Guest essay by Brandon Shollenberger
It’s nothing but laundering lies. The authors don’t come out and directly say anything untrue, but they intentionally create and promote misunderstandings to inflate the importance of their work.
It’s rampant dishonesty hiding behind a fig leaf of deniability. This is how I recently described Cook et al’s PR campaign for their recent paper.
I didn’t intend to follow up on this comment, but this morning I saw a quote from Dana Nuccitelli that was impossible to resist:
We were always careful to say that while the survey involved 12,000 abstracts, the 97 percent consensus was among the ~4,000 abstracts that took a position on the cause of global warming (plus the roughly 1,400 of 2,100 self-rated papers taking a position). And we were careful to point out that the consensus was that ‘humans are causing global warming.
Nuccitelli says he and his co-authors always used a particular phrasing when describing their results. I must admit, that is true. They’ve always managed to say “humans cause global warming” with the implicit qualifier of “some” (that they knew nobody would pay attention to). It’s obvious they knew the limitations of their results and didn’t want to be accused of lying. So when someone said:
Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous. Read more: http://OFA.BO/gJsdFp
They obviously knew this wasn’t supported by their work. So what did they do? Did they correct it? No. They promoted it. Time, and time again, they promoted this tweet despite knowing it was a grossly inaccurate description of their work. How could they be careful to always describe their results accurately then promote gross inaccuracies about their results? Simple. They aren’t lying if they aren’t the ones saying it.
That’s it. That’s their strategy. They say things like, “Humans cause global warming” knowing most people won’t realize they’re meaning “some amount of global warming.” When someone misunderstands them, they promote that misunderstanding. They then tell us they “were careful” not to say untrue things themselves. For example, from the same link as the tweet from “Barack Obama”:
Ninety-seven percent of scientists say global warming is mainly man-made but a wide public belief that experts are divided is making it harder to gain support for policies to curb climate change, an international study showed on Thursday.
The important thing to realize is they did this very carefully. They intentionally used wording that could be easily misunderstood then promoted misunderstandings that arose from it. In other words, they laundered lies.
As a note, the piece Nuccitelli’s quote comes from has a great deal that’s wrong about it, including the fact the author completely misrepresented my communication with him. Try to ignore that for now. Cook et al’s rampant dishonesty is far more important.
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Upon reading thispost,,,,,,,,, “Big Snake Oil” came to mind.
Fascinating, if it is accurate, no?
“Local school boards & state textbook buyers need to push back,”
What is the use of that?
The APS, the AGU and similar have a clear position on the topic,
and the textbook writers follow them.
It is irrelevant whatever %age of climate or other scientists think ‘humans are causing global warming’.
The issue is whether, and by how much, anthropogenic CO2 is warming the climate.
You can add that to the list of dishonesties.
Brendon,
now they may use your headline as well for their PR campaign…
No doubt that the author didn’t communicate with Dana very well…
“Another co-author, Dana Nuccitelli of Skeptical Science, said she was encouraging scientists to stress the consensus “at every opportunity, particularly in media interviews”.
I should think that Dana would insist that the reference to hism gender be corrected.
On the other hand, the article that’s linked in the tweet accurately summarizes the selection and classification of the papers, doesn’t it?
“Experts in Australia, the United States, Britain and Canada studied 4,000 summaries of peer-reviewed papers in journals giving a view about climate change since the early 1990s and found that 97 percent said it was mainly caused by humans.
They also asked authors for their views and found a 97 percent conviction from replies covering 2,000 papers.”
Since Obama publically claimed that there has been accelerated warming in the last 10 years which is an outright lie, and anyone who has looked at the data knows that is not true, what difference does it make about this 97% half truth lie? Make the lie big, and make the half truth as devious as possible. The public will believe it – that is one truth that will never go away. The only thing that will bring the public around is for the Laurentide ice sheet to start rebuilding, but when that happens it really won’t matter any more anyway.
@Alvin –
What you bring up is only the tip of the Common Core iceberg. CC is nothing but an indoctrination program, designed to keep kids from acquiring critical thinking, and telling them to give up their constitutional rights “to be safe.” (As Ben Franklin said, he who gives up his liberty for safety has neither.)
It should be illegal as hell for teachers to use kids to conduct a political campaign, like the one you describe where they are to write their congressman to ask for tougher climate control laws. That’s pure politics, not education, let alone science – not only is it a waste of time that could be used to teach kids something useful, like economics (which is as important a part of life as science, and which I think should be taught starting in the first grade so that hopefully we wouldn’t have such a grossly economically illiterate public). And IMHO, it’s child abuse, misleading kids and scaring them with tales of impending CAGW doom. It got so bad in England that the zillions of complaints from parents of how their kids were being subjected to this abuse that the authorities in the UK pulled global warming from the educational agenda. I only hope that happens here.
I personally won’t be comfortable until the left is entirely purged from the educational system at all levels, from preschool to graduate school.
@Philip Bradley –
One is reminded of Einstein’s comment that it only takes one demonstration by one scientists to prove millions of others wrong.
