Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

[c1ue]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

Asking me to support this thread as a serious debate is similar to expecting a serious creationism vs. evolution debate on iTulip. It's not going to happen.

The usual response by the consensus. If in fact the counter views are wrong, then it should be no great matter to provide clear counterpoint.

Unfortunately, there isn't any, hence the employment of the MSM tactic of just avoiding questions.

There's a propagandist on iTulip. If he decides tomorrow that creationism is valid I suppose there will be a set of threads on that as well.

There's a propagandist all right. It just isn't who you think it is.

Those who welcome inquiry and debate are not propagandists, but those who cleave and enforce a specific mode of thought are.

It is quite clear which category you fall into.

[shiny!]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

There are three basic camps, if you will:

1. Global warming is happening and is caused by humans.

2. Global warming is happening but is not predominantly caused by humans.

3. Global warming is not happening.

One camp posits their "evidence", another camp debunks the argument. Back and forth it goes, with endless charts and numbers measuring different things. Apples fighting oranges. To an ignoramous like me, each side sounds convincing, and then each "yeah, but" sounds convincing as well. I don't know how to weigh the relative value of each side's evidence.

I wish there was a way to weight all the arguments according to the impact they have on the world, i.e. this one is a major boulder, but this one is a tiny pebble.

PS. I have the same problem weighing the merits of conflicting economic forecasts.

[c1ue]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

1. Global warming is happening and is caused by humans.

2. Global warming is happening but is not predominantly caused by humans.

3. Global warming is not happening.

This isn't accurate.

A more correct delineation of the various views:

1) Global warming is happening.

Pretty much everyone with a minimum of credibility agrees on this

1a) Humans are having some significant effect on climate, but not just via CO2 emissions

This is the warmist position, although the amount of this significant effect varies widely between warmists.

1b) Humans are entirely responsible for global warming

Much less agreement - particularly on the evidence side. The IPCC states that it cannot think of any reason why humans aren't primarily responsible - which is not the same thing. This was the phlogiston argument and the economic TINA (There Is No Alternative) argument.

1bi) Human impact on global warming is primarily due to CO2

This is the consensus position. Note the big jump from 1, to 1b), to 1bi)

1c) Humans may have an effect on climate, but we don't know what it is or how much

This is the skeptic position. This view is to learn more and show demonstrable skill using said learning before acting.

2) Global warming isn't happening

By and large, the views expressed by these folks are unsupportable.


The primary problem with 1bi) is that all manner of policy actions are being undertaken under this premise, and this premise is anything but proven or even consistent with actual behavior.

The climate models, for example, are uniformly built under 1bi) assumptions - and thus their nearly 2 decade long failure to come even close to modeling actual observed behavior is a big deal.

If a weather forecaster is wrong 9 times out of 10, or is unable to produce usable forecasts for 17 years in a row, normally they get fired.

If a climate forecaster does the same, he gets tons of grant money to 'get it right'.

Normal scientists, when confronted with behavior not matching reality, re-examine their assumptions.

Climate scientists, when confronted with behavior not matching reality, seek ever more arcane excuses as to why this is the case. The original source for inaccuracy was aerosols - i.e. soot mitigating warming temporarily; when this was disproven then the next trick was to focus on 'deep ocean heat', which is the excuse now. The problem being, the amount of deep ocean heat - even if exactly the values posited by the consensus - still fails to explain the vast majority of the discrepancy.

[cobben]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

Eh, not to spoil good fight, but models are just tools, like most of mathematics. Misuse them, misunderstand their limitations, and they might bite you in a unexpected place.

Slightly of topic, inquiring minds want to know, what about the "frozen animals with grass still in their stomach"?
How did that happen, and might it happen again, how does one model that?
That was "climate change" you can believe in.


Martin Armstrong weighs in:

Climate Change January 7^th, 2013

There was a discovery made in 1772 near Vilui, Siberia of an intact frozen woolly rhinoceros. Here we had a prehistoric animal intact. This was followed by the more famous discovery of a frozen mammoth in 1787. You may be shocked, but these discoveries of frozen animals with grass still in their stomach, set in motion a whole new thinking process in almost every field of science. What emerged were two schools of thought since the evidence implied you could be eating lunch and suddenly find yourself frozen to be discovered by posterity.

The field of geology also began to create great debates that perhaps the earth simply burst into a catastrophic convulsion. This view of sequential destructive upheavals at irregular intervals emerged during the 1700s. This school of thought was perhaps best expressed by a forgotten contributor to the knowledge of mankind, George Hoggart Toulmin in his rare 1785 book, “The Eternity of the World”

” ••• convulsions and revolutions violent beyond our experience or conception, yet unequal to the destruction of the globe, or the whole of the human species, have both existed and will again exist ••• [terminating] ••• an astonishing succession of ages.”


