Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
There’s a new survey out by the Pew Research Center folks that’s getting lots of press. Much of the coverage mentions the following claim that the claimed 97% consensus is real but it’s only 87%. The survey reports a:
• 37-percentage point gap over whether climate change is mostly caused by human activity – 87% of AAAS scientists say it is, while 50% of the public does.
So what’s not to like? Well, the first oddity of the study is that we have absolutely no guarantee that the scientists are … well … scientists.
The study was done “in collaboration with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)”. Here’s the description from the Pew Center of the method used:
The survey of scientists was conducted online with a random sample of 3,748 U.S.-based members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) from September 11 to October 13, 2014. AAAS is the world’s largest general scientific society, and includes members from all scientific fields. Founded in 1848, AAAS publishes Science, one of the most widely circulated peer-reviewed scientific journals in the world. Membership in AAAS is open to all.
Sounds good … until you realize that not only is membership in AAAS “open to all”, but in addition anyone who subscribes to Science magazine is a member of AAAS … and for years Science magazine has been a strong supporter of the hypothesis that “climate change is mostly caused by human activity”, whatever that might mean.
So we are already dealing with a self-selected group of people, many of them not scientists, who read a magazine that for years has strongly supported the “anthropogenic global warming” (AGW) hypothesis.
But wait … it gets worse. For starters, you’d think that the Pew Research folks would have made a selection of scientists that weren’t subscribers to a magazine that has an axe to grind. And you’d also think that they would have picked … well … scientists.
But failing both of those, once the Pew Center folks had foolishly chosen to sample from AAAS members, surely they would make their own random selection of the AAAS membership? … well, think again. Their methods section cited above goes on to say:
A simple random sample of AAAS members was selected for participation by the staff of AAAS.
At this point, I’ve got to assume that the good folks at Pew have lost the plot entirely. They let the staff of the AAAS, a group which by and large seems to have swallowed the climate koolaid without demur, choose a “random sample” of which “scientists” the Pew folks would interview. Yeah, that’s the ticket, that inspires confidence …
And it gets worse yet, because the self-selection increases:
A total of 19,984 members were mailed a letter requesting participation in the survey.
And out of those, how many were actually sampled?
A total of 3,748 members completed the survey for an overall response rate of 18.8%.
Then there’s the matter of the poorly worded question. They asked if “climate change is mostly due to human activity”, with 87% of “scientists” saying yes versus 50% of citizens. I hate this kind of vague question, with no time frame on it, no definition of “climate change”, and no definition of “mostly”. For example, the IPCC defines “climate change” as being human caused … but under the general definition, the climate has been changing forever. This means that the well is poisoned before we even start. And what period of time are they talking about? The last ten years, during which there has been no statistically significant warming? The last century? The period since industrialization? And is 51% “mostly” or not? A vague question like that means nothing even if the rest of the survey had been handled perfectly.
I gotta say … I used to respect the Pew Research folks, and I’ve looked at their methods in other studies without finding much that seemed odd.
But this survey? On my planet, this one goes directly into the circular file … at the end of all of that, I gotta figure that their study is 87% horse feathers, and 13% unicorn-generated methane …
Best to all, and don’t believe everything you read.
w.
AS ALWAYS: If you disagree with someone, please have the courtesy to QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS YOU DISAGREE WITH so that all of us can understand the exact nature of what you object to.
And in the interests of full disclosure, I am a member of AAAS … but somehow they didn’t ask my opinion. I figure my invitation got lost in the mail …
They could be asking the town idiot.
Agree with John. Nice job Willis.
David Socrates
January 30, 2015 at 9:10 am
“Try this
…
Imagine your foot hurts..
You visit 10 doctors, and they examine you and do tests.
9 out of the 10 say you have a broken bone , the other one says they’ll have to amputate.
What do you do?”
People that use the doctor analogy are brainwashed, where they don’t understand the situation enough to make an analogy that makes sense.
The correct analogy would be if 9 out of 10 doctors wanted to amputate because they had computer models that said so…………….and they didn’t even examine the patient! The 10th one uses an examination of the patient to base his diagnosis on………..a splinter that is easily removed.
The so called 9 out of 10 climate scientist consensus calls for very aggressive actions to treat a potentially catastrophic problem on our planet because of widespread CO2 pollution.
The skeptic states that CO2 is a beneficial gas which is greening up the planet, causing slight and mostly beneficial warming. The skeptic’s position is based on observations of the real world……….. there is no empirical evidence of dangerous warming, just computer models programmed to show dangerous warming. So it makes no sense to to administer aggressive treatment when the patient is not even sick.
