Chaos Manor View, Monday, August 24, 2015
“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded—here and there, now and then—are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
“This is known as ‘bad luck’.”
– Robert A. Heinlein
http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/climatechange2/01_1.shtml
After this great glaciation, a succession of smaller glaciations has followed, each separated by about 100,000 years from its predecessor, according to changes in the eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit (a fact first discovered by the astronomer Johannes Kepler, 1571-1630). These periods of time when large areas of the Earth are covered by ice sheets are called “ice ages.” The last of the ice ages in human experience (often referred to as the Ice Age) reached its maximum roughly 20,000 years ago, and then gave way to warming. Sea level rose in two major steps, one centered near 14,000 years and the other near 11,500 years. However, between these two periods of rapid melting there was a pause in melting and sea level rise, known as the “Younger Dryas” period. During the Younger Dryas the climate system went back into almost fully glacial conditions, after having offered balmy conditions for more than 1000 years. The reasons for these large swings in climate change are not yet well understood.
I have been brooding over the mess with the Hugo Awards all weekend, and you do not need to tell me that thinking about the subject is a waste of time, particularly since I have no stake whatever in it. So the less said about it all, the better. My other excuse is that it’s been hot. And maybe I confess to a bit of laziness.
I’ve also been thinking about more important matters. The problem is that typing is painful. Less so with this Logitech K360 keyboard, but I still must use two-finger typing and stare at the keyboard rather than what I am typing, and I still look up to discover to my horror a flood of red wavy lines – words I have had to fix. At least I no longer often hit the alt key and the spacebar simultaneously (at least not very often) which causes me sometimes to lose everything I have written.
I need to write an essay on the philosophy of science as I understand it. That’s what they call epistemology in universities nowadays: the study of how we know what we know, and how well we know it. I “took” Philosophy of Science from Gustav Bergmann at the University of Iowa when I was an undergraduate there in its golden days. Bergmann was one of the former members of the Vienna Circle who fled to the United States before WW II, and had worked with Karl Popper.
I never met Karl Popper, although I wish I had. Popper seems to me to have made as concise a statement of how science works as has ever been done. You can never “prove” an empirical scientific (as opposed to a logical) statement or hypothesis. We can never know Truth as science. What we can do is falsify statements, or attempt to; those that have not been falsified may be treated as true, always reserving the possibility that they will some day be falsified. Statements that cannot be falsified by any means whatever are simply not scientific. In some philosophical realm they may be “true” but they are not scientific and are not the business of the scientists.
This does not seem radical today, but when first put forth by Popper it exposed Freudianism and other such “sciences” to the criticism that, since they could explain everything and thus could not be falsified, they in fact explained nothing and were not science.
This is a simplification of a rather complex subject. Those who want to know more will have little difficulty in finding discussions.
The essence is that if you cannot falsify a statement it is not science; and if an experiment gives evidence of the falsification of an hypothesis, the hypothesis is false. You may not diddle with it to make it fit the facts, you must make a new – and falsifiable – hypothesis that covers all the facts. Adding non-falsifiable modifications to your theory in order to cover the new facts is right out. That may seem obvious now, but it was not always accepted, and is not actually universally applied now.
With that introduction we consider the extraordinary evidence situation.
The Extraordinary Evidence Fallacy
Dear Jerry:
You wrote in your View for August 19, 2015:
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/extraordinary-claims-and-other-matters/
I’ve read that Carl Sagan popularized the saying. This philosophical claim turns out not to be true.
The criterion of extraordinary evidence is frequently raised by those arguing against the existence of God, or against the reality of miracles such as the resurrection of Christ. William Lane Craig discusses the fallacy regularly in his debates and podcasts.