The 97 percent gimmick is a rather crude and unimaginative example of a fundamental logical fallacy, argumentum ad verecundiam – the appeal to authority, which of course holds no water when the “authority” is dead wrong.
Richard Hill says:
July 28, 2013 at 7:42 pm
Some states have a lot of say in what goes into textbooks, regardless of what scientific bodies advise, unless, as in the case of creationism, the federal courts get involved:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jun/21/how-texas-inflicts-bad-textbooks-on-us/?pagination=false
@Ian H –
When the kicking starts, can each of us posters here have a turn at it? Grrr!!
Caleb said on July 28 at 6:53 pm
Wow, an excellent diatribe, in a gentle sort of way.
Thanks.
Friends of Science have issued three press releases on the alleged 97% consensus through PRWeb.
http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?id=673
with table http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/Consensus.pdf
“The Economist reports on IPCC CO2 Sensitivity as Friends of Science Issues a Statement on claims of 97% Scientific Consensus on Global Warming and Climate Change. Recent comments by President Obama and high profile eco-activists like Canadian David Suzuki stating that there is a 97% scientific consensus on global warming and climate change are misleading the public, say Friends of Science. Four key studies on consensus show that scientists only agree that human activity has caused some warming – not dangerous warming.”
http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?id=657
“Only 65 Scientists of 12,000 Make up Alleged 97% on Climate Change and Global Warming Consensus According to Breakdown of Cook et al study, say Friends of Science. In response to multiple inquiries from media and global warming advocates, Friends of Science issue this release to expose the statistical manipulation evident from the break down of the Cook et al paper.”
http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?id=655
“Friends of Science Challenge the Cook Study for Bandwagon Fear Mongering on Climate Change and Global Warming. Detailed analysis shows that only 0.5% (65 of the 12,000 abstracts rated) suggest that humans are responsible for more than 50% of the global warming up to 2001, contrary to the alleged 97% consensus amongst scientists in the Cook et al study.”
Would you buy a used car (pre-owned automobile) from Nutticcelli and Cook?
If so, call me. I have a bridge that may interest you…..
A person in position of paid power can bring about utter destruction. A single career can be destroyed as well as the lifespring of entire nations. Beware the advertised belief, no matter what the belief.
It is extremely difficult to expose a half truth for what it is, particularly if the audience is pre-disposed to that point of view. Instead of trying to refute the claim, embrace it.
Yes Mr/Ms Naive, 97% of scientists agree that humans are causing warming. Are you aware that there is considerable disagreement among those same scientists as to the magnitude of the warming and the costs of mitigation versus adaptation?
Then you throw in one or two links to get them going on their own quest for facts instead of rhetoric. Like these:
http://www.petitionproject.org/index.php
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/11/29/open-climate-letter-to-un-secretary-general-current-scientific-knowledge-does-not-substantiate-ban-ki-moon-assertions-on-weather-and-climate-say-125-scientists/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/11/quote-of-the-week-nature-on-the-failure-of-climate-models/
Or whatever your favourite is. Those who refuse to look are lost causes that no amount of information, facts and logic will convince anyway. Those who do look… have taken a step on their own. You still can’t convince them, they have to become interested enough to do the research and convince themselves.
IMO, the Cook et. al. ‘97%’ paper was a very, very cleverly constructed piece of ‘disinformation’ of which the KGB at the height of the Cold War would have been proud, and should be carefully, dissected, analysed and publicised as such by us skeptics and especially by those of us skilled in understanding and combating sophisticated disinformation programs. That it fooled (or was simply found useful to) those in positions as high as the UK Hoiuse of Lords and the President of the USA demonstrates its very effectiveness, and should serve as a warning to skeptics and the public at large of the guile and cunning of those promoting this scam. We must fight on, for as long as it takes, till truth prevails over lies and information prevails over disinformation.
Problems:
1. Authors of papers not dealing with attribution (e.g., on impacts and mitigation, which are more numerous) may call themselves climatologists, but they do not have relevant expertise on what causes climate change. They’re just bystanders. Only authors dealing with attribution (atmospheric physics and chemistry) should be polled.
2. Papers on attribution written in the last five years are most relevant. Papers that are more than ten years old should be down-weighted.
3. Authors need to be asked the sort of probing questions that the 2007 George Mason U. survey asked, such as how confident are they in climatology’s knowledge-state and projections, how much of a threat do they consider future warming to be, etc. Cook and N. must have been aware of those questions, but deliberately avoided asking them.
Someone should commission George Mason or somebody to do a survey with the points above in mind.
Essays like this give unnecessary credance to that ridiculous paper from cartoonist John Cook.
It doesn’t matter at all what idiots who call themselves “Climate Scientists” write in their abstracts, it what they can prøve by the ACTUAL REAL SCIENCE that matters. And here is the rub. Nowhere in the 12.000 (or 4.000) papers is there a single piece of reliable evidence that human emissions of CO2 are having the claimed effect.
And lets get to bottom of this “climate scientist” rubbish as well – there is no such thing. There are geologists, there are physicists, meteorologists, chemists and astro-physicists, some of whom work on climate-related subjects.
