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Science Marches On, Right Past Al Gore

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  May 15th, 2009 at 12:15 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

At the turn of the 20th century, the experts believed that Physics was a settled science. We were either at a solution, or very close to one. There was simply nothing new to learn in physics, was the consensus. As soon as the loose ends were tied up, our understanding of the universe would be complete.

Then light acted up. Oops. Physics is still reeling from the relativistic and quantum effects discovered since.

Likewise, we’ve been told that climate science is settled. It’s a consensus. Shut up. Man-made effects will be magnified by oceanic currents, and the world is doomed.

Then the ocean acted up. Oops. It turns out that not only was our model of the ocean vastly oversimplified and our predictions on its behavior were wrong, but researchers believe the correct oceanic currents may be more difficult even to reach and study.

It sounds to me like every climactic model has to be rewritten, and if it were an honest science, it’d be reeling for some time. As one commenter at Slashdot put it, “Who would have ever guessed that we would have trouble forming an accurate model of a vast, complex, chaotic system?”

Not Al Gore. He was more interested in generating a good crisis, than in publishing a true representation of science.

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COMMENTS

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  • jmt1984

    is never settled. Thats why its called ‘re’search !

    jmt1984

  • Praying

    by the guy who invented the internet, and got a “D” in one of his high school science classes. The amazing gullibility of people not only in this country but apparently around the (not warming at all and in fact more likely cooling) globe never ceases to amaze me.

  • jimmuy8

    See? You’re a Republican and therefore: Anti-Science.

    (Oh, and this post is dangerously close to driving Andi Sullivan ver.2 a/k/a LGF Charles Johnson to mock RedState again.)

  • Aaron Gardner
  • Thomas_Hauber

    The media has already gone in 8 years from global warming to global change.

    So how long before we go from global change to global cooling?

    As I have said before, they cannot even accurately predict the weather 10 days from now and they want to tell us how things will be in 50 years? It is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard someone utter.

  • fisk2521

    Science by its very nature is ALWAYS being challenged… you would have thought the academics and Harvard graduates would have known this…

    Every single human being’s life is being altered as we speak, by the religion of the Environmentalists…….. based on a theory of nonsense. Time to speak up the rest of you scientists….. as my Dad used to say after being in WWII, “no Guts….no Glory.” Surely there are brave people out there to point out that the ‘emperor has no clothes’….. as Obama struts his Cap and Trade policies around.

  • LibRick

    as is global cooling. It’s been happening over the life of our planet and there is plenty of scientific evidence to support it.

    The core debate is on whether human civilization exacerbates the warm/cool cycle. I like your point on quantum physics to shed light on how our science works. You could also add the “end of oil in 30 years” scare of the ’70′s and the CFC induced “hole in the ozone” scare of the ’80′s.

    All of these were based on an observable effect but the causality de jour was eventually debunked or at least minimized after further advances in scientific study.

    Advances in measurement instrumentation (my field) has progressed immensely in the last half century. Each year we make order of magnitude advances in our ability to measure what we’ve never dreamed we could measure before.

    If one looks into the measurement side of the whole climate change issue there is a great deal of question regarding protocol and instrumentation. I won’t go into it now. Maybe sometime I’ll do a diary on it.

    The point is that there is no definitive truth yet. No one can yet state as fact that global warming either is or isn’t caused by man. I do know that the University grant system favors the man caused hypothesis. And what research scientist couldn’t use some bucks?

  • lukematthews

    The basic problem, to elaborate, is the data they are attempting to use is not empirical data. That is, the data cannot be collected by another and tested finding the same results. Most of this centennial data they are using was not at all standardized and collection was done in many places by ministers, farmers, and other various and sundry individuals who weren’t scientists or calibrators of instruments. Furthermore, most of the data being collected today doesn’t conform to uniform standards either. They have changed collection points throughout the past thirty years and so they are comparing apples and oranges. There simply isn’t enough understanding of the climate to warrant a wholesale alteration of our economies.

  • http://www.fredsnews.com Fred Maidment

    Back in the 1970s.

    See the Newsweek Article.

    Short history of the Global warming and cooling scares.

    We really don’t know what is going on. We just don’t have enough data.

    Anyone who claims to know the future of our climate with absolute certainty is one of three things:

    1) Lying.
    2) Hopelessly misinformed.
    3) Crazy.

    The only certainty about our environment is that it will change in some way, as it always has since the Earth’s atmosphere first formed from noxious volcanic gases 4 billion years ago.