To get the flavor of the counter argument, consider Craig’s response to Lawrence Kraus during their debate at North Carolina State University on March 30,2011 Craig said:
Now he [Kraus] says, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. David Hume’s argument against miracles is sound.” Here, what you need to understand is that that claim is demonstrably false. It is not true. Hume didn’t understand the probability calculus. It wasn’t yet developed in his day. His argument neglects the crucial probability that we would have the evidence which we do if the miracle in question had not occurred. And that factor can completely balance out any intrinsic improbability that you think might occur in a miracle. In any case, why think that a miracle like the resurrection is intrinsically improbable? I think what’s improbable is that Jesus rose naturally from the dead. But, of course, that’s not the hypothesis. The hypothesis is that God raised Jesus from the dead. And you can’t show that that’s intrinsically improbable unless you’re prepared to argue that the existence of God is improbable. And Dr. Krauss isn’t doing that tonight. That’s not the debate topic, as he explained. The topic tonight is, “Is there evidence for God?,” and so we’re not assessing the prior probabilities of whether or not God’s existence is intrinsically probable or not. And so I think the approach that I’m taking tonight is right in line with probability theory and does show that, given the facts that I’ve laid out, God’s existence is more probable than it would have been without them.
Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/the-craig-krauss-debate-at-north-carolina-state-university
In a podcast on 8/3/2014 Craig elaborated:
So this slogan, I think, is simply demonstrably false. In fact, it is contradicted all the time when we believe highly improbable, perfectly natural events have occurred because we have good evidence for them – not miraculous or extraordinary evidence but ordinary evidence. But it would be very, very improbable that we would have this sort of evidence if the event had not taken place. So this first claim is nothing more than a slogan that the unbeliever can use to dismiss any evidence that you present. He can use it as a slogan and simply say that is not extraordinary enough for me to believe. It really tells us more about his personal psychology and skepticism than it does about the value of the evidence we are presenting.
Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/top-10-debate-topics
Thus, one man’s extraordinary claim can be another man’s mundane assumption. Much depends on one’s criterion for incredulity.
Carl Sagan frequently claimed that “The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be.” To him this was a truism. Yet I consider Sagan’s claim an extraordinary philosophical leap of faith. I wonder “How does he know?” Our two worldviews were far apart.
Those interested in pursuing this issue will find much more on the Web, of course.
Best regards,
–Harry M.
To be clear, this concept was first published by Laplace, who said “The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness.” Sagan popularized this concept, and it seems intuitively true. If I tell you that the sun will not rise tomorrow, that is a falsifiable statement, and therefore might be said to be scientific; but if I then tell you the sun did not rise, and I seem to be the only person to have noticed that, could I be said to have falsified the hypothesis that the sun will rise tomorrow and every day thereafter per omnia secula seculorem? Or would you demand more evidence?
If two psychiatrists, a nurse, and an orderly all tell you that you are not covered with bees, you may as well stop trying to brush them off your coat, to quote some psychiatric book I read fifty years ago.
Similarly for the various reactionless drives: if someone claims he has one, is that sufficient evidence? Obviously if he claims he is married we tend to believe it; if he claims he is happily married, we may accept that on his say-so; but if he claims he is happily married to a talking gorilla, most of us would require somewhat more evidence.
Similarly, the Apostles understood well that their claim to have seen the Master, and fed Him a bit of boiled fish, was extraordinary; and those who recorded it took care to identify the witnesses. It is not a scientific claim, and you may doubt the evidence for the Resurrection; people have done so for a thousand years. But then statements about miracles are not scientific hypotheses, and are not subject to the rules of science. By definition a miracle is exceptional and takes place outside science. That does not mean there are no miracles, or that no one has ever observed one. The keepers of Lourdes claim to have extensive documentation of a very great many of them.
Incidentally I have credentials from a major university that state that I do “understand the probability calculus”, but I’m having trouble understanding Craig’s point. Given the existence of God, all things are possible; but the calculus of probability still cannot predict miracles without a great deal of carefully gathered evidence suitably organized, and even then there is no reason to assume the conditions making your probability estimate possible will prevail.
