By Ken Haapala, Executive Vice President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
This week was marked by a blowout that may have greater ramifications than the BP blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a survey of literature entitled “Expert credibility in climate” by Anderegg, Prall, Harold and Schneider that claims:
(i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC [Anthropogenic Climate Change] outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers. (Boldface added)
After ClimateGate, warming advocates declared they must communicate better with the public.
Apparently, some believe they can communicate better with the public not by demonizing carbon but by demonizing those who challenge their views, by attempting to demonstrate the challengers are somehow unqualified. The keyword “climate deniers” is a tip-off – those who think that based on physical evidence, climate change is largely natural, not human caused. Already, blacklists have been drawn up with names of those who challenge the orthodoxy. Sometime in the future, it may be useful to compare the allocation of funding with names on the lists to assess the objectivity of those who control climate change funding.
By publishing this survey and its conclusions, the National Academy of Sciences is approaching a low perhaps not seen since eugenics was in vogue.
My Daddy is bigger than your Daddy so I am right.
So there.
There are two etiological mechanisms which have created this perfect storm of pathology. The politicians noted a bit of science that would increase their power and the scientists noted a bit of politics which would further their search for the truth. The unfortunate synergy of these two mechanisms has produced the dying man on the litter, an AGW paradigm with an unstable cardiac rhythm and poor vital signs.
H/t Robert.
======
Maybe the future money is in thought control research: http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_last_experiment/
With lots of chatter about “denialism” being a psychological illness, no doubt there will be a little green pill to cure or control it.
Dean Easterling has informed me that the final Mann report from PSU will be issued no later than 01 July.
Meant to append this quote from the article:
“One needs social science at the absolute center of the strategic decisions being made in this area. It has to be on an equal footing with the natural sciences, with engineering, with economic analyses,” Fischhoff argues. “If it’s at the end, then it’s too late to shape the policies in ways that will have any meaningful impact.” To fix this, Fischhoff envisions an NIH-like social-science corps, a “substantial institution that would provide social-sciences resources for people willing to take these issues seriously.” If legitimate and properly funded, it could finally attract more top scientists, the kind of people who are “more concerned with making this work than publishing another limited disciplinary paper,” as he puts it.
Oooh dear its not looking good for us sceptics is it? Lets hope and pray that nature and reality rain on their parade before they can enact their fiendish plans.
The sad truth is that governments want this and the scientific establishement seem bent on supplying them with the desired cover whether that means moving the goalposts,fixing the data and models and going all the way down the road to hell and blacklisting enemies of the consensus and in so doing enabling a denial of funding to the sceptics.
It looks like nature and reality can rain on their parade and all it will do is force them to put the umbrella up and carry on regardless.
I raised the question, “who actually supports AGWhatever?” in the original Blacklist post and, after doing a bit of searching, posted a link to an article stating that only 7% of scientists publishing papers on climate science in 1997 actually openly supported the idea. 6% opposed and the rest were undecided (didn’t support or oppose).
If 97% now support and given the blacklist of only 500 of the 30,000 science signatures opposing, then the definition of climate researcher must now be very narrow.
We live in a crazy world : \
Without any doubt we are in a typical propaganda war.
That alone is a comforting conclusion.
History tells us that most propaganda based doctrines are bound to fail.
The cracks in the propaganda facade are slowly getting wider and more frequent. I just hope the whole thing falls apart before our economy is destroyed beyond repair.
“This week was marked by a blowout that may have greater ramifications than the BP blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. ”
As alarmism goes, that’s just off the scale.
[snip – religion issues are not discussed here]
“97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC …”
Hmmmm. Interesting use of the word “tenets” there. As in: “belief, esp. one of the main principles of a religion” (OED)?
What was it Michael Crichton was saying five years ago? http://www.michaelcrichton.net/video-studentsandleaders-question1.html
The Sacred Models predict trend without end, Amen.
The man on the street is wondering what the Predictors have been smoking.
Didn’t we just get over a very long winter?
None of this is science. It’s Tricky Dick spin, politics and propaganda. What these “sceientists” don’t understand is that they have just abdicated the thrown for all science.
Now scientists have no more credibility than politicians.
[SNIP]
[Referring to others as ‘deniers’ and ‘denialists’ is not acceptable here. ~dbs, mod.]
Apparently, some believe they can communicate better with the public not by demonizing carbon but by demonizing those who challenge their views, by attempting to demonstrate the challengers are somehow unqualified.
When all else fails, Shoot the messenger. Ad Hominem argumentation.
Instead of coming clean after the scandal of Climategate, the preferred choice is to run attack ads.
Swiftboat politics are currently a big turn-off.
So why the choice that makes the AGW Proponents appear as the problem rather than the solution?
My guess is that isolation has taken it’s toll on them.
Let’s suppose the skeptics turn out to be right – that current changes in climate are not primarily caused by human activities. Further let’s suppose that we are now entering a cooler period with shorter growing seasons and higher energy bills. Would it not make sense for the vindicated skeptics to demonize the pro-warming cultists. Do we really want people running and working at our scientific institutions who have clearly demonstrated that they put AGW religion and politics ahead of long accepted standards of open, verifiable peer-reviewed science. Have not most of the AGW proponents by their words, deeds and actions shown themselves to be unfit for the jobs they currently hold?
~SNIP~
[No d-words here. ~dbs, mod.]
How long before they call for the burning of non-conformist books?
Not to worry. In FY 2011 the funding will be curtailed sharply.
I completely disagree.
There hasn’t been coercion of science like this since the pope sent Galileo his room.
LOL they’ve communicated too well so far, that’s their real problem.
~SNIP~
[Repeated name-calling will get you nowhere. ~dbs, mod.]
Starting with the assumption that research funding and publication in peer reviewed journals are allocated on the basis of the quality of the science then that study proves that AGW alarmists have science on their side.
Starting with the assumption that funding from government sources and publication in journals is affected by bias toward the content of the research proposal then that study proves that AGW alarmists have the politics on their side.
This “study” is a fitting, even Zen worthy end to the Global Warming push. The IPCC started with a confusion of cause and effect between clouds and climate feedback and now crashes and burns on the confusion between cause and effect of the opinion of individual scientists.
In this age od deception and outright lies, one has to look closely at the quote:” 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC [Anthropogenic Climate Change] outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers.”
Liars and deceivers qualify a deception to death, and this is no exception!
The very qualification ” 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field ” leaves out all those whose publications have been denied or rejected because their findings didn’t come to the pre-determined conclusions as the bed wetters. And considering the revelations in climategate, this is not just paranoia but the real thing. If a legitimate climate scientist has been frozen out from publishing by the falsifiers, it’s quite obvious the legitimate scientist questioning AGW will be vastly outnumbered by those marching in lockstep to the beat of the UN.
Actually, I saw the PNAS piece and thought, “Meh, whatever.” That article is the equivalent of skeptics saying, “Look, guys, observed data is falsifying your thesis – got anything else?”, and the warmists replying “Yes, we do – existential radish suburban collander!”
What the heck does a CV comparison have to do with the validity of climate science? Science isn’t about comparing CVs or pubs lists. Science is about who’s got a theory that explains observed data. When the warmists come up with a thesis that explains paleological high temperatures at low CO2 concentrations, and ice ages at high CO2 concentrations, or how my Jeep caused the MWP, or why temperatures skyrocketed in the ’30s and ’40s despite flat-lined global fuel consumption, or how CO2 makes temperatures go up for 30 years then down for 30 years, I’ll listen. Until then, it’s all pointless hyperventilating – and hyperventilating ain’t science either.
