The Difference between ‘True Science’ and ‘Cargo-Cult Science’
I’d like to add, since I don’t see it in the comments, the famous story of Feynman and computer models. When the Challenger space shuttle blew up, there was some suspicion that the cold had reduced the flexibility the shuttles engine’s “O” rings. The NASA engineers pointed to computer models showing that couldn’t happen. Feynman took one of the recovered “O” rings from the shuttle, froze it, then showed that it had, in fact, lost its flexibility and shattered in flight. I’m sure Feynman would have had nothing but contempt for the “certainty” that afflicts alarmist climate science based on nothing–and I mean nothing–but models.
As the climate modelers admit, in some of their better moments. For example, Stephen Schneider wrote: “Computer modeling is our only available tool to perform what-if experiments such as the human impact on the future.” IPCC contributor Mike Hulme says the same thing: “Virtual climates created inside computer models are the best we’ve got.”
Nor is alarmist climate science open to Popper’s falsification principle, as Hulme admits: “[Climatological] statements emerge from processes of deliberation and discussion rather than from pure observation, experimentation and falsification.”
Yes, alarmist climate science is cargo cult science in more ways than one.
