Global Warming: Do the Math

I have mainly limited my blogging to modern evolutionary theory and the clash between science and religion. The main reason is that these are the areas that I felt knowledgeable enough to make a contribution to the debate that is engendered around them. However, I have been reading about another interest of mine, global warming. It is my opinion that global warming is not only real but there isn’t even a scientifically valid doubt about it. It is bad news and I suppose I shouldn’t be so surprised by the resistance to accept it. But I am.

I am also dismayed at the resistance to accept it on the part of otherwise intelligent young people. Here are some comments from some young people whose opinions I normally respect:

I think the whole bit about Global warming is a load of shit

The funniest thing about the global warming crowd is that they rarely take into account that the earth is still coming out of the last ice age.

Global warming may be real, but it’s not as bad as they make it out to be, and there IS NO CLEAR EVIDENCE in support of anthropogenic global warming.

It’s about time for that, if you think about it. We’ve had what? about ten years or so of the “global warming” crap, and before that it was about a decade of “global cooling” crap? Sounds about right then.

These comments were taken from blogs on ProgressiveU.com entitled: The Truth About Global Warming & NASA Scientists Predict Period of Global Cooling. This website is primarily for high school and college age students. I deliberately chose comments from people whose work I have read before and have in my opinion posted thoughtful posts. Unfortunately they seem to think that the science behind global warming is weak, poorly done, being done only for the grant money, or the overall picture contradicts itself. That is unfortunate. My generation deserves a lot of the blame for global warming with our profligate use of energy but it is there generation that will have to deal with the consequences, and closed-eyed denial and conspiracy theory mongering is not going to put them in good stead to handle it.

I would like to do my part to stem this denialism by presenting the case for global warming. In stepping up to the plate to do this I feel like I am on familiar grounds. The promoters of global warming denialism use many of the same techniques as do creationists. They misrepresent the real science. They claim that the scientific establishment actively censures their point of view. They point to a legitimate controversy in peripheral area (such as whether or not global warming will lead to a greater number and more destructive hurricanes) as casting doubt on the entire field. I have had a great deal of experience dealing with such techniques and I think I can contribute some here.

The first step is to present the basis of the theory in a manner that shows the theory follows from simple logic. In the case of global warming, I think the way to do that is to look at the energy that strikes the earth’s surface. We can use simple math to show that the observed rise in CO₂ concentrations HAVE TO lead to a rise in the global temperature of the earth. After that is established I will present the evidence that the rise in CO₂ concentrations is caused by the activity of man. Once this is done, then there should be no way around it … anthropogenic global warming is a fact that should be dealt with.

One complaint that I often hear is that we can’t predict next week’s weather so how can we predict the climate decades from now? This is a fallacy. Climate and weather is not the same thing. Climate is best understood as AVERAGE weather. And the average weather is very predictable.

As a kid I remember a George Carlin skit in which he played “the hippy-dippy weatherman, Al Sleet”. Al gives us his long-range weather forecast (quoted from memory):

“The year is going to start out cold. There will be a gradual warming trend through spring, becoming hot in the summer. That will be followed with a cooling trend in the fall before becoming cold again at the end of the year”.

However, strictly speaking this is not a weather forecast it is climate forecast and everyone in the temperate latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere knows it is correct. So much so, that the humor in the skit lies in its obviousness. Climate is very predictable.

Climate change is also predictable. The reason is that, unlike next week’s weather, we know the major factors that affect it. And when we talk about GLOBAL climate there is really only one factor that we need to look at … the average energy absorbed at the earth’s surface. Let’s look at that now[1].

Let’s begin in the stratosphere. If one were to measure the energy coming from the sun at the top of the earth’s atmosphere one would find that 1,370 watts per square meter hits the upper atmosphere ever second. So the strength of the sun’s output is 1,370 W/m²/sec. Of course not all the earth receives this energy input. Half the earth is in darkness. The further north one goes the more oblique are the rays of sunlight that hit that part of the atmosphere. Thus, if we average the solar input across the entire earth we find that it averages out to 342 W/m²/sec.

