On the difference between teaching and pontificating

Paul Dennis, Head of the Stable Isotope and Noble Gas Geochemistry Laboratories, Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia (UEA), is fed up. After his reputation was tarnished by the guilt-by-association tactics that are the staple of weak-minded individuals (details here), he decided to model his love of science by starting a blog. Dennis is characterized by an unwavering commitment to the scientific method and a transparent love for the nuts and bolts of his discipline (geochemistry). He treats those he writes for as sentient, intelligent beings who are not content with mere assertions. He makes arguments. For a minute I thought arguments had gone out of style. As Dennis notes, post-normal science, as it is now called, is a political philosophy, not science. Here is an example of an argument:

[I]f CO2 is the dominant forcing component in the climate system then there should be abundant evidence of temperatures scaling with CO2 levels. As a first order test we can look at the Eemian interglacial about 125,000 years ago. During this period CO2 levels were about 280ppm (100ppm below present day levels) and temperatures several degrees warmer than present. Here we see immediately that temperature is not a simple function of atmospheric CO2 levels and we have to look at other components in the climate system to explain the Eemian climate.

End quote. Temperatures do not scale with CO2 levels in the last 150 years either. An idsy-bitsy problem for those who regard the increase in CO2 levels due to human activity as the dominant forcing component in the climate system today. 

Comments

[whereswaldo]

i like you stuff man, keep up the good bloggin...

[Looney]

I would rate your example statement as having been constructed on top of hundreds of thousands of unverifiable assumptions, extrapolations, interpolations, fudges and who knows what else? It doesn't begin to qualify as science that would stand up in the technology community, but it sounds cool. Perhaps this is what an argument is all about?

[JohnFH]

That's interesting that you would react that way, Looney.

Perhaps you are trying to say that you do not trust anything that geologists, geochemists, physicists, and astronomers have to say about ages long past, since whatever one says about ages long past requires making unverifiable assumptions, extrapolations, and interpolations.

Of course. As in many other disciplines of knowledge, not just about material realities, but things like interpersonal knowledge, all kinds of unverifiable assumptions have to be made, followed by good faith efforts at extrapolation and interpolation.

On the same sort of grounds, you know that your wife (probably) loves you and (probably) won't kill you before the night is done.

On the same sort of grounds, you have reason to believe (but no verifiable proof) that someone named Jesus existed, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and so on.

Yes, we can and should make arguments about these sort of things.

But no, in respect to these questions and in many fields of scientific endeavor, it's not possible to reverse-engineer things, do controlled experiments, and test hypotheses with anything like the rigor possible in the field of technology.

If that means that you wish to avoid making arguments and facing counter-arguments in said disciplines and areas of interpersonal knowledge, that's your choice.

But then, you will have to be agnostic on most questions we ask as human beings. Right?

[Looney]

This reminds me of my father telling me about his geology classes from ~1950. The textbooks had a complete description of the entire history of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, along with detailed structures throughout the interior of the mountains. Too bad all this was unknowable then, and still largely unknowable now.

Those of us who work in technology divide science into Science I and Science II. Science I is for technology, which generally deals in careful observations and derivations, and simple steps from firmly grounded realities, with Newton as our guide. Science II specializes in the unknowable, building speculation upon speculation and extrapolation upon extrapolation with Newton as their Guide! As long as things are safely in the non-falsifiable past, Science II doesn't have too many immediate world consequences, but the ideological consequences are enormous.

So for me, the AGW scandal simply reflects the Science I/II divide. Needless to say, Paul Dennis won't be happy with that world view, but the purpose of isotope measurement in geology is for the purpose of making precise, scientific, mega-extrapolations based on countless unknowable assumptions. Astrologers were scientific in their measurements too, but that didn't make what was unknowable knowable. Science II asserts that there is no Science I/II divide, so if it is to retain its credibility, it must find a way to distinguish itself from the AGW crowd.

Of course I usually put Creationists into the Science II crowd also, but I am looking to be stoned by everyone!

[JohnFH]

I think you are right to make the distinction that you do.

Should one wish to investigate and develop theories about the past in a scientific fashion, one has to make countless extrapolations and interpolations based on countless unknowable assumptions. As I noted, this is also the case with interpersonal knowledge.

It's different with technology. Even if at first a technologist has to make a lot of not-yet-verified assumptions such as, how do things work in an environment of weightlessness at a certain temperature moving at a very high velocity subject to wear and tear of certain kinds, she is in a position to see those assumptions tested, though if she miscalculates, someone may die in the process. The scientific utility of a space program is immense, when things go better than expected (the space probes on Mars), or worse (examples of that, too).

So how does one decide what kind of geology to embrace, geology that is, that embraces past, present, and future?

Surely you want to embrace the geology that explains the greatest amount of data with the least number of unverifiable assumptions. That's why, with respect to the geology of the Sierra Nevada, between the geology that your father was taught, the geology that is now taught, and the "flood geology" of creation science, the geology that is now taught wins hands down. Since the 1950s, of course, and now, plate tectonics has intervened.

To be sure, fields like geology, biology, physics, and astronomy are learning to go beyond the crass but so-far so-good unknowable assumption on which technology rests: uniformitarianism.

When a technologist makes a car brake, he has to assume that it will be subject to a set of environmental pressures not unlike the ones which have been measured in the past.

Nonetheless, simple-minded uniformitarianism in Science II is dead, though of course it lives on zombie-like, and works well enough (like Newtonian mechanics) for a great variety of cases.

In its place, Science II scientists work with models like punctuated equilibrium and chaos theory. Not to mention, in physics, the theory of relativity.