Mike Maguire,
You’ve hit the nail on the head. The alarmist clique likes to use that failed analogy. I say ‘failed’, because the true analogy is this:
You get a hangnail. It might bleed a little. Then a crackpot friend says, “Hey, you’d better go see a doctor, that might be fatal!”
Do you go to the doctor? Or do you use common sense?
The ‘carbon’ scare is the same thing. There has never been any harm identified from CO2, yet the wild-eyed Chicken Little contingent runs around in circles, squawking and telling everyone that the sky is falling.
What do you do? Waste all your resources on their non-problem? Or do you use some common sense?
Is 87% within the margin of error on the original claim of 97%? If not, then this at least casts doubt on the original claim.
I left the AAAS soon after it and its tabloid rag Science became a propaganda gig for the Holdren crowd. And oh yes, the sight of 2000 AAAS “scientists” rising to give Al Gore a standing ovation after delivering his standard harangue is enough to make you hit the reset button.
Sir Harry Flashman January 30, 2015 at 9:56 am
How’s about giving us a list of those places. Other than niche markets (e.g. cell phone repeaters on mountain tops) I know of no place that they are at par.
You’re a bit late to the party on that one, Flash. We’ve been told that here in the US for thirty years, and it’s still not true. You’re just the latest in a long line of folks making that bogus allegation, you can’t even claim novelty.
Yeah, the US and Europe are virtually unlivable because of evil fossil fuels … NOT. Fossil fuels take dirty places and clean them up, not the other way around. Try doing that with wind power.
Again with this canard. Yes, oil subsidies GLOBALLY are large, because countries like Venezuela and Russia subsidize their oil industries heavily, and sell their oil TO THEIR OWN CITIZENS at pennies on the dollar … which has nothing to do with anything outside their countries. Well, except it means they have to price their exported oil higher in order to make a profit …
But in the US, it’s the other way around. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, in 2010 fossil-fuel subsidies amounted to $4 billion a year. These included $240 million in credit for investment in Clean Coal Facilities; a tax deferral worth $980 million called excess of percentage over cost depletion; and an expense deduction on amortization of pollution-control equipment. Renewable sources received more than triple that figure, roughly $14 billion. And the same is true in Europe, only more so.(Source)
And this doesn’t touch the difference in actual energy production. The $4 billion US subsidy to the fossil fuel industry (coal, gas, and oil) comes out at about 35¢ per barrel of oil equivalent produced.
But because the renewables produce only a fraction of the energy that comes from fossil fuels, the renewable subsidy is no less than $13.12 per barrel of oil equivalent produced.
So your fairy tale about who gets subsidized the most is simply not true, either in total or per barrel of oil equivalent. And if you want to go talk to the Venezuelans and Russians about how their domestic-only subsidies “need to be eliminated to create a “fair” market” outside their countries, be my guest, and good luck with that … but it has nothing to do with e.g. the sky-high electricity prices in California due to renewable subsidies.
w.
“So what’s not to like? Well, the first oddity of the study is that we have absolutely no guarantee that the scientists are … well … scientists.”
Anyone suggest yet that must be that’s why the number is so low.
“Please, someone tell me how a neuroscientist or political scientist or sociologist or any number of scientists from any of the fields have knowledge greater than the general public.”
They don’t need knowledge. They just think clearly. The logic behind GW is not that difficult.
Oh, this should be good! Explain it to us, Mr Logical Clear Thinker.
Please use clear thinking like you did above:
Anyone suggest yet that must be that’s why the number is so low.
As long as the inconvenient facts and the counter-logic aren’t considered.
As long as you think all that’s involved is radiative physics.
Since most of the energy reaching the earth is “radiative,” I would think that radiative physics is a darn good place to start.
I wanted to see just who the “scientists” were as soon as I saw only 31% were in favor of fracking. There are legitimate issues with poorly executed fracks, but I could not see how any group could look into the subject in detail and come up with that high of a negative response.
oh!…. there was no need to know anything about the subject
Climate changes? Check.
How much has climate changed in the last 10,000 years?
How much did climate change in the 10,000 years before that?
Which part do you think humans are responsible for?
presearch perhaps?
