Quick Note For Climate Modelers : Computers Are No Smarter Than The Moron Who Programs Them

If you load junk code into supercomputers, they can generate meaningless results even faster than other other computers.

About Tony Heller

Just having fun
This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

28 Responses to Quick Note For Climate Modelers : Computers Are No Smarter Than The Moron Who Programs Them

  1. Andy DC says:

    Garbage in, garbage out!

  2. QV says:

    Years ago, I remember reading a cynical definition of a computer, something about being a device for getting the wrong answers very quickly. I can’t find the precise definition but did find these:

    http://www.cynical.ws/definition/computer

  3. The primary problems with computers are the people who program them, the people who run them, and the people who believe in the program output. Other than that, they are a great way to make a living. Especially considering the countless ways the people can mess things up, you have endless hours of consulting time “correcting” the problems. $$$$$$$$

  4. Gamecock says:

    Having written massive amounts of code, I take exception to the shots at programmers. I programmed what the college boy engineers told me to code. When I said, “But . . . it’s not going to tell you what you say you want,” they’d say do it like that say. Second time around, I’d program what they really needed.

    When it comes to “climate” modeling, first of all, they don’t know the meaning of “climate.” Secondly, vast parameters are unknown, and effects of many known parameters are not adequately quantified. And input data is grossly bad.

    SO . . . program nonsense, input stupid data, and you get beyond nonsense answers.

    Nonsense answers backed by the United States of America and the United Nations. And climate scientists everywhere.

    • squid2112 says:

      Gamecock, my experience is the same. I am a software engineer of almost 30 years, and in most cases I can tell you that the programmer is probably not the problem (although I do meet some rather brain-dead programmers occasionally. More so nowadays than in the past). We programmers simply attempt to build what the customer wants. Most customers (internal or external) think they want X when the solution really is Y, but few like to listen to the programmer when s/he says “that ain’t gonna work like that”. Virtually all customers want to take as many short cuts as possible and typically either refuse, or are unwilling to support the necessary measures to ensure the proper development of a good product. Close to 80% of all software projects fail, and in most cases the reason for failure has nothing to do with the programmers.

      • squid2112 says:

        But I would also point out, this industry does provide pretty good job security. Businesses are always screwing things up and need new fixes or solutions. Not a bad gig if you can handle the hard work and stress. One can make quite a bit of money in this field, if they are good at it.

    • Climate modelers do their own Fortran programming

      • squid2112 says:

        And this you are correct. I have had several arguments with Gavin Schmidt in the past on this subject, as I tore him a new ass about their poor programming with Model-E. What a joke that project is/was. It became painfully clear to me that he knows absolutely nothing about software development, but insisted that he was a computer programming genius. What a dipshit he is….

      • Bob Greene says:

        They still use FORTRAN?

        • Most scientists still use Fortran.

        • terrence says:

          Fortran creates the most efficient object code (the stuff the machine runs/executes), which runs massively faster than most other object code. Scientists typically have massive amounts of data – real scientists, not warming alarmists.

        • Y says:

          @terrence, I didn’t know that FORTRAN is so efficient to create object codes, but for pure data analysis and numeric calculation I don’t even think about any other language. FORTRAN was created for numeric computation, more than anything else. I agree with Steve, the majority of the good scientists that I know use FORTRAN all the time.

        • terrence says:

          @Y – I used to program for a number of scientists (write new code and modify existing code). FORTRAN was the only language we used. They had such MASSIVE amounts of data (100’s of millions of pieces of data in one data set, and 100s of data sets).
          One subroutine was used SO much, it was written in machine code (only ones and zeros). We could improve on what FORTRAN came up with in this case – but you do NOT do this very much it takes a long time (as I recall it was a 32 two bit machine – each statement had 32 ones and zeros and it really mattered that each bit was EXACTLY what it should be).

          BTW – about four years ago, I met a guy who who wrote programs for electric wheel chairs and other similar equipment – it ONLY used machine code (8 bit) because there was not much room in the motor.

        • Y says:

          I’m impressed, never seen a subroutine written in machine code! 🙂

      • Gamecock says:

        That leaves them without the guidance of experienced computer jocks. I.e., I’d challenge the engineers result if I didn’t think he was getting what he thought he was. As a TEAM, we’d verify the result, or work out how to get it right. A second set of experienced eyes improves the results.

        A climate scientist is likely to look at his own work and not realize when his do loop ain’t right.

        I used Fortran IV, F4P, and VaxFortran in the 70s and 80s. On PDP-11s and Vaxes.

    • Bob Greene says:

      If the computer says it, it must be so. If it isn’t so, it must be the programmer who screwed up. 🙂 You think I’m going to take responsibility for a bad idea?

    • I have been a programmer for over 45 years. In my opinion, if a programmer programs a climate model without knowing what he is doing is a big part of the problem. Oh, he may know how to write code and get it to run without crashing but simulate climate? No way. Then if you say it is only a “test” or “prototype” program and let it loose in the wild, *poof* it magically becomes the real thing and people start pretending the output is real world data that can predict what is going to happen. Hence, the programmer is as much at fault as the users if not more so. He should know better.

