UPDATE: More inconsistency:
Cook survey included 10 of my 122 eligible papers. 5/10 were rated incorrectly. 4/5 were rated as endorse rather than neutral.
— Richard Tol (@RichardTol) May 22, 2013
===========================================
When asked about the categorizations of Cook et al, – “It would be incorrect to claim that our paper was an endorsement of CO2-induced global warming”
Guest essay by Andrew of Popular Technology
The paper, Cook et al. (2013) ‘Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature‘ searched the Web of Science for the phrases “global warming” and “global climate change” then categorizing these results to their alleged level of endorsement of AGW. These results were then used to allege a 97% consensus on human-caused global warming.
To get to the truth, I emailed a sample of scientists whose papers were used in the study and asked them if the categorization by Cook et al. (2013) is an accurate representation of their paper. Their responses are eye opening and evidence that the Cook et al. (2013) team falsely classified scientists’ papers as “endorsing AGW”, apparently believing to know more about the papers than their authors.
Dr. Idso, your paper ‘Ultra-enhanced spring branch growth in CO2-enriched trees: can it alter the phase of the atmosphere’s seasonal CO2 cycle?‘ is categorized by Cook et al. (2013) as; “Implicitly endorsing AGW without minimizing it“.
Is this an accurate representation of your paper?
Idso: “That is not an accurate representation of my paper. The papers examined how the rise in atmospheric CO2 could be inducing a phase advance in the spring portion of the atmosphere’s seasonal CO2 cycle. Other literature had previously claimed a measured advance was due to rising temperatures, but we showed that it was quite likely the rise in atmospheric CO2 itself was responsible for the lion’s share of the change. It would be incorrect to claim that our paper was an endorsement of CO2-induced global warming.”
Dr. Scafetta, your paper ‘Phenomenological solar contribution to the 1900–2000 global surface warming‘ is categorized by Cook et al. (2013) as; “Explicitly endorses and quantifies AGW as 50+%“
Is this an accurate representation of your paper?
Scafetta: “Cook et al. (2013) is based on a strawman argument because it does not correctly define the IPCC AGW theory, which is NOT that human emissions have contributed 50%+ of the global warming since 1900 but that almost 90-100% of the observed global warming was induced by human emission.
What my papers say is that the IPCC view is erroneous because about 40-70% of the global warming observed from 1900 to 2000 was induced by the sun. This implies that the true climate sensitivity to CO2 doubling is likely around 1.5 C or less, and that the 21st century projections must be reduced by at least a factor of 2 or more. Of that the sun contributed (more or less) as much as the anthropogenic forcings.
The “less” claim is based on alternative solar models (e.g. ACRIM instead of PMOD) and also on the observation that part of the observed global warming might be due to urban heat island effect, and not to CO2.
By using the 50% borderline a lot of so-called “skeptical works” including some of mine are included in their 97%.”
Any further comment on the Cook et al. (2013) paper?
Scafetta: “Please note that it is very important to clarify that the AGW advocated by the IPCC has always claimed that 90-100% of the warming observed since 1900 is due to anthropogenic emissions. While critics like me have always claimed that the data would approximately indicate a 50-50 natural-anthropogenic contribution at most.
What it is observed right now is utter dishonesty by the IPCC advocates. Instead of apologizing and honestly acknowledging that the AGW theory as advocated by the IPCC is wrong because based on climate models that poorly reconstruct the solar signature and do not reproduce the natural oscillations of the climate (AMO, PDO, NAO etc.) and honestly acknowledging that the truth, as it is emerging, is closer to what claimed by IPCC critics like me since 2005, these people are trying to get the credit.
They are gradually engaging into a metamorphosis process to save face.
Now they are misleadingly claiming that what they have always claimed was that AGW is quantified as 50+% of the total warming, so that once it will be clearer that AGW can only at most be quantified as 50% (without the “+”) of the total warming, they will still claim that they were sufficiently correct.
And in this way they will get the credit that they do not merit, and continue in defaming critics like me that actually demonstrated such a fact since 2005/2006.”
