Over at Scientific American, a place that isn’t hardly Scientific, nor American anymore (its owned by Germans IIRC) there’s a big row over Cook’s shoddy “97% consensus” paper in comments, mainly due to some pertinent ones asking some tough questions being deleted wholesale. SciAm is now citing policy as the reason.
What’s funny, contrary to SciAm policy (for vulgarities) is that the F-word is allowed in the article itself, used by Dan Kahan to describe a bumper sticker about that imagined “97% consensus”.
“We live in a world where the people who make the videos like the OFA one have attached a meaning to this argument—97 percent of scientists [believe in human-caused global warming],” he said. “It’s a bumper sticker, and it says “fuck you” on it.”
You’re welcome.
BTW, the “Hockey? bumper sticker to the left is just a happy accident of the bumper sticker generator.
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Stay classy, SciAm.
It amazes me that anyone, anywhere, espousing a scientific argument, would even bother with this.
97% believed the world was flat…
97% believed the sun and all of the planets revolved around the Earth…
Why would anyone think that figure had any meaning in science whatsoever?
But it keeps getting tossed around by pretty much everyone. I refuse to engage in it, or respond to it when someone brings it up.
The reason we’re still fighting it is that we enable it by doing so.
Jim
Consensus (real, imagined, or contrived) is NOT science. I’m not sure why ‘Scientific American’ isn’t emphasizing that. Ask Galileo. Ask Ed Parker (the Solar Physicist who ‘discovered’ the Solar Wind). At the time the ‘consensus’ firmly believed that space was ’empty’ and Parker was excoriated for his ideas, with other scientists berating him, saying, “Parker, if you knew ANYTHING …”
If the ‘consensus’ believes that 2+2 = 5, that doesn’t make it correct. One of the fundamental tenants of Science is to challenge the ‘consensus’. It must be so or we will ultimately end up in an Orwellian nightmare.
Politicians are the only group that seems to believe that the principle of democratic ‘voting or consensus’ has any validity in science. It doesn’t. It is the job of scientists to attempt to ‘disprove’ other scientists work. In no other way can we arrive at the truth (which, I believe is the ultimate aim of science).
I always figured that everyone knows that the 97% is bogus and that anyone using it knows they are just playing politics.
I have thought for a long time that the true believers know deep in their hard, steely little hearts that there is no cause for alarm. They know it is warmer now than it was in the little ice age and we are better off for that. They know the medieval warming was even warmer than now and another few degrees would not harm us at all.
Most who use the 97% are activists pushing an anti-industrial agenda who are just using the idea of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming as a stalking horse to get what they want. Others just use the whole 97% to agitate for more funding from the government.
I will say this though; the bumper sticker got it right — those people do want to F over the poor and commoners. They see themselves as above it all, and the rest of us should live a life like out of a Dickens novel.
How in the world did you spot the bumper sticker generator? Awesome.
Cook’s 97% consensus has been thoroughly debunked anyway but Alarmists shouldn’t let sciencey, mathy things get in the way.
Mark Stoval (@MarkStoval) says:
July 26, 2014 at 1:17 pm
“They know the medieval warming was even warmer than now and another few degrees would not harm us at all. ”
No, they don’t. They are surprised when one explains to them that it MUST have been warmer, otherwise there wouldn’t have been the surplus production necessary to build the cathedrals (and finance the crusades). They really do believe that all of the medieval was one big plague ridden misery. Because, they actually don’t care for history and don’t know anything about it. That’s also why they think electric cars are a great new idea.
I know because I talked to one. He didn’t like being lectured but had nothing to contradict me.
I saw Richard Tol tweet about the Sci Am article, as Richard mentioned he was quoted, mine was the first comment at Sci Am, it lasted a few hours before deletion:
—————————–
“Once results were in, Cook put together a publicity strategy.” – [Sci Am]
well that is not true…they were planning the marketing before the research…see the leaked/hacked Skeptical Science authors forum
http://www.hi-izuru.org/forum/The%20Consensus%20Project/2012-01-19-Marketing%20Ideas.html
(one of the raters) Ari Jokimäki said:
“I have to say that I find this planning of huge marketing strategies somewhat strange when we don’t even have our results in and the research subject is not that revolutionary either (just summarizing existing research). I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t do this, but just that it seems a bit strange to me.”
————–
screen capture:
http://realclimategate.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/sciam-consensus.jpg?w=744
Consensus by deletion of opposing views – nice!
My Dad always told me “Never give a prick the satisfaction.” I suggest this is a perfect opportunity to honor my Dad’s memory.
Lucia Liljegren (The Blackboard blog) and a number of others have had comments disappear (not sure if they screen captured them all) my second comment was also deleted:
2nd comment —————————————————-
Also John Cook never corrected the ‘misinformation’ in te Obama tweet that he likes to boast about
A real climate scientist tried to..
Barack Obama
@BarackObama Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous. Read more: http://OFA.BO/gJsdFp
Richardabetts
@BarackObama Actually that paper didn’t say ‘dangerous’. NB I *do* think #climate change poses risks – I just care about accurate reporting!
