BS Formulas

In the early 19^th century, there was a scientist named Franz Joseph Gall. His contribution to the world of science was a book that detailed how a persons behavior can be attributed to the shape of their skull. By feeling the bumps in a the heads of various subjects, he was able to determine that there are 27 organs that make up the human personality. Animal's brains are similar in their function, but contain less organs resulting in simpler personalities.

From the shape of a persons skull, simply by feeling around it, Franz Joseph Gall could get a general idea about the size of each of the 27 organs and make inferences about the persons personality. He could tell if a person was affectionate, clever, proud, vain, or any other number of things simply by feeling around their skull. He could even tell what the persons natural aptitudes were. He was able to find if they would make a good painter, or song writer, or any other vocation.

This theory, called Phrenology was first taught in Europe and then later gained popularity in America. In its height, it was even used by employers to see if their applicants were honest and trustworthy. Then during the early 20^th century, it was eventually reject when people started to notice that it was pure fiction.

The reason that I went over this bit of history as that scientists are doing the same things today that the phrenologists of yesterday were doing. The problem with phrenology is that it takes an incredibly complex system, the human brain, and attempts to reduce it to an incredibly simple metric, the shape of the skull.

The other part of this equation is that “scientists” in many cases will substitute inferences for the scientific method. Had Franz Joseph Gall actually used the scientific method properly, he would have immediately found tons of contradictory evidence to his theory, and may have actually made some serious contributions to the field of neuroscience. Instead in the book of scientific history, his name is found under the “bloopers” section.

One of the most obvious and glaring example of how this is being done today is with “scientific” theory of global warming. I will admit there is some actual science there. It has been proven that CO2 and a number of other gasses do in fact absorb some specific wave lengths of energy radiating from the earth. After that science stops and wild inferences are piled one on top of the other to form the “scientific” consensus that just happens to play into the narrative that human development and advancement is bad for the earth and that we all would be more morel if we lived lives like the tribes that were conquered or displaced by western cultures.

Now I know that there are going to be a lot of people who will say (if I had a lot of readers anyway), “Hey wait a minute. You didn't prove that the theory of anthropogenic climate change isn't real science! You just said it was and moved on.” So here is why I don't consider that theory science. For one it fits the formula. The climate is an incredibly large, complex system. And CO2 levels are a contemptibly simple metric to base a whole full blown theory of future climate activity on. Let alone one that makes predictions over 50 years in the future. Here is a list of some other things that may have some effect other than rising C02 levels.

• Sun Spots
• Solar Flares
• The fact that the earths orbit is not the same one year to the next
• The fact that the earths axis was shifted by the recent earth quake in Japan
• The fact that the day was shortened by said earth quake
• Volcanic activity which includes both the CO2 output, general heat release, and large ash clouds
• Ocean currents
• Changes to the ozone layer
• The spreading of the Sahara desert
• New plant life
• Old plant life being destroy
• The increase and decrease in the numbers of various animal species
• The possible effects of the unknown presents of dark matter/energy
• The fact our understanding of physics has in its current state lead to the very strange ideas of dark matter and dark energy, suggesting that there may be some problems in the under lying models we have. This may need revising which could result in us throwing out everything that we currently think that we know and understand about the universe and start from scratch.

And that's just off the top of my head. I'm sure that a large group of scientists could come up with a much larger list of things that would have to be taken into account in making accurate predictions about what the climate is going to do for the next 50 years. And I'm also sure that the list that could theoretically be made would still be missing a whole host of unknown unknown factors, which may even make up the bulk of what would be a complete list.

But we are being told that all of that does not matter. All that matters is that there is an increase of CO2 levels. And to make it even worse, we are told that all it takes to heat up the climate of the entire world in a measly 2.5% increase to the amount of CO2 that would be put into the air naturally. That is said to over ride all other factors, known and unknown.

And that's just the start of the theory. Beyond just saying that they can tell that the increase in CO2 is going to over ride every other factor and make the earth warmer, no matter what, they believe that they can accurately predict by how much. But even that's not the end of their hubris. The believe that beyond just saying how much the earths temperature will increase on average, they even know that the local effects are going to be years in the future. The IPPC has made many predictions that go years into the future in specific areas. So precise is the knowledge that they claim to have that they know that SPECIFIC AREAS will not get colder as the rest of the world warms.

This is no where near the end of the assumptions that have been built on a theory that has nothing to do with science, but I believe that I have made my point.

So, to summarize my points:

1. When some one takes a very simple metric and applies it exclusively to a complex system, you can almost always safely ignore the conclusions they arrive at.
2. When scientists make statements that have not been backed up with proper application of the scientific method, what they are doing is not science and 9 times out of 10 is laughably wrong.

And one point that I have not made so far, is that another way to spot bad philosophy masquerading as science is to look at how neatly it fits into a major narrative. I choose to focus on global warming because I find the underlying narrative that it slavishly serves to be especially annoying. However the same point could also be made about:

• Radiocarbon dating (at least for anything older then a few thousand years)
• Young earth theory
• Old earth theory
• Almost any theory that deals with determining things that have happen more than a few thousand years ago using “science”
• Basically all of psychology
• Evolution