Roman Murieka has a great statistical analysis of the Cook ‘consensus’ paper over at Climate Audit. There’s a surprise result:
The number of papers endorsing AGW is falling, while the number of papers with no position is increasing. Looks like an increase in uncertainty to me. Read the whole post here
Monckton has a go at the trend also, at The Collapsing ‘Consensus’
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I agree with the consensus that man’s CO2 emissions should in theory, and probably have added some slight, as-yet-unmeasured amount of warming, and that it really isn’t any problem whatsoever for our climate. Wait – that’s the consensus, right?
“cause” should more appropriately be termed “can lead to warming” to accurately reflect my perusal of the literature.
I’m sure the uptick in the Global ACE tropical cyclone index in 1994 had nothing to do with the movements between the No Position and the Endorsing AGW lines right? They could not possibly be doing current events science could they?
Wow, actually …
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/05/24/a_mission_on_climate_change_118531.html
From Eugene Robinson.
Steven Mosher says:
May 24, 2013 at 9:55 am
…
yes. if you deny the consensus you cant change it. If you accept the consensus ( GHGs cause warming) then you can change the debate How much warming and what if anything can you do about it.
As long as you stand outside “the consensus” you cant change it. Speak for the consensus, a different consensus, and you have a shot
—————
I agree completely. Why does Cook get to interpret the consensus? Merely because he seized the initiative to do so; he does not speak for everyone who believes that humans are warming the environment to some possibly negligible degree, he has simply stepped forward and done so.
In 97% of 500 somewhat randomly selected zombie movies the zombies are slow; therefore the consensus among the zombie experts hired to consult on motion pictures must be that zombies are slow. With such a strong consensus how could anyone dare suggest zombies could be fast? Could there be anything worse than a slow zombie denier?
Well, eh…
Cook:
“Oreskes 2007predicted that as a consensus strengthened, the number of papersrestating the consensus position should diminish. An elegant confirmation of this prediction that came out of our data is that as the consensus strengthened (e.g., the percentage of endorsements among position papers), we also observed an increase in the percentage of “no position” abstracts.”
Source:
http://www.culturalcognition.net/john-cook-on-communicating-con/
Reich.Eschhaus says:
May 24, 2013 at 12:24 pm
…
—————
So Cook’s argument is that the consensus comes ‘in fulfilment of the scriptures’, so to speak?
@Mark Bofill
Yes, Cook says Oreske predicted this and they confirmed this prediction (Reason: No need to mention it anymore when everybody agrees anyway).
Reich.Eschhaus says:
May 24, 2013 at 12:35 pm
————–
Seems reasonable enough to me. Very nice rebuttal Reich. So in essence Cook can say ‘so what?’ to Roman.
mkay.
lsvalgaard says: May 24, 2013 at 8:30 am “The number of papers endorsing AGW is falling
And so is the number of papers rejecting AGW…”
Very good point!
I suggest that this may be due to the politicisation of the whole subject.
A safe strategy for publishing papers in a field where the political (or religious, or any other) feeling is high is –
Sit on the fence and strictly scope the paper so as to stick to what you can defend with assurance. E.g. stick to what you know.
The question I would ask is this
Is this trend due to the field (AGW) or the rise of the internet?
Anyone can find anything, now, through Google. Dusty subjects in darkened corners are being swept by the whirlwind of the World Wide Web.
Oreske says that “As consensus strengthens, the papers stating the consensus the position diminishes”.
But it is obvious that “As consensus diminishes, the papers stating the consensus the position diminishes” too !
Bob says:
May 24, 2013 at 10:05 am
Stephen Mosher says , “As long as you stand outside “the consensus” you cant change it.”
That reminds me of the time I entered a House of Ill-Repute to convince the ladies of the error of their ways.
My wife didn’t believe me, either…
That reminds me of the story about the 1880 UK election – Disraeli’s Tories vs Gladstone’s Liberals. A party hack suggested to Disraeli that Gladstone’s well-known support for ‘rescuing fallen women’ might be a good subject for a ‘smear campaign’.
“For God’s sake, NO!”, cried Disraeli. “He’s over 70! If the public think that he’s cavorting with prostitutes at his time of life, he’ll win by a thumping majority!”
@Mark Bofill
I looked it up in the Cook paper:
“Of note is the large proportion of abstracts that state no position on AGW. This result is expected in consensus situations where scientists ‘…generally focus their discussions on questions that are still disputed or unanswered rather than on matters about which everyone agrees’ (Oreskes 2007, p 72). This explanation is also consistent with a description of consensus as a ‘spiral trajectory’ in which ‘initially intense contestation generates rapid settlement and induces a spiral of new questions’ (Shwed and Bearman 2010); the fundamental science of AGW is no longer controversial among the publishing science community and the remaining debate in the field has moved to other topics. This is supported by the fact that more than half of the self-rated endorsement papers did not express a position on AGW in their abstracts.”
