As readers will remember, the recent Cook et al paper sought to examine the “consensus” on global warming but failed to state what that consensus actually is. We’ve tried to figure it out, and the current theory is there is no definition for it. I’ve recently pursued this matter at Skeptical Science in the hopes of clarifying things. After about forty comments, Tom Curtis stood up and tried to address the issue. I won’t quote his entire comment as it is rather long, but his claim boils down to:
For consistency, therefore, endorsing AGW in (1) must mean endorsing AGW as equal to or greater than 50% of the cause of recent warming. It follows, on the grounds of consistency that that is the meaning of “endorses AGW” whereever it occurs in the paper.
Ergo though John Cook may have lacked an explicit definition of endorsement, he and the raters had an implicit definition which is in the paper. What is more, that implicit definition is, or is very close to the tacit definition actually used by raters in rating abstracts.
Curtis says there is a specific definition. He says John Cook and Dana Nuccitelli were both wrong to say otherwise. Curtis participated in this project, meaning one participant says the creator of the system and the person running the project were both wrong about the rating system. That’s an odd claim, but lets consider it.
The second category is listed as, “Explicitly endorses but does not quantify or minimize.” If we replace “endorses” with the phrase Tom Curtis says it means, we get, “Explicitly endorses AGW as >50% but does not quantify or minimize.” That makes no sense. Even if we ignore the fact it’s inherently contradictory, if category two endorses AGW as >50%, there is no difference between it and category one. Clearly, Curtis’s answer is wrong. I tried to discuss this issue with him, but my comment got deleted.
Which brings us to a continuation of a subject we’ve previously discussed, the Skeptical Science group’s usage of words in… unusual ways. Skeptical Science has a Comments Policy which forbids a thing they call sloganeering. They define it as:
No sloganeering. Comments consisting of simple assertion of a myth already debunked by one of the main articles, and which contain no relevant counter argument or evidence from the peer reviewed literature constitutes trolling rather than genuine discussion. As such they will be deleted. If you think our debunking of one of those myths is in error, you are welcome to discuss that on the relevant thread, provided you give substantial reasons for believing the debunking is in error. It is asked that you do not clutter up threads by responding to comments that consist just of slogans.
To qualify as sloganeering, something must include an “assertion of a myth already debunked by one of the main articles.” The entire point I’ve been making is the Skeptical Science group has never defined the “consensus” they sought to study. It’s never been discussed by them, much less in a post by them. That means nothing I said could possibly qualify as sloganeering. Despite this, I was told by a moderator I was engaging in sloganeering. I responded to this, observing nothing I had done could possibly qualify as sloganeering. I then asked what I was supposed to stop doing. That got deleted for being a “moderation complaint” despite it not having any complaint in it.
The stated rules of Skeptical Science have little bearing on the actual rules of Skeptical Science. This apparently stems from the fact that to them, words means just what they choose for them to mean. It may be convenient for them, but it is extremely inconvenient for anyone who has the audacity to ask a simple question like, “What is the consensus?” Not only have Cook et al failed to answer that question, they’re now refusing to answer that question and abusing those who dare ask it.
It’s remarkable really. For all the attention the media has given this paper, nobody has bothered to ask, “What is the consensus?” That needs to change.
Another interesting aspect of that discussion is Dana Nuccitelli basically said I’m an idiot to suggest the comparisons I suggested. I responded by pointing out he himself endorsed similar comparisons. His response was:
This is completely untrue. I said so, telling him it was easy to verify my claim. He promptly responded by fleeing the conversation.
Mud wrestling with a hog is a poor idea. You get muddy and the hog gets very angry.
I’ve long past decided to skip the SS site for what it was was already apparent from even a superficial reading of it. The kind of thought that pervades those places is inherently and openly censorial in nature.
What bothers me the most about sites like those is how they feed people who are troubled (and anxious) by all the subtleties, nuances and complexities of life (and global warming, specifically), with an astounding confidence and assurance of absolute certainty. Think of it as a capitalist product itself: there’s a demand for certainty, there will be production of it! And the form of such certainty does not have to be based upon a critical, thoughtful and honest outlook on the empirical facts and so on, it could rest entirely on different predicates (such as ideological, pyshological, and so on).
I’ve always disliked people too damned certain about non-trivial matters.
If so, they rated many papers incorrect. Because they rated mitigation and such like papers written in 1991 as as “implicitly endorsing AGW” but back then the prevailing IPCC statement did not even go that far. How can one implicitly endorse an attribution statement that hadn’t yet been circulated and would not be circulated for at least a decade?
David Young:
Or put another way, if you are interested in truth, you welcome scrutiny.
Count me out of the consensus then.
I get why some people just ignore Skeptical Science, but if we want to talk about the Cook et al paper, that’s not really an option. Besides, that discussion was entertaining. For example, a couple people told me (one with some attitude) I was being unreasonable – If I want to know what a consensus is, I should look the word up in a dictionary!
lucia, for some reason Tom Curtis thinks checking his belief requires rating papers via their IRS. I think a better approach is to just look at the papers rated 2/3. When I do, I see hundreds that don’t fit his description. Maybe he will come here and comment on this.
Brandon,
Does John Cook not acknowledge his comments from the leaked forum? In ‘Climate P0rn’ of course you quote him explicitly saying that >50% is ruled out and that the consensus is ‘some warming’.
Wait. Listen to me going on about what Cook says as if that makes a difference.
He’s run a survey and made a big fuss, but if it’s not apparent from the methodology, data, and results of his study what the consensus is about, then he doesn’t have a result regarding consensus. It’s just that simple.
Mark Bofill, SkS doesn’t allow people to quote from their leaked forums, and John Cook doesn’t participate in many public discussions. I suspect he’d acknowledge those comments, and perhaps even what I say about his paper, in secret. I also suspect he’ll do everything he can to avoid doing either in public.
Brandon,
I see. BTW, I salute you for your fortitude in posting over there. I can’t bring myself to do that.