If the earth receives that much energy, then it MUST also emit that much energy or else it will instantaneously heat up until it does. Some of the energy is emitted before ever makes it down to the earth’s surface. 77 W/m²/sec are reflected back from clouds and aerosols[2] in the atmosphere. Another 30 W/m²/sec hits the earth’s surface but is reflected back into space by its albedo[3]. Thus, 107 of the sun’s 342 W/m²/sec gets reflected back into outer space before it can absorbed. That leaves 235 W/m²/sec that are absorbed by the earth. The breakdown of that is that 67 gets absorbed by the earth’s atmosphere, leaving 168 W/m²/sec to be absorbed by the earth’s surface.

That is the amount of heat that we get directly from the sun. If that were the only heat that the earth gets then the average temperature at the earth’s surface would be -19^o C. Hopefully you can see that this is much colder than the earh actually is. The average temperature of the earth’s surface is about 14^o C, about 33^o higher. So where does all this extra heat come from? The answer is greenhouse gases.

What has been long known is that certain gases absorb long-wavelength radiation and then re-radiate it. The earth’s surface radiates about 390 W/m²/sec. Of that about 324 W/m²/sec gets re-radiated back to the surface by greenhouse gases.

I’m going to pause here for a moment to do a little housecleaning. If you have been following the story so far you will note that the earth’s surface gets 168 W/m²/sec directly from the sun and another 324 W/m²/sec re-radiated to it by greenhouse gases. That totals out to 492 W/m²/sec coming in. But I have said that the earth radiates 390 W/m²/sec going out. There is a difference of 102 W/m²/sec. Why doesn’t the earth instanteously heat up to the point that its thermal radiation matches that of the incoming radiation? The reason is that there are two other forms of heat loss that the earth’s surface has that I haven’t yet mentioned. For completeness, let me do so now.

Wind blows across the earth’s surface. As it does some of the earth’s heat is picked up. In climatology, these winds are called thermals and averaged across the surface of the earth they disappate about 24 W/m²/sec. And then finally some of the earth’s heat is used to evaporate water that will make clouds and lead to rain. This averages out to a disappation of about 78 W/m²/sec. Or in other words, totals out to our (formerly) missing 102 W/m²/sec. OK, housecleaning is done, let’s get back to the greenhouse gas story.

Note that most of the energy hitting the earth’s surface actually comes from greenhouse gases (324 W/m²/sec for greenhouse gases compared to 168 directly from the sun). So the greenhouse gas effect is very strong. It naturally follows then that a change in the concentration of greenhouse gases WILL lead to a change in the amount of energy at the surface of the earth and therefore a change in climate. There is no way around that conclusion.

But we can’t end the story there. So far we have said a lot about greenhouse gases, but we haven’s said much about CO₂. CO₂ is a greenhouse gas, but it is not the only one. In fact, from the standpoint of the amount of energy re-radiated back to the earth it is not even the most important one. That honor should be given to water vapor, H₂O. About 36%[4] of the greenhouse gas effect on the earth’s surface is due to H₂O.

This is not a new discovery. Climatologists have known about this for a long time. So then why do global warming climatologists stress CO₂ so much and talk so little about water vapor? Is this some conspiracy to intentionally hide the evidence? Not at all. Global warming climatologists are interested in climate CHANGE. Human activity does very little to directly change the concentration of water vapor in the atmosphere. But they do a lot that directly changes the CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere. And CO₂ IS the second most important greenhouse gas directly causing about 9% of the greenhouse effect on the earth’s surface.

Climatologists refer to a change in CO₂ concentration as a FORCING, and a change in water vapor concentration as a FEEDBACK. What do they mean by that? What they mean is that under normal conditions it is the temperature of the atmosphere that determines the amount of water vapor in the air, the higher the temperature the more water evaporates and the more water vapor will be in the air. That is a feedback.

