The following is a quote from Sherwood Rowland he made after receiving his noble prize in 1995:
"What’s the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions, if in the end, all we’re willing to do is stand around and wait for them to come true?"
Sherwood Rowland
I would like to discuss the notion, developed by Karl Popper, that science can only disprove a theory. I remember reading somewhere that if a theory is proven wrong, then the complementary theory is actually being proven right, which would then contradict the claim that no theory whatsoever can be proven right.
Let's take an example, the climate, not only because the conference on climate change in Copenhague in on this week, but also because it is the system that I am the most familiar with. Say, a theory states that El-Niño is caused by wind bursts in the western Pacific. As long as observations show that wind bursts do occur before the start of El-Niño, you are only observing the facts that the timing of the events might be related but you are not proving that the wind bursts do cause El-Niño. Each can independently be caused by something else. However, if one year, there is no wind burst but an El-Niño, then you are proving that El-Niño is not caused, at least not all the time, by wind bursts. In this case, we have proven that the theory "wind bursts do not always cause El-Niño" is true.
The difference between the two theories is that the first one is a predicting theory which is supposed to work all the time, while the second is not; in other words, the first one is useful, not the second. To prove a predicting theory, you need to prove that the causation works all the time but because the world is infinite and open to the future, you can never prove it absolutely. The more the theory succeeds the tests, the more likely it is, but that is it, no certainty. However, to prove a non-predicting theory, only one example suffices, which we have done above. And so here is the crux of the argument: Formal definitions of theory do include that a theory should be able to perform predictions. So the second "theory" above is actually not a theory. And so yes, indeed, science cannot prove that a theory is true but it can prove other things!
The fight to convince people that we should act to prevent human-induced climate change has been on for many years now. Many rhetoric have been used but Oliver Morton, in What is your dangerous idea?, is afraid that some of the arguments might back-fire because they are missing the real reason. This is a controversial issue.
According to Norton, we should not fight necessarily because ecosystems are going to disappear. His point is that Earth has witnessed harsher changes, the living has endured (so far) far more dramatic blows (none of the least example being the Permian-Triassic extinction, 251 million years ago, when nearly 90% of life was killed), yet life and Earth still exist and are relatively healthy (to our standards).
If we have to fight, it is because people are going to suffer. They will suffer because they will be displaced by the rising sea level, because their way of life will be destroyed, because social disorders will trigger wars and diseases:
"The most important thing about environmental change is that it hurts people; the basis of our response should be human solidarity.Oliver Norton, What is your dangerous idea?, Our planet is not in peril.
The planet will take care of itself."
When it's time to save the greedy
and irresponsible friends of the powerful,
There is no shortage of words and emotions
to describe the future.
Long-term financial destruction of the market.
Lost of jobs.
Collapse of the economy.
And We, the sensible, do understand.
But when We, the sensible,
ask them to do something about the climate,
They look down at us,
Tell us we are blind,
Tell us we are pessimistic,
Tell us we want to destroy the economy.
That is what we call a double standard.
In Discordant harmonies, Daniel B. Botkin briefly describes the history of Earth, and the important role that life has played, especially in the formation of the present composition of the atmosphere. The idea is that life has always succeeding in exploiting the available chemical resources, which resulted after every major evolutionary move in a change of the main composition of the atmosphere. The question that struck me is then: how come did life succeed not to kill itself by over-exploiting Earth's resources, a question obviously of utmost important for the human race?
Several hypothesis: 1) there is a Gaia-like theological process where life keeps itself within limitis where it can survive, 2) just luck. Both answers are not satisfactory. The first one avoids to answer the question: why would there be such process? The second one does not provide any mechanism that we, human, could use to manage Earth correctly.
