The first United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report had a Chapter headed “Validation of Climate Models”. A similar Chapter occurred in the first draft of the Second Report. I commented that since no climate model has ever been validated, the word was inappropriate. The next draft had changed the Title, and the words “Validated” or “Validation” to “Evaluated” or “Evaluation” fifty times. Since then the word “validation” is never used, only “evaluate”.
No IPCC document has even discussed what measures might be required before a computer model of the climate might be “validated”
“Validation” is a term used by computer engineers to describe the process of testing of a computer model before it can be made use of. It has to include a capacity to forecast future behaviour to satisfactory level of accuracy. Since no such procedure has ever been carried out for any climate model they are not only completely unsuitable for future forecasts, but the level of accuracy of any such forecast is unknown. As a result they are unable to place levels of reliability on any of the models, or on any “projection’ resulting from them..
The Glossary to the IPCC 4th Report does not contain a mention of either “validation” or “evaluation’, but it is plain in the text that “evaluation” includes “attribution” which derives a cause/effect relationship from a “correlation” contrary to the demands of basic logic.
From the Glossary on “Detection and Attribution”:
“Detection and attribution Climate varies continually on all time scales. Detection of climate change is the process of demonstrating that climate has changed in some defined statistical sense, without providing a reason for that change. Attribution of causes of climate change is the process of establishing the most likely causes for the detected change with some defined level of confidence.”
The use of the term “attribution” evades the firm logical principle that a correlation, however convincing, does not prove cause and effect, not even to any level of “likelihood” or spurious “probability. Their “attribution” process consists in downgrading, distorting and even ignoring alternative reasons for a correlation in order to claim that their explanation had been proved.
The IPCC admit that none of there models have been properly validated, because they refuse to use the word “forecast”, only “projection”. A “projection” is merely the consequence of the initial assumptions and it has no value as a forecast unless it has been tested against future climate behaviour.
This is what the Glossary says:
“Climate prediction A climate prediction or climate forecast is the result of an attempt to produce an estimate of the actual evolution of the climate in the future, for example, at seasonal, interannual or long-term time scales. Since the future evolution of the climate system may be highly sensitive to initial conditions, such predictions are usually probabilistic in nature. See also Climate projection; Climate scenario; Predictability.
Climate projection A projection of the response of the climate system to emission or concentration scenarios of greenhouse gases and aerosols, or radiative forcing scenarios, often based upon simulations by climate models. Climate projections are distinguished from climate predictions in order to emphasize that climate projections depend upon the emission/concentration/radiative forcing scenario used, which are based on assumptions concerning, for example, future socioeconomic and technological developments that may or may not be realised and are therefore subject to substantial uncertainty.
Predictability The extent to which future states of a system may be predicted based on knowledge of current and past states of the system. Since knowledge of the climate system’s past and current states is generally imperfect, as are the models that utilise this knowledge to produce a climate prediction, and since the climate system is inherently nonlinear and chaotic, predictability of the climate system is inherently limited. Even with arbitrarily accurate models and observations, there may still be limits to the predictability of such a nonlinear system (AMS, 2000)”
These definitions confuse the separate role played by the models and the scenarios. The models merely “project” the rate at which “radiative forcing” increases with increase in greenhouse gases. They cannot be used to “project” what might happen in the future without “scenarios” which are guesses of the future economic development of the world, from which future emissions of greenhouse gases may be deduced. Then, they have to use anothert set of unvalidated models to calculate how much of these emissions might end up in the atmosphere, so the climate models can calculate the radiative forcing, and from that the temperature increase.
The resulting “range” of temperature and other properties for the year 2100 is therefore completely arbitrary; so the actual levels are decided by the demands of the politicians. The “Low” figure could easily be negative, but oh no! it has to be just a bit high. The “HIgh” figure is what the market will bear currently and it has therefore changed over the years. There have been several occasions in my experience of the IPCC when it had to be suddenly raised, doubtless after a call from the politicians. They used such devices as inventing an extra severe scenario (A1F1) or an extra severe model to do this.
The “High figure is the most important as it is the one used by the Al Gores and Nicholas Sterns of this world to scare us into escalating economic disaster
Since none of the curves have a known or calculable level of accuracy the range could be indefinitely extended in both the upwards and downwards directions. The IPCC actually say this; but, of course, only for the upward direction
Here is what the Glossary says about the Scenarios:
“Climate scenario A plausible and often simplified representation of the future climate, based on an internally consistent set of climatological relationships that has been constructed for explicit use in investigating the potential consequences of anthropogenic climate change, often serving as input to impact models. Climate projections often serve as the raw material for constructing climate scenarios, but climate scenarios usually require additional information such as about the observed current climate. A climate change scenario is the difference between a climate scenario and the current climate.”
