ClimateGate, Global Warming and Provenance: Trident Workbench
Ok, blowhards like Rush Limbaugh keep stating that the actual science around Global Warming does not fit the “templates”. I guess that Rush means media templates, because I doubt that the Limbaugh the Great understands the first thing about research templates or workflows. Then again, most of the people who believe in Global Warming likely have not heard of scientific workflows either, and why would they? For either of the general groups, the Limbaugh followers or the Global Warming group.
If we are going to take a look at how the Trident Workbench could be a part of clearing up the confusion about the “science” of Global Warming or Climategate, then we need to take a look at some the concepts of the “science” of science. I assume that the concept of “science” of science is either that we turn science into a religion or the conversation has to be around what is the nature of science. No wait a minute, nature of science is also a pretty silly statement, what I am looking for is the “Scientific Method”.
With respect to the Scientific Method, I will start this series of blog entries in the sunny climes of Greece, on the northern frontier of the Greece civilization: Aristotle and the principle of syllogism which is the core of traditional deductive reasoning. Aristotle thinking processes and views on science is now on course to become part of the Christian religion several hundred years in the future. it will take Galileo to break down this view of Aristotle, and will confuse people till modern time about his role with respect to the church, but we will get to Galileo later in these blog entries. The bottom line though: Aristotle philosophical thinking was eventually moved from a basis of logic to a throne of religion. This trend is something that people who understand the scientific method must fight against and tools like the Trident Workbench can ensure doesn’t happen. In the first time in history, the scientific method can be used by everyone who wants to check out the way decisions are made.
Back to Aristotle: Aristotle limited himself to categorical syllogisms, which is a very disciplined approach to deductive thinking, and worked well when the fastest communications moved at the speed of a person walking. Today, we move much more quickly, have better dental health, and so forth. In today’s world it would seem as if using pure deductive thinking is silly, and slow. Perhaps, but for now let’s continue on this line of thought.
Aristotle set himself up for the conversion from the field of strict logic to a religion over the centuries that played out after his time, but in his time, his process of thinking worked against the religion of his region, which had many gods and interesting stories. In Aristotle’s “On Interpretation”, he strictly defines terms, and isn’t it odd that these words from over 2300 years ago still ring true.
And keep in mind that Aristotle said that heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects, and he as well as civilization didn’t bother to check for centuries. That is science becoming a religion. Sort of.
Well, I have exhausted the bandwidth for today.
Finally, now what does all of this have to do with the Trident workbench? As we examine the history of the scientific method, I hope to make the case on the importance of the concept of the scientific workbench. Keep in mind that the blogs on the Trident Workbench is to demonstrate the motivation behind the Workbench.
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Comments
Anonymous
December 09, 2009
the problem with climategate is that scientific method was not used, the data was not shared for peer review, and was then destroyed so only the doctored data exists. Further, the doctored data uses bogus assumptions to create statistical smoothing that starts with the basis that global warming caused by man exists. Further, they cheery pick from the total available datasets to make their assertion instead of looking at all of the data. Further, as any 10 year old knows, you can't create measurements out of nothing. And the data for temperatures from 1850 on results in data that is below the threshold for accuracy of the devices even 30 years ago, thus it can't be valid. Oh, and every single one of their models have been completely and utterly wrong when predicting future climate trends.Anonymous
December 27, 2009
Thank you for your comment Geminiman. You represent a majority of commenters to this article, I decided to keep the focus on the experiments and how they are put together. The climate researchers did use the scientific method and there are sites that have the simulation software that they used. These researchers made cases for the way their models did not track to the actual real life data and that the models were long term. As person who has lived by modeling and simulation in another lifetime, this is often the case for the modelers when they talk to the people who need the model to perform accurately. I am not judging the results for the climate model. My personal conclusions are not going to be disclosed during this series of blogs, because we are going to create an experiment that you will be able to use free tools to generate your scientific workflow for others to view. Not just academic scientists but also hobbyists and amateurs. I have to admit that this blog isn't exactly drawing a big audience, but I will still put it out there for all to see. It is my hope that the chatty ghost of Neil Bohr will assist me in my discussions about thermodynamics.