The scientific status of the peak oil theory

[bubmachine]

So why come here with all the other dismissive and irrelevant material and simply try to promote a cock fight? What's your point??:roll:

Are you kidding? If this is a critical-free zone, then we are all waisting our time.

[TonyPrep]

My position is quite simple. No-one can predict the oil peak, but world peak must happen sometime. So we must do something about it. I agree that some sort of action is needed.

Well, I'm not sure you do agree that. Your dismissal and mischaracterisation of Heinberg's position (on many issues), your seeming approval of unsustainable power generation methods (coal and nuclear) and many other statements you've made seem to suggest that you have a position closer to deniers.

If you agree that peak requires action now, then why quibble about all of the irrelevancies that you have quibbled about? No-one can tell when peak will be, exactly, and no-one can tell just how the effects of that peak will play out. Everyone's considered opinion is potentially valid. I find Heinberg's position well considered and well argued, but he may be well wide of the mark, as reality unfolds.

As lper100km has asked, what is your point?

[dinopello]

I think the following types of things would be useful:

1) Diversify. And that includes coal and nuclear. Coal is dirty and nuclear is dangerous, but I am sure we can work it out.

Why are you "sure" we can work it out? How long does your theory say it will take to work it out? What's the proof it will take that long?

[ReserveGrowthRulz]

Goodbye

Don't run away so fast! While most people here are seriously whacked, that doesn't mean you shouldn't defend your position until at least you get properly banned for not being gullible enough to swallow the standard dogma....in the meantime, what with dropping oil prices, cheaper natural gas and no economic consequences like dieoff a year post peak, you can have some fun pointing out the obvious contradictions in the entire mess which most around here so desparately want to ignore.

[pstarr]

Goodbye.

Don't run away so fast! While most people here are seriously whacked, that doesn't mean you shouldn't defend your position until at least you get properly banned for not being gullible enough to swallow the standard dogma....in the meantime, what with dropping oil prices, cheaper natural gas and no economic consequences like dieoff a year post peak, you can have some fun pointing out the obvious contradictions in the entire mess which most around here so desparately want to ignore.

RGD looks like you lost a potential harem member. It must be tough being you, alphadogdenier without a pack to sniff.

[Aaron]

at least you get properly banned for not being gullible enough to swallow the standard dogma....

Now that's funny.

Some don't like the roller coaster... some do.

This is the full-contact Internet... get a helmet.

[ReserveGrowthRulz]

at least you get properly banned for not being gullible enough to swallow the standard dogma....

Now that's funny.

Thank you for not disputing the accuracy of the statement.

This is the full-contact Internet... get a helmet.

But this isn't a full contact bulletin board..... says so right there in the COC.

But the real riot is the terms of posting over at LATOC. You aren't even allowed to ARGUE Peak oil...its a given. Only allowed to talk about consequences.

They can't figure out why, 18 months post Peak, the world still thinks of Peak oil as some quirk of tree-huggery.

[TonyPrep]

They can't figure out why, 18 months post Peak, the world still thinks of Peak oil as some quirk of tree-huggery.

Can you (assuming you're correct in your belief that peak was July 2005)?

[Kingcoal]

What a funny string of posts from bubmachine. He was doing good, I was enjoying the joisting and then he runs away crying!

[Aaron]

at least you get properly banned for not being gullible enough to swallow the standard dogma....

Now that's funny.

Thank you for not disputing the accuracy of the statement.

No Problemo... if anything I'm a pretty patient fellow.

It's patience which allow people like me, to tolerate a person such as yourself.

Honorable men may disagree.

I wouldn't validate ad hom nonsense like your sig by responding to it... likewise your ranting about biased board policy.

In fact, rants about board policy are in violation of our COC.

But that's for our Moderators to decide.

[ReserveGrowthRulz]

I wouldn't validate ad hom nonsense like your sig by responding to it...

I actually thought my sig line was quite good. And accurate enough to make it difficult to respond to.

[Aaron]

I wouldn't validate ad hom nonsense like your sig by responding to it...

I actually thought my sig line was quite good. And accurate enough to make it difficult to respond to.

Fair enough... one man's trash & all...

[EnergyUnlimited]

PO is not a Peak issue. PO isn't an Oil issue. PO isn't an energy issue. PO is a "How outrageous of a economic/societal consequence can I fabricate with the minimum amount of reality intruding" issue.

Correct.
The issue is about how much actual damage is going to be done.
There are 3 possibilities.
1. Much (doomers).
2. Not much (cornucopians).
3. None (idiots).

[ashurbanipal]

I think the idea of a peak is almost tautological

Tautological as in true on every line of a truth table? I think not...

a geological product is limited, by definition. I know that some people doubt that oil is a fossil fuel at all, but this does not make much difference. From a logical point of view, there cannot be a limitless supply of it.

Logic says absolutely nothing about this.

It seems to me that the idea that the oil will peak is obvious. But it seems that it is beyond the limits of science to predict when it will happen. No-one seems to know how much oil is in the ground. By using the data of discovery, seems very weak as an accurate method of prediction. It is too easy to explain falsified predictions on other factors. (The oil crisis caused the 2000 prediction to be delayed, the OPEC countries are exaggerating the amount of reserves .... all these are "ad-hoc" hypotheses to "save" the theory).