I once had this discussion with Marvin Minsky. I related an incident that changed my life. Marvin’s graduate student, Danny Hillis, immediately pointed out the probabilities, but ran into the problem that we were approaching the age of the universe in estimating the probable times between such events. It might have been fun to pursue the discussion but we were in a NASA weekend conference and had to go back to the session.
Claims of a reactionless drive are extraordinary. Evidence of the existence of such a drive needs to be “extraordinary” in the sense that the existence of such working gadget is an improbable event, and thus needs to be observed to work by a number of people.
The unsettled science of the Big Bang hypothesis
With respect to Stephanie Osborne’s citation of Hubble’s Law:
“Steady State Universe. There were no galaxies, there was only the universe, and it had always been just like it is. Then Edwin Hubble realized that the unusual spectra he was getting from those peculiar stars could be explained if they were regular spectra with extreme blueshifts, and he discovered that those peculiar stars are what we now call quasars, and they were far distant galaxies in their own right, speeding away from us at incredible velocities. And then astronomers began to realize that all those ”spiral nebulae” and such were also galaxies, and they were also blueshifted, but at an amount corresponding to their distance. And lo, Hubble’s law was born.”
Physicist Hilton Ratcliffe in The Static Universe: Exploding the Myth of Cosmic Expansion (2010) points out that what became known as Hubble’s Law started out as a tentative speculative hypothesis advanced in 1929 and based on a very limited observational data that the galaxies beyond our own that Hubble was the first to observe had redshifts that correlated inversely, though very roughly, with their magnitudes. Other astronomers pounced eagerly on this hypothesis, adopting it more or less uncritically, and interpreted the redshifts to be due to the Doppler Effect, which, if true, would give them a tool to estimate the distances to extragalactic stellar systems. And in short order other astronomers made a wild leap from this scant and dubious data, and from the unfounded assumption that these redshifts were instances of the Doppler Effect, to the staggering conclusion that the universe was flying apart at an accelerating rate and that therefore its history was analogous to an explosion.
Plots were made of the supposed recessional velocity of Hubble’s distant galaxies versus their distances, but these were analogous to circular arguments, since recession and distance were precisely the phenomena that the data were being invoked to establish. Plotting the same data as redshifts versus magnitude collapsed and scattered the same data to the extent that there no longer seemed to be any clear pattern. The situation only deteriorated from that point on.
It was soon discovered that this expanding universe model didn’t apply “locally” (i.e. to observational objects within 100 megaparsecs of us) – this was rationalized away as due to local gravity, although no rationale for considering entire galaxies or clusters of galaxies as point objects was ever advanced. Nor was it explained why more distant galaxies shouldn’t also be included, or what the criteria for inclusion in the local field should be. If the universe were actually expanding like a physico-chemical explosion, every object ought to be accelerating away from every other object, or at least moving away at constant linear velocity. And if there were exceptions to this rule due to gravitational effects, that by itself ought to distort and complicate any inference of distance from redshifts of faint stellar objects.
The exemption of “local” objects from the theory (for which alone other means of determining distance exist, such as interpolation and overlap) was the first ad hoc adjustment to preserve “Hubble’s Law” and the Big Bang Theory, to which astronomers were already heavily committed (by the 1930’s), but it wouldn’t be the last. It also became necessary to postulate that the space between mutually recessionary objects was itself expanding, and then that this space was populated with still undetectable “dark matter”. The other, much weaker, pillar supporting the BBT theory, the supposed background radiation that’s the residue of the original explosion has been subjected to such convoluted and ever-changeable modeling as to become virtually a metaphysical substance itself, like the dark matter and the ether that the Michelson-Morley experiment failed to find (Ratcliffe devotes a chapter to the torturing of background radiation data in to evidence for the Big Bang hypothesis.
