People send me stuff. Even though I’m supposed to be on break, I thought this worth a few minutes to post up. I have redacted the recipient address as well as the exact time stamp, and the suffix code in the URL to prevent the sender from being identified by Cook, and face possible retaliation or harassment. Since Jo Nova’s website has yet again been taken down by a hacking DDoS attack, I felt this to be an important step to protect the recipient. From the language and pre-selection filters imposed, clearly there is no further doubt about the connection of John Cook’s Skeptical Science effort to the advocacy disguised as science going on at the University of Western Australia with Stephan Lewandowsky. Since this was sent using the University of Queenslands public network resource, it is fair game for posting, especially since no caveats for disclosure of the survey are given in the invitation letter.
I found the methodology of the sample selection quite ridiculous:
Our search of the ISI Web of Science database has found X of your papers published between 1991 and 2011 matching the search phrases ‘global warming’ or ‘global climate change’ (noting that due to the specific search parameters, it’s possible that some of your papers may not be included). It’s not essential that you are an expert in attribution of global warming
With all the caterwauling at SkS by Cook himself and elsewhere about my supposedly “non-expert” involvement in expressing my invited opinion on the PBS News Hour, here in Cook’s world, they simply don’t care if you are an expert or not if you have an opinion on global warming/climate change. Such hypocrisy. I suppose we can call this the “cartoonist clause” since Mr. Cook is a cartoonist by trade.
Of course we all know now (after examining the survey and data) that the 97% of climate scientists believe in global warming meme is predicated on just a few responses in a flawed survey, which you can read about here: What else did the ’97% of scientists’ say?
This survey promises to be no better, as it has a flaw in the invitation process that will induce bias. Here’s why.
The survey appears to be sent only to publishers of papers that have shown up in search phrases for ‘global warming’ or ‘global climate change’. Cook even concedes that:
“(noting that due to the specific search parameters, it’s possible that some of your papers may not be included).”
So with that criteria, what sort of papers and authors will be excluded? Here’s a short, but by no means complete, checklist of papers and author opinions Cooks sampling method will likely miss:
- Papers/authors that don’t use those two phrases cook deems important because they (or the journal) feel it politicizes or polarizes the paper.
- Papers/authors that study other natural variation effects on climate, such as ENSO, solar influences, aerosol influences, volcanic influences, etc. that are only studying those effects and don’t use the terms Cook deems important.
- Papers/authors that study issues, biases, adjustments of datasets that are only studying those datasets and nuances and don’t use the terms Cook deems important.
- Papers that study climate models that deal with the methods and performance, and don’t use the terms Cook deems important.
And there are probably more examples that I haven’t thought of.
From my viewpoint, Cook’s methodology is fatally flawed, because the search terms act like a data sieve and results in some pre-selection biases for those authors/papers that don’t think twice about using those terms (which are political hot potatoes) in a science paper. As a result I would expect a greater numbers of “believers” (to quote the PBS label) than non-believers to be selected.
There’s another bias. Cooks states in the invitation letter:
“Our search of the ISI Web of Science databasehas found X of your papers published between 1991 and 2011 matching the search phrases ‘global warming’ or ‘global climate change…”
This starting condition will of course exclude papers in journals that are NOT part of the ISI database, and there are more than a few. So, it becomes a double bias in pre-selection on Cook’s part. This of course means that some of the journals that do gatekeeping, such as we witnessed in Climategate emails, exclude skeptical authors
Here’s the solicitation:
==============================================================
From: j.cook3@uq.edu.au
To: xxxx@xxx.xxx
Sent: xx/xx/xxxx xxxxxx
Subj: Invitation to survey re climate research (closing Oct 12)
Just in case our original email may have gone unnticed, you are receiving this reminder about our invitation to participate in a survey (closing Oct 12) by the University of Queensland measuring the level of consensus in the peer-reviewed literature for the proposition that humans are causing global warming. Our search of the ISI Web of Science database has found X of your papers published between 1991 and 2011 matching the search phrases ‘global warming’ or ‘global climate change’ (noting that due to the specific search parameters, it’s possible that some of your papers may not be included). It’s not essential that you are an expert in attribution of global warming – we are interested in whether your paper explicitly states a position on anthropogenic global warming (AGW), makes implicit assumptions about AGW or has no position. You are invited to categorise the topic of research and level of endorsement in each paper. You will not be asked to supply your private views but merely to categorise your published research. To participate, please follow the link below to the University of Queensland website.
http://www.survey.gci.uq.edu.au/?c=xxxxxxxxxx
The survey should take around 4 minutes. You may elect to discontinue the survey at any point; your ratings will only be recorded if the survey is completed. The rating must be done in one uninterrupted session, and cannot be revised after closing the session. Your ratings are confidential and all data will be de-individuated in the final results so no individual ratings will be published. You may sign up to receive the final results of the de-individuated survey.