Dr. Shaviv, your paper ‘On climate response to changes in the cosmic ray flux and radiative budget‘ is categorized by Cook et al. (2013) as; “Explicitly endorses but does not quantify or minimise“
Is this an accurate representation of your paper?
Shaviv: “Nope… it is not an accurate representation. The paper shows that if cosmic rays are included in empirical climate sensitivity analyses, then one finds that different time scales consistently give a low climate sensitiviity. i.e., it supports the idea that cosmic rays affect the climate and that climate sensitivity is low. This means that part of the 20th century should be attributed to the increased solar activity and that 21st century warming under a business as usual scenario should be low (about 1°C).
I couldn’t write these things more explicitly in the paper because of the refereeing, however, you don’t have to be a genius to reach these conclusions from the paper.”
Any further comment on the Cook et al. (2013) paper?
Shaviv: “Science is not a democracy, even if the majority of scientists think one thing (and it translates to more papers saying so), they aren’t necessarily correct. Moreover, as you can see from the above example, the analysis itself is faulty, namely, it doesn’t even quantify correctly the number of scientists or the number of papers which endorse or diminish the importance of AGW.”
The Cook et al. (2013) study is obviously littered with falsely classified papers making its conclusions baseless and its promotion by those in the media misleading.
CVs of Scientists:
Craig D. Idso, B.S. Geography, Arizona State University (1994); M.S. Agronomy, University of Nebraska – Lincoln (1996); Ph.D. Geography (Thesis: “Amplitude and phase changes in the seasonal atmospheric CO₂ cycle in the Northern Hemisphere“), Arizona State University (1998); President, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change (1998-2001); Climatology Researcher, Office of Climatology, Arizona State University (1999-2001); Director of Environmental Science, Peabody Energy (2001-2002); Lectured in Meteorology, Arizona State University; Lectured in Physical Geography, Mesa and Chandler-Gilbert Community Colleges; Member, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS); Member, American Geophysical Union (AGU); Member, American Meteorological Society (AMS); Member, Arizona-Nevada Academy of Sciences (ANAS); Member, Association of American Geographers (AAG); Member, Ecological Society of America (ECA); Member, The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi; Chairman, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change (2002-Present); Lead Author, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (2009-Present)
Nicola Scafetta, Laurea in Physics, Università di Pisa, Italy (1997); Ph.D. Physics (Thesis: “An entropic approach to the analysis of time series“), University of North Texas (2001); Research Associate, Physics Department, Duke University (2002-2004); Research Scientist, Physics Department, Duke University (2005-2009); Visiting Lecturer, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (2008, 2010); Visiting Lecturer, University of North Carolina Greensboro (2008-2009); Adjunct Professor, Elon University (2010); Assistant Adjunct Professor, Duke University (2010-2012); Member, Editorial Board, Dataset Papers in Geosciences Journal; Member, American Physical Society (APS); Member, American Geophysical Union (AGU); Research Scientist, ACRIM Science Team (2010-Present)
Nir J. Shaviv, B.A Physics Summa Cum Laude, Israel Institute of Technology (1990); M.S Physics, Israel Institute of Technology (1994); Ph.D. Astrophysics (Thesis: “The Origin of Gamma Ray Bursts“), Israel Institute of Technology (1996); The Wolf Award for excellence in PhD studies (1996); Lee DuBridge Prize Fellow, Theoretical Astrophysics Group, California Institute of Technology (1996-1999); Post Doctoral Fellow, Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Toronto (1999-2001); The Beatrice Tremaine Award, Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (2000); Senior Lecturer, Racah Institute of Physics, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel (2001-2006); The Siegfried Samuel Wolf Lectureship in nuclear physics, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel (2004); Associate Professor, Racah Institute of Physics, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel (2006-Present)
Wilcon says:
Aren’t there some skeptical readers here who have taken a course in statistics?
Your comments indicate that you are not in a position to make such a complaint.
You cannot estimate a “population error rate” from a hand-picked sample. Any more than you can test whether a coin is biased by picking three times when it turned up heads. With random sampling, yes, you could calculate the chance of 3 heads in a row.
In what way do the three authors that PopTech contacted not constitute an appropriate sample?
