I'd say the evidence has converged on that hypothesis appearing to represent the best theory, yes.
Discussion
Trees grow, still, no matter the concentration of CO2. The point is… “Happiness, sanity, and security doesn’t consist in clinging to things which can’t be clung to; in any case there isn’t anybody to cling to them. The whole thing is a weaving of smoke. As soon as you really discover this, and you stop clinging to change, everything is quite different. Not only do all your senses become more wide awake, but you see, that there is no duality; or difference between the ordinary, & ‘magical’ world. What makes the difference is the point of view. The human being “goes with” the rest of the universe. You came out of it in the same way as a flower comes out of a plant, or fruit out of a tree. As an apple tree apples, the solar system in which we live, the galaxy, and system of galaxies, that peoples. People are an expression of its energy, and nature. If people are intelligent, then the energy they express also is. n trying to describe what happens to me this moment, I’ll never be able to describe it. Egocentric consciousness is a hallucination. So when you see that that’s nonsense, naturally, a quietness comes over you. In seeing that you can’t control your mind, you realize there is no controller. What you took to be the thinker of thoughts is just one of the thoughts. What you took to be the feeler of the feelings was that chronic muscular strain: just one of the feelings. The experiencer of experience was just part of the experience. How does a thing put a process into action? Without a knower there can’t be knowing. We live in an eternal now. Our brains do the thinking for us in an entirely unconscious way. It always comes back to you, but we like to pretend it doesn’t.”
Risking
So it seems to me for AGW to be a theory in Popper’s sense, it must have…
(1) An explanation of a lot of observations;
(2) some clearly defined conditions under which the theory is false,
(3) and yet not actually be false under those conditions.
What is (2) for AGW?
Even though Popper is the creator of positivism, it is actually incorrect that he insisted on falsifiability to the degree that is often attributed to him.
He believed there was a place for deductive science reasoning. Einstein's theories at the time could not be empirically tested, for instance, and Popper did not reject them.
To add to this: Popper actually became incredibly critical of strict positivists, and came to endorse a view he called "critical rationalism".
This is all a really novel take.
- He didn’t think relativity was falsifiable? What about Popper’s early impression w/ Mercury experiments?
- I thought positivism was more of a theory of language and had very little to do w falsifiability?
- He literally wrote many essays outlining the rough framework above?
- And at any rate, …AGW is testable or no?
#notroll, I’m working my views on AGW
My strong guess is that if Popper were alive today, he would be strongly inclined to believe that anthropogenic climate change was real based on the preponderance of empirical evidence, and the logical deductions that can be extracted from our understanding of quantum physics and thermodynamics. In particular, the thermal absorption properties of CO2 and methane, the strong correlation of temperature and CO2 levels in the geological record, exoplanetary science, etc.
OK I can follow that ✅
It's not novel. Popper did not subscribe to strict positivism. He believed it made for a stronger theory.
Popper is one of my favorite philosophers, and anybody who has read him in detail would not be surprised by anything I'm saying.
Popper's critical rationalism emphasized both the importance of having conjecture and refutation at the center of scientific inquiry. Both empiricism and logical deduction were seen as important tools in this regard. To the extent that people believe Popper was a strict positivist, they have absorbed a false folk viewpoint on the matter.
