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Totally off-topic thread
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| Salvo | Date: Sunday, 03.02.2013, 16:34 | Message # 496 |
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Very rare disease
The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.
CPU: Intel Core i7 4770 GPU: ASUS Radeon R9 270 RAM: 8 GBs
(still don't know why everyone is doing this...)
Edited by Salvo - Sunday, 03.02.2013, 16:35 |
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| Watsisname | Date: Monday, 04.02.2013, 00:48 | Message # 497 |
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| Quote (midtskogen) I commented on the other proxies in the last post, arguing that we also need to know what the physical explanation for the divergence is.
You did, yes, and I explained why I disagreed with your reasoning. Perhaps we are at a conversational impasse here -- what can I do to help us understand each other better? If it helps I'll summarize my thoughts as best as I can:
Would understanding the causes of divergence be interesting and lead to further advances in the relevant fields? Yes, absolutely, and it is great that it is being researched. Does not understanding it mean we should disregard tree rings as a proxy for temperature? No, certainly not, because it is a part of a set of independent methods for determining temperature wherein it by and large performs extremely well, and we have a good understanding of the relationship between tree rings and temperature.
And perhaps a look at an analogous example would be suitable:
There are numerous dating techniques used in geochronology, one of which is radiometric (for which there is also a large subset). Yet there are cases where radiometric dating gives erroneous results, sometimes for reasons that are not understood. Should we therefore disregard radiometric dating? Why or why not?
Quote (midtskogen) Your link on known climate changes marks large volcanic eruptions. So we know what those look like in tree rings, which doesn't necessarily mean that we know what other types of cooling and warming events look like. Rather, the signal of volcanic events might differ somewhat from other temperature changes.
They are an example of a powerful and rapid change in global temperature, are they not? The difference in their signal compared to other causes of temperature change is to be expected. Our ability to see how they affect temperature (especially thanks to big eruptions during the instrumental record) and test how the proxies respond was the point I was making there. The article you link is great by the way; that's exactly what I was talking about earlier with how tree rings generally under-represent eruptions.
If you prefer to see response to other types of temperature changes, then what types of natural variability would you like to consider?
By the way, a while ago you raised a question about the degree of temporal uncertainty in pre-instrumental-era temperature reconstructions; and that maybe this could explain why the record doesn't show AGW-style changes in temperature. Well here you see the proxies showing a response to short-period influences, so the temporal uncertainty is not nearly bad enough for that to be possible. It was a good idea though.
Quote (midtskogen) I meant that your statement was suggesting cherrypicking and the logic was circular [etc]
Okay, I thought the context of my statement was clear enough. I'll try to be more clear in the future.
Quote (midtskogen) I'm trying to bring in some philosophy of science here. If the provocation of questioning something that could support the mainstream view distracts you, I'm happy to use an example from the opposing view instead.
I’m open to all questions and comments on matters of scientific practice, whether I agree with the topic in question or not. Blatant mischaracterizations of how scientists do their work will be met with disdain, however. 
Quote [example of a methodology]
Do you see the problem with this methodology that I see? What I'm most concerned about is that you know what you want to arrive at the whole time, and that is going to give a bias.
This is an excellent exercise, and sure, I’ll be happy to go over it with you. It ought to be a pedagogically rich experience. 
We observe that there appears to be a relationship between sunspot number and temperature at least on regional scales. So we formulate the hypothesis that sunspot number is correlated to planetary temperature. This raises a couple questions:
1: Just to be clear, we ought to specify at the outset if we expect a correlation to mean that sunspots are a big driver of temperature. Probably yes in this case, right? A study whose goal is simply to find correlation between things is fairly useless and uninteresting, and expecting the opposite (that temperature drives sunspots) is absurd.
2: Have we demonstrated why we expect this relationship to occur beyond pointing out the observations we began with? An analysis of the physics involved would be a very good idea before we continue with our research. Otherwise we may be suffering a ‘correlation doesn’t mean causality’ fallacy.
We then check for a correlation, and we do not succeed. We then try several different measures of solar activity, and are met with more failures before we find one that works.
3: Our hypothesis has failed multiple times; this is fairly disturbing. Why did this particular aspect of solar activity succeed and the others did not? Have we given adequate discussion for the failed correlations? Question (2) reapplies here too, for each time we looked at a new aspect.
