News flash: Newton's laws were 'overthrown'

Bizarre talking points of WaPo columnist Krauthammer

Posted by Joseph Romm (Guest Contributor) at 2:08 PM on 31 May 2008

Read more about: climate | climate science | climate change skepticism | insanity

Newton Sir Isaac Newton is one of the towering geniuses in all human history. Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer? Not so much.

Krauthammer has written a classic anti-science screed, "Carbon Chastity: The First Commandment of the Church of the Environment," that recasts many favorite anti-scientific denier memes in odd terms. You still hear and see all of these today, so let me touch on a few of them. And as I will discuss in Part 2, the article is most useful because it is a very clear statement of the real reason conservatives don't believe in climate science: They hate the solution.

As a physicist, my favorite denier talking point is his strange version of the old claim that "scientists are flip floppers, constantly changing their theories." He writes:

If Newton's laws of motion could, after 200 years of unfailing experimental and experiential confirmation, be overthrown, it requires religious fervor to believe that global warming -- infinitely more untested, complex and speculative -- is a closed issue.

Now that is a strange claim. Newton's Laws of Motion are still taught in every high school, in every introductory physics class in college, and even in graduate physics classes. Indeed, they are widely used everywhere to explain and estimate wide varieties of motion. Heck, even NASA still uses them: "The motion of an aircraft through the air can be explained and described by physical principals discovered over 300 years ago by Sir Isaac Newton."

But Krauthammer says they were overthrown and that 200 years of experiments and observations were wrong. What gives? Why aren't all our planes falling out of the sky?

Newton's laws are "excellent approximations at the scales and speeds of everyday life" that, along with his law of gravitation and calculus techniques, "provided for the first time a unified quantitative explanation for a wide range of physical phenomena."

They fail in very special cases -- speeds close to the speed of light (where you need Einstein's special theory of relativity), near large gravitational fields (where you need Einstein's general theory of relativity) or at a very, very small scales (where you need quantum mechanics). Interestingly, many of the laws of those three theories are written in the same form as Newton's and they revert to Newton's equations for everyday life (see an example at the end of this post).

So Krauthammer's statement is absurdly misleading, since he is implying that "200 years of unfailing experimental and experiential confirmation" were "overthrown" -- when they weren't. So his implication that all the unfailing experimental and experiential confirmation of climate science will be overthrown is equally absurd. Indeed, anybody seeking to replace climate science will have to come up with a more comprehensive theory that still explains everything we know from existing climate science and observations.

This may seem like a small point, but in fact it is a large point, one that former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, John Holdren, has repeatedly made. Let me discuss this in the context of another anti-scientific talking point of Krauthammer's:

So what does the global warming agnostic propose as an alternative? First, more research -- untainted and reliable - to determine (a) whether the carbon footprint of man is or is not lost among the massive natural forces (from sunspot activity to ocean currents) that affect climate and (b) if the human effect is indeed significant, whether the planetary climate system has the homeostatic mechanisms (like the feedback loops in the human body, for example) with which to compensate.

Let's ignore the sweeping implication that somehow all previous climate science research was tainted and unreliable. Notice the bias in his point (b). Why does he propose to only do research to see if there are negative feedback loops? Shouldn't we be doing research to study all feedbacks in the carbon cycle, including those that are positive or amplifying? Indeed, such research has already been done, and the best science says that the positive feedbacks outweigh the negative ones, probably by a large amount -- see, for instance

my series on the permafrost
Nature on stunning new climate feedback: Beetle tree kill releases more carbon than fires
Decelerating growth in tropical forest trees -- thanks to accelerating carbon dioxide
Big news: The ocean carbon sink is saturating
my discussion of the data suggesting we are missing amplifying feedbacks
The desertification-global warming feedback

Sorry, Charlie: On feedbacks, climate scientists have been there and done that. You can demand more research to uncover a mystery deus ex machina negative feedback -- but it would have to be big enough to overwhelm all of the large amplifying feedbacks.

