We’ve seen the “If 99 doctors said…” argument, or facsimiles, used often by global warming enthusiasts in recent months. George Clooney used it when interviewed at the Britannia Awards. (See the Open Letter to Lewis Black and George Clooney.) James Cameron used it in the trailer for the upcoming ShowTime series “Years of Living Dangerously”. (Refer to the open letter to Mr. Cameron and the other executive producers of that show.) And on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart included a clip of Dan Weiss of the Center for American Progress using it (See the Open Letter to Jon Stewart.)
I responded to those arguments and discussed many other topics in the posts linked above, with links to more-detailed explanations and examples…and, of course, with links to my ebooks.
The following is something I wrote for my upcoming book with the working title The Oceans Ate My Global Warming (or another possible title CO2 is Not a Control Knob). I thought you might use for it when you see the “If 99 doctors said…” argument again.
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Imagine you’re running a persistent slight fever. You visit a new clinic. The nurse takes your vitals and enters them into a computer program. A short time after the computer model completes its simulations, the doctor arrives, advises you of the computer-diagnosed ailment, and prescribes controversial high-cost medications and treatment.
You’re not comfortable with the service, diagnosis, prescription or treatment, so you check out online the computer model used by the clinic. It is proclaimed to be wonderful by its programmers. But, the more you research, the more you discover the model’s defects. It can’t simulate circulation, respiration, digestion, and other basic bodily functions. There are numerous research papers exposing the flaws in the model, but they are hard to find because of all of the other papers written by the model programmers extolling its virtues.
Of course, you would not accept the computer-based medical diagnosis from a model that cannot simulate basic bodily functions and processes. But that’s the position we’re faced with climate science.
We need a second opinion for the slight warming the Earth had experienced. Unfortunately, it is not likely to be coming anytime soon, not until there are changes to the political agendas that drive climate science funding.
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Enjoy your Super Bowl Sunday…for those celebrating. For everyone else, enjoy your day.
Even as a believer in the consensus of climate science, I’ve always been slightly dubious of this medical stat due to my background as a health professional. Anyone who has worked in health over the years will know that we faithfully believed for many years that Tonsils were best removed, and acidosis in cardiac events should be treated immediately with Sodium Bicarb, we are also guilty with with such issue s as thalidomide and victim blaming in family therapy and incorrectly treating gastric ulcers.. We truly believed in certain things, until someone pointed out we were wrong using good peer reviewed science. But we are still not by any means perfect. Neither is climate science, but from what I can see, the overwhelming body of evidence points in one direction and that is what I will believe until substantial studies show any different conclusions.
Whenever a doctor provides his diagnosis, ask the following simple question: “Doctor, what else could it be?”
Gareth Phillips says:
February 2, 2014 at 5:41 am
You must, at the very least then, be somewhat puzzled by the fact that temperatures have not risen whilst CO2 levels have gone up 5%. The consensus says it shouldn’t happen, the climate models definitely says it shouldn’t happen. Time to apply the scientific method.
“… the overwhelming body of evidence points in one direction and that is what I will believe until substantial studies show any different conclusions.”
What’s “substantial” in your terms? Can you correctly analyze and judge a study, not by its abstract, but by its data, method, conclusions?
If the “conclusions” can be shown to be completely off reality (such as temperatures from climate models), would you consider that as a “substantial” argument ahainst the studies conclusions?
Gareth Phillips says:
February 2, 2014 at 5:41 am
“…we faithfully believed for many years that Tonsils were best removed”
And what were the substantial study conclusions that made you change your mind? Wasn’t it just simple observation?
Look,
If you go to 99 medical researchers who all feed the same bio data into the same computer model which diagnosed you had breast cancer or say testicular cancer, and then you went to one real doctor who took an MRI, you know, that pesky empirical evidence and said you were OK would you believe the 99 using the computer models or the one using the MRI pictures?
Also, let’s say 99 doctors said you have incurable cancer and you are going to die in a year, please go home and die quietly, because the consensus says so, and one doctor says, there is no such thing as a consensus in science, we will examine all the empirical evidence for cures and test them all. Which doctor would you choose? Which doctor is going to make the breakthrough that cures your cancer, one from the consensus or from the sceptics?
Ok, I’m with you on the part about having a slight fever and using a computer to diagnose it, but the prescribed treatment isn’t just controversial, it’s a bit more like it’s recommending you receive the world’s first brain transplant.
TRG, actually at the moment its a bit like removing a lung because your oxygen saturation has gone over 80%, they want to starve the biosphere of CO2, dial CO2 back so crop tields fall.
