And of course not a single look at what the scientists said in their summaries, sad really, but it showing those levels of obtuseness for all to behold is not my problem.
It’s not my argument, but this seems like a semantic misunderstanding (willful or otherwise). For starters, the numbers of 4s and 5s increasing is what “the intensity will increase” means, while you seem to regard these as different claims.
Isn’t it most plausible that what he’s really trying to say is something like: “A normal random distribution of hurricanes will occur, but the number of those (i.e., the proportion) which are 4s and 5s will increase?”
If so, then what hypothetical evidence would prove that claim false? Just how low would the number of 4s and 5s have to get – in proportion to the number of hurricanes, if not in absolute number – before we can discard the prediction as a failure?
That is a perfectly reasonable interpretation.
I personally am allowing for any situation in which the number of 4’s and 5’s inevitably increase. It could be a shift of the normal distribution or any other scenario whatsoever. The only thing that matters is that the number of 4’s and 5’s increase.
And if that is the interpretation then there should be a number of 4’s and 5’s over the next X years that would confirm the climate models really are accurate enough to be able to make that prediction.
If the climate models are not so accurate to be able to make that prediction and get it right, then statements like “4’s and 5’s will inevitably increase” shouldn’t be made.
Thank you, others already showed this is not too hard to follow, many others can see how much time the “throw anything to the wall and hope anything will stick” people are on this subject, even going for grasping straws like this one. (and once again, show me **another **quote from the scientists that show that the meaning the contrarians here are pushing was the point the scientists intended)
They waste time on propping out of context items that in practice are straw men, TOWP also misses that in the summary of the science papers quoted the answer he requests on what needs to be falsified now was already posted.
That was just a simple baseline that Emmanuel and others point out, but the worst thing is that I already quoted the numbers from Elsner that show the increase in intensity of hurricanes, and that brings us to yet another demonstration that TOWP’s toy falsification tool is also broken, he not only dismissed already the context that scientists actually falsified the idea that there was a trend upward on the number of hurricanes, he also continued to miss the data that contrarians only need now to show a significant reduction to falsify.
See Sailboat, this is exactly the type of non-response we are talking about.
Although GIGO posted that statement originally about the increase, I can’t really tell whether he agrees with it or disagrees or something else when he responds this way.
Do you Sailboat think he agrees or disagree with it? Are you able to make sense of this response?
As mentioned before, the obtuseness shows, only one that does not want to pay attention would see me calling the OP a straw man and posting the reason why and then the ones not paying attention would conclude that I’m not agreeing with the scientists that did the research. Once again whoever meaning they want to straw man from out of context quotes is ridiculous as many times already I pointed out that it is not the point. But the furious effort to make hay out of it shows how desperate they are to remain relevant.
A couple of weeks ago there was a story in USA Today about the very low number of tornadoes recently. A weather expert who was interviewed said that factors producing tornadoes were not influenced by climate change, so we shouldn’t make any conclusions based on declining tornadoes.
Now with this latest storm, there’s an op-ed piece in the same newspaper by a purported expert attempting to link the tornado to climate change.
Either there are a lot of badly informed “experts”, or they’re trying too hard to galvanize action based on faulty pretexts.
The key is to check what experts they were, it is very rare for weathermen people to be also climate scientists. And as pointed before, mainstream press gets this issue wrong most of the time.
Interestingly, the amount of time you spent writing that could’ve been spent copy-and-pasting it rather than referring to it.
If you’re wrong – if that summary doesn’t actually contain the falsification criteria I’ve requested – then I can but say I’m afraid I don’t see it; please specify. But if you’re right, you can swiftly prove it: show, don’t tell. Why limit yourself to saying it’s already been posted? Why not simply present the post itself?
Wait, what? That’s wrong in at least one way; I can’t yet be sure if it’s wrong in two completely different ways.
That first part is simply false – I didn’t dismiss “the context that scientists actually falsified the idea that there was a trend upward on the number of hurricanes”. I repeatedly and enthusiastically agreed with you on that one.
As for that second part, I’m not sure what claim you’re making: you say that I’ve “continued to miss the data that contrarians only need now to show a significant reduction to falsify” – and, once again, right when you could flatly state it, you instead spend a greater amount of time indirectly referring to it.
Once again, I’ll ask you to simply post the falsification criteria in question instead of going on and on about it.
Once again, you can reply by spending remarkably few words proving you’re correct – or you can use a great many words to claim you’re correct.
Meh.
So, to recap: you claim the post has been supplied; I’m not much on proving a negative; you could, as it were, prove a positive; and – “Meh.”
Why the reticence? You’ve said – repeatedly – that you write not for people like me, but for others reading the thread; they’re going to see me asking for something you could swiftly and easily supply, if you’re correct; why not reply with your answer, instead of leaving any and all to wonder whether you’re mistaken?
Well, if GIGO’s feeling uncommunicative – to the point of not even mentioning the alleged post number to narrow it down – I can but ask anyone else still reading this thread: what, hypothetically, would prove intensity isn’t increasing as claimed?
