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Physicist offers $10,000 for anyone to scientifically disprove climate change

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Re: Physicist offers $10,000 for anyone to scientifically disprove climate change

#71

Post by forgotpasswd3x »

crdoconnor wrote: post #9

Let's flip this: 1. I will award $10,000 of my own money to anyone that can demonstrate, via the scientific method, that man-made global climate change IS occurring; 2. There is no entry fee; 3. You must be 18 years old or older to enter; 4. Entries do not have to be original, they only need to be first; 5. I am the final judge of all entries but will provide my comments on why any entry fails to prove the point. Obv…

I don't get why people make a distinction between man-made climate change, and "natural" climate change, when both have equally terrible results. Even if the earth is "natually" warming, it's still going to cause issues. Why not work to stop it?

Re: Physicist offers $10,000 for anyone to scientifically disprove climate change

#72

Post by bprieto »

Disproving climate change is virtually impossible. Every scientist agree that climate changes, it has done so in the past, will do in the future and is doing it in the present.

That is not an interesting question.

The interesting questions are:

- Is climate changing in a different way (faster, for example) than it has done in the past?

- Do humans have anything to do with it? Is it caused by increasing levels of atmospheric CO2?

- Will this change be negative?

- If the change is negative (be it man-made or not), can we stop it?

- If we can stop this climate change, how much will it cost? Will this money better spent stopping climate or is a better strategy to adapt to this change?

- Do we understand climate physics well enough to create models that can predict the climate of the future?

This last question is important, because if we can not produce a model that can predict the future well enough, all the other questions are irrelevant. And it seems that predictions of the models and reality are showing quite significant discrepancies: http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/06/ipcc-ar5-weakens-the-case-...

So it's not black or white, yes or no, good or bad. As usually it is in science. Name-calling, appealing to consensus, arguments of authority… those are never the result of science at work.

Re: Physicist offers $10,000 for anyone to scientifically disprove climate change

#73

Post by hfourm »

unabridged wrote: post #50
facepalm wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why that line of thought makes you a skeptic. Apparently you found something the current data can not answer. But why do you think your question is even relevant - more important than, say, average temperature? Just because there are questions a model can't answer, the model isn't proven wrong. It just shows that there are things we don't know yet, not that everything we know is wrong. (I am not a…

My point is that you cannot even begin to ask what humans are doing to the global temperature if you do not even have an idea what it would look like without humans.

But at the same time we can look at other planets with atmospheres w/ much higher compositions of green house gases and the environment is OBVIOUSLY unsuitable for life. So why do we think we are immune to this? We pump a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere, at non natural rates, what do you expect to happen?

Re: Physicist offers $10,000 for anyone to scientifically disprove climate change

#74

Post by bsbechtel »

tbrownaw wrote: post #60
bsbechtel wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought one of (not the only) the main aspects of the scientific method was that it could only be used to disprove a theory, but never to prove it 100% correct. For example, you cannot ever prove that Big Foot is a hoax, but you can disprove it by finding him. Or, the theory of gravity can never be proven, only disproven if an experiment showed it to be false. Isn't that all this scientist is asking for?

Consider relativity. There were some interesting observations that didn't seem to make sense (the speed of light is constant, regardless of the motion of the observer). Then someone figured out how to modify Newton's equations for motion to make this possible. Then someone else took this seriously, and gave a comprehensive explanation of the implications. Then someone built the GPS system, which would not work if the…

I'm not arguing that scientific theories aren't useful, just that the point of science is to continue to search for ways to disprove things, not to ever prove something. Considering the infinite amount of knowledge about our universe that has yet to be discovered or understood, the only way to go about making sense of it all is to start by disproving things one at a time. There is always a deeper level of understanding and knowledge that could potentially make something previously thought to be true untrue.

Considering the billions of dollars both sides of this debate have on the line, spending a few thousand to incentivize individuals to disprove this theory would be quite rational in my mind. Whether Global Warming can be disproven or not is a completely different question.

Re: Physicist offers $10,000 for anyone to scientifically disprove climate change

#75

Post by DCKing »

paulhauggis wrote: post #67
DCKing wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quite the same as the fact there are incredibly few biologists who think that evolution is false. The debate is simply not worth having, even though a large number of uninformed people still don't accept it.

