I'm posting this article to (hopefully) provoke thought, not a heated debate!
Global Warming and the Age of the Earth: a Lesson on the Nature of Scientific Knowledge
Anthony Watts / June 7, 2015
In the wake of Karl et al. 2015, which revises data to match a consensus, we can all take a lesson from how scientific consensus has operated in the past
Guest essay by Dr. David Deming
The world stands on the verge of committing itself to limits on the emission of carbon dioxide that would drastically reduce the use of fossil fuels. If this fateful decision is made, the economies of developed nations will be strangled. Human prosperity will be reduced. Our ability to solve pressing problems, both human and environmental, will be severely limited. We have been told that these shackles must be imposed to forestall a hypothetical global warming projected to occur some time in the distant future.
-Contrary to popular belief, carbon dioxide is not a harmful substance. Humans & animals inhale oxygen/exhale carbon dioxide and plants inhale carbon dioxide/exhale oxygen. Life, as we know it, wouldn’t be possible without carbon dioxide! Mainstream science has basically convinced us breathing is the original sin.
-The ‘fossil fuel’/’peak-oil’ fairytales deserve a separate post or thread. In the meantime here are a few links:
http://www.principia-scientific.org/14- ... fable.html
http://americanaction.us/index.php/othe ... r-fiction/
http://www.gasresources.net/Introduction.htm
-I think one of the main goals of the AGW scam is the establishment of a new international monetary system. ‘Smart’ appliances and meters will be used to monitor our ‘carbon footprints’ & determine the amount of ‘carbon credits’ we will be allocated. You know, It’s all about austerity & sustainability. We can’t keep depleting our ‘planet’s’ resources like parasites.
The validity of warming predictions depends upon the questionable reliability of computer models of the climate system. But Earth’s climate system is complex and poorly understood. And the integrity of the computer models cannot be demonstrated or even tested. To anyone with an awareness of the nature and limitations of scientific knowledge, it must appear that the human race is repeating a foolish mistake from the past. We have been down this road before, most notably in the latter half of the nineteenth century when it appeared that mathematics and physics had conclusively answered the question of the Earth’s age. At that time, a science that had been definitely “settled” fell apart in the space of a few years. The mathematical models that appeared to be so certain proved to be completely, even ridiculously wrong.
The age of the Earth is one of the great questions that has puzzled people for thousands of years. In Meteorologica, Aristotle (384-322 BC) asserted that the world was eternal. But with the advent of Christianity and Islam, scholars began to assume that humanity was coeval with the Creation of the world. It followed that the age of the Earth could be estimated from a careful examination of sacred writings.
-Simply put, the age of the Earth is unknowable! Seeing as the origin of the Earth/life (assuming there was a beginning) are not observable, demonstrable or repeatable it is inherently unscientific to pretend to know when/how they occurred. Big Bang & Evolution proselytizers have successfully convinced people that, by not attributing the origin of Earth/life to an intelligent designer, their theologies are somehow scientific. The false ‘evolution/ancient Earth vs. creation/young Earth’ paradigm was intentionally constructed to polarize and trap people into never-ending and fruitless debates. Although it’s sold as science vs. religion it’s, in actuality, a banal battle between two diametrically opposed religious ideologies.
The first person to make a quantitative estimate of the Earth’s age was the Islamic scientist al-Biruni (c. 973-1050). al-Biruni based his chronology on the Hindu, Jewish, and Christian religious scriptures. He divided the history of the world into eras, and concluded that it had been less than ten thousand years since the Creation.
Working in the tradition begun by al-Biruni, Bishop James Ussher (1581-1686) estimated the age of the Earth by meticulously studying the Bible and other historical documents. In The Annals of the World Deduced from the Origin of Time, Ussher pinpointed the date of Creation as the “night preceding the 23rd of October, 4004 BC.” Ussher’s scholarship was impressive, and his dates were accepted as the standard chronology. Bible editors began to place Ussher’s dates in the margins of their texts.
-Wow, he meticulously pinpointed it to the day so he must have been right, right?
Isaac Newton (1642-1727), the greatest [pseudo] scientist of the age, was also a Biblical fundamentalist who believed in a young Earth. Newton explained to his nephew, John Conduitt, that the Earth could not be old because all human technology was of recent invention. Like Ussher, Newton wrote his own universal history, Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended, that was published posthumously in 1728.
-I wonder if the textbook know-it-alls who take comfort in accusing dissenters of being scientifically illiterate people who are a) obviously unfamiliar with the Newtonian/Scientific Method and/or b) blinded by religious/personal biases, know these little fun facts about their ‘god’ whose ‘laws’ they obey so dutifully.
By the time Charles Darwin (1809-1882) published Origin of Species in 1859, geologists were of the opinion that the Earth was practically, although not literally, of infinite age. With infinite time at this disposal, Darwin was able to invoke the slow mechanism of natural selection as an explanation for the organic evolution evidenced in the fossil record.
-The heliocentric & evolution ideologies both required infinite time to explain the (supposed) billions of ‘light years’ distance of the stars and the (supposed & ever-changing) gradual process of ‘transmutation of species.’
