![HistoryOfSettledScience-big1[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/historyofsettledscience-big11.jpg?quality=83)
From the “Cooking up another 97% consensus” department and Purdue University:
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – A Purdue University-led survey of nearly 700 scientists from non-climate disciplines shows that more than 90 percent believe that average global temperatures are higher than pre-1800s levels and that human activity has significantly contributed to the rise.
The study is the first to show that consensus on human-caused climate change extends beyond climate scientists to the broader scientific community, said Linda Prokopy, a professor of natural resource social science.
“Our survey indicates that an overwhelming majority of scientists across disciplines believe in anthropogenic climate change, are highly certain of these beliefs and find climate science to be credible,” Prokopy said. “Our results also suggest that scientists who are climate change skeptics are well in the minority.”
Previous studies have shown that about 97 percent of actively publishing climate scientists believe in human-caused climate change, and a review of scientific literature on the existence of climate change indicated that about 97 percent of studies affirm climate change is happening.
However, no direct surveys had assessed whether the general agreement on the impact of human activities on the Earth’s climate extended to scientists in other disciplines.
Prokopy and fellow researchers conducted a 2014 survey of scientists from more than 10 non-climate disciplines at Big Ten universities to determine the relative prevalence of belief in, and skepticism of, climate change in the scientific community.
Of 698 respondents, about 94 percent said they believe average global temperatures have “generally risen” compared with pre-1800 levels, and 92 percent said they believe “human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures.”
CREDIT (Environmental Research Letters image/J. Stuart Carlton)
Nearly 79 percent said they “strongly agree” and about 15 percent “moderately agree” that climate science is credible. About 64 percent said climate science is a mature science compared with their own field, and about 63 percent rated climate science as “about equally trustworthy” compared to their discipline.
Disagreement about climate change is rarely a simple dispute about facts, Prokopy said. People’s interpretation of information can also be influenced by their cultural and political values, worldview, and personal identity. Prokopy’s research team found that division over climate change was linked to disagreement over science – such as the potential effects of carbon dioxide on the Earth’s climate – but also differing cultural and political values, which the survey gauged in a section of questions on respondents’ general worldviews.
While cultural values did not appear to influence scientists as much as previous studies have shown they influence the general public on a variety of issues, including climate change, the survey indicated that “when it comes to climate change, scientists are people, too,” said lead author Stuart Carlton, a former postdoctoral research assistant in Prokopy’s lab.
“While our study shows that a large majority of scientists believe in human-caused climate change, it also shows that their beliefs are influenced by the same types of things that influence the beliefs of regular people: cultural values, political ideologies and personal identity,” he said.
Prokopy said she was “quite surprised to find cultural values influencing scientists as much as they are. This shows how strong these values are and how hard they are to change.”
Respondents’ certainty in their beliefs on climate change appeared to be linked to the source of their climate information. Certainty was correlated to how much of respondents’ climate information came from scientific literature or mainstream media, Prokopy said. The more respondents relied on scientific studies for information on climate change, the greater their certainty that human activity is causing the Earth’s temperatures to rise.
“Climate literature is very compelling and convincing,” she said. “Scientists are not fabricating their data.”
Nearly 60 percent of those who believe in climate change said they were “extremely sure” and about 31 percent said they were “very sure” average global temperatures have risen. Respondents who said they believe global temperatures have fallen or remained constant were “significantly less certain” in their beliefs, Prokopy said.
Carlton said the tendency of some media to portray climate change as more controversial among scientists than it actually is could decrease people’s certainty in whether climate change is occurring and its potential causes.
“The media probably do this for good reasons: They want to give each side of a story to try to be balanced,” said Carlton, now the healthy coastal ecosystems and social science specialist at Texas Sea Grant. “However, our study shows that there is very little disagreement among climate scientists or other scientists about the existence of climate change or the quality of climate science as a discipline. There are important questions about what we should do about climate change, but those are policy controversies, not science controversies.”
The survey results did not reveal many strikingly different responses by discipline, Prokopy said, though among the fields of study represented, natural resource scientists showed the highest amount of skepticism that global temperatures have risen.