Well, am I being unreasonable in suggesting that the paper should be able to stand on it’s own without an interpreter / translator / oracle afterwards? I mean, if the study doesn’t clearly speak to criteria for accepting / rejecting consensus, then that wasn’t part of the study, and all of the monday morning quarterbacking in the world shouldn’t change that.
Let Cook write another paper analyzing his study, I guess, if he wants to make scientific claims about consensus. Of course, if the purpose was propaganda (and obviously it was) then he’s free to spin it anyway he likes. Of course he and / or associates will; I’ve pointed out that Lew’s already on top of this here: http://rankexploits.com/musings/2013/tol-nuccitelli-twitter-war-the-beginning/#comment-113862 .
I’d definitely give up trying to interpret what the SS people did or are doing after the fact or even communicating with them. I think the original intent was to publicize the notion of a vague and not quantified consensus and then let the media and other activists/advocates do their PR thing by juxtaposition of a consensus with something the survey did not cover but something that could be used to support their activism.
I think that perhaps the blog battles might have had something to do with making the claims that some of Cook et al are now making. If Tom Curtis is claiming that endorse now means 50% or more of the modern warming is human caused, given the survey phrasing, I would definitely not want to continue a discussion with him because you are not going to obtain reasonable responses.
Further even if the survey were rephrased and the same consensus were returned the low ball warming of 50% and making it open ended and not dealing with consequences and amounts of future warming makes the survey useless to the point of silliness.
Oddly, this is the only definition in the paper itself. It’s in the introduction.
That said: If this is the definition, many of those rating did not apply it. Moreover, it’s not clear that the authors self rating would have been able to guess this definition.
The paper is just a mess. I think the bunny, the idiot and willard may still be involved in a Twitter war with Tol. Tol consistently scores and wins.
I love this one by Dana:
What is Dana really saying here? Our scheming was private and those guys are unethical for using this leaked info to demonstrate that we’re full it of? (rhetorical, answer yes)
No true scotsman would do such a thing.
PuhLeeze.
“The stated rules of Skeptical Science have little bearing on the actual rules of Skeptical Science.”
No kidding!
I do admire your efforts to shine a light into the outhouse which goes by the name of Skeptical Science.
Brandon,
Scooter thinks he is fully qualified to identify an idiot, on the basis of his being one.
Well, I don’t really think he’s an idiot. Simply that he usually comes to the rodeo on a pony.
Mark Bofill:
You’re not being unreasonable at all. It’s possible a paper could fail to offer a key definition despite being well-done, but it is incredibly unlikely. And if it did happen, the authors would be expected to make a simple statement clarifying that definition as soon as people pointed out it was missing.
That we have to spend this much time and effort on what should have been a key part of their paper is idiotic.
A more relevant question is… WTF!? He happily posted stolen documents when the documents were from the Heartland Institute. By his own statement, Skeptical Science has shown an “utter lack of ethics.” Heck, he’s worse because I only quoted the material, I didn’t disseminate it in its entirety. And I didn’t share personal information like phone numbers and addresses!
Not only does he fail to refute anything I said, he sets a standard by which he must be condemned. Does he even think before he writes these things?
By the way, I’d point this hypocrisy out at Skeptical Science, but I can’t seem to log in. I think they banned me.
There’s some really good comedic material in that conversation. The moderator notes
Ain’t that the truth. 🙂
Yup, I’m banned. I used the Forgot Password feature, and when I got the e-mail with my account name and password, I copied and pasted them directly. There’s no way they could have been wrong. Still, it wouldn’t let me log in. Unless there is some crazy glitch going on, I’m banned.
Someone else should point Dana Nuccitelli to these posts he authored.
Carrick and Brandon, The nasty nature of this debate never ceases to surprise me. Annon’s sensitivity thread is a prime example. I should take my own advice RE hogs
By the way, I love the fact Dana Nuccitelli condemned my use of his words from the leaked SkS forum yet didn’t address the fact they were his words. I said he did something, he claimed he didn’t say it, and when proof was provided, he changed the subject. How hard would it have been to say, “Oh, I did say that once. I’ve changed my mind since then”?
(Given SkS’s track record, I’d say very hard.)
David Young, yeah it’s better not to engage Carl C too much. You’ll end up wanting to take your brain out and run it through the dish washer.
“The second category is listed as, “Explicitly endorses but does not quantify or minimize.†If we replace “endorses†with the phrase Tom Curtis says it means, we get, “Explicitly endorses AGW as >50% but does not quantify or minimize.†That makes no sense.”
you make the claim that this makes no sense. But clearly it makes sense to Tom. And it makes sense to me. Claiming that something “makes no sense” is a very hard claim to establish as almost anything can be made “sense” of. Just look at modern art. In fact I think its nearly impossible to make a certain claim about the meaninglessness of any string of words in english that parse.
Also, merely substituting, his phrase into the sentence will not get you a good test of synonyms.
Rate this sentence. “C02 and other GHGs have caused the global warming we see this century. There is no other cause that could explain it.”
Now, its pretty clear that I havent quantified ( assigned a number) and I haven’t minimized. And its more than fair to say that if I were asked to quantify I would say more than 50%.
Steven Mosher:
Since it can’t be greater than 100%, if you say it’s greater than 50%, technically that is quantifying it, as 75%±25%.
I’m glad that makes sense to you.
(In related question how do we distinguish those who think it’s > 50% from those who don’t know if it’s > 50% from those who think it’s < 50%, on the basis of the survey question as it’s framed, how do you separate them?)
Malevolent censorship on a Climate Science blog, its inconceivable!
Brandon, you have been Gavined.
Isn’t this precisely the problem with the CO2 meme, malleable definitions? CAGW > AGW > CC > Extreme Weather > Consensensus. They are all similar, but nothing more than inquiry stopping points.
Question – Temperature rising? > Answer – CAGW, Q – CO2 emissions? > A – AGW, Q – Temperature flatlining or falling? > A – Climate Change, Q – Weather? > A – Extreme Weather, Q – Evidence or mechanism? > A – Consensus.
