[Osx-nutters] Denial

[Stefano Mori]

David Cake wrote:

>>> 	Which makes the point that the NUMBER of correct predictions
>>>  is nonsense. Fitting all the observed facts is a much more useful
>>>  measure of the value of a model.
>>
>>
>> You prefer a complex model who's predictions haven't been tested even
>> once to a simplistic prediction that has worked millions of times?
>
> 	Hmmmm... do I think the heliocentric model of the universe is
> fairly correct? Nope, still no on that one.


The point is it gives a correct prediction. Earlier you were talking  
about how the Newtonian model is not really true in every case but it  
works for many cases.

The point is that that prediction has been observed to work countless  
times. (And remember, you brought the sun rising into the discussion.)

And the +4C in 100 years has been observed zero times.

I am sure we would really really like to know what the climate is  
going to do, but grasping at straws isn't going to give us the answer.



>> Are you naive? Sorry but I have to keep asking.
>>
>> Have you seen the cathedrals? Those were built using rules of thumb.
>> They built them that way because from experience they knew that it
>> worked.
>
> 	No two were exactly the same. They extrapolated from their
> experience to build bigger things, with different designs. The way in
> which you think this is completely different from making predictions
> from theory? It isn't. There is no magic dividing line you can draw
> and put the bad scientists on the other side. Prediction is
> prediction, the difference is quantitive not qualititive.

It's not a matter of quantitative v. qualitative.

It's that they had experience of what worked.

Nobody has ever made a forecast about the climate 100 years into the  
future and seen it work.

Stefano