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NYT: Predicting the eclipse is proof that climate scientists should be trusted.....yeah right Login/Join 
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posted
Short Version....because we know when the eclipse is happening, we should trust climate scientists Roll Eyes


quote:

Should You Trust Climate Science? Maybe the Eclipse Is a Clue

Justin Gillis

Eclipse mania will peak on Monday, when millions of Americans will upend their lives in response to a scientific prediction.

Friends of mine in Georgia plan to drive 70 miles to find the perfect spot on a South Carolina golf course to observe the solar eclipse. Many Americans will drive farther than that, or fly, to situate themselves in the “path of totality,” the strip of the country where the moon is predicted to blot out the sun entirely.

Thanks to the work of scientists, people will know exactly what time to expect the eclipse. In less entertaining but more important ways, we respond to scientific predictions all the time, even though we have no independent capacity to verify the calculations. We tend to trust scientists.

For years now, atmospheric scientists have been handing us a set of predictions about the likely consequences of our emissions of industrial gases. These forecasts are critically important, because this group of experts sees grave risks to our civilization. And yet, when it comes to reacting to the warnings of climate science, we have done little.
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If the science were brand new, that might make sense, but climate scientists have been making predictions since the end of the 19th century. This is the acid test of any scientific theory: Does it make predictions that ultimately come true?

In the early 20th century, Albert Einstein’s new and controversial theory of relativity predicted that gravity would cause light to bend. It sounded crazy, but a solar eclipse in 1919 provided the opportunity to test it as starlight passed near the blotted-out sun. Einstein’s theory was proved, turning him into a celebrity overnight.

When medicine delivered a wave of vaccines in the 20th century, doctors predicted that widespread use would cause childhood deaths from illnesses like whooping cough and diphtheria to fall. The public trusted the doctors, and those deaths plummeted.

So what predictions has climate science made, and have they come true?

The earliest, made by a Swede named Svante Arrhenius in 1897, was simply that the Earth would heat up in response to emissions. That has been proved: The global average temperature has risen more than 1 degree Celsius, or almost 2 degrees Fahrenheit, a substantial change for a whole planet.

By the 1960s and ’70s, climate scientists were making more detailed predictions. They said that as the surface of the Earth warmed, the temperature in the highest reaches of the atmosphere would fall. That is exactly what happened.
Graphic


The scientists told us that the Arctic would warm especially fast. They told us to expect heavier rainstorms. They told us heat waves would soar. They told us that the oceans would rise. All of those things have come to pass.

Considering this most basic test of a scientific theory, the test of prediction, climate science has established its validity.

That does not mean it is perfect, nor that every single prediction is correct. While climate scientists have forecast the long-term rise of global temperatures pretty accurately, they have not been as good — yet — about predicting the short-term jitters.

In other fields, we do not demand absolute certainty from our scientists, because that is an impossible standard.

When you let doctors inject vaccines into your children, you are responding to a prediction — based on evidence, of course — about how their bodies will react. Yet the vaccines do pose some risks, and a small proportion of children suffer side effects.

When your aging mother is found to have cancer, the recommended treatment will be rooted in a statistical model of how tumors respond to the available medicines. Your family is likely to follow that advice, even though you know the drugs are imperfect and may not save her.

We trust scientific expertise on many issues; it is, after all, the best advice we can get. Yet on climate change, we have largely ignored the scientists’ work. While it is true that we have started to spend money to clean up our emissions, the global response is in no way commensurate with the risks outlined by the experts. Why?

Sheer inertia is one of many reasons. The changes we need to make are hard, and they demand large-scale, collective action: to rebuild our energy system, to save our forests, to change our cars, to create radically better buildings.

But a bigger reason is that these changes threaten vested economic interests. Commodity companies benefit from exploiting forests. Fossil-fuel companies, to protect their profits, spent decades throwing up a smoke screen about the risks of climate change.

Most of them now say they have stopped funding climate denial, but they still finance the careers of politicians who say they are skeptical of climate science and who play down the risks.

In the face of such attacks, the scientists soldier on, offering us more predictions even as the old ones come true.

They tell us that we are now at risk of causing the great ice sheets in Greenland and west Antarctica to collapse, which would raise the sea level 30 feet or more over some unknown period, wiping out many of the world’s great cities.

They tell us that under a worst-case scenario, it might get so hot across large parts of the world that people would be unable to work outdoors without risking death. They tell us that we stand a good chance of causing the sixth mass extinction of plants and animals in the Earth’s history.

These kinds of forecasts are painful to consider. By contrast, something like a solar eclipse is just fun. But as you watch it on Monday, spare a moment to think about the role of science in society.

When the moon throws Corvallis, Ore., into near-darkness at 10:16 a.m. local time, or eclipses the sun over Kansas City, Mo., at 1:08 p.m., or Nashville at 1:27 p.m., think about the long scientific journey that allowed us to know precisely when it would happen.

Think about Galileo standing in the dock of the Inquisition, forced to recant his belief that the Earth moves around the sun. Legend has it that he whispered under his breath: “And yet it moves.” Think about the centuries of patient effort that followed to work out the precise motions of the solar system, now understood so thoroughly that we can use them to predict eclipses centuries in advance.

If you respect and honor the scientists who did this work, then spare another moment to think about the scientists whose work is under attack today, and why.