Answer carefully. Hint: Categorizing authors is not analogous to flipping a coin.
JJ
JJ says:
May 22, 2013 at 5:38 am
“Wilcon says:
Aren’t there some skeptical readers here who have taken a course in statistics?
Your comments indicate that you are not in a position to make such a complaint.”
You are mistaken, I have taken a course in statistics.
“In what way do the three authors that PopTech contacted not constitute an appropriate sample?”
They appear to be hand-picked by Poptech to support his argument. That is the opposite of random sampling and invalidates any attempt to calculate statistical significance. You do not know this?
“Answer carefully. Hint: Categorizing authors is not analogous to flipping a coin.”
I did not compare categorizing authors to flipping a coin. Where did you get that? I compared hand picking your sample to hand picking your coin toss results. Say, you toss 100 times, then hand pick which 3 of those 100 outcomes you want to count. You decide to pick 3 that came up heads. Sure enough they are heads, maybe revealing something about your thought process but not about whether the coin was biased.
Probability of 3 heads in a row, tossing a fair coin at random: .5^3 = .125 (12.5%)
Probability of 3 heads if you look through a bunch of outcomes and pick 3 that came up heads: 100%
Proves nothing except you did not take statistics.
Words are important, The Cook study did not falsely classify these papers. The point is that the Cook methodology applies a definition of “endorsing AGW” that is so broad as to be effectively meaningless as almost every skeptic acknowledges there is probably some tiny amount of AGW out there. Using the Cook definition, just about everything published on WUWT “endorses” AGW. So to take another definition of AGW not used by the study and apply it to the study results is a methodological concern.
The friends of science post highlights the fact that only 0.65% of the papers reviewed explicitly state AGW is responsible for more than 50% of the observed warming. The stunning result from the study is how few papers take a position on the “C” in Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW)
Reich.Eschhaus says:
@JJ
“You are ignoring that Cook’s entire thesis is that rated abstracts = article opinion = scientist opinion = consensus opinion = truth. Every step in that chain is a falsehood.”
No it is not, they don’t say that.
Of course they do, dear. They say that in the abstract and in the “paper”, and repeating that over and over is the raison d’etre of the whole exercise. C(r)ook has ginned up an appeal to authority fallacy.
There is no known method of PopTech.
You have very specific complaints, for someone who admits that he does not know what he is complaining about. Perhaps you should gather some more information before making unsupported conclusions.
I suspect he checked out abstract ratings at skeptikal science and picked those which he thought would agree with his line of reasoning. Ha!
I also suspect that he checked out the abstract ratings of authors that he knew to be AGW sceptics. That is a valid methodological choice. It permits some interesting conclusions, however inconvenient you may find them to be. Depending on the balance of the methodological choices, some very interesting conclusions might be drawn from this. You should ask PopTech to flesh out his description of his methods.
No need to do stats, he should have used a proper method if he wanted to prove something.
No need to find out what the methodology is, before declaring it improper, eh? Classic.
“And then there is the methodological error of categorizing effects and mitigation studies as “implicitly accepting AGW”. Sorry, but no.”
I don’t understand what you are on about.
Read my posts. May 21, 1:01 pm, for example.
Of course, the fundamental point is that C(r)ook is making an appeal to authority fallacy. That he achieves that dishonest end by equally dishonest means is just gratuitous.
JJ
Wilcon says:
“In what way do the three authors that PopTech contacted not constitute an appropriate sample?”
They appear to be hand-picked by Poptech to support his argument. That is the opposite of random sampling and invalidates any attempt to calculate statistical significance. You do not know this?
No. You do not know this. You are making assumptions.
Say, you toss 100 times, then hand pick which 3 of those 100 outcomes you want to count. You decide to pick 3 that came up heads. Sure enough they are heads, maybe revealing something about your thought process but not about whether the coin was biased.
Is that what PopTech did? Or did he hand pick authors that he knew to be sceptics, and investigate how they were categorized by C(r)ook’s fallacy?
Proves nothing except you did not take statistics.
Finding proof for false statements is something at which you lot are quite good.