Anyone whose mind is changed by an argument that amounts to “There’s more of us, so shut up!” doesn’t have much of a mind anyway. Science isn’t a show of hands – it’s about who’s right. So, all you AGW true believers out there – howzabout one of you come up with some non-obvious predictions based on your thesis and design and execute an experiment to prove them? You want to shut us up? Back your thesis up with data, folks.
Because until you do, I’m sticking with “meh.”
To Whom It May Concern:
I know that you people are thin skinned and quite unable to handle criticism of any sort and that your only hope for success on this blog demands that you engage in censorship and forbid any contrary word from reaching your audience.
Such is life for those who spend their time engaged in a lost battle against science.
Perhaps you could provide documented evidence that the government is actively engaged in a conspiracy against you. For example, during the eight years that George W. Bush was in office did the government promote or deny global warming and how did that impact funding for global warming research and the papers published in peer reviewed journals?
I would imagine that the oil and pollution loving administration of George W. Bush would prefer published scientific papers refuting global warming and the negative impacts of pollution on the environment. Certainly there were plenty of Republicans during those years who insisted that carbon dioxide is plant food and that warming would actually benefit humankind (in only it was occurring!).
Perhaps you should look into that as it might either support or refute your assumptions regarding the government funding of research and peer review process.
[Reply We don’t discuss religion here, you made a large comment full of religious issues. If that removal offends you, or makes you write all sorts of other machinations such as this, that’s just the way the blog policy is. It wouldn’t matter if you wrote about Jesus and unicorns and rainbows and happy land, it would still get deleted. Live with it or take a hike. – mod]
The way forward is remarkably simple.
It is not to demonise those who challenge their views, as that is not a scientific method, but to conduct and provide experimental evidence and proof that leads to a law stating that atmospheric c02 increase is the cause of atmospheric temperature increase.
This latter is what has not been done by experiment or observation, or verified. All that has been stated is on the basis of a loose correlation. It is as loose as the correlation of an increase in the number TVs has increased the long term temperature since 1979, therefore, an increase in TV transmission increases the temperature.
Actually, I’m wondering when “David” will take the (repeated) polite hints he has been offered and write something worth reading about this topic……. Other than propaganda that is.
He obviously has strong feelings about it – But how smart his strong feelings are cannot yet be determined. (Other than that he obviously cannot read nor heed warnings and policies.) 8<)
McGrats says:
June 27, 2010 at 1:03 pm
In this age od deception and outright lies, one has to look closely at the quote:” 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC [Anthropogenic Climate Change] outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers.”
Liars and deceivers qualify a deception to death, and this is no exception!
—…—…
We know now that Mann is considered a “peer reviewer” for some 30+ publications. Does that in itself not prove both the quality and the “quantity” of peer-reviewed papers on climate change over the past ten years has no relation to either their value nor their accuracy?
The study they put out is bizarre. Has this ever been done in science? Probably not since the days of Galileo.
Hello RACook,
You said: “Actually, I’m wondering when “David” will take the (repeated) polite hints he has been offered and write something worth reading about this topic……. Other than propaganda that is. ”
Given that my posts have been censored perhaps you should not assume that my comments were not worth reading. Censorship usually occurs only because a post is especially worthy of reading. It is the painful messages which are refused and avoided.
Watts Up With That carefully manages the comments so that its readership may never have to listen to a contrary viewpoint. You people are living within a well protected bubble.
You people should concern yourself with the reality of censorship on this blog and its implications. It should lead you to skepticism regarding the blog’s message.
[REPLY – Oy, Sheesh, and other comments . . . We snip almost nothing. We are among the most open blogs in the climate biz. (Sometimes things go way beyond the Palatinate, however.) ~ Evan]
I see Frazer beat me with the Galileo point.
Well, that makes two of us who think it was scientifically bizarre.
They just can’t accept they’ve lost the consensus argument. Now they trying to claim they have a big enough majority.
[snip – trolling/spamming, repeating the arguments and arguing about the policy won’t help, pick a new topic or leave – mod]
This is getting depressing. My list of journals that I consider worthwhile reading is getting shorter.
How can PNAS begin to consider this paper for publication?
Time to turn over the editors of these journals and get some that have a conscience, morals, and knowledge of the meaning of science.
I’ve often been struck by the fact that in behavior directed at others people tend to give their game away, whatever the content of their arguments. If this were really a scientific argument, would tactics like this be used? This is certainly not the usual method for deciding between opposing hypotheses.
In addition, there’s a strange lack of awareness of previous (relevant) history – a short while ago there was supposed to be a nearly complete consensus (928 to 0 by Al Gore’s count). Now 500 names are put up to be discredited, despite the obvious contradiction with the earlier message, and the implicit admission that it was not true. It’s like a shift in scenery in a play, but one where the players carry on as if there was no earlier act. This is far from normal science, although “post” is not the prefix I would use in this case.
Is David a climate realist by any chance?
Perhaps he’s upset that WUWT hasn’t produced a list of Warmists so he can have his day in the sun (so to speak).
The articel shows the warmists are out of scientific argument. They are annoyed sceptics get some media attention and since they don’t want, and can not, argue back they use, as always, the “consesus” argument. Why can’t they understand that eminence does not imply correctness. Something you learn at highschool.
want to silence journalists to write any other view then theirs.
they write this
This is perhaps the most distasteful start of any post I’ve seen for the past years.
Disgraceful and filled with bad taste. Pretensious and disrespectful.
Puking material.
David provides a link to his flickr pages on his name
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmathew1
Looks like a biologist, or maybe just a photographer that takes pix of bugs and such. Like I see on other blogs the bio/life/photo types tend to understand climate science the least and howl the loudest.
Too much PNAS waving goin on. So sorry all these former institutions of science died so ignominiously. They never get tired of playing with their collective we! we!.
Universities used to have to clear out their art departments when these people became entrenched. Now they’re entrenched in the administration.
Now all quotas will be filled – the forms will say so.
Now all statistics will be faked.
ONLY gov’t employees hesitantly tow the line- and not in private where they mock the absurdity their own selves.
By this point, the sharper participants understand that it’s a doomed ship and start ‘salvaging personal effects’.
I think we’re seeing some of the anticipatory resignation/retirements now.
Plan B is, of course, blame a past administration and promise hopey-change.
That ALWAYS works on suckers no matter how many times it’s reused.
Luis Dias
My feelings exactly when I first looked at the PNAS paper.
re the list, if all they wanted to do was show how less qualified (on their ridiculous measures) sceptics were, they could use just the numbers. Listing names was quite unecessary, and so likely of malicious intent.
re david of getting-snipped fame, I have read plenty of properly argued pro AGW comments on this site, and some less well argued which are not kicked off tho’ sometimes remonstrated with. Several names come to mind. I always study what they say. And re (for example) Arctic ice, have concluded we had best wait and see what happens, but that even then it won’t be clear what it means.
I hope I speak for others that many readers are sceptical of all assertions, whether pro or anti CAGW or just plain AGW ( tho’ that always seems to drag in catastrophe somehow!)
Hey, I think David is entertaining. Can I keep him? Pleeeease???
David, almost everyone here reads AGW propaganda all day long, taking it apart piece by piece, because the science is often shaky at best. If we were afraid of being exposed to information on climate change then we wouldn’t read through it all day, now would we?
No, we’re obsessed with climate, temperature, feedbacks, data analysis, modeling, ENSO, NAO, and every other oscillation out there. What we’re not patient with is someone stamping their feet and shouting like a five-year old who is convinced that he’s absolutely the first person on Earth to have whatever revelation just sparked in his still developing brain.
When a scientist is convinced that those finding glaring flaws in his data, methods, and conclusions are evil, he’s no longer acting as a scientist.
rw says: “…This is far from normal science, although “post” is not the prefix I would use in this case.”
Pot-Normal Science?
England is out of the Football world cup despite fielding a team comprised of some of the most highly rated players in the world.
