Fake news and mythology

  
What is the relationship between fake news and mythology?

Religious myths, conspiracy theories, and new gnosticisms.

                          First a definition, so we all start on the same page. A definition of fake news:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_news

                          But what about myth? The term has acquired several, sometimes contradictory meanings. In the post-Enlightenment era (19th century and beyond), myth has come to mean a false - "primitive", "superstitious" or "pre-scientific" - description or narrative of the world. Traditionally though, stories that we today call myths - at least the Great Myths of religion - were taken as absolute truths in much the same way that a modern rationalist believes in the statement "two things plus two things gives four things".

               Myths in the traditional - religious - sense were critically  important parts of human psychic architecture. They situated the person in a universe full of sense, meaning and purpose. (In practice, the purposes of some of the hypothesized entities - spirits of the enemies one killed, nature spirits, offended divinities - could be quite malevolent.) The animistic universe of ancient hunter-gatherer peoples was a world full of life, purpose and intent. One placated angry gods, one offered sacrifices to obtain their favor in enterprises. We have forgotten how revolutionary the ancient Greek "philosophers of nature" were. Rather than seek the causes of events in the whims of gods and spirits, they sought to understand the unfolding phenomena and processes of the physical world in terms of material processes (which could be captured in the elegant intellectual forms of mathematics). 

 Pythagorean theorem: in a right triangle the length of longest side squared is equal to the sum of the squares of the lengths of the other two sides. Pythagoras flourished six centuries before Christ.

                One can draw several conclusions from an "evolutionary" perspective. The most obvious is that "Reason" - at least as the dominant mode of thinking - is a relative newcomer on the historical stage. Myth as a form of explanation of the world is vastly older! (In reality, it is an open question if Reason is the dominant mode of thought today.. We seem in some ways to have hit upon the worst of both worlds. We have, collectively, great powers for manipulating the physical world with technology but too often, alas, that manipulation is for idiotic or antihuman ends.)

                  In their highest manifestation, myths are "sacred stories" told to explain the world, why it is like it is, who "we" (the members of our tribe) are and what values we hold. Myths describe the Good Life (particularly the Good Life in a social context). Myths, as narrative, are an outgrowth - an extension and an elaboration - of the "primate politics" of our biological ancestors. They tell who did what to whom, what the outcome was and why that outcome is important to us living today. Myths are "hard-wired" into our human nervous systems: myths and stories are universal, wherever there are humans there is story telling and sacred narrative.

              But why are myths and narrative universal?  One can hazard, with some anthropological and psychological evidence supporting, that it is natural for humans to view the world through the lens of narrative. Because of hard-wired primate political thinking we naturally wonder who did what to whom and why. Our minds are simply hard-wired to think along narrative lines.

             From this perspective, the formal, mathematical abstractions of science are more recent evolutionary acquisitions. As such, "abstract thinking" lacks the compelling force of concrete narrative. Here we see one of the disadvantages that climate scientists and environmental activists have in dealing with the raw, more primitive, emotional narratives of GW "sceptics" and deniers. Quantum mechanical energy exchanges at the molecular levels are hard to grasp (abstract scientific thinking). Our primate political genes though, are programmed to identify and understand the following narrative-type: crooked university professors peddle the "climate change hoax" in order to make trillions of dollars on the carbon credit trading market. In other words, climate scientists are an enemy clique plotting to do "us" in dirty - this is pure primate politics!

A general listing of Authoritarian Personality traits (both leaders and followers)

authoritarian personality traits 

                In general, "classical" authoritarians see the world in black and white terms: "us" versus "them", "Good" versus "Evil". Their perceptions of social groups tends toward stereotypy: all wo/men (blacks, Jews, gays, Muslims..) share a common set of characters. The group one belongs to is more important than one's individuality. In addition, authoritarians demonize the excluded groups they hate: people belonging to out-groups are treated as subhuman, incarnate all evil, plot to enslave the world to their wicked ends.