. . .


Clearly, the most significant factor driving the weather is the energy output of the sun and that means our entire universe is part of the cycle. The work of Sallie Baliunas is highly important in understanding the long-term interaction between weather and the economy. As I have stated previously, she gave a presentation at the Foundation for the Study of Cycles which was quite enlightening. Her conclusion to her June 5th, 2001 review at the George C. Marshall Institute, Washington, D.C. stated bluntly:

Summary and Conclusions

“The climate record shows that the global warming of 1°F observed over the last 100 years is not unusual. Global temperature changes of this magnitude have occurred frequently in the past and are a result of natural factors in climate change.

But is it possible that the particular temperature increase observed in the last 100 years is the result of carbon dioxide produced by human activities? The scientific evidence clearly indicates that this is not the case.

All climate studies agree that if the one-degree global warming was produced by an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the additional CO2 first warms the atmosphere, and the warmed atmosphere, in turn, warms the earth’s surface. However, measurements of atmospheric temperatures made by instruments lofted in satellites and balloons show that no warming has occurred in the atmosphere in the last 50 years. This is just the period in which human made carbon dioxide has been pouring into the atmosphere and according to the climate studies, the resultant atmospheric warming should be clearly evident.

The absence of atmospheric warming proves that the warming of the earth’s surface observed in the last 100 years cannot be due to an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere caused by human activities. The recent global warming must be the result of natural factors in climate change.”

[c1ue]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

Slightly of topic, inquiring minds want to know, what about the "frozen animals with grass still in their stomach"?

If you've ever lived in the Central United States, or spent any time in Siberia, you'd understand that it is not uncommon to experience nearly 30 degree Celsius swings in the span of a single day. That is because these large, flat, and latitudinally contiguous areas can see huge masses of cold air move very quickly.

Couple this with a glaciation age - and a generally cold climate to start with (mammoths are huge and furry 'woolly', hence lived in very cold climate zones to start with), then the scenario of a mammoth getting frozen isn't so surprising. I'd also note that mammoths are herbivores and thus regularly carry around huge masses of vegetation to be digested at leisure much as cows do.

Caribou, for example, are found frozen all the time:

http://imgur.com/r/WTF/ydxnkT0

If, on the other hand, you found frozen crocodiles or other temperature zone type creatures in Siberia, then catastrophic climate change has some validation.

[cobben]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

Eh, not to spoil good fight, but models are just tools, like most of mathematics. Misuse them, misunderstand their limitations, and they might bite you in a unexpected place.

Xerox scanners/photocopiers randomly alter numbers in scanned documents


In this article I present in which way scanners / copiers of the Xerox WorkCentre Line randomly alter written numbers in pages that are scanned. This is not an OCR problem (as we switched off OCR on purpose), it is a lot worse – patches of the pixel data are randomly replaced in a very subtle and dangerous way: The scanned images look correct at first glance, even though numbers may actually be incorrect. Without a fuss, this may cause scenarios like:

1. Incorrect invoices
   
2. Construction plans with incorrect numbers (as will be shown later in the article) even though they look right
   
3. Other incorrect construction plans, for example for bridges (danger of life may be the result!)
   
4. Incorrect metering of medicine, even worse, I think.

. . .

Several mails I got suggest that the xerox machines use JBIG2 for compression. This algorithm creates a dictionary of image patches it finds “similar”. Those patches then get reused instead of the original image data, as long as the error generated by them is not “too high”.

[cobben]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

"they had extrapolated a set of equations containing exponential terms forward through 40 iterations, without taking care of the rounding errors in the simulation"

Excel is fun, there used to be a whole website devoted to all the various faults in it.

Eh, do you really trust those ubiquitous handheld electronic calculators?


Problems with Excel

. . .

1) Fundamental shortcomings of digital computation

---

These naturally apply to all programs, including high-end specialist statistical ones; see B.D. McCullough?'s two-part article in The American Statistician (11/98, Vol 52, parts 4 and 5/99, Vol 53 part 2 -- available in PDF at http://www.amstat.org/publications/tas/mccull-1.pdf and http://www.amstat.org/publications/tas/mccull.pdf) Part 1 discusses these basic problems of digital computing, including e.g. truncation and rounding, and the use of standard data sets to test statistical programs. Part 2 describes the application of the methodology set out in Part 1 to SAS, SPSS and S-Plus. All three packages had weaknesses in random number generation, S-Plus's correlations were suspect, as are one-way ANOVA and non-linear least squares in SAS and SPSS.

. . .