These scenarios have not been developed by scientists, but by environmental activist economists attached to the IPCC WGIII (Impacts) Committee, and they are generally grossly exaggerated. Even the figures chosen for the beginning (2000) are all wrong; so they are even unable to predict the past.
The scenarios have been roundly criticised by expert economists. without response. They include such outrageous assumptions as:
1. a 12-fold increase in coal consumption,
2. increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide of 1% a year, instead of the current 0.4%,
3. increases in atmospheric methane, instead of the current fall,
4. absurd increases in Gross National Product, and population,
They were foisted on the scientists of the IPCC Committee WGI (Science) without consultation, so that the future can be confidently exaggerated by them.
Cheers
Vincent Gray
Wellington, New Zealand
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
If much of the above is substantially true leading to the waste of trillions of dollars trying to dial up a better climate surely individual fraudsters, organizations and governments must one day be held accountable?
It seems that this fraudulent nonsense is gradually being exposed in the UK through council and by elections recently and hopefully the NZ government will bite the dust after the next election.
It will be interesting to chart the course of the Krudd fraudsters over the next 12 months and their emissions trading scheme.
If fuel is taxed at say 10 to 20 cents a litre ( as the fanatics demand) plus increases already in the pipeline for electricity etc we can only hope the people will at long last use their vote to make this krudd government a one term wonder.
These models hang like the Sword of Damocles.
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Thank you for the input Vincent. Since the IPCC in its rules was to provide documentation that is supposed to be publicly obtainable, is it possible that you could link, or provide email etc for us to view? I have read the IPCC comment about the politicization that heat has to be shown as bad and any positive aspects of increased temperature were deleted from the last assessment. Could you provide other useful links or documents?
Like all great theatrical Melodrama’s…. It will end in tears….
I have my popcorn all ready stored in th’ cupboard,(just in case there’s none left ’cause they’ve turned it all into ethanol ; ) )… and eagerly await the inevitable Public crash of the AGW Hypothesis….
It is no different than some other science frauds of history… Piltdown man springs to mind as one good example.
Quite obviously, validation means something VERY different to a climate modeler than it does to a nuclear engineer:
http://depriest-mpu.blogspot.com/2008/03/nuclear-engineers-view-of-validation.html
At the moment, a slow moving theoretical train wreck is occurring with the solar physicists – the longevity of Cycle 23 is consigning one forecast after another to the dustbin, together with its associated theory on what drives the sunspot cycle.
The theoretical crash for IPCC will likely occur from one or both of the following [other processes may also contribute];
1) If the CLOUD experiment, now presumably about to start producing results at CERN, validates the Svensmark cosmic ray/cloud hypothesis, the models are dead as no program which omits consideration of a principal associated physical process can be considered valid for anything.
2) If planetary temperatures continue to fall over the next two years.
The probable demise of AGW theory is going to cause vast political embarrassment as well as misery for billions.
“probable demise” – only “probable”?
Good post Vincent, and timely.
“a 12-fold increase in coal consumption, ”
I guess we can write off that assertion now, with oil prices rocketing up.
I have commented before about the need for more attention to philosophy in our education system.
Modelling and inductive statistics need to be firmly put in their proper epistemological place. They are useful tools, but must never be regarded as ‘foundations of knowledge’. In the hands of people like Luke and his playmates, they are downright dangerous. I have not forgotten Luke’s obvious confusion over the Central Limit Theorem.
Back to Neurath’s Boat, or Popper’s ‘piles in the swamp’. Some checking for inductive consilience (Whewell 1840, Wilson 1998) between history, economics, and climate modelling would be interesting.
From an informal model that I have in my head, I predict (project?) that Luke and Travis won’t understand this, and so will resort to infantile fecal abuse. I have already written to the palace, and my cousin Lilbet is about to sign a document expelling Lord Creep of Crapshire from the House of Lords.
He will be instructed to hand in his ermine knickers to HM Quartermaster. He should first send Travis to get them dry cleaned. On no account should Travis be given the opportunity to sniff them. Who knows, he might be a member of the West Australian liberal party?
