise.”
Martin Luther

Science is based on the preponderance of evidence for which there can never be certainty. Evidence is made up of the parts of reality that we can observe ourselves (with increasing amounts of certainty up to 100% for our own existence and identity) and those parts of reality or explanations that fit into a coherent depiction of reality (which is really science).

To give some specific examples, the preponderance of evidence such as isotope analysis suggests that the primary contributor to the modern increase in CO2 is man’s burning of fossil fuels.

Another example is warming from CO2. There are numerous examples of natural fluctuations but there is ample evidence that CO2 causes greenhouse warming. The CO2 warming can be demonstrated with simple closed experiments. The enhanced warming due to water vapor feedback cannot because it is dependent on weather which distributes the water vapor. The only way to determine the enhanced warming (otherwise called sensitivity) is to fully understand the nature of weather in its role of distributing water vapor, particularly in the tropics at the boundary layer in the mesoscale.

There are lots of people who claim to have more certainty in that particular matter than they actually have either through faulty analysis of their own, or by trusting other’s fault analyses. That is their downfall.

Is that an Eric D. Peterson original? I’ll bet it is!

As for “certainty in science” -

“Everything is determined…by forces over which we have no control.”
Albert Einstein

That is the antithesis of “certainty is the antithesis of science.”

It doesn’t get any better than this.

I love it so!

It is hard to believe isn’t it?

Not at all. It is a matter of record.

Sorry but certainty in science is impossible. We can say it is a “well established fact” that the earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa. but it is not certain. The conceptual system that allows us to communicate scientific principles does have certainty as does mathematics and other abstractions. Likewise my own existence, consciousness, and identity are certain to myself (although not to you as you have correctly pointed out).

But in science there is always room for new facts and changes even in the most well established theories. Our own experiences can be extended with certainty to our immediate surroundings, for example the existence of things that we can directly observe. Other theories can be based on those observations, or communicated among scientists, but they are only theories, not certainties.

AGW is a theory, it is possible that the current warming is mostly or even completely natural. However the support for AGW theory is quite strong and an objective scientist would recognize that CO2 causes some warming, and that water vapor feedback causes more. The only scientific debate should be the amounts and the future amounts.

Anyone who argues that increase CO2 does not cause warming or who argues that the current increases in CO2 are mostly or completely natural is not a thorough scientist (e.g. ignoring carbon isotope evidence that strongly connects atmospheric CO2 with fossil fuels). Since that is a well established scientific fact the consequences of that increased CO2 can be studied and policy decisions made based on those consequences. As shown in the link in 13, the consequences of increases can also be predicted through experiments and similar policy decisions can be debated.

As I said above, I would like to see evidence that “the collapse of many ocean ecosystems will be irreversible” at CO2 over 450 ppm. Experiments with marine environments and 450ppm air should be easy to perform. I would like to read the results of those experiments.

Thanks for the confession.

I resent your suggestion that “we both know there is no certainty in science.” That is one of the most absurd statements I have ever encountered. Science deals only with certainties, verifiable certainties. That which cannot be verified is not science. Darwinism comes to mind. So does the position held by those who deny anthropogenic global warming.

That is my “immediate reaction” to your message.

jadavison.wordpress.com

As for lacking certainty, we both know there is no certainty in science. Your immediate reaction should be skeptical.