47 thoughts on “The “97% “Consensus””

          1. “Yes, a reviewed scientific paper pointing out all the problems with Cook’s analysis.”

            It is criticism, commentary and argumentative story telling, each of which are perfectly fine formats, but it is not a scientific paper. In short: it isn’t one because doesn’t use the scientific method. (Andrew’s link provides a better definition.)

          3. It is criticism, commentary and argumentative story telling, each of which are perfectly fine formats, but it is not a scientific paper. In short: it isn’t one because doesn’t use the scientific method. (Andrew’s link provides a better definition.)

            Choice of rhetoric is most certainly not the scientific method.

            And the link in question doesn’t discuss the scientific method, but rather discusses the author’s personal opinion of what a “scientific paper” is (though apparently an opinion partly shared by some professional societies). I note that he introduces some irrelevant considerations such as “valid publication”, “scientific ethics”, and several “primary” things (“primary scientific publication”, “primary journals”, “primary literature”, “primary communication”) without defining the necessary “secondary” implied things.

            And I can’t help but notice Andrew W’s and your attempts to invalidate scientific research on the grounds that it isn’t meeting some arbitrary standard of scientific publication (such as your they’re-too-mean argument or Andrew’s it’s-rubbish). That’s profoundly anti-scientific argument. Maybe you should eat your own dog food here rather than holding us to a one-sided standard you can’t be bothered to reciprocate.

          5. “And I can’t help but notice Andrew W’s and your attempts to invalidate scientific research”

            Karl, I’m really curious: do you believe that the paper Rand linked to “Fraud, Bias and Public Relations; The 97% ‘consensus’ and its critics” by Andrew Montford is an example of scientific research? And regardless, do you believe that I attempted to invalidated Monford? In fact, I’m not commenting on Monford’s contentions, I’m merely correcting Rand – I don’t think Monford’s paper is a “scientific paper” as the term is usually used. And while I’m happy to be corrected, I don’t see where Monford discussed any scientific research of his own in the paper. As I said, criticism and commentary and story telling are all perfectly nice things to contribute to the world. To say they aren’t the same as a scientific paper that presents scientific research isn’t the same as invalidating it. Monford’s paper isn’t a scientific paper, and it isn’t a peanut butter sandwich, but fortunately, it isn’t being presented as either research or lunch.

          7. Well, it would also be a stretch to describe the Cook paper as science, since it wasn’t even a poll. It was more like an Easter Egg hunt for children with ADHD being passed off as an endangered bird population census.

          8. Rand, it is necessary (but not sufficient) that a “scientific paper” describes data (of some sort) and analysis of that data. This isn’t a religious claim — this is just a description of how scientific research proceeds. Montford’s paper discusses Cook and his data, but Montford didn’t use any data of his own. Montford would have been able to write up a “science paper” if Montford had actually used Cook’s data and re-analyzed with a different methodology, or if he had gathered his own data and analyzed it in any way he wanted, but he didn’t do either of those things.

            Once again, I’m not criticizing Montford. I’m criticizing you. Montford did something valuable, at least as far as the format goes. His contribution just doesn’t look like a scientific paper to me, and I’m telling you why I think so. You can say that I’m in the grip of some strange religion, but look, if you pick up a rock and say “this is a duck”, I’ll say “That look like a duck, not a rock”, and if you reply “who is the arbiter of this religion?”, I’ll just have to smile and ask “tell me, why do you think that rock is a duck?”

          10. Karl, I’m really curious: do you believe that the paper Rand linked to “Fraud, Bias and Public Relations; The 97% ‘consensus’ and its critics” by Andrew Montford is an example of scientific research?

            Yes. The real question is why don’t you share my opinion? Research is not just publishing original work that advances human knowledge, it is also critically evaluating other scientists’ research, which is what is happening here.

            Also, there is a huge class of scientific papers which don’t express original research or criticize other research. These are things like expositions and tutorials which either discuss the current state of the art or provide introductory material to help the reader learn a new topic. Virtually all textbooks belong.

            No offense, Bob-1 but this quibbling over whether a scientific paper is a scientific paper, merely on the basis that it doesn’t fit in with a stereotype you have, is rather dumb.

        3. “Yes, a reviewed scientific paper pointing out all the problems with Cook’s analysis.”

