Perhaps more simply, seek to address the null hypothesis (H0) which is that things observed in nature occur naturally.
I removed some irrelevant stuff in my post about Occam's Razor. Occam's Razor is useful when you have two or more competing hypotheses, and the one with the least assumptions is most likely worth testing. Occam's Razor doesn't find the proof, but it helps you get there more quickly.
Well, I agree to play your game. I will cut your greenhouse phantasm to pieces with Occam's razor. But first I want to point out that Occam's razor has already allowed me to resolve this question. This is why I consider to have answered it.
In the name of the principle of simplicity, Occam's Razor removed your greenhouse proposal, just as it removed SamH's thesis. I thought this was understood since my post to SamH, in which I first referenced Occam's Razor. You may not have read it. https://www.lfs.net/forum/post/2061154#post2061154
Occam's Razor is a tool. Like all tools, it acts where it is used. And here it is your classification that is wrong.
Let me explain :
At the first level, there is the observable reality of global warming, which no one here disputes.
At the second level are theories about its causes.
The dominant theory is the thesis of the anthropogenic cause of warming.
The alternative theses, and supernumerary for Occam's razor, are the general failure of science and the conspiracy of scientist. These alternative theses are eliminated by Occam's razor in application of the principles of simplicity and rationality.
SamH is right. Occam’s Razor doesn’t “find the proof.” Occam’s Razor doesn’t seek “the truth” either. It is a powerful tool that cuts to the chase in the name of rationalism. Its goal is to achieve the simplicity of the obvious more quickly. The obvious about the causes of warming is that what science demonstrates with consensus is more trustworthy than theories that rely solely on the denigration of science. QED. This is not a rhetorical device, but a strict application of Occam's razor method.
At the third level of the problem of global warming, are, on the one hand, scientific projections on its consequences and on the other hand individual speculations. This is where your greenhouse proposal is.
This proposition is opposed, in its very formality, to the conclusions of science. This is enough to evacuate it using Occam's razor. Whatever I say about your proposal in detail, it is this first option which counts in application of the fundamental's principles of Occam's razor.
To not waste my time unnecessarily (I have a life outside this forum ), confirm to me that you understand this demonstration and that it is consistent with what you know about Occam's razor.
I need also like you to explain to me what these statements are based on?
What did you not understand in the post you are referring to? I ask you this for the sake of efficiency, so as not to reproduce the same errors in a new comment that you will not understand. If something seems inappropriate or incomprehensible to you, I can explain or reformulate.
Apparently not answering questions with a big longread is your style. Although I can see why you don't want to answer, because the right answer doesn't benefit you.
Well, this is a good demonstration of how Occam's razor works in terms of not understanding it. Occam's razor does not cut or remove anything.
Is a problem-solving principle that suggests looking for explanations made up of the fewest number of entities.
In popular culture, it is not always correctly interpreted as "The simplest explanation is usually the best one."
Occam's razor It is actually a philosophical tool that states that when presented with competing hypotheses, one should prefer the one that requires the fewest number of assumptions, conditions, exceptions, etc (so as not to list all of them, they're usually called "entities") Occam's razor isn't utilized in science as a strict arbiter between competing hypotheses, but rather as an useful abductive heuristic in the building of theoretical models.
EDIT: I asked my question only on the basis that you were the first to bring up Occam's razor, and not in a very reasonable context for your argument. In my question, it is obvious which explanation requires fewer entities. But you of course won't say that.
Occam's razor can be used in different ways depending on the complexity of the problem. In terms of the most common use, Occam's razor allows a person who understands nothing about the issues of global warming, its causes and consequences, and who does not believe in science, to make a rational choice. To decide by reason between two propositions on the same problem. Without choosing the simplest, but the most probably true (or likely, at least).
It is in this context that I spoke about this concept, because many people are helpless and troubled by conspiracy theories about the decay of science and the lie according to which current tools do not make it possible to make accurate predictions about the long-term warming.