Mix and match any question and answer, functionally it is no different than a biased Crazy Eight ball.
Brandon,
“Mark Bofill, SkS doesn’t allow people to quote from their leaked forums, and John Cook doesn’t participate in many public discussions. I suspect he’d acknowledge those comments, and perhaps even what I say about his paper, in secret. I also suspect he’ll do everything he can to avoid doing either in public.”
I posted Cook’s and Dana’s comments on Dana’s recent BS post at the Guardian. I asked him about the comments. He doesn’t specifically reply to my question, nor does he deny the comments. Let’s call that a tacit admission.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/may/28/global-warming-consensus-climate-denialism-characteristics?commentpage=4
Dana is doing a very poor job of defending his paper on his home turf, with his home team-The Guardians of AGW Dogma.
Steven Mosher:
Not only have you quantified it, you’ve quantified it as 100%. If GHGs caused the warming we observed, not just some of the warming, they must have caused 100% of the warming.
I have no idea why you think what you say is “pretty clear.”
Mosher, Mosher
>50% looks like a quantification, to the average bear. More than one half is a quantity, ain’t it? If that is what category 2 and 3 meant, why didn’t they say so? We are just supposed to assume that? Freaking comical. It’s a stupid survey. That’s why Tom Curtis quit the team. He couldn’t see how they could get a good result out of that mess. But hey, it didn’t matter. They got the right answer for propaganda purposes. So Tom is back on the team with his convoluted defenses of the foolishness.
Temperatures are increasing at less than 50% of that predicted.
If only 50% of that (less than) 50% is caused by GHGs, then the theory must be falsified since it will only produce beneficial impacts (+1.0C and 650 ppm will significantly increase the productivity of the biome and be good for basically all life-forms – even the polar bears).
So, if one wants to say global warming is a real theory to be concerned about, more than 100% of the temperature increase experienced to date has to be caused by GHGs.
Bill Illis:
No, that’s now how you test theories like this.
If you want to test whether there’s a GHG effect, you wouldn’t do it using an indirect method, you’d look at the radiative properties of CO2 for example.
Trying to determine the magnitude of the GHG effect doesn’t hinge on it being a certain percentage of the total observed global warming. Instead, you’re trying to estimate a term called “lambda” that relates to GHGs and other radiative forcings to atmospheric temperature.
If you want to say somebody has a hypothesis (not a theory) that 100% of the observed warming is due to GHGs, then that can be falsified by showing it’s less than 100%.
Brandon:
I would definitely say you’ve been banned. They claim for bad behavior. The moderator self named “me” says:
Dana says further down that:
Technically, aren’t they forum entries? So why the link to emails then?
Perhaps Dana would accept this link as a proxy
Unlike the files on his blog, these Heartland front-page posted files were clearly illegally gathered.
I’m waiting aiting for somebody to explain to me how files from a forum that were accidentally left unpassword protected are illegally gathered, but posing as a board member to gain internal documents meets Dana’s requirements for ethical behavior.
I’m not sure a forum can be considered a “private communication” though I’m probably reading to much thought into Dana’s comment.
Brandon,
My main reason for not posting there is the conversation is rarely worth following and on the few occasions when someone suggest I read, it’s not worth bothering to use the “lost password” feature to get my password back.
Obviously, we can discuss their forum comments here. It’s not as if they don’t exist.
Carrick, I saw that moderator’s response (I believe it was from Daniel Bailey), and I saw Dana’s comment, but I’m not sure which refers to the reason I got banned. If either does.
As for sharing my e-mails, if he’s limiting the request just to my e-mails to/ from “Watts and co,” I’d almost be tempted to share them. I haven’t had that much communication with people from climate blogs, and none of it contains anything secretive. The only reason I wouldn’t share is some people may have thought the communication was private. Well, that and it’d take time. I doubt anyone would compensate me for it.
As for the SkS forum leak, do we know how it happened? I never looked into the circumstances surrounding it. If it really was as you say, Dana is being even sillier than I thought.
lucia, I feel about the same. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten anything of value out of posting there. I just wasn’t comfortable condemning them for things without giving them a chance to prove me wrong. In this case, I feel it is important to try to get them to address my main criticism of their paper. That means at least trying to talk about it there.
Plus, I like to think my comments there aren’t universally rejected, and there are some people who listen but don’t speak up.
I think the person who leaked and the SkS guys have different theories. But I’m not sure. It’s not one of those things I care enough about to pay much attention to.
Shub may have been the one to first discuss the SkS leak. I’m not sure.
Taking SKS seriously enough to engage them in hopes of a serious and rational response is as fruitless as speaking with a deeply autistic child and hoping you will be the person who breaks them out of their six word vocabulary and to engage in actual conversation
Brandon, you silly goose. Don’t confront them at SkS at the treehouse, the venue you want is here:
http://theconversation.com/its-true-97-of-research-papers-say-climate-change-is-happening-14051
Just work with the http://theconversation.com/au/terms_and_conditions and you might have an appeal route.
intrepid_wanders, the comments section on that page is closed. That makes it difficult to have a discussion.
I am so sorry Brandon.
I have never seen a “The Conversation” thread closed before a month e.g.
http://theconversation.com/global-business-responses-to-climate-change-where-to-now-12832
The Cook paper was opened 15 days ago. I assumed that as “conversations” go on the internet, it wold still be open (honestly, I can not find another closed one). If N. Stokes does not want to get involved, I shall find other avenues.
Lurker,
I certainly don’t expect SkS the website to suddenly change its character because of conversations. That’s not my goal in conversing with SkS guys over on the other thread anyway; I don’t think people change their minds all that easily. I personally find value in talking (hopefully with the more honest and objective people in their community) because I don’t understand them and would like to better. I expect these guys aren’t villains, they aren’t terrorists, they aren’t ‘fake warmists’ who are saying things they don’t really believe. Neither am I any of these things in my analogous skeptical position. So it seems to me we need not be tribal enemies, merely people who disagree on some points. If this isn’t possible, I’d also like to understand why that is.
