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i dont think thats what it means
Ability to measure something is not the same as ability to control it. If something is controllable it is, and has to be, measureable; but you cannot reverse that statement.
For a simple example, "we" can measure earthquake intensities, magnitudes and depths but there is nothing we can do to control them, only mitigate the damage they inflict on humanity.
Human effects on the natural environment can be measured or at least estimated, but because we live within a complex mesh of dynamic systems, finding the real difference between anthropocentric and purely-natural influences cannot be easy to determine, if indeed even possible.
Although we must never be complacent, we have to appreciate humanity may simply be affecting natural changes. If it is, and our effects are deleterious, then all we can do is establish to what extent and to try to buy time.
Thank you for your reply pearl and Happy Wednesday! :)
Thank you for your thoughtful and informative answer Durdle. I have read that the mere fact of our observing/measuring will change that which we observe/measure. Which means we can never know a thing in itself as it truly is
because we will have affected it somehow! Happy Wednesday! :)
The notion of the act of observing a phenomenon altering its behaviour comes from nuclear physics, where the techniques necessary have to be quite invasive - to borrow a medical term.
It does not happen on a larger scale, even in the everyday world, except in some situations in studying wild animals. We can measure environmental processes and effects quite readily with insignificant or non-existent effects on them.
For example, think of an anemometer measuring the speed of the wind in an ordinary weather system ( a depression or anticyclone, or a simple sea-breeze). The meter extracts a tiny bit of power from the wind, but that few milliWatts is nothing compared to the vast power of the complete weather system producing that wind, and so has no real effect on it at all.
When we look at geological scales, drilling a few boreholes to see what rock is down there, or using an artificial seismic technique, could be said to be intrusive, but the damage to the overall formation under study is negligible and has no overall effect. And of course astronomical observations have no effect on enormous objects huge distances away, unless you count as litter, the assorted probes and satellites Mankind has chucked at those within the Solar System. Even then, we can have no possible effect on astronomical processes, and only purely-local effects on geological formations. We cannot control their processes.
Thank you for a very thoughtful and informative reply to my question Durdle. Once again! :)
