Lesson from Feynman

Lesson from Feynman applicable to science deniers:

In 1974, Feynman delivered the Caltech commencement address on the
topic of cargo cult science, which has the semblance of science, but
is only pseudoscience due to a lack of "a kind of scientific
integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a
kind of utter honesty" on the part of the scientist. He instructed
the graduating class that "The first principle is that you must not
fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to
be very careful about that. After you've not fooled yourself, it's
easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a
conventional way after that."

On Saturday, July 20, 2013 12:47:04 PM UTC-4, Sam Wormley wrote:
Lesson from Feynman applicable to science deniers:



In 1974, Feynman delivered the Caltech commencement address on the

topic of cargo cult science, which has the semblance of science, but

is only pseudoscience due to a lack of "a kind of scientific

integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a

kind of utter honesty" on the part of the scientist. He instructed

the graduating class that "The first principle is that you must not

fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to

be very careful about that. After you've not fooled yourself, it's

easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a

conventional way after that."

Like.

On Saturday, July 20, 2013 5:47:04 PM UTC+1, Sam Wormley wrote:
Lesson from Feynman applicable to science deniers:



In 1974, Feynman delivered the Caltech commencement address on the

topic of cargo cult science, which has the semblance of science, but

is only pseudoscience due to a lack of "a kind of scientific

integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a

kind of utter honesty" on the part of the scientist. He instructed

the graduating class that "The first principle is that you must not

fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to

be very careful about that. After you've not fooled yourself, it's

easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a

conventional way after that."

Honesty indeed !,I have to laugh at that one as the brief encounter with Feymannn demonstrates that he was no stranger to manipulating history considering that Ole Roemer's assertion that light travels at a finite speed using Io with the comparative distances between Earth and Jupiter preceded Sir Isaac's agenda even when Newton himself indicates it -

"...were ahead of schedule when Jupiter was close to the earth and behind schedule when it was far away, a rather odd circumstance. Mr.Roemer [Olaus Roemer, 1644-1710, Danish astronomer], having confidence in the Law of Gravitation, came to the interesting conclusion that it takes light some time to travel from the moons of Jupiter to the earth.." Feynmann Character of Physical Law

In an era without astronomers you could get away with that nonsense Wormley but none of you know your history much less discuss Roemer's work and his use of the Equation of Time from a flawed set of principles.Sir Isaac didn't know these things and I doubt anyone else would for the next thousand years but such is the contrived mess based on absolute/relative time that it is dismaying to know it will continue even though the whole thing can be resolved -

Absolute time, in astronomy, is distinguished from relative, by the equation or correlation of the vulgar time. For the natural days are truly unequal, though they are commonly considered as equal and used for a measure of time; astronomers correct this inequality for their more accurate deducing of the celestial motions. The necessity of which equation, for determining the times
of a phænomenon, is evinced as well from the experiments of the
pendulum clock, as by eclipses of the satellites of Jupiter." Principia

None of you have a clue what Newton was trying to do and especially the academics who have a nice lifestyle from chanting absolute/relative voodoo. I do not begrudge them their living but it would be nice to encounter a genuine astronomer capable of quickly getting rid of things that are disruptive to astronomy and especially Newton's agenda.

It must be comforting to know that behind the acid of 'denier' there are people who do care about astronomy and its links to terrestrial sciences and human achievement - real achievement.

On 7/20/2013 11:47 AM, Sam Wormley wrote:
Lesson from Feynman applicable to science deniers:

In 1974, Feynman delivered the Caltech commencement address on the
topic of cargo cult science, which has the semblance of science, but
is only pseudoscience due to a lack of "a kind of scientific
integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a
kind of utter honesty" on the part of the scientist. He instructed
the graduating class that "The first principle is that you must not
fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to
be very careful about that. After you've not fooled yourself, it's
easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a
conventional way after that."



chuckle

I see your feynman and raise you lavoisier

Imagination, on the contrary, which is ever wandering beyond the
bounds of truth, joined to self-love and that self-confidence we are so
apt to indulge, prompt us to draw conclusions which are not immediately
derived from facts; so that we become in some measure interested in
deceiving ourselves. Hence it is by no means to be wondered, that, in
the science of physics in general, men have often made suppositions,
instead of forming conclusions. These suppositions, handed down from one
age to another, acquire additional weight from the authorities by which
they are supported, till at last they are received, even by men of
genius, as fundamental truths.

The only method of preventing such errors from taking place, and of
correcting them when formed, is to restrain and simplify our reasoning
as much as possible. This depends entirely upon ourselves, and the
neglect of it is the only source of our mistakes. We must trust to
nothing but facts: These are presented to us by Nature, and cannot
deceive. We ought, in every instance, to submit our reasoning to the
test of experiment, and never to search for truth but by the natural
road of experiment and observation.