But if the temperature goes up there is a neglegible effect on CO₂ concentration. While if we raise the CO₂ concentration (which we are doing; evidence to be presented later) then that will FORCE a rise in the temperature. If one has followed the discussion so far (and I complement you if you have) then one may see a sneaky little fact of global warming here … a rise in CO₂ concentration will directly cause a rise in temperature, which will in turn cause an increase of water vapor in the air, and the increased water vapor will have a further effect on the greenhouse gas effect. Thus, only part of the overall effect of raising CO₂ concentrations is caused by its direct greenhouse effect, it also indirectly contributes to global warming by increasing the water vapor as well.

Let’s pause here for a moment. Up to this point I have said very little that is controversial. Everything I have said is to the best of my knowledge not seriously contested by global warming advocates or by global warming denialists. Everybody agrees that a rise in atmospheric CO₂ concentration will lead to a rise in global temperatures. Long established physics of radiation and simple math shows that. What I have tried to do (and do in detail) is to give you the background information to evaluate claims that will be controversial, if not with the scientists involved in the actual research at least with those who claim that global warming isn’t really what the scientists say it is.

Some global warming denialists claim that global warming isn’t really happening. For that to be true then we should see that CO₂ concentrations are not really rising. So what does the evidence say?

The answer is CO₂ concentrations are rising and rising rapidly. The above graph show that. Since the early 1950’s we have measured the CO₂ concentrations directly in the air. This measurement is done daily at an observatory on top of Mauna Loa in Hawaii. This site is chosen because it is far from any industrial source of CO₂ emissions which could contaminate the measurement. That is shown in the red part of the graph.

Prior to that if we want to know what the CO₂ concentrations were we have to infer them from other measurements. The best way to do it is to find some “fossil” air, air from the time of interest that has not been contaminated by air from other tmes. It turns out we have just what the science needs. We have ice cores from both Antarctica and from Greenland. These ice cores have yearly banding patterns on them that we can use to precisely date the area we use. Inside the ice is air bubbles, and inside those air bubbles is the “fossil” air we need. The data is so robust (from both the direct measurements at Mauna Loa, and from ice core data) that no reasonable person can deny that CO₂ concentrations have dramatically gone up. And if the CO₂ concentration goes up then global temperatures MUST rise. All we have to do to see that is follow the math. More CO₂ in the atmosphere the greater the greenhouse effect. The greater the greenhouse effect the greater the energy at the surface of the earth. The greater the energy at the surface of the earth the greater the temperature … no ifs, ands, or buts.

Some global warming denialists say that the rise in CO₂ concentration is not manmade. What does the evidence say?

There are direct and indirect ways to answer this question and ALL of them point to humans being the cause. Let’s look at an indirect method first.

Human input into global warming comes mainly from burning fossil fuels, oil and coal. They are called FOSSIL fuels because they came from living organisms. Living organisms grow by using biochemical pathways that are controlled by enzymes. Enzymes are molecules that direct chemical reactions. They do this by moving appropriate molecules together. So we have molecules moving molecules. And to do this requires a source of chemical energy. With respect to energy usage, enzymes are not much different than most humans … they don’t want to use any more than is necessary. Thus, they would prefer to move lighter molecule than heavier ones. There are two stable isotopes of carbon ¹²C which has 6 protons and 6 neutrons, and ¹³C which has 6 protons and 7 neutrons. ¹³C is heavier than is ¹²C. Thus, enzymes do a better job of using ¹²C than they do of using ¹³C. Living things then have an enrichment of ¹²C over ¹³C. Therefore if the cause of the increase in CO₂ concentrations in the atmosphere is due to humans using fossil fuels then we should be able to see that ¹²C enrichment in the atmospheric CO₂ of today compared to the CO₂ found in the “fossil” air. And we do.

The direct way to determine if the rise in CO₂ concentration is due to human activity is look at the CO₂ we emit into the air and follow it through the carbon cycle. Can it explain the rise?

We emit over 27 gigatons of CO₂ per year[5]. The molecular weight of CO₂ is 44. 12, or approximately 27% of that is due to carbon. Thus, a release of 27 gigatons of CO₂ corresponds to a release of about 7.3 gigatons of carbon (GtC) into the atmosphere. That is our present carbon footprint and it is an all-time high.

