When I was first contacted by Skeptical Science proprietor John Cook about his request to have WUWT host a survey, I asked him several questions because I had misgivings about the design. He refused to answer my questions, and now I know why. In my opinion, he’s engaging in a fraudulent survey designed to be biased from the start. I find it ironic that Cook the cartoonist and his survey, is now succinctly summed up by another cartoonist.
Josh writes:
Lots of blogs helping John Cook out here, especially Lucia and Brandon over at The Blackboard where Brandon has just discovered that the survey of 12,000 papers, is, in fact, not a survey of 12,000 papers but a selection of papers based on John’s own idea of which should be chosen. Wow.
If any journal publishes the (whatever) John Cook serves up in a bowl from this survey, it will be the end of their credibility.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Cook’s life methodology.
I am an official.
Something is correct, only once it passes through the official process. This process is transparent, rigorous, true, and has never been profoundly wrong. There isn’t any possibility that the process can be profoundly inadequate, corrupted, or hopelessly compromised.
A cause is therefore correct, when it passes through the official process and when it serves officialdom.
Members of the officialdom are the only people who know the cause correctly.
Defend the cause, and you defend the official process, as well as officialdom.
Ignore anything that doesn’t fit the cause, or pass through the process, as it doesn’t fit officialdom.
I therefore continue to remain a serving official of the officialdom, and the official process.
He reminds me a little of Fuchs, who despite being a talented scientist, many remarked on how incapable he was of common sense and understanding politics.
I think people are overlooking an important point: crap rolled in glitter is still….glittery! Gotta give him credit for that.
OK, you don’t, but it is still true.
re: Lewandowsky follies
This can use some serious ‘Fisking’ for those so inclined:
(h/t Ruth Dixon at Bishop Hill)
Scientific Amercan blog spouts Lewandowsky propaganda
Apart from being a shameless demand for attention from Cook, the point of his survey is now apparent, the Royal Society is running short of Lew paper, desperately short as they are really really full of it.
1. John Cook’s search was biased. He told Anthony the search was for papers on ‘global warming’ or ‘global climate change’. ‘Global warming’ implies the answer he was looking for.
2. It is fairly obvious that 12,000 papers with abstracts related to those search terms, regardless of any hidden pseudo-randomisation process, would support anthropogenic climate change; researchers know where their next grant is coming from. What I suspect Cook was hoping to do was to produce a paper headed “Even sceptics recognise that most peer reviewed papers support AGW.”
Writing a poem demands that you start to couple thoughts and words together — hopefully with the thoughts coming first and the words following. What is below is not a poem but rather some thoughts coupled with some words that may, someday, after much work, become a poem.
“Lewd” Lewandowsky and John Cook-The-Books
Their time of the month is all of the time
Two screaming shrews too obsessed to observe
Even the modest decorums
Of a pseudo-science
Drag queens on a runway — and they model
The fashion of the future — oh, be scared!
For these would dress our children
Note the second line that has these three usages — two, too, to. Poets get off on stuff like that.
I do not know if i will ever complete this poem because, well, writing a poem about turds, no matter how brilliant, is still a poem about turds.
Eugene WR Gallun
Anthony – you really must stop labelling Cook and his pet website as “unreliable” on the right hand side. Your own experiences must tell you that he (and it) is definitely extremely reliable, as in ‘will always lie cheat and obfuscate’.
My favorite thing about Cook is that he tells the world that “people who are not climate scientists should not be trusted to have an opinion in climate science.” and yet somehow his opinion matters. Its almost like the entire logical process falls apart in his mind and he suddenly tells people that he can be trusted because he is a physicist (except in his main job where he is a cartoonist.) Its ironic that everything he says does not apply to himself or other “climate scientists” because “we can trust him.”
The logic is just so terrible in that man that I wonder how he can dress himself in the morning. Heck, it would be a miracle if he could actually talk and walk at the same time without falling on his face. (which again ironically wouldn’t surprise me one bit.)
Based on the name of his blog ‘Skeptical’ Science, John Cook should be interested in Don Easterbrook’s recent presentation of the ‘Skeptics’ position to the US senate committee on Energy, Envirnoment and telecommunications.
