Scientific American writes:
As a profile of Judith Curry in the November 2010 issue of Scientific American makes clear, the University of Georgia climate scientist has become an increasingly polarizing figure IN the past year or so.
…
Yet Curry herself is convinced that some of those facts are seriously exaggerated, and that the IPCC has failed to acknowledge the real uncertainty in the science.
…
She’s been denounced, sometimes vehemently, for her efforts.
So here’s the central question: Is Curry a heroic whistle-blower, speaking the truth when others can’t or won’t?
…
Let us know what you think.
Here’s the link to the poll:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=taking-the-temperature-climate-chan-2010-10-25
h/t to Joe Romm
NOTE: I should add that this poll is rather poorly designed. On that, Mr. Romm and I agree. Bear in mind that many of the questions are multiple choice, and more than one answer can be selected. You can also skip questions that you feel don’t offer a representation of your view. – Anthony
UPDATE: If readers would like to offer some alternative suggestions for question sets in comments, I’ll be happy to setup and run a comparison poll here. – Anthony
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As poorly designed as the survey questions are (The writer is a dedicated CAGWer?)
I don’t think that they’ll be happy with the results!
4. The IPCC, or Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is:
a corrupt organization, prone to groupthink, with a political agenda 77.7% of votes with 2,043 out of 2,628 responses!
And the majority of the written responses both decry the bias behind the questions and reinforce the survey’s results!
I especially like this comment.
“Climate Change has taught me this: I now have about as much respect for scientists and journalists, as I do for politicians and abusive priests. Meanwhile, the UN had allowed carbon trading to trump 3rd world fresh water relief, starvation rescue and 3rd world education for just over 24 years of climate crisis warnings. Nice! History is watching.
Scientists not only polluted the planet with their chemicals, they also produced cruise missiles, cancer causing chemicals, land mine technology, nuclear weapons, germ warfare, strip mining technology, deep sea drilling technology and now climate change.
Don’t forget, you doomers scared my kids with needless panic and if you still think the VOTERS will allow this insanity, YOU are the new denier.
Get ahead of the curve because history is calling climate change modern day witch burning.”
And another superb response to the only real “Warmist” commentator-
“Is prof. Mandia for real? His comment is hilarious, or sad, or both. Speaking prof to prof, I’d like to know, M, whether in your discipline the facts are determined by a show of hands. It certainly is not in mine (mathematics). Any such enterprise is a sure sign of pseudoscience or something even less benign. Your reaction to doubt is antiscience. I encourage my students to doubt every day. If they don’t learn to demand proof then I have not done my job. I am in the business of education, not indoctrination. How about you?”
The poll is even more worthless than the obviously biased questions (and the inability to skip questions that don’t have a decent answer available). They are using a poll system that doesn’t even check for unique IP addresses. In other words, a single person could go and submit ‘completed’ polls as many times as they’d like to, in order to ‘push’ the results. The thing is worse than utterly useless.
Come on folks. Yes, it’s not a great survey but look at the results – they speak of a very skeptical readership. Ain’t that a good thing? Or have I been visiting the wrong blog all these years???
The poll sucked. Obviously created by a CAGW poster child.
That said one question was very good:
8. How much would you be willing to pay to forestall the risk of catastrophic climate change?
75% answered: Nothing.
That’s gotta cause some sleep loss for the demolib dweebs behind the scenes at SciAm.
Adam Gallon says:
October 27, 2010 at 1:56 am
Fixed that for ya. Us engineers get it done and scientists get all the credit. I’m sick of it, I tell ya. Sick of it!
Dear Mr Galileo,
We write to inform you
That your’e in big trouble.
The science is settled.
Your trial starts tomorrow.
From the Inquisition Politbureau.
In the good old days, Scientific American only posted “joke” stories in April, in the spirit of April Fools Day. The idea of a “joke” in a scientific magazine was accepted because it’s intent was to test your powers of skepticism.
This is no joke. It is sad.
What a ridiculous poll…I am stunned that a so called scientific organisation would run such a “how often do you slap your children” type poll.
Tim says:
October 26, 2010 at 9:32 pm
I agree with the comments about the lame nature of the questions especially #7
7. Which policy options do you support?
Trick question. I almost went for option #2, as you did “2) increased government funding of energy-related technology research and development”, but then I realized this is about energy policy, not spending. Throwing more money at so-called “Green” energy isn’t the answer.
So, I played their game, and chose option 3, “keeping science out of the political process”.
Don’t know what all the fuss is about, i found suitable options for every question that either accurately expressed my view, or were significantly closer to it than any of the other options. Just fill it in!
As a result, she’s been engaging with climate outsiders, including outright skeptics,
Oh! Is she really? Well, girls always do go for the bad boys.
I tried but simply could not find an answer that I could agree with in all but one question. To what purpose did this poll serve other than to mark how absolutely unscientific a formerly respected journal can be? When will SA come clean and say it was all just a joke?
Ugly poll bias. Bad image for SA. Integrity? If they doubled their current integrity then it would be zero.
John
Stupid poll. Yes, stupid.
Calling it amateurish is an insult to the Amateur Scientist.
Suggestions for a WUWT alternative poll:
I couldn’t answer all the poll questions because some didn’t have an answer I would choose. So a poll that covered all bases in each question would be a good alternative.
How about these questions:
1) Do you feel guilty about having more than people in third world countries?
2) Does that guilt, if you have it, affect how you view “climate change”?
3) Does that guilt, if you have it, affect how you view fossil fuels?
4) Does feeling guilt over fossil fuels, if you do, make you feel like you are a good person?
5) If you didn’t feel guilt over fossil fuels would you feel like you are not a good person?
6) Is it possible to not feel guilt over fossil fuels and still be a good person?
7) Do you think politicians and environmentalists are using guilt over having more than people in third world counties to promote “climate change”?
8) Is it important to believe scientists?
9) Are scientists human and subject to the same vulnerabilities as all other humans?
10) Do you wish that politicians and environmentalists would leave you alone?
We should let Josh make the poll:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/category/josh
When reading the poll results this morning, I noticed that some of the percentages totaled more than 100%. The total respondents are not being accurately tallied.
michel says:
October 26, 2010 at 3:47 pm
“She’s like one of those faithful Bolsheviks who died under Stalin, for only being 99% behind him.”
Thats funny! Like a Trotsky’ist ? Lots of norwegians went to the Soviet Union in the 30’ties. And ended up in a Camp as alledged spies.
By the way, I think SciAm could be changed to ……. ScAm.
This poll is the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing. No one is going to say “oh my gosh, look at all the skeptics!” Instead, the interpretations will be something like “80% of those who think the IPCC is corrupt also believe that science should not be considered in political decisions.” The seemingly bizarre questions are actually carefully structured to make skeptics look like wackos. Given the tone of the original article, could it really have been otherwise?
DCA engineer says:
October 27, 2010 at 7:08 am
When reading the poll results this morning, I noticed that some of the percentages totaled more than 100%. The total respondents are not being accurately tallied.
————————
Some of the questions allow the selection of multiple choices (For example Question #3)
We are living in Interesting Times, and It’s happening here at WUWT.
Wanna know about it? Just follow the link:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/
Beth Cooper says:
October 27, 2010 at 4:09 am
Sorry Inquisitors!:
E PUR SI MUOVE
Cheers,
Galileo Galilei
Michael Lemonick did both the original article and the poll at SA.
In the article he got her school correct.
On the poll he got her school wrong.
He can’t even remember her school from one to the other.
What a numb nut.
JC for sceptics’ pin-up:
for ………….
against ………