JJ
JJ says:
May 22, 2013 at 7:00 am
“Wilcon says:
Proves nothing except you did not take statistics.
Finding proof for false statements is something at which you lot are quite good.”
Do you mean by that, you really did take a course in statistics? Then how did you manage to make this statistically nonsensical statement, about a sample you just admitted was hand picked? Feel free to show how you “do the stats,” with calculations and assumptions for deriving that “population error rate” you mention.
“PopTech’s assessment method is perfectly fine. He compared three authors’ opinions on AGW with the opinion that gets Cooked up for them. 100% wrong. Do the stats on that, and derive an estimate for the population error rate. It is not “vanishingly small”, and it demonstrates Cook’s bias.”
Wilcon says:
Then how did you manage to make this statistically nonsensical statement, about a sample you just admitted was hand picked?
You do not have sufficient information to claim that statement is “statistically nonsensical”, and that was precisely my point in making it. It is a point that I made explicit in my last post, and a point that you are now running from like a frightened schoolgirl. Man-up, and examine your assumptions. You may startt by answering the questions put to you that call out those assumptions, such as the previously asked and yet unanswered:
“Is that what PopTech did? Or did he hand pick authors that he knew to be sceptics, and investigate how they were categorized by C(r)ook’s fallacy?”
Furthermore, “hand picked” can be a valid methodology for making certain inferences, including some statistical inferences. You do not seem to understand this, instead using that term as some sort of epithet which you imply is universally damning. Perhaps another statistics course would be advisable.
The information that PopTech has provided (and that Richard Tol has now expanded upon significantly) is important. Cook’s method excludes relevant publications, and gins up a consensus fallacy (egregious all by itself, absent the dishonest means he uses to achieve it) from people who are decidedly not part of that “consensus”. That Cook’s work is factually wrong (as well as philosophically vacant) is established by Poptech’s work. The only remaining question is the degree to which it is wrong.
Consistent with the information we currently have about PopTech’s methods are scenarios that demonstrate significant bias by Cook. I understand why you would rather cut off examination of those scenarios by waving “hand picked” around your assumptions, but it is not valid.
Of course, neither is the appeal to authority fallacy that the team of C(r)ook’s has foisted upon us, so invalidity evidently does not bother you…
I find it very reassuring to see actual scientists quoted with reference to attributions made on their behalf supporting Cook’s survey. I wish we could hear more from these scientists – people with genuine integrity prepared to stand up for truth in science (some truths that even we sceptics may find uncomfortable) – because I would much rather hear the opinions of honest men than those of straw men.
I congratulate the writer from Popular Technology for his journalistic integrity in seeking out a response from these scientists. This is how it should work, but tragically never does in the mainstream media.
JJ says:
May 22, 2013 at 8:34 am
“Wilcon says:
Then how did you manage to make this statistically nonsensical statement, about a sample you just admitted was hand picked?
You do not have sufficient information to claim that statement is “statistically nonsensical”, and that was precisely my point in making it.”
Yes, I do. We both agree that the sample is not random, that it was selected in a purposive way related to the outcome in question. It is statistically nonsensical to declare you can derive a population estimate of agreement with Cook from a tiny sample selected in a way that biases the likelihood of agreement with Cook.
“Is that what PopTech did? Or did he hand pick authors that he knew to be sceptics, and investigate how they were categorized by C(r)ook’s fallacy?””
It doesn’t matter, inference is not valid under your phrasing or mine.
“Furthermore, “hand picked” can be a valid methodology for making certain inferences, including some statistical inferences. You do not seem to understand this, instead using that term as some sort of epithet which you imply is universally damning.”
I am not using it as an epithet. Rather, I understand the connection between random sampling and estimates of population parameters. In quoting me you forgot to repeat my question to you. I am curious because you keep implying you know something about statistics but then show just the opposite.
“Feel free to show how you “do the stats,” with calculations and assumptions for deriving that “population error rate” you mention.”
Can you do that, or were you bluffing?
Skiphil says:
May 21, 2013 at 2:48 pm
More pitiful propaganda about the Cook fairy tale paper, courtesy of the New York Times:
[I wasn’t aware that failed cartoonist John Cook is “a physicist” or that he has earned any PhD to be a “post-doctoral fellow” but the NY Times says it so both must be true??!!]
