Popper Revisited - Global Warming Alarmism and Theological Macroeconomics

 

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I see a parallel between global warming hysteria and mainstream macroeconomics — for the latter see my (1) Macroeconomics — A Critique — Overview (Part 1). 

The unscientific, even anti-scientific, strategy reverted to by adepts of both of these quasi-theologies aims at (1) protecting mere models with tenuous links to reality by rituals and taboos that assert the fiction of their unassailable truth, (2) distracting from their lack of testability through a veil of technical sophistication and complexity, and (3) mending deviations from inescapable facts by using ad hoc adjustments, always in a race to stay ahead of falsifiability and eventual falsification.

Unfortunately the advent of computer modelling has corrupted climate science into believing models are now the main source of knowledge, even though it’s not uncommon for models to have systemic deficiencies [Santer, et. al. 2017]. Theories always had a bad press [Rabinovich, et. Al. 2012], but many scientists seem to be confused about the difference between a model and a theory [Hug, H., 2000]. Both are descriptions of a phenomenon, but in a theory that description is formulated to enable derivation of simple testable hypotheses. If you call something a theory, but there are no hypotheses, you are doing science no favour. Neither should you call a simple statement, that can only be tested by developing a theory, a hypothesis: “CO2 causes Global Warming” is not a useful scientific hypothesis. The lack of falsification in climate science since the advent of computer modelling basically has turned Climate Science into what Sir Karl Popper called a pseudoscience [ Popper, K. 2014].

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Klima-Alarmismus und die arrivierte, an unseren Hochschulen gelehrte Makroökonomie haben die Neigung gemein, sich auf freischwebende, d.h. schwer überprüfbare oder grundsätzlich nicht überprüfbare Modelle zu stützen zeigen sie sich doch äußerst allergisch und resistent gegenüber Versuchen, ihre Modell-Welten dem Prozess der wissenschaftlichen Falsifikation auszusetzen. Mit Raffinesse und Hartnäckigkeit sträuben sie sich dagegen, ihre Forschungsbemühungen durch echte Hypothesen - also durch Angabe von Bedingungen, unter denen ihre Vorhersagen als widerlegt anzusehen wären - anfechtbar zu machen, um somit in den Strom jenes ständig sich wandelnden und verbesserten Vermutungswissens einzufließen, das allein den Namen Wissenschaft verdient.