To demonstrate the vast extent of geologic time, Darwin offered the erosion of the Weald, a seaside cliff in England, as an offhand example. Darwin assumed an erosion rate of an inch a century, and then extrapolated that some 300 million years were apparently necessary to explain the total amount of erosion that had occurred.
But Darwin’s estimated erosion rate of one inch per century was little more than speculation. The number was unconstrained by any measurement or scientific observation. Nineteenth-century geologists lacked any quantitative method for establishing dates. The rocks of the Earth’s crust might represent the passage of ten million years. But just as easily, the amount of time could have been a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand million years.
-‘Gods’ of Newton & Darwin’s stature don’t hypothesize like us mortals. They induce & decree! BTW, we still lack quantitative methods for establishing dates.
Darwin and his geological colleagues were soon
taken to the woodshed by the greatest physicist of the nineteenth century,
William Thomson (1824-1907). Better known as Lord Kelvin, Thomson was a man of prodigious gifts who possessed enormous intellectual stature. He published his first scientific paper at age sixteen, and had been appointed a chaired professor at the University of Glasgow at the precocious age of twenty-two.
In 1861, Lord Kelvin began to seriously address the question of dating the Earth. He was aware that the Earth radiated internal heat. This process could not have been going on forever. By maintaining that the Earth was infinitely old, the geologists in effect were
postulating that energy was not conserved. This
violated the First Law of Thermodynamics, and Kelvin was aroused to do battle.
-Shit gets real when the decreed ‘laws’ of science ‘gods’ contradict each other. Historically, the ‘law’ of the ‘god’ who’s more charismatic, convincing, conniving and connected prevails.
In the nineteenth century, the only known source for the internal heat of the Earth was the original mechanical heat of accretion. Reasoning that the Earth had been molten at the time of its formation, but cooling ever since, Kelvin was able to construct an elegant mathematical model that constrained the age of the Earth on the basis of its measured geothermal gradient. Much the same method is used today by coroners who estimate the time of death by taking the temperature of a cadaver.
In 1862, Kelvin published his analysis in a paper titled On the Secular Cooling of the Earth. He arrived at a best estimate for the age of the Earth of 100 million years. Kelvin’s estimate was no idle speculation. It was based on a precise mathematical model constrained by laboratory measurements and the laws of thermodynamics.
-Lord Kelvin + elegantly precise mathematical models = scientific ‘proof’ the Earth is 100 million years old.
Kelvin attacked Darwin directly. He raised the question: were the laboratory measurements and mathematical calculations in error, or was it more likely “that a stormy sea, with possibly channel tides of extreme violence, should encroach on a chalk cliff 1,000 times more rapidly than Mr. Darwin’s estimate of one inch per century?”
Darwin was devastated. He wrote to his mentor, Charles Lyell, “for heaven’s sake take care of your fingers; to burn them severely, as I have done, is very unpleasant.” Geologists were left sputtering. They had no effective rebuttal to Kelvin’s calculations. Within a few years, the geological establishment began to line up with Lord Kelvin. Among the influential converts was Archibald Geikie, President of both the British Association for the Advancement of Science and the Geological Society of London.
-Consensus truth – the science was settled! Darwin had lost the battle but would go on to win the war thanks to his bulldog.
Researchers began to look for evidence that would confirm Kelvin’s calculations. In 1865, Geologist Samuel Haughton had estimated the age of the Earth as 2300 million years, a number reasonably close to the modern value of 4500 million years. But under the influence of Kelvin’s authority, in 1878 Haughton drastically shortened his earlier calculation to 153 million years.
-Haughton reduced his estimate by roughly 93% in deference to his Lord’s authority. Very scientific, wouldn’t you say?
A lone voice of dissent was raised by the biologist, Thomas Huxley (1825-1895). Huxley pointed out that there was a fundamental weakness in Kelvin’s mathematical model. “Mathematics may be compared to a mill of exquisite workmanship, which grinds you stuff of any degree of fineness; but, nevertheless, what you get out depends on what you put in.” Put in more modern terms, Huxley’s observation amounted to “garbage in, garbage out.”
-Well versed in the politics and nuances of the scientific hustle (as smj would say), Hoaxley realized that Kelvin’s garbage needed to be pushed out before Darwin’s garbage could be pushed in.
But as the end of the nineteenth century approached, the scientific community was beginning to regard Kelvin’s estimate of 100 million years as a near certainty. Writing in the American Journal of Science in 1893, geologist Warren Upham characterized Kelvin’s estimate of the age of the Earth as the most “important conclusion in the natural sciences…[that] has been reached during this century.”
The science was definitely settled in 1899 by the Irish physicist, John Joly (1857-1933). Joly hit upon a robust method for calculating the age of the Earth that was entirely different from Kelvin’s. Joly’s calculation was childishly simple, yet apparently foolproof. He estimated the age of the Earth by dividing the total salt content of the oceans by the rate at which salt was being carried to the sea by the rivers. He found that it would take 80 to 90 million years for the ocean’s salt to accumulate.