Unfortunately, the creation of a local zone exempt from the BBT theory also had the effect of wiping out the data that supposedly undergirded it, as all of Hubble’s original observations, and most of those that had accumulated since, and that were likewise nebulous, fell within the area of localization. By 1935 Hubble and his colleague Richard Tolman were warning of “the possibility that red-shift may be due to some other cause, connected with the long time or distance involved in the passage of the light from the nebula to the observer”, and by 1947 Hubble was writing more broadly “it seems likely that red-shifts may not be due to an expanding universe, and much of the speculation on the structure of the universe may require re-examination.” (note Hubble’s word “speculation”).
Hubble had also argued as early as 1942, that (contrary to the BBT theorists) the fact that the redshift data were related linearly to magnitude argued for their being static, not recessionary, contrary to the assumption of the BBTheorists.
Hubble and Tolman also proposed a method of testing the Hubble hypothesis in their 1936 publication – a method that was applied in two studies published in 2006, both of which failed to confirm the theory that apparent luminosity is related to Doppler redshifting, and in fact the few studies that have purported to confirm this relationship have all been flawed by the same kinds of circular assumptions of the relationships to be demonstrated. Meanwhile, plentiful disconfirming evidence has accumulated, including classical visual astronomical observations, examples of which Ratcliffe reproduces in his book. On page 83, he lists (as I count) 32 alternate hypotheses proposed by physicists and astrophysicists to explain the redshift data. He also devotes a whole chapter to the problems that observations of quasars have caused for the classic redshift theory, ten of which were identified in a 2009 paper of Martin Lopez-Corredoira.
The most damning and disturbing aspects of Ratcliffe’s presentation are the parallels between the cultist BBT orthodoxy and the cultist AGW orthodoxy – both “settled sciences”. One doesn’t have to be a physical scientist to recognize the hallmarks of a cult: excommunication and persecution of heretics; extravagant claims of unanimity and certitude; and (not least) the vested financial and power interests at stake. One of the strengths of Ratcliffe’s book is that it amounts to a tutorial and exemplar in illustration of the Kuhnian analysis of the history of science. It is ever thus: great leaps forward must always await a prolonged period of futile and counterproductive attempts to uphold the old failing, anomaly-ridden paradigm. Thus, we are treated to the following quotation from premier philosopher of science Karl Popper:
“Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem that it was intended to solve”.
And this from Carl Sagan, laying out the two fundamental rules of science:
“First: There are no sacred truths; all assumptions must be critically examined; arguments from authority are worthless.
“Second: Whatever is inconsistent with facts must be discarded or revised. We must understand cosmos as it is and not confuse how it is with how we wish it to be. The obvious is sometimes false; the unexpected is sometimes true.”
Ms. Osborne refers to deep layers of physical scientific understanding that would be disrupted if the EM drive were to turn out to be real, but I think that you and most of your readers would agree that it’s best to keep an open mind about it nonetheless. OTOH the only edifice I see endangered by the final collapse of the BBT and it’s retinue of ad hoc additions (dark matter, perhaps black holes) would be that of an increasingly rickety and sterile cosmology. Astrophysicists would have to rethink many things no doubt, but I’d say that it was high time that be done anyway.
John B. Robb
I commend to you Petr Beckmann and his Einstein Plus Two http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Petr_Beckmann which seeks at great and careful length to show that while there is no experiment to falsify Einstein’s Relativity, all the crucial experiments relied on to corroborate that theory can also be explained by Newtonian physics with several assumptions including a finite speed of propagation of the force of gravity. Beckmann proved to his satisfaction that there were no observations that falsified Newton, given that assumption; and that his theory of an aether entailed by planetary motion, consistent with Newton, was sufficient to explain the Michelson Morley experiment that formed the basis for Special Relativity.