Cooks bio at sKs says: “He originally studied physics at the University of Queensland. After graduating, he majored in solar physics in his post-grad honours year”
He never said he has a BS or phd in anything. He could have flunked physics, got a BA in art (hence a cartoonist) and then tried solar physics agian and failed again.
Has anyone check with UofQ is to verify what he graduated in?
Poptech says:
May 21, 2013 at 9:01 pm
Re: Cook’s creditials.
http://theconversation.com/profiles/john-cook-3280/profile_bio
It says he only has a “Bachelor of Science Honours”. Maybe he has an honorary doctorate?
Wilcon says:
Yes, I do. We both agree that the sample is not random, that it was selected in a purposive way related to the outcome in question.
I do not agree to that. Insofar as we know from the information before us, the sample was collected in a purposive way that was related to determining bias in the original work, and which was not related to the outcome of that question.
It is statistically nonsensical to declare you can derive a population estimate of agreement with Cook from a tiny sample selected in a way that biases the likelihood of agreement with Cook.
You do not have any information stating that the sample was selected in a way that biases vs agreement with Cook’s categorization. You made that up. Did they teach you how to fabricate data in your stats class? Was that a “Climatometrics” class, by any chance? 🙂
“Is that what PopTech did? Or did he hand pick authors that he knew to be sceptics, and investigate how they were categorized by C(r)ook’s fallacy?””
It doesn’t matter, inference is not valid under your phrasing or mine.
It does matter. Inference is valid under my phrasing.
Rather, I understand the connection between random sampling and estimates of population parameters.
No, you really do not. In particular, you do not appear to understand that directed examination of the categorization of the sceptic authors from C(r)ook’s list is valid. You also do not appear to grasp that a random sampling of that sub-population with respect to the matter of the question has been achieved … unless:
1) PopTech only selected authors he knew to be miscategorized and discarded those found to be properly categorized. You have no warrant to assert this, as PopTech has made no statements to that effect. Further, he is present and participating on this thread, and available for you to ask of him such questions rather than making unsupported assumptions.
Or, perhaps you believe that PopTech’s three authors are not a random sample of sceptic authors, because:
2) C(r)ook’s categorization of the selected authors is biased in some way. Is that what you contend? Do tell.
Random sample or not, the information that PopTech has provided (and that Richard Tol has now expanded upon significantly) is important. From it, we know that Cook’s method excludes relevant publications, and gins up a consensus fallacy from people who are decidedly not part of that “consensus”. That Cook’s work is factually wrong is established by Poptech’s work. The only remaining question is the degree to which it is wrong.
Of course, the degree to which Cook’s work is fallacious is already established – 100%. The degree to which he is also factually incorrect is merely a sideshow.
JJ, you not only understand no statistics, you don’t even know what “random sampling” means.
Which explains why you can’t back up your own declaration that started this exchange.
“Feel free to show how you “do the stats,” with calculations and assumptions for deriving that “population error rate” you mention.
Can you do that, or were you bluffing?”
You were bluffing.
“PopTech has made no statements to that effect. Further, he is present and participating on this thread, and available for you to ask of him such questions rather than making unsupported assumptions.”
I did ask him. May 21, 2013 at 4:15 pm. At that point I was still prepared to believe he had tried more legitimate sampling and just left out any description, but Poptech gave no answer. He stayed around to argue for a while, so I drew conclusions from his silence regarding the main point.
@JJ
@PopTech
@Man Bearpig
@Jantar
From the Cook paper:
“A direct comparison of abstract rating versus self-rating endorsement levels for the 2142 papers that received a self-rating is shown in table 5. More than half of the abstracts that we rated as ‘No Position’ or ‘Undecided’ were rated ‘Endorse AGW’ by the paper’s authors.
Table 5. Comparison of our abstract rating to self-rating for papers that received self-ratings.