                I mention the Authoritarian Personality here because it represents a particularly primitive (hence emotionally compelling and "natural") expression of primate politics that is activated in situations of threat and uncertainty. The paranoid narratives of Authoritarians flourish in critical periods of social transition such as the one we are living through today. "Fascistic" paranoid delusional narratives become prevalent - even dominant - myths at times of social breakdown and transformation.

                It is hard to describe how wacky the paranoid delusional worldview can become! To do justice, I can only copy verbatim from a "chemtrails, New World Order conspiracy" website. Hold on t'yer hats, folks, the wind she's goin' t'blow!

"Population "Control," New World Order Style
  
The Illuminati's idea of Population Control falls into two broad categories:
 
1. Limiting the size of human societies and monitoring/controlling the movement of individuals within that society, and

2. Intentionally reducing the bulk of the world's population through GENOCIDE via the introduction of orchestrated conflicts, intentionally inserted toxic substances into the air (chemtrails), environment (depleted uranium), water/food supply (GMOs), and bioengineered, weaponized disease organisms (AIDS, Ebola, Bird & Swine Flu, etc.) along with anti-fertility compounds introduced via vaccines and other means of external transmission.
....
In order to preserve the 'best' of humanity when the supposed 'self-destruction' of the earth takes place around the year 2,000, the JASON Society proposed that a vast network of underground cities be built in order to secure living quarters for the chosen Illuminati elite, high level cooperative politicians, and selected military elements. Underground cities are also co-habitated by extraterrestrial alien groups that the secret government has made treaties with for technology exchange and human-alien hybrid breeding programs. The idea of the earth 'self destructing' around the turn of the century due to overpopulation was perhaps an early cover story for the justification of the underground cities. In the 1950's and 60's, the American public was led to believe that the contiuance of government, in the event of worldwide nuclear war, was a logical reason for undeground facilities, but we now know that the entire Soviet/American cold war and MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) scenario was an orchestrated Illuminati deception to bleed both Russian and American citizens of their wealth in order to finance black budget operations, secret technology developments, underground city construction, genetic engineering projects, time & space travel research, and anti-gravity, flying saucer spacecraft development.
Based on 1989 information, it was claimed that there were at least 75 underground cities in existence below the soil of America interconnected by high speed, frictionless trains called Maglev trains (Magnetic Levitation). The former Atomic Energy Commission had also constructed  22 seperate underground cities for their own use...

....  recommendations for population "control". They included:

1. Birth control (birth prevention and abortion - 43.8 Million babies aborted yearly worldwide.)
2. Sterilization (today includes vaccines) and
3. The introduction of deadly microbes to reduce or otherwise slow the growth of the earth's population.

Bioengineered Diseases
 
AIDS, Ebola, Gulf War Illness (GWI), and many other "new" diseases were intentionally bioengineered in laboratories that are mostly found in the United States and include the Army's secretive facilities at Ft. Detrick Maryland (2.). Drs. Nancy and Garth Nicholson have done a great deal of  research and investigation into the cause and treatment of Gulf War Illness, since they and their daughter (who was a helicopter flight nurse in the 1991 Gulf War) ALL came down with GWI.  In 1996, the Nichols published a paper which states their deep suspicions that GWI is due to bioengineered pathogens and that a hidden population control agenda appears to be in place.
Some bioengineered pathogens were designed to target certain ethnic groups for elimination. These groups likely include blacks, hispanics, Black Africans, Native Americans, and homosexuals. The preferred Iluminati method to introduce disease is via vaccinations. Tthe HIV virus which causes AIDS was introduced and spread throughout the majority of black populations in Africa via the World Health Organization (WHO) during their mandatory smallpox vaccine campaigns of 1976-1980.

The pathogens which produced Gulf War Illness were introduced to a limited number of Gulf War troops via "special" vaccinations (not recorded on the troop's official vaccination records) for Anthrax and other supposed dangers posed by Saddam Hussein. It was a CIA test run to see how many Gulf troops would succumb to the disease and how quickly they might die off. The results have been somewhat disappointing for the CIA/Illuminati planners. They thought their new little bugs would wipe out a lot more people, a lot faster than it has.."

