It really astonishes me when I read scientific articles on global warming and weather prediction, that the authors seem to be under the misapprehension that computers can solve all problems and that mankind understands everything scientific.
This is about as far from the truth as you can get. Heres a few points to consider. Cambridge Scientists have proved that with our current knowledge a bumble bee cannot fly. What that means is that our lack of knowledge in physics is so dire that we cannot even explain how a bee works. I don’t know about you, but that seems pretty amazing to me. Scientists cannot explain how a Caterpillar turns into a butterfly, well they know that it goes into a cocoon but they cant explain what happens in the cocoon. When it starts getting more difficult, scientists have very little knowledge indeed. Lets look at creatures in the deep sea, Scientists cant even explain why they are not crushed by the pressure. Lets be honest, when we see a scientist on TV explaining things further than our own planet like black holes or the gravitational effect of the sun, it is unfortunately mostly (informed) guesswork.
I don’t want you to think that I am anti scientist. I believe that science and technology are our key for long term survival. However I would like to point out that in reality science is still in its infancy and has a long way to go. If all scientific knowledge was in a huge library, mankind is still puzzling over the first book.
As for you people out there who believe that computers are this amazing creation that will save us all. Lets look at what a computer is. It is simply a millions of tiny switches, well in fact the first computers the switches were quite big. Therefore a computer is only as good as the program it is asked to run. Who writes the program? Mankind. Therefore a computer will only ever do (if you are lucky) what it is asked. A computer is a great tool for doing massive calculations, but not so great at things like research and problem solving.
So when we look at weather predictions done with massive supercomputers, all the computer is doing is factoring in the data you have collected and doing a calculation that you have written. So when the prediction is wrong, it is not the computers fault, it is the data and programs fault.