My main problem is that false predictions, by the peak oil theorists, are always explained away by these methods, and I am afraid, this is a sign of a pseudoscience.

Popper probably wouldn't have thought so. But so what? Falsificationism runs into Quine-Duhem too easily. We use natural language because we have to (more or less); but we understand a scientist who puts forth some theory as proposing a number of related theories that make slightly different predictions. If oil peaked in 2001 rather than 2000, Popper would still have allowed that Hubbert's theory was corroborated, not falsified, unless some other competing theory had different ontological implications and had predicted 2001 as the date specifically.

Technically, by your apparent interpretation of Popper, Newton's laws of motion have been falsified by every single trial ever held to test them, since no ideal environment has ever existed. The actual experimental results have never once, and will never, precisely match what Newton's laws calculate. By the principle you seem to be stating, this means that Newton's laws were falsified the first time they were tested.

I'm not aware of a single branch of science that doesn't have a certain level of tolerance in measurement, and this is something that Popper was very much aware of. He would not have thought that because oil didn't peak in 2000, suddenly Hubbert's theory is false.

Perhaps we could say that no-one can give hard evidence for when the oil will peak. It seems difficult to base any kind of political policy on such a vague prediction.

The hell it is. We ought to be doing roughly the same things whether oil will peak next friday or 20 years from now. Only if oil peak is more than 20 years away should our politics be different.

It could be argued that the peak oil theory, although weak from a strictly scientific point of view, is in awareness, but the powers that be are "managing" the oil supply.

That's less Popper and more Duhem...

Making doomsday predictions is not science. Sorry.

I thought you were a Popperite? Popper had no problems making predictions (specifically in contradiction of Hume's problem of induction). So, let's say the sun blows up. We are perfectly justified in predicting doomsday, and Popper wouldn't have said otherwise--unless, that is, the sun blew up and even long after life was rolling along, in which case the doomsday theory would be falsified.

[TonyPrep]

We ought to be doing roughly the same things whether oil will peak next friday or 20 years from now. Only if oil peak is more than 20 years away should our politics be different.

Not even then, IMO. Continuing down an unsustainable path, knowing that it's unsustainable is madness. I think the only difference regarding peak date is that the transition to some other energy system or social/economic system can be much more controlled and gradual. But the difference implies a certainty over the date of peak, which we'll never have, so policies should always include dealing with the possibility of an imminent peak, whilst moving societies and economies in a different direction. Even if peak was likely to be 100 years from now, or further away than that, this approach should not be different; if a business as usual approach was used where peak was likely to be 100 years away, that would be based on an unverifiable assumption - that we'd somehow figure out a way to keep things going longer, given a bit more time.

[MonteQuest]

at least you get properly banned for not being gullible enough to swallow the standard dogma....

Now that's funny.

Thank you for not disputing the accuracy of the statement.

I will dispute it.

See my pm.

MQ

[ReserveGrowthRulz]

at least you get properly banned for not being gullible enough to swallow the standard dogma....

Now that's funny.

Thank you for not disputing the accuracy of the statement.

I will dispute it.

See my pm.

MQ

That didn't dispute it either.

[threadbear]

Uh oh - a decoy.

Stop worrying. As I have said, I believe oil will peak. Just not sure when, and I do think we can do things about it, and I do think the powers that be are actually doing something about it, but not in a way that is being discussed.

If the US (and the UK) refuse to accept oil from Venezuela, and that Iraqi oil has been continually disturbed, then it suggests that there is some element of management. If they were really just concenred about getting cheap oil, why have a war in Iraq, and refuse cheap oil from Chavez?

Perhaps they are thinking "don't let the whole world pump oil at will, otherwise we will have a huge crash. So lets manage it".

Is there really global warming? Is the climate really changing? Is the pope Catholic?

That is not the way science works. Science is not politics, or decided by votes.

It is decided by theory and evidence.

I too question Darwinism. There could be many different forces contributing to evolution, Darwinism included, but it isn't the whole story. Evolutionists give you two choices, either you're a creationist or a Darwinist. It's a kind of fundamentalism more appropriately called scientism than science.

The fundamentalists on the board will try to frame your ideas in the same fashion. You're either for us or against us. If you haven't noticed, most on this thread, haven't mastered the finer points of the philosophy of science.

[TonyPrep]

I too question Darwinism. There could be many different forces contributing to evolution, Darwinism included, but it isn't the whole story. Evolutionists give you two choices, either you're a creationist or a Darwinist. It's a kind of fundamentalism more appropriately called scientism than science.

Hmm, evolution is random mutations filtered by natural selection. Doesn't seem like there is much else to it. It's pretty simple, really. you are either an evolutionist, for which there is lots of evidence, or a creationist, for which there is none. Are there other options?

[MonteQuest]

Hmm, evolution is random mutations filtered by natural selection. Doesn't seem like there is much else to it. It's pretty simple, really. you are either an evolutionist, for which there is lots of evidence, or a creationist, for which there is none. Are there other options?

Spot on, Tony. Anyone who stills believes Darwin's Theory of Evolution is in question, are in the camp of those who still question global warming and whether we went to the moon.

That is, those who refuse to accept the evidence.