In no case does Occam's razor postulate that the proposition which includes the fewest entities is the best and that the one which requires the most demonstrations and elements is less credible.
In this precise case, it is a good way of unmasking gross impostures. I would like to point out to you that you are in no way demonstrating the truth of your words. You in no way demonstrate how science is wrong about the problem of global warming.
Whether people believe you or they believe the science, they remain in the ignorance.
Your position is entirely based on a reversal of the burden of proof: “you believe that science is right? Prove it to me!”
This is a fallacy, you know that
I'm pointing out that you misunderstand Occam's Razor and how to apply it and nothing more, here. You don't address that but lunge in a different direction, which is also nonsensical.
As for the science being "wrong", I don't think you understand WHAT the science IS or where it really is on global warming or anthropogenic warming, or especially catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. You repeat headlines and talking points from socio-political policy advocates, but as soon as I point to an apocalyptic prediction made by a "climate scientist" to a sensationalist media about the world ending, you want to call a truce rather than address the issue.
The null hypothesis is, always has been, and always will be that nature is natural. You cannot reverse that, or to claim the burden of proof is on someone else to prove a negative. That would be ridiculous.
Ok, I didn't take the time to comment on your link. I replied to you before seeing that you had added it. I read the article, there's no problem talking about it. I didn't offer you a truce. I saw that your message was more reasoned than the previous ones. I said to myself that perhaps it was the right time to change paradigm, and that we both adopt a more constructive attitude, at least for the understanding of others (if there are still any? ).
The fact that we disagree in no way proves that I don't understand science. Besides, in my remarks I don't need it. The thesis of the anthropogenic origin of global warming suits me. Not because it is certainly true or apocalyptic or because it makes me happy. But just because it is the most plausible explanation for this phenomenon. Unless you prove to me otherwise by the facts and not only by the decline of the state of science. I asked you for. You didn't do it.
On the use of Occam's razor you are neither right nor wrong. As a scientist you know that any method, any reasoning, is as effective for error than for truth.
Edit: I don't dispute that nature is natural. I know man can destroy it. He works there a little every day.
I have as many doubts as you about the effectiveness of the recommended policies, for the simple reason that they are inapplicable. But that's another subject.
The most basic, i.e. default or null, explanation is that recent warming is natural (H0). You have to show compelling evidence that the recent warming has never happened before in history, and that it is directly connected with anthropogenic causes, and that the warming is catastrophic, in order to justify such enormously disruptive and excrutiatingly expensive changes to our societies.
We know that we have compelling evidence that CO2 has increased, and that it is almost certainly contributed to by mankind. But we also know from direct measurements (Central England temperature record, for example) that THIS warming began prior to industrialisation (i.e. exiting the LIA), and we can also show strong evidence that temperature increases precede CO2 increases (forcing vs feedback dilemma). Not only that, but we know from the paleoclimatological reconstructions that the level of warming we are seeing is not even unprecedented.
These are well established matters which must be overcome, in order to substantiate the hypothesis that warming is manmade. Even if you can establish that the warming is manmade, you have to additionally show that it is catastrophic to nature (which you haven't, and still can't).
I made these points already. You came back with the claim that the RATE of change is unprecedented. This is an unsubstantiated claim, and we know this is unsubstantiated simply because the claim depends on ~70-75 paleoclimate proxy reconstructions which have a resolution between 120 and 300 years, with a median average between the proxies of 160 years/point resolution. This is even without giving consideration to error bars, which are prohibitively wide in the paleoclimate.
So, when I say the science is not good enough to support the popular and headline-grabbing apocalyptic and/or catastrophic narrative, this is what I mean. You can't defeat this with arguments on an LFS forum, it must be done scientifically. The scientists haven't been able to, so you certainly can't. Respectfully, of course.
Everything in nature has an impact in nature, but humans are not unnatural any more than termites, who build enormous mounds, are unnatural.