It appears, however, John Cook is not interested in science, Cook’s blog’s purpose is to push an agenda, hence his interest in a purposeless, childish surveys as opposed to scientific analysis.
Easterbrook’s statements are each backed up by data which unequivocally supports the assertion that that based on the paleo record and current temperature changes increase in atmospheric CO2 does not cause significant global warming.
Comment:
Easterbrook’s presentation is astonishing.
http://www.tvw.org/index.php?option=com_tvwplayer&eventID=2013030153#start=627&stop=5945
Easterbrook’s Presentation to US Senate Energy & Environment Committee
Preamble:
Easterbrook notes he has 50 years experience in the climate science, has no political affiliation, and his research is not paid for by big oil. He notes, that data which he provides supports his statements.
The first slide in Easterbrook’s presentation”
Slide 1
“What the news media isn’t telling you
-Global warming ended in 1998
– There has been NO global warming in 15 yrs. Global warming from 1978 to 1998 was been replaced by global cooling.
– The Antarctic ice sheet is growing not melting.
– Sea level is rising 7 inches per year not 20 ft.
– Snowfall is not below normal. Four of the past 5 years have set snowfall records.
– CO2 cannot cause global warming
– Sever storms are not more frequent than normal
– The oceans are not acid (William: acidic)
Slide 2
Graph (see presentation for details)
Summary
Global warming occurred 1915 to 1945 without increase in CO2. (0.174C/decade)
Global cooling occurred from 1945 to 1977 during sharping increasing CO2, showing that CO2 has nothing to do with global warming.
Slide 3
Temperature last 500 years.
20 periods of warming in the last 500 years that were not caused by CO2.
Slide 4
Planetary temperature last 10,000 years.
Planetary temperatures in the last 10,000 years was in almost all cases significantly warmer than current temperatures.
Slide 5
Temperature manipulation 1930 to 2011 (US temperature records)
Presents original data in record compares 1930 to 2011.
Easterbrook provides proof that the 1930’s temperature data was changed, adjusted. The multiple adjustments of the temperature data reduced temperature in the 1930s and increase temperatures post 2000.
Please watch presentation for further details.
During the presentation Senator Kevin Ranker (D) provides questions using warmist position data and papers. It is interesting to hear Don Easterbrook’s responses.
Cartoon Cook looks like Butthead….
“Lewd” Lewandowsky and John Cook-the-Books
Their time of the month is all of the time
Two screaming shrews too obsessed to observe
Even the modest decorums
Of a pseudo-science
Faux posers, like drag queens on a runway
Theirs the “Fashionism” of the future?
These rabid publicity hounds
Seek to dress our children
I think I will let it go at that. These guys aren’t worth a good poem.
Eugene WR Gallun
To be fair, this isn’t as bad as you make it sound.
Josh says: “papers based on John’s own idea of which should be chosen.”
The source he cites (Brandon quoting Cook) says “I restricted the search to only papers that have received a “self-rating” from the author of the paper (a survey we ran in 2012) and also to make the survey a little easier to stomach for the participant, I restricted the search to abstracts under 1000 characters. Some of the abstracts are mind-boggingly long (which seems to defeat the purpose of having a short summary abstract but I digress).”
“John’s own idea” makes it seem like he preselected the papers based upon their conclusions, but that’s not the case. Yes, it is misleading, although I’m not sure how intentional. The papers are randomly selected, and are from the 12,000+ set, but they are also confined to a smaller subset.
Surveys…..
Ever been stopped to answer one? Nobody gives true answers most of the time
The climate… 9 out of 10 cat owners said they couldn’t give a toss
Heh, I see Jeff Masters sight (weather underground) has picked up on the survey and the lap dogs are just eating it up!
Heh, I see Jeff Master’s site (Weather Underground) has picked up the survey and the lap dogs are eating it up!
Main stream media members who read this
have at least the comfort of knowing
when their children aren’t able to tell
a hot rock from a cold one,
they can say they helped their kids not be “too judgemental.”
The survey appears to have ended.