FROM 2015: Karl Popper famously said, “A theory that explains everything explains nothing.” So what do you make of the theory that catastrophic manmade CO2-driven “climate change” can account for harsher winters and lighter winters, more snow and less snow, droughts and floods, more hurricanes and less hurricanes, more rain and less rain, more malaria and less malaria, saltier seas and less salty seas, Antarctica ice melting and Antarctic ice gaining and dozens of other contradictions? Popper gave a name to “theories” like this: pseudoscience.
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TRANSCRIPT
One of the giants in the history of the philosophy of science, Karl Popper, once famously observed that a theory that explains everything explains nothing.
And, to be sure, the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change appears to explain everything.
After all, we all know that climate change makes for shorter winters . . . except for when it makes for harsher winters.
And climate change means less snow . . . except for when climate change means more snow.
And climate change causes droughts in California and floods in Texas and Oklahoma, and generally makes wet places wetter and dry places drier, except when it makes wet places drier and dry places wetter.
And climate change causes more hurricanes at the same time as it causes fewer hurricanes.
Climate change causes more rain, but less water? . . . And less rain, but more water?
Climate change decreases the spread of malaria at the same time as it increases the spread of malaria. (But don’t worry! The Terminator himself advises us not to listen to those climate change cynics, hey guys?)
Do I need to go on?
Oh, OK.
Climate change makes San Francisco foggier.
Climate change makes San Francisco less foggy.
Climate change causes duller autumn leaves.
Climate changes causes more colourful autumn leaves.
Climate change makes for less salty seas.
Climate change makes for saltier seas.
Climate change causes the polar ice caps to melt.
Climate change causes the polar ice caps to freeze.
Climate change makes the earth hotter, unless the earth isn’t getting hotter, in which case climate change can explain that, too!
What’s the problem here? This sounds like the perfect scientific theory. It can explain literally everything, including self-contradictory things! This means it’s absolutely perfect, isn’t it?
Well, no, not according to Karl Popper and the philosophers of science.
And within the philosophy of science, there’s something called the demarcation problem. How do you differentiate science from pseudoscience?
If you’re at all interested in this, I would suggest you read through Karl Popper’s Conjectures and Refutations, in which he lays out his criterion for differentiating science and pseudoscience, namely falsification.
What on earth does he mean by this?
Well, he starts with a very simple but very profound observation that people are attracted to pseudoscientific theories:
“[. . . b]y their apparent explanatory power. These theories appear to be able to explain practically everything that happened within the fields to which they referred. The study of any of them seemed to have the effect of an intellectual conversion or revelation, open your eyes to a new truth hidden from those not yet initiated. Once your eyes were thus opened you saw confirmed instances everywhere: the world was full of verifications of the theory. Whatever happened always confirmed it. Thus its truth appeared manifest; and unbelievers were clearly people who did not want to see the manifest truth.”
And it occurred to him that although this is usually taken to be a good sign of a theory, “[i]t began to dawn on me [Karl Popper] that this apparent strength was in fact their weakness.”
So he goes on to list his conclusions as to how we ultimately try to differentiate science from pseudoscience, and I think a couple of the most important conclusions here are:
4. A theory which is not refutable by an conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory, as people often think but a vice.
And also:
7. Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, are still upheld by their admirers—for example by introducing ad hoc some auxiliary assumption, or by reinterpreting the theory ad hoc in such a way that it escapes refutation. Such a procedure is always possible, but it rescues the theory from refutation only at the price of destroying, or at least lowering, its scientific status.
And he sums it up by saying: “the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability.”
So, I would say that the ball is in the court of the believers of the catastrophic anthropogenic climate change hypothesis.
By what means can one falsify this hypothesis?
Let’s start with just an even less of a hurdle to come over: what set of observations over what period of time would be enough to refute the theory?
And then, furthermore, are there any actual hypotheses, any predictions that come as a result of this theory that can then be tested against the real world, or real observations?
If the answer to that is no, then . . . well, you’ve got a word for your theory, and it’s not science.
It’s pseudoscience.
So again, the onus is on the believers in the catastrophic anthropogenic climate change hypothesis to come up with some way that you can test and potentially falsify this theory.
Because if you can’t come up with any actual way to answer that question of how you falsify the theory, then you might as well just pray to your witch doctors to save you from the weather gods.
James Corbett, corbettreport.com.
The present ‘climate change fear mongering’ can be traced aback to at least the 1970s. It was ‘global warming’ back then. ‘Global Warming’ was changed to ‘Climate Change’ when it turned out that the globe was not really warming. Every prediction made by the ‘experts’ of the day failed to materialize. In other words, the ‘experts’ were wrong. That is not a surprise because most people who are labeled as ‘experts’ turn out to be wrong. Really wrong. I’m looking at you Al Gore.
How often do you hear the term ‘climate change’ mentioned in a day? More than once for sure. Weather events? All the time. Warmest day ever recorded. Coldest day ever recorded. Most rain ever recorded. Most snow ever recorded. How long have these things been recorded? Since late 1800s? How old is the planet? Billions of years old? Our knowledge of weather on this planet is very short. I doubt if what we now call the warmest day on record is really the warmest day ever. I am sure its not even close. Sooo those ‘ ***** day ever recorded facts do not mean a thing.
The planet’s climate IS changing. It has always changed. The climate continually cycles between ice ages and inter-glacial periods. It has for the past 2.4 billion years. Presently, we are in an inter-glacial period. Our climate is warming. It is supposed to warm. It will continue to warm until that yet-unknown event happens that begins the cooling cycle. The planet will continue to cool until a yet-unknow event happens that begins the warming cycle. Nobody knows why this happens. They can guess but, as of right now, there is no explanation for the ice age cycle. And that is the problem with the entire ‘climate change’ fear mongering.
Ice age cycles have been going on for billions of years. Long before humans. Long before the industrial revolution. Long before the invention of the automobile. Long before cattle began farting. Its obvious then that none of those things have any effect on global warming or cooling. If there is any effect, it might be that the next ice age will be delayed by a century or two.
Why the climate change fear mongering? Money and control. Money transferred from your pockets into the pockets of corporations and their billionaire owners. Control of every aspect of our lives by governments and their global elite puppet masters. Do not be fooled. Do not consent.
previous related posts here
This CBC documentary The Trouble With Experts if you are interested….What I have learned from my many decades of existence on this planet is that experts and their consultant cousins are rarely worth listening to.
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