Respondents across disciplines nearly unanimously agreed that climate science is credible, but views on its maturity and trustworthiness compared with their own discipline varied. Physicists and chemists, for example, rated climate science as a highly credible discipline but gave it lower marks in trustworthiness and overall maturity compared with their own fields. Prokopy said this was “not surprising given that physics and chemistry are some of the oldest, most established scientific disciplines.”
While previous studies showed that many prominent climate science skeptics were physicists, Carlton said this survey did not show similar evidence.
“The proportion of physicists and chemists who believed in climate change was right around average.”
###
The paper was published Thursday (Sept. 24) in Environmental Research Letters and is available at http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/10/9/094025.
AW: Comment:
It seems curious to me that if man-made climate change is so certain, why do some people feel the need to prove that a majority of their peers believe in it and that anyone who doesn’t is simply wrong?
I would wonder what a similar survey of scientists might have shown around 1912 when Alfred Wegener proposed the theory of continental drift. Would 90 to 97% of them say that the Earth’s crust was static? Probably so. It took another 40-50 years and new discovery in science before Wegener’s ideas became accepted as the facts as we know them today, that the Earth’s crust does in fact move in plates. But back then, scientists were so certain of their consensus, that they dismissed Wegener’s ideas:
Except for a few converts, and those like Cloos who couldn’t accept the concept but was clearly fascinated by it, the international geological community’s reaction to Wegener’s theory was militantly hostile. American geologist Frank Taylor had published a similar theory in 1910, but most of his colleagues had simply ignored it. Wegener’s more cogent and comprehensive work, however, was impossible to ignore and ignited a firestorm of rage and rancor. Moreover, most of the blistering attacks were aimed at Wegener himself, an outsider who seemed to be attacking the very foundations of geology.
Because of this abuse,Wegener could not get a professorship at any German university. Fortunately, the University of Graz in Austria was more tolerant of controversy, and in 1924 it appointed him professor of meteorology and geophysics.
In 1926 Wegener was invited to an international symposium in New York called to discuss his theory. Though he found some supporters, many speakers were sarcastic to the point of insult. Wegener said little. He just sat smoking his pipe and listening. His attitude seems to have mirrored that of Galileo who, forced to recant Copernicus’ theory that the Earth moves around the sun, is said to have murmured, “Nevertheless, it moves!”
Source: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Wegener/wegener_5.php
Sound familiar? The point here is that a perceived consensus doesn’t necessarily indicate factual certainty for any idea, and consensus in science can be overturned easily with new information.
Note: this article was updated shortly after publication to include a a URL for the source of the Wegener story
I see they only polled individuals at big 10 universities. The real statistic might be that 90% of people who have never had to create wealth to earn a living and are dependent on government largess are reluctant to disagree with the government that supports them.
“However, our study shows that there is very little disagreement among climate scientists or other scientists about the existence of climate change or the quality of climate science as a discipline.”
Suddenly the association to man made is omitted.
Of 698 respondents, about 94 percent said they believe average global temperatures have “generally risen” compared with pre-1800 levels, and 92 percent said they believe “human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures.”
What was the total sample?? someone earlier mentioned 2000, so roughly 2/3rd couldn’t be bothered answering, and I suspect those who did are in the “world order social change” club promoted by the IPCC.
Not many would disagree that it is warmer today than at the end of the little ice age (thank god), and it seems to me “significant” is really a matter of opinion, not provable science fact.
JVC
I missed that. They have a very strong self-selection bias then. There is no way to correct that because only people who care strongly about such a thing will respond, and there is no way to subtract out that bias.
…Nearly 79 percent said they “strongly agree” and about 15 percent “moderately agree” that climate science is credible. About 64 percent said climate science is a mature science compared with their own field, and about 63 percent rated climate science as “about equally trustworthy” compared to their discipline…
Where they also asked if they were familiar with things like climategate? Maybe these folks are just ignorant.
I’ve talked to a lot of scientists. Most of them will readily admit that they know nothing about climate science itself.
They judge whether a “science” is mature by how much they hear about it from their friends and colleagues.
IE, it’s mature because everyone is talking about it.