This seems like am interesting exercise that has no point. Is there any sensible definition of the “consensus” position that doesn’t rake in 90%+ of publishing scientists in the climate field? I don’t think so and I doubt Lucia thinks so either.
But keep feeding the consensus deni—uh, skeptics. What’s the url for The Air Vent again?
Boris,
I don’t have to disagree about the sky being blue to point out that a shoddy study that finds that the sky is blue is a shoddy study nevertheless. You’d think Cook et al would do a better job since this is such a no-brainer, right? (I would)
But actually, what the consensus is about is an important point. To motivate policy action, it is insufficient to have consensus that human production of GHG’s causes some warming. AGW does not equal CAGW.
lol @ the idea that we need Watts’ private emails to know that he is a complete and utter shill.
“a shoddy study”
Any study that tries to measure expert opinion is going to have issues. There’s no perfect way to find out what they want to find out. If you define the consensus position too specifically, you risk excluding people who might disagree on the details of your definition.
What Cook did is reasonable. It’s also reasonable to argue that their definitions are a bit loose and more likely to exaggerate agreement than understate it, and I think that’s true. There’s some lukewarm (intended) agreement out there that a differently designed study would count as against the consensus. Such a study would not be automatically “right” because it was more restrictive.
It’s like classifying objects in your house into two groups:
1. Tables
2. Not tables.
Seems easy, but define table and then my desk might fit that definition. Or a nightstand. My TV stand is kind of tabley too.
Mosher, I would say that it is more than absolutely clear that in the given sentence you have quantified and at exactly 100%, simply because you are referring to a single complete entity that I embolded. I assume you meant to type something other than what you did type.
Brandon asks “What is the consensus?†That needs to change.
I would also ask “what is a survey?”.
The Telegraph quote in the previous posting said “One recent survey of 12,000 academic papers …”.
Were the papers surveyed? Is it meaningful to perform a ‘survey’ on papers?
Or was this in fact a survey of approx. 24 researchers working on behalf of SkS on their opinions/readings of some 12.000 papers?
Boris,
Yeah, but I didn’t say it couldn’t have any issues. I do think that if the point of the paper was to talk about a consensus, then it shouldn’t be ambiguous what the consensus was supposed to be about; that’s a pretty fundamental point. To make matters worse, the leaked SkS forum shows that this was not an oversight, they gave this some thought – and still the paper ends up ambiguous on this point.
Ok, fine, but don’t expect anyone who doesn’t already agree with Cook’s viewpoints to accept ex post facto arguments that exaggerate the scope of the consensus to make PR points and motivate mitigation.
Boris:
Don’t shill too hard.
Seriously man. Any study is going to have problems.
Based on that warped relativist reasoning we should do away with peer review.
Brandon,
Just spitballing here, and let me add that I still don’t think Curtis or Cook or Lord Gawd Almighty Himself gets to decide what the definition of consensus meant after the fact. But setting this aside, it is rather odd (as you noted) that Curtis should be able to define this and in effect tell Cook or Dana that they’re wrong. Didn’t he in fact drop out of participating in the study? I thought he did. Who ‘owns’ this? I thought it was Cook. Again, I don’t believe this matters, but others may disagree with me on that.
“Don’t shill too hard.”
Shilling hard by agreeing that the study likely exaggerates the “true consensus percentage”?
Not sure what you’re so angry about. Oh, yeah, the consensus actually exists.
Boris,
That strawman you’re carrying around looks heavy, need some help with that? No, okay. :p
(Don’t take this the wrong way, just teasing. Some people do get riled about it, some folk at WUWT seemed to to me. And that is just plain silly. There doubtless is consensus on AGW. I don’t think there’s consensus on effective CAGW, which is the way I see Dr. Lew playing the PR.)
I’m just messing with Carrick. He’s a reasonable poster most of the time, but then he makes these angry posts when people don’t get properly outraged over something something.
Don Monfort,
Finally got around to reading this. The only rebuttal I see is the argument by Rob that you’re indulging in some sort of nefarious conspiratorial ideation, which of course misses the point you tried valiantly to walk him through (no conspiracy, but they discussed and decided on what the consensus meant, obviously).
Nice effort though!
(Update: Oh, I see the part later on where Dana ‘engages’ if you can call it that. I see what you mean about not specifically replying.)
Boris, it smells a lot like shilling when you try to defend the paper based on “Any study that tries to measure expert opinion is going to have issues.”
Of course any paper is going to have “issues”, but the weaknesses of this paper are in no way limited to the instruments for measuring opinion. That’s been talked to death and I’m not going there unless you want to see what a peer-review from me looks like for what I consider a really bad paper.
I have no idea why you would think I’m angry about anything re this paper but I’m not. I’m angry that my cat doesn’t look like Tard the Cat. That’s about it today.
For the record, I think this study underestimated the weak consensus statement (there is warming and humans have played a role). That’s certainly something 99+% of climate scientists would endorse. Including Roy Spencer and John Christy of SKS’s ever classy “Christy’s Crocks”.
Lucia, the Met Office has responded at length to the Keenan Kerfuffle.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/2/3/Statistical_Models_Climate_Change_May_2013.pdf
Mark,
Thanks. That Rob is energetic but a real dunce. And Dana shows no enthusiasm for defending his little paper. I have been having fun with those clowns, but it is getting tedious.
Boris:
This is an odd comment given only 65 abstracts supported the “consensus” Skeptical Science portrays its study as finding. And this study found no abstracts which support the “consensus” stated in the tweet from (sort of) Barack Obama, a tweet constantly promotef by Skeptical Science.
Put simply, even if what Boris says about the “consensus” is true, it in no way defends this study. Getting the “right” answer doesn’t mean something was done right.
