Experts and their predictions
From political science professor Jacqueline Stevens (via Volokh):
It’s an open secret in my discipline: in terms of accurate political predictions (the field’s benchmark for what counts as science), my colleagues have failed spectacularly and wasted colossal amounts of time and money. The most obvious example may be political scientists’ insistence, during the cold war, that the Soviet Union would persist as a nuclear threat to the United States. In 1993, in the journal International Security, for example, the cold war historian John Lewis Gaddis wrote that the demise of the Soviet Union was “of such importance that no approach to the study of international relations claiming both foresight and competence should have failed to see it coming.” And yet, he noted, “None actually did so.”…
in the 1980s, the political psychologist Philip E. Tetlock began systematically quizzing 284 political experts ”” most of whom were political science Ph.D.’s ”” on dozens of basic questions, like whether a country would go to war, leave NATO or change its boundaries or a political leader would remain in office. His book “Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?” won the A.P.S.A.’s prize for the best book published on government, politics or international affairs.
Professor Tetlock’s main finding? Chimps randomly throwing darts at the possible outcomes would have done almost as well as the experts.
Aha! In Part 5 of my change story, I wrote the following about the failure of experts to see the coming fall of the Soviet Union:
If the experts”“academic, governmental, and media”“had been unable to foresee this, then how could I trust them to guide me in the future? In retrospect, it was probably the first time I began to distrust my usual sources of information, although I certainly didn’t see them as lying”“I saw them as incompetent, really no better than bad fortunetellers.
What they seemed to lack was an overview, a sense of history and pattern. Newspapers could report on events, but those events seemed disconnected from each other: first this happened, then that happened, then the other thing happened, and then the next, and so on and so forth. In the titanic decades-long battle between the US and the USSR, there had been a certain underlying narrative (yes, sometimes that word is appropriate) that involved the threat of Armageddon, and the necessity to avoid it at almost all costs, while stopping the spread of Communism. Although T.S. Eliot had said the world would end “not with a bang but a whimper,” who ever thought the Soviet Union would end in such a whimpery way, and especially without much forewarning? It seemed preposterous, something like that moment in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy throws the bucket of water on the Wicked Witch, who dissolves into a steaming heap of clothing, crying “I’m melting, melting.”
Although these events predated my change by over a decade, they sounded an early warning bell about experts that said “beware.”
And yet I don’t especially fault them, except when they demonstrate the hubris of thinking they can predict the future at all: accurate predictions are just too hard to make, as this review of Tetlock’s book makes clear. There are just too many variables and too much complexity.
Does this begin to sound familiar? AGW, anyone? But that’s science, and the hallmark of science is the ability to predict outcomes. If you mix this and that in certain proportions and subject them to heat, for example, you will reliably get a chemical reaction that produces another substance in a certain quantity. If Einstein’s relativity theory was correct, its prediction that “massive, spinning objects like Earth should warp space and time around them, as well as drag space and time along as they rotate” would be able to be confirmed, and that’s the case. And so on and so forth.
But the problem with climate science is that it would be fiendishly difficult to design an experiment that would test its accuracy. Climate science bears little resemblance to the sciences such as chemistry and physics described in the previous paragraph, and seems more akin to the system of prognostication described by Tetlock. So it’s strange that people feel they can rely on its predictive abilities.
Is anyone really good at consistently making predictions about complex events? I don’t think so. I think that what tends to be happening is that the list of people making predictions is long, and so somebody is bound to be right each time. It’s just not usually the same person twice—or three or four or five times, which would be even more impressive.
As an occasional “degenerate” sports gambler I have heard this saying many times.
1) Never bet against a trend.
2) All trends end.
The trick to looking brilliant and smugly rubbing your “brilliance” in your friends faces is having the dumb luck accurately to guess when that will happen.
So if “everyone” is saying something will continue (especially in politics or the pseudo sciences like climatology) then it’s highly unlikely that anyone will ever risk their careers/income by bucking any “trends”.
Great post, neo.
At the heart of science is reproducibility (ideally, but not necessarily, that doing X results in Y every time, but that at least it does a reproducible percentage of the time) and falsifiability.
Climastrology dismally flunks on both counts. Retrospective “predictions” (“postdictions?”) are rubbish; by definition, one has to predict something before it happens. Saying “well, we would’ve predicted that” is pure BS.
I want to see climastrologists predict – really predict – something that can be verified in a realistic time scale, say, a few years’ time.
(Here’s something I don’t get: I believe that they assert CO2 partial pressure drives global warming, and the CO2 partial pressure is stable or increasing monotonically, yet the climate does not track the CO2 partial pressure. How do they reconcile those observations? Clearly, CO2 is not driving the bus.)
Except we can put climate science to the test. And so far, the things their predictions have failed to bear fruit.
There should be a great deal of tropospheric warming, but neither the radiosonde or satellite remote sensing devices seem to be able to find it.
I agree re hubris of believing one can accurately predict complex events.
And yet, I assert that MSM, and our politically correct culture, and the Democratic Party, play to type with such regularity, that we can predict with EXTREME HIGH DEGREE OF CONFIDENCE that we will see a massive media and public relations and marketing effort put into “Mormons are racists.”
They have little else. It is one of their few bullets. “Romney’s Olympics outsourced uniforms to Bermuda” is not going to cut it as an election issue. Therefore, “Mormons are racists” is coming, to HuffPo and Media Matters, to NBC/CBS/ABC/CNN, to NYT/WaPo/LATimes, at a time of their choosing.
Not true…
in fact i can give you the name of someone who had an over 90% success rate (for those predictions that were confirmable)
a perfect example of arguing from ignorance. ie. absence of information is taken as proof of absence, then a theory is added pretending it confirms it.
when the person says this, they are generally projecting a equality. ie. i cant do it, i don’t want to check if anyone has, i dont know and would know so absence is my proof, and so… you conclude tacking on what you want.
the answer to a specific question based in fact is not opinion. right?
the SECOND reason you feel this way, and it is a FEELINg, not a reality, is your conditioned to accept no one knows, then merit is an illusion and you can only use intents to decide.
After all, since you were a little girl, you were told that merit is evil as it makes unequal outcomes… so, the idea that there ARE people out there who have more meritocratic answers than you or anyone, is a PC taboo!!!
Whats SAD is that i have mentioned that person, their history, the level of their confirmed predictions. And just as the left wants, you erase that from your memory, ignore the history, and never include them in any assessment.
why?
So we all can be equal? after all, we all want to be equal captains, all winning the race, and no one taking second fiddle to someone with answers over the general meaningless discussions.
Our inability to accept merit means we cant self organize and pay more attention to those with answers, over those with ideas. right?
to accept merit is to remember who was right and who was wrong, keep score, and favor those who are right more often by using good judgment…
Anatoliy Mikhaylovich Golitsyn
Is a Soviet KGB defector and author of two books about the long-term deception strategy of the KGB leadership. He is an Honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) and, as late as 1984, was an American citizen.