4: Is our methodology robust? Is our dataset large enough for us to be confident that the correlation we found is not just a coincidence due to trying to find correlations between many different things?
Having found correlation, we now seek to find a physical explanation for it (influence of cosmic rays and clouds.)
5: Verification of our hypothesis now requires that we verify these physical explanations we have devised for them ad hoc. Other researchers will ask us: Have we done so? What were our methods? What’s our confidence level? Are our results still valid if we increase the spatial extent of the temperature data we use? What is the nature of the regional effect of solar activity on temperature, and what happens when we consider other regions and the whole Earth? Etc.
6: If we are to believe that our results do show that solar activity is the main driver of the temperature changes, then we face a contradiction with the results of radiative physics and atmospheric composition. We ought to address this contradiction.
Quote We have a divergence problem. Perhaps it can be explained by the scarcity of records before that, or perhaps other drivers happened to dominate in these periods. But since that can be looked at independently, and what we have after 1850 agrees well with other proxies, we'll simply ignore the data that don't act as a proxy for now.
7: A divergence problem at this stage is a pretty big deal, because we have not yet validated our premise of the solar-cycle / temperature relationship. Question (4) applies here again as well.
8: If the solar cycle is the driver of temperature, and temperature is a driver of proxies, then the proxies are indirectly driven by the solar cycle and are not independent. Saying they agree with each other or can be checked independently is therefore misleading.
If this is unclear, replace ‘solar cycle’ with ‘tree rings’, reverse the relationship with temperature, and check if the logic still holds.
Quote If your response is that scientists like Mann are fine scientists not subject to bias like Humlum et al. who are known for flawed research practices and dishonesty, fine, but that's totally beside the point and not only an argumentum ad verecundiam, but also ad hominem.
I do not claim that anyone is immune to bias, and that goes for Mann, you, and I as well. We are inherently biased creatures and it is very difficult if not impossible to avoid it completely. But if a scientist talks about or publishes something for which the methods are unsound, or the conclusions are far beyond the scope of what the data can support, then this should be questioned. Yes, I have said that Humlum et al. are known for this sort of thing, and that’s because they have built up a reputation for it. That is not to say that they do not have very valuable contributions to science, however.
Edited by Watsisname - Monday, 04.02.2013, 00:54 |
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| HarbingerDawn | Date: Monday, 04.02.2013, 01:24 | Message # 498 |
 Cosmic Curator
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| Quote (werdnaforever) Having a .org URL vs. a stupid .blogspot.com (it's so long!) URL is just... amazing.
Maybe you should change the hyperlink in your sig now.
Quote (Spyro) BTW how do you post videos? Sorry if this has been asked before, i'm a total noob.
[video]
Works with Youtube and Vimeo. No other sites that I know of.
Protip: Click the "+" in the post editor toolbar to see all the BB codes and how to use them.
All forum users, please read this!
My SE mods and addons
Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2 GHz, 16 GB DDR3 RAM, GTX 970 3584 MB VRAM
Edited by HarbingerDawn - Monday, 04.02.2013, 01:47 |
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| DoctorOfSpace | Date: Monday, 04.02.2013, 06:52 | Message # 499 |
 Galaxy Architect
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| Quote (HarbingerDawn) image
Globalist banker illuminati mason reptilians using mind control signals sent through the TV turning us all into slaves for the new world order.
Intel Core i7-5820K 4.2GHz 6-Core Processor
G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory
EVGA GTX 980 Ti SC 6GB
Edited by DoctorOfSpace - Monday, 04.02.2013, 06:54 |
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| Watsisname | Date: Monday, 04.02.2013, 07:30 | Message # 500 |
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Galaxy Architect
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United States
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| I'm not too worried about all that. The Ancient Alien artifacts I've gathered give me specific and strategic spiritual abilities to free me from the government mind control.
Wait a minute, I'm in the wrong thread. :V
Edited by Watsisname - Monday, 04.02.2013, 07:31 |
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| Salvo | Date: Monday, 04.02.2013, 15:06 | Message # 501 |
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Star Engineer
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Italy
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| The ufo that I saw yesterday gave me... oh no... I should not say this!
But I have good news, they will take me on Zeta Reticuli, I will be the first human land on an exopl... oh no... what I'm doing 
The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.
CPU: Intel Core i7 4770 GPU: ASUS Radeon R9 270 RAM: 8 GBs
(still don't know why everyone is doing this...)
