Monday, April 5, 2010
Predicting the Future
I'm not very far into the book yet but from what I have read so far, I think it is interesting how he is using these little stories of people who don't seem to be connected to each other (as of yet for where I am in the book). Although the language is quite simple which makes it easy but not very challenging to read which I think is good and bad. The issues that are brought up I think are good because it seems to react to and bring up I think quite well the view of both sides of the global warming argument. There is one thing that I found quite interesting that I had never heard before which was said in the book and that was "Global warming is the theory-". I have never heard of global warming being described as a theory before. So far all in all I think that it is a good book and offers an interesting view on global warming. I was reading the authors notes in the back and came across a passage that I really did not agree with because I think it is kind of ridiculous. "Before making expensive policy decisions on the basis of climate models, I think it is reasonable to require that those models predict future temperatures accurately for a period of ten years. Twenty would be better." I think that that is ridiculous. Nothing like that can be predicted accurately. Jeez, according to the weatherman this weekend was supposed to be rainy and in the 50s but it ended up being sunny and in the 60s. This is not stuff that you can predict accurately because you can't predict the future.
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There's an interesting passage that this reminds me of (pages 308- 310), that talks about how the predictions of global warming temperatures made in 1988 were wrong by 300 percent- compared to a NASA prediction that was wrong by a few hundreths of a percent. It's undoubtedly easier to predict the future of an experiment that you have set up and run test after test on (How many days it will take the mars rover to reach it's destination), than to predict something like the future of our ever changing earth.
ReplyDeleteI also thought it was interesting how he pointed out global warming was a theory. I never thought of it that way, but I guess it is. We haven't made it a "law" or anything, but I think its funny that the majority of the population would not doubt this theory. And also agreed the weather is a finicky thing, haha. Accuracy is a touchy subject, and I think Crichton demonstrating that quite well.
ReplyDeleteYou should note that a scientific theory is a pretty solid bit of information. Even if we don't know quite how global warming is happening or where it will go, we know that it is happening, we affect it, and our actions do have negative effects. I don't know if you read my post, but I pointed out that gravity is also a theory.
ReplyDeleteBoy Howdy, do we need a hard look at 'theory,' 'law' and 'predict.' The rhetoric is out of control!
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