It doesn’t matter how many goals you’ve scored in the past, how impressive your CV.
It doesn’t matter how big your dick is or your bank balance.
What matters, in the end is how relevant and valid your scientific arguments are and whether they will withstand the scrutiny of scepticism and the tesr of time.
Betapug says:
June 27, 2010 at 11:40 am
“Maybe the future money is in thought control research…”
What do you mean “future” money? Or “maybe”?
There’s always been money in thought-control research. You weren’t aware that cognitive science is largely an NSF-funded wheeze as well? Apparently, the government funders just love the idea of being able to read people’s minds and control their thoughts. Failing that, they would like people to believe they have that capability. It’s all fairly chomsky*, though.
*http://www.philosophicallexicon.com/
<a href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/27/sepp-on-the-pnas-blacklist-paper/#comment-418188"@ kim:
I’m so pleased that you posted about the symbiotic relationship between the “Men of Power” and the “Men of Faith”, as Nathaniel Brandon (protege of Ayn Rand) wrote about in Atilla and the Witch Doctor
. In the Middle Ages, the “men of faith” provided moral justification for the tyranny of the monarch, and in return, the monarch provided protection and grants to the religious leaders.
These days, the same relationship exists between the U.S. government and the religion of Gaia. This was exactly why our Constitution forbade the establishment of a state religion, but as we can all see, we have one nonetheless.
Did PNAS have suicide on its mind? To get SEPP to condemn them so roundly required high skill and robustness.
Did these folks study
ooops, seem to have lost my reference to Torquemada.
#
#
Holos says:
June 27, 2010 at 1:58 pm
David provides a link to his flickr pages on his name
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmathew1
Looks like a biologist, or maybe just a photographer that takes pix of bugs and such. Like I see on other blogs the bio/life/photo types tend to understand climate science the least and howl the loudest.
_______________________________________________________________________
Biologists generally do not have the math background of other hard sciences unless they were forced to take statistics. Even then they may have only been taught to push numbers through a computer program without really understanding what is going on. Unfortunately now a days math (and reading) skills are not taught. Instead how to guess and how to use a computer is. And a computer is just not substitute for good math skills.
“Mathematics education policies and programs for U.S. public schools have never been more contentious than they were during the decade of the 1990s. The immediate cause of the math wars of the 90s was the introduction and widespread distribution of new math textbooks with radically diminished content, and a dearth of basic skills. This led to organized parental rebellions and criticisms of the new math curricula by mathematicians and other professionals. ” http://www.csun.edu/~vcmth00m/AHistory.html
I was going to try and leave a reasonably well thought out reply.
Then I remembered a well known saying, to wit, “Never wrestle with a chimney sweep.”
I will not demean myself by trying to comment on this ludicrous, evil-intentioned PNAS publication. It is beneath contempt.
I thank the academies for publishing this paper because it fully reveals how non scientific and corrupt the organization has become. This organization has become an arm of the progressive left including the government with their agenda on many things including CAGW. It has been taken over by the radical environmentalist and elitest from academia.
I read their article on energy and they refuse to acknowledge the importantance of fossil fuels in our economy and the reality that alternative fuels are a least several decades (or more) away. They don’t care if their agenda will ruin our economy.
Betapug says:
June 27, 2010 at 11:40 am
“Maybe the future money is in thought control research…”
________________________________________________________________
Philemon says:
June 27, 2010 at 2:47 pm
What do you mean “future” money? Or “maybe”?
_____________________________________________________________________
Our education system is all about thought control. Why do you think most of the skeptics are older people? It is not just because of the fear about jobs. but because critical thinking skills are no longer taught.
Take a good long look at what John Dewey has done to the American education system. This is just one example.
Dumbing Down America
“…Dewey’s philosophy had evolved from Hegelian idealism to socialist materialism, and the purpose of the school was to show how education could be changed to produce little socialists and collectivists instead of little capitalists and individualists. It was expected that these little socialists, when they became voting adults, would dutifully change the American economic system into a socialist one.
In order to do so he analyzed the traditional curriculum that sustained the capitalist, individualistic system and found what he believed was the sustaining linchpin — that is, the key element that held the entire system together: high literacy. To Dewey, the greatest obstacle to socialism was the private mind that seeks knowledge in order to exercise its own private judgment and intellectual authority. High literacy gave the individual the means to seek knowledge independently. It gave individuals the means to stand on their own two feet and think for themselves. This was detrimental to the “social spirit” needed to bring about a collectivist society….”
I expect home schooling to become illegal here in the USA fairly soon since the “transformation” of the USA is almost complete.
Keep David on the hook.
It is amusing to see these warm-earthers in action; their use of every logical fallacy to avoid substantive discussion speaks to their ignorance of both science and the scientific method, and their chauvinistic reliance on the cult beliefs of the Cilimastrologers is pathetic. They cling to their faith, no matter what mass of evidence exists to the contrary.
We have always has the ignorant among us who have tried to manipulate science, but science has persevered through the many cults of the Chicken Littles. Here today, gone tomorrow.
Looks like the science is settled now, and that climate change is seen by clear-thinkers to be naturally occurring. The latest crying and whining and name-calling about the unfairness of the real scientists using facts, nothing but the facts, to refute the Climate Inquisitors, is tacit proof that the AGW hypothesis is totally bankrupt.
Re. Philemon
I had not until recently seen seminars dealing with “denialism” as a recognized psychological defect qualifying for NHS education credits in the UK or the sessions offered by the CSIRO in information absorption deficit in Australia. The quasi-religious “believer/unbeliever” paradigm, with the attending emotionalism, seems to be giving way to a more of a disease model for AGW denial epidemiologists.
While the internal dialogs at WWF and a lot of the huge green enterprise chain talks in advertising language about image branding, market dominance and driving opinion, I guess sound less idealistic than health care.
We are not infidels so much as we are nuts and there are way more social scientists around to aid us to healthy thinking than there are climate scientists.
That the PNAS has seen fit to publish a paper in which a central premise of a paper is the fact that 97% of scientists support the theory of AGW is a sad day for science. I don’t care if 99% of scientists support a particular viewpoint; it just takes one scientist who demonstrates that the theory is false to produce a paradigm shift. There are numerous historical examples of where this was the case — 150 years ago 99% of physicians would have likely disbelieved the germ theory and it took the work of Semmelweis and Pasteur to finally convince the medical profession that they were on the wrong track. To make matters more embarrasing, Pasteur was not a physician.
Of course that is in the field of medicine which some can argue isn’t a true science as consensus positions in many subspecialties are the norm (especially psychiatry). In the field of physical sciences one would expect true science to reign. AGW is a very sloppy theory and seems to be setup so it is non-falsifiable; IMHO Steve McIntyre has falsified AGW by his debunking of the hockey stick graph. AGW is such an amorphous theory that it seems anything that happens fits the theory; we have a colder than average winter and that is part of “global warming”. It is hotter than usual in the summer – again “global warming”. It rains more – “global warming” but then droughts are also forecast by “global warming”.
What has become clear is that much of “science” has become very unscientific. True science is open to anyone who is intelligent enough to take the basic premises of a branch of science, play with them and come up with novel testable theories. The sign of a non-scientist is the denigration of an individuals credentials when they come up with unexpected testable conclusions from data that “true scientists” have not. Steve McIntyre seems to frequently be attacked on this basis as his methodology for destroying one of the essential foundations of AGW can’t be disproved by the “experts” in this area. Many of the novel discoveries in science have been made by non-experts or people with expertise in other fields as they are thinking out of the box whereas “experts” have great knowledge in a tiny area of science and no longer think much beyond their area of expertise.
I don’t care if the person who comes up with the right answer is a cab driver, plumber or solar physicist; the main thing is if they’re right or not. We’ve seen failure after failure of AGW predictions and an ever increasing nebulous theory that now seems indistinguishable from a pseudo-scientific justification for unbridled statism.