Worse, most scientists don’t have time to go check other fields themselves and so assume that other scientists are as careful with their fields as the scientist is in his/hers. This leads him/her to assume that the press releases are representative of scientific truth. It is hard enough to keep current on ones own field’s advances and crackpots.
And there were those 2000 years before the Lavoisiers when water was known to be an elemental substance. Good times.
I would love to see the results of a similar survey done among scientists who are working in exclusive academic settings. This survey says more about the surrounding culture than science.
Correction “not” working in exclusive academic…
You need to exclude govt labs like Sandia.
But I thought anyone’s opinion who wasn’t a “climate scientist” wasn’t to be considered worthy? That’s been the response every time it’s pointed out the majority of other scientists, not hand picked ivy league types, and engineers, meteorologists, etc. don’t agree. Another astounding example of doublethink-blackwhite.
I would agree that temps are likely warmer than the 1800’s and that man has an influence, I mean any city is warmer than the surrounding country……..
As with any good lie, there are always elements of truth:
1) Yes, global temps have risen about 0.85C over the last 165 years.
2) Yes, it’s been known since 1824 that CO2 has a greenhouse effect.
3) Yes, CO2 has probably contributed about 0.2C of the total 0.85C of warming since 1865.
So what?
CAGW hypothesizes a doubling of CO2 levels to 560ppm, will cause the following (and many others) catastrophic consequences:
1) Rapid and dangerous sea level rise (absolutely no empirical evidence supporting this)
2) Rapid and dangerous “acidification” of oceans (absolutely no empirical evidence supporting this)
3) Rapid and dangerous increase in intensity and frequency of severe weather events (absolutely no empirical evidence supporting this)
4) Rapid and dangerous increase in global temps. (Absolutely no evidence supporting this)
5) Rapid and dangerous melting of polar ice caps (absolutely no empirical evidence supporting this).
In real science, “consensus” is a completely meaningless concept . The ONLY way to confirm or disconfirm a hypothesis is to evaluate whether or not hypothetical projections match reality in a statistically significant manner for a statistically significant duration. Period! (TM).
Since CAGW has failed catastrophically in its numerous projections, CAGW is dead.
Rather than admitting the CAGW hypothesis has crashed and burned, CAGW advocates churn out junk-science pal-reviewed papers (like this one on consensus), fiddle with raw data, extend the criterion goal posts and conjure up 50+ excuses for why their precious CAGW hypothesis doesn’t work….
It doesn’t work, because it doesn’t work…
It’s time to call it a day….
We are all seeing what is happening with VW, it appears that there has been serious and dangerous pollution put in the air, especially in Europe in this misguided thrust to reduce CO2, a harmless sustance which is put into every Coke and Pepsi and greenhouse owners meaningfully produce to help plant growth.
I don’t get it. The issue really isn’t whether the climate is real or that it may be influenced by human activities. There is no controversy on those issues. Do all these “scientists” agree that the proposed reduction in CO2 by draconian measures in economy and energy production the proper approach to address the issue? Certainly there is no consensus among scientists and engineers with regard to the “conversion” of our energy dense forms of electrical energy production (fossil fuel, nuclear, and hydro) to energy defuse forms (wind, solar) The consensus there is certainly that wind and solar are without a doubt incapable of filling the bill and in fact may be an utter waste of resources. So the point is there has been no study where the actual state of engineering and science is being allowed to express itself if it doesn’t meet the POLITICAL goal of the IPCC. The number of scientists that overwhelming understood DDT to be a huge benefit was just that overwhelming. The number of “cooked” studies and liars where few. Nonetheless DDT was banned for political reasons and now “everybody knows” that DDT caused thin egg shells!
I think most scientists and other interested people would agree that the temperature HAS warmed from the pre-1800 level. Skeptical climate scientists and people who are interested in climate science who have technical or scientific degrees would probably agree at a higher rate than the survey indicated that the temperature HAS warmed from the pre-1800 levels. Probably 97% or more of these type skeptics would agree to that.