Note that he never claimed to falsify Relativity; only that in his theory the math was simpler, and explained all the data. He did note that there was something strange about spectroscopic binaries; I will let you find that for yourself. His premise is summarized on the first page of his book: http://www.stephankinsella.com/wp-content/uploads/texts/beckmann_einstein-dissident-physics-material.pdf
The science is settled
Hello Jerry,
That the ‘science is settled’ is NOT confined to what is euphemistically known as ‘climate science’ but is now apparently the position of ALL science. In particular, physics.
Here are two articles on the subject, both of which point out that nowadays, when observations of the behavior of the universe in action conflict with ‘settled science’ the universe is adjusted to fit theory.
Dark matter and dark energy are cases in point: when large scale astronomical structures were observed to behave in ways not predicted by ‘settled science’, it was considered to be conclusive evidence that the universe was constructed largely (~95%) of ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ whose properties, quantities, and distribution could be deduced from the requirement that the universe conform to ‘settled science’. In other words, since the theory was correct, the universe as observed wasn’t, so the universe was adjusted.
This article was precipitated by the reaction of the experts to the announcement of thrust from what are generically known as EmDrives, but includes references to dark matter and ‘cold fusion’:
http://www.digitaljournal.com/science/op-ed-emdrive-does-work-but-spectator-science-disagrees/article/441374#tab=comments&sc=0
I will be the first to admit that the existence of the ‘EmDrive’ effect is far from confirmed, but what the article is bemoaning is the immediate reaction of the experts: the observations conflict with theory, therefore they are experimental error or deliberate hoax. They may be right in this case, but is it necessary to trash the reputations of the apostates, personally and professionally (as they did with Pons and Fleischmann when they announced anomalous heat from their experiments) and as they are now doing with Dr. McCulloch with his MiHsC theory as he describes on his blog posting for 18 August: http://physicsfromtheedge.blogspot.com ?
McCulloch claims (I certainly don’t have the ‘creds’ to either support or reject his theory) that his theory explains the observations from which the existence of dark matter/dark energy was confirmed (and quite a few other deviations of observations from theory) without requiring either. The response by ‘settled science’ has not been to point out the error of his ways, but to make him a ‘physics non-person’ and to remove anything about his theory from common reference sources such as Wikipedia (ongoing) and arXiv.
As Dr. McCulloch says: “It is possible for a paradigm to survive not because it is more successful, but because it deletes the alternatives, and this is what an unscientific minority of dark matter supporters are doing.
That is the common practice in ‘Climate Science’, by the way. Note how over the last 5 years or so the reputation of Dr. Judith Curry has changed from the respected climate scientist who was the Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech, when she was enthusiastically on board with Catastrophic Global Warming driven by anthropogenic CO2 (ACO2) to now, when she has merely expressed doubts as to the certainty of the looming catastrophe, she is portrayed as an incompetent, anti-science shill of the Republicans and oil companies by her former comrades-in-arms.
The same goes for anyone with the temerity to engage in research into the existence of low energy nuclear reactions (generic cold fusion). Even suggesting that research should be conducted in the field, never mind opining that it may be real, is a career killer for budding physicists.
I certainly can’t support OR reject LENR, EmDrives, or theories in conflict with general relativity using theoretical arguments, but as a layman I think that the ex cathedra rejection of experiments and the creation of an unobservable 95% of the universe because of conflict with EXISTING theory bodes ill for the advancement of science.
Bob Ludwick
I do not believe the science is settled. I have enough “creds” to have a right to an opinion on whether they actually have an engine that produces thrust without loss of mass. I have not seen the device, so I cannot give an opinion; what I have seen goes to show that a number of the more usual explanations are not present; but the observations I have seen have been light on observations of the thrust, both in magnitude and time. If they have a gadget that will operate for weeks producing thrust all the while, I think it would be simple to make sure there were no hidden means of introducing mass to the apparatus. The observation that there is reactionless drive has apparently not been falsified, but the observers seemed unsure. I’d love to see this thing in operation. A reactionless thrust would give us the solar system; we can leave it to future generations to give us the stars.