And so it goes, on and on and on..  Pretty wild, eh?

From http://educate-yourself.org/nwo/nwopopcontrol.shtml 

 Was the death of God a liberation for humanity? Or did it simply blow the doors off hell, liberating all its inhabitants.. Above, a modern degenerate myth, the Aryan Master Race (a degraded form of the Chosen People)

             Which brings us to the central theme of this article: are such degraded forms of mythology related in some way to the "death of God" announced a century and a half ago by the Austrian philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche? (See note 1.) Nietzsche's view is contested from various perspectives but it is clear that he was, at the least, merely giving a name to a process of secularization in Western thought that goes back to the Renaissance. That secularization brought us the scientific and technical revolution, the modern concept of citizenry, democracy, the belief in human rights, feminism..The modern world of Progress. However a question remains unanswered for the unbiased observer. If Western thought is no longer guided by Christian theology, who gets to establish the new norms, the new values, the new definition of the Good Life, etc? 

               Religion and culture, claim some anthropologists are social mechanisms which regulate, control and direct human drives and behavior into socially acceptable channels. Religion and culture replace much of the instinctive (genetically programmed) behavior patterns observed in non-human animals. In culture and religion, the human has partially escaped the determinisms of instinct. To some degree, we humans are self-defining, self-determining, self-creating animals. We have, to some degree, escaped the strictures of Darwinian evolution and determine some of the conditions of our own future evolution.

               But what happens when "God" -the dominant cultural and religious system - "dies"-, bcomes inoperant, no longer credible to a growing (and eventually critical) number of people? Certainly, God's death means the end of certainty. It means an interregnum, a period of cultural, spiritual and political anarchy till a new "God" and a new "tables of the Law" rise and once again provide wo/men with meaning, sense, direction.

                In this perspective, the current spate of Conspiracy theories and fake news is the symptom - and the embodiment - of the current state of philosophical, moral and cultural anarchy. These degenerate myths constitute a "regression", in the Freudian sense, to an earlier state of behavioral adaptation. Such states imply that an ecosystem, a society, an organism is experiencing an "existential threat", a life or health threatening situation requiring some sort of creative response (note 2).

                An interesting synchronicity. Just as I was finishing this piece, I received a notice concerning the first article of John Michael Greer's new blog Ecosophia. It treats the same themes I have in pretty much the same way I have above. Such a convergence says something about the zeitgeist - The Spirit of the Age - we inhabit..

 http://www.ecosophia.net/the-twilight-of-anthropolatry/

 
 notes:

1- http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/philosophy/friedrich_nietzsche_quotes.html

".. Nietzsche is concerned about.. relating.. that God is dead in the hearts and minds of his own generation of modern men - killed by an indifference that was itself directly related to a pronounced cultural shift away from faith and towards rationalism and science...

Nietzsche had been raised in an intensely devout and pietistic family atmosphere that he saw as having been unduly restrictive..
 
As an atheist who saw aspects of the influence of the traditions of christianity within which he grew up as having been regrettable Friedrich Nietzsche tended to welcome what he saw as The Death of God!

For Nietzsche a recognition that God is Dead to his own generation of men and women ought to come as a Joyous Wisdom allowing individuals to lead less guilt-ridden lives in a world that was no longer to be seen as being inherently sinful. He considered that earthly lives could become more joyful, meaningful and "healthy" when not lived within narrow limits set by faith-related concerns for the state of an individual's eternal soul.

Nietzsche seems to be suggesting that the acceptance that God is dead will also involve the ending of long-established standards of morality and of purpose.. the possible emergence of a nihilistic situation where people's lives are not.. constrained by faith-based considerations of morality or.. guided by any faith-related sense of purpose.

What are we now to do?

Given what he saw as the "unbelievability" of the "God-hypothesis" Nietzsche himself seemed to favour the creation of a new set of values "faithful to the earth." This view perhaps being associa[ted] with the possibility of the "Overman" or "Superman."

"I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment..."