Mark Bofill, anyone is free to come up with their own interpretation and argue it is the one that was used. After all, 24 people participated. Without testimony from each of them, we can’t know what they were thinking. Beyond that, John Cook and Dana Nuccitelli could have changed their mind.
So it is possible. It just would be incredibly difficult for him to make a compelling case.
Brandon,
OK, fair enough.
SteveTa–
Yep. I saw there is a 15 page pdf and a blog post. I’m doing something that spun off from a conversation with Paul_m right now though.
I notice that with all the claims that there has been significant heat accumulation in the world ocean below 700m, the Met Office in the report linked above only displays the 0-700m data.
Yeah, yeah, you’ve tried this little sleight of hand before. The number of papers explicitly supporting the consensus is a hard minimum on the number of scientists supporting the consensus. Only counting those papers misses a lot of scientists who agree but who don’t find it necessary to explicitly state and quantify their agreement in an abstract, which is damn near all of them.
(emphasis added)
Well, darn it Boris, you can’t just assume that what you want to prove is given when you’re trying to prove something. If you think this has to be a given, then you ought to take your complaints to Cook for trying to demonstrate it in a paper, not to Brandon for pointing out problems with doing it.
Boris (Comment #114434)
May 31st, 2013 at 12:42 pm
“Yeah, yeah, you’ve tried this little sleight of hand before. The number of papers explicitly supporting the consensus is a hard minimum on the number of scientists supporting the consensus. Only counting those papers misses a lot of scientists who agree but who don’t find it necessary to explicitly state and quantify their agreement in an abstract, which is damn near all of them.”
This comment brings forth an issue of Cook et al choices of survey statements. Certainly anyone remotely familiar with the status of AGW and what most at minimum judge is the modern warming attributed to man knows that if one were to ask the question has 50% or more of that warming been caused by man the answer coming back would be a very large majority (consensus if you will). The consensus at that level is pretty well known and a show of hands on this question has been done before.
I think Cook et al wanted to take this a step further and look at what published papers say about it and perhaps give better credentials to the matter of consensus no matter how vague or whether it missed the critical issues of future warming and its effects. Papers might be considered more objective than a show of hands by scientists who might be so specialized in their particular field that their understanding of other fields impacting on AGW would be no better or even less than that of an informed layperson. The surprising part for Cook et al, and obviously Tom Curtis, was the low percentage of papers that actually quantify the modern period warming. Thus the shuffle to get 1, 2and 3 statements of the survey considered together and Tom Curtis to generalized the meaning of endorse.
These reactions are politics and not science.
Boris:
You can’t color in the spaces that aren’t measured with your own suppositions. That’s just not how it’s done in science.
If it’s not measured, then it’s a failure of the paper in not measuring it.
As to this:
If you define the consensus as CAGW + carbon tax, you wouldn’t get 90% agreeing with that. It’s obviously important that you define what you’re measuring before you measure it.
Boris, how in the world do you think it is sleight of hand to point out what Cook et al’s study shows? If there is a problem with that result, blame Cook et al for coming up with it. Don’t blame me for pointing it out.
And don’t fabricate things in such obvious ways. I’ve never claimed Cook et al’s results show anything about any actual consensus. Me pointing out only 65 abstracts were rated as endorsing a position in no way says that is the extent of the scientists who endorse that position.
Not only did you get those things wrong, you’re wrong that 65 is a hard minimum for authors endorsing a position. Some of those papers were written by the same people, and they all had more than one author. The number 65 has nearly no connection to the number of scientists endorsint that position.
Re: Carrick (May 31 13:30),
And the percentage would vary depending on the magnitude of the tax. Pielke, Jr., for example, thinks that a small carbon tax with the revenues earmarked for research (how that would be enforced is problematic, though) could be passed, but not a tax large enough to affect behavior.
Mark:
“Well, darn it Boris, you can’t just assume that what you want to prove is given when you’re trying to prove something.”
I’m not assuming anything. People don’t put explicit endorsements/rejections in abstracts. We know this because there were only 75 such abstracts out of 12,000. The argument now is should we reject the abstracts with partial information? I think it’s odd to throw out partial information.
Brandon:
“Boris, how in the world do you think it is sleight of hand to point out what Cook et al’s study shows?”
Yes, yes, you’ve stated this “that’s all the study shows” claim before. It’s wrong. Even if you think that the paper’s rating system is skewed, it’s wrong. You are saying. “The rating system is stupid, so I reject the concept of rating completely.” Of course, you could write your own paper attempting to divine positions on consensus from abstracts. No skeptic or skeptic sympathizer would ever try this, though, and we know why.
Carrick:
“If you define the consensus as CAGW + carbon tax, you wouldn’t get 90% agreeing with that.”
I agree. But I said “sensible definition of the “consensus†position.” Your definition is not sensible.
Boris, I have never claimed that is all the study shows. You’re just making that up. Please quit fabricating things. Failing that, please at least try not to make the fabrications so obvious.
Boris,
Respectfully my friend, what else were you doing when you said
Again, you have a point when you say this:
that is not disputed. But you need IMO to be careful here,
because your eye towards good methodology seems to be blurring here. We know no such thing in the context of trying to prove the consensus; this is the thing we are trying to prove. I repeat something I know you know but appear to be ignoring; you can’t use as a given that the thing you are trying to prove is already fact in establishing the validity of the thing you are trying to prove. You can suppose it and see where it leads, but in the context of the paper it isn’t already given that there is an overwhelming consensus, even though we all know there is one.
Well, this is one of the reasons I think the paper was poorly done, that we’re faced with such dilemmas after the fact.
Boris,
Meh, I’m having second thoughts about what I’m saying. I might be full of it. Maybe it’s reasonable to assume whatever the heck you want, so long as your clear about your assumptions in your argument.
I should probably lay off posting tonight; getting ready for a trip and too many distractions.
Boris says “Only counting those papers misses a lot of scientists who agree but who don’t find it necessary to explicitly state and quantify their agreement in an abstract, which is damn near all of them.”