[reggie]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

There are three basic camps, if you will:

1. Global warming is happening and is caused by humans.

2. Global warming is happening but is not predominantly caused by humans.

3. Global warming is not happening.

One camp posits their "evidence", another camp debunks the argument. Back and forth it goes, with endless charts and numbers measuring different things. Apples fighting oranges. To an ignoramous like me, each side sounds convincing, and then each "yeah, but" sounds convincing as well. I don't know how to weigh the relative value of each side's evidence.

I wish there was a way to weight all the arguments according to the impact they have on the world, i.e. this one is a major boulder, but this one is a tiny pebble.

PS. I have the same problem weighing the merits of conflicting economic forecasts.

The 3 camps you present are designed for mass consumption. You failed to mention the elitist camp...the one that steers the masses into "believing" that humanity is the threat...

“The common enemy of humanity is man.
In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up
with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming,
water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these
dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through
changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome.

The real enemy then, is humanity itself."

- Club of Rome
First Global Revolution
http://archive.org/details/TheFirstGlobalRevolution

[lomaxzoltor]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

History is replete with examples of majorities being flat-out wrong.

Reminds me of the story of Joseph Goldberger and Pellagra: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78d_J6wdsLI. Short version is that he was ridiculed by the scientific community for insisting that Pellagra was somehow related to diet even though he had proven that he could cause as well as cure it through diet. Finally another researcher accidentally discovered that it's caused by a dietary deficiency of niacin and tryptophan. Strangely, the same publications and scientists and politicians that mocked him and his research never apologized.

[santafe2]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

The usual response by the consensus. If in fact the counter views are wrong, then it should be no great matter to provide clear counterpoint.

Unfortunately, there isn't any, hence the employment of the MSM tactic of just avoiding questions.

The counter views are of course, almost every climate scientist in the world. If you'd prefer, I'll just post peer reviewed papers as they are published. One percent or so will agree with your goofy view and 99% will agree with mine. If this was medicine, you're an illegal cancer treatment center offering voodoo treatments and I'm the Mayo Clinic. Consensus matters. You don't post on Real Climate because they are credentialed scientists and they don't suffer fools.

There's a propagandist all right. It just isn't who you think it is.

Those who welcome inquiry and debate are not propagandists, but those who cleave and enforce a specific mode of thought are.

It is quite clear which category you fall into.

Really, I "cleave and enforce a specific mode of thought"? That's just creepy, it's called science. Even in the dark little world of denial you live in, that sentence can't be OK.

[reggie]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

Reminds me of the story of Joseph Goldberger and Pellagra: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78d_J6wdsLI. Short version is that he was ridiculed by the scientific community for insisting that Pellagra was somehow related to diet even though he had proven that he could cause as well as cure it through diet. Finally another researcher accidentally discovered that it's caused by a dietary deficiency of niacin and tryptophan. Strangely, the same publications and scientists and politicians that mocked him and his research never apologized.

I am unfamiliar with the Pellagra story that you reference (I'll have to watch the video), but my guess is that Pellagra's career was destroyed, or it least heavily marginalized? Well, as least that's my experience, the first one to publicize credible messages, that destroy the system's Simulacra, are ruthlessly attacked and their reputations permanently damaged, irrespective of how accurate their message is later found to be. This is part of how the system operates, as it dissuades those with the credibility and ability to expose the system's fascade. This helps keep all discussion within authorized frames, even when those authorized frames are run by conspiracy or alternative media. It's part of the system of full spectrum propaganda, where all the frames of communication are publicized by authorized media channels... well, all frames of communication EXCEPT for the relevant, accurate system-damaging frame.

[Raz]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

... jiimbergin took the time to criticize me for asking Aaron to understand some basic issues but like Raz, he has no ideas of his own. I suppose I should take some solace in the idea that he didn't call me an "arrogant, condescending asshole".

I'm not a physicist, meterologist or climatologist. I'm open to learn from others who know something about the matter under discussion.
Unlike you, who know NOTHING of ecclesiastical history and offer only insults to someone you don't know about a subject of which you know NOTHING.

Here's the first post you addressed to me. So anyone who defends Christianity to you is (a) mentally ill, or (b) a substance abuser?

Originally Posted by RazStarving Steve wrote "... I want to bash all religion.... To me, religion is a sad hang-over from the world's Dark Ages

I can't think of much good that has come out of religion, but I can think of much evil. The Middle East to-day stands as proof of the inherent evil of religion."

Christ was born into the Roman World - it was pagan and cruel. There was little or no compassion among the Romans for those who were deformed, weak or helpless. The Orthodox and catholic Church of Christ bore witness to Truth incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ, and she saw the face of God in the poor, the lepers, the weak and defenceless. She founded orphanages, provided unmercenary physicians, fed the hungry, provided the very basis for Byzantine and Western law beginning with the Code of Justinian I, and through her monastics preserved the history and learning of the classical world through the Dark Ages.