The science is settled
Hi Jerry,
I read Stephanie’s commentary on the subject and found it reasonable. As usual for her commentary.
It included the following:
“But when we start looking at cosmology and such like, we are looking at fundamental physics on many levels. And that physics does have many levels, starting with Newtonian physics, then adding special relativity, general relativity, quantum mechanics, the various string theories, M theory, et cetera. So if you encounter something that appears to knock out one of those levels, you have to realize that it doesn’t JUST knock out that level, it knocks out pretty much all the levels above it. The lower the level, the more fundamental and earth-shaking the result. We’re talking, in some cases, about scrapping pretty much the whole of physics and starting from scratch, or nearly so. This is Not A Good Thing, in many ways, because we have used established physics in so many ways in our world. (Engineering is largely physics applied to the real world — imagine if we found, e.g., that quantum mechanical fluctuations could readily occur on a macro scale, and affected a particular structure commonly used in architecture, say. Would you ever feel safe in a high-rise again? In your own house??) Consequently there is a strong urge to try to make the current levels fit observations, rather than immediately going back and saying, “Oh, physics is wrong, drop back and punt.” But this is not a new thing; it is the way it has ALWAYS been.
Example: Epicycles. An attempt to make the previously-known science fit observations of planetary motion. And then Kepler came along and there was a hullaballoo for awhile, and then it was found that his model fit observations better, and so now we have Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion.
“Would you ever feel safe in a high-rise again? In your own house?”
Of course I would. Regardless of the impact of the new theories at the esoteric limits of cosmology/physics, standard old pre-relativity/pre-quantum theory mechanics has been demonstrated to produce perfectly acceptable houses, cars, airplanes, and bridges. Finding out that (for example) MiHsC replaced General Relativity when applied at extremely low accelerations on cosmological scales and explained galactic rotation without the requirement for either dark matter or dark energy wouldn’t impact my life a whit. Likewise, experimental confirmation that a frustum energized at resonance by microwaves would produce thrust (there is none, yet) would not affect any pre-existing, working technology AT ALL. Everything that worked would continue to work. It would certainly allow for activities that are not achievable by current technology, but it wouldn’t impact working devices at all.
She cites various string theories and M Theory as scientific ‘steps forward’.
Well, maybe.
The key is ‘various string theories’. There are apparently lots. AFIK, no one has yet devised a test of string theories that could confirm OR reject them. Does that make them science? This article is about a press release a few years ago about the discovery of a test for string theory: https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=6561. The article says in effect, “Not so fast there, kemo sabe!. The announced ‘test for string theory’ does no such thing.”.
I’m not qualified to critique the theory OR the proposed test, but one of the commenters on the article, Peter Woit, had this to say:
“I do think you’re both right: string theory predicts anything you want, either EP violation or no EP violation.” So does ACO2 driven Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Climate Change (nee Anthropogenic Global Warming). EVERY undesirable climactic event is instantly attributed, as predicted by the experts, to ACO2.
Ditto for ‘M Theory’. No agreement within the ranks as to exactly what it is, what it implies, or how to test it. But some think that some parts of it are at least mathematically consistent, however M Theory relates to our actual physical reality. I suppose that is progress.
She cites this example of ‘accepted science’ that would be ‘knocked out’ if new theories were accepted:
“Example: Steady State Universe. There were no galaxies, there was only the universe, and it had always been just like it is. Then Edwin Hubble realized that the unusual spectra he was getting from those peculiar stars could be explained if they were regular spectra with extreme blueshifts, and he discovered that those peculiar stars are what we now call quasars, and they were far distant galaxies in their own right, speeding away from us at incredible velocities.
Funny she should mention the ‘accepted science’ that quasars are far distant galaxies speeding away from us at incredible velocities. She is correct of course: it IS accepted science. And, per my original premise, anyone who suggests otherwise is drummed out of the cosmological physicist corps. It is ‘accepted science’ that based on their observed energy bursts and considering their accepted distance, computed from their red shift, individual quasars are producing energy during the burst at a rate equal to that of most of the remainder of the observable universe. Mechanism unknown.
