But, we all know that 97% consensus talking point is simply based on a handful of actual climate responding to a broad questionnaire combined with some statistical spin to give the desired result. Apparently, that’s good enough for low information folks, even the researcher in this story, MSU’s Aaron M. McCright is taken in by the spin.
From Michigan State University:
US residents who believe in the scientific consensus on global warming are more likely to support government action to curb emissions, regardless of whether they are Republican or Democrat, according to a study led by a Michigan State University sociologist.
However, a political divide remains on the existence of climate change despite the fact that the vast majority of scientists believe it is real, said Aaron M. McCright, associate professor in Lyman Briggs College and the Department of Sociology.
The study, in the journal Climatic Change, is one of the first to examine the influence of political orientation on perceived scientific agreement and support for government action to reduce emissions.
“The more people believe scientists agree about climate change, the more willing they are to support government action, even when their party affiliation is taken into account,” McCright said. “But there is still a political split on levels of perceived scientific agreement, in that fewer Republicans and conservatives than Democrats and liberals believe there is a scientific consensus.”
McCright and colleagues analyzed a Gallup survey of 1,024 adults who were asked about their views on climate change.
The results reaffirm the success of what McCright calls the “denial machine” – an organized movement to undercut the scientific reality of climate change during the past two decades.
McCright said the first step in dealing with climate change is getting both sides of the political spectrum to accept the scientific consensus. At that point, he said, policymakers can go about the task of coming up with an approach to combat it.
He said both government and industry should be involved in that effort.
“Certainly we can’t solve all our problems with global warming through government regulations – in fact, for some problems, government regulations might make it worse,” McCright said. “And so we need a combination of market-based solutions and government regulations.”
McCright’s co-authors are Riley Dunlap of Oklahoma State University and Chenyang Xiao of American University.
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Einstein’s view of consensus….
Einstein’s comments: “It doesn’t take 100 scientists to prove me wrong. It takes a single fact.”
Re: Climatology Cult Lies Getting Worse — AGW’s Death Throes
“… it’s the ‘97% of scientists from 100% of science academies‘ banter that they have shooting around of late.” [BruceC @1612 on 4/29/13]
Yes, distressing indeed. Yet, while their gall is appalling, the increasing volume of the BUZZZZZing from the Cult is a sign of hope!
At THE END of the summer, when temperatures are dropping, and THEY KNOW THEIR DOOM IS NEAR, the scourge of flies around the farm is at its worst. Bwah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, haaaaaaaaa!
The prophets of Baal come to mind. “… ‘O Baal, answer us!” they shouted. But there was no response … At noon, Elijah began to taunt them. ‘Shout louder!’ he said. … So they shouted louder … and they continued their frantic prophesying until … evening … .” [I Kings18:26-29]
“…NEANDERTHALS…”! “…NEANDERTHALS…”!!!!! “…NEANDERTHALS…”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Silence.
[And John Hultquist’s nice analogy to “Baghdad Bob” from a couple weeks ago comes to mind]
‘despite the fact that the vast majority of scientists believe it is real, said Aaron M. McCright,’
Actual no survey , questioner nor research has ever been done which can validly make this claim , its in no way a ‘fact’ by any decent measure you care to use. Unless this author can make the case that in the world there only 77 scientists which is where the BS 97% comes from .
And not one scientific institute has polled their members on this issue to get their views .
Another piece of research whose standard would be unacceptable if used by an undergraduate writing an essay, and once again I have to ask does climate ‘science’ actual have any standards for the work it does beyond its must support ‘the cause ‘ ?
The quote from Churchill applies here also–“A lie gets half way around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”
“…based on a handful of actual climate responding to a broad questionnaire…”
–
They got a handful of “actual climate” to respond to a questionnaire? That sounds pretty authoritative to me — unless it was really a handful of climate models masquerading as actual climate.
No one seems interested…including Anthony, Donna, Judith C. when I ask why we don’t get to work funding a new poll. We could hire a neutral polling company for one possibility. I’m sure many folks much smarter than me could come up with some methodology that would have validity.
More fun to complain I guess.
Sorry, the polling comment above is from pokerguy. The responses I usually get is how hard something like that would be, or how it wouldn’t work. Again, easy to sit back and complain, harder to actually do something.
Several er, uhm, decades ago, I witnessed a group of sociology students explaining to a group of engineering students why nuclear power was so dangerous. The engineering students grew increasingly frustrated as they tried to dispel one enormous lie after another to a group of people who clearly did not have the educational background to understand one side or the other, yet sneered down their noses at the “ignorance” of the engineers.
The argument ended with the sociologists climbing a tree to get their pants back.
pokerguy;
We could hire a neutral polling company for one possibility.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Ever hire a polling company? The very first question they ask is what result you are trying to show…
“McCright said the first step in dealing with climate change is getting both sides of the political spectrum to accept the scientific consensus. At that point, he said, policymakers can go about the task of coming up with an approach to combat it.”
Nope. Sorry. The first step was appointing the self-avowed communist Van Jones as Green Jobs Czar. It has been one commie after another since that appointment. What a short memory Professor McCright has.
p says:
April 29, 2013 at 5:24 pm
The poll would find an overwhelming negative response to the question: Do you believe that we face CAGW? Then you would object to the question. So, what is the point of the poll? It would not satisfy you.
pokerguy says:
April 29, 2013 at 5:29 pm
Polls are designed mostly to promote an idea mostly to the faithful. When dealing with the diehard religious zealots of the global warming doomsday cultist… simple polls will have little effect. Plus even assuming you ran the poll it would simply be called “big oil propaganda”. I can think of much better purely media/non-science options to do with the money then waste it on a poll that will generally do nothing. Remember the 97% poll has been completely debunked and yet is still alive. That type of propaganada is designed to fit the bigotry and prejudice of the collectivist mind… that type of closed minded person will not be affected anything short of massive evidence that shows the “faith” is wrong.