Boris needs to take a deep breath, step back, understand and accept that he cant look at this issue objectively.
A recent tweet from John Cook led me to this article. Annoyed at the fact John Cook would promote a piece he must know misrepresents his study’s conclusions, I wrote an e-mail to the site. I’m reproducing it here (links are stripped out):
I don’t expect it to accomplish anything, but I had to write it for my own peace of mind. I’m so tired of seeing this study promoted as showing far more than it does, almost always with the encouragement of John Cook and Skeptical Science.
In other news, I stumbled across a published e-mail exchange involving Andrew Revkin, John Cook and Dana Nuccitelli. It has a priceless quote from Nuccitelli:
If they didn’t pre-define the consensus they were looking for, how could they possibly check to see if it existed?
Revkin had a great quote too, where he spots an obvious problem:
Brandon (Comment #114474)
I suspect you didn’t mean the following 😉
I’m not a frequent commenter, nor am I a scientist. But here goes.
Cook collaborates with Lewandowsky on possibly the most unpublishable paper in recorded history and is rewarded with an adjunct professorship at UWA.
This gives him a reputation sufficient to submit a paper, which right thinking amateurs would have reservations about, in his own right, hence Cook et al.
My approach to science (which is completely amateur) was formed in dinner table discussions with my father who published maybe 5 papers in physics in his entire career, who would not have even considered publishing on a trivial subject.
Science has become a joke- and in my view the urge to publish any old rubbish will need to be reigned in at some point. That citation score business which allows the system to be gamed in such an obvious manner is undoing centuries of effort by people who were actually trying to find things out.
Major Ouch for SKS below?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/01/tol-statistically-deconstructs-the-97-consensus/#comment-1323326
Steve Ta, ouch. That’s a pretty silly typo.
It’s kind of impossible to talk to you “skeptics” sometimes. You can take out the word “all” if you like and my point still stands. You’ve made a huge deal of the “65 papers.” That’s not in dispute. Making a big deal about the 65 papers is nonsense because it has nothing to with what the Cook paper was trying to measure. It’s an irrelevancy, but you sure are hammering it for some reason (Hey, we know the reason, don’t we?)
“that is not disputed.”
Mark,
My point was not phrased well. The “damn near all of them” was meant to refer only to scientists who don’t put explicit rejections/endorsements in abstracts.
How about 3167 of ’em?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/01/tol-statistically-deconstructs-the-97-consensus/#comment-1323435
Boris, don’t blame me for your mistakes. You said something that was untrue. It is hardly surprising I would respond to what you said, not something else entirely. It is also hardly surprising you would refuse to admit it was untrue. You seem incapable of admitting mistakes, no matter how obvious they may be.
As for your new claim, the fact the authors chose not to promote a result in no way indicates that result is irrelevant. Authors do not get to decide which results people should care about. It is not “nonsense” for people to be interested in results you don’t like.
Drawing a valid conclusion from Cook et al’s ratings does not mean I “reject the concept of rating completely.” It means I can actually interpret data, not just swallow talking points.
No wonder it’s kind of impossible for you to talk to me!
(Wait, when did I become a skeptic?)
You don’t even have a clue, boris:
“It’s kind of impossible to talk to you “skeptics†sometimes. You can take out the word “all†if you like and my point still stands. You’ve made a huge deal of the “65 papers.†That’s not in dispute. Making a big deal about the 65 papers is nonsense because it has nothing to with what the Cook paper was trying to measure. It’s an irrelevancy, but you sure are hammering it for some reason (Hey, we know the reason, don’t we?)”
The 65 was the category rating from the SkS clowns who signed on to pretend to evaluate/rate 12,000 abstracts. That is useless information. Dana revealed that the author’s self ratings for category 1. amounted to 228. They received 2142 responses/self-ratings from authors. Those are self-selected responses, boris. Not representative of the 20,000 or how ever many thousands of authors there were. So that is it, boris. 228 authors affirm that their papers endorse the assertion that >50% of AGW is caused by humans. It’s total bullshit to sell the paper as a survey of 12,000 climate science papers that found a 97% consensus that humans cause global warming. Even an idiot should be able to see that.
The strongest case for a consensus that the paper can make is that 1342 of the authors of 2142 papers who responded to the survey affirmed that their papers endorse the assertion that humans cause some unspecified amount of climate change. Period.
Brandon,
Sure, you can be interested in the 65 papers and get Anthony Watts to cheerlead for you. That doesn’t make the 65 papers relevant to whether there is or is not a consensus. You’ve created a handy talking point and it doesn’t much matter to you that your talking point is bogus.
Don’t get all indignant when people point out your chicanery. I mean, you’re not even defending your argument, you’re just whining that you should be able to make whatever argument you want because you can “interpret data.” That’s not a special skill when you lack the ability or inclination to understand what the term “consensus” means.
Oh, the ironing.
I’ll just put you down for REALLY REALLY ANGRY THAT THERE’S A CONSENSUS ARGLEBARGLE.
I have no idea what Tol is talking about, but joining in with the super dishonest and chronically wrong Anthony Watts is not confidence inspiring.
Of course, I meant an idiot without an axe to grind.
I’ll just put that down as “I’M REALLY REALLY ANGRY THAT AN IPCC AUTHOR HAS PUT IN WITH A GUY I REALLY REALLY HATE AND DISSED A PAPER I’VE INVESTED SO MUCH TIME DEFENDING…REALLY REALLY ANGRY.”
Serious question, Boris – do you realize that any points you may have are completely lost and disregarded by anyone undecided on the issues because of your immature, obnoxious posts?
TerryMN,
Interesting that you didn’t ask Brandon or Don the same question.
Boris:
Why are you having trouble following that?
Boris, I was specifically referring to:
REALLY REALLY ANGRY THAT THERE’S A CONSENSUS ARGLEBARGLE.
And you didn’t answer – it’s a simple yes or no question.