Now, why would a HISTORIAN on the left (is there any not on the left after CPU member Zinn?), completely not know THAT history, those facts, and so on?
because you confuse left revisionist history with actual history.
You can buy the book, you can read it. he OPENLY shows that the soviet union would fall soon… and claims he was part of the KGB officers making the plans.
now… the REAL QUESTION is why do you believe no one knew?
LOTS of people knew…
NOT those who play mass games and invent stories for consumption and mass positions, but many others.
by the way he made many more “predictions” in two books and has an over 93% accuracy…
“For a generation, the Central Intelligence Agency told successive presidents everything they needed to know about the Soviet Union, except that it was about to fall apart.” Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan
someone had predicted glasnost and perestroika, in detail, even before Gorbachev came to power. This person’s analysis of events in the communist world had even been provided to the Agency on a regular basis.
and i will tell you that only the naive Americans who had already swallowed the lefts love of communism and neutralizing the history and such, were all duped. the ex soviets, they mostly weren’t… the more Americans told them leopards change their spots, the more they learned to be quite and let them suffer their fates!!!
even now… you would think that they would be reading their histories like crazy, searching for parallels… looking for ideas from history.
and especially pay attention to those whose been right, not politically correct.
but that would be meritocratic, and anti woman… and anti race, and anti gender, and anti state… you might find yourself being called not even human..
Golitsyn provided an entire chapter of such predictions, containing 194 distinct auguries.
Of these, 46 were not soon falsifiable (it was too early to tell, e.g., whether Russian economic ministries would be dissolved); another 9 predictions (e.g., of a prominent Yugoslavian role in East-Bloc liberalization) seemed clearly wrong.
Yet of Golitsyn’s falsifiable predictions, 139 out of 148 were fulfilled by the end of 1993 — an accuracy rate of nearly 94 percent.
So.. is it true people dont know, or is the fact you believe they dont know the point?
ie. if you believe no one knows, you will ignore those that do know
its a war whose battle field is your mind, and you dont get that… not in the way that makes it real and meaningful.
there ARE people who know..
in the case of AGW, if you listened to lord monkton you would never have been duped. like golitsyn, he has a special position among those that make policy, and like golitsyn he defected. but he defected from the elite who want to enslave, and remained on the side of the elite who, like founding fathers, despised such a state.
So the point is that you should be looking for those people… but you wont, since they got you to believe they dont exist. that its a mathematical game
[edited for length by n-n]
Between my undergraduate and graduate studies I was exposed to a smattering of survey type courses in both political science and quantitative analysis. Admittedly, I gained only surface knowledge in either discipline. But, my impression was that I was being fed at least a small dose of snake oil.
Both “disciplines” were striving very hard to convince that they were truly scientific. They were over reaching in my opinion.
Maybe if I had delved deeper I would have understood better; or maybe I would have just overdosed on snake oil. Who knows?
I put nutrition studies up there with climastrogy. Thanks Occam’s for the addition to my vocabulary.
Sorry about the missing lo– climastrology.
If you are supposed to be an expert, you are expected to be able to apply your skills and analyze the situation. This bias towards analysis in inescapable at the expense of gut feel. But also if you proclaim your gut feelings that are out of step with current consensus, you are rapidly uninvited to conferences, etc. A strong disincentive to stray.
Note that this is mostly just a list, it has almost no information on the objects of discussion, and is still too long!!!!
Defectors to read about and learn from:
(some are more recent, some are historical)
Ion Mihai Pacepa
Oleg Gordievsky
Stanislav Lunev
Anatoliy Golitsyn
Vladimir Kuzichkin
Kouzminov
Viktor Suvorov
Oleg Lyalin
Kanatjan Alibekov
Vladimir Pasechnik
Vitaly Yurchenko
Svetlana Alliluyeva
Oleg Gordievsky
Ryszard Kuklinski
[not the same as richard kuklinski the iceman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Kuklinski%5D
as a bonus (to neo), here are the ballet, opera and arts defectors… 🙂
Vyacheslav Polozov
Viktoria Mullova
Vakhtang Jordania
Maxim Shostakovich
Sulamith Messerer
Leonid Kozlov
Valentina Kozlova
Alexander Godunov
Youri Egorov
Mikhail Baryshnikov (Latvia)
Natalia Makarova
Georgi Markov
Miloš Forman (Hair, one flew over cuckoos nest, etc)
Anatoly Kuznetsov
Some Quotes:
“In today’s world, when nuclear arms have made military force obsolete, terrorism should become our main weapon.” KGB General Aleksandr Sakharovsky
“Airplane hijacking is my own invention” KGB General Aleksandr Sakharovsky
“Killing one Jew far away from the field of battle is more effective than killing a hundred Jews on the field of battle, because it attracts more attention.” – George Habash
“a billion adversaries could inflict far greater damage on America than could a few millions. We needed to instill a Nazi-style hatred for the Jews throughout the Islamic world, and to turn this weapon of the emotions into a terrorist bloodbath against Israel and its main supporter, the United States.” Yury Andropov – quoted by Pacepa
not like anything like that is happening, eh?
but if you HAD paid attention to these and others, whats happening now would have been discussed 30-40 years ago. hows THAT for predicting the future?
note that if others knew these things, then their existence would force people to predict other things so as not to be predicting the same thing…
that is, if you were a historian, and you had read these books and knew the history of the defections, you would have to make no prediction or make other predictions or else be marginalized with these same defectors and peoples.
ie. if they made the same predictions, they would have been labeled cranks just as many on the list were despite their accuracy.
so… they ignored these things as far as including them in the histories, and they purposefully excluded any ideas from them, to avoid associations with such.
[edited for length by n-n]
No, climatology, psychology, sociology and economics simply are not sciences at all, just philosophies. They use impressive amounts of scientific methodology, but this is not enough to make them sciences, because in such fields reproducible results are rare and have little prognostic value. Complex systems have something inherent in them which makes them non-deterministic, so accurate predictions are impossible in principle. In humans, we call it free will; in biology, elan vital; in physics, a chaotic behavior. One of the most important discoveries in 20th century mathematics is discovery of chaos, which even deterministic in their nature physical systems can demonstrate. This oxymoronic term “deterministic chaos” actually is a rigorously defined mathematical concept, which place narrow bounds on possibility of scientific method to predict future behavior even of some relatively simple mechanical systems. In short, science is not enough to know the future however sophisticated it is.
The three authors of illiberalism-Marx, Freud, and Darwin-were not scientists. Socialism and psychotherapy have definitively been proved fraudulent. What remains is “evolution theory.”
See Ben Stein’s documentary “Expelled.”
(Oleg Gordievsky was a pretty good predictor, but then he had inside information.)
‘There are just too many variables and too much complexity.’