Gareth Phillips, The logical conclusion is the null hypothesis…That the rise in temperature is mostly if not fully natural because it has done so throughout history, even before we were here.
Just because the proponents of AGW wail that ” we can’t find any explanation other than mankinds activities” doesn’t mean it’s so.
yeilds, not tields … damn virtual keyboards
Your argument would carry no weight at all with a believer. The vast majority of them don’t seem to understand that the whole theory rests on models and not on actual physical evidence. So your talk about the doctor using a computer model to diagnose your illness would be a silly argument in their eyes, because obviously real scientists are using actual observations and measurements.
They trust their scientists in the same way that a religious person trusts their religious leader.
Which is why the eventual fallout will be so harmful to Scientists in general.
Gareth, I would not want to be your patient. You would likely have bled patients to death with leeches back in the day in the name of your consensus. You would have rejected Lister and all of that antiseptic clap trap, like the leading consensus in America did for many years. My doctor is amenable to reality. If the consensus solution is not working on a problem, he looks outside the consensus. When I kept complaining about muscle pain and weakness (myalgia) while on Lipitor, even though they were the “wrong muscles” (according to the consensus at the time) for Lipitor side effects, he took me off statins and put me on what has turned out to be far better treatment, which includes niacin. I have regained my strength and now my lipid profile is fantastic. Much better than it ever was from Lipitor. And now after years of patient suffering, the consensus recognizes that statins can cause frequent myalgia and other serious side effects.
http://www.webmd.com/cholesterol-management/side-effects-of-statin-drugs
Your analysis that leads you to accept the climate consensus is quite simple. It reminds me of the saying that simple minds like simple solutions, frankly.
“No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong”
Albert Einstein
I cannot help feeling that if 99 doctors said you were dead, but you sat up and disagreed with them, this one experiment would have proved them wrong.
If 97% of climate scientists say that an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide means that the atmosphere’s temperature will increase, and the atmospheric carbon dioxide increases but the atmosphere’s temperature does not increase, this one experiment has proved them wrong.
Or am I arguing from authority?
Hello Gareth,
The “consensus” of the IPCC and the global warming alarmists is that atmospheric CO2 strongly drives global warming and there would be much more global warming in the future.
BUT there has been essentially NO global warming in the past approx. 10-20 years, despite significant increases in CO2.
In fact, every major dire prediction by the IPCC and the global warming alarmists has failed to materialize.
In science, the quality of one’s predictive track record is, I suggest, the best objective measure of one’s competence.
The IPCC has NO successful predictive track record – and hence no demonstrable competence.
In 2002 I was asked by my Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (“APEGA”) to debate in writing the issue of catastrophic humanmade global warming and the proposed Kyoto Protocol.
[PEGG debate, reprinted at their request by several professional journals, the Globe and Mail and la Presse in translation, by Baliunas, Patterson and MacRae]
http://www.apegga.org/Members/Publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
We knew with confidence based on the evidence that global warming alarmism was technically false, extremist and wasteful.
We clearly stated in our 2002 debate:
On global warming:
“Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
On green energy:
“The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
On real pollution:
“Kyoto will actually hurt the global environment – it will cause energy-intensive industries to move to exempted developing countries that do not control even the worst forms of pollution.”
On squandering resources:
“Kyoto wastes enormous resources that are urgently needed to solve real environmental and social problems that exist today. For example, the money spent on Kyoto in one year would provide clean drinking water and sanitation for all the people of the developing world in perpetuity.”
I suggest that our four above statements are now demonstrably correct, within a high degree of confidence.
I suggest that we, and a few others like us, have been essentially correct in our predictions to date.
How did we accomplish this? We studied the science and we therefore rejected the “consensus”.
Repeating, to set your mind at rest:
“Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
I also wrote in an article in the Calgary Herald published on September 1, 2002, based on a phone conversation with Paleoclimatologist Dr. Tim Patterson:
On global cooling:
“If (as I believe) solar activity is the main driver of surface temperature rather than CO2, we should begin the next cooling period by 2020 to 2030.”
If you need to worry about something, worry about global cooling.
