Another example from Nature confesses that there may be limits to our understanding. Climate change certainly looms large in scientific discussions these days. Just as the latest global climate change conference is concluding in Rio, Maslin and Austin said in Nature June 14 (486, pp. 183–184) that climate models may have reached their limits:
Another example from Nature confesses that there may be limits to our understanding. Climate change certainly looms large in scientific discussions these days. Just as the latest global climate change conference is concluding in Rio, Maslin and Austin said in Nature June 14 (486, pp. 183–184) that climate models may have reached their limits:
For the fifth major assessment of climate science by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), due to be released next year, climate scientists face a serious public-image problem.
The climate models they are now working with, which make use of significant improvements in our understanding of complex climate processes, are likely to produce wider rather than smaller ranges of uncertainty in their predictions. To the public and to policymakers, this will look as though the scientific understanding of climate change is becoming less, rather than more, clear.….… Why do models have a limited capability to predict the future? First of all, they are not reality. This is perhaps an obvious point, but it is regularly ignored.
The climate models they are now working with, which make use of significant improvements in our understanding of complex climate processes, are likely to produce wider rather than smaller ranges of uncertainty in their predictions. To the public and to policymakers, this will look as though the scientific understanding of climate change is becoming less, rather than more, clear.….… Why do models have a limited capability to predict the future? First of all, they are not reality. This is perhaps an obvious point, but it is regularly ignored.
By their very nature, models cannot capture all the factors involved in a natural system, and those that they do capture are often incompletely understood. Science historian Naomi Oreskes of the University of California, San Diego, and her colleagues have argued convincingly that this makes climate models impossible to truly verify or validate.
By their very nature, models cannot capture all the factors involved in a natural system, and those that they do capture are often incompletely understood. Science historian Naomi Oreskes of the University of California, San Diego, and her colleagues have argued convincingly that this makes climate models impossible to truly verify or validate.
Surprisingly, they stated that ignorance is no reason for inaction:
Surprisingly, they stated that ignorance is no reason for inaction:
Scientists need to decide how to explain this effect. Above all, the public and policymakers need to be made to understand that climate models may have reached their limit. They must stop waiting for further certainty or persuasion, and simply act.
This statement appears to be naked advocacy for political action in spite of scientific understanding. Regardless of one’s views on human-caused global warming, the quote illustrates powerful influences between politics and science. It also reveals that scientists, like other fallible human beings, are not necessarily bias-free, but are subject to motivations and collective beliefs.
Pallab Ghosh, writing for the BBC News, reported on the growing trend toward open-access journals on the internet, away from traditional subscription-based journals. One of the arguments in favor of open access is that if the public is paying for the research, they ought to be able to read about it. Some scientists are strongly in favor of the movement, seeing it as the democratization of science. “Critics have argued that commercial publishers have made excessive profits from scientific research that has been paid for from public money,” Ghosh wrote. “Critics also say that denying access to publicly-funded research is immoral.” One significant upshot of the trend is that leading journal editors will have less veto power over what gets published, and less control over what kind of research is deemed significant.
Pallab Ghosh, writing for the BBC News, reported on the growing trend toward open-access journals on the internet, away from traditional subscription-based journals. One of the arguments in favor of open access is that if the public is paying for the research, they ought to be able to read about it. Some scientists are strongly in favor of the movement, seeing it as the democratization of science. “Critics have argued that commercial publishers have made excessive profits from scientific research that has been paid for from public money,” Ghosh wrote. “Critics also say that denying access to publicly-funded research is immoral.” One significant upshot of the trend is that leading journal editors will have less veto power over what gets published, and less control over what kind of research is deemed significant.
Don’t ever be fooled into assuming that scientists, and especially science reporters, have been educated out of scientism. Many scientists never took a philosophy of science course. Some of them, influenced by their science professors, were trained to distrust philosophers of science. But the question “What is science?” is not a question of science. It is a question of philosophy about science. Scientists therefore, operating within the scientific culture, are the least qualified to answer the question.