But point (a) is perhaps more relevant here. As Holdren likes to say, the issue is not whether some new study might find that solar activity is a dominant contributor to recent warming -- although that notion has been about as utterly debunked as anything is science. This hypothetical study that identified some new dominant cause of warming would, at the same time, have to identify mechanisms that were blocking the well understood warming caused by human-caused greenhouse-gas emissions. That science and those results and observations don't suddenly disappear just because somebody writes one new paper or puts forward a new theory. Debunking climate science is thus a double challenge, not a single one.

Krauthammer is no Einstein

If Einstein's special theory of relativity did not revert to Newton's laws for everyday situations, and thus validate 200 years of observations and experiments, nobody would have paid even one minute of attention to it.

Newton's Second Law of Motion is the "Rate of change of momentum is proportional to the resultant force producing it and takes place in the direction of that force." Momentum is mass (m) times velocity (v). The rate of change is momentum in Newton's classical mechanics is mass times the change in velocity per unit time (dv/dt), which is also known as acceleration (a). It is written in a vector notation, since the net Force (F) is applied in a certain direction, and velocity is in a certain direction. And so the well-known equation -- F = ma -- is written as a vector differential equation:

What Newton didn't know of course was that an object's mass also changes with speed, at least at very high speeds. So in Einstein's special theory of relativity, this formula becomes this:

where the speed of light c₀ is a mere 186,000 miles per second, and yes, it is, famously, squared. So let's say Charles Krauthammer is in a car traveling 60 miles per hour (88 feet per second). The correction to Newton's equation is of the order of the velocity squared divided by the speed of light squared or one part in 100 trillion.

But let's say Charles Krauthammer is moving really, really fast -- fast enough to achieve escape velocity and be launched into space (a guy can dream, can't he?) or about 7 miles a second. The correction to Newton's equation is of the order of a little more than one part in a billion. And that is about the same fraction of knowledge of climate science that Krauthammer seems to possess.

Hate climate science but love evolution

Now, the very strange thing is that while Krauthammer refuses to accept climate science, he loves evolution. Three years ago, in a piece titled, "Phony Theory, False Conflict," he wrote,

I feel obliged to point out what would otherwise be superfluous: that the two greatest scientists in the history of our species were Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, and they were both religious.

I kid you not. Newton, whose laws were overthrown, is one of the two greatest scientists of all time. But I digress -- the really amazing part of the article is when he writes:

Let's be clear. Intelligent design may be interesting as theology, but as science it is a fraud. It is a self-enclosed, tautological "theory" whose only holding is that when there are gaps in some area of scientific knowledge -- in this case, evolution -- they are to be filled by God. It is a "theory" that admits that evolution and natural selection explain such things as the development of drug resistance in bacteria and other such evolutionary changes within species but also says that every once in a while God steps into this world of constant and accumulating change and says, "I think I'll make me a lemur today." A "theory" that violates the most basic requirement of anything pretending to be science -- that it be empirically disprovable. How does one empirically disprove the proposition that God was behind the lemur, or evolution -- or behind the motion of the tides or the "strong force" that holds the atom together?

In order to justify the farce that intelligent design is science, Kansas had to corrupt the very definition of science, dropping the phrase "natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us," thus unmistakably implying -- by fiat of definition, no less -- that the supernatural is an integral part of science. This is an insult both to religion and science.

You could almost say the same exact thing about global warming denial. But why doesn't he?

Why break faith with so many conservatives and worship at the altar of evolution science, but stick with them on climate denial? That's easy. Believing in evolution doesn't require endorsing government action. Believing in climate science does. That is the subject of Part 2.

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

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18 Comments | Post a Comment

Mmm, there is a global warming church

Not to credit Krauthammer or to criticize Romm (who's a physicist), but you can't deny that there is a bit of a global warming "church", in the sense that this topic has been pushed to the number one spot of global discourses on development, economics and ecology.

It can be argued that fitghing climate change should not be the priority of humanity, because there are many far more urgent matters that give us far more value for our buck.

Some (like Lomborg) go so far as to say that out of a long list of priorities, the climate fight ranks at the very bottom. Bringing energy to people (in the form of food and fuels), nutrition, and fighting diseases like aids and malaria are far, far more urgent. And far, far more efficient as a way to better the biggest number of lives.

So there should at least be room for a debate about priorities.