From what I’ve seen, the well funded AGW establishment is unlikely to produce anything of significance but is capable of producing immense harm. One has the situation where there are a small group of like-thinking “experts” who are the recipients of the funding and also serve as peer-reviewers on what are considered to be the most influential journals in the field. These “experts” have graduate students who, through the process of confirmation bias and often not so subtle pressure from their thesis supervisor, reject the “outliers” they find in their thesis projects and come up with yet more support for the pet theory of their supervisor. This technique is fine if one is dealing with phenomena from “mediocristan” (the realm where normal distributions apply and conventional statistics works) but totally fails in “extremistan” which is the home of black swans, or unknown unknowns and also the regime corresponding to earth’s climate. We have been total failures in modelling the far more constrained financial systems with numeric models even with incredibly fine-grained data. The idea that one can use the same models (but faster computers) to model the highly chaotic climate system of the earth which is chaotic and for which we know only imperfectly a few of the controlling parameters is the height of hubris (or insanity).
Throwing money at a large collection of climate “experts” would be analagous to creating a multiprocessor system to solve a problem in which every processor solves the identical problem with just minor differences. WUWT is the equivalent of a multiprocessor system in which the highly varied components solve differing problems in the realm of climate science and such a collection of individuals is far more likely to solve some of the difficult problems in this realm (or more importantly poke holes in poor theories) than the well funded multiprocessor system that is only working on a very tiny portion of the problem. This type of democratic science is very messy but far more likely to come up with solutions to climate science than the monolithic rigid science which is now indistinguishable from government. Democracy and capitalism are very messy multiprocessor parallel processing networks for solving social and economic problems but they are orders of magnitude better than central control solutions.
What I’ve found is that every time I change fields I come up with my most significant insights in the new field right at the beginning while I’m learning it; I’m glad I kept all my writings when I first got into medical school as they make me realized how myopic I’ve become about medicine now that I do this full time. To try to stay out of the “expert” trap I try to do some form of major career change every 10 years or so.
Charles Higley says:
June 27, 2010 at 1:29 pm
This is getting depressing. My list of journals that I consider worthwhile reading is getting shorter.
How can PNAS begin to consider this paper for publication?
Time to turn over the editors of these journals and get some that have a conscience, morals, and knowledge of the meaning of science.
—–
As was noted in another article about this ‘paper’ – here as i recall – because Schneider is a member of the NAS it did not need to be peer reviewed at all for publication.
Could somebody verify that? If so, it says a lot about what could show up in the PNAS… as long as one is a member of the NAS club.
DN says:
June 27, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Until then, it’s all pointless hyperventilating – and hyperventilating ain’t science either.
____________________________
But doesn’t hyperventilation cause CO2 build-up?
To address the (few) actual comments that he brought up between his rants and ravings:
Bush did not, at any level or by any method, ever encourage pollution or increase pollution by his policies. To claim such is a simple, direct lie based on exaggeration and fears.
Bush did not, at any point or by any policy ever – in any way – fund “sceptic” global warming research. HHis NASA and DOE and GISS and NOAA and NWS and NSF budgets from 2001 through 2009 budget years – the ones he signed but which were written and funded by Congresses both democrat and republican-led, and which were voted by predominaently democrat-laden Senate committees, funded pro-AGW topics to some 60 billion dollars. Some of us would wish that funding were more balanced. But the democrats and international politicians don’t like the truth. It gets in the way of their taxes. By the way, Greenpeace and WWF and earthwatch and the UN and the IPCC and the democrat party (etc) are proud to take Exxon’s and BP’s hundreds of millions of oil money every year. Can I get some of that tainted money if it is evil?
Obama was proud to have Duke Power and Exelon and BP write HIS carbon-trading scheme – as long as THEY didn’t get stuck with the bills – for increasing every body else’s taxes. Obama was proud to give PetroBras (the nationalized petroleum company of Brasil) tens of billions of US dollars for THEIR off-shore drilling and exploration – as soon as Soros invested his money in PetroBras stock. BEFORE the US taxpayer funding was revealed that is. So Obama supporters (and Soros funded 800 million of his money in US congressional democratic races all by himself.) are “allowed” to make money drilling offshore deeper than in the Gulf of Mexico using US dollars to cushion their expenses? But US workers and companies are prohibited from the same activity – as long as they are non-union?
That you can “claim” science is tainted by funding sources, or that you can even ASSUME in your current mental state that science results are tainted and prejudiced by funding sources, means that you must have personally seen some proof or evidence that science HAS BEEN changed and predjudiced by who funds it. Since we know that that no scientific project has ever been changed to a “realist” position by funding (since there has been no such funding and thousands of articles showing that pro-AGW “science” HAVE been funded to the net amount of 80 billion dollars), then you are proving that the pro-AGW studies are tainted and have been changed to prove unusual or out-of-the-ordinary global warming exists, that it has been caused by man’s CO2 releases, and that future global warming will be catastrophic.
None of the above are true.
To the contrary. There are no – not any – hazards and many blessings to come from a 2-4 degree global warming from today’s temperatures.
By the way, yes, CO2 is a fertilizer and today’s increases in plant growth – of every green plant on earth by 7% to 25% increased mass, strength, drought-resistance and productivity of food, fodder, fuel, and feed – are real and are documented. By real peer-reviewed documents in real peer-reviewed catalogs and programs. And in your grocery shelves.
You are invited to bring up facts in your discussion.
Some of the more grounded Fellows of the Royal Society are attempting to moderate the alarmism previously demonstrated by that Society.
Where are the distinguished members of the NAS who were actually elected for their scientific accomplishments rather that through the environmentalist loophole? Will no one come forward to denounce this rubbish and replace those responsible?
David: dial it back, make your case about the science, offer some evidence in place of accusation — and we’ll all be happy to debate here at WUWT. You’ll be challenged, of course, but we love a good discussion.
RE: Betapug says:
June 27, 2010 at 11:40 am
In your link, this Dr Ho mentioned (in a positive manner) Cass Sunstein and his book Nudge. That says it all for me.
Eventually, the truth will out. Then? Tar and feathers. And the historical record damning and exposing them for all time.
Gary says:
June 27, 2010 at 5:44 pm
If he could hold up his end that is! He can’t contribute anything to any scientific argument, David has made that clear. He may even be a high school kid! The anonymity of the internet is a great and wonderful thing!
“By publishing this survey and its conclusions, the National Academy of Sciences is approaching a low perhaps not seen since eugenics was in vogue.”
======
What’s false about the survey and its conclusions?
David says:
June 27, 2010 at 1:07 pm
David, if you read this blog regularly you will find a number of believers in AGW comment regularly believe it or not. However, you should read the policy of this website first before posting your comments. Hysteria, abuse and provocation (“deniers”) will get you snipped. Have you not noticed your comments began to get through when you calmed down a little. Why not try and make you scientific case for AGW and post it here?
I for one hope you come to this website regularly and argue each post as you see fit. After a while you just might turn sceptical. :o)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/policy/
“After ClimateGate, warming advocates declared they must communicate better with the public.”
——————
What the heck is a “warming advocate” ?
A. An advocate under an electric blanket.
B. Someone who advocates a warmer world because he thinks it would be a better world?
After a while you just might turn sceptical. :o)
After checking out his site, I’d have to say I seriously doubt it . . .
It’s even interesting, after a fashion. But I think he’s definitely incorrect regarding the nature of violence. Many animals besides man engage in implacable, organized, entirely merciless warfare. Many others indulge in extreme, gratuitous violence (including against their own kind) on an individual level.
Nature is fang and claw. Even the plants get in on it.