Position Abstract rating Self-rating
Endorse AGW 791 (36.9%) 1342 (62.7%)
No AGW position or undecided 1339 (62.5%) 761 (35.5%)
Reject AGW 12 (0.6%) 39 (1.8%)”
Paper authors that reject AGW in opposition to the abstract ratings are accounted for (a small percentage) as well as paper authors that endorse AGW in opposition to abstract rating (substantial percentage). I rest my case.
azleader says: @ur momisugly May 21, 2013 at 7:06 am
The real issues are:
1 – Are these scientists view representative?
2 – What % of the total assessments are incorrect
3 – Does Cook’s results fundamentally reflect mainstream science opinion?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
No the real issue is how much does the IPCC POLITICAL mandate:
plus the gatekeeping preventing the publication of anything that does not endorse this mandate retard the advancement of the science of climate and how dangerous is that to civilization given we are at the end of the Holocene and may or may not be near glacial inception.
SEE:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/05/on-“trap-speed-acc-and-the-snr/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/30/the-antithesis/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/02/can-we-predict-the-duration-of-an-interglacial/
Let’s start from the top:
Cook is stating there is a 97% consensus on human-caused global warming.
He preselects his study group by using the phrases “global warming” and “global climate change”
This means any paper on climate that does not use “warming” or “climate change” is automatically tossed out. This alone invalidates the whole study because of the built in bias of the study subjects. It is like looking at blogs/articles on food and only choosing those with “Vegetarian” or” Vegan” and then stating 97% of the human race does not eat meat.
Next Cook then uses as a sorting criteria categorizing all those papers that do not explicitly say in their abstracts they refute AGW as supporting AGW.
Since most of the skeptics here at WUWT are willing to state there is some modification of the climate by greenhouse gases that is a pretty all inclusive sorting criteria. Add in the absolute necessity of the “Get Out of Jail Free Card” phrases like The changes so far are not enough to reverse the course of global warming, but there are some other significant side-effects… needed to get a paper published and the 97% or some other high number was a slam dunk.
This type of poll reminds me of the the Blair-Rockefeller poll headlined Tea Party Distinguished by Racial Views… where all the questions determining “Racial Views” started with the phrase “Do you think it is the responsibility of the federal government to make sure that….” (see TABLE 2. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TEA PARTY WHITES & NON-TEA PARTY WHITES NATIONWIDE)
Everyone knows Tea Party members wants a smaller FEDERAL government and that they feel much of the responsibility for governing is Constitutionally that of the state not the federal government. Therefore you can guarantee a Tea Party member will answer NO to every question starting with “Do you think it is the responsibility of the federal government to make sure that….” and it has to do with the word FEDERAL and not racism tucked into the rest of the sentence.
This poll was run by Dr. Rafael A. Jimeno, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Political Science University of Arkansas BTW and therefore he should have known how to run an unbiased poll. However this is the poll handed to the media that was used to declare the Tea Party racist in all the major news outlets.
Cook pulled exactly the same type of trick with his poll.
I have nothing but contempt for people who run bias polls just to grab headlines for political purposes. (No I am not a Tea Party member just curious.)
I highly doubt it and that should not qualify you for such a position.
I did not discard any responses as these are the only ones I received. I emailed many more scientists but have not yet received their responses. I felt this was enough to make this point as this time. Dr. Tol’s is a completely independent inquiry by himself. I am not revealing what else I may be working on here since the Cook et al. team is monitoring these comments.
It is worse than that – the papers must include the phrases; “global warming” or “global climate change” in the title or abstract, be indexed in the Web of Science database, cannot be (scientifically valid) “review” papers and cannot be published in a social science journal.
For instance these phrases could be included in the full paper and not be included in this “study”.
Here’s how Dana responds on twitter:
Dana Nuccitelli @dana1981
@RichardTol Have to say I’m disappointed. Didn’t have you pegged as a denier before. Fine to dislike our paper, but don’t lie about it.
Wilcon says:
JJ, you not only understand no statistics, you don’t even know what “random sampling” means.
To the contrary, I understand precisely what random sampling means. I understand how it operates to support statistical inference, and the degree to which various tests of statistical significance are robust against that assumption. You either lack this understanding, or are attempting to exploit a lay audience.
