Michelle Stirling writes:
A critical review of the most recent Cook et al (2016) consensus study.
There can’t be much more consensus than getting all the lead consensus study authors together to write a consensus on the consensus study. However, in my opinion, this Cook et al (2016) study suffers from the same problematic issues of earlier studies – beginning with the premise. I deconstruct. Comments welcome.
Consensus Nonsensus on 97%: Science is Not a Democracy
Stirling, Michelle, Consensus Nonsensus on 97%: Science is Not a Democracy (July 10, 2016). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2807652
Abstract:
A number of scholars who have previously undertaken studies on the alleged ‘consensus’ of the human impact on global warming have recently published a paper (Cook et al. 2016) which they claim confirms and strengthens their previous 97% consensus claims. This author rejects their findings and deconstructs both the premise of the relevance of consensus in the empirical evidence-based world of science and finds the claims are in fact ‘nonsensus.’ Several of the scholars’ consensus claims and those of scientific bodies were published prior to the 2013 IPCC Working Group I report wherein it was reported that there had been a hiatus in global warming for some 15 years (to 2012), despite a significant rise in carbon dioxide from human industrial emissions.
Open source paper here: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2807652
Michelle Stirling wrote a cogent 24 page paper with 4 pages of excellent references. Her writing is crisp and to the point. Besides presenting an orderly exegesis of past points about how wrong the effort has been, she makes several original observations, including the danger of losing the scientific focus of proof, replacing it with a beauty pageant approach to what / which science is right.
Thank you Michelle Stirling for your excellent paper!
Honestly the hardest part about reading these stories of yours Anthony is keeping my blood pressure in check and maintaining a sense of humor. I’m serious. It’s way too easy for me to start raving and pulling out my hair. My wife gets upset and my dog leaves the room.
Normally I’m a pretty composed guy. Retired scientist, neighbors think of me as that funny old duck down the street, no warrants, not on anyone’s “no-fly” list. Just an average Joe.
Then you publish something like this and it all goes out the window…
Michelle Stirling, Great job!
“Indeed, throughout the Cook et al (2016) paper [Consensus on Consensus] the terms global warming, global climate change, climate change are referred to as if interchangeable and as if all attributable to human causation.”
This kind of confusion in someone’s use of terms is indicative of a Propaganda Operation’s Word Game, although such a person could also be ‘only’ extremely confused as to the meaning of fairly common words.
In Cooks Abstract of “Consensus on Consensus” he more specifically goes only into his own 2013 Study of Abstracts containing these muddled search terms. But::
1] How would the authors of the papers whose Abstracts Cook found using these search terms know what Cook meant by them before they wrote their papers, or that he would mean anything in particular at all?
2] In Cook’s 2016 Abstract he implicitly rejects the criticism that he should have included the ~66% “no opinion” category in calculating the % of Scientists agreeing with the Consensus – and he gives a faulty Argument from Analogy with Tectonic Plate science which “begged the question” [presumed the validity of the same assertion it was alleging to prove] of whether CO2-Climate Change has instead already been Scientifically Falsified by its record of [100%] Prediction Failure. When it was Cook himself who designed his 2013 survey of Scientists’ opinions to begin with. Therefore the “no opinion” from ~66% of Scientists discovered by using the search terms was what his own Study actually found according to its own methodology!
The very title of Cook’s “Consensus on Consensus” strikes me as hilarious and amounts to nearly the same thing I’ve supposed about “The Consensus” right from the beginning: “There is a Consensus on The Consensus because ‘everyone says’ there is a Consensus on The Consensus”. And now Cook probably hopes that “Everyone is going to say there is a Consensus on the ‘Consensus on The Consensus'”, and so on, and on….Forward to the Utopia of endless ‘free’
Bananassubsidized Studies!“The Jungle Book” Movie: How do The Monkeys know “They are the wisest [beasts, tribe, people] in the Jungle?” Mowgli: “Because they always say they are the wisest.” At least these Monkeys stayed even by gathering and eating Bananas and Coco Nuts instead of being them.
But Cook must be, after all, an “expert” Cartoonist, so much so that he [cleverly?] be’tooned himself. Either way, it sounds like “Climate Science” to me!
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More clearly: “although such a person could also be ‘only’ extremely confused as to the more precise, scientific meaning of fairly common words. But Cook has been presuming for quite a while to write about Science:
This is not a peer reviewed paper. In fact I doubt it would pass a first year university assignment.
Get this gem on the second page:
“To claim that climate scientists (whose qualifications are undefined) constitute the sole authority on
climate as do Cook et al (2016) is to misrepresent the fundamental factors and interplay of numerous natural and cosmic forces”
Brian Smith July 17, 2016 at 6:49 am
1] “This is not a peer reviewed paper.”
Brian, it is being reviewed right here, and anyone else can do it anywhere they want to because it is completely open to access. You are doing it yourself. Or don’t you think your views [on objective validity?] count!
The important fact in this mater is that in the practice of real science where skepticism rules, “Peer Review” has never been warranted to provide the given truth. Especially on the basis of a few selected reviewers who often appear to be less objective than many other practicing Scientists, Engineers, and Statisticians; and even less objective than many people who’ve had only a Middle School course in the practice of real science or are capable of self-education.