“”probable demise” – only “probable”?
🙂
“”probable demise” – only “probable”?
Well, yes. How many other atrocious belief systems are still alive despite having nothing but failure to show???
Being falsified, unfortunately, does NOT automatically mean everyone understands and throws out the garbage. I am also waiting with popcorn stored away for the absolutely AMAZING fairy tales we will be told to try and obfuscate us into believing our politicians were acting in our best interests only!!
The witch, uh, scapegoat trials and burnings should be pretty entertaining also!!
It is always useful to go back and look closely at the IPCC text and see how different it is from both their own conclusions, and media hysteria. I particularly like the above extract: “Climate projections are…………therefore subject to substantial uncertainty”. Koutsoyiannis confirmed the projections are totally uncertain. To the degree that they are useless for practical purposes (http://www.itia.ntua.gr/en/docinfo/850).
How can any IPCC statement about the future still be taken seriously?
“How can any IPCC statement about the future still be taken seriously?”
You seem to be confused between what the IPCC says and what the press says. That’s not their fault. The projections are only a part of the case. Read the IPCC report. It is quite comprehensive.
Doug; to your list you can add Aqua and ARGO; although I note Argo has already been subject to manipulation and revision;
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/people/gjohnson/publications.html
Atthe Johnson site,click onto the paper “In Situ Data Bias-Recent Ocean Heat Content Variability”
AGW and IPCC is an absolute farrago, yet their acolytes here and elsewhere say we should accept the word of these superior ‘scientists’; Koutsoyannis’s study shows why we shouldn’t:
http://www.itia.ntua.gr/en/docinfo/850
“epistemological” my bum. “Central Limit Theorem” what confusion? – the famous dogfight over individual thermometer accuracy vs a population?
Davey you’re a legend here in your own mind – but it shows that you’re fundamentally up ourself as your ongoing philosophically tiresome drivel well indicates. You’ve never contributed anything but smarmy comments and ill-informed quips on climate so take a hike.
>3. increases in atmospheric methane, instead of the current fall…
Vincent is wrong about Methane. Last year methane went up sharply after little change in the years prior – http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/media/2008/aggi.html . Lets up this is a once off.
He is also wrong about CO2 rising at 0.4%/pa its above 0.5% (and CO2 equivalent is substantially higher again), and wrong about the 1% scenarios – these are sensitivity scenarios which date back to the use of CO2 equivalent. They are not predictions for the future.
I have personally argued rationality until I am blue in the face, only to be continually met with dishonesty. Like many people here, I have read hundreds of “discussions” on this subject in online forums and blog comments threads.
But is any progress being made? I’m afraid my observation is that belief in AGW dogma is becoming increasingly entrenched and institutionalised in society.
I then see comments here like “eagerly await the inevitable Public crash of the AGW Hypothesis”, and “the theoretical crash for IPCC”.
However, there is a lot of preaching to the choir going on, but very little activity directed at attracting the awareness of the ordinary mass media consumer.
Does anyone see any steps towards more organised or more active or more public dissemination of the truth?
“public dissemination of the truth” – now that would be fun.
SJT:
‘You seem to be confused between what the IPCC says and what the press says. That’s not their fault. The projections are only a part of the case. Read the IPCC report. It is quite comprehensive.’
S, if I may call you S: This is disinegnous in the extreme. As someone who has contributed to the IPCC process and studied its activities, I have observed that spokesmen for the IPCC have on numerous occasions issued statements taking issue with statements that they considered to deviate from the IPCC consensus in ways that question the seriousness of the problem. The worst example was a remarkble was the issuing of a press release that attacked Castles and Henderson (the men, not the validity of their argument) as ‘two so-called independent experts’. (These two were a (respectively) former Australian Statistician and Secretary of the Dpeartment of Finance and Chief Economist of the OECD). I have searched long and hard for a statement issued by the IPCC or one of its spokesmen that takes issue with any of the numerous statements appearing in the media, either by journalists or quoting environmental groups, to the effect that they are exaggerating IPCC conclusions. This includes, significantly, representing IPCC ‘projections’ as forecasts.
Perhaps you could provide us with an example of the IPCC correcting an exaggeration.
Can I call you A?
The claim was made that the IPCC said something that the press said. I was merely correcting his error in logic.
S,
You can call me Aynsley, because I am perfectly happy to put my name to my posts. Are you?
You are dead wrong.