The research, titled The Consensus Project, is being conducted by the University of Queensland in collaboration with contributing authors of the website SkepticalScience.com (winner of the Australian Museum 2011 award for Advancement of Climate Change Knowledge). The research project is headed by John Cook, Research Fellow in Climate Change Communication for the Global Change Institute at The University of Queensland.
This study adheres to the Guidelines of the ethical review process of The University of Queensland. Whilst you are free to discuss your participation in this study with project staff (contactable on +61 7 3365 3553 or j.cook3@uq.edu.au), if you would like to speak to an officer of the University not involved in the study, you may contact the Ethics Officer on +61 7 3365 3924 or humanethics@research.uq.edu.au.
Regards,
John Cook
Global Change Institute/University of Queensland
Skeptical Science
================================================================
And here are screen caps of the introduction and questions:
The drop downs are interesting, first the drop down that tells them what sort of paper it is:
Note the “Not peer-reviewed” highlighted answer. I found this laughable. He’ll accept an opinion from an author of a non-peer reviewed paper, but by the pre-selection filter of choosing only ISI Web of Science accredited journals, that answer will likely never occur. Here’s why:
The Thomson Reuters Journal Selection Process
By Jim Testa, VP, Editorial & Publisher Relations
updated 5-2012
Why Be Selective?
It would appear that to be comprehensive, an index of the scholarly journal literature might be expected to cover all journals published. It has been demonstrated, however, that a relatively small number of journals publish the majority of significant scholarly results. This principle is often referred to as Bradford’s Law.2
…
Peer Review
Application of the peer-review process is another indication of journal standards and signifies overall quality of the research presented and the completeness of cited references.6 Inclusion of Funding Acknowledgements is also strongly recommended. Not only do they help create a greater context for the journal, these acknowledgements also function as a confirmation of the importance of the research presented.
Source: http://thomsonreuters.com/products_services/science/free/essays/journal_selection_process/
It seems pretty clear to me a non peer reviewed journal would not be selected (for inclusion in the ISI database). Thus skeptical papers that were forced (by the active journal gatekeeping we have witnessed) into journals that didn’t meet ISI’s criteria or simply were not peer reviewed, likely would not be included in Cook’s survey results.
Though the fact that Cook included “not peer-reviewed” as an option for paper author that he would accept means that he’s now bereft of any rational argument when it comes to peer reviewed -vs- non peer reviewed findings.
Here’s answers the authors could give, which are the same no matter which pulldown is first selected.
This new survey by Cook is yet another flawed and transparent advocacy effort to use predetermined opinion gathering as a public relations tool with the help of a compliant and unquestioning news media.
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The Cook made a stew and “Surprise!”
The recipe was made up of lies
The bone and the gristle
Made chewing a thistle
Seem nicer than fingers in pies
” despite the fact that you will lose your funding, career, and pension if you answer in the negative, do you think that global warming is real?’
I’m guessing the fact Anthony received this means >100% isn’t going to wash. 🙂
I’m predicting that if Cook&Co(co) don’t get the answer they want the adverse result won’t be published.
Integrity rating: ≤ 0%
Omnologos not likely, but its highly likely that idiots who don’t understand the word “rule” would make some on the server for them.
There will be absolutely no allegation of inbuilt bias (conscious or otherwise) against Cook’s survey. He is an impartial scientist who just wants to find out whether the consensus is on the way down and if his results show that 93% of climate scientists agree on CAGW then he will shout the results wide and loud. (Do I need to put sarc?)
“(winner of the Australian Museum 2011 award for Advancement of Climate Change Knowledge).”
what a noble award. But it doesn’t beat my second place in the “northwest european golden squirrell award for nutty behaviour” for 3 quarter in 2009.
I love the legal, academic and professional disclaimer you see to get from
the Queensland Government site to move on to the Global Change Institute site:
http://www.science.qld.gov.au/dsdweb/v4/apps/web/content.cfm?id=14934
No editorial emphasis seems necessary !