It’s not the data that’s the problem. It’s the interpretation. That goes for all sciences.
Curtis:
Darwin was not a scientist?
Darwin, of course, was a scientist, and a very good one. But his theory was not scientific, it was just a hypothesis which was debunked. And what later came out of it was not science at all, but a form of secular religion.
OB said:
“I want to see climastrologists predict — really predict — something that can be verified in a realistic time scale, say, a few years’ time.”
Actually they have, and have failed in most every instance. For example, IIRC, the director of the NOAA Ice data center predicted in 2007 that the Arctic would be ice-free by the summer of 2012. How’s that worked out? 🙂
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/12/the-arctic-ocean-could-be-nearly-ice-free-at-the-end-of-summer-by-2012/
As far as poly sci forecasts go, all the ones I know at my school are so blinded by their political orthodoxy (left to far left) it’s no wonder they can’t make a rational judgement based on looking at all possible interpretations of events. Of course human events make the Navier-Stokes coupled equations of climastrology (REALLY like that word OB) look like a simple linear relation.
I’m actually participating in Tetlock’s “crowd source” prediction experiment called “Project Good Judgment”. A fascinating real time exercise of critical thinking, also a lesson in humility. Best way I’ve found to rationalize my blog addiction.
Good point re predictions, physicsguy. Now that you mention, I seem to recall prediction (during AGW’s fulminant evangelical phase) of an especially bad hurricane season that turned out to be risibly off base, and therefore sunk without trace.
Now this is not my field*, but I believe that in the 1960’s a guy named Lorenz demonstrated that ordinary weather (not the same thing, of course, as climate) operated as a nonlinear, chaotic system. One key feature of such systems is that very tiny changes in initial conditions propagate through the system over time, leading to huge divergences in the final outcome over, say five or six days’ time. So weather is predictable in the relatively short term, but one’s predictions for, say, six weeks out are likely to be far off the mark.
Is the earth’s climate a nonlinear, chaotic system? Or are the differential equations thought to govern the climate system ordinary and linear?
Any climatologists among Neo’s readership that can help me out?
Jamie Irons
*I’m not a weatherman, still less a climate-man, but I know which way the wind blows.
‘No, climatology, psychology, sociology and economics simply are not sciences at all, just philosophies. They use impressive amounts of scientific methodology, but this is not enough to make them sciences, because in such fields reproducible results are rare and have little prognostic value.’
No; at least two of those, climatology and psychology are definitely sciences. The issue is that the people who work in these fields make predictions far beyond what the data actually allows. Climatology is a very young science. Expecting it to make exact predictions, at this point in its history is eminently unfair. Most of psychology today is no more than speculation but some conclusions are still possible. In time climate models will improve so long as the practitioners are honest.
The second issue is that experts in most fields usually won’t admit when they don’t know. The words ‘I don’t know’ are amongst the hardest for humans to utter and this goes double for the so-called experts. I’m a scientist so I know of what I speak. When people as me about AGW and other matters and I answer ‘I don’t know’ I often get a very strange look. (And I get a very bored look, when I try to explain WHY I don’t know)
And science is enough to know the future. If it wasn’t the case that Newton’s laws actually described how gravity behaved, then none of the spacecraft launched at Mars would have even come close to reaching it. Inject cyanide into a rat, and a biologist can tell you exactly what will happen to its mitochondria, how long it will take and why, elan vital not withstanding. A paleontologist can tell you what the fossil sequence will be (in terms of stratification) before he even sees it, a chemist could tell you what would happen if you light a match next to a balloon full of hydrogen — and so on.
‘At the heart of science is reproducibility’
Actually the heart of science is comparison which is best looked at experimentally but observation of natural phenomenon can be useful as well. Reproducibility merely increases confidence but even a single observation is real and must be explained — somehow.
‘But his theory was not scientific, it was just a hypothesis which was debunked.’
Actually the cool thing about Darwin’s theory is that it actually has an aspect of mathematical inevitability to it. Given the twin assumptions of a discrete inheritance leading to differences at the phenotype level and differential survivability due to the environment, evolution by natural selection MUST occur.
“It at once struck me that under these circumstances favorable variations would tend to be preserved and unfavorable ones to be destroyed.”–Darwin
More philosophy than science.
And how does one employ the scientific method of reproducibility to determine whether species are immutable or not.
It is a great sin to question Darwin’s greatness as a scientist because the main foundation for his theory is not science but the supposed fact of Darwin’s greatness. To read the fawning accounts of his activities is boring. He doesn’t compare to a Faraday or a Maxwell or Mendeleyev.
Scientist? Perhaps a pseudo-scientist and a man who vigorously studied barnacles, yes.
Artfldgr,
To the list of “arts” defectors should be added Rudolf Nureyev and Mstislav Rostropovich. In a sense, Nureyev led the way with his defection in 1961.
===============================
As for the failure of political “scientists” to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union, I would think part of the explanation was due to the “leftist” orientation of much of that part of academia. Recall how Reagan was derided for his various challenges to the Soviets. While it had no cold-war connection, one of the first things that, reportedly, caught the attention of the Kremlin about whom they would be dealing with, was his firing of the striking air-traffic controllers.
Steve D.
You merely stated “small changes over time” and “what survives is what survives” in different language. It’s a tautology.
1 + 1 = 2 is a tautology by the same logic. But it’s still true and quite inevitable.
It is actually fiendishly simple to design a test of the AGW theory. Using the data and a computer model create a prediction for the temperature and trend over time then wait to see the results. But wait! But wait! They did that. And it failed miserably. All of the predictions would have had us from 1.5C to 3 C hotter today then it is. In fact the result of 112 years of warming (from 1900 to today) is a mere 0.45 C warming. And worse for the past decade there has been a very slight cooling trend. And yet the Warmies continue to predict not only that it is getting warmer but that it got warmer then it actually did. The models are wrong, the predictions are warm the science is flawed.
Let’s face it. It’s time for academics and intellectuals to grow some balls and stand up to the Darwinists. His ideas are nothing special. He wasn’t the only one to state them and there was nothing he “discovered.” Rather, the academy, upon reaching a proportion of God-haters, adopted a philosophy to free them of that authority. Once they obtained the control they became the most intolerant and unscientific cabal to which the Catholic Church looks like a school choir.
What the truth is, I don’t know regarding our pre-history and geological record and embryology. I do believe we are being done a great disservice by scientists who are more authoritarian than scientific.
I return you now to regular programming.
Actual computer models used in climatology are, indeed, coupled non-linear partial differential equations derived from Navier-Stockes equation set. They are essentially the same as those used in weather predictions, and this is an open question whether their solutions can behave chaotically. My educated guess is that they can, but the problem with climate depend not only on this, but how these circulation patterns of ocean and atmosphere influence global temperature. Here, again, little is known for sure. There are many other open questions about global climate, so at this point the best answer to AGW hypothesis is “We do not know”. From general experience based on geological record, nothing catastrophic can happen with global climate, the system is stable in the sense that it fluctuates in a rather narrow range of temperatures, even if chaotically. And all known episodes of warming and cooling can be explained without greenhouse effect of CO2, whose very existence is doubtful, too.
