Ted Cruz On Climate Change

[peacewithoutgod]

Cruz: "Look, I'm the child of two scientists ... The essence of the scientific method is to start with a hypothesis, then look to the evidence to disprove the hypothesis; you're not trying to prove it, you're trying to disprove it."

Look, he's the fraudulent son of two frauds, who taught him to stand the Scientific Method on its head while gazing straight up his own asshole - the method doesn't start with a fucking hypothesis when you're doing actual science!

1. Make observations.
2. Ask a question.
3. Gather data.
4. Examine the data.
5. Form a hypothesis.

[Johan]

Cruz: "Look, I'm the child of two scientists ... The essence of the scientific method is to start with a hypothesis, then look to the evidence to disprove the hypothesis; you're not trying to prove it, you're trying to disprove it."

Look, he's the fraudulent son of two frauds, who taught him to stand the Scientific Method on its head while gazing straight up his own asshole - the method doesn't start with a fucking hypothesis when you're doing actual science!

1. Make observations.
2. Ask a question.
3. Gather data.
4. Examine the data.
5. Form a hypothesis.

All true. But I do give him some credit for at least understanding the basic concept that science can never prove what is true and is only ever able to prove what is false. I don't know that he is really able to grasp the full impact of that. But I give him credit for at least knowing that much which actually puts him miles ahead of most others holding elected office.

[Johan]

Ted Cruz should be forced to sit, toothpicks holding his eyelids open, and watch Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Cosmos episode in which he discusses greenhouse gases, climate change and weather. He puts a complicated topic in 3rd grade language that anyone with an IQ over 15 can understand.

In fact, that should be mandatory viewing for every person in the universe.

I doubt it would help. He's a theist. Any theist that doesn't want to be seen as being a borderline psychopath must learn to treat the bible and their belief structure as a buffet menu. They can effortlessly pick and choose which parts they want to get behind and which parts they want to ignore. So its understandable that they tend to apply the same skill set to their approach of science. They can easily say they believe in science when it serves their purposes, such as when they need an antibiotic or want to strap themselves into a an airplane seat. But they can just easily reject all areas of science as unproven bunk anytime it conflicts or otherwise interferes with their goals.

Just like the bible is only true when says something they like, the scientific method is only valid and reliable when it accomplishes something that helps them.

[Baruch]

All true. But I do give him some credit for at least understanding the basic concept that science can never prove what is true and is only ever able to prove what is false. I don't know that he is really able to grasp the full impact of that. But I give him credit for at least knowing that much which actually puts him miles ahead of most others holding elected office.

Many scientists do not agree with the "Falsification" model ala Karl Popper.  Or maybe disagree with the paradigm revolution model of Thomas Kuhn.  But I think those who don't ... are following the old Platonic model of epistemology ... and are full of ... Positivism.

[SGOS]

All true. But I do give him some credit for at least understanding the basic concept that science can never prove what is true and is only ever able to prove what is false. I don't know that he is really able to grasp the full impact of that. But I give him credit for at least knowing that much which actually puts him miles ahead of most others holding elected office.

I hesitate to give him credit for getting anything right about science, since he is most likely right by accident, rather than right based on an understanding what science is.

[Draconic Aiur]

Ted Cruz should read this seriously: https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/antarctic-sea-ice-reaches-new-record-maximum

[widdershins]

Glenn Beck dedicated a portion of his television program last night to the remainder of his one-on-one interview with Sen. Ted Cruz, in which the GOP presidential hopeful declared that those who believe in climate change do not bother to cite facts in support of their position because, for them, it is a religion.

Pointing to a recent congressional hearing in which he grilled the president of the Sierra Club about the supposed lack of data and evidence for the existence of global warming, Cruz told Beck that "climate change is not science, it's religion."

"Look at the language where they call you a 'denier,'" he said. "Denier is not the language of science. Look, I'm the child of two scientists ... The essence of the scientific method is to start with a hypothesis, then look to the evidence to disprove the hypothesis; you're not trying to prove it, you're trying to disprove it. Any good scientist is a skeptic; if he's not, he or she should not be a scientist. But yet the language of the global warming alarmists, 'denier' is the language of religion, it's heretic, you are a blasphemer. The response from the Sierra Club, 'We have decreed this is the answer, you must accept it.' And so he didn't know his facts because he just knew his religion.