What is much less certain is the degree to which there is warming or climate change due to human activities. How much of the warming can be attributed to humans and how much climate change can be attributed to humans? This is the difficult question. They needed to ask specifically what percentage of the warming since the pre-1800 levels can be attributed to man – then give some ranges for people to pick. Then ask how certain they were of the answer that they gave with some percentages. That would be an interesting survey.
I would also like to see the question of whether or not they believe that CO2 in the future is likely to cause catastrophic climate change or catastrophic warming. And then a follow up question of how certain they are of the response.
What the survey does is further obfuscate what the real opinions of people are about this subject.
It also indicates that most people still don’t understand that skeptics are skeptical not that CO2 is a greenhouse gas or that the climate has warmed – but of the predictions of catastrophic anthropogenic global Warming and catastrophic climate change caused by CO2.
I think it is more plausible that CO2 released by man will have an overall positive impact on the environment. This is not to say that other industrial activities will also have a positive impact – probably they won’t.
IMO earth’s lower atmosphere has warmed less than 1 degree C since the end of the LIA, c. AD 1850. The major human contributions over recent decades has been cleaning the air, despite growing pollution in China and India, and making more UHIs and other land use changes. Neither is significant globally.
Perhaps 0.1 of the maybe 0.7 degree C warming since the LIA could be attributed to human activities, which also cool the planet.
The scientists should have been offered choices among estimates of the human contribution since 1850: eg, a net cooling effect, 0-10% warming, 10-20%, 20-40%, 40-60%, 60-80% or more than 80%. Ideally respondents would attach a confidence level to their choice.
Depending on how they define “significantly” I could agree with both of those points, so this so called consensus is meaningless.
Secondly, I’ve debated with a number of scientists from other fields and have been told that while they know nothing about the science involved, they find it impossible to believe that a true scientist could do the things that the climate scientists have been accused of doing, therefore they believe that the climate scientists must be telling the truth when they make their pronouncements.
They surveyed Big Ten university “scientists”. So they went to the right place to get the results they wanted.
“Of 698 respondents, about 94 percent said they believe average global temperatures have “generally risen” compared with pre-1800 levels, and 92 percent said they believe “human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures.”
Now how with any brain would not agree with that? They started the period at the end of an abnormally cold period – the end of the Little Ice Age where rivers that were navigable in the winter for hundreds of years froze over for the entire winter. I would like to have a list of the respondents. I could make a fortune selling them stock showing them how it has doubled and tripled in value over the last few years. And hid or leave out the fact that it was because of the crash in 2008 like the AGW group has.
However, Not asked (I believe) or reported here is “Do you believe that the majority of the warming since 1800 has been caused by or is related to the increase in CO2? There are a myriad of other anthropogenic actions that can be a contributing factor and the combination of the ones with a positive influence could be greater than those with a negative influence. Yet there is no discussion on that. So, if CO2 is not the real problem, then the present course of action could do more harm than good.
The temperature has only increased 1 degree C since the end of the LIA, and still has not exceeded the average of the MWP. The studies that I read indicate that at least 1/2 of that change is from the expected increase due to the EXPECTED warming after the end of the LIA. That leaves 1 Degree C of change over 150 years (chosen at a point to emphasize their claim. Even the expensive microprocessor controlled high efficiency, demand anticipating thermometer for your well insulated home can not maintain a temperature variation of less than 1 degrees peak to peak in your house over a period of one year. I live in a single story home with no basement and it has never maintained that close a regulation in temperature. So, I still don’t see proof of anything.
That it is generally warmer than back in the 1800’s is something people don’t seem to disagree on. That man has some kind of impact on the climate is also not controversial.
Beyond these are the really tough questions…tough to ask and to answer…tough to address scientifically. What would the world look like today if we never burned any fossil fuels? We will never know… and that is the key issue here.
I get tired of arguing over the unknowable.
If we hadn’t burned any fossil fuels I suspect we wouldn’t have advanced to the economic position of having large numbers of academics on the public payroll with the time on their hands to worry about climate.
correct–most would still be out plowing their fields with mules and hitchen the horse to the buggy for that once a month trip to town.
True Dat
Ponder this,
So do one out of three scientists think Climate Science has a special problem?