Then perhaps we don't have to deal with people like Krauthammer, and you will even find today's climate skeptics ready to concede that it is a problem that needs our attention, but that needs to be seen in perspective.

I just feel that by pushing each conversation into the direction of this relatively low priority, is pretty damaging.

This is not to say climate change isn't important; it's only saying that spending money on mitigating it is probably very inefficient compared with other causes we can use this money for.

by Jonas at 4:08 PM on 31 May 2008

Hysterical BS

Come on Jonas, what planet do you live on? Show me even one city where addressing climate change is the No. 1 priority. You can't, because doing this would mean eliminating all unnatural greenhouse gas pollution: no motor vehicles if they run on anything beside solar or wind power, no electricity unless same, etc. SOME politicians and industry leaders (well, not many of the latter, but a few) SAY that they prioritize fighting climate change, but no one is even coming close to doing it.

by Wolverine at 4:31 PM on 31 May 2008

"they were both religious"

After a fashion, Newton was religious, but the fashion was heretical. He seems to have been a Socinian anti-Trinitarian (i.e. he threw out orthodox belief in God in three persons, satisfying himself with a Unitarian theology); and he may have been an Arian (Jesus Christ is not God, but is rather the highest of God's creatures). He kept his religious views a carefully guarded secret, for fear of suffering religious persecution.

Einstein seems to have believed in God -- again, after a fashion -- , but I do not know that he deserves to be called "religious." A celebrated letter which was just auctioned for a large amount makes fun of some traditional ideas about Judaism:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/984283.html.

Why Krauthammer thought it was appropriate to assert this, about the alleged religiosity of the two scientists, is not at all clear.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 5:16 PM on 31 May 2008

Simplicity

I don't think I possess the degree required for this thread of comments, nor to add to a brilliantly analyzed essay like this one by Mr. Romm, but DAMN, people...

Is it really all THAT complicated?

I guess it is, but I truly still do not get it. No reasonable argument can be made against preserving our life force. In this case, I would propose that the Earth is our (human) life force. Hopefully, we do not need to examine that further for the topics covered here.

When a species kills off the life force that keeps it alive, it also perishes.

Plus, Jesus wouldn't ever want it that way. DUH.

by msDarby at 7:18 PM on 31 May 2008

flat earthers

It's long struck me how AGW denial violates Occam's Razor. Here you have facts (carbon emissions and rising concentration), a well-delineated theory which predicts various effects from these facts, and now many years of a track record of those effects occurring on or ahead of schedule.

So it's evident that this theory is working very well so far, while to supersede it you need to claim:

In spite of its coherence and eminent plausibility, the theory is just plain wrong. (Also WHY it's wrong. For some reason they're never able to find the flaw.)
That the predicted effects occurring as predicted is just a really amazing coincidence.
That the effects are really being caused by some other factor (which the science is also unaccountably screwing up, since the science says solar irradiance, volcanic aerosols, etc do not cover the observed change).

This is certainly an egregious example of "needlessly multiplying entities".

I also despise this selective acceptance of science based on one's agenda. If we compare three theories - anthro climate change, evolution, and gravitation - which are as close as science comes to "truths", we see how the same persons will reject AGW if it menaces their greed ideology, evolution if it sullies their religion, while none of them reject gravity simply because it doesn't gore any sacred cow. (If it did, we'd certainly have the theory of Intelligent Falling.) Yet these same cretins, if they get sick, will go to the hospital to genuflect before that exact same science which is the result of that exact scientific method they so cavalierly, indeed gleefully, reject where its results are inconvenient. (At least the "christian science" types who reject transfusions etc. are consistent. But I'd ask the rest: if you don't trust science to tell you where hominids came from or what's going to happen at 1000ppm, why would you trust it with your health?)

by Russ at 1:01 AM on 01 Jun 2008

Wolverine, maybe Europe

Wolverine, I should have said that I'm from Europe. Climate change has been the single most important international political issue here, for, what, a decade now?

by Jonas at 7:26 AM on 01 Jun 2008

"Just a theory"

The old "It's just a theory" talking point?

The usual response to that was this. "Yeah, and so is the 'theory' of gravity just a theory, go ahead, please jump off a cliff. But don't take the whole planet with you."