A climate scientist is not someone who; by sheer bloody accident, happens to write the words “global warming” into the title of their paper. I would guess that would include about 11.000 biologists – who know absolutely nothing about climate, but who know a quick shortcut to research funding.
It’s even more egregious than Brandon thinks:
Prof Mike Hulme:
” …in one place the paper claims to be exploring “the level of scientific consensus that human activity is very likely causing most of the current GW” and yet the headline conclusion is based on rating abstracts according to whether “humans are causing global warming”. These are two entirely different judgements.”
This simple observation undermines the ‘97% consensus’ paper, but neither of the Authors contributing to this thread http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2013/7/27/weekend-update-the-distracting-counterproductive-97-consensu.html have acknowledged it or addressed it, despite several invitations to do so.
They have taken a few potshots at Hulme in a vague sort of way though.
This is standard Modus Operandi for some of those on the warm side of the debate, and one of the major reasons why the majority of people in the UK and elsewhere are sceptical of their claims. They avoid substantive debate on issues of logic and quantification and instead offer innuendo against those making awkward observations.
I think many who have read any significant proportion of the climate ‘science’ slanted output knows full well that it is all carefully produced to provide as much alarmism as possible, often without any hint of actual scientific basis.
This is the primary problem – that no real peer review has been undertaken, and the ‘bandwagon’ allowed many non-climate scientists to get involved, accentuating many publications because of the phrase ‘global warming’. The mere fact that ordinary folk (who are not really climate science orientated) can debunk or at least draw serious doubts about the so called ‘science’, literally within minutes on the internet – is a prime illustration of just how bad the whole process (peer review) became.
In essence, the various editors of various publications saw that the CAGW hype was getting in the news. In the same way as tabloid newspapers seek ‘readers’ with headlines and eye-catching photos – so the ‘science’ papers did the same.
The likes of Nuticelli, Connolley, etc – jumped on the bandwagon too! Self gratifying, self perpetuating NON scientists taking advantage of the crap peer review process.
As I have said before – the main loser here (apart from Joe Public) will be the scientific method and scientists in general. Alarmism in science simply does not work – and infiltration of ‘science’ by those with personal agendas is paramount to scientific anarchy.
Joe public already despises scientists for getting things wrong (e.g. simple weather forecasts!, or this or that is good/bad for you, etc). Does anyone think science can return from this over-hyped scam? Somehow, I think not, at least not for many years.
RogerKnights
No doubt there are many problems with the 97% paper. But didn’t the tweet – with the link – accurately describe the 4000, 2000, and all of that?
We need to start referring, in print and in speech, to “the 97% lie. Everywhere it turns up. Until Joe Public gets the message.
When anyone commits the logical atrocity of “appeal to authority,” I say to them “So we should listen to the scientists about the existence and severity of AGW – because they’re scientists, right?” And they say “Absolutely – they’re the scientists.” I say “So we should listen to the experts in science, and not challenge experts speaking with authority within their field of expertise.” They assert this as an axiom.
I then say “So the scientists have no business talking about financial markets, economics, public policy responses right – they should ONLY opine on the scientific variables and not get involved in stuff they know nothing about, right?” At that point they start to go wobbly, but they have to agree.
Then I say “So why shouldn’t I listen to Lord Monckton about the appropriate policy response? His field of expertise is in public policy.” They don’t like that at all.
I just came across another fascinating comment by Dana Nuccitelli:
This probably doesn’t appear fascinating. It seems like the sort of reaction one would expect from Nuccitelli. What’s fascinating only becomes apparent if you read the comment he says he agrees with, specifically:
By agreeing with this comment, Nuccitelli says the only “coherent way to read the paper” is that their “consensus” is humans are “responsible for 50%+ of warming over at least the last 50 years.” This is peculiar as the only difference between the first and second categories is the first category is for abstracts which quantify the anthropogenic component as 50%+. If all papers endorsing the consensus say the anthropogenic component is 50%+, what possible reason would there be to split the first and second categories as they did? That wouldn’t be one.
This was probably just a careless mistake on Nuccitelli’s part, but it’s still fascinating. If this was a mistake, it shows Nuccitelli promoted something that misrepresented his work simply because he liked what it said. If it wasn’t a mistake, Nuccitelli intentionally mislead people by saying he agreed with Tom Curtis’s comment.
That is, unless Nuccitelli actually agrees with Tom Curtis. In that case, Nuccitelli may be honest, but he has no idea what he’s talking about.
A good scientist should say:
There was a sharp rise in global surface temperature between 1910 and 1940 not attributed (mostly) to man’s greenhouse gases as per IPCC. Furthermore, the temperature rise from the end of the Little Ice Age (~1850) to 1940 was ‘mostly’ natural. The question is HOW MUCH of the recent rise is caused by man? HOW MUCH warming will a doubling of co2 cause? This is at the core of the debate. Dana is a dishonest fossil fuel paid ‘shale‘.
Here is Professor Mike Hulme (Lead author IPCC 2001 Third Assessment Report) on the Cook Dana ‘study’.
Ouch!