Are Global Warming "Predictions" Science or Mysticism?

Question

Can Science "predict"? Is reading tea leaves, crystal balls, animal bones now considered science?

Or is Science defined as knowledge?

Do we gain knowledge if someone makes a lucky guess, or makes a guess that's so wide, it can't miss? Or is this a basic pallor trick?

If someone is given credit for being so smart that they can foresee the future 25 years from now, shouldn't we ask them to predict the future of the climate next week, next month, in 6 months, 1 year, 5 years, and 10 years from now, while showing us how they came to these conclusions?

If this can't be done, then shouldn't we consider these guesses to just be lucky guesses, not any better more scientific than a flip of a coin?

Answer 1

Global warming isn't just a guess. Research a little and find that these people have done more research than you. The way people 'predict' global warming trend is to look at the past trend of warming. You have to also account for population growth and other variables to try to estimate what the trend will be in the future. It's not a flip of a coin, it's an estimate based on known data. Nobody can know for sure how the warming rate will be in the future, we can just make an estimate based on known FACTS.

EDIT:

For jimz, to make life easier a snipit from wikipedia.

"CO2 production from increased industrial activity (fossil fuel burning) and other human activities such as cement production and tropical deforestation[19] has increased the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. Measurements of carbon dioxide amounts from Mauna Loa observatory show that CO2 has increased from about 313 ppm (parts per million) in 1960 to about 375 ppm in 2005. The current observed amount of CO2 exceeds the geological record of CO2 maxima (~300 ppm) from ice core data.[20]

Because it is a greenhouse gas, elevated CO2 levels will increase global mean temperature; based on an extensive review of the scientific literature, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concludes that "most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations".[21]

Over the past 800,000 years,[22] ice core data shows unambiguously that carbon dioxide has varied from values as low as 180 parts per million (ppm) to the pre-industrial level of 270ppm.[23] Certain paleoclimatologists consider variations in carbon dioxide to be a fundamental factor in controlling climate variations over this time scale.[24]"

To sum up I have to say politics must be pretty powerful if it can change the level of CO2 in the atmosphere. Maybe it's the hot air that flows out the mouths of people who think that we cause no change at all to our environment that is doing all this warming. Maybe we should go back to putting lead in everything and start using asbestos again because politics may have wrongly accused them as being bad for us too.

Oh and I have to note I found this quite amusing. "Trying to predict human influence by looking at the past is not practical because humans haven't influenced the past." Anyone who understands the scientific method should find this amusing as well. The only way to see how we have changed things is to look at the times when we were not here and compare it to how it is now, it is called control data. It's just like testing with a placebo. I remember learning about the control group very early in school, elementary school perhaps. Have a look at the wikipedia page on control groups to see how this works and how your statement does not make sense.

Answer 2

This Global Warming stuff ain't guessing. It's happening now and we need to act badly.

Answer 3

Google "Greenhouse Warming Scorecard" and you'll see just how bad their predictions really are.

Answer 4

Spike wrote, "the way people 'predict' global warming trend is to look at the past trend of warming. You have to also account for population growth and other variables to try to estimate what the trend will be in the future."

I understand that some arlarmist are more knowledgeable but what got me was how many up arrows he got.  Clearly there are alarmists that agree.  

Just to inform some of these alarmists who obviously have no science background, past warming was certainly natural if you go back a reasonable distance.  Trying to predict human influence by looking at the past is not practical because humans haven't influenced the past.  I know a lot of people on both sides of the issue want to focus on short time intervals (i.e decades or even years) but there is not enough data to make predictions from such short term data.  We have been warming generally since the Little Ice Age and generally we have continued that trend.  Are we warmer than we would have been, perhaps marginally but who knows.  There are buffers in the climate as well as emissions of particulates and other factors as well.

I would call it simple politics masquerading as science.  For me that definition fits best

Answer 5

Look, I'm trying my hardest to be nice and calm in the face of questions like this, but I'm getting down to the last straw here...

Can Science "predict"?

Physics is a science.

Physics can predict many things (such as the vector of a moving object).

Therefore science can predict.

We have used the science of astronomy to predict the future movement of the planets. Astronomy predicts when the next solar eclipse will be and where it can be seen. In chemistry, scientists can predict how much energy will be given off when two reactants are combined. In biology, scientists can predict that certain organisms will die when frozen.