Or do two out of three scientists think their discipline is also untrustworthy?
The fact that one in three sees a difference in trustworthiness implies that climate science is seen to be a problem.
Would you buy a used car from a firm that one in three thinks is untrustworthy?
Maybe it is a VW.
I was curious as to the personal and academic background of someone who is a “professor of natural resource social science”. It appears to be a combination of two subject areas that conveniently align with contemporary cause-driven activities, and, of course, can appeal to political-driven funding.
So at its core, an academia-based social(ist) science program executed a public opinion poll of other academics. This falls a bit short of what would classify as a “study”.
BTW, was there not something recently published about the failure rate of repeating of social science “studies”?
someone once told me that when you put “social” in front of any other word, it acts as a negation. You could replace social with not, and get the same impact.
social science = not science
social engineering = not engineering
and so on.
Probably one of the options in the College of Sustainability Science.
The BIG question is what were they asked. Looks like leading questions.
How would they answer the following?
1. Have you considered the possibility of natural variation?
2. Have you seen proof that humans are causing the change?
3. Have you read a study that measures the changes caused by CO2?
4. How many scientific studies on Climate have you read?
5. Are you aware how temperatures are measured and reported?
6. Are only actual measurements used in calculating the global temperature average?
The survey should have quantified “significant”, as in human activity being “a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures”. Does “significant” mean that humans have caused more than half of allegedly observed warming since, say, 1850?
If “climate science” were a science, then it would specify a start date for a “significant” human effect and state when our species became the primary driving force on global average temperature. Since it can’t even say with any genuine precision or accuracy how much the planet has warmed since 1850, that of course would be tough.
People definitely do affect local climatic conditions, but IMO we have practically no effect on global mean temperature. Otherwise, how to explain worldwide cooling from the late 1940s to late ’70s and the lack of warming since the late 1990s, despite rapidly rising CO2 the whole time? Are natural forces somehow just balancing out any human effect? If so, earth’s climate is self-regulating.
No worries. Enjoy the abundant plant food in the air while it lasts.
They knew that most scientists would define significant differently than your average layman.
To a scientist it often means that the influence is discernible that is, greater than the noise in your system.
To the average layman it means most or majority.
Which is why the didn’t want to define the term, they knew that if each group used their own internal definition, it would skew the survey in the direction they wished to support.
“To the average layman it means most or majority.”
Have you tested that hypothesis?
Quote:
Of 698 respondents, about 94 percent said they believe that endorsing Global Warming cum Climate Change would improve their chances of getting a grant and promotion.
There – fixed that for you….
Ralph
Wouldn’t that be 97%?
It is an admission of scientific failure when the observations don’t agree with the theoretical models to the extent that they resort to canvassing opinions to validate their claims.
Did they provide a date range or simply say “prior to 1800”? If they were answering that they believe temps are higher today that at any point since the beginning of time, then their ignorance is truely extraordinary. Such a belief would bring new meaning to the term “climate change denier”.
The big question is: why didn’t the survey ask the most direct question:
“Is human action the *primary* cause of climate change?”
They used the word “significant” instead. In my field of work, that means, as a rule of thumb, above about 5%. So all we got–all you can tell from this survey–is a weak agreement that human action is responsible for at least 5% of climate change.
I think it’s likely that if you did the survey and asked if it is the *primary* cause, you would find that “not sure” responses would be considerably greater than “yes.”
And I think the question designers knew this. Which is why they didn’t ask it.
They knew that scientists would interpret significant as you did above. However layman would interpret significant to mean a majority.
“…interpret significant to mean a majority.”
You’re spouting an untested assumption. I just did a poll of laymen, and 100% answered either “important” or “noticeable.” Which pretty much echoes the dictionary definition of “sufficiently great or important to be worthy of attention; noteworthy.”
I have also seen reports and analyses that associate the term “significant” based upon the fact that there is “statistically significance” to their conclusions. Or, in other words it is not “statistically insignificant.”
When it comes to leading questions in polling, and how to get the answer you want, there can be no finer example than Sir Humphrey in ‘Yes Minister’. Classic comedy, and the finest scriptwriting…..
You might like this one.