Science

[inked]

You go to work I have a short list....

http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-...s+bunk+science

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by inked

You go to work I have a short list....

http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-...s+bunk+science

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

That's your answer? A google search on 'global warming is bunk science'?

The first page turned up Fox News, a New York Times article wherein G. W. Bush is accused of being more 'interested in science fiction than science' and some blogs...

Christmas Holidays makes a good time for some soul searching

[Earniel]

Since we were just talking about this, for Hector: Hopes dashed for Tasmanian Devil. Read the older links on the right too, those provide more background.

[hectorberlioz]

Ah, so according to the first article the cancer cells are directly transplanted from one facial tumor to another tasmanian devil. That makes a lot more sense than just "a cancer" which is contageous.

[inked]

Gee, Coffeehouse, if you took that seriously, you should see the results for "global warming is a cash cow designed to further strip developing countries of opportunity and consolidate the power of the current elite"!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

[GrayMouser]

The United States faces the possibility of much more rapid climate change by the end of the century than previous studies have suggested, according to a new report led by the U.S. Geological Survey.

The survey -- which was commissioned by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and issued this month -- expands on the 2007 findings of the United Nations Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change. Looking at factors such as rapid sea ice loss in the Arctic and prolonged drought in the Southwest, the new assessment suggests that earlier projections may have underestimated the climatic shifts that could take place by 2100.


Thirty-two scientists from federal and non-federal institutions contributed to the report, which took nearly two years to complete. The Climate Change Science Program, which was established in 1990, coordinates the climate research of 13 different federal agencies.



In one of the report's most worrisome findings, the agency estimates that in light of recent ice sheet melting, global sea level rise could be as much as four feet by 2100. The IPCC had projected a sea level rise of no more than 1.5 feet by that time, but satellite data over the past two years show the world's major ice sheets are melting much more rapidly than previously thought. The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are now losing an average of 48 cubic miles of ice a year, equivalent to twice the amount of ice that exists in the Alps.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...402174_pf.html

But I'm sure Senator Inhofe can find a TV weatherman somewhere to explain how the latest snowstorm shows why this is wrong...

[inked]

See here regarding agendization:

http://www.urgentagenda.com/PERMALIN...P.WARMING.html

taster:
"(2) It is obvious that anthropogenic global warming is not science at all, because a scientific theory makes non-obvious predictions which are then compared with observations that the average person can check for himself. As we both know from our own observations, AGW theory has spectacularly failed to do this. The theory has predicted steadily increasing global temperatures, and this has been refuted by experience. NOW the global warmers claim that the Earth will enter a cooling period. In other words, whether the ice caps melt, or expand --- whatever happens --- the AGW theorists claim it confirms their theory. A perfect example of a pseudo-science like astrology."

enjoy! Happy New Year!

[Count Comfect]

Originally Posted by Inked

a scientific theory makes non-obvious predictions which are then compared with observations that the average person can check for himself.

Um, not true. At least, I don't think I'm going to be able to check for myself whether the Large Hadron Collider produces the Higgs boson, even though that's a prediction from a scientific theory...plenty of science is based on data and theories that "an average person" will never be able to check for himself or herself. Or were you planning to go at near-light speed and see if you compress in the direction of your motion, as the Theory of Relativity predicts? Or watch your descendants for 50 million years and see how they evolve? Science is about making hypotheses and testing them, no matter whether an "average person" has the capability of making those tests.

[inked]

Precisely the point that "experts" should be able to use the theories (glorified hypotheses, actually) to accurately (within the limits of the method and statistical analyses) make predictions, CC. Which renders certain problems with evolution - like observing any or predicting any - very relevant. I keep stumbling over the fact that 99% of all species inhabiting this planet ever are now extinct and largely due to climate change without human intervention either positively or negatively.

Just those little details..........

[Count Comfect]

Read up on finches in the Galapagos. Some pretty decent evidence there of incipient speciation, especially predictions thereof. It's not like nothing can happen over a longer span than a human life just because no one can or has observed for that long.

And just because 99% of historical species have died out without human help doesn't mean human help can't cause species now alive to die out. That's like saying I couldn't kill a man just because all the murders in the past didn't involve me...

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by inked

Precisely the point that "experts" should be able to use the theories (glorified hypotheses, actually) to accurately (within the limits of the method and statistical analyses) make predictions, CC.

No, that's not how it goes. I know a lot of people get this wrong. You put forward a hypothesis, you make predictions you should see based on the hypothesis, then you check those predictions with the evidence. If the predictions work out and the evidence support your hypothesis, you have a theory, not before.

[inked]

Si, Earniel. So what predictions have been made that have followed through to allow the hypotheses regarding evolution to make accurate predictions that have been verified by observation? or for climate change nee' global warming predictions to be verified by observation?

"That would be "none" for zero, Alex."

Which is why I used the term "theories" as "glorified hypotheses really" above.

Far too many people make the jump from hypothesis to "theory" when the best term might be suggestion/hunch/idea/guess. It is easy to then move on from the "theory" to what is popularly known as the "assured results of modern science" when what is actually served us is the "assured results of modernistic scientism."

I also offer the gay gene, the god gene, the fat gene, the slow gene, and the "it must be genetic" hypotheses as well. So the problem is rife. The Baconian scientific method of demonstration has been taken over by imposters and foisted as "science" when it suits other purposes.