In a similar vein, it appears there is another study showing that skeptics lack expertise:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100625185428.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29
I don’t think these people get it yet.
Jeff M says:
June 27, 2010 at 7:46 pm
In a similar vein, it appears there is another study showing that skeptics lack expertise:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100625185428.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29
I don’t think these people get it yet.
====
Isn’t that the same study, or did I miss something?
I think there is something of a panic going on. One more winter like the last two and the money is going to start drying up and climate scientists are going to have to start looking for real jobs. No more sitting around at NSIDC and posting arguments on here all day on the taxpayer’s dime (or, rather, the Chinese dime).
I don’t get why several posters took such issue with the way this post started out. To me, the BP spill must not be that much of a big deal, the administration hasn’t seemed too interested in doing anything about it other than posturing.
Wren says:
June 27, 2010 at 6:55 pm
“By publishing this survey and its conclusions, the National Academy of Sciences is approaching a low perhaps not seen since eugenics was in vogue.”
======
What’s false about the survey and its conclusions?
Well, read the blog. To start with, you being on the non-blacklisted side, just for starters.
Charles Higley says:
June 27, 2010 at 1:29 pm
This is getting depressing. My list of journals that I consider worthwhile reading is getting shorter.
How can PNAS begin to consider this paper for publication?
Time to turn over the editors of these journals and get some that have a conscience, morals, and knowledge of the meaning of science.
PNAS’ “Expert credibility in climate change” article is one more reason for U.S. citizens to question their members of congress about support of funding levels for the NAS. Why is the organization doing anything other than activity directly related to physical science research? Another example of misdirection is http://nationalacademies.org/morenews/20100526b.html. What bearing does advocacy of funding for maternal and child care have on scientific research?
Mike G says:
June 27, 2010 at 8:40 pm
Wren says:
June 27, 2010 at 6:55 pm
“By publishing this survey and its conclusions, the National Academy of Sciences is approaching a low perhaps not seen since eugenics was in vogue.”
======
What’s false about the survey and its conclusions?
Well, read the blog. To start with, you being on the non-blacklisted side, just for starters.
—–
I did’t ask what’s false about the blog. I asked what’s false about the survey and it’s conclusions.
How about pointing out one lie for starters?
The PNAS article is just one in a long list of despicable publications. But let’s be grateful because now we now have a database of the who-is-who in climate-related science. And it is somewhat an honour to be on it as a skeptic.
I have put together a hall-of-shame of those warmists who openly have been on the propaganda wagon. http://www.seafriends.org.nz/issues/global/hall_of_shame.htm
Read it and weep and imagine for a moment how the minds of our children have been corrupted with fear for the future. Lest we forget.
“David” bags on Republicans for insisting that CO2 is plant food.
“David” needs to revisit his high school biology text if he thinks the Republicans are wrong. CO2 isn’t just “plant food”. It’s their ONLY food. Everything else they need except for water is used in very small quantities analogous to “vitamins and minerals” for animals.
Hey, Galileo was big enough to recant his errors.
Who among us is so small minded and stubborn that he will not mend his ways and stop shilling for big oil? I would be the first to decry my skepticism, given enough of a grant.
Meanwhile, honest scientists are blackballed. The next real President America gets should look seriously at some targeted budget cuts, starting (after the EPA, of course) with the NAS.
Wren says:
June 27, 2010 at 6:55 pm
“By publishing this survey and its conclusions, the National Academy of Sciences is approaching a low perhaps not seen since eugenics was in vogue.”
======
What’s false about the survey and its conclusions?
Mainly the idea that it lends anything to the credibility of the CAGW “tenets”, its obvious purpose. Which kind of…er…backfired?
David, if you are so unhappy about censorship perhaps you should, take yourself over to Gavin’s place – that’s Real Climate to you. The breadth and depth of the warmist propaganda…er…censorship of sceptics over at RC is breathtaking. It will be interesting to see you take them to task over it. But then, I suspect there is censorship and then there is acceptable warmist censorship…
Some commenters are entertaining the idea of what to do with the alarmists once this scam is finally exposed for what it is.
I REALLY ENJOYED Inglurious Basterds. The forehead…the CO2 sign
I have just returned from an International scientific meeting dealing with past environmental reconstruction. Interestingly, most of those asked thought that while human CO2 production might have some influence on climate, this influence was minimal compared with other factors. Since these are prominent research workers, leading research groups, the only conclusion is that the authors of this PNAS article misunderstand or misrepresent the situation.
Darkinbad the Brightdayler says:
June 27, 2010 at 2:37 pm “What matters, in the end is how relevant and valid your scientific arguments are and whether they will withstand the scrutiny of scepticism and the tesr of time”.
Spelling error. When you get to my age, you will understand the correction “the scrutiny of sceptism and the testosterone of time”.
Regarding the black list, I notice that Peter Webster, the man who actually got Phil Jones’s data, has a post on Roger Pielke Jr’s blog saying he is very unhappy to be on the believers list based on something he signed in 2007. He says his views are changing.
But there are better ways to decide which camp has the better scientists than to just look at the number of papers written. Most of the scientists listed in the believer’s camp have written papers which touch on global warming but do not go to the heart of the issue. The world warmed during the second half of the 20th century and so scientists wrote papers on how warming oceans are changing the habitant for sea animals. These scientists are earth scientists and may have written good papers but they have not looked into the issue of natural climate variability or attribution between natural and manmade climate change. Often, they were looking at the effects of climate change and not the causes.
I prefer a look at the matchups between the leading lights of the IPCC group and the leading lights of those who have criticized the IPCC. Based on scholarship and integrity, who do you think wins these matchups?
1. Michael Mann or Steve McIntyre – McIntyre won the Hockey Stick Controversy hands down.
2. Phil Jones or Roger Pielke Sr – Both are concerned with surface station temps. Jones hid his data (and/or destroyed it before leaving UEA). Pielke’s papers, and his inspiration of Anthony Watts, has done far more to improve the surface station quality. Have to go to Pielke.
3. James Hanson or Nicola Scafetta. Hansen has made a number of climate predictions including “we have four years left to save the world” which have been proven wrong. Scafetta has made a number of contributions to science including phenomenological theory of climate change predicting cooler temps for 30 years. Scafetta easily wins this matchup.
4. Gavin Schmidt or Roy Spencer – Both have worked at NASA but Schmidt runs a disinformation blog RealClimate while on the government payroll and Spencer makes actual contributions to science and has proposed a new theory on clouds and the PDO. Have to go with Spencer.
5. James Annan or Stephen Schwartz – When it comes to calculating climate sensitivity, I have to go with Schwartz, the man who says he there is cause for concern but we have time to find a solution. Note: if there is a warming bias in the surface station record, the sensitivity estimate by Schwartz is greatly exaggerated.
I think it is pretty clear, the best scientists have not bought into IPCC alarmism.
Careful dear friends, “The Great Inquistion” approacheth. The AGW Flat Earthers will have their pound of flesh. They will have the children report their parents to the authorities. They will torture the truth out of all who dare to deny any tenent of The Faith of Global Warming. They will burn non-believers at the stake. They will have them devoured at half time during football games by ravenous lions and wolves. There will be no escape. Run! Hide! Move into the wilderness! Death comes to all who deny them. You have been warned! All is lost!
Wren: June 27, 2010 at 9:51 pm
What’s false about the survey and its conclusions?
How about pointing out one lie for starters?
Their criteria is suspect. “Expertise was evaluated by the number of papers on climate research written by each individual, with a minimum of 20 required to be included in the analysis. Climate researchers who are convinced of human-caused climate change had on average about twice as many publications as the unconvinced, said Anderegg, a doctoral candidate in biology.”
That was their sole criterion for determining who had “climate expertise” — the number of papers on climate research each had written. Nothing about content. No independent peer review. Not even a requirement that the paper addressed new material.