The above diagram shows the carbon cycle. It shows how carbon gets distributed throughout the ecosystem. It uses data from 2006 when our carbon footprint was only 5.5 GtC. In short, the carbon we put into the air is easily enough to account for 100% of the observed rise in atmospheric CO₂ concentration.

So the evidence strongly points to humans as the source for the increased CO₂ concentration. Thus, if one actually believes what the science has to say, then there is little doubt that anthropogenic global warming is real. Humans are pumping CO₂ into the air. It is causing a rise in atmospheric CO₂ concentrations. We know from more than a hundred years of established physics that that rise in CO₂ concentrations has to lead to global warming.

The above graph shows global temperatures over the past 1000 years. This is EXACTLY what we know MUST occur when there is a rise in atmospheric CO₂ concentrations. This just confirms the math. For most reasonable people this enough. But global warming denialists would have you believe otherwise. I will end this post by very briefly looking at some of their arguments based on the above information.

The most common argument is that what we are seeing is a natural cycle. The present increase in temperature is due to an increased solar activity. But that ignores EVERYTHING above. There is no reason that increased activity would lead to a natural increase in atmospheric CO₂ concentration. There is no reason that a natural rise in atmospheric CO₂ concentration should appear to have any of the characteristics we see that strongly suggest it is due to human activity. The only way this theory flies is to ignore the science.

The second most common argument is that the specific models used by climatologists are not accurate. As it turns out they are very accurate, and as we learn quantitatively about factors like methane concentration, aerosol reflectivity, the indirect effects of CO₂ rise (such as increasing H₂O vapor), changes in the earth’s albedo by ice sheet melting, etc. the more accurate they become. But even if they weren’t everything presented in this post relies solely on well tested physics and observations that (to the best of my knowledge) are uncontested.

The final argument is that those damn scientists are doing it for the money. They are in it only for the grant money. Creationists make similar allegations about evolutionary scientists. Why do you think it is that these complaints ONLY come from people who do not like the results science comes up with. If one actually looks at the science one finds that there is controversies and these can become quite personal. The confrontations between the late Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins was legendary. Science is not a monolithic entity. One does not get ahead in science by agreeing with others. One gets grants by proposing research that is designed to find out what we do not know. That means that you have to point out the shortcomings of other people in the field. And scientists do just that. If one scientist has good reason to think that he can show the field has taken a wrong turn, then he has a surefire grant in the waiting. And if he turns out to be corrrect in that assessment then he has his career made.

Science isn’t in the good-old-boy business, it is in the evidence business. If your idea is wrong then it is unlikely that you are going to keep getting evidence supporting it … unless you fake your data. If you fake your data on a problem that plenty of people are working on, then someone who doesn’t care a whit about your pet ideas is going to find something that says you are wrong and then others are going be more than willing to “settle the controversy” and show that you are stupid and they are right. That is part of the self-correcting mechanism of science.

The final argument that I seem to hear is that Al Gore is an asshole, so global warming is a lie. This is a non-sequitur. Even if Al Gore were an asshole … and having listened to him, I don’t think he is … it makes no difference. Al Gore has taken the time to read the literature, which is something that the vast majority of his critics seem not to have done. But he has done none of the science. And global warming is based on science not on Al Gore.

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REFERENCES:

(1) Much of the discussion that follows comes from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Fourth Assessment Report, Frequently Asked Questions 1.1. http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_FAQs.pdf

(2) Aerosols are small particles suspended in the earth’s atmosphere that are capable of reflecting sunlight. They are not constant. Humans emit aerosols in certain forms of pollutions, especially sulfur-containing solutions. These are generally washed out of the atmosphere within a few days by rain. The sulfur-containing aersols so washed out are major contributors to the acidity in acid rain. Volcanos can be a natural source of aerosol production. Particularly violent eruptions can shoot aerosols above the level of the highest clouds. In that case, gravity must bring the aerosols down to a level where rain can eliminate them from the atmosphere. Since they are often only slightly more dense than air and turbulent winds can stir up the stratosphere, this process can take weeks to years to complete. During that time period the earth will reflect more of the sun’s incoming light which will cause a temporary cooling event.