Do we gain knowledge if someone makes a lucky guess?

Do you know what a hypothesis is? It's a guess that is tested through experimentation.

Nobody's claiming that their prediction for future temperatures will be exact, but they need to at least give an estimate. We can't make an informed decision about what to do now without an estimate of what could happen in the future. We need these estimates to to decide what to do now, not when it's too late and after the damage has been done.  

Answer 6

That's just ridiculous.  Science is all about being predicable and making predictions.  Although we have a lot of work to better our climate science, we have made a lot of progress in the past decades.  

Scientists use a variety of data and models to analyze trends and make predictions.  Generally, they are all in agreement.  This science will only get more accurate as we research more and get more data.  By no means are these predictions a wild guess -- they are backed with evidence and are useful for making policy decisions.

Read some science below:

Answer 7

Can you envision 2000 and some odd bobble head dolls all nodding in union. With extreme migraines, predicting every unforeseen circumstance that may or may not occur naturally.

Answer 8

All the global warming science I pay attention to is predictions based on facts. Can someone with your demonstrated limited intelligence even understand the difference between science to mysticism. This is not the dark ages.

Answer 9

To be honest Science is based on the faith that if something is reproducible then it is accepted. There are very few truths in the world that can be derived without a leap of faith (Lemmas or preconditions).

Now if you decided that you have 50% of getting a heads and 50% of getting tails. People can probably say out of a 10000 flips you will have about 5000 heads and 5000 tails and the margin of error is small. It would be really hard for them to say if the third one will be tail or heads (or if you had 100 flips 53 heads and 47 tails to say if after the next flip there will be 54 heads or still have 53 heads with any satisfaction).

That is what they are doing to predict the weather. They make a model based on their understanding on climatology and the interventions that we are adding to the climate and having a computer run thousands of scenarios then they make an estimate of what is most likely trend.

Answer 10

I would say the climate predictions are more like "WAGS"

The good thing is, the people making the guesses have a 50/50% chance of being right. It is either going up or down. maybe slightly worse chance if it stays the same, but history seems to suggest that does not happen.

Answer 11

The so called scientist would be out of a job if they gave an answer that there is no problem. All the money would dry up.

Answer 12

some of it holds water! some of it does not!!!!!

Answer 13

I assume this is in response to the James Hansen question.  If you read it, you'll see that one of his predictions in 1981 was that the '80s would see significant warming.  That's a short-term and correct prediction.

I wonder how many predictions have to be right before you stop calling them lucky guesses.  Yes, I'm sure it's a coincidence that essentially all of James Hansen's predictions have been correct.  It has nothing to do with his scientific knowledge.

I also find it amusing that you think science can't predict things.  I hope you pay no attention to weather forecasts, or the estimated time for an airplane flight to get to its destination, or any of the other countless scientific predictions we rely on daily.

And by the way, scientists have done exactly what you ask.

"Global warming is forecast to set in with a vengeance after 2009, with at least half of the five following years expected to be hotter than 1998, the warmest year on record"

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/i...

I expect you to accept AGW now, unless you're in denial.

Answer 14

thye are a poliical money making scam

Answer 15

,any "survey" can be made to look how ever it best fits the scientists needs.i.e. funding,which  generally is paid for by taxpayers.scientists who are not even doing research tend to agree with the "consensus" read 20 different websights about oceans rising and you will get an idea.or use your own brain and think,how can the ocean level rise in one spot and not another? they are all connected. if i put more water in my bathtub does it rise in one spot and not the other?

Answer 16

Most scientific knowledge that I know of is rooted in 'prediction.'  Someone hypothesizes that a cause and effect relationship exists, and sets out to test the variables in an objective and repeatable fashion.  The hypothesis is basically the prediction of what the outcome will be when the variables are applied by another name.

You can't separate prediction and science.  I understand that you are trying to shade the very essence of the science by comparing weather forecasting to global warming reasearch and hypotheses, as well as characterize the research as equivalent to reading tea leaves, etc. etc. etc. but the effort strikes me as extremely transparent artifice.

Apparently though, some people-at least here at Yahoo Answers-ARE taken in by parlor tricks.