Many atheists and skeptics wax loudly about the "horrors committed in the name of god", and the "power of science to combat religion and all other superstition", and Orthodox Christians do not deny the crimes committed in their name. But these same people refuse to see what an atheistic humanism has wrought through such monsters as Robespierre, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao. (I don't include Hitler and the Nazis because they were pagan and dabbled in the occult.) To them Pol Pot is just an isolated abberation, while Jim Jones and the horror of Jonestown is proof that Christianity is false. But as Doestoyevsky said, "If there is no God, then anything is permissible".

At one time in my life I bought into this through willful ignorance. I was also sympathetic to atheistic thought for the very same reason as Aldous Huxley. But after an open and honest study of ecclesiastical history I changed my mind.

I will be glad to discuss this with anyone on Rant and Rave - the proper forum for a subject such as this. BUT, I don't want to assist in highjacking another thread here.

How do you find time to post here? You'd be better served ferreting out and drowning witches. In case I'm not being clear, this is the craziest post I've seen by a paid subscriber on iTulip. Seriously, find a psychologist or join AA if that's the issue. Please never assume you can pay a few hundred dollars and earn the right to post this nonsense here.

As for free and open discussion: when your insults don't shut down debate you resort to hard cursing and fascist demands for censorship.

Re: Jobless Rate: The Truth Bubble?

Originally Posted by Sharky
As far as I can tell, fascism is on the upswing in the US. If it's going to be purged, there's still a long, long way to go.

You, and your allies support for this idea will likely lead to a 21st Century Holocaust.

You say humans should not reaffirm the American ideal, they should be glad to work under 3rd world conditions. You make me sick. That you can post this sick crap on iTulip without official rebuke is the reason I only occasionally post here any longer. Eric and the Freds have got to get you sick bastards under control.

Anyone can go to this thread and see you for the liar that you are. NO ONE EVER SAID what you accused them of.

I stand by my assessment of you: You are totally incapable of admitting any wrong or offering an apology for anything;
You are and remain an arrogant, condescending, insufferable asshole of the highest order.

[shiny!]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

The counter views are of course, almost every climate scientist in the world. If you'd prefer, I'll just post peer reviewed papers as they are published. One percent or so will agree with your goofy view and 99% will agree with mine. If this was medicine, you're an illegal cancer treatment center offering voodoo treatments and I'm the Mayo Clinic. Consensus matters. You don't post on Real Climate because they are credentialed scientists and they don't suffer fools.

You give a perfect example of how "scientific consensus" is often the result of greed and corruption, not actual science. Having cured myself of cancer by so-called medical quackery and "unproven" cancer treatments, this is something of which I have personal experience.

In a pattern eerily similar to the consensus building on "climate change", the established allopathic medical system has done everything in its power to ban competition from other medical systems. Any treatment that cannot be patented will not be studied because there is no money in it for Big Pharma. There is intense pressure among the scientific community to not study alternative cancer treatments, then the treatments either languish or are forced underground or out of the country because they carry the stigma of being "unproven".

If you want to see how money and special interests shape so-called consesus and brainwash the public, I highly recommend you watch an award-winning documentary called Hoxsey: The Quack Who Cured Cancer.

To learn about the origins of the AMA and how we lost medical choice in this country, read a book called Reclaiming our Health: Exploding the Medical Myth and Embracing the Source of True Healing.

This is not off-topic. It is a parallel example of the current discussion.

[c1ue]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

If this was medicine, you're an illegal cancer treatment center offering voodoo treatments and I'm the Mayo Clinic.

In your own mind, clearly so.

In many others' minds, clearly not.

Consensus matters. You don't post on Real Climate because they are credentialed scientists and they don't suffer fools.

I don't post on Real Climate because they physically bar all people who disagree with their notions. This marks a severe lack of intellectual self esteem - not being able to adequately defend their work even to laymen.

This is in marked contrast with both warmist and skeptic sites where a huge range of opinion is expressed. Idiotic notions from all camps are equally analyzed, and the objective is to teach and learn rather than to enforce a consensus.

Really, I "cleave and enforce a specific mode of thought"? That's just creepy, it's called science. Even in the dark little world of denial you live in, that sentence can't be OK.

Over and over you keep saying science, but over and over you fail to actually involve science. All of your science consists of repeating what other people have said - that's not science.

That's puppetry.

[vt]

Re: Hutchinson on models: The Mathematical Menace

http://notrickszone.com/2013/08/09/m...-consequences/

At least the Danes may have come to their senses. So much for settled science by the global warming scam taxers.