I agree with you, however our model of the solar system gives us pretty good confidence about macro level events even into the distant future.
To the specific example of the sun rising - for the sun to stop rising, the earth has to either become tidally locked about the sun, or the earth or sun must be destroyed.
One article[0] says:
Scientists have reliable data on the Earth's rotational speed, based on observations of the sun's position in the sky during solar eclipses, going back some 2,500 years. Although the rotational rate hasn't declined smoothly, over that period the average day has grown longer by between 15 millionths and 25 millionths of a second every year. Even at the faster rate, it will take 140 million years before the Earth's rotation slows enough to necessitate a 25-hour day.
The real crux of this matter is predictive power. We can get a rough understanding of the predictive power of a model by asking the question "at what point does the expected error in our prediction make that prediction meaningless?" For example, how accurate does a population model need to be for us to be willing to use it to predict population distribution in 50 years? It's fair enough to say that our models are not capable of predicting the population distribution in 1 million years, but no model could and it's unlikely we would be able to utilise such a prediction even if it were made.
As I said before, the existence of a profitable life insurance industry is evidence that we are good at making lifespan predictions at the individual level, in aggregate. Every time a policy is written, it's like a wager is being made between the insured and the insurer. Yes the insurers lose some bets, and some years they may even lose a lot of them, but it's clear that the odds are stacked in their favour, for otherwise they would be unable to offer insurance at all.
If you were to bet on what the climate of this planet will look like next year, how would you make your prediction? If you were to offer odds, how would you structure the book to make sure you win?
Yes, the absolute accuracy of climate models is going to diminish over the next 1, 5, 10 years, so the error associated with a specific global average temperature prediction (for example) will increase. That doesn't mean the actual temperature is just going to fluctuate wildly! Next year the global average temperature may decrease. It is extremely unlikely that in 10 years time the average temperature will have decreased, even if there is drastic intervention. Any bookmaker looking to make a profit would be offering odds on how much the temperate increases, not merely on if it increased or not.
Yes, predictive power is going to decrease as time goes on. No, that doesn't mean models are useless, nor that we can't have predictions that become more likely as time goes on.
To the specific example of the sun rising - for the sun to stop rising, the earth has to either become tidally locked about the sun, or the earth or sun must be destroyed.
One article[0] says:
Scientists have reliable data on the Earth's rotational speed, based on observations of the sun's position in the sky during solar eclipses, going back some 2,500 years. Although the rotational rate hasn't declined smoothly, over that period the average day has grown longer by between 15 millionths and 25 millionths of a second every year. Even at the faster rate, it will take 140 million years before the Earth's rotation slows enough to necessitate a 25-hour day.
The real crux of this matter is predictive power. We can get a rough understanding of the predictive power of a model by asking the question "at what point does the expected error in our prediction make that prediction meaningless?" For example, how accurate does a population model need to be for us to be willing to use it to predict population distribution in 50 years? It's fair enough to say that our models are not capable of predicting the population distribution in 1 million years, but no model could and it's unlikely we would be able to utilise such a prediction even if it were made.
As I said before, the existence of a profitable life insurance industry is evidence that we are good at making lifespan predictions at the individual level, in aggregate. Every time a policy is written, it's like a wager is being made between the insured and the insurer. Yes the insurers lose some bets, and some years they may even lose a lot of them, but it's clear that the odds are stacked in their favour, for otherwise they would be unable to offer insurance at all.
If you were to bet on what the climate of this planet will look like next year, how would you make your prediction? If you were to offer odds, how would you structure the book to make sure you win?
Yes, the absolute accuracy of climate models is going to diminish over the next 1, 5, 10 years, so the error associated with a specific global average temperature prediction (for example) will increase. That doesn't mean the actual temperature is just going to fluctuate wildly! Next year the global average temperature may decrease. It is extremely unlikely that in 10 years time the average temperature will have decreased, even if there is drastic intervention. Any bookmaker looking to make a profit would be offering odds on how much the temperate increases, not merely on if it increased or not.
Yes, predictive power is going to decrease as time goes on. No, that doesn't mean models are useless, nor that we can't have predictions that become more likely as time goes on.
[0] http://www.popsci.com/jessica-cheng/article/2008-09/ive-hear...