Theory vs Experiment

Working out theories about oil depletion through non-traditional channels such as a blog has some interesting side effects. I basically sit here and pontificate about stuff that I don't work on as part of my day job. This apparently gets some people upset, even though they pontificate about the same things I do and presumably don't do this as their day job either (actually I shouldn't pretend to know what they do).

So I have finally got someone beyond the tipping point:

I've explained to you about 10 times what you need to do to establish that you have a better model. You never do it - you just complain that people still choose to use the best predictive model we have right now If you had the first bit of sense, you'd realize that Hubbert was a first-rate scientist, and name-calling him takes away from your credibility rather than his.

Which prompted me to reply with this:

What is wrong? I have a theory. Theorists don't always have to defend their position. That's what experimentalists are around for. It's a classic position in the scientific world. Theorists don't mind getting attacked for their ideas. And that's not to say I am any first rate theorist, just that I know how the game is played.

No use getting worked up over this.

Hubbert never used any mathematical model; as far as I can tell he did his computations graphically. And why would I name call Hubbert anything? I think I dissed "Hubbert Linearization" because it is based on that ridiculous Logistic curve. It doesn't have any basis in reality.

I remember clearly the rallying cry my co-researchers and I would sing out when faced with challenging circumstances, man-made or not, "Nature's fighting us. We must be on the right track!"

In reality, I play the part of either Punch or Judy in a hand puppet dramatization of the world's oil predicament. Puppets sitting around theorizing versus neocons experimenting with their own puppets in toeholds of power, I actually feel part of some absurd War on Brains.

As Milfington would say, "whatever".