-If you believe it’s possible to determine the total salt content of the oceans, then I have some Apollo lunar samples that might interest you.
In consideration of the uncertainties involved, Joly’s age estimate was essentially identical to Thomson’s. With different methods yielding the same result, it seemed evident that the result was conclusive: the Earth was 100 million years old. It seemed that to deny this reality, was to deny not only the authority of the scientific establishment but the very laws of nature themselves.
-Challenging the false authority of the pseudoscientific establishment is the epitome of scientific integrity.
The ingenious calculations of Kelvin and Joly were soon to be overturned by an improbable empiricism. In the thirteenth century, modern science began when philosophers came to the realization that logic alone could never uncover the secrets of the cosmos, no matter how seductive its appeal. Contemplation of the mysterious properties of the magnet convinced Roger Bacon and his contemporaries that nature contained occult or hidden forces that could never be discerned or anticipated rationally, only discovered experimentally.
-Instead of attributing unknown/unknowable phenomena to an invisible sky god, Bacon & Co. chose to uncover nature's occult or hidden forces with meticulously crafted ‘thought experiments.’ Pot meet kettle.
In 1896, Henri Becquerel accidentally discovered radioactivity when he found that photographic plates were exposed when placed next to certain minerals. By 1904, it became apparent that there were radioactive minerals inside the Earth releasing heat. Lord Kelvin’s assumption of no internal heat sources was wrong. At the beginning of the twentieth century, it was not even clear if the Earth was cooling or heating. Thomson’s calculations were precise, but he had no way of knowing about radioactivity.
-OMG, how could the ‘Lord’ be fallible? Say it ain’t so Lo!
Radioactivity also provided a rigorous way to calculate the age of the Earth. The accepted modern estimate for the age of the Earth is 4500 million years. The nineteenth-century estimate of 100 million years that seemed so certain was wrong, not just by 20 or 30 percent, but by a factor of 45. In retrospect, the reason that Thomson’s estimates had been independently confirmed is that geologists looked for data that would support Thomson’s physics. The consensus that had emerged was the product of a human psychological process, not objective science. The nature of science is such that people who look for confirming evidence will always find it.
-The worst kind of deception is self-deception!
Compared to modern climate models, William Thomson’s models were simple, and contained only a few assumptions. In contrast, global warming models are hideously complex, and contain numerous hidden assumptions, many of which are highly uncertain.
-Whenever we place blind faith in their mounding (ci cago) piles of assumptions, scientists make asses out of you & me.
There is also much we do not understand about why Earth’s climate changes. It is possible that cosmic rays, modulated by the Sun’s magnetic field, cool Earth by inducing the formation of clouds. We don’t know why Ice Ages end so spectacularly and suddenly. Once they begin, Ice Ages should continue indefinitely, as cooling is reinforced by a number of positive feedbacks.
-I don’t know
if Ice Ages occurred at all. The concept of Ice Ages & the rising/sinking of the continents were science’s answer to the Biblical Great Flood (which was inspired by the Epic of Gilgamesh flood narrative):
“After reading Agassiz's work Charles Lyell
believed he had found the mechanism for the elevation and submergence of continents. He
theorized that just as high mountains become ice-covered, so too might entire continents
if they had become sufficiently elevated by subterranean volcanic action. He
proposed that by the accumulation of enough ice, say two miles thick, this would depress the elevated continents below sea level. Here the ice would eventually melt allowing the submerged land to receive the sediments. Later, helped by the
mysterious process of "isostasy," the continents would elevate once again above sea level. Of course, since there were twenty-one sedimentary layers of rock this entire process would have been repeated the same number of times. Lyell's explanation was eagerly welcomed by anti-biblical enthusiasts, and,
while they were reluctant to argue for twenty-one ice ages, the textbooks settled for four. In 1863 Lyell made tentative suggestions in this direction in chapters 12 to 16 of his Antiquity of Man. There have been
half a dozen theories to explain the origin and the number of ice ages. It is perhaps in recognition of this that textbooks today speak of "
interglacial periods" thus not having to commit themselves to any specific number.”
http://www.creationism.org/books/Taylor ... boutIceAge
We ought to be intelligent enough to acknowledge that we don’t know what we don’t know. Science is never settled. We should keep in mind Seneca’s admonition. “Nature does not reveal all her secrets at once. We imagine we are initiated in her mysteries: we are, as yet, but hanging around her outer courts.”
There has never been a time when the need for understanding the limits and nature of scientific knowledge is so compelling, or the ramifications of ignorance so consequential. Those who ignore history are apt to repeat its mistakes.[/i]
- Hear, hear!
________________________________________
David Deming (ddeming@ou.edu) is a geophysicist and professor of arts and sciences at the University of Oklahoma. He is the author of a history of science in three volumes, Science and Technology in World History.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/07/g ... knowledge/
"Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion—a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must admit that in this one complaint...the literalists are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today… Evolution therefore came into being as a kind of secular ideology, an explicit substitute for Christianity."
-- Michael Ruse FRSC (Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada), Professor of philosophy
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