          Not only are you using the term “science paper” in a non-standard way, I think you might be using the term “reviewed” in a non-standard way too. In what way was it reviewed?

    2. Out of curiosity, where was your concern when the original “97%” paper was written?

      Also, doesn’t it bother you that the current arguments for substantial climate change rely more heavily on the claim that there is consensus of a vast majority of climate researchers than actual evidence?

  2. That this kind of thing continues to be repeated is why the warm mongers denialists have no credibility.

    Fixed that for ya.

    Though I think applying the “97%” claim to all climate scientists is silly, though in my opinion it’s likely that well over 90% of all climate scientists agree that AGW is likely real and significant, though not necessarily eventually “catastrophic”.

    1. Though I think applying the “97%” claim to all climate scientists is silly, though in my opinion it’s likely that well over 90% of all climate scientists agree that AGW is likely real and significant, though not necessarily eventually “catastrophic”.

      And yet the warm mongers continue to shred their credibility by claiming the former, when the truth is much closer to the latter.

      1. If it isn’t 0% or 100% – that is, the hypothesis either survived falsification or was falsified – then it isn’t science. Instead, it is the holy official truth of the most holy synod. Kind of like Astrology was in the days of the Babylonian Priesthood.

        1. If it isn’t 0% or 100% – that is, the hypothesis either survived falsification or was falsified – then it isn’t science.

          No, If it isn’t 0% or 100% it’s not math or whiskey.

          1. What’s the “consensus” for Newton’s theory of motion at 0.9c?

            What’s the “consensus” for the theory of gravity? (hint: it’s not “97%”)

  3. Andrew, Hillary Clinton recently spoke at the National Clean Energy Summit (http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/hillary-clinton-calls-out-climate-deniers) and since it is highly likely that she could be our next US President do you consider her statements at the summit to be reasoned and well informed? She would craft energy policy, potentially through the middle of the next decade. I ask because a critic asks for evidence of the “extreme weather and droughts” she specifically mentioned:
    http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/09/07/hillary-calls-out-deniers-well-im-here-and-waiting-hillary/

    1. From http://www.history.com/topics/dust-bowl

      “The Dust Bowl was the name given to the Great Plains region devastated by drought in 1930s depression-ridden America.”

      “Drought threatened another disaster in the 1950s, prompting Congress to subsidize farmers in restoring millions of acres of wheat back to grassland.”

      So the claim that the current drought is from man made climate change is rubbish. It is part of a natural cycle.

    3. do you consider her statements at the summit to be reasoned and well informed?

      Don’t be silly, she’s a politician.

      1. My point exactly. Virtually everyone involved in promoting global warming as a crisis has a political angle rather than a scientific basis.

        1. It is holy writ. The synod has said so. After all, it has credentials from Washington, DC approved institutions!

          2. You used the word “credibility”, I suggest that if you want to follow the logic that anyone can claim whatever expertise they want for themselves, you might not be the expert on judging credibility.

            But hey, that’s just my opinion.

          3. Judith Curry, chair of climate at Georgia Tech, along with many other top climate scientists, physicists, and professors in the philosophy of science, discuss this problem quite a lot.

            The situation is in many ways similar to what goes on in theological circles, especially the Islamic world, as to expressing doubts in an environment of fervently apocalyptic revolutionaries determined to root out any trace of evil and impurity. Any expression of doubt casts aspersions not only on the individual scientist, but on their institution, its ability to attract grant money, and especially on all their grad students. Good scientists are afraid. Even if tenured, if they don’t toe the party line then their own graduate students, who they work with closely, might find their career path ending at Best Buy, unable to find a job in an academia that’s concerned with liturgical purity rather than real science.

            As an example of what’s not real science, it took until now to figure out exactly how Mann tortured his data in his MBH98 paper. Jebus. He’s either an idiot or a fraud, because no person in their right mind would process a signal like that. No wonder he’s going to such great lengths to hide his methods.

          4. Andrew W. said:
            Virtually everyone who debates AGW outside a science research institution has a political angle.

            Define “science research institution”.

  5. [Your thread isn’t accepting any links] [using search term instead]

    97% consensus? The consensus should between 0% or 100% when the initial test has been replicated.

    Search for:
    “A gentle introduction to Unqualified Reservations (part 3) ”

    Official “Science” vs actual science (scientific method).