~1774 Lavoisier

how cult science like AWG comes about

chuckle

On Sunday, July 21, 2013 10:10:16 PM UTC-4, David Staup wrote:
On 7/20/2013 11:47 AM, Sam Wormley wrote:

Lesson from Feynman applicable to science deniers:



In 1974, Feynman delivered the Caltech commencement address on the

topic of cargo cult science, which has the semblance of science, but

is only pseudoscience due to a lack of "a kind of scientific

integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a

kind of utter honesty" on the part of the scientist. He instructed

the graduating class that "The first principle is that you must not

fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to

be very careful about that. After you've not fooled yourself, it's

easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a

conventional way after that."







chuckle



I see your feynman and raise you lavoisier



Imagination, on the contrary, which is ever wandering beyond the

bounds of truth, joined to self-love and that self-confidence we are so

apt to indulge, prompt us to draw conclusions which are not immediately

derived from facts; so that we become in some measure interested in

deceiving ourselves. Hence it is by no means to be wondered, that, in

the science of physics in general, men have often made suppositions,

instead of forming conclusions. These suppositions, handed down from one

age to another, acquire additional weight from the authorities by which

they are supported, till at last they are received, even by men of

genius, as fundamental truths.



The only method of preventing such errors from taking place, and of

correcting them when formed, is to restrain and simplify our reasoning

as much as possible. This depends entirely upon ourselves, and the

neglect of it is the only source of our mistakes. We must trust to

nothing but facts: These are presented to us by Nature, and cannot

deceive. We ought, in every instance, to submit our reasoning to the

test of experiment, and never to search for truth but by the natural

road of experiment and observation.





~1774 Lavoisier



how cult science like AWG comes about



chuckle

Like

On Sun, 21 Jul 2013 21:10:16 -0500, David Staup
wrote, in part:

how cult science like AWG comes about

No. The Earth's atmosphere and oceans and biosphere are a complicated
system. So their precise responses to an increase in atmospheric carbon
dioxide are not known.

However, the basic fact that the surface of the Earth is not as hot as
the surface of the Sun,

and thus the Earth constantly receives heat from sunlight which is
predominantly made up of short-wave infrared, visible light, and
ultraviolet... while it radiates heat into space in the form of very
long-wave infrared...

to the latter of which, carbon dioxide is opaque,

and the Earth must radiate back into space, over the course of a year,
exactly as much heat as it receives from the Sun, if it is to maintain
an equilibrium temperature...

all these things are well known.

So if the proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increased -
as measurements show it has been - one can expect a rise in the global
equilibrium temperature. Note that since equilibrium is achieved only
when heat radiated out equals heat coming in, the temperature might rise
over a long period of time before the new equilibrium is finally
achieved.

The thing that makes me feel like rejecting global warming out of hand,
though, is the nature of the solutions offered. Use less energy; depend
on unreliable sources like sunlight and wind for our electricity; and so
on. And, of course, exempt the mainland Chinese dictatorship from any
limits, as its people are poor. That this sort of response is likely to
have, as a consequence, a reduction in the defense readiness of the
United States of America does not seem to be of paramount concern.

However, we shouldn't be fooled by attempts to present us with false
alternatives. There is, after all, such a thing as nuclear power. Stop
generating electricity from fossil fuels.

John Savard
http://www.quadibloc.com/index.html

On 7/21/13 8:10 PM, David Staup wrote:
how cult science like AWG comes about

What the science says...
http://www.skepticalscience.com/its-not-us.htm
http://www.skepticalscience.com/its-...termediate.htm
http://www.skepticalscience.com/its-not-us-advanced.htm

Fundamental physics and global climate models both make testable
predictions as to how the global climate should change in response to
anthropogenic warming. Almost universally, empirical observations
confirm that these 'fingerprints' of anthropogenic global warming are
present.

Surface Temperature Change

Back in 1988, NASA's James Hansen made some of the first projections
of future global warming with a global climate model (Hansen 1988).
He created 3 scenarios which he called Scenarios A, B, and C which
used various possible future greenhouse gas emissions levels.
Scenario A used a model with accelerating greenhouse gas emissions,
Scenario B had linearly increasing emissions, and Scenario C had
emissions leveling off after the year 2000. None of these models
ended up matching greenhouse gas emissions exactly right, but the
radiative forcing (energy imbalance) in Scenario B was closest, too
high by about 10% as of 2009. Additionally, the climate sensitivity
in Hansen's 1988 model (4.2°C global warming for a doubling of
atmospheric CO2) was a bit higher than today's best estimate (3°C
warming for CO2 doubling).

Hansen's Scenario B projected a global warming trend from 1984-2009
of 0.26°C per decade. The actual trend as measured by surface
temperature stations over that period was about 0.2°C per decade.
When corrected for the 10% smaller radiative forcing than Scenario B
and the higher climate sensitivity in Hansen's models, his study
projected the global warming over the ensuing 25 years almost
perfectly.

Meehl et al. (2004) took a different approach. Instead of projecting
future surface temperature change, they used climate models to
attempt to attribute past temperature changes in a method known as
'hindcasting' (as opposed to forecasting). In their study, Meehl et
al. show that natural forcings cannot account for the increase in
global temperatures in the second half of the 20th century, and that
models using both natural and anthropogenic forcings model the
temperature change over the 20th century most accurately.