This is Professor Richard Betts – Chair in Climate impacts
http://geography.exeter.ac.uk/staff/?web_id=Richard_Betts
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/people/richard-betts
————————————————————————————-
Screen capture: http://realclimategate.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/sciam-consensus-2.jpg?w=751
After my comment was deleted, Richard asks Scientific American, why my comment quoting him was deleted..
http://realclimategate.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/sciam-consensus-betts.jpg
and Richard’s comment was deleted as well.
https://twitter.com/richardabetts/status/493021686279974912
100% of the climatologists whose models over projected warming rates since 2000 are in the 97% consensus.
(Try fitting that on a bumper sticker.)
On a side not, climate models are good for science. Does anyone (including the skeptic) suggest models (in all areas of science) are not useful tools?
Lately any time I dare wade into the rising ocean of global warming debate online, I take a pro-model stance and suggest more competition between climate modeling camps. All climatologists are not equal. I truly believe great science rides on the back of great competition.
If I wasn’t so involved trying to predict equine stamina at Arlington Park, I might not even care.
Wait…what ??
The following example of brilliant intellectual irritationism is copied from a link provided to the SciAm article referred to above:
‘Cook thinks that politicians are not acting because the public is not pressuring them enough. If people realize that the majority of scientists agree on human-caused climate change, they will absorb that knowledge like empty vessels and become more convinced of the threat, he said. They will then be more amenable to picking up their phones and calling their legislators.’
Got that? We’re all “empty vessels” waiting to be filled with whatever those superior individuals, who exist on a higher plain, choose to deposit within our vacant, empty shells. Pretty damned insulting I’d say. More than merely insulting. Quite arrogant I’d say. Maybe Cook should realize, if he can find the zipper to step out of his insecurity driven cloak of self importance, that us “empty vessels”
happen to generate the tax revenues that provide the research funding without which his bank account really would be a genuine empty vessel. And not a bogus rhetorical one. Oh, and by the way Mr. Cook, I have no desire for your platitudinous missionary services.
“We’re all “empty vessels” waiting to be filled with whatever those superior individuals, who exist on a higher plain[sic], choose to deposit within our vacant, empty shells.”
http://postimg.org/image/y9mlxztqr/
Let’s say 100% of climate scientists said that MOST of the surface warming since 1950 was from man-made greenhouse gases (as opposed to ‘influence’ as per IPCC), so what? Where is the peer reviewed evidence clearly showing that MOST of the surface warming since 1950 is man-made? (No weasel words allowed).
All we have is belief and conviction. That does not cut it.
What exactly is the bumper sticker trying to say? Can someone translate this into proper English?
The SciAm website only doles out ten comments at a time. So it’s incredibly tedious to see the whole thread. Methinks their interest in debate is mostly cosmetic.
Here in Florida, There was a “How’s My Driving? Call 1-800 Eat Sh1t” bumper sticker craze. Police started ticketing drivers for something, public vulgarity, I guess.
It seems the First Amendment (free speech) does not include bumper stickers.
Tee-shirts, yes. Bumper stickers, no.
Empty vessels nake the most noise.
I really think we should “do something” about climate. Have a parade. Maybe some fireworks. Prayers of thanks to whatever Diety you follow. The climate is excellent. Rejoice!
Gee, I didn’t mean to ram your car. Global Warming made my foot slip from the brake to the accelerator.
Who’s f__ked now?
Take out the “Because” and “So”, and put a question mark after “97%”, and I would agree.
In the K-12 education reform going on globally that is known in the US as Common Core and is called 21st Century Learning almost everywhere else, a huge part of the actual implementation involves priming the students that they must reach a shared understanding. We can joke about consensus as neither true or scientific but it is about to be a huge element in all of our lives unless its omnipresence is better recognized.
http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/experimenting-on-people-and-places-via-the-rockefeller-process-of-communication-for-social-change/ may sound like I am being cutesy with the Rockefeller name but this really is the global name for the process of forcing a shared understanding that is supposed to then guide action. Took it from an official World Bank document and everything.
The Rockefeller Foundation has been going to a great deal of trouble around the world to get all the philanthropies pulling towards this same toxic vision of the future. I am not guessing about that either. They have declared that openly. We ignore those declarations at our peril. Lots of money is being spent to create false but influential beliefs.
Robin:
I write to support your post at July 26, 2014 at 2:57 pm.
Our differences are valuable. Attempts to make people, countries and cultures ‘the same’ are an attack on our shared humanity.
We have our greatest affection for those we most love, and we love them because they are them and not because they are like us.
Richard
Yes,
SciAm is unable to distinguish between the authority of opinion (even a consensus) and the authority of looking at the real world. Magic makes the real world obey – but SciAm doesn’t realise that magic isn’t real.
Arts graduates get everywhere.
Judgmental? Maybe. But on my side of the pond, New Scientist is just as ridiculous. And just as deferential to institutions .