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| midtskogen | Date: Monday, 04.02.2013, 15:11 | Message # 502 |
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| Quote (Watsisname) There are numerous dating techniques used in geochronology, one of which is radiometric (for which there is also a large subset). Yet there are cases where radiometric dating gives erroneous results, sometimes for reasons that are not understood. Should we therefore disregard radiometric dating? Why or why not?
If the dating tend to disagree with what you can date directly and you can't show why other than postulating a number of explanations, you should review the situation. Certainly disregard it for now if you don't really require this dating technique. The divergence must of course be significant enough that you actually need to evict the data that don't act as you want. In my book we're now discussing something that separates hypothesis from theory. If you have strong empirical evidence for something, but you can't yet supplement it with all the needed physical explanations, you have a hypothesis.
I don't think we disagree fundamentally, but I might have a more agnostic approach until all the pieces are in place. Perhaps unfairly more towards climate science than towards other sciences since it's a relatively new science yet to prove itself as having come of age. I don't know, but I'll admit it just in case.
Quote (HarbingerDawn) 3: Our hypothesis has failed multiple times; this is fairly disturbing.
Yes, repeated patching in order to make our hypothesis work might not be good, but it doesn't need to be anything wrong with an incremental approach either. Even if we find something seemingly good, correlation is not causation, and there are statistical traps which I think this XKCD strip describes pretty well.
Your exercise looks good, but for me the scientific weight is kind of like the sum of the checks multiplied by the physical explanation. Meaning that if you can't describe it in terms of physics, it doesn't really matter how many tests it passes. You get zero anyway. And we're stuck with a hypothesis.
NIL DIFFICILE VOLENTI
Edited by midtskogen - Monday, 04.02.2013, 15:13 |
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| Disasterpiece | Date: Monday, 04.02.2013, 23:10 | Message # 503 |
 World Builder
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| Quote (DoctorOfSpace) Globalist banker illuminati mason reptilians using mind control signals sent through the TV turning us all into slaves for the new world order.
Don't forget how NASA is actually a galactic trade regulator and they are turning us into slaves so we can be bred and sold the the Globalist banker illuminati mason reptilians.
I play teh spase engien
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| HarbingerDawn | Date: Monday, 04.02.2013, 23:12 | Message # 504 |
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Cosmic Curator
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| On tour promoting their new hit album "Shaka When the Walls Fell"
Coolest crossover image I've seen all week
All forum users, please read this!
My SE mods and addons
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Edited by HarbingerDawn - Monday, 04.02.2013, 23:35 |
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| Disasterpiece | Date: Tuesday, 05.02.2013, 00:38 | Message # 505 |
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World Builder
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| Is that your dog?
I play teh spase engien
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| HarbingerDawn | Date: Tuesday, 05.02.2013, 00:54 | Message # 506 |
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Cosmic Curator
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United States
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| Quote (Disasterpiece) Is that your dog?
No
All forum users, please read this!
My SE mods and addons
Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2 GHz, 16 GB DDR3 RAM, GTX 970 3584 MB VRAM
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| DoctorOfSpace | Date: Tuesday, 05.02.2013, 01:02 | Message # 507 |
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Galaxy Architect
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| Looks like a shiba, always wanted one of those dogs.
Intel Core i7-5820K 4.2GHz 6-Core Processor
G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory
EVGA GTX 980 Ti SC 6GB
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| werdnaforever | Date: Tuesday, 05.02.2013, 05:39 | Message # 508 |
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| Quote (HarbingerDawn) On tour promoting their new hit album "Shaka When the Walls Fell"
I'll never be able to look at that episode the same way.
This was mind blowing and insanely hilarious!
Edit:
Mandrake, do you know why Space Engine is so fun and addicting? Its part of a Soviet plot to distract Americans so they can poison our precious bodily fluids!
Edited by werdnaforever - Tuesday, 05.02.2013, 09:29 |
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| Watsisname | Date: Tuesday, 05.02.2013, 22:41 | Message # 509 |
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| Quote (werdnaforever) Mandrake, do you know why Space Engine is so fun and addicting? Its part of a Soviet plot to distract Americans so they can poison our precious bodily fluids!
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| werdnaforever | Date: Wednesday, 06.02.2013, 06:01 | Message # 510 |
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World Builder
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| Quote (Watsisname)
(image)
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ENG
New site
Italy 
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Pirate 
Norway