For those that have heard about that claimed “97% consensus” on global warming from John Cook and the SkS Kidz, here is a thought from the oldie but goodie department:
Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as tyrannical and cruel as unlimited despots. –John Adams 1793
When they get that large, at 97%, they tend to be as laughable as some of the voting results we see in North Korea:
North Korea Election Results – Kim Jong Il wins 100 percent of vote with 99.9 percent turnout
Whether it be a political majority, a social majority, or a synthesized scientific majority, a majority that large almost always tends to come crashing down once the methodology is examined.
This is probably why author John Cook won’t release the full data to Dr. Richard Tol, who is attempting replication.
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http://nollyprott.wordpress.com/2013/01/19/the-alleged-unintended-consequences-of-the-carbon-dioxide-causes-climate-change-scam/
Well, why should he release the data to Dr. Tol, when Tol’s aim is to try to find something wrong with it?
Wait, that sounds strangely familiar for some reason…
Cuba manages similar sorts of near 100% results.
I know a lot of scientists, but not one believes in CAGW. I would like to meet just one who does, so the 97% figure is just the figment of some sad individual’s imagination..
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no
evidence that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view
of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread
belief is more often likely to be foolish than sensible.
– Bertrand Russell, in A History of Western Philosophy,
Yep, that 97% figure… it’s just not working for them any more, is it.
97 % of vampires believe they should be in charge of the blood bank as well.
What is that word again, for when someone deliberately says things that aren’t true because they think it will get them something they want?
My memory, it’s *sooo* bad.
But seriously, a community that tolerates this sort of behavior brings shame on itself.
Such majority tyranny was shown by the Aristotelians against Galileo.
In A Brief History of Eternity, Physicist Roy E. Peacock reports how he discovered that the Liga, a secret conspiracy of academicians, used false accusations to turn Galileo’s friend, Pope Urban VIII to turn him over to the Inquisition and put him under house arrest.
Peacock, A Brief History of Eternity p 141.; Notes on Science and Christian Belief Ch 1, p 10
Consider recent news: The IPCC’s new certainty is 95% What? Not 97%??
However, von Storch et al. (2013) Can climate models explain the recent stagnation in global warming?
Lets see, 100% – 2% = 98%.
Does that mean that we now have a 98% confidence that the IPCC’s 95% confidence is wrong?
Machiavelli
I think that’s where 97% of the 97% problem originates.
Okay SteveC, now that you said that I’ve got to quote those esteemed modern philosophers from the Great White North:
“Living in the limelight
The universal dream
For those who wish to seem
Those who wish to be
Must put aside the alienation
Get on with the fascination
The real relation
The underlying theme”
remember the old adage:
There are three types of lies: Lies, damn lies, and statistics
It’s well to remember Einstein’s comment that 1,000 scientists can believe a theory but it only takes one experiment to prove it wrong.
The 97 percent, or 95 percent, or x billion percent, or whatever the hell it is, is nothing but the standard logical fallacy of argumentum ad verecundiam. “Oh, everybody else believes it, therefore it must be so,: or “Authority says it is, therefore it is.” Even as the disproof is smacking them upside the head.
I presume the fungi that came up with these percentages never took philosophy in college.
Its no joke , the cartoonists; lapdog next paper is that 110% of all scientists agree, such is their depth of support , and he as the data to prove it . Just don’t ask for it .
And why not after all as reality gets further away from the claims , the IPCC is more sure its ‘right’
97% is old news! IPCC says it’s down to 95% – aka worse than we thought!
“Whether it be a political majority, a social majority, or a synthesized scientific majority, a majority that large almost always tends to come crashing down once the methodology is examined.”
Unfortunately, close examination of the methodology is rare when voters with regard to global warming, like on many other topics, do not usually have the equivalent of 30 minutes of decent study. However, even though about no job (scientist, physician, engineer, driver … or voter) can be done well with so little training or education, self-styled elites are often far worse with intentional dishonesty and not having the interests of mankind at heart, so democracy can remain (paraphrasing Winston Churchill) the worst form of government except for all of the others which have been tried.
The 97% consensus claim, like the rest of the CAGW movement, consists of slick style breaking down upon reading closely: Doran & Zimmerman 2009 gave 97% “consensus” by 2 poll questions of if temperatures rose since the pre-1800s (Little Ice Age) and if humans have a significant (non-zero) effect on temperature. That is not at all the same as CAGW predictions of an order of magnitude greater temperature increase, nor as having most of the past century’s temperature rise be due to humans rather than the real picture (which includes a match of five peaks and five troughs in sea level rise rates, humidity, cloud cover, and temperature with forcing from cosmic ray flux over the 1960s-2000s period of neutron monitor data as illustrated in http://s24.postimg.org/rbbws9o85/overview.gif ).
http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus
At least our economies are not dependent on climate scientists…….not yet anyway.
And don’t forget that, at one time, at least 97% of ‘experts’ believed that the sun went round the earth – and they had models for that too!
BobM, That’s the best quote I’ve heard in a long time. Sad that it’s so true, but at least we can laugh about it. Right?
Argumentum ad populum – Appeal to the People fallacy
The only reason John Cook doesn’t claim 100% like North Korea is that he doesn’t have the ability- like Kim Jong- to fudge the results to the same extent. But he probably believes it is 100% consensus, as only those who agree with him count anyway, which is just what Kim Jong believes. If you only include those who agree with you, or some other such arbitrary selection, you can get 100% of anything.
@X Anomaly –
The NASA piece – more proof that where there is consensus there is no science, the two being mutually exclusive. The term “scientific consensus” is an oxymoron, rather like “Soviet journalist” or “atheist pope.”
How far this once proud and worthy agency has fallen.
IT was so nice of them to pin down the time frames for us.. now we simply ask the question of which rate of warming was caused by CO2.. because they are identical…
The gift that keeps on giving…
@Peter Miller
Same here. But I know a great deal of academics (and “pedestrians”) that do believe. The 97% figure is simply meant to encourage these believers while simultaneously discouraging outspoken dissent from scientists by frightening them to follow orthodoxy.
Consensus has NO place in science. All that matters is who is right.
When conservative John Howard was PM in Australia the left went on and on about the the “tyranny of the majority” … right up until they got Rudd elected and then suddenly they went very quiet.