Two developments suggest that Cook et al 2013 Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature may be soon be headed for “retraction watch”, since serious problems with the data are becoming evident, which when accounted for bring the 97% consensus figure into question.
First, there are new issues with the search system used to gather the papers, as Shub Niggurath explains at Bishop Hill:
===============================================================
The climate change literature comprises well over hundred thousand articles and books. Cook et al’s strategy was to focus on papers directly related to “global warming” or “global climate change” in Web of Science. Here’s how they describe it:
In March 2012, we searched the ISI Web of Science for papers published from 1991–2011 using topic searches for ‘global warming’ or ‘global climate change’. Article type was restricted to ‘article’, excluding books, discussions, proceedings papers and other document types.
A Web of Science search performed following the authors’ description to the letter actually returns 30,940 entries, not 12,464. Excluding the ‘Arts and Humanities Citation Index’ (A&HCI), this becomes 30,876. This is when search phrases are not enclosed in double-quotes (i.e., ‘global warming’ instead of “global warming”).
Scopus is an academic database covering technical, medical, and social science disciplines. Surprisingly, when Scopus is searched using the correct search phrases, a total of 19,417 entries are retrieved. A Web of Knowledge search returns ~21,488 records. These figures are 7473 records (Scopus) and ~9544 records (Web of Knowledge) greater than what Cook et al eventually analysed.
More here:
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/5/27/landmark-consensus-study-is-incomplete.html
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Second, more authors are now reporting that their papers were categorized improperly:
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Is this an accurate representation of your paper?
“Certainly not correct and certainly misleading. The paper is strongly against AGW, and documents its absence in the sea level observational facts. Also, it invalidates the mode of sea level handling by the IPCC.” – Dr. Morner
“I am sure that this rating of no position on AGW by CO2 is nowhere accurate nor correct. Rating our serious auditing paper from just a reading of the abstract or words contained in the title of the paper is surely a bad mistake.” – Dr. Soon
“No, if Cook et al’s paper classifies my paper, ‘A Multidisciplinary, Science-Based Approach to the Economics of Climate Change’ as “explicitly endorses AGW but does not quantify or minimize,” nothing could be further from either my intent or the contents of my paper.” – Dr. Carlin
more here: http://www.populartechnology.net/2013/05/97-study-falsely-classifies-scientists.html#Update2
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Consensus acceptance of ill-conceived ideas isn’t the same as consensus rejection of ill-conceived ideas. But given enough time, they inevitably follow in that order. Lying works with impunity in politics, but utterly without it in science.
In case my newest comment at The Guardian disappears, I am cross-posting it here as well as at Popular Technology:
@Martin1505 – The Guardian removed Popular Technology’s reasoned reply to this article. In fact, Nuccitelli tweeted me earlier today directing me to this article as his specific reply to Popular Technology!
It seems extremely intellectually problematic for the moderators to then remove Popular Technology‘s reply.
Popular Technology made its point cogently, citing the authors who felt that their papers had been miscategorised by Cook et al. But The Guardian removed it so you and others can’t read it. This was heavy-handed and not in the spirit of a true scientific debate.
I just posted, but I think Askimet ate it. Can you resurrect it please?
In case my newest comment at The Guardian disappears, I am cross-posting it here as well as at PT:
@Martin1505 – The Guardian removed Popular Technology’s reasoned reply to this article. In fact, Nuccitelli tweeted me earlier today directing me to this article as his specific reply to Popular Technology!
It seems extremely intellectually problematic for the moderators to then remove Popular Technology‘s reply.
Popular Technology made its point cogently, citing the authors who felt that their papers had been miscategorised by Cook et al. But The Guardian removed it so you and others can’t read it. This was heavy-handed and not in the spirit of a true scientific debate.
@peterboghossian @ChristophDollis So it looks like you didn’t read my article which responded to Poptech’s denialism.
Fair enough for Nuccitelli to direct me to his article (which I find inadequate, as I’ve expressed to him in other tweets, and a comment on the article, and one more I’m formulating), but clearly his the forum for his reply does not allow detailed, well-cited criticism — not even from the person he’s responding to.
Shame, Guardian — this makes Nuccitelli look bad, perhaps unfairly.
Well not only that, it began bizarrely. My earlier comment before it perhaps disappears:
@Poptech – Am I the only one who found it odd how Dana Nuccitelli chose to start this article of all articles with a conspiracy theory?
I realise when your debating hand is weak, poisoning the well is a popular strategy for a certain type of person, but it’s farcical to do that in this article considering Nuccitelli’s point 5 — conspiracy theories.
In fact, his expecting people to overlook it goes to point 3 — logical fallacies: i.e., special pleading.
And what was his second point? Cherry picking? That’s rich.
While I concede this OFTEN happens in every side of every debate, including the skeptical side of the AGW debate, the climate alarmists are Zen masters at picking the start and end points on a graph to create a slope to fit their biases. They also, some of them, put a lot of effort into reducing well-known historical warm periods, as in MWP, Roman Optimum, etc.