Regards, Allan
TRG says:
February 2, 2014 at 5:57 am
Ok, I’m with you on the part about having a slight fever and using a computer to diagnose it, but the prescribed treatment isn’t just controversial, it’s a bit more like it’s recommending you receive the world’s first brain transplant.
bobl says:
February 2, 2014 at 6:05 am
TRG, actually at the moment its a bit like removing a lung because your oxygen saturation has gone over 80%, they want to starve the biosphere of CO2, dial CO2 back so crop tields fall.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Brain transplant (political) and lung removal (physical) for starters. They’re going with a heart substitution with a proven nonfunctioning Rube Goldberg pump for the economic follow-up..
99% of doctors were into bleeding as a cure. You get consensus because of professional indoctrination, not because of science.
The following was posted on Bob Tisdale’s blog:
Well done, Bob! In countering the same argument, I’ve used the example of total agreement in the Egyptian Pharaoh’s physicians recommending consumption of frog’s entrails to ameliorate his toothache – the best that then current medicine could offer, and a second opinion was not even available.
Your example is far better, even though the Pharaoh provided government funding!
Other great scientific consensuses (and their Skeptics):
– Geocentric theory, Sun revolves around the Earth (Copernicus)
– Spontaneous Generation, maggots generate from meat for instance (Snow)
– Miasma, replaced by the Germ Theory of Disease (Pasteur)
It is easier to point out the ignorance of history when dealing with the consensus argument.
Professional Therapist says:
Your exactly right. I work with Psychiatrist who go looking for certain criteria to justify their diagnosis, such as bi polar disorder and thus they can get more money for the prescription and treatment of such when in fact it is PTSD but since the psychiatrist cannot or is unwilling to treat or accept that, they ignore those symptoms, etc. I must add I have worked with some of the best psychiatrist and we agree completely about this. Models are based on what we want to find and “forcing” is evident in all human relationships through things like projection, denial, assuming, and the use of anger, etc. or addictions are only strategies to reach their objectives or goals. Climate since models are strategies to reach their goals, period.
I think a more simple analogy would be one where 99 out of 100 doctors agree on a diagnosis, but all but one of the patients that they diagnosed died. I don’t think I would believe anything they said. I would sneak out the back of door of the clinic as soon as posssible. I believe at this point 99% of climates models are incorrect.
Even as late as 1904, years AFTER Dr Gorgas successfully killed the mosquitoes hovering around Havana and stopped the yellow fever and malaria killing US sailors and troops after the Cuban War (1898), the world’s doctors, builders, politicians and leaders refused to accept the mosquito-carried theory of yellow fever or malaria!
Seldom recognized, but it took the President’s (Theodore Roosevelt) personal intervention in the Panama Canal administration process to get Gorgas the authority and budget to do simple things like cleaning water, killing mosquitoes, clearing brush and trees back from the construction, getting screens installed to prevent the slaughter of the many tens of thousands who died during the French attempt …
But, you see, that only goes to show you that President Obama does not have the intelligence and wisdom to know when to listen to “the experts” and when not to listen to “the experts” ….
Who lives by the 97% consensus dies by the 97% consensus. They’ve taken enough rope to hang themselves.
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I like the first one much better. Perhaps accompanied by a front-cover cartoon of a schoolboy attempting to baffle his skeptical teacher with BS regarding his missing homework by pointing to his dog. This cartoon could be wordless if done right. (Maybe the dog could be large and intimidating, giving the teacher pause.)
Yet another counter example: You have a slight fever, you go in for a checkup, and 99 doctors (who all belong to the same club, and whose collective incomes depend upon very expensive treatments) tell you that you MUST have both legs cut off immediately, even though you think you really only need a couple of aspirin.
I submit that at this point, every rational person will realize that the “Doctors” have become more deadly than any disease they’re claiming to be able to treat, and one’s best option is to ignore them all and take your chances on your own.
Climate zombies are immune to doubt. They believe in the thing because it fits into the deep ruts of their settled world view. That a few slivers of science allow them to claim a basis in fact is a happy coincidence.
But we are making some progress as time passes and the world does not end. The roll back in Europe although hidden behind weasel words is an epic event. Already China is being advanced as the green standard but that only speeds the erosion of their arguments.
Super Sunday in the US today. Should be a good game.
They don’t even believe that.
If we are to assume that dogmatic climate scientists are doctor’s and they (in one fashion or another) are patients, we would then have to ask, “Why do you continue to smoke, drink, and consume illicit drugs?” These fools still fly in private jets, own big (multiple) homes near the ocean, film nearly anywhere in the world. Their idea of penance is to buy carbon offsets (Here, take this big pill. It will make you feel better!), while telling us to change our lifestyles, and please, still buy the product they produce. I’d say that if the physician says that they are sick, then maybe they should give it a rest.