Laws of gravity are very exact, but this in no way means that every problem in celestial mechanics has an exact solution. The problem of 3 bodies certainly has not, which was known since Lagrange. The rub is instability of motion. The same is true about Darwinism: Darwin simply ignored stability problem, and all modern versions of Darwinism ignore it, too. But this problem is central for evolution theory, and any conception which ignores stability of species simply is not scientific.
This apart, Darwin’s reputation is based not on his evolution theory, but on his excellent work as naturalist. And his monography on barnacles is still a classic work, actually used by every zoologists who studies barnacles.
I’m late to this discussion, but let me offer this:
It’s been pointed out that economics, sociology, climatology etc. are not true sciences even thought they use certain scientific tools to try to be predictive. IMO it’s best to think of them as lagging indicators.
Life is like an extremely complex differential equation; constantly interrelated and changing (dynamic) variables. One can only be consistently predictive if one gets all (most?) of the variables correct which is relatively impossible to do. Especially when some of those variables change in unpredictable ways.
I think that this is why practitioners can look and a past problem and tell you precisely WHY it happened the way it did (the variables are frozen in stone) but it makes it virtually impossible to predict what will happen moving forward. Yet many practitioners think they can do exactly that.
‘It is actually fiendishly simple to design a test of the AGW theory.’
I think it would be fiendishly difficult since trends mean nothing. The reason is that the proper comparison is not between the temperature of the earth today and that of the earth tomorrow. It’s between the earth with CO2 and the earth without CO2. That means that even if the earth cools; if it cools less than it would have had the additional CO2 not been present, then in fact it has warmed in comparison.
To do the experiment properly you would need another planet similar to ours. Add CO2 to one and not to the other. After a set amount of time measure the temperature and compare. That’s the experimental way to do climatology. That’s why it’s a science!
Actually, in order to account for endogenous differences between the planets, you should use multiple planets with and without CO2 and look for a significantly different temperature between the two populations. Difficult, yes; impossible in principle, no.
‘His ideas are nothing special.’
He did nothing more than state the obvious. How great that makes him depends upon how difficult you think it was to do.
‘I think that this is why practitioners can look at a past problem and tell you precisely WHY it happened the way it did.’
You can’t really do that with evolution. You can come up with a reasonable hypothesis but the truth might actually be completely different. But whether it occurred, and the general mechanism causing it, are entirely different questions than understanding the detailed step by step process by which it occurred.
“. . . whether it occurred, and the general mechanism causing it, are entirely different questions than understanding the detailed step by step process by which it occurred.”
I would agree with that.
“Experts” are wrong about things that are relatively simple (compared to economics or climate), such as baseball and football every year. So the more ambitious predictions are just another form of push polling.
but even a single observation is real and must be explained — somehow.
If one is convinced that the observation is valid, which is where reproducibility comes in. Beginning researchers (e.g., first year grad students) commonly will immediately begin spinning fanciful explanations for unexpected observations, the vast majority of which are experimental artifacts. Before hydrolyzing a single ATP trying to explain a phenomenon, make sure there is a phenomenon there to explain. Power line transients, contaminated reagents, adventitious air/water, miscalibrated instruments, the list goes on and on of rakes that await the heavy tread of the unwary. First question has to be: is it real? And that generally means, is it reproducible?
My riposte to those asserting the validity of the climate models: why don’t the modeleers model the stock market? It’s probably an easier problem, and God knows a lot more lucrative.
Everyone here is using the wrong phrase – AGW is out, climate change is in. I was told this by a very intelligent professor at a university in the SW. I went to high school with him, and he is a True Believer in AGW, but as of last week corrected my use of the phrase.
The worst part is, that for his stratospheric IQ, he doesn’t see the Orwellian nature of his statement. Sigh….
The negation of detail removes the need to answer the question of just how complex systems can evolve piecemeal. The negation is nearly the same as the answer to the question of whether it even occurred at all: Well you have it, so it must have. And these sophistic assertions do not resolve the real problems that the theory has, of which two have been stated: the stability of species and system complexity. But instead of really grappling with the problems, the academy berates and isolates any dissenters.
Why?
Bestest.Neo.Thread.Evah!
To go back to Neo’s essay regarding believing in the “experts,” my first inklings of change came at the time of the first intifada in Israel (1989). It was so clear to me then that the “experts” had a conclusion that they wanted to reach and that they didn’t spend any important time looking at the Arab culture as described in Raphael Patai’s “The Arab Mind” (1973).
Almost 25 years have passed by now, and the experts are still prattling on about the same stupid stuff “peace process.”
Meanwhile, we non-experts have learned so much more about Islam. What do our “experts” know? I hate to think about how little they know. They live in some like of la-la land. The State Department should probably be 90% disbanded except for those who process visas.
Oops, “They live in some kind of la-la land.”
The “stock market” is easier than the climate?
Says who? The stock market, besides being vulnerable to manipulation, is made up of mostly mental phenomena -mental variables in other words. Climate is made up of a finite number of physical variables, that, at least in principle we have a chance of modeling accurately.
Seriously, a certain commenter needs to apply his “brilliance” towards doing what he claims is so easy to do, and while he’s at it perhaps he can claim his Nobel Prize for being smarter and /or less corrupt than tens of thousands of climate scientists around the world. I mean, it’s not even his field, but we all know that it’s really “non-experts” who are the real “experts” in complex subjects.
My God, the more I learn the more intellectually humble I become. It seems some people here have just the opposite going on.
P.S:
I’m not the Brad, above, as neo can verify probably with my IP but certainly with my email address.
‘the vast majority of which are experimental artifacts.’
What do you mean by artifact?
Sure, an artifact is a very good scientific hypothesis for many observations! But you are still required to have a good reason to invoke that explanation. Otherwise, others might question whether or not it really was an artifact.
I.e. What caused the artifact? If you can’t explain that, then perhaps it’s not really an artifact.
There are a lot of real things in life which can’t be repeated. I think a lot of nonscientists tout words philosophers like to use, such nonfalsifiable, or repeatable or artifactual without really understanding them or how science works. It’s a lot muddier than it looks from the outside.
For example at the beginning of my PhD work, in one of my very first experiments, I purified a protein from the media of plant cells. It was one-step and gave a beautiful single band on a gel proving it was pure. I had enough of it so I could do some experiments on it. But I was never able to repeat the purification, even though I tried for several months Does that mean my result was an artifact? It couldn’t have been. I had a band on a gel, and several other lines of evidence to show it was real! I had solid proof that it was real, but I just couldn’t make more of it. The proper explanation was that the protein was real but there was some factor, something did of which I was unaware, which I could not do again. Still it was not publishable, but it was real.
