"Empirical Implication of Climate Change Test" Topic

In both the scientific and the social scientific methods, the highest standard of empirical corroboration is the non-falsification of hypotheses referring to empirical implications of explanatory stories (theories if you will).

In another name proving your theory is less important then proving "if my theory is true what else must also be true" statements. This is hard.

But is seems those arguing that Climate Change is happening, have just had an important boost, as a empirical implication hypothesis was not falsified by reality.

link

What explanation of this phenomenon would sceptics and denialists provide?

That said I am not happy with that " interpolation techniques for areas of the ocean where they lacked measurements." It is not wrong per se, but it is in-elegant, and less robust than I would prefer.

"The resulting study attributes less than 15 percent of the total oxygen loss to sheer warmer temperatures, which create less solubility. The rest was attributed to other factors, such as a lack of mixing."

This seems logical, and what is in line with most models I am familiar with.

Another big problem is that all the research that the authors contend show that AGW is NOT true, does not seem to show any congruence. So if AGW was wrong, all the science showing us this should begin to point to the actual cause. It doesn't.

What is the explanation of that phenomenon?

Bowman, the classic synthesis in the field is the Alice in Wonderland paper link by Lewandowsky et all (2016).

Another interesting paper in the field is this one PDF link where climate scientists show how deniers are either intentionally misusing statistics and or simply incompetent(I don't know which is worse).

Hi Martin, I was hoping you'd show up with the Lewandowsky article.

Warring graphs. Peons only do what they are told to do. And what peons must make certain of is that we are not told to do what we do not want to do. Peons inhabit government positions, top to bottom, the world over. Powers that want to be in control are using the "danger" to foment power grabs "for the good of the people", or, "think of the children, your children, of the future!" We are being told that "we" must change our ways. Or else. So if governments won't take the data and run with it, the "powers" that want more control will find ways to change the governments so that they will implement the "needed changes". So far, how well is that working out? Expect more of the same. Because if there is one thing that peons do not trust, it is people who are filthy rich who want to take charge of everything.

Oh, and don't forget how hypocritical they are, expecting us to do all the changing, while they get to keep their multiple residences, cars, boats, planes and endless, "yuuuge" carbon footprint toys and lifestyle………….

Bowman. Well one answer might be what Martin pointed out. In fair midness there might be lurking variable nobody has though of yet. Science is a werid creature, and even though I am Lakatosian even I believe that there is a element of unexpected in scinetific revolutions.

That said I think a good metric of the seriousness in the two sides is how many papers like this one they do, i.e how many papers test empirical implications. Do we have an idea? For me that is the sign of a serious research program.

Bowman. Well one answer might be what Martin pointed out. In fair midness there might be lurking variable nobody has though of yet. Science is a werid creature, and even though I am Lakatosian even I believe that there is a element of unexpected in scinetific revolutions.

Perhaps and perhaps not. We have had decades of climate science. It's not a brand new field. If there was an unseen lurking cause for global warming beyond human activity, the non-AGW research would be pointing towards it by now, wouldn't it?

It is like Dark Matter. We don't know what it consists of, but we know it must be there, as we can infer it's existence due to anomalies in our observations. They know dark matter is electrically neutral, does not decay or radiate, is weakly interacting with other particles and has a sizeable mass.

Where is the analogy in Non-AGW climate change.?

If there is not, that means they have not counter-explanation. Thus they cannot really dis-prove climate change in a Lakatosian sense. This is because you need not just explain away what the competitive theory does, but also explain something the competitive theory could not explain.

To put it simply it might very well be true that the current paradigm in climate science is degenerative in a Lakatosian sense. But it may be even more true that the anti-cliamte change science explanations are even more degenerative. At least the story told by empirical implication studies seems to be telling that.

If there is not, that means they have not counter-explanation.

Or they have many, each one contradicting the other. Again, no consilience.

But I must say I'm not up on Lakatos and have a hard time distinguishing his work from that of Popper. Nice to get your input.

Lakatos made a more detailed analysis of how paradigms supplement it each other.

1) The hard core of a paradigm is unassailable

2) It is indeed the empirical implications that one looks at

3) A paradigm starts becoming degenerative when the main goal of research is to just explain anomalies.

4) A paradigm remains progressive when the main goal of research is to explain not just anomalies but previously un-explained facts

5) When a new paradigm covers all the bases of the old one, but also explains things the old one could not explain, as well as new things, then we have a progressive shift.

Something along those lines. I too have gotten fuzzy. There is also Kuhn on whom Lakatos built his edifice.

5) When a new paradigm covers all the bases of the old one, but also explains things the old one could not explain, as well as new things, then we have a progressive shift.