MAGB’s statement was:
‘It is always useful to go back and look closely at the IPCC text and see how different it is from both their own conclusions, and media hysteria.’
This, by no stretch of the imagination, is stating that the IPCC said something the press said. Grammar is perfectly logical, and the only error is in your interpretation of plain English.
Address the challenge: One instance where the IPCC has corrected and exaggeration. Please. Even James Hansen thinks the IPCC errs in preferring the SRES scenarios on emissions and concentrations to the observational record.
The Central Limit Theorem; you mean Hurst rescaling?
Methane has a complex history;
http://ecen.com/eee55/eee55e/growth_of%20methane_concentration_in_atmosphere.htm
Methane began its rise in 1800; I didn’t think McDonalds went back that far.
You can find the full text of the IPCC report at the following <a href=”http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html
Like the pine trees linin the windin road,
I’ve got a name, I’ve got a name.
Like the singin bird and the croakin toad,
I’ve got a name, I’ve got a name.
And I carry it with me and I sing it loud,
If it gets me nowhere, I’ll go there proud.
Don’t worry about the dissemination of truth, Steve. A chill wind makes a deeper impression then a thousand AGW commercials.
This place reminds me of the time when peacocks at Grandma’s place strutted round the edge of a pile of other fowl at scrap time. Then there was some fantail pigeons too rushing through the fray.
Steve S,
I share your pessimism about the debate. There is a major disconnect developing between the scientific debate and the political/media line.
In the past when doomsayers have been proven wrong, there has been no calling to account. The MSM is not interested in failed disaster predictions. Looking back, no one in the history of science has been so spectacularly, publicly wrong so often than Paul “The battle to feed the world is over” Ehrlich, yet he is still a professor at Stanford, still widely revered, and gets powderpuff interviews from the ABC when he visits Australia.
Ehrlich and his generation of alarmists have never admitted error. They just quietly drop the subject, and substitute a new alarm.
As for the media, they are in general totally committed to promoting disaster scenarios by now. This will continue; the only way AGW will be dropped is if a greater potential disaster of some other type takes its place. Maybe a new Little Ice Age as the sun goes quiet?
Ex-Lord Creep of Crapshire,
It’s true that much philosophy is drivel, but not all. The epistemology of climate is basic to the argument, even if you don’t understand that. Your contributions are cut-and-paste mechanistic statistical drivel. The models you admire are dysfunctional. Accurate prediction is fundamental to scientific validity.
You are yourself a legend here, and may become an even greater one, but not for the reason you and your small band of sycophants imagine. Try to stop chewing your finger nails.
P.S. Come in Tedious Travis.
So Sellout Brown Davey (esquire and put-on ponce) – how is ” epistemology of climate is basic to the argument” ?? I’m all ears. My heart pounds awaiting you finally making an intelligent comment on these matters. I’m trying not to giggle.
And I’m really sorry if you think your smarmy comments are actually a discussion point. Some people are actually able to use cut n paste information to good effect. Pity you’re not one of them. I assume you would love me to spend heaps of time rewriting existing work – for you to retort “oh that’s all bull”. Think not mate.
gavin; those fantail pigeons; obviously scrap time needed some Stevenson screens.
“Maybe a new Little Ice Age as the sun goes quiet?” – now come on – this is weak stuff – is this a prediction or not? Or is it “I’d like to drop it in but don’t want to be accountable for it”?
Inverse alarmism?
Ah luke; you and Green Davey apparently go right back; I did post at the Weatherman topic but I think I overloaded poor Jen’s link capacity so I’ll repeat it here with a toned down version.
I was researching Arrhenius and came across a potted history of CO2 and greenhouse by Spencer Weart, who incidentally, dislikes the term;
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/Radmath.htm#molecule
Weart is fixated on the layer by layer approach and bloviates about columns; this has been done by Miskolczi. More specific rebuttal of Weart and the IPCC CO2 and atmospheric model is here;
http://www.physforum.com/index.php?showtopic=19006&st=0
There is another link, but you will have to google Aubrey E Banner, Greenhouse Gas Effects & Carbon Dioxide Consideration of Infrared Absorbtion 18/8/06. As with the physforum link the comments are informative and deal with the absorbtion process, emissions and emission ‘direction’, saturation, feedbacks, forcing and energy equilibrium.