I do not hold with the anti-human/pro-environment position. I favour both mankind and nature. The policies being enacted in the name of environmentalism are absolutely certain to harm nature in the future, and they are harming mankind right now - from Uighur slaves in China to child slaves in the copper mines in Africa.
The global warming narrative is the virus and virtue-signalling environmentalism is the cytokine storm.
Thank you for this clarification. I can tell you what bothers me in your speech. (I will tell you this without animosity. I specify this because my bad English does not allow me any subtlety. This caricatures my words and sometimes makes them more aggressive than they are, even incomprehensible . This not the idea here).
Your speech is coated in ideology and confusing. The arguments you present are very weak in scope, even scientifically insignificant.
However, these arguments are enough (for you) to discredit the scientific analysis of global warming, its causes and its effects. Whereas, to put it bluntly, your positioning has absolutely no scientific basis, at any level (referential or conceptual) purposes.
Whether global warming began (or not) before the industrial era is irrelevant (current warming began 15,000 years ago). Natural cycles exist and are known (I refer you here to Fournier's analyses). Demonstrating that the premises of global warming predate industrialization presents absolutely no challenge in invalidating the anthropogenic cause of warming.
In fact, the anthropogenic cause is not linked to the origin of warming but to its temporality. Pascal Richet's thesis, on which you seem to rely, also has flaws. Above all, its relevance is limited on the effects of human emissions on current warming.
The evolution of the climate is known to us through a quantity of reliable material elements which provide us with localized information on climatic epiphenomena, of which the Little Ice Age (which disappeared in the last version of your message) is only one example. These localized phenomena tell us nothing about the effects of current warming, its evolution or its effects.
Paleoclimate modelling improves our understanding of the mechanisms of climate change, which remains incomplete. But, again, this is irrelevant to this debate. Since the proof of the impact of human activities on global warming is mathematically demonstrated by modelling whose relevance is unrelated to the evolution of climatic cycles throughout history. The mathematical proof provided by the modeling is trivial. If we remove emissions of anthropogenic origin, there is no other warming than natural warming, which has in fact (you are right) never been problematic.
In short, I perfectly understand your ideological resistance regarding the impact of human activities on current warming, and I can understand it.
But what I see in your discourse is that science serves as your alibi without giving you in any way the means of demonstration. Your position therefore remains purely and simply ideological, and in no way scientific. (said with respect, of course )
I think we are at an impasse. There is nothing at all which is ideological in anything that I wrote. Everything is based on principle, not a belief system (unless you regard humanitarianism and a love of nature to be ideological, which is possible I supppose).
As I make clear very explicitly, I hold high the values of scientific integrity and the scientific method, but you seem to be saying you see them as inconvenient obstacles in the way of a goal.
You say my argument is "weak in scope, even scientifically insignificant." This is an extraordinary and denegratory claim, but it is also baseless. You say my "positioning has absolutely no scientific basis, at any level (referential or conceptual) purposes", but it IS the scientific basis of the question of anthropogenic global warming, and whether it is catastrophic. When you take issue with what I set out, you take issue with the science
So I'm afraid to say, it seems clear that I was correct to say that you don't understand what science is, or how it should be conducted. Or you don't care.
I didn't remove reference to the Little Ice Age. Perhaps you misunderstood the commonly understood abbreviation, "LIA".
Yes, you're right, I'm using science as my argument. But science is a philosophy. What you perpetually lean into is an ideology.
We are not at an impasse because you are cornered by your contradictions. Your thinking can still evolve. Don't be defeatist. There are other ways to communicate than attack and defence.
I wasn't attacking you. I was pointing out cognitive aberrations and fundamental errors in your reasoning (sorry, I don't know how to say it any other way ).
This, for example, is ideological.
