Comments can be bad for science. That’s why, here at PopularScience.com, we’re shutting them off.
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“A politically motivated, decades-long war on expertise has eroded the popular consensus on a wide variety of scientifically validated topics. Everything, from evolution to the origins of climate change, is mistakenly up for grabs again. Scientific certainty is just another thing for two people to “debate” on television. And because comments sections tend to be a grotesque reflection of the media culture surrounding them, the cynical work of undermining bedrock scientific doctrine is now being done beneath our own stories, within a website devoted to championing science.”
Bad for science? Sure, if “science” is a dogmatic academic elite that feels its pronouncements from on high should never be questioned. Even when they change their opinion next week. We mere peons should never be allowed to comments.
Actually, I suspect that commenting is fine as long as it isn’t on certain sacred subjects.
“Everything, from evolution to the origins of climate change…” Seems to me that since a huge number of people don’t believe in evolution they should give that disbelief more respect, since it’s a popular consensus in that group.
Popular Consensus? Since when was since based on popularity? Besides, in their denial they forget that the large majority of scientists disagrees with their “popular conclusions.”
Of course, the real reason is probably “climate change” and that they are tired of being unable to defend their mythical dogma on that subject.
A peer reviewed paper shows that most scientists are skeptical of alarmist claims. “Don’t look now, but maybe a scientific consensus exists concerning global warming after all. Only 36 percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis, according to a survey reported in the peer-reviewed Organization Studies. By contrast, a strong majority of the 1,077 respondents believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem.”
Only in “Climate Science” does 41 out of almost 12,000 = 97%. Is it any wonder that so many consider it to be a bad joke?
The non-disclosure in Cook et al. of the number of abstracts supporting each specified level of endorsement had the effect of not making available the fact that only 41 papers – 0.3% of all 11,944 abstracts or 1.8% of the 4014 expressing an opinion, and not 97.1% – had been found to endorse the quantitative hypothesis, stated in the introduction to Cook et al. and akin to similar definitions in the literature), that “human activity is very likely causing most of the current GW (anthropogenic global warming, or AGW)”.
Climate hysterics hate the Petition Project, because it completely obliterates their claims of consensus. As a result they try to come up with various feeble ways to try and discredit the project (while somehow concluding that 33% = 97%, see the 5/17 update just below, or that 75 of 10,000 =97%.)
John Cook of UnskepticalScience discovers that 33% = 97%. Here’s why he has no idea of what he’s talking about and how his study is massively cherry picked. On JoNova.
Update 7/26/12:Forbes column on that “consensus.” More consensus debunking. The article also debunks the specific expertise of that fabled 97%, that the 97% is a global consensus, and a few other things.
Original post:
Heh. This is funny. From a July ’09 post at Climate Depot:
An outpouring of skeptical scientists who are members of the American Chemical Society (ACS) are revolting against the group’s editor-in-chief — with some demanding he be removed — after an editorial appeared claiming “the science of anthropogenic climate change is becoming increasingly well established.”
The editorial claimed the “consensus” view was growing “increasingly difficult to challenge, despite the efforts of diehard climate-change deniers.” The editor now admits he is “startled” by the negative reaction from the group’s scientific members. The American Chemical Society bills itself as the “world’s largest scientific society.”
…ACS member Wallace Embry: “I would like to see the American Chemical Society Board ‘cap’ Baum’s political pen and ‘trade’ him to either the New York Times or Washington Post.”
Here’s the rest of the post. Lots of good quotes from outraged scientists (and other stuff:) Climate Revolt
Heh. Maybe a lot of such trades could be made. Don’t know what the Times could offer the ACS in trade, though. They’re out of money and don’t have any scientists on board…
On a related topics, Believers like to say things like this, “The scientific consensus says…” Want to see some backtracking and redefining of “scientific consensus?” Point out the fact that the overwhelming majority of scientists, who are willing to state an opinion, are strongly opposed to the concept of catastrophic warming.
In addition to the ACS above, here are a few others:
Climate Depot: Over 130 German scientists say: ‘Growing body of evidence shows anthropogenic CO2 plays no measurable role (in climate change.)’ Their concerns were presented to in an Open Letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the letter is included in the post.
Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change– …That there is no convincing evidence that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity has in the past, is now, or will in the future cause catastrophic climate change….
114 signers (scientists) present when this was presented at the New York Climate Conference in ’08.