‘First question has to be: is it real?’
Of course your observation real. You saw it didn’t you? Actually, the first question has to be: did you do the right experiment to test your hypothesis? It’s the interpretation of the data where all of the problems with climatology, psychology etc. come in.
‘stability of species and system complexity’
That is not a problem with the theory. It’s easy enough to come up with a reasonable hypothesis of how a complex system such as a flagellum or an eye could have evolved gradually. The problem is that you can never prove your explanation is correct because it’s historical. If there is a weakness in evolutionary theory it has to do with that and the time periods involved. Are they great enough for the hypothesis to work?
As I said evolution must occur, given the postulates that I mentioned earlier, just like 1 +1 must equal 2. Given enough time and a constantly changing environment species cannot be stable. It is not possible.
Artfldgr: it makes sense to me that defectors from the USSR, especially those with inside information regarding the inner workings of the USSR, would be far more likely to make accurate predictions regarding it.
By using the USSR’s fall as an example, what I had in mind was the predictions of so-called Soviet experts in the west. Predictions about AGW are different, because of course no expert (i.e. climate scientist) can have inside info about climate change in the same way that a Soviet defector could have inside info about the workings of the USSR.
The State Department should probably be 90% disbanded except for those who process visas.
No, The State Department should be 100% disbanded, especially those who process visas.
This is all arguing about the color of a singular sunset on a planet in an alternate universe that occurred 10,00 years in the past or the future, take your pick. We do not understand with even 1% certainty the factors that are involved in the long range climate of planet earth. We do not understand with 10% certainty the “origin of the species”. The problem with experts in the realms of “climastrology” or economics or political ‘science’ is that they are not experts.
Neo-neo, you are exactly right about defectors possessing the best inside information. Outsiders tend to project their own biases; insiders are susceptible to group think.
Three times in my professional career I’ve been among the insiders at the epicenter of market events — privy to inside information (not disseminated) — and each time we were blindsided.
Steve D. Sorry, but I can’t let you get away with it.
It most definitely is not easy to come up with a reasonable hypothesis of how the eye evolved gradually. It has never reasonably be done. The leading eye evolution researchers admit they only have some understanding of how eyes might have evolved. (See Fernald, R.D., Eyes: variety, development and evolution, Brain, Behavior and Evolution 64(3):141—147, 2004; p. 467.)
If you are going to assert something, assert both sides of the dispute, rather than a generalization such as it is very easy to come up with a reasonable hypothesis of how the eye evolved. Either you mean that as a lawyer in that the hypothesis has no value but it is “reasonable” (in which case you’re just a sophist again) or you really mean there is a reasonably hypothesis, in which case you are factually wrong.
Speaking of defectors, wretchard knocks it out of the park again:
The Story of Oh
And as always, his own comments are better than the original post. I don’t know of any other blogger who does that so consistently.
Although I am a diehard member of Red Sox Nation, I have to admit that -once again- Yogi Berra hit the nail on the head: “Prediction is hard, especially about the future.”
Occams: “My riposte to those asserting the validity of the climate models: why don’t the modeleers model the stock market? It’s probably an easier problem, and God knows a lot more lucrative.”
The “climastrologists” would not sully their minds with the pursuit of investment gains. Too capitalistic, don’t you know. There are, however, many greedier minds who do model the stock market. Peruse the pages of IBD or Barrons to see their ads. So far as I know none of them have gotten it quite right yet. It seems that every time their models seem to work, the darned market algorithm changes.
CO2 as the driver of global warming? No expert I, but even my meager brain can imagine that a substance that makes up 385 parts per million of the atmosphere, is going to have a rather small effect. Then I learn that only 65% or so of the wavelengths of radiated energy affected by CO2 is actually trapped. And that for only a small time. Makes the effect even smaller, no? Then I learn that water vapor makes up about 60% (a variable from time to time and place to place) of the amosphere. Water vapor is also a “greenhouse” gas. If I was investigating climate change, I would spend a great deal of time on water vapor. But the Hockey Team has done no such thing. Why? Because water vapor cannot be directly linked to the activities of our modern economy? You tell me. When I learn that the models must be coaxed to show that CO2 has the claimed outsized effect by using “forcings,” which cannot be satifactorily explained; it makes me want more study or more definitive proof of the “science” before we shut down the modern world in quest of reduced CO2. That, I think, is how a layman who has read as much as possible on the issue can be a skeptic.
Re: The demise of the Soviet Union.
In the early ’70s I read a paperback entitled,
Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984? Used bookstore, Brooklyn.
About 10 years later a practitioner of politics called Reagan suggested the Soviet Union was soon headed for the dustbin of hstory.
He spoke with dissidents, the political “scientists” spoke to themselves.
They mocked him. He was right, they were wrong.
I’m sure everyone here knows this history. What I find extraordinary and inspirational about this instance is not that a politician would have a contrarian opinion, but that a politician was willing to state it and did. Very rare.
There are, however, many greedier minds who do model the stock market. Peruse the pages of IBD or Barrons to see their ads.
In horse racing aren’t those called “tout sheets?”
Perhaps I’m of a cynical turn of mind, but if I could model the stock market (or horse racing results) accurately, I’d keep that such a secret that Barry’s transcripts would look like the front page of the NY Times.
And away we go:
http://news.yahoo.com/arpaio-obama-birth-record-definitely-fraudulent-010211250.html?_esi=1
Occam’s: “Perhaps I’m of a cynical turn of mind, but if I could model the stock market (or horse racing results) accurately, I’d keep that such a secret that Barry’s transcripts would look like the front page of the NY Times.”
You done broke the code!
Going OT:
Curtis, this issue, IMO, is a loser for those who wish to defeat Obama.
1. The MSM has succeeded in tagging people who question the birth certificate with the derogatory term, “birthers.” It makes anyone asking about the birth certificate look like village idioot.
2. The courts must be involved in any such proceedings. They have been able to ignore all the claims and will continue to do so. There is no time to deal with the courts.
3. We voters must deal with Obama. It’s all about the election and ABO – 2012.
Everything changes and yet it all remains the same, there is nothing new under the sun. I am godless, but apparently, I understand more than all the god fearing. We have crossed beyond the margins of the map of what is known and there are monsters out there on the event horizon. You all are arguing over peas or green beans for dinner.
Forgive me if I am a bit cranky… my daughter in law Laurel is in labor with my 4 grandchild and I am on pins and needles waiting for a phone call. Long may my grandchildren live free.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2R78FVqLfY
OB writes:
“. . . if I could model the stock market (or horse racing results) accurately, I’d keep that such a secret that Barry’s transcripts would look like the front page of the NY Times.”