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...lipse-is-a-clue.html




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Posts: 4330 | Location: Valley, Oregon | Registered: June 03, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Web Clavin Extraordinaire
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Ummm...different branches of science, astronomy vs. climatology?

In the one case, it's straight physics and the other is a complex of physics, chemistry and terrestrial and extraterrestrial factors.

Clearly the success of prediction in one case is a sign of successful prediction in the other!


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Posts: 19837 | Location: SE PA | Registered: January 12, 2001Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Knows too little
about too much
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Celestial mechanics is pretty well thought out.

Calculating what a big old bag of mixed gasses will do when acted on by a myriad of forces, is not.

However the weak of mind will believe anything you tell them if a celebrity tells them or its repeated long enough.

RMD




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Posts: 20302 | Location: L.A. - Lower Alabama | Registered: April 06, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Since we can successfully run the solar and lunar models backwards and have it spit out correct data for previous historical events, we have a fairly good idea we can trust those models. The same cannot be said for any of the climate models they have ever used.


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Posts: 7655 | Location: Mid-Michigan, USA | Registered: February 17, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Green Mountain Boy
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I guess it's settled then LoL. Annoying thing is this will be the arguement for it for some time now from the idiots who can't think for themselves...


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Posts: 5563 | Location: Vermont | Registered: March 02, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
The Main Thing Is
Not To Get Excited
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quote:
If you respect and honor the scientists who did this work, then spare another moment to think about the scientists whose work is under attack today, and why.


Physics vs. psychics, astronomers vs. astrologers, physicians vs. phrenologists, chemists vs. alchemists, right? Let them all do their work and honor each and every one. I mean science is like your opinion dude.


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Posts: 6354 | Location: Washington | Registered: November 06, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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The Mayan priests were also able to predict eclipses.
They considered this esoteric knowledge to be proof positive that they had mystical powers to communicate with the gods.

Satterthwaite, Linton (January 1949). "The Dark Phase of the Moon and Ancient Maya Methods of Solar Eclipse Prediction". American Antiquity. Society for American Archaeology. 14 (3): 230–234

Not much has really changed.


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Posts: 6641 | Registered: September 10, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Diogenes' Quarry
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From the Mike Rowe article in the Mike Rowe thread:

"Yesterday, on The Science Channel, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, a noted astronomer, tweeted that the ability of scientists to accurately predict the solar eclipse, was proof that predictions of global warming were also accurate. That’s a logical fallacy."
 
Posts: 5088 | Location: Western WA  | Registered: October 20, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Don't Panic
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NYT has been very weak on what constitutes 'proof' for the last several decades.

Allow me to summarize the NYT screed:

1) Scientists are occasionally able to correctly predict things in some areas.

2) Therefore everything claimed by every scientist we like is necessarily true.

3) Therefore, anyone who opposes point 2) is not a scientist.

Where's the fallacy? Roll Eyes
 
Posts: 15001 | Location: North Carolina | Registered: October 15, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
No double standards
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Sad thing is, a number of those in my neck of the woods will believe this, and use such as proof positive that man will destroy planet Earth unless we give the gov't total control of the production and use of energy.




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Posts: 30668 | Location: UT | Registered: November 11, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
delicately calloused
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That a scientist can tell the truth is not evidence he/she will tell the truth.



You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier
 
Posts: 29607 | Location: Highland, Ut. | Registered: May 07, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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What morons! Meteorology and Astronomy are apples and oranges. 90% of these "Scientists" are NOT in fact Scientists and among the few that are there is a wide split amongst them...
I think this whole subject is bullshit.


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Posts: 8318 | Location: 18 miles long, 6 Miles at Sea | Registered: January 22, 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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How much data did scientists have to falsify to predict the eclipse?



.
 
Posts: 8602 | Registered: September 26, 2013Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Ubique
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Sorry but what exactly have the climate change group successfully predicted? It seems like they have been wrong every single time. The scientists predicting the eclipses on the other hand have always been right. Seems pretty straightforward as to which scientists we should believe


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Posts: 1492 | Location: Alberta | Registered: July 06, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Tinker Sailor Soldier Pie
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quote:
Originally posted by TigerDore:
How much data did scientists have to falsify to predict the eclipse?



.


Hehe, I like that.


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Posts: 30297 | Location: Elv. 7,000 feet, Utah | Registered: October 29, 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Apparently your basic Philosophy course, called Language and Logic is now an elective or not offered on college campuses.

This is beyond stupid. People confusing correlation with causality is somewhat understandable, but this is beyond the pale.
 
Posts: 17175 | Location: Stuck at home | Registered: January 02, 2015Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Didn't the Mayans have this eclipse thing worked out?



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Posts: 3810 | Registered: March 03, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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quote:
Originally posted by muddle_mann:
Didn't the Mayans have this eclipse thing worked out?


And the Aztecs, and the Chinese, probably many others with some obvious low-hanging-fruit examples missing. Three thousand years of truly "settled science." Those cultures also had all kinds of other funny ideas about the end of the world that correlated with the movement of the stars. How other celestial bodies move with startling predictability has not much to do with our climate (with perhaps solar flares and lunar tides aside); the ability to accurately, and honestly observe, deduce and report what changes are happening in our climate is radically different from observing phenomenon that have been understood for millennia. A classic non-sequitor.


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