A large number of known quasars exhibit proper motion. This means that if they are at the ‘accepted Hubble red shift distance’ of billions of light years the component of their velocity perpendicular to our line of sight must be multiples of c.
A few formerly respectable astronomers (Halton Arp, for example) have noticed the seeming contradiction and written papers on it, proposing that quasars are NOT at cosmological distances and can therefore be expected to exhibit proper motion. Their relative nearness, according to the alternate theory, removes the requirement that their observed energy bursts are at the universe level.
Accepted science has (so far) been undeterred by the contradiction and has dutifully marched Dr. Arp and anyone who has exhibited the slightest sympathy for his ideas off the ‘cosmological physicist’ plank, with the result that the mention of Arp in a paper, except to deride him as a kook, will instantly relegate the paper to the ash heap of history, whatever its other merits. As explained in the following paper about the apparent contradiction between the cosmological red shift (Stephanie said blue shift, but it was clearly a typo) implying vast distance and their proper motion, which implies that they are relatively near and vast energy is not required:
http://www.deceptiveuniverse.com/Quasars.htm .
“
Quasars and the Hubble Law
A few astronomers have argued that quasars are not really that far away, and that the Hubble Law does not apply to them. Astronomer Halton Arp, for example, has spent much of his long and successful career providing evidence of associations between quasars and galaxies, suggesting that they may be at similar distances. He has also amassed a large number of photographs of galaxies with widely different redshifts which appear to be interacting, as if they were near each other. His discoveries, which have taken him out of mainstream astronomy, raise serious questions about the redshifts of galaxies being caused by recessional velocity.
Another persistent voice against cosmological distances for quasars is astronomer Tom Van Flandern, formerly of the U.S. Naval Observatory.
The problem with quasars is that using the Hubble Law to compute their distance leads to extreme distance estimates — to the edge of the universe, in fact. If quasars were not at the distances currently ascribed to them there would be no need to for them to have extraordinary energy. Non-cosmological distances would also be consistent with the observed proper motion of many quasars.”
The author notes that Arp’s ‘discoveries’ have taken him out of mainstream astronomy. Accepted science does not take kindly to non-acceptance of its catechism.
Possibly unrelated is the comment about sympathizer Tom Van Flanders: “……formerly of the U. S. Naval Observatory.” Wonder if his support of theories contrary to ‘accepted science’ has anything to do with his being ‘former’?
The argument may be advanced: “You’re an idiot; you’re not qualified to critique theoretical cosmology.”
The first is possible; the second undeniable.
I’m not critiquing theories. I am critiquing the observable response of theoretical cosmologists/climate scientists/et al to those who, based on observations, question the accepted dogma of the applicable field. Which is that rather than QUESTION the now axiomatic nature of what was formerly a theory, use the conflicting data (cosmology) and the no longer questionable accepted science to announce the detection, properties, and distribution of the otherwise undetectable 95% of the universe for which the only evidence (so far) is the conflict between observations and accepted science. Or when the observations of the climate do not match the accepted projections of the climate models, adjust the data. And to shun apostates within the field. Accepted science is no longer falsifiable by observations, since the universe can be modified at will to make the observations match theory.
Bob Ludwick
I can only refer you to Beckmann. Orthodox theory keeps inventing new constructs, like dark matter and dark energy, not from observation but from theoretical necessity. The concepts keep multiplying, and apparently the principle of similarity (the principles that govern the solar system apply to the whole universe) needs to be abandoned. As to string theory, I am unaware of any falsifiable hypotheses it has generated.