Bingo! Because once everyone began to use it, it would be rendered ineffective. Thus you rightly condemn all the “Make a Million in the Market/Real Estate/Working from Home” books and tapes. The only people making money from those are their authors and merchandisers (“Merchandising! Where the real money from the movie is made!”—Mel Brooks).
The same thing is true of gold. The gold merchants want you to send them your soon-to-be-devalued dollars for THEIR soon-to-be-valuable gold. What’s wrong with this picture?”
Parker,
All good fortune to Laurel and to the health of all of your grandchildren. Congratulations!!!
Parker wrote “Everything changes and yet it all remains the same . . . .”
If I may. . . the envelope in which we labor is constantly changing (technology), but the human behavior and interaction remains the same. We are motivated by, loved or feared for, enamored or envious of the same things that we have been for over 40,000 years.
Curtis:
There is no scientific debate about evolution.
Let me put it to you extremely bluntly:
there is no scientific debate about evolution.
There is far more scientific debate about climate change. Despite the fact that most of the people debating climate change don’t have degrees in meteorology, climatology, or any science of that type AND despite the fact that all the major scientific organizations advocate for global warming there is still more legitimate scientific debate about global warming, how much it is happening, whether it is caused by humans primarily or not and etc. then there is about whether evolution occurred.
I mean seriously? The fact that evolutionary biologists disagree about some aspect of the history of how something evolved is supposed to be taken as implicating the entire fact and theories surrounding that fact? Do you have any idea how biologists conduct research into the evolutionary history of a species? Are you aware of how often evolutionary biologists collaborate with mathematicians , chemists, physicists or do you imagine they just set in their offices all day dreaming up new scientific yarns out of whole cloth?
Have you cracked open a book on genetics in the past ten or twenty years? Do you know what epigenetics is? Do you think the only evolutionary mechanisms are random gene shuffles? Heck, do you even know what the Hardy-Weinberg principle is and what its implications for evolution are?
It would be nice if people would attempt to educate themselves in a subject and check out places such as http://www.talkorigins.org/ or actually , you know, send polite short questions to the scientists themselves rather than assuming they know better simply because something offends ones political or religious ideology.
Let me be blunt, Brad.
You’re the kind of “Oh I can’t believe anybody is so seriously stupid” person that tries to win an argument by hysteria.
I am shocked and dismayed by your intolerance.
There is debate about evolution. It may be small and resisted but just like Galileo we only want free expression and answers to our questions. I’d like to see the academy encourage other hypothesis instead of reacting exactly like you have as an indiscriminate shamer. How intolerant and bigoted of you and my rights to human dignity. You should affirm my right to search and question for what I have deep feelings for.
And Brad, evolution is to big of a word to use.
Evolution has exceeded definition and no longer qualifies as a word unless one provides the description and such description is stipulated to.
Evolution. Progress.
Are we currently doing both in the world?
JJ, I disagree with your conclusion that this is a loser for the following reasons:’
1) The issue is not where Obama was born but whether or not his released birth certificate is a fraud.
2) If Obama has no inhibition against releasing stupid accusations, why should we? And the Obama was not born in America has more evidence and testimony and weight than “Romney was in charge of Bain when it outsourced.” Remember, once the opponent changes the rules, only a fool continues to abide by the abandoned rules. It’s kick in the balls time.
3) Obama is helping the image of his un-American status. Is it true? That is the real question. And there is a legitimate doubt. I personally do not think the reason for the cover up is that Obama was not born in America, but something more mundane and perhaps even as insidious as that Obama set the whole thing up.
4) It is an attack and an offense and one that is not without credibility. Obama himself declared he was born in Kenya. He has all sorts of records problems and association problems. Put the onus on him.
5) The attack leads to new attacks and a defense as well. Obama wants to question Romney’s transparancy? He wants to attack Romney’s release of records? Yeah right.
6) It energizes the conservative base.
But as Brad would say, bluntly, there is no debate about Obama’s birthplace or related issues.
Settled. Good. Let’s go to sleep.
Send polite short questions.
Are you kidding me: short, polite questions?
Could you be any more of a suck up?
biyatch
Polite short Questions?
I have a few. Queer,
they may disappear
in expectations.
First, why are we here?
Tell me Suggestions,
Who says such: the seer
or Calculations.
Seer versus the cheese:
Is that all we freeze?
Brad, there is a very serious scientific debate about evolution – in Russia. It takes place in the scientific institution which possess the most complete fossil record – in Paleontology Institute of Russian academy of sciences, and I happen to know most of active participants of this debate. Some of them are my close friends. Ever heard such names as Shmalhausen, Waddington, Goldshmidt, Meien, Berg, Shishkin, the notion of nomogenesis, epigenetic theory of evolution and so on? Even in the West, there was a serious dispute between Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins, it led to half a dozen popular books written by both. If American academic establishment prefer to ignore any problems with Neodarwinism due to political and ideological considerations it does not mean there are no problems. They simply circle their wagons in fear that rednecks from Kansas will outlaw teaching of evolution in schools – a very paranoid scare.
Excellent post, N-Neocon.
‘Thing about “poli-sci” is: It AIN’T SCI!!
I predict experts will be obsolete in 20 years!
before Obama was elected, i said that if the one country line in the sand was not completed creating a line from turkey across to india… then the whole area will heat up massively to war because they will attempt to destroy the closing gate and not want to leave it to a future time.
this is exactly whats been happening and we havent been paying attention much if at all.
turkey, iran, iraq, afghanistan, pakistan, india
Turkey is weak ally, but can turn based on outcomes… Iran is a focus, you either close the door to weapons, or its open. (then that makes Georgia, and that area critical. ergo Russia taking over a few places and not giving them back and we ignoring that)
just open a map and not pay attention to all the cluckers musing without any history, or background and so on… they are just noise that entertains.
and entertainment value is not an indicator of merit, but of pleasure and self affirmation and confirms delusions as easy as anything else. [more often the actual things are not entertaining, are serious, not pleasurable to really address, and do not bow to personal desires or delusions]
Assad’s brother-in-law and top Syrian officials killed in Damascus suicide bomb
President Bashar al-Assad’s brother-in-law and the Syrian defence minister have been killed in a bombing that struck at the heart of the country’s security establishment.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9408321/Assads-brother-in-law-and-top-Syrian-officials-killed-in-Damascus-suicide-bomb.html
Russia accuses West of inciting Syrian opposition
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SYRIA_DIPLOMACY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-07-18-09-33-22
now the treaty issue i brought up at the early days of the election that i said would come into play.
Arpaio: Obama birth record ‘definitely fraudulent’
Click here to find out more!