I remember the quote above by having read a criticism (and following comments) on the Cook paper by Dan Cahan on which Cook was allowed to formally reply as was Johnson from Ars Technica. It starts here and is really quite interesting:
http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2013/5/22/on-the-science-communication-value-of-communicating-scientif.html
Reich.Eschhaus says:
May 24, 2013 at 1:14 pm
———–
I think I ran across a reference to this too on SkS, but clearly I didn’t read thoroughly enough. 😉
@Mark Bofill
I did get there from SkS as well 😉 I was pointed to their new ‘rough guide to the jet stream’ (which I still need to finish reading) and decided to check their front page as well and there it was!
I believe the following is the “real” problem with the Skeptic position
A paper comes out that has….. a hockey stick, …..a 97%, ….a hottest on record,…..weather extreme,…..”worst tornado in the history of the planet”……choose your hyperbolic headline, and it gets the attention of the unsuspecting (low information) public. They take it a face value because they don’t have any other information. They then support a politician who will “DO SOMETHING!” as solution that, as His Lordship has repeatedly pointed out, is worst than the problem.
In the interim, the original headline and substance of the of the original report is throughly destroyed/debunked, but that doesn’t make the headline, isn’t reported on the top of the hour news report on the radio. One side is the headline, the other is the buried (if presented at all) correction.
I don’t know how you flip that. I know it is important that we do.
Bob_L says:
May 24, 2013 at 1:42 pm
———–
Well put.
I haven’t reached conclusions on this yet. One obvious question is, why does the alarmist side get to stampede the cattle? I guess the obvious answer is it’s because they control the spin. It’s Cook’s study, so he speaks for the 97% consensus by virtue of the spin he puts on his study, even though many of those 97% would never choose Cook as their spokesperson.
I don’t like this answer, because it implies I have to crawl in the same muck Cook does in order to be effective.
Still thinking it through. Something about generating another quick and memorable sound bite that makes the consensus slight of hand plain to the casual observer…
When I think about it just about every time a consensus has been proven to be wrong the person who proved it wrong stood outside the consensus.
lsvalgaard says:
May 24, 2013 at 8:46 am
So taken as a whole, would you say the science is becoming “more settled”, “less settled”, or “no significant trend” ?
It seems that Roger Pielke, Jr thinks that skeptics have lost the scientific argument and advocates political action on the consensus.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/political-science/2013/may/24/climate-sceptics-winning-science-policy
What do you make of his assertions? Is he suffering from cognitive dissonance? Or buttering both sides of his bread?
Richard M says:
May 24, 2013 at 2:04 pm
When I think about it just about every time a consensus has been proven to be wrong the person who proved it wrong stood outside the consensus.
—————————-
But how do you do that? I can’t say I disagree with the statement ‘humans are very probably causing at least some warming’, even though I vehemently disagree with the misrepresentation that this justifies any sort of policy action. The real but trivial scientific consensus gets lost in translation when it turns into PR and becomes ‘97% of scientists agree we need cap and trade’ or something equally absurd.
Tim Clark makes a very good point that should be addressed. Because if he’s part of the consensus, then so am I.
lsvalgaard says:
May 24, 2013 at 8:30 am
The number of papers endorsing AGW is falling
And so is the number of papers rejecting AGW…
—
Yes. As the scientific uncertainty increases, the browbeating political pressure to conform increases as well as an iron-fisted grip on the peer-review process. Therefore those scientific teams doubting AGW have to cloak their skepticism by claiming to have no position on AGW.
That’s the most likely way to read that data.
The key bit is the number of papers endorsing AGW is falling.
A major problem with this entire discussion is the imprecision in the definition of “AGW”. How about a survey which has two questions:
1) Do you believe there is consensus among scientists that human activities contribute to global warming?
2) In question 1 above, your understanding of the term “global warming” is:
a) the global average temperature over the past 150 years has risen measurably, but not necessarily in excess of accepted natural variations.
b) the global average temperature of the past 150 years has risen in excess of accepted natural variations.
c) The same as (b) above, but also the rate of temperature rise is accelerating.
d) The same as (c) above, but also the acceleration of temperature increase will continue due to the feedback effects of increased water vapor, methane, and other results of warming to date.
e) The same as (d) above, but also that we are at or approaching a “tipping point” where no matter what we do global average temperature will continue to rise to a level inhospitable to human and other life, or causing other widespread catastrophic events.
This is a bit simplistic; one could easily provide more nuances for question 2. But my point is consensus on question 1 is meaningless unless there is also substantial agreement on question 2.