Other than that there is Michael Hammer’s excellent paper on CO2, H2O and Beer’s Law. There is still a dearth of information about this basic issue of the mechanism of CO2 absorbtion and ‘heating’ in the IPCC literature, which I think is as strange and exotic as gavin’s fantail pigeons and peacocks.
Cohenite,
I have heard of ‘Hurst Rescaling’ , but am not familiar with its details. Does it fall in the same statistical genre as Duncan’s Multiple Range Test? If so, Luke might find it useful.
Luke,
Look up ‘epistemology’ in the dictionary. That will help you to understand.
Green Davey; only in the sense that autocorrelation is equally lost in the noise; actually luke put me onto Hurst; tamino does a recent post on it; Kotsoyannis is a bit of a guru and a recent paper on using it to resolve location defects in temp data collection (isn’t that topical) is here;
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2FJCLI3663.1
Personally I think Asimov used it to good effect in his Foundation novels; ie future predictions; maybe we should rename global warming Asimov warming.
Yes Cohenite – Davey was nice once. He’s changed as the blog has darkened his soul. (sigh)
Anyway back to it.
Come on Davey – let’s go … tell us ….
(epistemology – it’s not in my dictionary of Fortran, only says – it’s irrelevant).
The Hurst phenomenon is about long term persistence in river flow records – long persistent droughts – and it’s the answer whipped out by sceptical contrarians when they don’t have any “mechanistic drivel” understanding to offer. Scares the willies out of me.
And Davey you wouldn’t be caught dead using Duncan’s – more like the vodka test – Kolmogorov-Smirnov or Kruskal-Wallis given the data properties. I’m sure you agree.
But Cohenite, Kotsoyannis is wasted on us statistically challenged souls here in blogdom backwater – we’re still coming to grips with standard deviation central limits theorem, percentiles and anomalies. Louis always diverts us back to basics.
I reckon Davey would be the sort of guy that would be a decile adder myself.
luke; nothing wrong with a dark soul; you should read Eric Wilson’s “Against Happiness, In Praise of Melancholy”; those long nights around the dung fire after the AGW measures take affect are going to test us all; except clive hamilton of course.
I think you have misunderstood Hurst; the “Hurst phenomenon” is stochastic and is the absence of periodicity; as your comment on tamino plaintively implied, Hurst is the bane of the warmists who, are not only trying to establish trends, but anthropological causes for them. Tamino’s efforts were frantic I must say, and beg the question as to whether autocorrelation can manifest as a trend. More specifically, the “lots of data” solution is confusing because his data seems to be interpolations; by doing this the original data is replaced by a construct. So to the Runnalls and Oke study which was linked to the tamino effort; they try to overcome the problem Watts found, in Johnny Appleseed fashion, with individual temp stations, of tainting by micro-climate factors; by a process of mass sampling and site averaging they state they can detect and remove the tainting factors. This smacks of the average temperature concept which is the underpining of the greenhouse analogy; it is a false concept, and the essence of climate is regional weather. The importance of regional weather is, if one such contradicts AGW, AGW is undermined. As with Asimov’s psychohistory, no matter how large the sampling, one exception, or “Mule”, defeats the trend and predictability; perhaps the Hurst effect should be renamed the Hurst-MULE effect; captures the stubborness perfectly.
One final point about autocorrelation; some time ago Tamino blasted Anthony Watt’s attempts to establish solar periodicity and a climate response; I’ve wondered whether Watts failed not because there was none but because there were so many solar repeating cycles; a case of a general autocorrelation swamping any causal connection between one discerned cycle and a climate response. Feel free to criticise this with the same degree of seriousness as it is presented.
Oh no another potential stats embarrassment. Shhh Davey is watching.
Alternative names for Hurst phenomenon — Hurst effect, Joseph effect, Long term persistence, Long range dependence, Scaling behaviour (in time), Multi-scale fluctuation.
I didn’t understand the maths and still don’t (lazy). But the issue of long term persistence is problematic. But I hate stats excuses when mechanistic explanations should be doing better. I only implied it “might” be the bane of warmers.
Here’s the links for those who are curious
http://www.atypon-link.com/IAHS/doi/pdf/10.1623/hysj.48.1.3.43481
http://www.itia.ntua.gr/en/docinfo/849
http://www.itia.ntua.gr/en/docinfo/537/
P.S. You won’t be burning dung m’lad – cows emit too much methane.
Hmmmmmmm. Vincent. You want me to choose between the statements of economists and environmental activists for accuracy. No argument. You gotta go with the environmental activists everytime (well when comparing them with economists that is).