Ah, that would explain how a religious worldview can alter and belief can continue, and even expand, despite doctrines previously held going the way of the dodo. The old does not go, where the new proposes by way of explanation. In my case, details are discarded as man-made, and a lack of details embraces more possibilities than dogmatic doctrine can. "Less is more"…………..

Well I do not know if Lakatos would agree applying that to religion.Perhaps it can, perhaps it cannot be. The thing with religions is that they can get much more away with ad-hoc explanations than paradigms that claim to be scientific.

Degeneration comes when you essentially accumulate ad-hoc explanations for explaining failures without trying to advance the core, by explaining also novel phenomena. It is like a leaking boat. You can fill all the leaks with stopgags, but if that is all you do, the ship will go down due to the accumulation of leaks.

This is why for example when my adviser attacked Realism in IR, he made it imperative that he also explain something that Realism did not explain before. It is not enough to show the mistakes of the old explanation (that is easy), it is also imperative that you show the blind spots.

indeed the whole Vasquez vs. Realists debate in IR is a good example of Lakatosian strife.

Lol. You guys need to get a room.

Dan

Just for clarity, how are you using the term "paradigm" here? Because, from your quote here:

When a new paradigm covers all the bases of the old one, but also explains things the old one could not explain, as well as new things, then we have a progressive shift.

It seems you are describing a scientific "theory".

Also:

A paradigm starts becoming degenerative when the main goal of research is to just explain anomalies.

Can you give a current example of this?

All Paradigms are sets of theories. A specific way of thinking about the world. For example in the study of international relations Realism (or traditionalism) is a paradigm. So is Peace Science. Within a paradigm there can be a variety of specific theories, even ones that are competing. However they all share a core. For example

Realism is divided into Offensive, Defensive, Neo-Classical Realism. They differ on the variables they focus on, but they all agree on a number of set points : Anarchy, Uncertainty, the primacy of material capabilities, and some methodological preferences.

Examples of degenerative paradigms in IR and Political Science (which is my field) are Orthodox Marxism, Modernity theory, Post-Modernism, and my adviser of course argues Realism.

Maybe reading his seminal piece might help clarify what I say. Keep in mind that whetehr something is SocScience or Material Science, or BiologicalScience is irrelevant here. This is epistemology and applies to all scholarly fields that are interested in evaluating their arguments against the empirical world.

PDF link

I do not know the hard-sciences as well, but while I do believe the facts support the core of the Climate Change argument, I am worried that many of the research done for accounting for flaws, does not also offer something new. Martin probably can be a better judge of that.

The thing with religions is that they can get much more away with ad-hoc explanations than paradigms that claim to be scientific.

Religions "get away" with stuff only when followers cooperate. We see less cooperation today from followers (note, not necessarily believers), precisely because of education.

I am a realist. If religion does not hold up in the world of evidence then it has no place in the real world.

EITFP is viewed by me as "divine" no doubt because of my religious upbringing. But to argue against the use of the word with someone who also believes that existence transcends the visible universe, who was brought up in an atheist environment, is only an argument in semantics, not theory.

I am a realist. If religion does not hold up in the world of evidence then it has no place in the real world.

Well that already elevates you beyond the Kent and Eric Hovinds and the Ray Comforts of this world………..and their followers. Many will disagree with you.

KT, unfortunately my interests and aptitudes do not lie in the fields of Political Science and Social Science.

It may be epistemology but I'm having a hard time seeing how and where progressive and degenerative paradigms apply to the hard sciences.

You state that, "Degeneration comes when you essentially accumulate ad-hoc explanations for explaining failures without trying to advance the core….." I'm not sure how that correlates with any scientific work that I'm familiar with.

Well remember Lakatos and Kuhn built that epistimology from the study of the hard sciences, not the social sciences (Vasquez just applied it to the social sciences). You will have to go to the originals for more I fear, as I cannot help with examples since I am not familiar with them. Martin might help?

Examples Lakatos uses in his seminal chapter in Critcism and the Growth of Knowledge include

The move from Newtonian phsysics to Einstein
The Bohr-Kramers-Slater 1924 Theory
the Proutian fight against ufavorable experimental evidence 1815-1911
And really does the two full case studies on the reserach programs of Prout and Bohr

here is a link to a version of the paper (not the one I have)
PDF link

Reading a bit of this reminds me of the debates in evolutionary mechanisms with Dawkins' Gradualism vs the Punctuated Equilibrium of Gould. Popper and Toulmin are more gradualists and Kuhn's Scientific Revolutions being more like Gould's viewpoints.