      I know. A programmer has to make a living too. So did the guards who oversaw the gassing of the millions during the Holocaust. That still does not justify doing something you know is a damn lie! Especially if lives depend upon it telling the truth.

  5. Eric Simpson says:

    “The data doesn’t matter. We’re not basing our recommendations [for reducing CO2] upon the data. We’re basing them upon the climate models.” -Chris Folland, UK Meteorological Office
    “Rather than seeing models as describing literal truth, we ought to see them as convenient fictions which try to provide something useful [propaganda].” -David Frame, Oxford U

    And what is the objective of the models? Fear mongering.
    “The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.” -Daniel Botkin, ex Chair of Environmental Studies, UCSB
    “Unless we announce disasters no one will listen.” -Sir John Houghton, first chairman of IPCC
    “It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.” -Paul Watson, Co-Founder of Greenpeace

  6. tom0mason says:

    Ah, but if you have an infinite number of monkeys ‘climate scientists’ all playing , err, programming an infinite number of computer climate models to the same broken rules, you’ll get an infinite amount of GIGO.

  7. For the past sixty-eight years (2013 – 1945), research grants have been selectively given to those who find evidence to support government-backed models of reality.

    That is how the Sun’s pulsar core and iron-rich mantle were hidden from the public.
    1. NASA promoted the false impression that our Sun is a giant ball of hydrogen.
    2. DOE promoted the false illusion of attractive interactions between neutrons

    Why? Fear of nuclear annihilation convinced world leaders and scientists to:
    a.) Hide the source of energy that destroyed Hiroshima on 6 Aug 1945
    b.) Eliminate constitutions and form the United Nations on 24 Oct 1945
    c.) Fabricate standard models based on blatantly false scientific evidence:
    _ 1. Stars burn, rather than generate hydrogen, and
    _ 2. Neutrons attract, rather than repel, other neutrons

    Social insanity followed because physical and spiritual properties of Nature were irrationally and artificially separated after 1945 !

    O. K. Manuel, B. W. Ninham and S. E. Friberg, “Superfluidity in the solar interior: Implications for solar eruptions and climate”, Journal of Fusion Energy 21, 193-198, 2002
    http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/jofe/2002/00000021/F0020003/00474705

    • Y says:

      According to mainstream science the formation of Bose-Einstein condensation at the very high temperatures of the Sun is impossible.

    • “Social insanity followed because physical and spiritual properties of Nature were irrationally and artificially separated after 1945 !”

      Mankind has been subject to “social insanity” for about as long as there was mankind. It is nothing new. Plato separated the physical and spiritual properties of Nature as illustrated by his “as shadows on the cave wall.” Kant further separated them by asserting that reason cannot know reality as it is (meaning by use of the senses and logic applied to experience and experiment).

      What you speak of is simply a point in the continuing trend of turning the mind of man into totally useless and unused mush. Reality is now supposed to be the contextless assertions of countless “certified” experts who were certified by other “certified” experts in an endless recursive cycle. If you are not “certified” by that maelstrom of certifications, your assertions are not admissible to their discussions and therefor need not be considered by the “certified” experts.

      Question: if one cannot know reality, what is the bases of their assertions? They all agree? They don’t but that is quite a different issue. Because we are not properly “certified” we cannot know that.

      Question: if one cannot know reality, how can you know that they all agree? Because the “experts” all agree? Hummm. A logical snake eating its own tail for lunch. When the snake finishes his lunch, *poof*: no snake. Once again, social insanity raises its zombi hydra head. shamans, witches, warlocks, priests, politicians, and wannabe dictators abound.

      Truly the old joke that an “X” is an unknown quantity and a “spurt” is a drip under pressure takes on new meaning. The drip is empty of content and the spurt is a figment of the experts imagination. As you listen to the experts, you know less and less until you know nothing about anything. Such is the way of Plato and Kant. Your step is but one small quantum along that path. A path that was set in motion with the formation of the first hunting and gathering tribe.

      • F. Guimaraes says:

        Nice comment, but I think science should do exactly the connection you’re talking about, between the physical and spiritual components of reality.
        We are both.
        Objective knowledge, which I believe is the aim of science, is the mapping, as realistic as possible, of physical reality that mind is capable of and the existence of Mathematics is the proof, I believe, that this great goal is achievable.
        There should be no contradiction, in principle, but humans have moral problems of selfish nature and I think *there* is where the great corruption lies.
        I really think that Nature is perfect and we are *part* of this Great Perfect Creation.

        • If it is not moral to take care of yourself and fulfilling your own freely chosen purpose, how is it moral to be taken care of and thereby consume the lives of others?

          All I can see is that simply because you exert the physical and mental effort to sustain your own live you there by lose the right to YOUR life. On the other hand, simply because you DON’T expend the necessary physical and mental effort, you have a right to the lives of others. Tell me now, how is that moral?

  8. Over at Climate audit a clever fellow once reverse engineered A GISS climate model as an Excel spreadsheet. It produced near identical results if given the same forcing inputs.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *