03-05-2012, 03:01 AM
davester wrote:
[quote=Acer]
"Distrust computer modeling" is a common AGW skeptic point.
Actually it is an anti-science point. Anybody that says that they distrust computer modeling is really making a nonsense statement. Computer models are nothing more or less than mathematical calculations that are based on observed physical relationships. All of science relies on computer modeling, whether it is modeling the combustion process, fluid flow, gravity, brain function, whatever. Computer modeling is what allows us to improve cars, batteries, medicine, and a thousand other technological things. A great deal of care goes into computer models to evaluate sensitivities and uncertainties. If you say that you "distrust computer modeling" then you are saying that you don't believe in the methods that give us all the technological wonders that fill our lives and throwing your hands up in the air saying that science is not useful for predicting anything.
I can understand some concern about some models if the situation in question has a very large number of variables to model, where many assumptions have to be made about those variables and there may be some debate amongst experts about the assumptions.