(3) Albedo is surface of the earth feature. The lighter the color of the earth’s surface the more of the earth’s sunlight it reflects back into space. This can potentially exacerbate the problem of global warming. As the earth heats up, more and more of the earth’s surface formerly covered by ice gets exposed. This darkens the earth’s surface causing it to absorb more of the sunlight causing it to heat up further.

(4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect

(5) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions
Up until recently the United States has been the number 1 carbon emitter. China now has that honor. Unfortunately it isn’t because the United States has reduced its emissions, it is because China has significantly increased theirs.

The Scientific Vacuity of Intelligent Design Creationism

The most potent technique ever invented for discovering the nature of the natural world has been the scientific method. It consist of (1) making observations; (2) proposing a theory to account for the observations; (3) making a testable prediction based on that theory; and (4) testing the prediction. The process can be repeated without end and we eventually get a better and better idea of what the universe is like. I would suggest that our scientific understanding of the universe is the greatest accomplishment mankind has made.

One integral part of science is modern evolutionary theory. However, there is a group of people primarily motivated by religious beliefs who find the conclusions of modern evolutionary theory so disconcerting that they would rather we go back to pre-enlightenment times in favor of some form of creationism. I include in this group the most recent form of creationism, intelligent design creationism (IDC).

Of course, IDC proponents would take issue with my categorization of them. They would say that they do not necessarily believe in the literal 6-day Genesis creation event. They would point out that IDC is not necessarily incompatible with a 4.5 billion year old earth, a 13.7 billion year old universe, or even with common descent (the idea that all life shares common ancestry). They would claim that they just follow the evidence and the evidence suggests that some aspects of the natural world are best explained as being the product of an intelligent designer.

However, there have always been young-earth creationists (YEC) and old-earth creationists (OEC). IDC takes no official position on the age of the earth. Why not? It is so they can fit both YEC and OEC within their “Big Tent” (their term). The Discovery Institute certainly has both YEC and OEC on their payroll. Furthermore, as best as I can tell of the IDC proponents only Michael Behe has publically accepted common descent. I don’t think that you can list that as one of the tenets of your theory if only one person believes it. But IDC is notorious for not taking any official positions other than some aspects of the natural world are best explained as being the product of an intelligent designer.

I think that IDC’s claims that is distinct from creationism is somewhat less than genuine. One of its leading lights, William Dembski, showed its biblical roots when he was quoted in an article directed at a religious audience as saying, “Intelligent Design is just the Logos theory of John’s Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory”. And rough drafts of their own “textbook” Of Pandas and People show the creationist roots of these cdesign proponentsists. Therefore, I will continue to refer to it as intelligent design creationism

One of the knocks that real scientists have on IDC is that its proponents publish nothing in the scientific journals in support of their “theory” nor is their “theory” of any use. By that they mean that it makes no useful predictions. IDC proponents fend off the first criticism by claiming that there is a conspiracy to keep these poor mistreated heros of pure uncontaminated science out of the journals. They say that if anyone tries to publish something favorable to IDC then their papers are rejected and their careers in science are ruined. And in our conspiracy-theory happy world, I think this excuse plays well with the public. The facts are that almost no papers supportive of IDC are ever submitted to the scientific journals. The ones that are, are usually rejected because they ignore 150 years of research and therefore bad. Bad papers are rejected without there being a conspiracy.

IDC proponents generally bring up two people as examples who have had their scientific careers ruined for advocating IDC. Guillermo Gonzalez, an astronomer at Iowa State University, was refused tenure. However, many scientists are refused tenure. It is not that uncommon. The fact of the matter is that Gonzalez’s publication record, his inability to attract grant support, and his poor record of supervising students are what led his denial of tenure.

The second person is Richard von Sternberg, a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Health (NIH) who had an office at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. As part of his fellowship he served a term as editor of a small journal, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. At the end of his term he published a paper from Discovery Institute member Stephen Meyer questioning whether or not modern evolutionary theory could explain the Cambrian explosion. Subsequently, Sternberg complained that the NIH was pressured to fire him and he was harrassed and driven out of his position at the Smithsonian. This is rather disingenuous.

