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OT - new carbon tax 4-Mar-2011 At 11:41:51 AM Hendo

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On 3/03/2011 Gavo wrote:
>Interesting argument. But I simply do not agree that people do not agree
>on "what science is". Of course, there will be exceptions to any consensus.
>One person will always argue the sky is not blue.

Have a look into the philosophy of science, in particular the demarcation problem, I think it is quite interesting. Given your comments about falsification you might like to start with Karl Popper.

>But noone I know, and beside the climbing community my circle of friends
>are almost exclusively scientists or work in the field of science, debate
>"the scientific method".

They probably never really stopped to think about it critically. Like many things, when you look closer you discover it isn't what you had assumed.

>The idea of trying to disprove a theory is also logical. A theory is never
>entirely proven, it cant be by the very definition of "real" science. However
>it can be so substantiated beyond a reasonable doubt, that a person would
>have to have the iq of a coconut to believe otherwise.

Or perhaps the IQ of an Einstein, Newton, Darwin etc to come up with a better idea...

>Creationism, religion (creationism being a sub-topic of a religious group),
>astrology... all NON-SCIENCE. There is ABSOLUTELY NO DEBATE THERE. There
>absolutely is consensus. Consensus amongst those who PRACTICE THE SCIENTIFIC
>METHOD. By that I mean, that those who argue that astrology or creationism
>are valid arguments, either do not submit genuine articles for peer review,
>or they outright disregard the findings of others and practice pseudo-science.
>
>I understand your point, but your examples are incredibly flawed as I
>tried to illustrate above. For example. using the scientific method, you
>can very simply disprove something like astrology, as well as creationism.

One of the problems is actually that in defining your scientific method it seems very difficult to make one which excludes things that you wish to exclude while at the same time including all the things you want to include. Can you really develop a method that every person considered a scientist past and present has used to create their scientific ideas? Or will you need to relegate chunks of the history of science to something else?

>Why is science alone not enough to act on? I think that is utter crap.
>Certainly at times, it might not. But when your home is at risk, you act.
>And we have masses upon masses of evidence all pointing to a big, ongoing
>ouchie coming our way. Why not then act on it? Let the politicians debate
>it? Crap. If there were piles and piles of scientific evidence indicating
>that you were about to spontaneously combust, would you not go get a fire-extinguisher
>or sit in a bath?

Large sections of the population do things like this, eg smoking.

The science points toward a prediction and a cause. I guess it depends on what you consider science but to me the fact that you want people to reduce warming because it will change the current state of life on earth is some kind of a moral/ethical, economic, financial etc decision. You might like the idea of changing life, wiping out humanity, own some kind of business that will profit, think you will die before anything serious happens and want to live out your life as is etc etc. If you think like this, from merely believing the science it does not follow that a person would agree with your course of action.