EricBess;289504 said:
At one point in history, it was clear to everyone that the earth was the center of the solar system and the sun rotated around the earth.
Someone questioned that and started saying that was incorrect and he got thrown into prison for heresy. Clearly, science has come a long way from then. Not only are we more open to ideas, but we are more careful to substantiate assumptions.
I find this line really, really tired. I find it hard to address this in an agreeable manner. But none of that is your fault. So I'll just say that I take issue with the way you have framed this and the difference between the way in which the two of us frame this may be irreconcilable and make the rest of the discussion superfluous. If so, oh well. There are worse things. But I'll try.
I don't believe that your assessment of those events is accurate historically, scientifically, or philosophically. I want to avoid delving into my full take on philosophy of science because well, that would take a long time. But it seems reasonable enough to me to define science based on certain prominent characteristics, videlicet honest and open inquiry, a social framework that enables the generation of testable hypotheses and experimental designs that can address them, controls in experiments, a publication system that makes information gleaned from these things available, the ability of like-minded individuals to access and (where possible) replicate findings, and whatever cognitive or social prerequisites exist that might be necessary for the development of comprehensive and robust models (scientific theories).
But by now I'm probably boring everyone to death. So my point is that defined too strictly, science hasn't been around for all that long, as pretty much any time and place in history more than a few centuries ago would have been lacking one or more of the components that define science. And that's not how people understand the term. Nor is it etymologically what one might expect (if that matters). We'd certainly call Newton a scientist, right? And I think most people consider Aristotle to be a scientist. In fact, that's a very good example of what I'm trying to get at...
Aristotle is, in my experience, the most popular example of an ancient scientist. He's an icon. Now, I'm not saying that he wasn't a scientist, but he did, and perhaps you've heard of this, make a claim that Galileo (allegedly, but it doesn't really matter who did it) later demonstrated to be false (that if two objects are dropped off a tower, the heavier one will fall faster). Now, what's odd about this is that it's such a simple experiment (drop some stuff off a tower). Aristotle could
easily have performed it himself. He didn't bother to. Didn't seem to cross his mind. And yet, I'll bet that if you ask young schoolchildren today about this question, even though they might not have heard of Galileo or Aristotle, some of the bright ones would suggest an experiment. I don't think this was because Aristotle was stupid. He must have been one of the smartest men of his time. Something was wrong and not so much with him as with the way he and his whole society framed these types of problems. The way I'd put it, he was a scientist, sure. But the science the ancient Greeks were doing was incomplete.
They called the scientific revolution by that name for a reason, after all. And of course one obvious concern arising from this is that the science we have now is also incomplete in that same sense. Fine. I think so myself. I have my own speculation as to where some of the incompleteness lies. But despite this, it's still unfair to say that because science or scientists had a completely wrong model in the past and "everyone" thought it was right, a model that science or scientists have now is also wrong (they were wrong before and they could just as easily be wrong now). For a couple of reasons, actually.
#1. From the explanation of I've laid out here (some of it perhaps unnecessarily), we seem to have a pretty good idea of
why the ancient Greeks were wrong about the scientific claims that they got wrong. It's not that they were mysteriously, inexplicably wrong and that we might unknowingly have fallen into the same trap ourselves. We already know (or I think we can explain pretty well, anyway) what trap they fell into. We've corrected for it. That doesn't mean science if completely and utterly wrong about a whole lot of things now. At least, it doesn't mean that by itself. But if that's the case, it must be wrong for other, completely different reasons. We've already corrected for the flaws in the way the ancient Greeks and their scientific successors in later centuries operated (in large part because of the scientific revolution).
#2. This is somewhat tied to #1, but if it's your belief that a scientific theory is way off, the onus is on you to state what's wrong with it. Appealing to previous models having been way off in the past isn't good enough at all. Nothing ever gets done this way. Furthermore, to reject the best available science based on previous science having been wrong, no matter how wrong it was, is a bit silly. Let's say you were around in a time and place when the best available science pointed to a geocentric universe. The failure to find stellar parallax might have played a role. You were unable to refute the case for this geocentric model. And yet, you still insisted that it was wrong, on the basis of some previous model (perhaps in another area entirely) having been overturned as completely incorrect. Sure, in hindsight, you were right that those other guys were wrong. But your reason for holding this position was ridiculous. I would say that you were nuts. A crazy person.
#3. Also tied to the #1 and #2, but perhaps more important: practical applications. These are huge. It's easy enough to say that the geocentric model was wrong and everyone knows that now. But Ptolemy's model didn't succeed for so long just by chance. It worked. It made accurate predictions. To the level of resolution that was available and relevant back then, Ptolemy's model was right. Yeah, it seems wrong
now. But now we've literally put people on the moon. We've sent spacecraft to the outer planets of the solar system. We can observe details about other galaxies, things that no one back then even knew existed. But if you wanted to address a problem that was within the scope of things Ptolemy's model dealt with, you technically could still use Ptolemy's model. The conclusion that some portion of global warming is anthropogenic is based directly on principles used in and relied on for other applications in multiple fields of science. And more often than you'd think, these applications necessarily mean that if the models being used were wrong, it would be obvious because the application would not work, as it relies on the accuracy (to some degree anyway, but that degree can be known) of the model.