Friedrich Nietzsche ~ Thus spoke Zarathustra"

2- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_%28psychology%29

"Regression: a defense mechanism leading to the temporary or long-term reversion of the ego to an earlier stage of development rather than handling unacceptable impulses in a more [adaptive] way. The defense mechanism of regression, in psychoanalytic theory, occurs when an individual's personality reverts to an earlier stage of development, adopting more childish mannerisms. Psychiatrist Joel Gold suggests that careful use of "ARISE" (Adaptive Regression in the service of the Ego) can sometimes yield creative benefits. To the extent that one is handling thoughts and impulses less like an adult, ARISE involves play, appreciation and primitive pleasures, and imagination."

 


 

Book Review: Chris Mooney: Storm World - the future of hurricanes

                          hurricane from low earth orbit

Chris Mooney: Storm World, Harcourt, 2007; 287 pages, appendices, index, copious chapter notes and references (happily relegated to the back of the text, 75 pages of notes!), impressive recommended reading list (6pages), list of interviews conducted, a few photos and graphs (but not enough).

abbreviations used in writing this article:

CC - climate change
GW - global warming

           The subtitle says it all: hurricanes, politics and the battle over global warming.

           The back story is interesting. For the scientifically inclined, it's not as interesting as the science behind global warming but, from a practical perspective, necessary reading. (Why, for example, are CO2 levels still increasing with 2015, the first year on record, topping 3 parts per million rise in atmospheric CO2?)

 http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/weekly.html

          The cast of characters is colorful, the politics byzantine, the drama of human hubris and disordered nature! As in Greek or Shakespearean tragedy we suspect that the disorder of nature is punishment for human hubris and inflation in the face of the gods. Such are our times.. we live a Shakespearean tragedy (? MacBeth ?)

  

             Mooney strikes me as an idealistic young man who has done his best to be "objective" by temporarily attempting to suppress his own opinions and prejudices. The fact that he succeeded - to the degree possible in our imperfect world - is shown by an e-mail from prof William Gray (one of the major anti-GW actors) following the publication of the first edition of Stormworld: "You were dealing with a character (me) and you portrayed me pretty much as I am. You have now saved me from having to write my autobiography!" Since Mooney is a pro-global warming (GW) journalist and writer, this is strong praise indeed for his objectivity from a prime adversary! (Mooney admitted that, on a personal level, he liked the obstreperous Gray and would have liked to have had an inspiring teacher like him while at university.)

              Unfortunately, climate science does not have enough data (or well founded theoretical models of hurricane physics) to accurately predict the evolution of the threat posed by hurricanes in an era of CC / GW. The scientific study of hurricanes is barely out of its infancy. Earlier cultures most exposed to hurricane fury were preliterate (for the most part) and left no "time series" of hurricane strikes for future researchers to detect trends with. Worse, hurricanes are geographically limited to a few ocean basins and are relatively compact and short lived events. They may be intense for those who live through a really bad one but their small geographical and temporal footprints reduce their large-scale observability.

              Until the 20th century, most hurricanes were never observed. A few ship captains who managed to survive their impact provided lurid descriptions of their fury. Hurricanes would regularly - but randomly - lumber ashore in the American South-east but no one knew where these strange storms originated, less still was known of their dynamics and physics. A few sea captains and academics studied hurricanes from a desire to save human life and property or simply out of curiosity. Interviews with seagoing survivors provided a primitive hurricane "database": location, time, direction of rotation, wind speed, storm velocity, and survival tricks (how to angle a ship with respect to dominant winds to increase chances of survival..)

               A true observational hurricane science emerged only in the post WW II era, based at first on aircraft observation and more recently (circa 1965 - 70) aided by panoramic satellite imagery. Thermodynamics, the science of the movement / transformation of energy (in this case, heat), began to be applied to the study of hurricane dynamics as mounting quantities of data began to pour in.

             Unfortunately, the "Time Series" of scientific hurricane observations is still too short to interpret the "changes" we see - or think we see! - today. The very existence of trends in hurricane intensity / frequency is hotly contested. Existing time series are too short, methods of recording have evolved over time or are inconsistent between recording teams. Some regions of the world had - or still have - limited tracking facilities. When it comes to the evolution of hurricane intensity or frequency, "the jury is still out" as they say.