When I read your first message, I seemed to read a reference to the Little Ice Age as well as an incongruous reference to termites being as harmful to nature as human activities. I must have been dreaming. (I was busy and read it skimming). But you already referred to the Little Ice Age here, for the same reasons. https://www.lfs.net/forum/post/2061578#post2061578
The values of scientific integrity have no connection with our debate. When I say that your argument is weak, I demonstrate it.
Your scientific frame of reference and your conceptual angle of attack are unsuitable for understanding or explaining the problem of global warming. I tell you why.
I am not denigrating you in any way.
And I’m not denigrating science any further! I demonstrate how the elements you provide are inappropriate for the analysis you think you are doing, and that they do not serve your demonstration. These arguments do not allow us to doubt the scientific conclusions on the anthropogenic cause of global warming which is proven: Proven by calculation.
This demonstrates that I understand quite precisely how science works and what its demonstrations are based on.
Science is not a philosophy since Antiquity. I don't think venturing into this debate is to your advantage.
Science and philosophy were for a long time inseparable. In Antiquity, philosophy represented the supreme science, that of “the first principles and the first causes”. Other sciences, and notably physics, received their foundations from her. This alliance was broken in the 17th century, with the appearance of the experimental method and the development of the positive sciences. Since that time, science and philosophy have continued to move away from each other.
This separation has not only dissociated what was once united, but has completely disrupted the very meaning of the scientific project. Abandoning the ideal of pure or disinterested knowledge, science has embarked on a vast enterprise of transformation, that is to say, domination of the world. It is getting closer and closer to technology, to the point that it is sometimes referred to today as techno-science. Modern science seems on the verge of realizing the Cartesian dream of making man “master and possessor of nature”. As such, it becomes the depository of all the hopes of humanity, which expects from it what philosophy has failed to offer it, that is to say its happiness or rather its material well-being. .
Having gradually invested all sectors of reality, this science, conquering and sure of itself, places philosophy in an uncomfortable situation. What domain does it have left, in fact, if everything knowable, matter as well as spirit, is distributed among the various scientific disciplines? Philosophy literally becomes irrelevant, and its existence dangerously compromised. Closer to opinion than to knowledge, it seems to be only a survival of the past, a residue doomed to disappear, absorbed by scientific progress. This is at least the opinion of positivists and scientists, who see in philosophy this “part of human knowledge which has not yet succeeded in taking on the characteristics and taking on the value of science”. Metaphysics thus constitutes, in Comte's eyes, a sort of "chronic illness naturally inherent to our mental and individual or collective evolution, between childhood and virility", meaning between the childhood of the theological spirit and the virility of positive mind.
On closer inspection, however, things are not that simple. It is not certain, after all, that, even in the age of triumphant technology, philosophy is in as bad a position as we have just said. It is undoubtedly an exaggeration, in fact, to consider that scientific advances, however remarkable they may be, ipso facto invalidate all philosophical thought. Far from marking its disappearance, the rise in power of the positive sciences, and particularly that of the natural sciences, could even give it new impetus by freeing it for its essential tasks. ““Philosophy”, writes Heidegger, is in the constant necessity of justifying its existence before the “sciences”. She thinks she can achieve this more surely by raising herself to the level of a science. But this effort is the abandonment of the essence of thought. Philosophy is pursued by the fear of losing consideration and validity if it is not science. We see this as a lack which is assimilated to non-scientificity” (Letter on Humanism). Philosophy has nothing to gain, in fact, from trying to compete with science. She can only deny herself by wanting to model herself after her. His approach is not comparable to his, because his ambition is different. She does not have to explore[...]
English is not one of the 3 official languages of my country. This is a mistranslation of the Encyclopædia Universalis by Google, as noted.
But you will easily find the same references with a better translation. Translation does not remake history. Despite your so-called titles, you support nonsense. This is where the impasse lies. The fact that this is in your area of expertise constitutes an aggravating circumstance.
Looking forward Samh. Real work awaits me.