The role of an editor at a journal like Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington once a paper is received is to determine if the paper covers an area that is of interest to the journal. If it is, he then determines the appropriate section chief to send it to. The section chief then decides who would be the best people to peer-review the article. Sternberg shorted the process. Instead of sending the paper to a section chief Sternberg, an IDC proponent, picked people to peer-review the article and accepted the paper without revisions. He had it published without any input from the rest of the staff. Furthermore, he did this as the last act of his term as editor.

This getting a paper in by the back door method DID create hard feelings. Even more so since Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington is normally a taxonomic journal that publishes descriptions of new species and Meyer’s paper was wholly inappropriate for that journal. But Sternberg was not removed as editor as some IDC proponents have claimed since his term was over anyway. The only thing that happened to Sternberg was that people at the Smithsonian turned a cold shoulder to him, as well they should. His actions were underhanded. If that made things tough for him, well it was his own doing. He was never fired from his position at the Smithsonian, for the simple reason that he never held a position there. He had an office there, but his position was with the NIH. He was never fired from that position either. Neither of these cases demonstrates any conspiracy to ruin IDC proponents. But regardless, judging from the responses on the internet I think the public is favorably disposed to believe there is.

But that second criticism … IDC makes no useful predictions … is hard to dismiss as being a part of the evil evilutionist conspiracy in science against IDC. It obviously isn’t the responsibility of the evolutionary theorist to come up with useful predictions concerning IDC. It is the responsibility of the IDC proponent to do so, and either he can or he can’t. If he can’t then IDC is a science stopper. If you can’t make a testable prediction then you can’t use the scientific method, and if you can’t do that then you can’t do science.

I have just come across an IDC proponent’s attempt to remedy the problem. Denyse O’Leary has come up with nine predictions that she claims that IDC makes. Here is her list:

1. No good theory will be found for a random origin of the universe, either by the Large Hadron Collider or anything else. The universe will consistently behave more like a great idea than a great machine.

Positive prediction: An end to unfalsifiable ideas about zillions of flopped universes and a focus on how we can best explore our own universe, as per The Privileged Planet .

2. No good theory will be found for a random origin of life, though there will be plenty of huffing and puffing in favour of bad ideas. All theories that exclude purpose and design fail because they leave out the key driver – the purpose that life should come into existence.

Positive prediction: We will learn more about the real nature of our universe and our place in it, and how best we can explore it when we accept the fact that it didn’t “just happen.”

3. Complete series of transitional fossils will not usually be found because most proposed series have never existed. Eventually, researchers will give up on ideologically driven nonsense and address the history that IS there. They will focus on discovering the mechanisms that drive sudden bursts of creativity.

Positive prediction: Discovering the true mechanisms of bursts of natural creativity may be of immense value to us, especially if we need to undo some significant harm to our environment.

4. The environment will prove far more resilient than eco-doomsayers believe. People forget that the Permian extinction wiped out 90% of the marine life forms on this planet. Life seems to want to exist on this planet, even at the South Pole (cf March of the Penguins). Note: I have no time for environment destruction, and personally gave up keeping a car, as the simplest and most economical way to reduce my environment footprint. But I am NOT waiting for enviro-apocalypse!! – I don’t believe it will happen. There will be changes. That’s all. Not the end of the world or anything like it.

5. No account of human evolution will show a long slow emergence from unconsciousness to semi-consciousness to consciousness, let alone that consciousness is merely the random firing of neurons in the brain. However consciousness got started, it appeared rather suddenly and it permanently separates humans from our genetic kin, however you want to do the gene numbers and however much time researchers spend coaxing monkeys to stop relieving themselves on the keyboard and type something meaningful.

Positive prediction: We will focus on what consciousness can do, especially in treatment of mental disorders. Yes, a drugged up zombie is better than a suicide, but only because the zombie isn’t technically dead. Why stop there?

6. Claims that the human brain is full of “anachronistic junk” will be falsified, just as century old claims that there are hundreds of vestigial organs in the human body were falsified. The human body will be recognized as suitable for the purposes for which we exist. (Not in all cases perfect, to be sure, but in general suitable.)