What is it with psychologists and sociologists? They sound like “political scientists”. Of course I love the fact that if you ask a broad enough meaningless question you can achieve consensus, even in science, but in the end, the data is completely meaningless. Is the climate warmer now than it was when the Thames froze over every winter? Absolutely! Is CO2 higher now than when that was the case? Apparently. Does correlation prove causation? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!! But if the only questions you asked were those first two, I hope 100% of informed individuals would answer in the affirmative. If you got daring and asked “Does mankind have an influence on local temperature readings?” I would hope we would still get very nearly 100% affirmative, as it is obvious that land use changes affect the climate around the measuring station. If you then make a leap of faith that everyone answered yes, so they must agree that mankind is killing the planet, you have just fallen into one of the classical logical fallacies (non-sequitor) that plague so much of humanity. As much as it pains me to say this, maybe they need a pure philosopher to look over their arguments and point out the various fallacies as they occur. (I usually don’t have much good to say about philosophers, but maybe this would be in their wheelhouse.)
I think you all should consider this new bill and its ramifications on us all….
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/29/lamar-smith-science_n_3165754.html
Scientific Research has proven that 97% of the people will believe any hogwash you feed them, as long as you tell them Scientific Research proves it and give them a fake number !!! ;-))
“The results reaffirm the success of what McCright calls the “denial machine””
Oopps, his credibility just died. Poor guy. Hope he gets better info someday soon.
We must continue to hammer away against the notion that consensus has anything to do with science. Consensus is a political idea that is irrelevant to science. Don’t forget about Alfred Wegener, the lone voice for continental drift. When a person brings up the idea of consensus in a scientific discussion I see them as essentially ignorant of the scientific method and if the situation is appropriate I point out their ignorance.
Larry Butler says:
April 29, 2013 at 6:41 pm
Rep. Smith’s bill is a step in the right direction. NSF needs an Inspector General who is independent of NSF and is free to raise questions in the same free-wheeling way that is employed by NSF and NSF grant committees.
HuffPo clearly misunderstands the grant award process:
“But Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (Texas), the top Democrat on the committee, found the proposal especially alarming after Smith demanded in his letter that the NSF submit to the committee the technical peer review discussions conducted among NSF scientists who decide on grant awards.”
The grant application review process is nothing like peer review for journal articles. Grant review committees meet together on several occasions and discuss anything that some member wants to discuss. There are no limits. For example, an applicant’s career “trajectory” is a topic that is perfectly suitable for discussion. Complaints that review of the grant review process might in some way interfere with a scientific process are preposterous. Except for the focus on the grant proposal, discussion among grant review committee members is no different than discussion in the faculty lounge.
@Janice Moore:
Priceless – I loved it. Said it better than I ever could. But you didn’t need to change my name to “Chuck” – I’m quite content to go by my real moniker (Chad), nothing to hide, etc.
Did you know that 96% of Scientist DON’T believe in Global Warming? You might be surprised to hear this if all you listen to is the mainstream press. Every time you hear a story on global warming you hear the phrase “almost all scientists agree” or “97% of scientist believe in global warming.” Last year a study came out saying 97% of scientists believe in climate change, but almost the exact opposite is true.
The study in question surveyed 1,372 known working climate researchers. and found 97% of them still believe in global warming. I think this pool is tainted because these are scientist who get paid to study “Global Warming” which is a conflict of interest. That’s like asking PETA members if they’re vegetarian, but regardless we will use their number.
On the other hand the Petition Project has 31,000 scientists who have signed a petition saying that they don’t believe in manmade global warming.
So let’s do the math 97% of 1,372 is 1,330 who still believe in global warming compared to 31,487 who don’t. That’s only 1 out 24 or 4% of scientists who still believe in global warming.
I think those of us who are on the skeptical side of the debate should use the other side’s tactic and repeat this over and over again ad nauseum. 96% of Scientists DON’T believe in Global Warming.
CHAD WOZNIAK, I am so sorry. Please forgive me.
Well …….. I COULD say that the producer of your TV show made you do that for your public persona and I really meant to mess up your name… . But, that would put me on the same level as the Cult of Climatology.
Thank you for your generous and kind words, so graciously given, the “fragrance of the violet on the heel that crushed it.”
http://tinyurl.com/Clim97pct
Right on, Elmer, keep playin’ that tune. [:)]#-|<
Re: DAVE BURTON's mystery tinyurl link (@ur momisugly 2305) — EXCELLENT RESOURCE (apparently exhaustive list of refuting articles along with great analysis by Mr. Burton) TO REFUTE 97% CLAIM.
Thanks for sharing your hard work with us.
Consensus on contentious subjects is and has been invariably wrong.
Friends:
I am surprised nobody in this thread has made the obvious point that the claim of “97% of scientists think” demonstrates that there is NO clear scientific evidence for what the 97% thinks.
Nobody says X% of scientists think
gravity exists,
the Arctic is a cold place,
fire is a chemical reaction,
the air is a mixture of gases,
or any number of other things for which there is clear scientific evidence.
People say the evidence for gravity is that apples fall down and not up. And etc.
People only say “X% of scientists think” when there is no clear evidence that the X% are right and there are good reasons to think the X% are wrong.
Richard