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Claims that the "the science isn't settled" with regard to climate change are symptomatic of a large body of ignorance about how science works.
The first thing to understand is that there is no one method in science, no one way of doing things. This is intimately connected with how we reason in general.
[...] Those who demand the science be "settled" before we take action are seeking deductive certainty where we are working inductively. And there are other sources of confusion.
One is that simple statements about cause and effect are rare since nature is complex. For example, a theory might predict that X will cause Y, but that Y will be mitigated by the presence of Z and not occur at all if Q is above a critical level. To reduce this to the simple statement "X causes Y" is naive.
Another is that even though some broad ideas may be settled, the details remain a source of lively debate. For example, that evolution has occurred is certainly settled by any rational account. But some details of how natural selection operates are still being fleshed out.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 16 2016, @12:56PM
Of course. Imagine they sent the Mars Rover to a place where they just expected sand, and found just sand. What would happen? They probably will have a hard time arguing for funding ("Oh, you want to test whether there's really sand there? And you say, it's very likely? So what is the point of wasting money on this?"). If they find what they expect, they probably won't get it published ("oh, you found sand on Mars? Sorry, that's not interesting. Come back when you find something new.") In short, they'll risk their career.
I've once saw in TV something about the discovery of pale blue galaxies in areas of the sky where previously there had been thought to be nothing. They interviewed the astronomers, who told that they didn't tell the truth about what they planned to do, because that way they never would have been given the observation time. Instead they made up another planned observation, which got them the observation time. It wasn't said what they would have done if they indeed had found nothing, but I guess they would have claimed that they made a mistake, causing the telescope point to the wrong place in the sky.
They are going to discover the truth about their questions, namely whether on those places they selected there is water or not. It's not as if they'd find water just because they want to find water. If they find water, they find it because it is there. And if they don't find water, it's also significant.
Such a selection doesn't make their work the slightest bit less worth; it just means that other interesting stuff might remain undiscovered.
Note that already the selection of your subject is a selection what you are going to look for. Would you say that the discoveries at CERN are less valuable due to the fact that the scientists there actively decided to be particle physicists instead of e.g. organic chemists, and therefore ended up searching for fundamental particles instead of new organic molecules?
That's not what you described before. Just because they included instruments to detect water, they won't automatically find water. The detectors will only show water if there actually is water. Now if they ignored actual sensor readings that show no water where they expected some, that would be problematic. But there's no indication that they do.
No. Did your father device any experiments to test young-earth creationism that could fail to demonstrate young-earth creationism? Because those Mars Rover people definitely could fail to find water. And if they didn't find water that would be significant because they looked at the places where water is most likely to be found, and because the Mars Rover had instruments looking for water. "I sent a rover looking for sand to Sahara, and didn't find water, therefore there's no water on Earth" wxould not be convincing. "I sent water detectors to the middle of where we thought the Atlantic Ocean should be, and found no water there" on the other hand would be a very significant finding.
Neither cure cancer, nor save the world is a scientific problem, although both certainly involve solving certain scientific problems. Seems you do not even know what science is.
And it is not what those Mars Rover people did. They didn't say "there's water on Mars, so let's find it." They said "Let's look if there is water on Mars, because if there is, that would be big." Note the "if". They didn't start with the conclusion, they started with the question. The question was: "Is there water on Mars?" They didn't know whether the conclusion would be "there is water on Mars" or "there is no water on Mars".
(Score: 1) by kanweg on Friday September 16 2016, @03:22PM
Very insigthful
Bert