Expertise was only based on the *number* of papers each had written — using that logic, Stan Lee of Marvel Comics is a better writer of fantasy fiction than Poul Anderson was.
“Prominence was assessed by taking the four most frequently cited papers published in any field by each scientist — not just climate science publications — and tallying the number of times those papers were cited by other researchers. Papers by climate researchers convinced of human effects were cited approximately 64 percent more often than papers by the unconvinced.”
Note that they said “frequently cited” — that means that even if the citation was for “Look what this idiot wrote,” the citation counted towards making the author “prominent.” And, unlike the authors here, who are pretty eclectic in their choices, those authors on the AGW side cite each other so often it’s downright incestuous.
And it turns up in Science Daily:
Scientific Expertise Lacking Among ‘Doubters’ of Climate Change, Says New Analysis
For the leftist, or those of a totalitarian bent, all things are political. Their premise is that the masses of ordinary people would be better off if the elite were to rule their lives. On every issue, the side which give more political power to the elite is the good side. The uniquely American ideal of the sovereign individual is the natural enemy of the left.
Scientists with leftist instincts argue with Lysenkoism (a distortion of evolutionary theory convenient to Marxism that became scientific dogma in Stalinist Russia) only in the particulars. They love the process of Lysenkoism. They would impose it with respect to AGW, subordinating all of our lives, through government control by asserting as dogma a phony science.
******
evanmjones says:
June 27, 2010 at 7:42 pm
Nature is fang and claw. Even the plants get in on it.
******
Yes. A short walk into forest from my lot, there are two 1 ft dia+ trees growing very close — a Sugar maple that looks healthy & a Black walnut that seems in poor health. Looking at the ground, I can see the maple has grown a massive surface root across the root-crown of the walnut, cutting deeply like a knife into the base of the walnut trunk. By chance or design, the maple is slowly strangling the walnut.
Many such extreme-slow-motion battles between plants are apparent in the forest.
Pascvaks says:
June 28, 2010 at 6:01 am
Careful dear friends, “The Great Inquistion” approacheth. The AGW Flat Earthers will have their pound of flesh. They will have the children report their parents to the authorities. They will torture the truth out of all who dare to deny any tenent of The Faith of Global Warming. They will burn non-believers at the stake. They will have them devoured at half time during football games by ravenous lions and wolves. There will be no escape. Run! Hide! Move into the wilderness! Death comes to all who deny them. You have been warned! All is lost!
___________________________________________________________
ERRrrr, I hate to tell you but that type of stuff has already started.
“Third parties, such as veterinarians, will be required to report “sightings” of animals who do not have ID numbers. (Standards, p. 25.) In other words, if a farmer or rancher calls a vet to their property to treat an animal, and the vet finds any animal without the mandatory 15-digit computer-readable ID, the vet may be required to report that non-compliance.” The NAIS Story
“US planning to recruit one in 24 Americans as citizen spies
The Bush Administration aims to recruit millions of United States citizens as domestic informants in a program likely to alarm civil liberties groups. The program would use a minimum of 4 per cent of Americans to report “suspicious activity”. Civil liberties groups have already warned that, with the passage earlier this year of the Patriot Act, there is potential for abusive, large-scale investigations of US citizens. Highlighting the scope of the surveillance network, TIPS volunteers are being recruited primarily from among those whose work provides access to homes, businesses or transport systems. Letter carriers, utility employees, truck drivers and train conductors are among those named as targeted recruits.” Spies Like Us
Unfortunately government surveillance is no longer a laughing matter.
Per my earlier comments,
Wren:
your disingenuousness regarding the basic issues here gives your game away.
(That is, you’re blandly giving countenance to an action that is clearly outrageous. [The NAS publishing blacklists – nothing to see here …])
Well, what outcome can be possibly expected of a opinion collected among the most published researchers in the field of anthropogenic effect in the global warming? Jee, who would have thought.
On the other news: 98% most published practitioners of homeopathy are convinced that homeopathy is a valid treatment and the arguments of its critics do not hold water.
95% of the palm readers swear that palm reading is the most reliable forecast instrument.
100% of pickpockets are convinced that they are upstanding members of the community.
Bill Tuttle says:
June 28, 2010 at 6:49 am
Wren: June 27, 2010 at 9:51 pm
What’s false about the survey and its conclusions?
How about pointing out one lie for starters?
Their criteria is suspect. “Expertise was evaluated by the number of papers on climate research written by each individual, with a minimum of 20 required to be included in the analysis. Climate researchers who are convinced of human-caused climate change had on average about twice as many publications as the unconvinced, said Anderegg, a doctoral candidate in biology.”
That was their sole criterion for determining who had “climate expertise” — the number of papers on climate research each had written. Nothing about content. No independent peer review. Not even a requirement that the paper addressed new material.
Expertise was only based on the *number* of papers each had written — using that logic, Stan Lee of Marvel Comics is a better writer of fantasy fiction than Poul Anderson was.
“Prominence was assessed by taking the four most frequently cited papers published in any field by each scientist — not just climate science publications — and tallying the number of times those papers were cited by other researchers. Papers by climate researchers convinced of human effects were cited approximately 64 percent more often than papers by the unconvinced.”
Note that they said “frequently cited” — that means that even if the citation was for “Look what this idiot wrote,” the citation counted towards making the author “prominent.” And, unlike the authors here, who are pretty eclectic in their choices, those authors on the AGW side cite each other so often it’s downright incestuous.
================
The criteria is not a lie. It is reasonable to assume there is a positive relationship between number of papers written by scientists on a subject and their expertise on the subject.
Re the Lee and Anderson comparison, a comic book is not a novel, so the comparison is apples and oranges. Perhaps Lee draws better than Anderson, and Anderson writes better than Lee.
JoNova
Learn how not to reason at the University of Western Australia.
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/06/learn-how-not-to-reason-at-the-university-of-western-australia/
k winterkorn says:
June 28, 2010 at 8:27 am
For the leftist, or those of a totalitarian bent, all things are political. Their premise is that the masses of ordinary people would be better off if the elite were to rule their lives
They are taught, when they are conveniently”initiated” that this is so, for the sake of humanity, that they are the chosen ones to spread all these “blessings” to mankind. The fact is that they are and have been manipulated and fooled to believe this by their masters.
However the history of humanity it is not written by those who believe themselves “gods” or “semi-gods”, really self-indulging morons, but, fortunately, by hard working people. individuals making the real breakthroughs.
As for their masters, they are all crazy, for what is it to ambition billions of dollars for them and for their progenie?. Are they inmortal?, NO, so that’s utterly stupid.
BTW, GAIA PRIESTS, ENVIRONMENTAL BELIEVERS, GREEN ADEPTS, GLOBAL WARMING FANATICS, SHOULD MAKE A VOW OF POVERTY
Only then we could believe them!
Oh, sure, that’s easy to have a huge list of those climate researchers most actively publishing in the field, who had “expert credibility in climate,” and supported the tenents of AGW outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
But here’s the list of scientists who had “expert credibility in climate” AFTER they supported the tenents of AGW:
.
🙂
Wren says:
June 28, 2010 at 9:42 am
The criteria is not a lie. It is reasonable to assume there is a positive relationship between number of papers written by scientists on a subject and their expertise on the subject.
Only if you don’t think Scientifically, Wren, which appears to be your main problem. Or else, and since you’ve ignored my previous response, tell us where your above criterion exists in the Scientific Method.
I’ll wager you can’t even bring yourself to write “Scientific Method”, unless, of course, you dismiss it out of hand – also = arguing fallaciously like Ravetz for “Postnormal Science” as necessarily transcendent, blah blah blah – which then leaves you right back with my original response to your question, i.e., that your criterion lends nothing to the Scientific credibility of CAGW, and in fact even tends to contradict it – in that the criterion is not found in the operation of the Scientific Method, so why is it even being proffered?