At the end of the day, it isn’t about semantics and it certainly is not about consensus. But even if it were, your analysis of this paper shows much of it is artificial and manufactured [corrected typo]. Cook, Nuccitelli, et al. appear to have been sloppy.
That’s the charitable interpretation.
(The most likely one is profound psychological bias. Also possible is intentional dishonesty, but I’ll stick in the middle on this one.)
No dice.
I and others replied to at least one of PopTech’s comments, that was quite brief, but also damning. It essentially cited, verbatim, quotes from the scientists that disagreed with how Cook et al. 2013 classified their papers.
As I mentioned in the (currently moderated) comment above, Nuccittelli directed me to his Guardian article expressly as his reply to Popular Techology, which he named in his tweet. But there, PT’s very much on point comments are removed — well, the ones that show Cook et al. 2013 in a bad light, anyway.
That’s an odd sort of debate, don’t you think? Anthony Watts’ has warned me about using Skeptical Science as a source (I’ve even commented there) due to deleting on-topic but inconvenient comments and various forms of intellectual dishonesty.
After Cook et al. 2013, I’m looking more favourably on Watts’ skepticism re: Skeptical Science, Cook, and Nuccittelli.
Ah, forgive the essentially double post. I had thought my comment (the first one) was gone for good via Askimet, and rewrote it, adding Nuccittelli’s tweet and some commentary. Thanks for publishing it though.
I just read this a few minutes ago. It’s also relevant to what you guessed.
In the case of The Guardian article, it appears to me that 2 types of comments are subject to removal: obviously rude, off-base ones … and entirely on-point ones that show the author’s work in a particularly bad light.
This is hardly the first time I’ve observed this type of pattern (I’ve had it happen to me plenty of times) so it’s easy enough to recognise it.
Plain Richard, another SKS troll mindlessly arguing about the validity of a fraudulent study done by paid activists and liars.
I have been over at the Guardian reading some of the stuff put out and read this classic by Dana himself . . .
Guardian contributor
dana1981
28 May 2013 9:36pm
Recommend 18
@AVoiceFromAmerica – I address that here. Short answer – virtually every study quantifying the contributions to global warming puts the human contribution at ~100% over the past 50 years.
That is the extremes he is prepared to go to. Unfortunately the entire B-Ark group swallow that sort of rot with alacrity. It may be sour grapes on my part seeing how I am now “pre-moderated” because I asked him to answer the Met Office “not out of the natural variation” statement. That got deleted a couple of times.
http://www.ceres.org/press/press-releases/more-than-100-ski-areas-sign-climate-declaration-calling-for-u.s.-policy-action-on-climate-change?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+CeresNewsFeed+%28Ceres+Sustainability+News+Feed%29
Ski resorts don’t seem to agree with you. Wonder why. The only cult is the Church of Denial; as with all religions, it soaks up the simple-minded in search of something to believe in, ministered by high priests who concoct gospels of faith. All too doctrinal for the ‘flock’ to understand, but faith and a desperation not to be wrong and the green devils [who want to spoil the party] right is all that matters.
I don’t know the deal with Plain Richard’s obsessive defense of (all things) the Guardian.
The Guardian is continuing to heavily censoring my comments so it appears I cannot respond to arguments addressed to me.
My one censored comment simply asked someone to define ad hominem. I have submitted it again today.
For the record I responded to any argument directed towards me and if my response is not there that it because it was censored.
oneworldnet says:
May 29, 2013 at 8:14 am
Your comments seem to have that “bot” look to them.
But anyway, I wonder if this was one of those ski resorts that was so concerned about not having any snow.
http://pix11.com/2013/05/27/n-y-sees-3-feet-of-snow-fall-on-memorial-day-weekend/#axzz2UjacSQ6j
[ oneworldnet says:
May 29, 2013 at 8:14 am ]
The only cult is the Church of CAGW; as with all religions, it soaks up the simple-minded in search of something to believe in, ministered by high priests who concoct gospels of faith. All too doctrinal for the ‘flock’ to understand, but faith and a desperation not to be wrong and the devils [who want to spoil the party] is all that matters.
Excellent accessment. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/05/30/global-warming-alarmists-caught-doctoring-97-percent-consensus-claims/
“Global warming alarmists and their allies in the liberal media have been caught doctoring the results of a widely cited paper asserting there is a 97-percent scientific consensus regarding human-caused global warming. After taking a closer look at the paper, investigative journalists report the authors’ claims of a 97-pecent consensus relied on the authors misclassifying the papers of some of the world’s most prominent global warming skeptics. At the same time, the authors deliberately presented a meaningless survey question so they could twist the responses to fit their own preconceived global warming alarmism.”
@All who think I am working for or defending guardian or sks
I was not doing that, I was simply annoyed with Poptech. It started when Poptech said:
“Dana is now censoring all of my comments at the Guardian.”