Positive prediction: We will discover the functions of many brain areas whose functions we did not know before.

7. No useful theory of consciousness will demonstrate that consciousness is merely the outcome of the random firing of neurons in the brain. All useful theories will accept that the mind and the brain exist in a relationship. Research will focus on delineating the relationship more clearly. That will greatly benefit medical research, especially research on difficult mental disorders such as phobias, depression, etc.

Positive prediction: We can have a better grasp of what consciousness does and how it relates us to our environment.

8. No useful theory of free will (human volition) will demonstrate that it does not really exist. Free will (which includes using the mind to help heal bodily injuries) will become an important tool of medicine, especially for helping aging people toward a better quality of life. For example, the fact that a drug only need perform 5% better than a placebo to be licensed for use will encourage the development of mind-based treatments for people who would otherwise be forced to take antagonistic drugs.

Positive prediction: Better health care for people with complex illnesses

9. No useful theory of human psychology will be founded on claims about what happened in the caves of our ancestors (= evolutionary psychology). That is because there are no genes that simply “cause” behaviour in a clinically normal human being. The mind is real and humans create their social environment by mental effort. Information is passed on from mind to mind, not through genes or physiology.

Positive prediction: For example, if one culture decrees that “God says you SHOULD beat your wife” and another culture says that “God says you SHOULDN’T beat your wife”, the observed instance of wife-beating will be lower in the second culture than in the first. Human nature may be the same everywhere, but human behaviour is predicted by culture. So culture matters.

Let me number the problems with this list of “predictions”:

(1) The terms are not defined sufficiently well to be useful.

What does a “good theory for a … random origin of the universe” entail? What is even meant by “random” here? If the universe came about by laws of nature then is that random? Ms. O’Leary needs to be more specific. “A theory concerning a naturalistic origin of the universe will never be found to be consistent with the facts”, would be a specific “prediction”. Except the problem is that one is already refuted. There are many naturalistic theories of the origin of the universe that are consistent with known facts, and do so better than any IDC hypothesis.

The exact same problem goes for “good theor[ies]” concerning “the random origin of life” and “useful theor[ies]” concerning consciousness and free will. Nor does Ms. O’Leary tell us what she means by a “COMPLETE series of transitional fossils [emphasis mine]“. What is so incomplete about the numerous ones we already have?

(2) The “predictions” do not come from IDC.

Ms. O’Leary says, “The environment will prove far more resilient than eco-doomsayers believe”. For the sake of argument, let’s assume it is. Suppose we find in the future that anthropogenic global warming has little effect. How does that in any way come from IDC? If Ms. O’Leary wanted to make an IDC specific prediction, then she say, “Once conditions get to a certain point (and yes, she should specify what that point is) then the intelligent designer will personally intervene to prevent a catastrophe”. That is a prediction that could only be made from an IDC paradigm.

(3) The “predictions” are unfalsifiable.

With terms like “good theory”, “useful theory”, “not the end of the world or anything like it” having no specified criteria at what point can one claim that the prediction has been falsified?

(4) The “predictions” are non-sequiturs.

They contain material that are irrelevant or wrong. It is not true that vestigial organs in humans has been falsified. They have been confirmed.

The fact that the Permian extinction caused the death of 90% of the marine organisms is irrelevant to global warming. No serious climatologist has ever claimed that anthropogenic global warming will lead to the death of every species on earth. They claim that it will have a severe effect. Human activity has already led to an extinction rate that approaches the extinction rate of the earth’s major extinction events. If global warming accellorates it then it will have a monumental effect over the long term. But life will come back … over millions of years EVOLUTIONARY THEORY predicts that naturalistic evolution will lead to diversification that will fill the niches left empty by the extinction event.

(5) The “predictions” ignore historical reality.

Ms. O’Leary says that IDC will lead to a better understanding of “our universe and our place in it”; better “treatment of mental disorders” and; “better health care for people with complex illnesses”.