I did ask him. May 21, 2013 at 4:15 pm. At that point I was still prepared to believe he had tried more legitimate sampling and just left out any description, but Poptech gave no answer.
He has now. The information that he has provided thus far does not support your assumptions as to his methods. Of course, you are making those assumptions to attack him, in defense of someone who:
* admits his methods include intentionally mischaracterizing mitigation and effects studies as “implicitly endorsing AGW”,
* somehow missed more than 90% of Richard Tol’s relevant papers, and miscategorized 80% of the few that were included, and
* performs these and other shenanigans in service of a fallacious “appeal to authority” and “bandwagon” propaganda campaign.
So, it is clear that your commitment is not to scientific knowledge, but to political expedience. You are highly likely to continue to proceed with presenting assumptions about PopTech’s methods as fact, instead of ascertaining the truth.
Random sample or not, the information that PopTech has provided (and that Richard Tol has now expanded upon significantly) is important. From it, we know that Cook’s method excludes relevant publications, and gins up a consensus fallacy from people who are decidedly not part of that “consensus”. That Cook’s work is factually wrong is established by Poptech’s work. The only remaining question is the degree to which it is factually wrong, in addition to being 100% fallacious.
JJ
One thing I noticed with this study you can see on tables 3 and 4.
Table 3. 1/3 of the papers studied were consensus 2/3 no stance.
Table 4. Of the surveys they sent out 2/3 of the ones that came back were from the consensus group. 1/3 were from the no stance group.
That means that the consensus group was 4 times more likely to return their survey.
This just confirms what we saw with the conspiracy paper where not a single skeptic blog joined the survey.
Cook has such bad will built up with skeptics that he cant possible get accurate survey’s of skeptics
JJ, very well said.
Tom, these are my thoughts exactly. The self-surveys are very likely biased to those scientists who support an alarmist position like the Skeptical Science team and should not be used as evidence of an unbiased sample. Anyone who is not an alarmist and is aware of Skeptical Science’s their dishonest methods, which includes censoring of scientists comments would never participate in any of their surveys.
JJ says:
May 23, 2013 at 6:08 am
“To the contrary, I understand precisely what random sampling means. I understand how it operates to support statistical inference, and the degree to which various tests of statistical significance are robust against that assumption. You either lack this understanding, or are attempting to exploit a lay audience.”
My understanding is you can’t do what you declare. Three times now I’ve invited you to show how you could, as you asserted, “do the stats” and calculate a “population error rate” from this nonrandom sample of n=3. Three times you’ve dodged the question, leading me to guess you are bluffing.
Now you double down. Can you show your understanding of the “various tests of statistical significance” that “are robust against that assumption” (of random sampling) by applying them to this nonrandom n=3 sample? Was that another bluff?
You have a real chance here to show which of us understands statistics.
Poptech says:
May 23, 2013 at 11:16 am
“The self-surveys are very likely biased to those scientists who support an alarmist position like the Skeptical Science team and should not be used as evidence of an unbiased sample. Anyone who is not an alarmist and is aware of Skeptical Science’s their dishonest methods, which includes censoring of scientists comments would never participate in any of their surveys.”
A bored student could turn all your words around, into an argument why your n=3 survey results are biased. The inverse rhetoric would not be conclusive either, although thousands of responses and a published description of methods give Cook the edge for now.
The test for any scientific result is not publication but replication. What have others found, and what will others find, using open and careful designs of their own? My impression that the consensus really is one comes from reading journals, going to meetings, talking to scientists. My impressions are anecdotes not data, but they seem consistent with data described in the published studies.
If you have different impressions, do the research, publish the paper, and open all your own methods up for discussion.
Dr. Tol is ripping into Dana on Twitter,
“@dana1981 Semantics. You misrated my papers.” – Dr. Richard Tol
“@dana1981 Not at all. You generated data. The data that I understand are all wrong. The errors are not random.” – Dr. Richard Tol
“@dana1981 I think your data are a load of crap.” – Dr. Richard Tol
“@dana1981 I think your sampling strategy is a load of nonsense.” – Dr. Richard Tol