So this limboob takes on the theory of gravity? Hehehey. Amazing.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 8:25 AM on 01 Jun 2008

Yes, it's science that changes all the time...

...of course, we all know that religion never changes and has been proven correct in every way throughout history. ^wink^

by Tasermons Partner at 8:45 AM on 01 Jun 2008

change in religion

Most religionists will not have a problem acknowledging that there is growth and evolution within their respective traditions. Sometimes they will even go so far as to say, "We were wrong to believe such-and-such in the past, but now we know better." One of the greatest events in intellectual history, the Protestant Reformation, was a colossal admission of failure and error on the part of very many Western Europeans, who were originally Roman Catholic.

Much earlier than that, what I like to call the Euripidean Revolution, in 5th-century-BCE Athens, signaled a profound dissatisfaction with the theology associated with the old Greek mythological traditions. It resulted in not only great poetry but also remarkable religious and philosophical creativity.

To be sure, many religionists, who value the concepts of tradition and continuity, insist that they are preserving something essentially unchanging. But it can happen that even the definition of what is "essentially unchanging" can change.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 9:40 AM on 01 Jun 2008

European Cities Only Slightly Better

Jonas,

Where in Europe is auto travel prohibited? In what city is electrical use confined to that with non-greenhouse gas emitting sources? And the U.K., which has been bragging to the world about taking the lead on this issue, is planning a major expansion of Heathrow Airport, which will contribute to a significant rise in greenhouse gas emissions.

And as to your original comment about the order of priorities, the human race is flourishing and expanding, regardless of the plight of some individuals, while the natural world is being utterly destroyed by human activities. Therefore, our priorities should be fixing the natural world, to the extent we can, not obsessing on human problems.

by Wolverine at 11:19 AM on 01 Jun 2008

Definition

Newton's "Laws" are really a definition. It's a projection of an ordered world on a disorderly universe. This is true of Einstein and all others who want to make us see skyscrapers where there is only mud.

A simple example is throwing a baseball. Try and use Newton's Laws to predict where Hernandez pitch will land. I'll come back in a few centuries when you have the answer.

Or take Godel, whose incompleteness theorems showed the impossibility of a perfect knowledge system.

Clearly, Einstein was an apologist for Newtonian thiking. He wanted to add "just enough" on to the equations to keep us thinking all was right with the world.

Catastrophe and unknowingness is scary...but not admitting to them is more dangerous...

by jabailo at 11:50 AM on 01 Jun 2008

For example...

Catastrophe and unknowingness is scary...but not admitting to them is more dangerous...

Catastrophe such as global warming, for example...^wink^

by Tasermons Partner at 2:33 PM on 01 Jun 2008

It's evolution

Maybe Krauthammer has invented his own theory completely disproving Newton's Laws of Motion and is preparing his ground before unleashing them on the unsuspecting public.

What people (like Krauthammer) always seem to miss about science is that it doesn't stay static, it evolves. This much more often that actually being disproved. So when scientists talk about uncertainties, they don't mean that next week someone else will come along about invent a new theory; they mean that soon someone else will come along and expand on the theory. Relativity and particle physics came along to expand on Newton. Other theories like superstrings try and reconcile it all.

The problem is that non-scientists have a tendency to view scientific theories as absolutes. It must state exactly this, and if a new theory states something dissimilar, then the old one must be wrong. Scientists occasionally bark up the wrong branch for a while, but it's extremely unlikely that they're barking up the wrong tree.

Science adapts to new findings. As we increasingly seem to be seeing around us, it's the humans that are having trouble doing that.

If I share initials with 'Global Warming', is that a sign?

by tico89 at 2:55 PM on 01 Jun 2008

Wolverine, on action and discourse

Wolverine, again, I am merely referring to the discourse on climate change. It is the top issue in social and political debates over here.

As you rightly point out, action is something totally different. So my reference to Europe wasn't intended at all as a way to show off, because we don't have much to show off.

The point merely illustrates what I was trying to say: the climate debate has been reigning politics and social discussions for over 10 years now. This has allowed climate skeptics and vested interests to launch a 'war' against those who call for action on global warming, and who say the world will cease to exist if we don't act now.