Arpaio: Obama birth record has been tampered with
http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/story/19042196/arpaio-zullo-to-give
regardless of where YOU sit on this, the point is not about you, but about how international states can now play heads i win tails win using this.
the signing of a treaty brings outcomes. publicly the outcomes are to have parity…
but in actuality, they are bets on outcomes that may or may not favor one over the other.
so now, if a treaty or agreement entered into favors the other side, they will keep it… and if a treaty or agreement entered into is not favorable, they will ignore it.
note that they wont stand up and say what they are doing, they are just going to ignore it. then later, when asked or forced to answer, they can just claim that upon knowing obama wasnt valid, they ignored the treaties and agreements as they wanted as they were not worth the paper signed.
then there is the acts in libya and such, which are unilateral and were not done with congressional approval, which would end up being actionable under war crimes (and not the fake way the left does, but int he way that an illigitimate leader has no right to action)
ah. but then… comes the biggest question. when they find out that he is not from the US the way Hitler was not from Germany, and Stalin was not from Russia, and so on…
will he peacefully exchange offices?
they have been working the whole thing as a copy of Germans elected path to totalitarianism, given that that is the only path to changing the regime in a nuclear state.
[even to the press pushing authoritarian regime as favoring women… ]
[edited for length by n-n]
ARE they?
your confusing the focus of their info with the totality of it. the focus of the info is not Russia and its inner workings, but how those inner workings show what they do outside Russia.
what makes you ASSUME without any information or effort to check, that there is no funky games in climate science?
i mean, its only been trying to wrestle all freedom from all countries at once for the sake of international communism – which is always the solution described regardless of the problem…
so what makes you think that they didn’t do this or had a big hand in it? why do you always assume that your thoughts are pure and have not been played with? (the con mans friend, ego protection)
why not put the pieces together?
you can dig to the second wave of feminism and read about people like Erin pizzy who had to leave or die given the communist women and organizations that took over her thing
well, you can do the same IF you take the time to read and know the history of these different things.
the Fabian symbol is a wolf in sheep’s clothing,. ever apply that to your assessments and ideas? that they gut respected things like classical liberalism, to wear its respected clothing, till they use up the value of that respect.
Who started Greenpeace, and why is that person no longer with Greenpeace?
Again, over and over i will show you that what your assuming thorugh absence of knowing is invalid and that looking for the information will give you better understanding than the bad habit of filling in the blanks with something RATHER THAN RECOGNIZING THEY ARE BLANK AND MISSING AND RESEARCH TO FILL THEM
“Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist”
EXCERPT:
IF you knew all this as it happened, you would know as much as me… but you DONT know, and you claim no one did… and that the history of how soviet russia worked doesnt tell you about climate.
[edited for length by n-n]
damn, the blockquotes are off, and your going to delete it before you read it.
but i can also show you history and the fact tht the leaders of climate science are all socailsits or have expressed that..
which is another clue.
normal science does not polarize that way..
normally people mix more unless there is a game going on.
the man who started this with global cooling then went to global warming, was a socialist and advocated eugenics and all the same stuff we talka bout but refuse to link to the sources.
so read the post before its gone…
as real history is too long
ervisionist history is better, and leaves you confused..
so i guess the outcome can only be one thing, no?
one more pizzey
if you read the early unedited histories, you would know.
but since you didnt, you dont.
so whats the cure?
and erin exposes how your ideas were shaped by what was published.. the publishers would not accept things unless it matched the zeitgeist they were trying to make.
(if you were raised outside the US, it would all be easier to see… )
In due course, I lost the refuge but a carefully orchestrated campaigning the press never allowed the people of England to know that I was pushed into exile. The newspapers made much of my defection and I was helpless. My crime was to fight for family life and values. A few months ago The Sunday Times sent a reporter to find out why I was waitressing in a bar in exchange for food. ‘There seems to have been a conspiracy,’ the reporter wrote. I knew that remainder notices would soon be forthcoming and now my back list is remaindered. Thank goodness my books are selling all over the world including sales to Russia. I own nothing but my four dogs and my cat and I work internationally for peace in the family.
the war to finish the destruction and cause a state change is coming… as only war can make the chane fast enough and have us accept what later wont be removed.
Prone to Violence
by Erin Pizzey
http://www.bennett.com/ptv/index.shtml
by the way, there is no mention of communists in the above, the book was written prior to them attacking her and was the reason for them to go after her. what she was saying was not politically correct and would not serve the collective state or revolution
if that isnt enough to get you to think and look, nothig is.
its on the net now free…
which is why all over the world they want to prevent the free exchange, as the people like me who know, are putting things up for people like you to read if we can get you to read it.
ie. read about the history that was kept from you
the story repeats
and like william wallace we let all of them down
oh. and one LAST thing…
the communists do not have anything to do with climate change science?
then why gorbachevs speech decades ago saying that it was the signal for the global movement to coordinate?
.
“The threat of environmental crisis will be the ‘international disaster key’ that will unlock the New World Order.” — Mikhail Gorbachev, quoted in “A Special Report: The Wildlands Project Unleashes Its War On Mankind”, by Marilyn Brannan, Associate Editor, Monetary & Economic Review, 1996, p. 5
if you had paid attention to history and events in other countries, you would not have missed that speech nor would you have missed what happens right after it…
money flooded into the area and the “science” took off
the people not looking saw it suddenly appear, and didnt see that it matched speeches they didnt caer about.
after all. what where they focused on then?
THE GROWTH OF CLIMATE CHANGE SCIENCE:
A SCIENTOMETRIC STUDY
Between 1990 and 1995 there was a fifty percent increase in the size and number
of contributors to the authoritative, international reviews of climate change science
published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 1990, 1996).
http://nome.colorado.edu/HARC/Readings/Stanhill.pdf
not knowing that this big huge boost came before a speech by the soviets to the leaders of that state, would leave you to imagine what in the blanks? the assumption of no influence. once you comare how much work it takes to know compared to how easy it is to assume, you just get into the skineerian conditioned response of always assuming that. (and the reward is not having to work!)
“Gentlemen, comrades, do not be concerned about all you hear about Glasnost and Perestroika and democracy in the coming years. They are primarily for outward consumption. There will be no significant internal changes in the Soviet Union, other than for cosmetic purposes. Our purpose is to disarm the Americans and let them fall asleep.” — Mikhail Gorbachev
.
“In October 1917, we parted with the old world, rejecting it once and for all. We are moving toward a new world, a world of Communism. We shall never turn off that road.” — Mikhail Gorbachev
remember this was back in 1995…
we ignored it for almost two decades…
A Special Report: The Wildlands Project Unleashes Its War On Mankind
http://www.pennsylvaniacrier.com/filemgmt_data/files/The%20Wildlands%20Project%20Unleashes%20Its%20War%20On%20Mandkind.pdf
Conservative environmental scientists have known for years that global forces behind
the scenes were moving toward one-world government, but it was not until recently that
it was possible to see the comprehensive plan, published in an official document offered
to the world, entitled Our Global Neighborhood: The Report of the Commission on
Global Governance http://www.cgg.ch/CHAP1.html>. [Oxford University Press, ISBN
0-19-827997-3, 410 pages.] As evidenced by the statement quoted above, its
recommendations are arrogantly bold – an indicator of the confidence the radical
environmentalists have at this point about their chances for success in implementing
their agenda. They are also frighteningly serious.