    Scroll down past the long intro and start with the section labeled “AGW”.

  6. It’s worth noting some things I’ve come across while reading up on this paper. First, the paper was extremely popular. From Wikipedia:

    In May 2013, Cook and other contributors jointly published a paper in the journal Environmental Research Letters examining the scientific consensus on global warming in peer reviewed papers published between 1991–2011. The paper was the top downloaded paper for that week across all articles published in all of the Institute of Physics’ journals, and was widely cited across hundreds of newspapers, magazines, blog posts, and scientific papers from around the world. It also ranked as the 11th most-discussed scientific paper of 2013.

    In other words, this fraudulent paper made the current “consensus” argument possible. This reminds me of Mann and Jones “hockey stick” paper which similarly made the rhetorical case for current global warming being more significant by pushing down the Medieval Warm Period using a flawed statistical calculation. That in turned enabled arguments that the current climate is the warmest it’s been for thousands of years. This seems to be a common MO among the propaganda of those advocating the global warming theory.

    Second, John Cook has received a number of awards for purely propaganda work, such as receiving a allegedly scientific award called the “Eureka Award” for an act of pure propaganda.

    New South Wales Government Eureka Prize for Advancement of Climate Change Knowledge

    Winner: John Cook

    Debunking Climate Lies No Longer Hit and Myth

    australianmuseum.net.au/eureka

    Climate-change deniers have nowhere to hide thanks to an ingenious piece of software that detects inaccurate statements on global warming that appear on the internet and delivers an automated response on Twitter citing peer- reviewed scientific evidence.

    The so-called „Twitter-bot‟ is the brainchild of Australian webmaster John Cook and software developer Nigel Leck, and is part of an armoury of tools Cook has developed to rebut common myths and inaccuracies about climate change.

  7. As a far-left Progressive, I can categorically state that anyone who denies the existence of climate is a heartless, teabagging moron who obviously hates the poor, women, and children, especially those who aren’t white. How can anyone say that climate doesn’t exist? It’s all around us! And it changes all the time. Why, just last December it was cold as all get-out, and yet it’s now almost sweltering. I call that global warming. So there.

    2. These evil denier heretics… they deny the holiness of the poor, women, children and non-whites. Even worse! These witches blaspheme against the holy pronouncement of the priests of Gaea!

  8. There is no mention that this is a “scientific” paper. In the link itself and the author says the paper is a “briefing note”.

    From the link: http://www.thegwpf.org/new-paper-the-97-consensus-and-its-critics/
    “A new briefing note published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation”
    and
    “Andrew Montford, the author of the briefing note,”

    Cook published a “study” is that considered a “scientific” paper?

    In my opinion the only thing the author, Montford, was really trying to do was show that the “study” had pretermined a conclusion and they were more concerned with the marketing of that pretermined conclusion. Namely, that there is a 97% majority of researchers involved in climate areas of study that believe global warming is happening, it is caused by CO2 and that humans are responsible.

    1. I don’t want to continue the drama above, but is there a reason that briefing notes can’t also be scientific papers? Especially given that it is 20 pages. That’s rather long for a “note”.

      2. I honestly don’t know. I do not know the venacular for any of the “paper” types or how they are determined to be in any catagory. I just got the impression that neither cook or mondford were presenting “scientific” papers, more just point counter point.

  9. Einstein’s “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies” 30 June 1905, contained no data nor any analysis of data. It simply showed that the Maxwell equations are invarient under the Lorentz transformation, and established the Special Theory of Relativity. Amazing that a non-scientific paper could shake physics to its foundations…

    1. I was just reading “The Symmetries of Things”, a book on geometry by John Conway, Heidi Burgiel, and Chaim Goodman-Strauss. Most (if not all) chapters have a “Data” section, where the authors gather new facts about the world using math. They aren’t being cute:

      Mathematical observations and mathematical proofs are a great way to obtain data!

    2. Einstein’s theory was falsifiable, therefore it is scientific regardless of Einstein’s credentials (he was a patent clerk).

  10. Rand,

    I’m completely disappointed in you. How can you possibly be against the “scientific method” of grep-ing key words out of a database to prove a consensus.

    Tsk, Tsk…. It’s almost like your asking for, you know, effort and logic to win out in this debate.

    I just googled and found millions of entries that say I’m right.

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