500+ years ago, very few scientists of that day thought the world was round. A scientist should be able to study the other side without threat of being fired or completely losing their career. Your viewpoint is as close-minded as many religions.

I'm not saying that people should not discuss this. I'm saying that the debate is over unless substantial other facts are presented than we do now. Discussion value based on evidence and not conjecture. Claiming that this is the same as the dogma and falsehood of religions is plain insulting.

Besides, the last time anyone thought the world was flat was a lot longer ago than 500 years, and 'scientists' as such did not exist yet.

Re: Physicist offers $10,000 for anyone to scientifically disprove climate change

#76

Post by bioinformatics »

hfourm wrote: post #73
unabridged wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that you cannot even begin to ask what humans are doing to the global temperature if you do not even have an idea what it would look like without humans.

But at the same time we can look at other planets with atmospheres w/ much higher compositions of green house gases and the environment is OBVIOUSLY unsuitable for life. So why do we think we are immune to this? We pump a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere, at non natural rates, what do you expect to happen?

But then, these other planets don't have life to regulate/change/modify/absorb the CO2 from the atmosphere. Clearly they can be used as a normal negative control, but at the same time, the data we have from these planets is minimal to say the least.

Re: Physicist offers $10,000 for anyone to scientifically disprove climate change

#77

Post by streptomycin »

forgotpasswd3x wrote: post #71
crdoconnor wrote: post #9

Let's flip this: 1. I will award $10,000 of my own money to anyone that can demonstrate, via the scientific method, that man-made global climate change IS occurring; 2. There is no entry fee; 3. You must be 18 years old or older to enter; 4. Entries do not have to be original, they only need to be first; 5. I am the final judge of all entries but will provide my comments on why any entry fails to prove the point. Obv…

I don't get why people make a distinction between man-made climate change, and "natural" climate change, when both have equally terrible results. Even if the earth is "natually" warming, it's still going to cause issues. Why not work to stop it?

Imagine you are someone who believes that we don't understand the climate well enough to determine if releasing ridiculous amounts of CO2 has any effect whatsoever. If you believed that, you probably wouldn't think that we understood the climate well enough to alter it.

Re: Physicist offers $10,000 for anyone to scientifically disprove climate change

#78

Post by streptomycin »

asgard1024 wrote: post #69
paulhauggis wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My issue is that I've heard many pro global warming scientists on public radio say that even if man-made global warming doesn't exit, we should have all of these regulations and tax increases because it's good for the environment.

So what exactly do you have to lose if you leave the oil/coal in the ground? It will still be there for your descendants. Especially, if you accept that global warming exists but is not man-made, it may be useful to keep backup of energy to be able to deal with it in the future, wouldn't it?

Easy for rich Westerners to say. We're not the ones who will have to go back to subsistence farming.

Re: Physicist offers $10,000 for anyone to scientifically disprove climate change

#79

Post by dirktheman »

belovedeagle wrote: post #46
_archon_ wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a fair perspective. I propose that the scientific community's collective stance is not that this is a wild deviation from typical variations, but that a significant change will result in unfavorable consequences for humanity as a species. Such change is occurring based on the data we have available to us. If we can mitigate or delay such change, we will be better off for it. This leads to emission controls, e…

This is a refreshingly honest analysis. Personally I'm not convinced by the need to maintain the status quo, however. We can read all about 'X species going extinct in Y years', 'Average temperatures will go up by .X degrees in Y years', and 'X miles of coastline will be destroyed in Y years', and yet none of this explains /why/ these are undesirable outcomes. The unstated premise is that "change is bad", which is a…

Living in a country where a large part is located below sea level, I can assure you that a rising water level concerns me. But you're right, in the grander scheme of things global warming isn't necessarily a good or a bad thing, it just is.

Re: Physicist offers $10,000 for anyone to scientifically disprove climate change

#80

Post by eglover »

headShrinker wrote: post #22
eglover wrote: post #14

97% consensus? Right away I'm calling bullshit. I think this only proves how immature the academic world tends to be and may point to a bigger problem.

There are plenty of areas to pick apart this article and motivations behind it. 97% consensus isn't one of them. Denial, is old and dead amongst the well informed. Join us.

Denial indeed. About 50% worldwide including both public and private science. You might want to look into the source of that 97% and stop acting like you've got everything figured out.
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