The real “Peer Review” occurs only after a Paper is published.
2] “Get this gem on the second page:”
To claim that climate scientists (whose qualifications are undefined) constitute the sole authority on climate as do Cook et al (2016) is to misrepresent the fundamental factors and interplay of numerous natural and cosmic forces.
Well Brian, in Cook’s own Abstract,
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002/meta
He refers to an undefined “expertise”:
“the level of consensus correlates with expertise in climate science…”
And he likewise refers to an undefined class of “climate scientists”:
“We examine the available studies and conclude that the finding of 97% consensus in published climate research is robust and consistent with other surveys of climate scientists and peer-reviewed studies.”
I take his use of “expertise” and “climate scientists” to refer to only those who agree with him. After all, he is all about “Consensus”, right? While Cook himself is not really any kind of Scientist.
And Cook also proves that he doesn’t understand the practice of real, objective, science at all: a] in touting Consensus [standing completely alone, bald] when Consensus per se has nothing to do with real science. You aren’t going to find it within the principles of real science. Consensus is instead the kind of thing real science was specifically designed to avoid when its principles were first being developed during the Enlightenment, from ~1700-1800 AD.
And, b] Cook certainly pays no mind to the fact that CO2-Climate Science has been Scientifically Falsified by its own [100%] record of the empirical failure of its own Predictions from its own Hypotheses, which claim a unique or at least quite important role for CO2 in “driving climate” – since the time from 1950 on, according to these same Climate Scientists.
In this respect, Cook’s method is in practice very much like the “expertise” demonstrated in the practice of their “science”, which an admittedly large % of his “Climate Scientists” have employed and the other Studies noted above have selected:
These Climate Scientists largely persist with their Dogmatic Postulate, or dedicated delusion, that “CO2 drives Climate” specifically apart from their own proven empirical failure and apart from the numerous persisting and remaining factors such as natural variation and natural forces.
And therefore these Climate Scientists do “misrepresent the fundamental factors and interplay of numerous natural and cosmic forces”; which are admittedly “chaotic” and significantly not understood or even known, but nevertheless remain standing as the factors which have always driven climate and also lead to an empirical, scientific Null Hypothesis: that there is nothing different occurring in the current climate from 1950 on, compared to the past climate. In other words, there is nothing new for CO2 to explain, apart from its fertilizing effect on the Globe’s plant growth.
Therefore, so far we know from the proof partly provided even by the “Climate Scientists” themselves vs Empirical Reality that the scientific fact is, CO2 is completely unnecessary to the explanation of the world’s “climate” from 1950 onward. But banking on or getting bankrupted by the idea that its persistently hypothesized-without-modification, if not its deserved ~complete abandonment – and likewise that its projected [solely] ill climate effects will magically set in just beyond the next horizon – is foolish, and in practice more like a Death Wish than a positive Faith despite one’s own bad experiences or dismal world view.
And we do know that CO2 is necessary to plant life, thus ours, at an atmospheric concentration of > ~150-180 ppm, and that the world’s surface has been accumulating more green growth since its concentration has increased, even only beginning from the start of satellite observations.
But if Cook still wants a really big Consensus, he should look at the list of the ~31,000 Scientists who have actually signed specific statements as to the lack of adverse effects of increasing CO2 concentrations, the adverse effects of trying to limit them, and to CO2’s otherwise beneficial effect to life.
http://www.petitionproject.org/
Where are the anywhere near equivalent numbers of his Climate Scientists who have signed specific statements as to their rather apocalyptic views on the dangers of increasing CO2 levels? Otherwise Cook gets hoisted on his own Petard, beaten at his own irrelevant game.
Oops, a grammar/meaning correction to the above:
“… the scientific fact is, CO2 is completely unnecessary to the explanation of the world’s “climate” from 1950 onward. But banking on or getting bankrupted by “the science” which is persistently hypothesized-without-modification, if not truly deserving of ~complete abandonment – and likewise that its projected [solely] ill climate effects will magically set in just beyond the next horizon – is foolish, and in practice more like a Death Wish than a positive Faith despite one’s own bad experiences or dismal world view.”
Hi Brian, You are right. I’ll fix it. Thank you. Michelle
It is and has never been about the ‘science’ it simply does not matter if the paper is poorly constructed and full of falsehoods , its statistics can be meaningless , its conclusion worthless and the logic poor. ALL that matters is its ‘impact ‘ that it gets the message out to a press happy to publish without thought and politicians run with it .
Cook may be many things but his no fool , he long worked out this is not and has never been about the ‘science’, which is just as well has he cannot do any, it is about the ‘message ‘ and that has made a very little man ‘big ‘. Lest hope he is around , like others , to see his work held up has joke and how lies really can run very far before the truth catching up , but in the end it will do .
Like most in the area, its his ego that matters most to him , to see that get a good kicking in the press will be a good day .
I’ve only met one professional climatologist, down by the river a few weeks ago, retired from Rutgers. He was a skeptic, said he was voting for Trump. What are the odds? Better than 1 in 30, I’d guess. –AGF