              

                    hurricane aftermath: flooding (and potential sanitation problems)

            A recent automated metastudy of satellite imagery using a consistent hurricane intensity algorithm only added fuel to the fire. Some regions, like the South-east USA, showed a definite increase over time in intensity of major storms while other regions showed either a slight decline or no detectable trend over time. Too early to judge if the trend is solid. Nevertheless, the money of the best computer climate modelers is on increased maximum hurricane intensity due to an observed (not theoretical) rise in sea temperature in hurricane breeding grounds (presumably due to human caused GW). Determining if hurricane frequency is changing - and changing how in the different categories of hurricane strength - is even dicier..

             Hurricane intensity and frequency turn out to be very important in a globally warming world for several reasons:

1- sea levels are rising globally, with few exceptions. These rises are observations, not theoretical deductions.

            Rising sea levels combined with increased storm surges from stronger 'canes with more precipitation makes an explosive mixture. Some areas are particularly prone to future catastrophic storm surge flooding: South-east USA, low lying areas of South and South-east Asia.. (see footnote 1)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JbzypWJk64 

2- Rising population pushes more people into at risk floodplains (India, Pakistan but also wealthy retiring baby boomers in Florida and other parts of South-east USA). Increased exposure to risk combined with more intense and / or more frequent storms provides another explosive mixture. One recent study focusing on the Caribbean nations concluded that without adaptive measures the cost of storm damage could rise from the present 4% GDP to 9% in 2030, more than double in a mere fifteen years!

http://www.swissre.com/rethinking/climate_and_natural_disaster_risk/Low-tech_ways_to_cope_with_climate_risks_in_the_Caribbean.html 

3- Population increase is particularly pernicious because not only does it push more people into risky areas (flood, landslide..) but the increased density / number of people affected makes each major event more costly. This is another potentially explosive mixture and, for central governments, a politically destabilizing one favoring recourse to police state tactics..

            The world economy is not in great shape. The boom times are over, cheap oil is over: in the long run, shale oil is not viable below about $60 / barrel while tar sands (Alberta) require $70 - 90 / bbl for profitability. Can our world really afford increases in big storm disaster relief? Humanitarian relief programs (United Nations) are already cutting back on emergency relief (Lebanon, Sudan, Ethiopia, Haiti..) Think of the Middle East / North African refugee drama unfolding in Europe today (note 2). Yet GW promises much worse to come. GW's major effects rise from drought, storm and wind damage, storm surges, flooding and landslides. Even if the major country to be affected by potential increased hurricane intensity / frequency turns out to be the US, that country, with its deepening and polarizing economic inequities will become increasingly unable to handle its own increasing extreme weather costs and provide aid to rising humanitarian aid costs elsewhere. On the "deepening and polarizing economic inequities" in the US and their political blow back:

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2016/03/why-is-donald-trump-winning-answer.html

              However, as Mooney points out the jury is still out on CC / GW and  the future evolution of hurricane risk. Big 'canes (like Katrina - New Orleans - or Sandy - New York or Haiyan - the Philippines) have hit recently.  But is this "trend" a "real" one or just a random (or cyclic) variation due to natural causes? Hurricanes don't have the power to directly make a civilization collapse - as drought does - but they can add to our increasing burden of environmental woes. And this burden can indirectly trigger long term - potentially fatal - geopolitical tensions. CC-induced extreme weather, the ending of the Little Ice Age in Europe, did not "cause" the French Revolution but it was a (complex, multi-level) destabilizing influence.

                           Typhoon Haiyan, Philippines - Nov 8, 2013


             The potentially destabilizing effects of "small" rises in global temperature - of the order of 1 - 3 C - are ignored or scoffed at by GW "sceptics'" and deniers: "I'd like warmer winters." or "What difference does a measly 2 C make? It can vary by 50 C here between summer and winter." Tunnel vision can be comforting (if stupid)!