The sample size was NOT 3748, it was 19984. The refusal rate was 94.6%, and only 6.1% of those surveyed agreed with the central premise (3261 out of 19984). Surveys that have such a high refusal rate are meaningless, unless you know for a fact that the self-selection aspect of those answering are representative of the whole. Here, you cannot say they are, and indeed, given the political polarization of the issue, you must assume the answering sample is NOT representative, but rather that it is partisan.
Social scientists and their stinking statistics are trying to cause the demise of science.
Sorry, 82% refusal rate. 16% acceptance rate.
52 should be the new 97…
The 52% ‘consensus’
November 10, 2013 | 373 Comments
by Judith Curry
“A comprehensive survey has been conducted of the American Meteorological Society membership to elicit their views on global warming.”
http://judithcurry.com/2013/11/10/the-52-consensus/
Anderegg & Al. PNAS, July 2010, Vol. 107, No. 27:
Link: http://www.pnas.org/content/107/27/12107
/Jan
Here’s their methodology:
Setting aside the abysmally subjective nature of the criteria, who did the “classification”? Why, Stephen Schneider, among others.
So all the study shows is that Steven Schneider and his alarmist friends think that a majority of scientists are “convinced by the evidence for anthropogenic climate change” … be still, my beating heart.
And that passes for “science” in your world? Even without considering their other bogus criteria, does a bunch of climate alarmists sorting papers into two piles and declaring victory make your scientific blood run fast?
Perhaps that impresses you, Jan, although I’d thought better of your intellectual abilities.
w.
PS—Bizarrely, they classified some scientists as both “convinced by the evidence” (CE) and “unconvinced by the evidence” (UCE) … I guess like the Red Queen, they believe six impossible things before breakfast …
Good, so why don’t you conduct a study of over 1000 scientists that have published in the field, and find out what proportion of them support the AGW hypothesis, and what proportion reject the AGW hypothesis.
..
You could even publish your results!!!
Go lie down awhile. Maybe your fever will go away.
It’s a scientific paper, i.e. they describe their methods, for instance:
/Jan
Thank you Jan
..
Hey Mike M.
…
Look at study from Jan’s post
..
Seems the “doctors” are all acknowledging both the “patients” fever, and it’s cause.
..
Aggressive treatment for fevers can be counterproductive.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18025310
David Socrates January 31, 2015 at 1:01 pm
Why don’t I? Because science is not a democracy. Scientific questions are not decided by vote. And as the man said, science is the belief in the fallibility of experts.
w.
Jan Kjetil Andersen January 31, 2015 at 1:18 pm
Or, as I said above after reading it, Steven Scheider and other alarmists divided them into two piles based on totally subjective criteria.
Like I said, Jan, I thought better of your intelligence.
First, such a study is meaningless. As Einstein famously said after 100 scientists signed an objection to his work, “If I were wrong, one would be enough”.
Second, such appeals to authority are a recognized logical fallacy.
Third, having dedicated alarmists doing the sorting is a joke.
Fourth, they have only the most subjective of criteria to do the sorting.
So I fear I don’t care if “it’s a scientific paper”—it’s not science in any form.
w.
“Publishing in the field”
Of course the alarmists are spreading their alarm. The whole field–and especially those most active in it–has differentially attracted tree-hugger types who have swallowed the environmental dogma of “two legs bad.” And it has attracted the world-saver type, like Hansen–victims of “the messianic delusion.”
This point is most clearly seen in the simple science of polar bear ecology, in which the acrobatics and underhandedness of the polar bear specialists group stand out, and which serves as a case study of what’s wrong with the complex science of climatology.
And, of course, it’s hard for contrarians to get published in that field–their articles must pass a higher bar.
Here’s a collection of past WUWT posts on the 97-Doctors analogy:
Hmmmn.
RogerKnights
Good feedback, good information above about doctors.
I would like to see ANY member of the CAGE religion follow the simple oath ” First, do no harm. …”
Rather, half follow the simple Law “First, make money and power by feeding the needs of the bureaucracy in power. Second, secure your retirement and your “need for publication” by following Rule 1.
Third, when in doubt, cite Rule 1, and claim that 97% of the majority cannot be wrong.”
The other half simple follow their need for confirmation bias and peer-review pressure. Regardless of what harm is done to the patient in the real world.
To paraphrase a saying – the only poll that matters is the actual weather.
And so far, the weather “poll” is showing only climate stasis. The climate cult has only faith and not science.
I’m sure we can apply a bit of post normal maths to this and come up with a guess about how many of the non-responders didn’t want to express what could be an unpopular opinion and build a model that shows less than 50 of members are true believers.
(only a halfhearted element of snark in here, honest)