But IDC is not a new theory. The idea of an intelligent designer has been around since the beginning of civilization. The insights we got from that paradigm were that the earth was young (6,000 years old), flat and at the center of the universe. If that paradigm is so useful, then why did we not get a better picture earlier?

Our insights into mental disorders under an IDC paradigm was that they were caused by demons. It was not until post-enlightenment and we had discarded the IDC paradigm that we actually got better health care. If we go back to IDC what will change?

(6) None of these “predictions” are useful; and they are all science-stoppers.

I think this is by far the most crushing problem. None of the nine predictions give us anything that can be used in science. They do not suggest any fruitful lines of research to follow. What they all suggest is that what we are doing now will be useless. We wont find anything. If that is so, then why try? … That is a science stopper.

I want to finish this blog by looking at a couple of useful predictions, and predictions that were made under the paradigm of modern evolutionary theory. I want to use these examples to show the difference between a scientifically testable prediction and the “predictions” made by Ms. O’Leary.

Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes. Chimps, gorillas, and orangutans have 24 pairs. If modern evolutionary theory is true in that we share a geologically recent common ancestor with these apes then something must have happened since our branch split off that reduced our chromosome count by a pair. Since we know that loss of a chromosome is almost always fatal, by far the most likely explanation is that two chromosomes fused together to form a single chromosome. That is the prediction that modern evolutionary science makes.

Since we discovered the difference in chromosome number between humans and chimps we have discovered that Robertsonian translocations do lead to chromosomal fusions. They are relatively common. And in some cases the offspring are phenotypically normal. Furthermore, a technique using Giemsa dye was developed that showed a banding pattern on chromosomes that allow us to uniquely identify specific chromosomes. All human chromosomes have unique homologues with the chromosomes of chimps, gorillas and oranguatans, except human chromosome 2. It appears to be a combination of two of the ape chromosomes. And finally DNA sequencing has shown that chromosome 2 has two centromeric sequences and an interior telomeric sequence (normally found only at the ends of chromosomes). This is exactly what we should see if chromosome 2 was made by the fusion of two chromosomes by a Robertsonian translocation.

Note how the prediction, humans must have undergone a chromosomal fusion event, could only have been made from evolutionary paradigm. If we do not share common ancestors with chimps, then there is no reason to suspect we should have similar chromosomal structures. Note also how that prediction led to a very productive line of experimental evidence.

Finally, if modern evolutionary theory is correct then amphibians evolved from lobe-finned fish. We had a lot of paleontological evidence indicating that was so. We had fossils of a lobe-finned fish whose fins seemed to be preadapted to forming forelegs, Panderichthys, dated back 385 million years ago. We also had bonified tetrapods with fish-like structures, Acanthostega and Ichthyostega dated back to 365 million years ago. But the gap between Panderichthys and Acanthostega/Ichthyostega suggested there was more than likely other transitional forms between them. Acanthostega and Ichthyostega were found in Greenland in strata suggesting that they were formed on river bottoms. Neil Shubin knew of strata in Greenland that dated back to 375 million years ago. He went there specifically looking for river bottom formations in that strata. The result was Tiktaalik, a nearly perfect intermediate between the two. Again the prediction was that an intermediate fossil should be found in strata of a specific age from a specific environment. That was a prediction that could ONLY have been made from an evolutionary paradigm. It led to a fruitful line of research.

What makes a theory a good scientific theory is that it leads to fruitful lines of research. Modern evolutionary theory has been more successful in that than any other theory in the history of mankind. The reason I can make that statement is that more papers are published on evolutionary theory each year than on any other scientific theory. The implications that one can derive from modern evolutionary theory is absolutely astounding. As technology develops for molecular studies, and our knowledge of the geology in different parts of the world improves, more and more of these implications can be put to the test. This is why evolutionary studies produce as much science as they do. The reason IDC produces none is not because of some scientific conspiracy against it. It is because the theory is useless. It says that some unnamed and undescribed intelligent designer created something. It doesn’t ask how, it doesn’t ask why then … there is no place to go. It even says that the mechanism behind it is probably one that requires suspension of natural law in order for it to be achieved. If that is true, then we have no hope of ever finding it out. Ouila … science stopper.