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2016/03/reclaiming-citizenship-democracy-and.html 

               Extreme weather events - generally linked to minor overall temperature excursions like the Little Ice Age (circa 1300 - 1850) - can have a potent (unsuspected and unpredictable) impact on world history. This impact has in part, been obscured by the affluence created by the era of cheap fossil fuel - now ending. 

               In the past, crop yields were much lower, transport was lousy (unless you lived along a river) and most of the population lived hand to mouth. A bad harvest - due to extreme weather in summer - would cause mass misery. Two bad harvests in a row would cause mass death, grain reserves having dropped to the minimal levels required for replanting after the first bad harvest. Generally, the second - and third - failed harvest in a row were the real killers.

                In Europe, the end of the Little Ice Age produced a period of climatic instability which resulted in minor localized demi-famines. The political unrest resulting played some (indeterminate) role in the French Revolution. Don't forget, this was the time of the Enlightenment: people's expectations of a better future were running high. King Louis payed with his head for the People's frustrations.. (See, for example, Simon Schama: Citizens, a chronicle of the French Revolution, Random House, 1989)

               The point here is that, in an already politically destabilizing USA, a wave of hurricane disasters could push the country over the edge - into what? One shudders to think - Trump again, and then there's those Right Wing militias..

               Several aspects of the CC / GW (pseudo-)debate are worth noting:

- Big Money speaks loud. The fossil fuel industry wants to stall green energy development in order to max out profits for their stockholders and overpaid CEOs as long as possible.

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2015/08/the-organisation-of-denial-conservative.html

- The instrumentalization of religion for political ends. Religion has been hijacked to serve the CC denial movement. Thus we are presented with paradoxical (yet highly dogmatic) views concerning God's "will" for humanity's evolution. 

1- God will not let "christian" America "run out of anything" because God, in the Book of Genesis has made a pact (Covenant) with his followers. This pact, following the Jew's denial of Christ, has been transferred to one or more of the Christian sects. Some Americans, apparently, see themselves as a particularly virtuous nation and assume that the Covenant has now been transferred to the American nation in its entirety. Accordingly, no matter how stupidly Americans treat the environment, as long as America "does God's Will", God will mop up after their idiocies. Not an edifying view of God! I personally find it both sacrilegious for its moronic "morality" and blasphemous for its arrogant pretending to know God's will. 

willful blindness and fundamentalism 

2- Alternatively, God does not want to compensate for his worshippers' sinful ways. In this view, God actually wants to destroy the world. We are living the End Days. Those who try to "save the world" (environmental and social justice militants) are therefore serving Satan, The Master of This World. Following the internal logic of this Myth, in wrecking the planet's ecosytems we are merely doing what God wants done anyway..

Sierra Club - the agent of Antichrist 

The instrumentalism of science for political ends: Baconian Science versus Model (Hypothesis / Theory / Paradigm) driven Science. Francis Bacon, 1561 - 1626, an early theorist of scientific methodology, believed that knowledge of the physical world should be systematically collected and organized for "mankind's benefit". Scholars would be engaged to sift through the resultant "data base" searching for recurrent patterns (statistical correlations): "if event A occurs then B is likely to follow, 4 chances out of 5". Much traditional - and useful - medecine and weather lore is based on such empirical observation over the generations. People whose livelihood depended on the weather: farmers, fishermen, hunters, sailors, soldiers, professional travelers.. would expoit local regularities of climate and weather to their advantage. The word "local" is imperative: weatherlore (weather folklore) isn't based on atmospheric physics so can claim no universality. It simply encodes and memorizes useful local correlation between events to make life a bit easier and more profitable. Example: "red moon, rain within two days" provides useful information to fishermen even if no one understood that it was caused by approaching storm fronts kicking up dust which reddened light from the moon by scattering blue and violet light.

          Later, as science evolved, a deeper understanding of underlying physical mechanisms emerged and was embodied in mathematical and, more recently, computer models. This "type" of science has been dubbed Model (Paradigm / Hypothesis / Theory) driven science.  