There are several problems with this statement, the most glaring of which is that he is confusing "scientist" with "ghost hunter".  Scientists don't "try to disprove" their hypotheses.  They collect data and run tests to see if their hypotheses hold up.  The goal is neither to prove nor disprove anything as doing either would introduce a bias.  It's Ghost Hunters whose "scientific investigations" set out to "disprove" a haunting.  That's how science works on a crappy reality show, not how it works in real life.

Second, as pointed out, it's not the climate scientists who are using the term "denier" and it's not specific to climate science.  It's not a derogatory term, but a descriptive one.  It is a form of denialism in which someone who is not a scientist, or a scientist not qualified in a specific field, denies generally accepted scientific conclusions.  People who research climate change (you know, climate scientists) would say that it is a science, and they have the fancy equipment and incomprehensible (to ordinary people) data and formulas to prove it.  Ted "Piece of Shit" Cruz is just practicing another form of denialism, science denialism denialism in which the denier denies the reality of the denying of the reality.  In other words it's just more convoluted horse shit coming out of that hideous man's mouth.

[Baruch]

"Many scientists do not agree with the "Falsification" model ala Karl Popper."

So you are not alone, Widdershins.  The idea that scientists are trying to prove something, is called "Positivism".

[Sal1981]

His point about belief that climate change taking place being a religion is invalid. But if what he said about the president of the Sierra Club, coming to a Congressional hearing without some statistics and anecdotes at his disposal, is true, I think that's unfortunate. Assholes like Cruz will make the most of any weakness.

Seems like it would be easy to trap him if he's easy to pounce on a conceived weakness.

[widdershins]

"Many scientists do not agree with the "Falsification" model ala Karl Popper."

So you are not alone, Widdershins.  The idea that scientists are trying to prove something, is called "Positivism".

As I'm pretty sure at least nearly everyone here knows science never really "proves" anything.  All ideas, no matter how firmly held, are up for debate in science so long as they are debated scientifically.  That is the very definition of "not a religion".  The science deniers debate emotionally and deceptively with a predetermined agenda, not scientifically and unbiased.  They take the debate to the public, not the scientific forums.  They are trying to sway public opinion, not advance scientific knowledge.  And what's the first thing you do in a debate where all the data is against you?  Cast doubt on those with the data to back them up.  Then you move on to throwing claims against the wall with whatever shaky data you can dig up and see what sticks.  Throw in a generous helping of "they've been wrong before" and you've got yourself a denier.

I always love the "Scientists have been wrong before" claim.  It is such an easy claim to shoot down.  "And how do we know they've been wrong?  Because as soon as they figured out they were wrong THEY TOLD US!"  It's pretty difficult to keep the "scientific conspiracy" argument going when you have to get your evidence against science from scientists and the only reason you know they were wrong is because scientific method works quite well.  And then there's always the "Name one scientist ever who made a name for himself by saying, 'Yep.  That other guy was right!'" comeback when the arguer claims something stupid like scientists are just going along with evolution because of the prestige involved with going with the flow.  Because that's how scientists become rich and famous.  They don't rock the boat!

[Baruch]

Good ... but often "proof" and "demonstration" are misused.  Proof is only available in maths, and even in maths it is relative, not absolute.  All non-math science (and this is where the use of heavy math in science gets dicey) is a matter of demonstration ... controlled data vs a model ideally.  Physical science is putting a curve thru measured physical data (say the temperature at a given location thru the diurnal cycle) based on a more or less sophisticated mathematical model (often a differential equation).  What model is chosen is based on various factors ... sometimes more than one model can fit the same data.  Eventually better models are developed, GR over Newtonian gravity, but often the old models are retained because they are still useful and easier to use in practice.  But some of us will ooh and aah over how clever and complicated a particular model might be.  None of this proves that nature actually works the way we say it does ... it is plausible, not proven ... and some models are more plausible than others (Galileo vs Ptolemy).  In Newtonian gravity it is all about real forces ... but in GR the forces are fake, not real ... created by our chosen reference frame.  So we used both systems of calculation, mostly using the Newtonian in practice ... even though the ideas between the two theories directly counter each other.