[Count Comfect]

1990s: Ferish Jenkins predicts that if he starts digging in the Canadian Arctic in these particular strata from the Devonian period, he should find a creature intermediate between fish and amphibian. It will probably have the beginnings of a humerus, radius, and ulna along with some jumbled bones at the end which will eventually evolve into the hand that no fish has.

April 6, 2006: After analysis of fossils found during a dig on Canada's Ellesmere Island, Ferish Jenkins and others announce the discovery of Tiktaalik. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiktaalik).

Nah, you can't use evolution to predict anything you didn't already know.

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by inked

Si, Earniel. So what predictions have been made that have followed through to allow the hypotheses regarding evolution to make accurate predictions that have been verified by observation? or for climate change nee' global warming predictions to be verified by observation?

"That would be "none" for zero, Alex."

Okay, now I'm starting to think you're just messing with me. I find it not only hard to believe you would put the predictions/evidence for evolution and predictions /evidence for climate change on the same level. But I find it even less likely you think there is no evidence at all for evolution. Come on now, Inked. Seriously.

[inked]

If Bacon requires observation of an hypothesis to demonstrate its predictive power in case A, then shouldn't it be required in cases B and C?

I have no intention of entering a debate on evolution, merely use it as an example of hypothesis glorified into theory because the required observational component is remarkably absent. Those intermediate fossils are notoriously missing - which is the objective predicted observable point of the hypothesis.

See Scientific American January 2009 - http://www.sciam.com/sciammag/

I just think that an hypothesis not meting the Baconian test remains an hypothesis. Consistency et alia. One may certainly conjecture based on the hypothesis of evolution - and tons of disparate evolutionists have. But the Higgs boson hypothesis has actual evidence and the serially supported hypotheses on which it rests have experimental predicted observations which have actually been observed. I merely point out the disparity between an actual theory and a glorified hypothesis on Baconian grounds.

Of course, climate change nee' global warming as popularized if more like the "theory" of evolution than the Higgs Boson. The point about testable observable predictions, again.

And, yes, I am messing with you in the sense that I am asking you to question the dominant paradigm as popularized and consider it per actual Baconian scientific method. That's serious messing!

[Count Comfect]

You're treating Bacon a bit too much like a sacred cow, inked. Not all science is experimental, nor need it be. There can and have been many predictions of what will be observed in nature from atmospheric science, geology, geophysics, earth science, etc regarding the processes that lead to global warming that can be checked. Not every one has proven correct; that's the nature of science. But the science on which the theory of global warming is based is quite sound, beginning of course with the effects of increased CO2 in the atmosphere (which have been observed in the past to have correlated with increased warming, even though it has never increased this quickly before).

As for evolution, you're on extremely shaky ground there. From the very start there have been predictions from evolutionary theory, an astonishing number of which have been proven correct (see my above post, or the fact that you can do evolution among bacteria experimentally in a lab).

[inked]

CC, what is the scientific method?

There are sacred cows and then there are sacred cows!

I would be interested in what you regard as doing evolution in bacteria in a lab, though. I have two degrees in microbiology and though I practice medicine now with a primary interest in pathogenic bacteriology as applied to patients, I'd love to read and evaluate your evidential material.

Objectively, even!

PS My point about intermediate fossils is their relative absence. I heartily agree that one can predict what should come next in a sequence of development. It is the observational amount of data that I question. Does one case of proper prediction make a hypothesis a theory or does it take multiple cases and how many? Is the prediction of the intermediate form and its discovery on the same plane as having a hypothesis which predicts the next evolutionary change and then observes it repeatedly. Philosophically, we know where we are and can predict what intermediate steps were necessary to get there, but is that the same thing as a theory predicting what comes next in the sequence and being validated by that observation occurring?

I'm not quibbling. As I understand the application of the principle, it is the future prediction(s) confirmed by observations or shattered by observations that moves the hypothesis - test -evaluate hypothesis sequence forward.

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by inked

I would be interested in what you regard as doing evolution in bacteria in a lab, though. I have two degrees in microbiology and though I practice medicine now with a primary interest in pathogenic bacteriology as applied to patients, I'd love to read and evaluate your evidential material.

Really? In that case, I'd be very interested in hearing your opinion on this news item, Inked. E coli bacteria that evolved to use a nutrient they could not access before. Here's some more explanation on how the experiment was run. This one's a blog, but at the end there is a link to its source material what I assume is the original study-report (computer froze, can't open it myself right now).

PS My point about intermediate fossils is their relative absence. I heartily agree that one can predict what should come next in a sequence of development. It is the observational amount of data that I question. Does one case of proper prediction make a hypothesis a theory or does it take multiple cases and how many?

There are more transitional fossils out there than just Tiktaalik. Ambulocetus is considered another good example of a transitional fossil in its evolutionary line. And I remember a very interesting find a month or so ago concerning turtle carapace evolution. Ah, found it, meet Odontochelys.

[Insidious Rex]

The notion that there are no or very few transitional fossils is ridiculous although you hear it continually from the creationist head-in-the-sand camp (which - despite your delusion about global warming inked - Ive never thought you were a member of believe it or not).

Heres a few resources to pop that bubble:

Transitional Fossils FAQ
Wiki List

Lest we forget, you are either a "transitional fossil" or you are the last of your kind...

inked, yer just a fossil

[The Gaffer]

Eugenics or medicine?

(A baby has been born after being selected for IVF on the basis of not having the mutant BRCA1 gene which causes breast cancer)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7819651.stm