In short, sometimes I feel that if we were to put climate change in a larger perspective on international policies and priorities, this would demine some of the minefields laid out by the climate skeptics. If you relativize the urgency of action on climate change, then you might get more people on board.

I'm a bit 'Lomborgian' on this. We have to put more emphasis on solving problems that can be tackled with limited means, resulting in huge benefits to humanity. Allowing climate change to dominate the international agenda could be counter-productive and it could even get many ordinary citizens turning away from the issue altogether.

by Jonas at 3:26 PM on 01 Jun 2008

AGW a Fig Newton

Catastrophe such as global warming, for example...

No, such as naturogenic global warming.

Anthropogenic global warming is really just an attempt so say "yeah, I know the globe is warming, but I can quit making it warming any time. Yeah, all I have to do is stop driving...and the planet will cool...sure, any time". So ultimately, AGW is not catastrophic, because it claims that we can control the warming. In that sense, Romm would like it to be like Newton's Laws. He claims we know the inputs and can control the outputs.

A more catastrophic situation is NGW. Not only do we not control the inputs, but we don't know the mechanism producing the outputs and hence cannot regulate them.

by jabailo at 9:24 PM on 01 Jun 2008
[ Parent ]

"tendency"?

Tico89 writes:

<<
The problem is that non-scientists have a tendency to view scientific theories as absolutes. It must state exactly this, and if a new theory states something dissimilar, then the old one must be wrong.
>>

Is there indeed a "tendency" among us non-scientists? I for one certainly do not view scientific theories as "absolutes."

And it is not even certain that Charles Krauthammer really is like that. He is a polemicist, and a professional writer; he has to keep producing text, and the text has to amount to an argument on one aggressive side of a debate, so he may feel unscrupulously entitled to use whatever comes to hand as a convenient weapon.

What seems to be a much more pervasive and anti-civilizational tendency, though, shared apparently by many scientists too, is the subordination of science to technology, the sense that science's principal function is to develop ever newer and better technological advances.

The famous string-theory physicist here at Columbia, Brian Greene, wrote a much-e-mailed op-ed essay for yesterday's NY Times, on how science education lets down very many students, including science students, by failing to teach that science is more than just the development of technology; it is a unique, profound and endlessly fascinating way of understanding the world and its contents, as much a treasure that should be made available to all as are music, the arts and literature:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/opinion/01greene.html?e ...

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 1:54 AM on 02 Jun 2008

Eureka!

A moment of clarity. Why not just stuff the whole planet into a black hole? Where all the laws of physics are really different.

The information component of human reality would persist forever, the mean reality of gravity, climate change, national bankruptcy, and so forth would be squashed out of existence.

Armageddon and the final reunuion with the almighty! Solving all our eathly problems.

Now how to generate a black hole? Which diety should we pray too?

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 7:37 AM on 02 Jun 2008

as through a glass, darkly.

I think I understand my friend jabailo a bit better now. At first I believed that he was taking the role of Resident Skeptic to new levels of zeal, but this latest thread has revealed a new and interesting datum:

"Newton's "Laws" are really a definition. It's a projection of an ordered world on a disorderly universe."

Far beyond skepticism, this reflects a whole new school of thought. jabailo seems to be saying that since perfect knowledge is impossible, all knowledge is suspect.

This is a fun philosophy because it allows people to think whatever they want with everyone being equally correct. However, very few people subscribe to it because it can make it difficult to find the coffee pot in the morning.

I think that it is fair to say that while it has been reasonably well established that 100% certainty might not be possible for an empiricist, that doesn't make the world perfectly unpredictable.

I am far more inclined to agree that the reason some scientific theories are accepted and others aren't has more to do with politics than with science. If you will recall, even the Copernican view of the solar system (that the sun and not the earth was the center of the solar system) was heresy while the Church had a political stake in astronomy. I would be willing to bet that if the world stopped burning fossil fuels tomorrow of its own accord, very few people would argue against global warming, because no one's politics would matter anymore.

by BlackBear at 8:54 AM on 02 Jun 2008

ADVERTISING POLICY

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