707 scientists not present.
600 citizen endorsers, many with science backgrounds
Oregon Petition– Over 31,000 American scientists, over 9,000 of the being PhDs, say that Catastrophic Global Warming is not supported by the evidence. This is not the same thing as saying there is no warming/cooling or that said hypothetical warming is a bad thing. The petition also states the CO2 is a beneficial gas, not a pollutant.
Ha! But they’re not climate scientists!! Oh really? How about 3800 climate scientists? Check this page – Atmospheric, environmental, and Earth sciences includes 3,804 scientists trained in specialties directly related to the physical environment of the Earth and the past and current phenomena that affect that environment.
US Senate Minority Report: More Than 700 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims
Heidelberg Appeal with 4,000+ signers. Note that this appeal doesn’t specifically state anything about warming, but is an appeal for fact-based science and for policy that considers human interests. The latter is very contrary to the goals of most alarmists.
Gavin Schmidt (GS) of RealClimate says the science is not settled is his critique of a WaPo article. Too bad GS doesn’t put much effort into correcting alarmist remarks about the science being settled. Now “settled science” isn’t “there’s a consensus…” but it certainly implies consensus, otherwise there is no settled science. So one might argue that GS is saying there is no consensus.
More remarks (from 2005) about the consensus, including how “the consensus” may have started.
August 19, 2008 — A major international scientific conference prominently featured the voices and views of scientists skeptical of man-made global warming fears. The International Geological Congress, dubbed the geologists’ equivalent of the Olympic Games, was held in Oslo, Norway, from August 4-14.
Some say that there are 2,500 scientists in the warming consensus, others say that that number is actually closer to 25.
31,000+ opposed to 25 for… Hmmm….
Now, in reality, consensus in science is pretty meaningless. It just takes one voice, with the right idea and the right data, to break a consensus. Of course, that one voice has to get through the layers of pal-review to get his paper(s) published… Einstein say much the same thing (about consensus) in this wiki article – 100 authors against Einstein.
Update:
Title was updated to the current, just to make this post a bit easier to find.
Mike Hulme – Consensus Science – This is a post on The Air Vent discussing consensus science and what is meant by that term.
Updating my thoughts on “the consensus agrees…” This phrase is generally used to justify Al Gore’s (and more extreme) version of Global Warming, and is, therefore, complete nonsense. The scientific consensus might actually agree that we’ve warmed a bit since the 30s (and that amount can be argued about,) but that’s not the spin that the public hears.
More on the 97% – it’s 97% of the 80 or so who fit the right criteria after the poll was sent to 10,000 scientists. So the real number might be 0.73% or thereabouts.
More remarks on the 97% and this comment was from the same page, “Having done survey research for 20 years I can tell you for certain that the wording of the questions, the sample technique, sample size, the interview method (personal, telephone, mail), question type (true/false, multiple choice, rating scale, open ended, etc.) and even the positioning of the questions relative to each other will effect outcome. Of course, cherry picking is best for obtaining the result one wants.”
This is from a 2005 article. Mostly it talks about the so-called scientific “consensus” about Man Made Global Warming, but it also talks about a hypothesis from some Russian and Israeli researchers regarding cloud cover and warming.
Six eminent researchers from the Russian Academy of Science and the Israel Space Agency have just published a startling paper in one of the world’s leading space science journals. The team of solar physicists claims to have come up with compelling evidence that changes in cosmic ray intensity and variations in solar activity have been driving much of the Earth’s climate. They even provide a testable hypothesis, predicting that amplified cosmic ray intensity will lead to an increase of the global cloud cover which, according to their calculations, will result in “some small global cooling over the next couple of years.”
Note that the world has cooled since then, providing validation of their hypothesis. Dr. Roy Spencer has a lot on this subject on his blog.
Now about that consensus…
According to an essay by Naomi Oreskes, published by Science in December, 2004, there is unanimous “scientific consensus” on the anthropogenic causesof recent global warming…
What happened to the countless research papers that show global temperatures were similar or even higher during the Holocene Climate Optimum and the Medieval Warm Period…?
…Because no tool is available to test the supposition of human-induced climate change and the range of natural variability is so great, there is no discernible human influence on global climate at this time.
…It would appear that the editors of Science knowingly misled the public and the world’s media. In my view, such unethical behaviour constitutes a grave contravention…
Another View on Climate 