I didn’t know who your were, so I read your review of Mann’s book where you quote Goebbels and complain that Mann said McIntyre wanted a spreadsheet when he didn’t specifically say he wanted a spreadsheet.
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
lol. Like, who does that? Not somebody with an open mind. Somebody pushing an agenda.
So, no, you’re not a skeptic, you’re a joke.
To give Anthony a bit of credit, he is trying to debunk the PSI nonsense, and even gives credence to the GHG effect and to the possibility that humans play a role in it.
Like many skeptics (no quotes), he isn’t convinced about the reliability of the temperature record, and sees it to be difficult to attribute a specific amount of warming to human activity if we don’t know how much warming there really is.
If I had a complaint about his website, is there is too much garbage posted there (at least Goddard appears no longer welcome), and not enough effort to rain in the “pile ons” when somebody makes a dissenting comment to the group think there.
TerryMN
The answer to your question is no. I don’t realize that, because it’s obviously not true.
Boris:
That’s really mature of you, Boris. Perhaps I should have said “mature”?
Brandon, in case you didn’t notice, criticizing Mann’s published excrement gets you on Boris’s “don’t send holiday card” list.
Boris:
lol. Boris isn’t obnoxious. That’s a new one.
Richard Tol is has been commenting on the Watts thread:
The answer to your question is no. I don’t realize that, because it’s obviously not true.
How is it obviously not true? Maybe you’ve surveyed people who have read your posts, or had them rated by others? Do you have any data to back up your assertion?
TerryMN:
No need. Dana N is on top of it.
Classic Carrick. How mature is it to compare someone to a Nazi for the war rime of claiming somebody wanted data in SPREADSHEET format? Sad that you think it’s okay.
Try again. That’s not the part that’s obviously false. 🙂
It’s obvious to me, but if you have evidence to support your dumb question, or, alternatively, an actual substantive point, feel free to share.
Hold on a second Boris. Steve McIntyre requested data. He didn’t say anything about the format of the data. Michael Mann explicitly said McIntyre requested the data in a spreadsheet, and that is what caused the data he sent to be in error.
And you blame that on McIntyre. Why would you say McIntyre didn’t “specifically” ask for a spreadsheet? He didn’t say or do anything to suggest he should be given the data in a spreadsheet. He didn’t specifically, vaguely or even indirectly ask for that. Mann simply fabricated a claim then repeated it ad nauseum when even his co-author said it was false.
You criticize me for pointing out that Mann lied, repeatedly, saying it makes me a joke. Tell me, if Michael Mann tortured and killed puppies, would you defend that too?
Huh? Where did this supposed comparison to a nazi happen? If I quote Socrates on the use of rhetoric, am I comparing someone to ancient Greek philosophers? If I quote Jesus on how to treat our neighbors, am I comparing people to a Messiah?
Those aren’t rhetorical questions Boris. I’m seriously curious. What about quoting a person, who happens to be a nazi, on propaganda strategy means I’m comparing Michael Mann to a nazi and saying he is guilty of war crimes?
Brandon:
Yes I think that’s what he just did. You’re criticizing Mann, which really bothers Boris for some reason.
No I criticize you using Nazi comparisons for a a tiny non-issue.
So, tell me, Spreadsheetgate or Kristallnacht, which was worse?
It’s obvious to me, but if you have evidence to support your dumb question, or, alternatively, an actual substantive point, feel free to share.
Happy to help. Some examples, just from this thread:
1. I’ll just put you down for REALLY REALLY ANGRY THAT THERE’S A CONSENSUS ARGLEBARGLE.
.
2. So, no, you’re not a skeptic, you’re a joke.
.
3. lol @ the idea that we need Watts’ private emails to know that he is a complete and utter shill.
.
4. But keep feeding the consensus deni—uh, skeptics. What’s the url for The Air Vent again?
.
5. It’s obvious to me, but if you have evidence to support your dumb question, or, alternatively, an actual substantive point, feel free to share.
.
I know now that you’re never going to realize or admit to yourself that you come off as an immature d!ckhead, but keep on keeping on if you think it is helping convince others that you’re correct. It’s obvious that math is beyond you, so good luck with that one tool left in your belt
The supposed Goebbels quote “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it” was actually in reference British propaganda, but this isn’t translation of anything Goebbels actually said.
The actual English translation of what may have been the actual quote is:
reference.
So Godwin’s law gets invoked if we quote somebody who was a member of the Nazi party now? That’s a new one for me.
Yes, if you quote Goebbels and talk about someone’s “lie,” you are comparing them to a Nazi. If you don’t understand the cultural weight of a Nazi reference, then read up on why some folks around here hate being called “deniers.”
“immature d!ckhead”
I don’t care, Terry. Your concern trolling is just as d!ckish as anything I’ve said. And yes, I am obnoxious to people who are obnoxious to me (just like Lucia and Carrick, oh, and TerryMN).
If this whining makes you feel better, please keep it up, it’s kind of fun.
Nobody likes you, Boris.
Boris:
Well it wouldn’t be appropriate if true.
It seems that Brandon (knowingly or otherwise) by using the Göbbels quote is accusing Mann of behaving like the wartime British government. Not quite the same as war crime, don’t you think?
My last comment is in moderation, but I’ll clean it up:
Yes, if you quote Goebbels and talk about someone’s “lie,†you are comparing them to a Nazi. If you don’t understand the cultural weight of a Nazi reference, then read up on why some folks around here hate being called The D Word.
I agree with your last comment, Boris. But I still don’t like you.
I can’t respond to this until TerryMN gives his opinion on whether it is mature, immature, d!ckheaded or something else. Congrats on the lack of Nazi refs, though.
That was meant as constructive criticism, Boris. I don’t like you, but I want to help you. Pour yourself a drink, or smoke some of that medicinal weed that they use to calm themselves down.
Boris, I think you’re quite a bit over the top in your take on this.
Quoting Göbbels in reference to “the big lie” isn’t the same as accusing somebody of engaging in a purge of their enemies.
