Tuesday, December 1, 2009

The Scientific Method and Climate Change



"No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong" ~ Albert Einstein

I do not profess to be a scientist or to employ the scientific method on any project I undertake. I believe, though, that the method is an organized quest for Truth which is why when science states it, we accept the statement as truth, because they have been rigorous in their examinations and experimentations

Einstein stated what many have come to accept as the basis for the scientific method -- "falsifying." No one has ever found evidence nullifying Einstein's Theory of Relativity, therefore, it is accepted as true, but is still listed as a theory.

In the several examples of falsifying, there is the story of "The White Swans." The scientist believes that there are only white swans in the world. What the scientist believes is true as long as he only sees white swans. He may have desperately wanted there to be only white swans in the world and invested a lot of his time, effort, reputation, and money in that belief. Then he sees his first black swan. Truth vs. Belief.

With the release of Climate Change emails from scientists in England and scientists at the University of Pennsylvania -- leading authorities on the subject -- revealing that they were refusing to acknowledge data that falsified their conclusions, the whole subject of Climate Change has been called into question.

The reader should not conclude that I am a nay-sayer on the matter of environmental concern. It only makes sense that we should take care of the planet. Each should do what they are able.

My concern here is that these Climatologists in their effort to preserve something about themselves -- reputation, grants, position, income -- have called into question the whole Scientific Method in which we have come to ... believe.

If the method and Science are to be trusted, then the Scientific Community needs somehow to rescue itself from those who have compromised the method.

As to the idea of Climate Change, I leave you, dear reader to decide for yourself whether this is another Ice Age we are entering since the global climate has been cooling since 1998, or whether it is Global Warming that is melting the icebergs off "Greenland."



No comments:

Post a Comment