Why don’t people like John Cook have some scientific or moral ethics? This brazen attempt at manipulation is despicable. No wonder they are losing and becoming very desperate. Ooops! Looks like I answered my question. 😉
I thought the same thing. He cannot get away with saying 100% as we know of climate scientists who would disagree. So he has a choice of 99%, 98%, 97% or less. It’s a tight squeeze and he may need to do some ‘necessary adjustments’ OR we may never hear the results, ever. This is how these brazen scammers work because they know the alleged professional journalists will turn a blind eye.
So why doesn’t he just read the papers and classify them himself?
I agree that the selection process is biased. It would be better to take all journal articles within subject classifications relating to atmospheric science rather than search for a specific phrase.
It looks to me also like he has also engineered a very clever weighting bias in there. Couching this as a “survey of papers” gives him an excuse to heavily weight the opinions of those authors who are prolific users of the phrases.
On the other hand I do like the way the endorsements are worded. I wonder how much influence the ethics committee had on the wording of these. They are considerably better than the usual options presented in this kind of survey. It is actually possible to give an honest answer without feeling that you are being forced by unpalatable options to endorse something you don’t agree with.
This ‘research ‘ has all the quality of the ‘nine out ten cats prefer ‘style of approach, or to be honest less quality.
The Global Change Institute at U of Q does: “development of frameworks for educating, guiding and persuading individuals, businesses and institutions of the need for change”.
It’s board head is Social Psychologist Professor Deborah Terry whose research interests are: “attitudes, social influence, persuasion, group processes”.
It’s Director is Ove Hoegh-Guldberg of “the Great Barrier Reef is doomed” fame.
Institute Research Fellow “Mr” John Cook seems to have overcome the dislike he professed for academia after putting his doctorate in Astrophysics to use in sci fi and church pamphlet cartooning (U of Q says “Graphic Design”) . He may well be perfecting the “denier blocking” software he has developed which automatically analyses climate myths and pops up the consensus science answer. (available for iPhone and Android) Apparently an email from a certain “Cognitive Psychologist” alerted him to the fact that:
“Using evidence to ‘back up’ science can actually have the reverse psychological effect on some people”. WUWT regulars can rest easy though: “Cook’s model, however, predicts that this approach will have minimal impact at the extreme end of the ideological scale”…..and we all know about models..
http://www.gci.uq.edu.au/AboutUs/OurStories/Donotrelyonevidencetoswayworldviews.aspx
AJB says:
September 23, 2012 at 3:06 pm
My family and I LOVE that video!! Is that what androids dream of ?
What a job title….
Research Fellow in Climate Change Communication
No expertise required in climatology, or any of its contributing disciplines.
No expertise required in survey construction or survey research, or in any of the disciplines that rely on it.
measuring the level of consensus in the peer-reviewed literature for the proposition that humans are causing global warming.
Who would be more interested in the “level of consensus” – a scientist, or a propagandist?
As Dana1981 says over at SkepticalScience in the “PBS False Balance Hour – …” post.
However, the amount of warming caused by human greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is known to a high degree of certainty, and these same studies have all found that GHGs are responsible for over 100% of the observed warming over this timeframe (Figure 3).
I see no reason why John Cook and the Skeptical Science team will not be able to find that over 100% of Climate Scientists believe that humans are causing global warming.
Perhaps it will be worse than anyone thought and 150% of Climate Scientists will believe…
Or 200% – Total Catastrophe!!!
But what IF Cook finds 100% of climate scientists agree with his biases, scam survey? What the heck does it mean? I don’t really know but let’s look at what this earlier patent clerk had to say.
“Why don’t people like John Cook have some scientific or moral ethics? ”
Needs a study. Maybe an investigative reporter might be even better.
Or a private investigator.
They need to break it into four separate questions about the endorsements of:
1) The press release
2) The summary
3) The conclusion
4) Any actual science in the paper
I think we’ve seen papers where 1,2,3 will endorse AGW as 50%+, but 4) would not.
I see why they feel the need to conduct a new survey.
Having read your comments on PBS, I think it fair to characterise the results of the previous survey as “97 percent of climate scientists share Anthony Watts’ beliefs on the issues polled.”