          Over the last few centuries an academic - and fruitless - (pseudo-)"debate" has errputed from time to time within the philosophical and scientific communities over which brand of science - Baconian or Model driven - is "better". I personally have never been able to understand what the fuss was about (I'm not alone!) In reality, the modern Scientific Method cycles between Baconian and Model driven phases, requiring both to function. 

           When a new area of investigation opens up, data collection / organization is necessarily the prime activity (the Baconian phase). Once sufficient data is collected, scientists search for patterns, employing well established mathematical models of underlying physical processes to guide the search for patterns or to "understand" the observed patterns (correlations between events). One or more models (hypotheses, paradigms..) are then constructed to explain the observations. These models are then used to make predictions to test the models against physical reality. Predictions are tested in lab experiments (or for experiments too big for the lab, one seeks confirmation in Nature's lab, in observations of the physical environment). If observations confirm predictions, we say: "the theory is validated (confirmed,..)" - until it is invalidated by faulty predictions..

           When predictions don't match observations, we check if we have not made a simple computational or observational error, we verify the experimental set up, we repeat the experiment and ask others to do so. We compare notes. If the deviations from predcted values / outcomes persist we may be forced to:

- tweak minor aspects of the theory: include the friction of air in calculating the velocity of a projectile over time

- make substantial modifications to the mathematical model while retaining its core structure and assumptions: we still believe in Matter and Energy but after Einstein we know that one can be converted into the other

- in extreme cases we may have  to scrap the whole Model and start from scratch: early modern physicists believed that magnetism, electricity and heat were physical "fluids". We now know that the first two are a mysterious emmanation of matter - electromagnetism - while heat varies as the square of the average velocity of the atoms / molecules which a body is composed of

- in the limit, deviant observations may lead to the discovery of new, unsuspected phenomena, leading to a new cycle of Baconian (observational) science followed by model building, prediction and testing (Model driven phase)..

           "Real" science - as it is practiced today - is like a two man band saw: push - pull - push -pull.. Baconian observation - Model building and testing - Baconian oservation - Model building and testing..

               I conclude that the Baconian "versus" Model driven science debate is a pseudo-debate (not to mention abstruse, academic, pedantic, useless and boring..)

              What a surprise then - or is it? - that this pseudo-debate has been instrumentalized in the larger pseudo-debate over whether or not CC / GW is occuring. The fossil fuel lobby and Conservative Think Tanks discovered in meteorologist prof William Gray an inveterate and boisterous Baconian who, for whatever reasons, detested model-driven climate science and was willing to take the stage at any moment to denounce CC / GW as bad science. A true God-send! Gray played a major role in the controversy swirling around GW and hurricane science in the early years of the new millenium.
  
               For the Conservative Think Tanks who paid Gray's travelling expenses and honorariums, the issue was never philosophical or scientific truth but the instrumentalization of an academic pseudo-debate to discredit CC / GW science and the drive for alternative (carbon free) energy sources: wind, solar, geothermal, tidal power, energy efficiency, public transport, rail transport.. measures which would harm the bottom line of the fossil fuel megaliths, their clients, stockholders and CEOs.   
 
notes:

1- An important source on how serious CC / GW is becoming is the re-insurer, Swiss RE. Re-insurers are the insurance companies of insurance companies. They provide a "slush fund" into which their client companies can dip in case of extremely heavy payouts following major natural disasters. In its own interests Swiss RE, one of the biggest, has begun to take CC / GW science seriously and promotes CC adaptation measures to protect vital ecosystems and human infrastructure. 

http://www.swissre.com/rethinking/climate_and_natural_disaster_risk/Low-tech_ways_to_cope_with_climate_risks_in_the_Caribbean.html 

 2- CC (drought) as a factor in the Syrian tragedy? 

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/is-a-lack-of-water-to-blame-for-the-conflict-in-syria-72513729/?no-ist

CC / GW as "threat multiplier" in the geopolitical arena:

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2014/10/pentagon-preprares-for-climate-change.html 

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2014/10/climate-change-is-threat-multiplier.html