I am certain that we were interrupted many, many more times than we interrupted. Often you could do more than acknowledge the last point when they interrupted you just as you started to make your own point. Read more here from David Evans:
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Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
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Steve Fielding and his advisers, like the rest of us that question govt policy on AGW, are just so much loose gravel on the road.
I sent Penny the 3 questions with my answers attached but no reply as yet.
Let’s hope SF is a big enough rock to stop the steamroller.
He starts off quite badly by saying he is a scientist. He is not, he is an engineer. He has published no scientific papers, and certainly no scientific papers to do with climate.
“Let’s hope SF is a big enough rock to stop the steamroller.”
Politicing won’t stop AGW.
“Politicing won’t stop AGW.”
AGW is not the steamroller, my naive, artless friend.
AGW is a pussycat!
The steamroller is the crazied policymakers, backed up by opportunist politicians, backed up by pinko academics, backed up by self promoting scientists, backed up by gullible idiots.
SF will have to be a big, hard rock!
“He starts off quite badly by saying he is a scientist. He is not, he is an engineer.”
Ever built a bridge or an overpass which thousands of lives depend on every day? Well, that’s what engineers do and they have to apply very practical, accountable science in every aspect of that design and construction.
Just about everything we use on a daily basis that improves our standard of living is designed and built by engineers.
An engineer, of necessity, has to have an extremely good understanding of many forms of science and this, naturally, gives them a good feel for all forms of science.
He doesn’t claim to be an expert, that’s why he took them with him but, thankfully, he sure knows enough to know when he is being conned.
After the gullible idiots I should have added: backed up by about 50% of the population who simply believe in the precautionary principle.
He said he was a scientist, but he isn’t. Not off to a good start with that essay.
“He said he was a scientist, but he isn’t. Not off to a good start with that essay.”
Please define a scientist.
Oxford English Dictionary,
scientist: person learned in one or more of the natural sciences.
“Please define a scientist.”
Someone qualified in science who is working in an area of science. Evans has been trained as an engineer, he seems to be highly qualified as an engineer. He is not a scientist.
“Someone qualified in science who is working in an area of science.”
That’s exactly what an engineer does.
Spangles – spot on – Scientific theories which are proven and work are engineering issues. Those that have been falsified have been consigned to the dustbin of history. The rest are pure speculations.
Engineers are scientists who make particular theories work.
Louis, so true.
My kids are all scientists with multi degrees with honours and my father was a chief engineer with a diploma he earned while studying by hurricane lamp on construction camps during the depression.
I left school early with no qualifications and in one of my many “professions” often battled long and hard with scientists to get designs accepted in London, New York, Hong Kong etc.
Theoretical qualifications don’t tell the full story.
“Someone qualified in science who is working in an area of science.”
That’s exactly what an engineer does.”
Yes, as I said, he sounds like a highly qualified engineer. He has no formal training in climate science, as his various arguments against AGW show, since he understands it quite poorly. This is the age of specialisation, no one person can know more than they used to, but each subject of study is becoming more and more complex. Just because you are a competent engineer does not mean you can instantly become a qualified climate scientist.
SJT,
No one is pretending to be a qualified climate scientist – it’s the patent bullshit that is being pointed to, and that does not require specialisation. In any case climate science – that is really funny – as climate is not a physical thing but a human abstraction, it’s not really in the physical sciences.
Remember, science is how we explain observations using previously empirically determined facts. We don’t observe climate, we observe weather which is the physical behaviour of the interface between the Earth and space. Our ignorance of this interface is profound, especially when sections of the science community are ignorant of the electro-dynamic connection.
It’s because of specialisation that claques of “experts” evolve, expert only in their area of special interest, and resist any encroachment by other scientists. When this happens science tends to go off the rails, such as AGW is at present.
But you with zero scientific training are telling us, professional scientists, how to suck eggs?
SJT, you started off saying:
“He said he was a scientist, but he isn’t. Not off to a good start with that essay.”
You accuse him of dishonesty and when I show otherwise you change it to “climate scientist”.
” Just because you are a competent engineer does not mean you can instantly become a qualified climate scientist.”
Well, he didn’t claim that in the first place!
Spangles,
I just realised we are interlocuting with a thoroughly post-modernist SJT. We may as well talk to ourselves in the mirror. Sokal’s trick can’t match SJT’s efforts.
““He said he was a scientist, but he isn’t. Not off to a good start with that essay.”
You accuse him of dishonesty and when I show otherwise you change it to “climate scientist”.
” Just because you are a competent engineer does not mean you can instantly become a qualified climate scientist.”
Well, he didn’t claim that in the first place!”
What sort of scientist is he? I just assumed if you were going to be discussing climate specifically, you would want climate scientists along with you.
SJT,
Scientists are people who adhere to the scientific method which involves observation, theory and experiment. Take any one of the last three away and it’s no longer science.
Quite simply you do not understand what a scientist is. Those who speculate over whether humanity burning coal and oil will cause armageddon are nothing but the latest mutation of the priestly class, this time cloaked in technical jargon.
Oh and scientific theories can never be proven, only disproven.
AGW has been disproven. Often. By inconvenient facts.
He’s also a mathematician. Isn’t that a scientist, and visa versa?
Rick Beikoff
Not really – mathematicians are logicians, or experts in putting thoughts into shorthand. It is because of the mathematicians in science that absurdities lilke Black Holes were invented – the reification of a mathematical singularity, basically dividing a number by zero.
While valid in maths, and indeed useful, it has no counterpart in physical reality. Maths should always be the slave of science, not it’s master as has happened in astronomy and now climate science.
Science : Observation ==> hypothesis == experiment
Pseudoscience: Hypothesis ==> observations looked for ==> experiment.
Pseudoscience always gets confirmed because the observations are predicted by the theory, which is then confirmed.
AGW is pseudoscience.