Attention: DAVID
Please review the following google document, and get back to us.
(There will be a quiz)
http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddrj9jjs_0fsv8n9gw
Boris Gimbarzevsky says:
97% is a redundant statistic in matters of science and human behaviour and in any case can be reversed in meaning.
97% of composers are not as great as the possible 3% of musical genius. 97% of mathemeticians are not as illustrious as the 3% who profess to the highest level. To what extent the 3% will sell their integrity is a question of administrative pressure.
It makes one wonder if Galileo in his day had 97% against him, or whether Darwin had 97% against his hertical theory of evolution. I daresay it was closer to 100%
*heretical
Boris Gimbarzevsky says:
June 27, 2010 at 3:57 pm
That the PNAS has seen fit to publish a paper in which a central premise of a paper is the fact that 97% of scientists support the theory of AGW is a sad day for science…..
What has become clear is that much of “science” has become very unscientific. True science is open to anyone who is intelligent enough to take the basic premises of a branch of science, play with them and come up with novel testable theories…..
________________________________________________________________
Thank you for that comment. It echos my experience in industry dealing with PhD Chemists and Biologists. If you do not have a PhD, and especially if you are female those with PhDs do not even hear you. I spent years feeding my ideas through a Chem Engineer who was willing to listen and parrot what I said in meetings.
Also the expertise in one tiny field seem to make PhDs think they are an expert in everything. This was a very big handicap when a PhD was flat out wrong and “deaf” to boot. I had to have that PhD removed from a project because of his pig headedness. Even upper management could not change this guys mind.
Baa Humbug says:
June 28, 2010 at 3:32 am
Some commenters are entertaining the idea of what to do with the alarmists once this scam is finally exposed for what it is.
I REALLY ENJOYED Inglurious Basterds. The forehead…the CO2 sign
__________________________________________________________________
What happens to the alarmists will depend on how much suffering and death they actually cause. The EU with deaths from the cold this winter and the financial disasters in Greece, Spain, Germany and England are examples of what I mean.
If the insanity continues until the EU ban on heated family houses goes into effect in 2020 and that is coupled with a Little Ice Age, I would not want my name on that list as a CAGW scientist. Especially if a family living nearby loses a child to the cold.
JPeden says:
June 28, 2010 at 1:41 pm
Wren says:
June 28, 2010 at 9:42 am
The criteria is not a lie. It is reasonable to assume there is a positive relationship between number of papers written by scientists on a subject and their expertise on the subject.
Only if you don’t think Scientifically, Wren, which appears to be your main problem. Or else, and since you’ve ignored my previous response, tell us where your above criterion exists in the Scientific Method.
I’ll wager you can’t even bring yourself to write “Scientific Method”, unless, of course, you dismiss it out of hand – also = arguing fallaciously like Ravetz for “Postnormal Science” as necessarily transcendent, blah blah blah – which then leaves you right back with my original response to your question, i.e., that your criterion lends nothing to the Scientific credibility of CAGW, and in fact even tends to contradict it – in that the criterion is not found in the operation of the Scientific Method, so why is it even being proffered?
====
There’s no need for pedantry here. Common sense will do.
As a group, people who have authored research papers on a subject would be expected have more expertise on that subject than people who have not. And as a group, those who have authored many papers would be expected to have more expertise than those who have not.
BTW, the National Academy of Sciences recognizes that CAGW is a problem. Is that because the Academy doesn’t understand the scientific method? Nah !
“”” Gail Combs says:
June 28, 2010 at 7:22 pm
Boris Gimbarzevsky says:
June 27, 2010 at 3:57 pm
That the PNAS has seen fit to publish a paper in which a central premise of a paper is the fact that 97% of scientists support the theory of AGW is a sad day for science…..
What has become clear is that much of “science” has become very unscientific. True science is open to anyone who is intelligent enough to take the basic premises of a branch of science, play with them and come up with novel testable theories…..
________________________________________________________________
Thank you for that comment. It echos my experience in industry dealing with PhD Chemists and Biologists. If you do not have a PhD, and especially if you are female those with PhDs do not even hear you. I spent years feeding my ideas through a Chem Engineer who was willing to listen and parrot what I said in meetings.
Also the expertise in one tiny field seem to make PhDs think they are an expert in everything. This was a very big handicap when a PhD was flat out wrong and “deaf” to boot. I had to have that PhD removed from a project because of his pig headedness. Even upper management could not change this guys mind. “””
Wow Gail; you really are a radical aren’t you ? What a thought; that a PhD might make one an expert in the field of one’s PhD thesis; but not necessarily everywhere else. Well I am glad you had the guts to say it; I’d never get away with it; since as Mike put it I just had some “undergraduate courses” in math and science. Well like five solid years of Physics, and Maths, and Chemistry too; before I ever set foot on a University Campus; as a result of going to the right High School; then doing four more solid years of those “undergraduate courses” in Physics, and Math’s (actually five majors, as the University accounted for such things); (the chemistry stopped) at the University; followed by one full post graduate year, and a nearly completed thesis. But then that just led me to 50 years of on the job training in what Physics is really good for.
And my only “peer review” was my bosses deciding whether to keep me employed or not; they only seemed to care about whether my stuff worked or not; they don’t seem too impressed by my publications list; well other than those at the US patent Office. Cuurently I am under a publishing ban; on the theory that “we shouldn’t be teaching at that level”.
Well yes maybe I do need a PhD; maybe I can get one in ice cream making; but then You probably don’t like ice cream Gail.
We do have technology fields where the intensity of knowledge that comes with a PhD is madatory; and I’m glad there are those who go to that trouble.
But I’ve never tolds any boss, that I couldn’t do something, that he asked me about. I figured, if I could spell it, I knew enough to find it in the books; and if I hit the books, I could learn enough to get results, about the time my boss started to wonder what I was up to, and wanted a progress report. Seems to work so far; and my expected retirement date is now ten years behind me.
Some of the very best Engineers, that I have ever encountered, Gail, were actually technicians; who leanred on the bench why the design the degreed engineer gave them didn’t work; and since he wasn’t there with them whent hey smoke tested his contraption; they would design the next non working one the same damn way. Meanwhile the tech would figure out how to make it work, along with how to do it right the next time.
Yes we need people with all the intense knowledge that a PhD or a Masters can bring; but then we also need people who will tyr their hand at anything that looks like it can make a buck for their employer or themsleves, and keep the wheels turning.
And I see no reason why that doesn’t work in any science oriented discipline; not just the Physical sciences.
George
PS Gail, MOST of the female scientists or engineers I have ever worked around; have been almost “hire sight unseen”, because they were very good; they had to be to put up with; and survive all the crap they faced to get to where they were. The old boy thing is not quite dead and buried yet.
Watch out for the science police. After all, they controlled the world of Fahrenheit 451.
Wren says:
June 28, 2010 at 10:47 pm:
BTW, the National Academy of Sciences recognizes that CAGW is a problem. Is that because the Academy doesn’t understand the scientific method? Nah ! [my bold]
Well, I’ll grant you – because I’ve been essentially saying the same thing in regard to this PNAS Article and its “criteria” – that in inappropriately trying to lend scientific credence to CAGW by publishing the “Expert credibility in climate” Article, which 1] used criteria having nothing to do with the Scientific Method’s way of establishing credence, credibility, and expertise in Science; while the Article also 2] so scrupulously avoided the Scientific Method’s way, and even any mention of it:
That, therefore, the PNAS et al. in some significant sense must have understood or known what the Scientific Method is, and also that “they” – those particular people involved in the writing, review, and publishing of the article – were not using the Scientific Method’s way of establishing actual Scientific credence or expertise in this particular Article!