But that doesn't mean that there aren't still assumptions in science.
Oversoul said:
Science, when done right, is very self-critical wherever possible. That doesn't mean there's zero speculation, but it does mean that we understand when we are speculating and when we aren't.
To be fair, the quote I used was from the first article I found, which I found by googling "Ice Cores", yes. Was it National Geographic? Honestly I'm not sure, but I'm fairly confident that I would have to spend hours digging through articles meant for the general public before I encountered one that was not written for a general audience.
Hours? It seems tautological that you'd
never find such an article, the general public being roughly synonymous with a general audience. But my point was that you are making an unwarranted conclusion that something is highly speculative. I'm not saying that you should make a project of really researching ice cores and the way they work until you understand fully how the data from them is collected and analyzed and such. That would be quite a chore. But if you want to make the claim that ice cores are highly speculative, then yeah, I think you'd have to research that stuff in order to be justified in your claim. As for articles written for a general audience, for one thing, you're never getting the full picture. They're necessarily "dumbed down." Also, journalists in general are notoriously bad when it comes to reporting science. More importantly, quoting one paragraph from
anything and going "looks speculative to me" isn't enough to dismiss a massive body of scientific research. I would think that this would be obvious.
However, it is interesting to note that the next one I read also talked about cycles, but was saying that they were looking into a 300,000,000 year cycle.
Three hundred million years? Ice cores? The EPICA core only goes back about 800,000 years. I can only assume that you misread whatever article this was or that the article itself is a load of crap.
But what I said had nothing to do with the fact that a comment looked speculative. What I said had to do with the fact that there is not a general consensus about the cause of the current earth's warming.
But there is.
Certainly, there is a lot of good information that can be extrapolated from a lot of different sources, but extrapolation by it's very nature is partially speculative. "We've seen this pattern here and this other pattern there, so this is what we expect to see here.". While certainly a lot of useful information can be gleened and as our methods and technology improve, the extrapolations become more accurate, but they are still extrapolations and without knowing all of the factors invoved, we cannot say with 100% certainty that we aren't missing some very important data.
Yes. I fully agree.
Just like with anything scientific, you make some reasonably assertions, observe some data, form a theory, then test against as much data as you can to see if your theory makes sense. In the case of tree rings, the current observations didn't match the expected results, so they were forced to move in a different direction.
Not sure what you're talking about here. Dendrochronology has made some pretty useful contributions to science.
I do have a question about ice cores. What is the most recent data we have? In other words, what is our "control group"? And how do we compensate for the additional weight resting on the core and are we sure that we are compensating properly?
I can't answer in a way that does these questions justice. They're good questions. It's just a time constraint. I knew this would be a long reply and I figured I'd just keep typing it until I finished Windows recovery on my new computer (everything that's happened after I bought this new laptop has been quite the saga...), but it's past 1 AM now and I'm still typing and the computer is still supposedly installing software. I have an exam that I'm not ready for and I need some sleep. I'll have to pick this up later. Sorry.
But as for the pressure issue, while I have read about it and while it's an interesting problem, I don't think I'm equipped to answer very well: it's a physics problem. The aspects I'm most comfortable with are the chemical ones, because I'm a (sort of) chemistry major who still isn't very good with anything beyond really simple physics, and that's something that I hope to remedy as soon as I can. So anyway, I'll try to answer that one, but I doubt my ability to do so adequately.
Again, I'm not saying that the research is irrelevant, just that from what I've read and seen, there is still a lot of disagreement among scientists over what conclusions can be drawn.
Yes. And this is pretty much universal in science. No matter how well-understood something is, the scientists who study it the most closely almost invariably seem to find some details to fight over.
The only thing I'm saying here is that to take some conclusions that some scientists have drawn and turn it into a world-wide panic is premature. I suspect based on your comments that you agree with what I am ultimately saying, but want to make sure that I have given it sufficient thought.
Yes, I do agree with that.
And in case it isn't clear, as this hasn't really been the focus of the discussion as I've seen it: worldwide panic is not my goal or desire. I find the reactions of many people, which I'm sure you have some idea about, to be totally silly and unproductive. It does seem that a portion of global warming is anthropogenic, but from that conclusion there are a great many possible responses. Most of the things I think we should do are also things I think we should already be doing even if it seemed that global warming isn't influenced by human activity at all. That strikes me as suspiciously fortuitous, but so far I haven't come up with any reason for that other than coincidence and the fact that bad habits often have more than just one consequence.
I would elaborate further, but this post is already too long and my computer finally finished its thing anyway, so I can go to bed now...