In article , Dave
writes
Malcolm writes

In article , "If
the ash before the oak, we're in
for a soak, if the oak before the ash, we're in for a splash". Works more
often than not in foretelling the weather for the coming summer.

BillBrewer writes

Err, it can't possibly work - ever! The leaf appearance time of trees is
to do with the past and current conditions and is nothing whatsoever to
do with the weather to come. How could it possibly be otherwise?

Leaf appearance **is** to do with things to come.

Nonsense. All you are saying below is that it *might* be, without a
scrap of evidence. No *is* about it.

Trees have been
selectively mutated for millions of years with preference going to those
that managed to get their leaves out synchronised with the right sort of
weather to make best use of them. Why should the different trees not be
aware of changes in magnetic field, pressure, temperature, humidity,
light levels and duration, changes in soil chemistry, and a host of
other things which are not immediately apparent to humans?

And in what way can absolutely any of those parameters explain the
rainfall in the summer to come even if one believes that trees can alter
their physiology based upon them?

If you are a true scientist, you would first make the appropriate
collection of data, then propose a theory, then test that theory, then
modify it to explain the data, and keep doing it until your theory
matched observed reality.

Hmm. I was always taught to propose a theory first and *then* collect
some data to see if it was valid. That way, the data collected are
likely to be more relevant to the theory!

Being a scientist or relying on the scientific method does **not mean**,
as the meejha would have it, that it can't work if you can't explain it,
or it can't work if those who say it does work can't explain why.

No, but not relevant to the case in point as there is, as yet, no
evidence that it works so nothing needs explaining.

--
Malcolm