If, years from now, someone says GIGO is wrong because the number of hurricanes and tornadoes has decreased – well, I’d be the first to say, er, no, that proves nothing; he never said the number would increase. If someone says GIGO is wrong because the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes hitting land has decreased, I’d again say, no, that’s perfectly consistent with his predictions.
And if folks say GIGO is wrong because the average mph of hurricane winds has fallen over time – well, I’d ask: when did he peg it to average mph?
But if they say GIGO is Not Even Wrong – that his claim sounds good in general, but can’t be proven false by any specific results – then I’d have to reply that, well, yes, as far as I can tell, that’s true; I don’t know what he meant by “increase in intensity,” so I’m not quite sure what he thought he was ruling out.
If he made a falsifiable prediction, I may have missed it. Did anyone else catch it?
GIGObuster’s answers were cogent and convincing.
Then perhaps you can mention what would prove them false?
He says the number of hurricanes and tornadoes may well decrease or increase – which I found cogent and convincing. He added that their intensity will increase; if he’s dead wrong about that part, how will we know? If, a decade or two from now, someone resurrects this thread to say “Well, it looks like GIGO was completely incorrect; the intensity of hurricanes and tornadoes steadily decreased,” how will you determine whether he’s right?
Really?
Waldo merely asks for a falsifiable position, none is provided for 4 pages, and you consider that cogent and convincing?
Are you able to point to a post in which either of the following happened:
1 - Falsifiable position was provided
2 - Agreement that the quoted prediction was overstating appropriate confidence, that really it’s just an opinion based on current knowledge but could change tomorrow.
At that, I noted an interesting point in today’s Washington Post:
That last sentence, of course, fits GIGO’s claims perfectly; just as even a decrease in the number of hurricanes would be consistent with 'em, so too would a decrease in the number of tornadoes; intensity, not quantity, is the name of the game.
But the bit about how, if anything, tornadoes of F3 or greater on the Fujita scale are becoming less frequent? If that’s true, and it continues for years and decades to come, then I truly have no idea whether it’d prove him wrong or vindicate him; maybe it’s simply irrelevant to his predictions; I honestly can’t say.
Meh, anybody else except the followers of JAQs can see that post #104 was a cite for what now can be falsified regarding the intensity of hurricanes, it already replied to TOWP post #103, what I can see is only an acknowledgment that they are not willing to check what the science says and have no imagination whatsoever on how to falsify what the scientists reported.
As pointed before, just a **significant **trend down would falsify what they reported, hard to do as what they reported was already a significant trend up. Of course, the scientists were referring to Hurricanes, not tornadoes, so the latest posts are just telling others just a straw man once again.
Yes! Kudos! You did it in one sentence, even! Don’t know why didn’t you narrow it down to post #104 days ago, but it’s commendable that you do it eventually; if anything, you’re speeding up. And the end of that sentence gets even better:
Here you give a great description of what you relayed in post #104: my whole point is that, if you’re not bothering to supply falsification criteria, I’d have to imagine up something. And your reply is – that I have no imagination on how to falsify it?
You’re the one making a claim that lacks specifics, such that I’m the one who needs to imagine a way to falsify it?
That’s perfect; it’s elegant in its simplicity. You’re making my argument by default: if you were making a falsifiable prediction, then no imagination would be necessary! Please, do go on about how I need to imagine the answer you refuse to supply.
I love how you put ‘significant’ in bold lettering. It emphasizes what I want to focus on: it’s not enough to show a trend down; it has to be a significant trend down. If I ever show you a mere downward trend, you can correctly reply that no, it needs to be a significant downward trend – and you can even mention that you bolded that part back when.
Which raises, rather than answers, the question: what’s enough to count as significant?
If I can someday point to a five-year trend down, or a ten-year trend down, or a fifteen-year trend down, you can then say it hasn’t been enough years, or that I’m cherry-picking the initial year, or that the drop in wind speed wasn’t big enough. So why wait for me to make a claim you can later dismiss as insufficient? Why not simply name your terms now, instead of asking me to imagine up some?
Thing is, I’m curious about your predictions for both: you think the number of hurricanes in general may decline in years to come, and you think the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes hitting land may decline in years to come; you think the number of tornadoes in general may decline in years to come; possibly you also think the number of F3-or-greater tornadoes might keep declining in years to come – even as the number of tornadoes in general might keep holding steady?
If your latest reply means you have nothing to say on the subject – if, as I’d said, it’s simply irrelevant to your predictions – then an increase in F3-or-greater tornadoes will count as little in favor of your position as a decrease will count against it.
If so, I’ve gotta say: your predictions are sounding a lot less ‘gloom-and-doom’, and a lot more ‘reassuring’.
I’ve not been following this debate; even if I were I’d have no clearcut criterion to offer because there’s so much uncertainty and ambiguity. Anyway, any criterion would be a matter of percentage estimates, not the black-or-white falsification you seek.
However, by offering to cherry-pick a particular ten-year trend after the fact (as you explicitly did do in prior threads) you are in violation of correct statistical reasoning. I’ve tried to explain this to you before; recently I stumbled upon an article that may help understand the flaws in such cherry-picking.