Posted by
Compassionate Conservative on Friday, October 16, 2009 11:26:30 AM
The Patriot-News actually
published one of my many letters to their editors, albeit somewhat
altered. Anyone interested can view the
original letter a few posts below. When
the P-N actually publishes one, though, the liberal roaches literally come out
of the woodwork. One emerged this time,
for example to quote the definition of “empirical” from the Merriam-Webster
dictionary, in which apparently, the first definition of "empirical"
means "originating in or based on observation or experience." The libbie went on to say, “By definition,
therefore, "empirical data" does not need does not need [sic] to be
obtained in a laboratory.
This is just more ignorant
liberal commentary. One might be able to obtain empirical data outside the
laboratory, but its collection still has to conform to scientific methodology.
Mathematical forecasting models don't constitute empirical data in any way,
shape, or form. But this genius doesn’t
agree, so he sends me to a website he says will educate me in “the empirical
study of climate”: http://www.ace.mmu.ac.uk/Resources/gcc/3-1.html
and tells me that I “can believe whatever [I] want, but [my] letter is not
remotely convincing.”
O.K., genius, let me
convince you by quoting your own website. First, the site cites its source for empirical evidence, saying, “the
period traditionally associated with instrumental records extends back only to
the middle of the 19th century.” In
other words, we only have real data for the last 150 years or so. Wow, a whole 150 years! To heck with any data covering the last
millennium, let alone the last 300,000 or so, when real climate change
began. But if we look back at life 1,000
years ago, we’d find that there were vineyards in England and farms in Greenland. How can that be? Why, it was a lot warmer 1,000 years ago than
it is today, and could you believe it, the seas weren’t 20 feet higher?!?
This website went on to say
further, “for periods prior to the recording of instrumental data, climate
changes have to be reconstructed from indirect or proxy sources.” So it’s proxy data they're using for 1,000
years ago. Now, continuing to play my
friend’s game, I went to his second favorite website, Merriam-Webster.com, to
look up the definition of “proxy”: it’s
a “function” that “acts as a substitute for another.” So it’s really substitute data that we’re
looking at before 150 years ago. That’s
very enlightening, since substitute data is by definition not empirical.
Finally, this person came
back on to comment that I’m biased and admitting I made a mistake. Well, to that I say “yes” and “no.” Yes, I'm definitely biased - towards the
truth. No, I'm not admitting my letter
is in error. Far from it. The whole point of my letter is that math
models don't constitute empirical evidence. Empirical evidence is that which is gained in repeatable experiments
conducted in accordance with the scientific method. That's the third time now that I've had to that
concept to this particular liberal critic, who claims, by the way, to not be
liberal. I wonder if he came back again
and finally got it.
For those of you who still
don’t get it, let me expand a little. The forecasting that these "climate modelers" are doing is the
same kind of math modeling that analysts attempt to perform on, say, the stock
market or the weather, using the same methods and having the same level of
validity. In fact, if these climate
modelers are such good forecasters, why are they even bothering to try to model
the climate a hundred years from now? Why don't they just become billionaires playing the market? The answer is that they can't forecast with
enough accuracy to make any money. Ditto the climate. That’s the right answer.