Why you ask. Well when you investigate economics it looks more and more like a religion, seriously. If you don’t believe me try reading some of the reports out of the Productivity Commission (Australia). Then ask yourself a question, why isn’t there a Nobel prize in economics (don’t believe me then check it out for yourself, 5 minutes research should do it).
Jeremy C
Your conclusion that economics looks more like a religion is accurate – but the economics you are describing is a variation of Keynesian Economics.
It appeals to the political left for all manner of reasons and, if memory serves me, Keynes prefaced his the German edition of his General Theory, paraphrasing it, that his theories were entirely compatible with the aspirations of the National Socialist Workers Party of Germany.
Jeremy C – that would be the Nobel Prize in Economics NOT awarded to Leonid Hurwicz, Eric S. Maskin, Roger B. Myerson in 2007, would it?
Cohenite “no matter how large the sampling, one exception, or “Mule”, defeats the trend and predictability” what b / s! It’s not appropriate in communications for starters. Also climate change is much more than one series of measurements
On another tack, from ABC AM interview today with Dr Tom Hatten on groundwater use:
“The main findings for the Murrumbidgee are when we look at the climate models and forecasts that they can provide with some uncertainty, the best estimate that we can arrive at to the year 2030 is nine per cent less water on average in a year, than compared to now”
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2008/s2276987.htm
http://www.csiro.au/people/ps1b3.html
I said there is no Nobel prize for economics. If you do the research you might find something that goes by the name of the ‘Swedish bank prize for economical sciences’ (sic) (where $US One million is ponyed up so the awardees can sit at the same dinner table, alongside other invitees, with the winners of nobel prizes but as to a Nobel for economics, I’m still waiting for evidence as to its existence, but don’t ask an economist as you will only embarrass them.
I suppose everyone has heard the joke about the engineer, scientist and economist stranded on a desert island with only a can of pineapple between them and no can opener so i wont repeat it here.
Jeremy C,
You’re really splitting hairs. The Economics Prize was not in Nobel’s will, but it is not the only change from his instructions. It is awarded and announced with the others, by the Nobel organization, and accepted by all the world as a Nobel Prize in Economics. It has equal standing ad acceptance – more so than the Peace Prize, which rarely is awarded in line with a strict interpretation of Nobel’s will. I wish you goood luck in convincing the world that it is not a Nobel Prize in Economics.
You are right Aynsley, the Nobel organisation has changed things from Nobel’s original will/instructions, but even though they have and can do that they haven’t seen fit to change things to include a nobel prize for economics. Being ‘accepted by all the world’ is just an assumption, every now and again you get a journalist who has done their research and they give it its correct title.
I do have to confess my bias though…. at best economics is just accountancy with grammar but mostly its just a secular form of astrology and comes with its own liturgy.
“Climate change is much more than one series of measurements.” But global warming, IPCC style, isn’t. I keep forgetting I’m in a debate with a fluid terminology.
Cohenite: I have no idea where you live but you are quite remote from the issue, climate change, AGW, also the nuts n bolts of the problem. Unfortunately I had to work with people who read a book at uni then sat behind a desk counting beans most of the time. It was a rare manager that would walk over the “furnace” or hold the radiation “source” with me at the end of its designed life.
In all OH&S issues I little time for manual driven rhetoric. In all calculations I had little faith in academic expectations. I did often though, trust the practical fellow on the job beside me.
Submission is something we have to experience as we go under that big round light over the operation table. I say it again; “life” is about more than one measurement.
Mate: Most people believe we have a problem, and it begins with population. However it’s always others that should cop all the blame.
Reading a recruitment add for the Department of Climate Change, I note they are looking for “leadership potential, energy enthusiasm and drive, ability to work in a team environment, analytical capability and fresh ideas, outstanding people skills, presentation and people skills, flexibility and adaptability”.
IMO it’s the last pair that gets us through. Reckon you should apply?
BTW your link leads to no place.
Luke,
Just got back from me country seat. Had to go down and flog some sense into a few peasants, y’know.
Reference your query on epistemology, I will try to help. It is one of the main branches of philosophy. Others are logic, ethics, aesthetics and ontology.
You obviously think a great deal on the subject of climate. Philosophy is the next level, that is to say, thinking about thinking. Think about it.
As Robin Collingwood once pointed out, a scientist who has not philosophised about his discipline, is but a journeyman scientist.