There were comments from poptech around, still are, new ones have appeared since. Dana did nothing, I can point you to a comment from Dana that was moderated in the same comment section. Poptech said then he couldn’t do any new comments (later a lot of his comments appeared, I guess now he was put on premoderation). I gave some reasons why he could have been moderated (but he should ask the moderators, I saw only three comments of him who were moderated later).
My annoyance starts here:
“what I said was completely true, as ‘all’ referred to anything new I tried to post”
All is not new.
” Do you find this acceptable?”
Stupid leading question
“I did not post anything without additional text.”
I never said so! Putting words in my mouth, that got me going.
“Please stop making excuses for blatant censorship.”
I never did! Again accusing me of something I did not do. Above that a bit rich, since Poptech moderates comments at his own blog, and sometimes comments are moderated here and still Poptech is happy to have guest posts here. All of this is just moderation of course, the rules of the host. But Poptech calls it blatant censorship when he is being moderated. Annoying I think…
I tried once more to get him to see reason with “Come on! Nothing wrong with admitting you were a bit over melodramatic”. But Poptech never ever admits he could have been wrong.
He asks me: “Do you find this type of censorship acceptable?” Which is a bullshit leading question, it is only moderation at the guardian.
I also explained him his style that “you couldn’t stop going. Here you illustrate this same behavior of not letting go by telling us that you tried to post comments over there 10 times.” It is typically of Poptech, no matter what you say he repeats the same stuff over and over again.
Because I was annoyed, I also told him to take it to the guardian moderators, and, very evilly, ” You behave as the perfect example of scientific denialism that Dana could wish for. Think about it.” Dana analyses Poptech writings as a combination of three strategies. What does Poptech do? Does he argue that that is not true, or does he repeat the same thing and over again and thereby confirming the strategies defined by Dana? You guess!
More stupid stuff from Poptech:
“Why are you so afraid of allowing anyone to read my comments? Do you support censorship like this?”
Never said so, he is not being censored. Guess he finds it ok when others are being moderated, but when he is, then it is censorship.
“If I am the perfect example then let my comments through so I can be used as this example. I WANT to be such an example. Why are they so afraid to debate me?”
Sound like a Jesus complex. Ah well, after having commented three or fours days on the guardian he appears to have given up. Can’t see he has been moderated more than others. I am not going to repeat the rest of the discussion that anybody can see above, only mention that I gave a list of him putting words in my mouth and that he immer repeats the same stuf. There was the end of discussion.
Poptech after that answered with two post consisting of 1. Leading questions and 2. Repetitions of stuff he said before. That’s my opinion. Draw your own conclusions.
Richard,
Yes you did you said, “Postings of long CVs of scientists with hardly any accompanying context may be considered spam-like”
You have yet to argue against the censorship at the Guardian and made implications as to why my comments were being moderated. The Guardian was not moderating all comments, mainly just skeptics and the handful or inexcusable alarmist smears such as the one calling me a Nazi.
The Guardian is a very different animal and should allow for debate from both sides.
I was not wrong about being censored as none of my comments violated any policy. I was literally responding to other commentators.
Conveniently once I started exposing the censorship here my comments were allowed through there.
At a site like the Guardian, I do not expect anyone to be moderated unless they are legitimately posting inflammatory things like calling someone a Nazi or spamming advertisements. Disagreeing with Dana on an issue is not something that should be moderated.
Actually I have not given up at the Guardian, I just do not get notified of comments (unlike WUWT) and do not check the site everyday (when I checked last there were not new responses to my comments). Thanks for the reminder!
You failed to address the blatant censorship at the Guardian and instead were making excuses for it, including making false implications about my posts and why they should have been pre-moderated.
Yes, anyone can see for themselves that my comments were being censored and then once I complained at a website that has a large reach this conveniently changed – so yes draw your own conclusions.
@anybody who may still be reading this (but not Poptech)
See? He does it again:
““I did not post anything without additional text.”
I never said so! Putting words in my mouth, that got me going.
Yes you did you said, “Postings of long CVs of scientists with hardly any accompanying context may be considered spam-like””
Hoping everybody will oversee ‘hardly any’. And I was initially only trying to give him a possible explanation why some of his posts were moderated (of which I saw 3 before they were being moderated)…
The rest of Poptech latest post seems to be some vague justification why it is ok to denounce guardian moderation as ‘blatant censorship’ but being ok with moderation here and at Poptech’s own blog… Oh well…
Plain Richard, I am well aware of what you said and the implication was that I was simply spamming CVs without sufficient accompanying text, effectively saying “no text”. Play semantics all you want but I certainly did no post anything like calling someone else a Nazi which was posted with no problem at The Guardian and required reporting to get removed.
The Guardian “moderation” was blatant censorship and your continued attempts to compare it to the moderation at other websites is an Ad hominem tu quoque.
I have been commenting online for over 15 years at hundreds of websites and am well aware when I post something that would violate a comment policy and when I am being censored. Someone intellectually honest at the Guardian finally realized this too.
People are of course free to draw their own conclusions how “magically” once I started complaining here my posts were allowed through.