Cherry Picking, Black Swans and Falsifiability
Jerry –
You might enjoy this by Doug L. Hoffman:
http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/cherry-picking-black-swans-and-falsifiability
– a sample:
“Whenever a skeptic points out a new paper or journal article refuting some claim made by the theory of anthropogenic global warming, climate change alarmists often shout “cherry picking!” Evidently, most climate change true believers do not understand how science works or how theories are tested. Scientific theories must make predictions by which they can be tested. Providing evidence that AGW has failed in its predictions is not cherry picking, it is refutation. Unfortunately, when confronted with failed predictions the standard alarmist answer is to disavow the predictions. They will say that those are not predictions at all, they are projections—and that means AGW is not a scientific theory at all.”
And this:
“Returning to the subject of proving or disproving the theory of anthropogenic global warming, there are only three possibilities here: AGW makes no predictions and hence is not a scientific theory; AGW depends on vague feedback mechanisms that must be constantly reinterpreted, making AGW a very weak theory and scientifically useless; or the predictions made by climate scientists about the effects of AGW are just that, predictions, and if those predictions can be shown to not be true then AGW is a false theory.”
One of my favorite living historians, Paul Johnson, makes a similar appeal to Popper’s requirements for scientific falsifiability (with an unexpected references to Wordsworth and the Venerable Bede – perhaps the first in the post-Climategate AGW debate):
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/02/03/the-real-way-to-save-the-plane
He closes by suggesting that rather than destroy our economies tilting at the AGW windmill, we could better spend what we can on a project dear to all our hearts:
“So vast sums of money will continue to be spent on an unproven and unprovable theory, predicting a global catastrophe from the realms of fantasy. The money could be much more profitably spent on space exploration.”
David
I very much agree, and so does Bayesian analysis: we should spend money on reducing uncertainties in our predictions, not on preparing for outcomes.
The AGW half-truth
Dr. Pournelle,
Your AGW correspondent made the claim:
“It’s something that non-scientists don’t quite understand: Science is all about models.”
I can’t know if the statement was sloppily imprecise or precisely disingenuous, but science is all about FALSIFIABLE models, as Karl Popper persuasively argued. “You don’t have a better explanation, so I must be right” is more childish than scientific.
Contrary to the assertion, I think that the average person does understand that a reliable model must be able to make reliable predictions. A reliable prediction would tell us what the climate will be like next year, so we could plan what kind of crops to plant and when. If the predictions turn out to be grossly in error, we would tell the climate modelers to go away and come back when they understood climate prediction better.
Why should we believe that climate modelers can precisely predict the climate in 100 years if they cannot precisely predict next year? And if they can precisely predict next year, why don’t they set up a publicly accessible global temperature measurement experiment to verify their model predictions? Then everyone could compare the model predictions to the data, the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of the models would become increasingly apparent.
I think that most “non-scientists” could easily grasp this idea, but I am not so sure about the AGW modelers.
Steve Chu
Global Warming
Sir,
Having gone through the imminent ice age scare back the 70’s I have been skeptical about the global warming claims over the past several years. If there is in fact man-made global warming I don’t see any way to do anything about it. I believe most of the evidence used to proclaim the desperate situation we are in has been produced by cherry picking data to substantiate their claims or just flat out making up data and concealing any evidence that doesn’t agree with their theories. A large part of the problem is that research grants for studying global warming are easily obtained and the financial backing will make researchers tend to skew their results to keep the money coming in. There is already a huge network of companies funded by government dollars that are based totally on saving the world from climate change. As long as their is money to be made by defrauding the country I’m afraid it will only get worse. I have a background in turbine engine testing and instrumentation and I know how hard it is to measure temperatures to within one degree, much less 1/10 of a degree. Just maintaining the calibration of measuring equipment is difficult. Many measurements taken anymore are software adjusted to average out inconsistent or unexpected data. A model can be created to give you any results you want. When we were correlating instrument readings we threw out the high and the low and averaged the remaining results and we still couldn’t repeat temp readings to a degree. I don’t have any education regarding statistics but I could see how you could skew results based on how the data was segregated.
James
Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.
