Comments on: Sunspot update: The Sun roars on, making the scientists wrong

By: Edward

Edward — Fri, 06 May 2022 04:14:21 +0000

scruboak wrote: “I offer one correction. Scientific results reward those who are more right that the others. As soon as science states that without question this is how a thing works is when science ends.”

I offer a correction to this correction. The science does not end so much as it slows down. The second part of scruboak’s comment is more correct, in that the science continues and finds any errors or refinements to the original conclusion.

Aristotle explained how gravity works, but Galileo showed a more correct model. Copernicus moved the center of the solar system to the Sun, Kepler explained orbits as elliptical, and Newton figured out a mathematical model for explaining elliptical orbits. Einstein further modified our model of gravity.

scruboak’s conclusion is correct. These improvements in our knowledge happen because we question everything. Robert is also correct about any consensus. My examples, above, have been consensuses until they were proved not as correct as thought. The science is never settled, no matter how much we think it is. Question everything.

By: scruboak

scruboak — Wed, 04 May 2022 16:39:25 +0000

I offer one correction. Scientific results reward those who are more right that the others. As soon as science states that without question this is how a thing works is when science ends. All the great scientists that have expanded our understanding have one thing in common, their theories fail. Sometimes it takes the scientific community many years to figure out where and how they fail, but they do. So science is all about that often used cliche, question everything.

By: Philip L horner

Philip L horner — Wed, 04 May 2022 12:06:44 +0000

Apply the same judicious suspicion to politicians spending our tax money.

It’s been a $30 trillion train wreck.

By: Alex Andrite

Alex Andrite — Wed, 04 May 2022 03:19:52 +0000

Fabulous fun ! Great video.
“… the slight motion of Mercury ….” … “The dentist …”

And all the while the “DYNAMO” smiled and continued on spinning…

Thanks Mr. Z.

By: Jester Naybor

Jester Naybor — Wed, 04 May 2022 02:07:56 +0000

David: She just believes as a matter of faith that such research MUST have been done, even though nothing can be pointed to, there are no publications, etc.

A basic tenet of our social technocracy is that “non-profit” entities – where these alleged experts reside, in government and academia – are inherently of higher virtue and worthy of greater trust, because that they do not (admit that they) seek to profit. Their profit takes other forms … professional advancement, tenure, larger government grants, bureaucratic empires … that aren’t as obvious as a stock price or what’s on the quarterly report.

And we are, from our very first day in school, led to put such trust in authority figures, starting with the teacher. This trust leads us to sell our own, adult insights short … when we are in a far better position, and are far more affected by the consequences, to make the decisions affecting our lives than any “expert”. Instead of putting them on pedestals, we need to treat them as advisers, and retain the actual decision-making authority for ourselves … but that is perceived as inevitably shouldering more personal risk, which many people turn from in fear.

Almost forty years of engineering has made the limits of my expertise quite clear. But i work in the private sector, and they expect results, as the fictional Ray Stanz made clear not too long after I started my career. OTOH, in government and academia, you often pay no real price for being wrong (except politically), eroding actual justification for trusting them.

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 04 May 2022 00:27:59 +0000

Feynman is right. The scientific process is what we should be following. We have stopped really listening and learning. Not sure that is taught anymore. In the case of climate modeling we really should be getting more data into the systems and then correcting the models to match reality – not the other way around.

By: David Eastman

David Eastman — Tue, 03 May 2022 22:35:53 +0000

It really is astonishing the respect our society demands we give to the “experts”, notably including scientists, even when the facts prove them wrong. People actually prefer to doubt the facts rather than the experts at this point. I have an acquaintance who is a very high level biomedicine researcher, who will dutifully follow and proclaim the “science” of the latest Fauci/CDC proclamation, even when it is pointed out that there obviously can’t have been any effective research done in the week between one gospel from on high and it’s opposite pronouncement a week later, or the next reversal later on. She just believes as a matter of faith that such research MUST have been done, even though nothing can be pointed to, there are no publications, etc.