And without hard feelings
Trying to read this thread is right up there with watching paint dry. I've been reading something about the dangers of planting new trees. That there is something in the trees that are actually worse than the greenhouse gases the cars put out. It's not all trees, it appears to be hardwood species like Oaks. Isoprene.... LOL sounds like some sort of ointment for sore muscles.
I haven't heard about that. Interested in a link if you have one.
I'm generally quite a big fan of reforesting - especially around where I am, the moorlands are artificially stripped bare of forests so the wealthy can pay a fee to shoot the million+ annually imported grouse (I'm NOT a fan. I shoot grouse, but in a nice way!) - but I'm aware that, if the goal is LESS CO2 in the atmosphere, draining peat bogs and marshland can cause release of more CO2 into the atmosphere than the forests they plant in their place will ever consume from it. The history of conservation and environmentalism is replete with stories of unforeseen consequences.
You are tough on us. Ouch ! But it reassuring that you haven't learned anything here.
Those who are less informed than you will find here direct access to scientific information and explanation of the scientific proof of the anthropogenic cause of global warming. It's already good.Afterwards we only touched the question of catastrophism and not even addressed that of solutions.
In our defense, when those who claim to explain science to you do not know what it is, do not know its history and do not understand how it works, a little mine-clearing is necessary.
When others imagine that philosophical rationalism dictates favoring a proposition such as “global warming is cool” over the detailed reports of the IPCC, on the grounds that the former requires fewer entities, and that these two propositions must be analyzed on the same hierarchical basis... The road is long and difficult. Because we must restart from fundamentals which should have been acquired at school.
By consulting sources on the internet, we learn nothing. We inform ourselves and/or we misinform ourselves. The individual ability to construct reasoning is essential. Whatever the problem addressed and the state of our knowledge about it.
This new platitude being said, I will always stand with SamH when he is right.
And SamH is right to ask you for a link. Without a link no one can understand what you are talking about? Trees absorb CO2 and also release it. Especially when they are cut or burned.
Since you quoted this passage, you must agree with it. By the way, I recommend you to read Heidegger's Black Notebooks if you think he is a philosopher you should listen to.
Philosophy is not a science, just as a mother is not a child. Because out of philosophy came all the other sciences. The sciences study the world through models and Philosophy deals with fundamental knowledge and reality. Science and philosophy are not in competition with each other. They are like two curves that run parallel to each other, occasionally crossing each other.
Moreover, philosophy does not need what are now called sciences, but science needs philosophy. Philosophical teaching arose long before what we today call science. Philosophy studies many things, for example, sciences need philosophy at least because philosophy studies fundamental concepts of these sciences. For example, as in geometry there is the concept of a point. The question of what a point is is not a question of geometry. It's a question of philosophy. A point is one of the fundamental (indefinable) mathematical objects whose properties are defined by a system of axioms. It is not strictly possible to represent a point as an indivisible element of the corresponding mathematical space defined in geometry, mathematical analysis and other sections of mathematics. And so it is in many other cases.
Even the question of what is Science and what is Philosophy are philosophical questions. These concepts have many different definitions. One such definition, for example in Philosophy, is that Philosophy is a discipline concerned with the study of the basic concepts of other disciplines. Or another definition, Philosophy is a discipline devoted to the application of formal logic to humanitarian problems. Either way, it is a description of the same kind of activity, just a description in different ways.
Philosophy is not concerned with the study of models that should correspond to reality, but philosophy favours logical rigour, mental experimentation and argument in its research.
This is why many scientists who ignore philosophical works forget the importance of logical argumentation.
I don't necessarily agree with everything I pasted (to be honest, I didn't even take the time to read it, I just copied/pasted and had Google translate the first page of the Encyclopedia Universalis on the subject).
But I tend to agree with you. Even if Heidegger is not my favorite philosopher for essentially historical reasons that you know.
Edit: (but we're straying a little from your topic, I think)