In addition to the selection bias, Cook is deliberately seeking agreement to compound or complex questions framed as statements. It is very difficult to respond to a complex question with a simple answer as it generally means accepting the questioner’s biased point of view. Complex questions are mostly used to trick people into admitting something which they would not admit to if they were asked simple questions.
Endorsement 2. asks whether a paper explicitly states any of three separate matters. First that humans are causing global warming, second that global warming is a given fact and third that climate change is a given fact. Would a paper that concurs with all three propositions be written by a believer in CAGW or someone skeptical of CAGW?
Endorsement 6. sets up conflicting alternatives. Either humans are causing minimal global warming or no global warming. These are two separate choices which should not be combined.
A scientist who believed that humans had caused some global warming but was unsure how much could endorse either 2. or 6.
Endorsement 3. explains that a scientist endorsing it accepts that their paper ‘assumes’ greenhouse gases cause global warming without mentioning a human cause. Yet a scientist who chooses this is agreeing that their paper ‘implies’ humans are causing global warming. This endorsement, by not quantifying global warming, is making an unstated assumption that agreeing to it is to agree that humans cause most global warming.
It is curious that Cook uses AGW and not CAGW. It is also interesting that Cook is having to remind scientists to take his survey as this suggests that most have seen it for what it is, ill-conceived, biased nonsense. No doubt, if anyone is foolish enough to complete the survey, it will go into the Lewandowsky statistical jiggery-pokery machine and produce the required results.
No wonder Richard Feynman called sociology a pseudo-science.
I’m going to use their invitation as my template for a totally unbiased political survey:
Our research has found that your posts on our paywalled website contain the words “Family Values” multiple times. Please go to the Conservative Solidarity Project at the Tea Party website and fill out this 4 minute survey. You don’t have to be an expert on the source or foundation of Family Values. This study adheres to the guidelines of the ethical review process of BYU.
There are many aspects of this sort of work providing insights into the development of climate change science mindset that are not only unintended but possibly entirely unconscious to the authors. And this would make the raw data results of interest to those trying to understand the corruption of climate science.
Implicit Endorsement:
What is most striking for me is that both ‘implicit endorsement’ is being assessed and papers on ‘mitigation’ are included. Papers working on mitigation that presume AGW might be telling us something interesting about the success (of propaganda? of fear? of vested interest?) of a corrupting positive feedback cycle in the adjacent applied sciences and social sciences.
I have a report of a conference held in Australia in 1995 (just before the SAR SPM is about to be finalised in Madrid) called “Greenhouse Abatement Measures: No regrets policy now!”. As the title might suggest, paper after paper by agricultural scientists, social scientists etc opening with a statement of presumption of catastrophic AGW. But then there are 5 papers (including the opening ‘oration’) directly addressing the question: Whether AGW? These are all by physical scientists and they are all sceptical except one which is sceptical but lukewarm (at the level of Anthony on PBS). Consider also how IPCC Working Group 2 (impacts) and 3 (mitigation) worked on a presumption of AGW that was not yet established in WG 1 in FAR, nor until after they had completed their part of SAR.
Self-assessment of their papers position on AGW:
This is a very interesting strategic development in the history of such surveys, if not only on account of laziness of the investigator. In my experience interviewing climate scientists caught up in the controversy, many are very careful about what they say when challenged. I can think of a number of two folks I have interview who would not explicitly support the implicit messages in their paper against AGW.
What’s in a name:
In the scientific literature there is an historical correlation between the term “climate change” and AGW.
Prior to the advent of the greenhouse warming scare (and in parallel for some time) the term was “climatic change.”
Oreskes’s 100% consensus:
Prior to the Zimmerman theses was a paper by Oreskes in Science (3Dec2004) where the consensus hypothesis “was tested by analysing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords “climate change”.
However, when others (including Pielke) investigated, they found the assessment overstated the adherence to the consensus. More importantly, no one was able to replicated the 928 set of papers. Finally, Science had to issue a correction that the keyword used was “global climate change,” not “climate change.”
Once again, poor science together with poor grammar. If these people cannot write a coherent and grammatically correct request, how can we be expected to take their thoughts on science seriously?
Considering Thomson Reuters involvement in Point Carbon, Sir Cripsin Tickell of climategate fame, Globemedia’s active green mongering, the latest being ganging with opposition parties to force carbon taxes/cap and trade on Canadians and in doing so hoping to make billions more for the richest family in Canada, Tides friends and so on… Cook’s choice is not innocent.