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.
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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"@ur momisugly 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.