Now alabama is making anti agenda 21 laws.
Alabama defeats communism with anti-sustainability law
Thanks to the John Birch Society, “environmentalism” is no longer an issue in Alabama — by law.
http://www.salon.com/topic/united_nations/
see.. john birch crazies, right?
do you really think that john birch had that much influence? or is it a nice way to say, dont look behind the curtan.
[edited for length by n-n]
And carved in stone on Artfldgr’s tombstone as his enduring epitaph will be the words:
“oh. and one LAST thing…”
+1 Vanderleun
Artfldgr: once again (re your comment at 11:01, and other recent comments in this thread as well), you are assuming I have attitudes I don’t have, and assuming I lack knowledge that I actually have. I certainly am aware of the myriad leftist connections and uses of the AGW camp.
Plus, here’s some more clarification: when I contrast Russian insider knowledge of the USSR’s working with scientists’ knowledge of AGW, I am NOT talking about the political uses of AGW, which are widespread and profound and have origins in and connections to leftist thought. I’m talking about the actual science of AGW, which has been greatly obscured by the politics.
You are preaching to the choir here—plus you are assuming the choir is deaf. It is not.
Thanks for the info, Sergey. I will use those names you mentioned in my own little ongoing education. I’d like to know the truth.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/v12774318447230x/
Excerpt from Abstract:
In natural sciences, the advance of evolutionary thought and growth of empirical knowledge are not strictly correlated. The state of theory primarily tends to be controlled by a mode of collective thinking that historically dominates a given branch of science.
M.A. Shiskin
M.A. Shishkin is the scientist from Institute of Paleontology RAS, author of epigenetic theory of evolution which I mentioned. I had a series of long conversations with his disciple, also a well-known paleontologist Alexander Rautian. He reads lectures in Biological Department of MSU on evolution and systematics of land-dwelling vertebrates.
Here a link to English language book on epigenetic theory of evolution:
http://www.amazon.com/Epigenetic-Principles-Evolution-Nelson-Cabej/dp/0971074682
This will help to understand how disputable evolution theory really is.
Thanks very much, Sergey. Looks like I will have to purchase the book because the Amazon “look inside” feature leaves out page 13, the part right after this information: “The solution to the problem in the kingdom Animalia came in the form of the evolution of complex computational structures that were capable of generating information based upon their ability to process external and internal stimuli. Hence, from an informational point of view, the evolution of multicellularity was the result of a radical informational revolution.”
Well, I find that word “revolution” very peculiar in a discussion on evolution and am going to have to get the book to find out what page 13 says. What the heck was the informational revolution?
But here too is a question. Multicellular systems required more information thana single cell and that information is supplied not as just information but by something that itself evolved is capable of generating that information. Such an event, ie., the evolution of an information generator, implies design or is itself merely another step in a designed process.
i can give you the math of evolution if you want it, been working on it with it for years. and its simulable… including epigentic addressing… (i work in one of the worlds top research medical places…)
the problem is that the biologists are not as rigorous as the physiciosts, and when their wrong blueprint model went belly up, they just ignored it.
but i have programs that evolve and are multicellular based… ie. they evolve the way multicellular beings do to solve problems
but its a completely touigh slog as so many biologists are mathematically dim… (another reason they are not making progress)
so right now, i am trying to get things moving on something that allows you to go through the unordered data more than 10 orders of magnitude faster than the best we have.
there are solutions, but our science is corrupted with equality feminism, and collectivist thinking..
ie. you cant evolve types. types is a simplification. every cell has a place, and code, and there are no cell types…
but since so many are collectivists, and see the world that way, not as individuals, they see cells as being types.
this basically makes a unworkable basis for a model, and so people deny that model. but that dont mean the principal the model would liek to model is wrong it just means the model doesnt have it.
on another note
WAR DRUMS: Israel blames Iran for Bulgaria attack…
to neo
sorry, but i work off whats being said…
and what was said, didnt show that behind it was the knowlege… or that that knowlege was being ignored in favor of a different perspective.
sometimes i address you, sometimes i waffle, and address more than one, and i should be more clear as to that.
though i wish that if someone knows something, then they add it or imply it when putting up the other assertion.
ie. if i didnt say anything about what i said, by the writing you did, there would be no imply that others did predict it and were ignored by the people you mentioned.
the partial becomes the absolute to those reading who don’t know.
from day one, the whole of it was political.
including deciding on CO2…
why?
because its physical properties were known to make it impossible to work with or do somethig with. and so anyone trying owuld have wasted their economic system on it.
so thre was no real science..
in fact, it violated physics from day one…
[misapplying thermodynamics and imagining a cover to an open system that had no cover]
and many many people knew it..
but if you added the bad physics, the reverse course but fixed solution, and so on…
it was EASY to tell…
but with a society so conditioned to false erudition, argument from absence, and so on… its VERY hard to get any discussion in small space, as everyone is coming from slightly different realities.
North Korean leader takes top army rank…
Israel’s largest party walks out of Netanyahu coalition…
Top Syrian defense officials killed in suicide blast…
Russia accuses West of inciting opposition…
Former SEAL Team Six Commander Launches Anti-Obama Offensive…
Sheriff Joe’s Obama probe finds ‘national security threat’… / Calls Congress to move on eligibility…
Artfldgr:
This is what I said in my original comment, which is NOT about the politics of AGW, but rather about climate change itself:
You wrote, “i wish that if someone knows something, then they add it or imply it when putting up the other assertion.” It would indeed be nice if all of us could include everything in all our comments that would make their meaning crystal clear to all. But unfortunately that would make them interminable; it’s an old dilemma with which I know you’re familiar. But I’m with Popper on this one, “It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood,” although I try, I try.
>>>> But the problem with climate science is that it would be fiendishly difficult to design an experiment that would test its accuracy.
Not at all, neo, and they keep screwing up their predictions over and over and over — in fact, it’s RARE that they get any predictions “correct” It’s hardly a “prediction” when you claim “hot hot hot” and… gosh, sooner or later, it actually gets hot for a while. A single data point is not a trend.
But a LOT of failed data points IS a trend — The lack of heat absorption in the ocean, the lack of the “signature layer” heating up in the upper atmosphere, the endless predictions about this and that, followed, usually, by the exact opposite weather.
If you want hard, controlled, lab conditions, yeah, that’s a but tougher but not that much — if these computer models had the least validity, then they could take the conditions on day “x” over a given, specified area, and run them forwards to show how they matched the ACTUAL historical data for those areas after such-and-such time.
This doesn’t work. Ergo, the science fails
The Schwartzberg Test:
“The validity of a science is its ability to predict.”
AGW has about as much validity as reading tea leaves.