  • http://www.fredsnews.com Fred Maidment

    n/t

  • http://www.ssce.net/Web-Articles/Web-articles-indexed-authors.html#authors-l JLenardDetroit

    which rushed the whole CFC ban…. and the Ozone layer and the NATURAL hole over the poles continues to have its NATURAL fluctuations…..

    Not saying we shouldn’t have replaced CFCs just that TECHNOLOGY should have driven the change/advancement rather than the Politics (which I’ll touch on again further down the Thread).

    I recall very much first hand both this AND the whole THE WORLD IS GONNA FREEZE paranoia “We are heading for another GLOBAL ICE AGE….” blah, blah, blah, blah…… 20 years later and now 10 years ago THE WORLD IS GONNA BURN UP….. today….. CLIMATE CHANGE (FLUCTUATION) IS A MAN-MADE THREAT….. yadda, yadda, yadda…… Politicians repeating their CONTROL THE MASSES meme ……

  • http://www.ssce.net/Web-Articles/Web-articles-indexed-authors.html#authors-l JLenardDetroit

    see the OZONE scare post further up this thread…..

    Vivace tidal-generators: Vivace hydro-power: These new Tidal waters Electrical Generators are for lower speed forces (easy close to shore locations). Why is this important? Well, the original (and for some reason unimaginative yet what people have been stuck on) Windmill or Propeller shaped/driven generators need higher forces to work yet if the forces are too great they rip-apart. Prop-gen Tidal often turns nice natural Tidal Current Flows into Tidal CHURNS which lands up killing as many fish as the number of KW they put out (yes, exaggeration but being silly to make the point). The same goes for the Wind-generators, why we NEED to be moving to DRUM-wind-generators over Propeller ones (but the POLITICS have dictated these things, NOT SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY), thus far.

    This new method may be put into practice off the coast of Detroit (Detroit River, potentially into some of the Lakes also) in order to produce power. This new method is ?supposed? to be easier to produce, maintain, more reliable, etc?. but we will see. FINALLY, we may see a reasonably priced (and therefore, viable) option for Tidal Power.

    Yes, Tidal forces are generally more reliable than WIND force power generation.

    see also: unintended consequences (Democrats always ignore) and Climate $cam

  • itrytobenice

    They’re going to vote you off the island if you don’t bury that common sense crap and get in line with the consensus.

  • mbecker908

    You’re not really a liberal, you’re just faking it for the attention. :-)

  • LibRick

    Then my “Manchurian Candidate” gambit is successful! First Redstate and then the world … Bwaa ha ha!

  • $peciallist

    :)

  • LibRick

    be underwater anyway, by my brethren’s estimation. Seriously, this issue is close to my field so it ‘s not common sense on my part… just scrutiny and questioning the validity of the hypothesis.

  • LibRick

    …waiting for pigs to fly out of my backside. wait gotta go, BRB.

  • janis

    for global warming the other night at the end of some show or other. He was nattering on about the endangered polar bear population, which, if I recall correctly, is growing instead of shrinking.

    You’d think the least these people could do is stay up to date to avoid beclowning themselves even more.

  • janis

    they usually own the bridge. :-)

  • mbecker908

    Lefty Troll:

    Righty Troll:

  • janis

    upstairs to “They don’t live under the bridge, they take the bridge and hold it.”

  • janis

    .

  • $peciallist
  • LibRick

    was my Saturday laugh! Good one!

  • 6eorge Jetson

    Lord knows he’d like to use ‘em.

    I just wish the MSM would stop using the misleading adjective “alternate”.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    Unlike this globowarmo stuff, there’s an actual, legitimate, testable theory behind the CFC ban.

    I wouldn’t bring it up in the context of globowarmism at all.

  • http://www.ssce.net/Web-Articles/Web-articles-indexed-authors.html#authors-l JLenardDetroit

    the LIES that the Ozone hole was ONLY expanding and that ONLY man-made CFCs was the reason…… The same DISTORTIONS we get today from Climate $cam artists today….. There were alot of people willing/wanting to rush the whole CFC thing before we examined all the best opportunities (Politics over Technology progress, like now GE/Democrat alliance) because their POLITICAL allies were best in a position to gain both financially and politically.

    It is NOT me trying to equate CFC with the CO2 debate.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    Ever looked up the problem of skin cancer in Australia?

    Genuine issue there.