Again, because they all specifically avoided the Scientific Method’s way of operating in this case, their way “backfired” in regard to their purpose of trying to lend any real Scientific credence to CAGW. And so they are still left only with their own admittedly dogmatic CAGW “tenets”.
But yes, Wren, you did manage to write, “scientific method” without dismissing it yourself, which is kind of the opposite of what the PNAS did in this Article.
I find it interesting that there’s this claim here by David that were supposed to provide some kind of evidence of a conspiracy occurring here? In fact if you go into a government building and talk to an average government social worker, I’ve never heard one of them state that there should be less taxes, less government workers, and less funding for THEIR deparment. In fact, few if ANY will every state that there should be less government in general. So does this constitute a conspiracy? Of course it does not, but it most certainly does constitute self interest.
When governments get out of control, it simply an issue of them trying to exercise as much authority as they can until the people say stop. When the government in the province of British Columbia in Canada asked the people do you want more taxes the people of that Provence where on the provincial parliament’s doorstep with a bunch of pitchforks saying are you crazy.
The government then turned around and said let’s make this a green tax, and every one said, sure, that is a great and we happy open up our wallets even wider for you.
In other words it took the government all of about 5 minutes to figure out if you sell something as a green and environmental tax because that is politically correct, then you can get more taxes out of the people. I mean when is the last time you herd the government call on new tax on gasoline the following:
The increase the size of the government tax and lets have more government socialism by increasing a this socialist tax on gas?
In other words is it a conspiracy that they don’t call this tax the increasing of socialism and more big government tax? No, it’s certainly not a conspiracy.
So we simply standing here and stating that the scientific institutions are NOT willing to stand up and say golly this is a bunch of garbage, please get rid of the $20,000,000,000 of funding we’ve had over all these years. Lets close down the climate research institute and lay everyone off. I mean it’s pretty simple but if you make a proposal to the biology department to study the friendly raccoon, you’ll not getting any funding. However, if you add the magical word study raccoons population due to global warming, you’ll likely get all kinds of funding and it means the deparment can ask for MORE money also! So, it is politically correct for these governments to ask for that funding.
Do you actually think that the IPCC was formed by the U.N. which gets all of its funding from taxation and governments and their mandate was to try and find that global warming is not a problem ? Lets not be silly here.
This is the same thing with the whole carbon trading business, if you want to let Wall Street trade your glass of tap water on some exchange in Chicago to fleece more money from you every time you drink a glass of water, they will certainly do so. And if you’re stupid enough to let those guys trade your carbon, then they’ll be much obliged to do that also! Once again this is just a way for these people to fleece money from your pocket.
In all of the above cases no one hears making the claim that this is some kind of big conspiracy, but we most certainly are making that it is a disruption and perversion of self interest, and that’s for sure.
As for conspiracy? Well you just have to go luck at the leaked emails from the CRU. They DID in fact conspire to subvert the peer review process, and that is morally disgusting and reprehensible, and they were caught doing this. Perhaps worse is these people have supposedly been exonerated of no wrong doing?
How convenient is it for Al Gore to run around and make you feel guilty about the climate, but it’s even more spectacular and convenient that Gore forgets to tell you that is also on the Board of Directors of a company that trades carbon. So, is this a conspiracy? No, it is not, but it sure as the heck one guy selling you something that’s gonna make him even more buckets of duckets.
I don’t think anybody here is calling this whole issue of socialism and government workers saying they want more taxes and more government workers is a conspiracy. On the other hand you can’t tell me or show me any gov’t worker running around the halls of the local government institution telling everyone that we need less government and wish to have less government jobs, and there should be less funding for the particular department there working in! When you put it in this light, you clearly see this is not a conspiracy, but simply good old fashions self interest and greed.
It only people on your side that think we call this a conspiracy, so, sorry to bust your bubble, we simply been calling this self interest and socialism out of control.
This is not a big conspiracy UNLESS you can find me that government social worker running around telling me that we should have less government social workers and that the funding for their department should be cut.
So I thought it high time to point out that we people here as a general rule are not talking about walls covered with tin foil kind of conspiracy stuff. We’re simply talking about the cancer of socialism and how history has shown over and over again that these institutions will put their own self interest and well being ahead of the general good of the public.
It not our side that allowed the scientific process to be subverted into a political process. We’re not the ones that got into the bed with the U.N. or the Al gores of the world, it’s your side. I do feel sorry for much of the scientific community, because they suffered a huge loss of credibility here, but that same community did NOT stand up to this garbage and that community that’s now suffering the consequences of allowing science to become a political tool for socialist gains.
The end result means the science community is not partial and they given up the quest for quality science that seeks the truth and that is truly sad to see.
“”” Richard Sharpe says:
June 28, 2010 at 7:25 am
And it turns up in Science Daily:
Scientific Expertise Lacking Among ‘Doubters’ of Climate Change, Says New Analysis “””
So I left a note at Science Daily suggesting that in support of their promotion of Stephen H. Schneider’s piece of garbage; they prove his thesis, by reprinting just the first 20 papers published by Albert Einstein, on the subjects of Special Relativity, General Relativity, or the Photo-Electric Effect.
If ever their was a misguided notion; it is Schneider’s assumption that the sheer number of papers that any author writes on a subject, is a credible measure of his level of expertise in that subject. No it is simply an indication of how some authors can spin out a yarn over multiple largely redundant episodes, to satisfy their Institution’s thirst for publication exposure.
So just how many papers is it that Professor Schneider himself has published on the subject of man made global warming climate change ?
And just how many fundamentally new ideas or results is he to be credited with as a result of that number of papers; or are most of them simply rehashes of his same old tired ideas, in some other magazine or journal that wants to publish a story authored by him.
I have a rough idea, just how many sleezy steamy, x-rated paperbacks that Mickey Spillane wrote to occupy airline travellers while on a plane going somewhere. Today, he could program a computer to spit them out in minutes.
Now let me be clear; I am NOT equating any climate science paper by Professor Schneider, with a Mickey Spillane whodunit; I’m just using the example of Spillane (a very successful writer) to illustrate the churning machine process of rehashing the same basic material to keep it flowing in new clothing, to create the illusion of continuous creativity.
So just how many original; different; and widely accepted climate principles can Professor Schneider lay personal claim to; that qualifies him as a climate expert. What does biology have to do with climate anyway; well as compared to Physics for example ?
And remember; the real debate, is not about whether the slow societal changes in the peoples of Africa, has drastically altered the weather; either local or regional in Africa.
The debate is about the single issue of whether human usage of fossil fuels is driving the earth’s weather/climate system to the brink of some as yet unseen precipice from which there can be no withdrawal.
It is not about whether a handful of new species of ancient pollens or micro-organisms have been discovered in some previously unsuspected place; to hint at some distant past local environment.
The debate is about whether the proven data, since man had the capability; to the extent we may or may not have, to measure important weather, and climate variables with sufficient reliability; so that governments can make Internationally upheaving decisions; that have the potential and capability of destroying the entire economic foundation of modern civilizations; all in the pursuit of some fantasy that the best “Science” can’t pin down to less than some 3:1 range of outcome expectation; and is based on computer models which have so far not even proved capable or recreating the raw data that they purpotedly are based on; and whose future “projections” have themselves so far not come to pass; even after 20 years of observation, that by now should have yielded clear observations of those earlier projected claims.
It is now more than 20 years (or is it 30) since Dr James Hansen stood in anoverheated room before the congress, and delivered his dire projections for the future; and by now; there should be real quantifiable evidence of just what he claimed would happen back then; but that evidence is strangely missing from the climate record.
Isn’t it about time for him to come forward; and disown those totally rash claims that he made back then; and admit that he was wrong ?