(Oddly I’m pretty sure my major professor, who was Jewish and has lost relatives during WWII, has used this identical quote himself.)
I’m not at my computer so I can’t do moderation right now, but lets tone things down people. There is too much name-calling going on right now, and bypassing moderation filters just to call someone a name is not okay.
For those who are bothered enough to resort to name-calling, remember this: There is always a more clever, polite and effective way of making your point than calling someone names.
Carrick,
Why not just avoid bringing Nazis into what are already contentious discussions? It almost always leads to this kind of foolishness.
“Pour yourself a drink”
I have to admit, Don, you give some good advice.
Carrick,
wince I’m not dissing WUWT. I think it’s the price you pay for being a hugely popular site that this sort of thing happens. But I’ve got to go ahead and agree with you, it bugs me too. I used to point this out during the occasional ‘Mosher hunts’ that seemed to go on there; let Steven Mosher show up and say the sun rises in the east and suddenly there’d be dozens of people explaining what warmist B.S. that was.
I think a lot of readers misunderstand that (at least in my opinion, maybe I misunderstand this) Anthony posts stuff that might be of interest, and it doesn’t mean he necessarily endorses it. I take it as more of a ‘hey check this out, what’cha guys make of this?’. As often as not (almost) the more substantial posters tear up articles. Sometimes.
Anyway, just my two cents.
Don Monfort, the only reason Nazis came up is Boris looked at a 20+ page book review I wrote over a year ago, found a single quote I used to head a section that happened to be from a Nazi and made a big deal of it here. The phrase “scraping the bottom of the barrel” comes to mind.
Mark Bofill, I think a big reason Steven Mosher provokes reactions like that is he tends to flee any discussion that doesn’t go his way. He’ll often say something completely untrue, defend it for a moment then just disappear. And later, he’ll repeat it as fact, ignoring rebuttals people offered before.
Intellectual dishonesty aside, being a jerk is a good way to keep people from ever wanting to agree with you.
(Just look upthread.)
Don Monfort:
You’re speaking to the converted.
I don’t know that it would avoid foolishness in Boris’ case though.
I took your advice and had a nice margarita.
Brandon,
Nazis are among the worst human cockroaches that have ever plagued the earth. Gobbles, is close to being the worst of the worst of the nazi cockroaches. You quoted him?
I looked up your Gobble’s quote to see the context and you shouldn’t have done it. Why quote that cockroach, unless it is to point out how poisonous and contemptible he was? You weren’t thinking. You left yourself open for someone to play the nazi card on you. Boris is just the guy to do it. That’s why nobody likes him.
If I got carried away, it’s because I hate nazis as much as I hate commies.
Carrick,
Bless you, my son. And enjoy your libation.
Don Monfort, it’s a quote everyone knows that makes an important point highly relevant to the section I was writing. The fact it comes from a Nazi is completely irrelevant, and you’re being silly to make an issue of it. So yes, I was thinking. I was thinking normal people can quote someone without it making a comparison to him or endorsing his actions or views.
The fact I don’t think we should censor material based solely upon the person it comes from doesn’t indicate a lack of thought. That you would say it does is both silly and offensive.
Brandon,
Why don’t you admit that you are wrong, just this once. Your quote in that context could only be interpreted in bad ways. A well-read smart guy like yourself could have found some words of wisdom from Lincoln, Churchill, Jesus, or any number of other non-nazis to make your point. Nobody is trying to censor you. You can make a fool of yourself as often as it suits you. But it’s sad to see you in this position.
Don Monfort, it seems your vendetta against me continues unabated:
I’ve admitted to being wrong plenty of times. Even on this site. Pretending otherwise just so you can paint me as unreasonable is silly. And this is just stupid:
I pointed out you are suggesting we censor material from Nazis because they’re Nazis. Since I’m not a Nazi, I couldn’t have been talking about myself. Unless you’re calling me a Nazi, this remark is a stupid distortion of what I said.
In reality, I never said a word suggesting anyone is trying to censor me other than the Skeptical Science crowd.
Feel free to weep for me if you must. But while you do so, you might consider the fact you keep making stupid and untrue claims to denigrate me. That seems an odd behavior if you feel bad about the situations I wind up in.
I posted a comment with a link to Richard Tol’s critique of Cookie et al on dana the punk’s Guardian blog. It got about 35 recommendations, before it was yanked. And dana is criticizing me for mis-spelling Cooke, once. He is really struggling on his home turf. What a little putz. He is also claiming that he and the SkS team that rated the abstracts are all scientists. OMG!
Brandon,
You can quote all the nazis you want. Got something from Hitler, or Eichmann? They had some profound things to say that we could all learn something from. Stop digging, Brandon.
Don Monfort, nice job failing to acknowledge your mistakes. It takes real gumption to so blatantly pursue a false avenue of attacks.
Pretending your facetiousness was sincerity, I’ve never cared much for the mid-1900 German quotes. They were too lacking in wit most of the time. I’d much rather quote Benito Mussolini. That guy had dozens of great quotations. I’ve used a number of them in regular conversation. Off the top of my head:
All three are great quotes, and I see no reason to avoid using them just because the guy they’re from was a bad guy. Just like I won’t refrain from saying, “History is a symptom of our disease.”
A good quote is a good quote. Criticizing people for repeating it just because you dislike who originally said it is silly.
Brandon,
Among other things, you are tone deaf. I can’t imagine why you can’t see that quoting Goebbels followed immediately by calling Mann a liar is an effective way to get your point across to an audience of intelligent, decent people. Just because you do this kind of stupid thing routinely, does not make it kosher. I’ll send you some interesting quotes from Pablo Escobar and Jeffry Dahmer that you can add to your repertoire.
I have been thinking lately that I get kind of a feeling of deja vu or something like it when I read one of your tantrums. It hit me this evening that you are just like Willis Eschenbach. You two must be identical twins separated at birth. Genetically and temperamentally carbon copies. Have you ever seen Willis? Think about it.
Ooooh! I just remembered a quote that you can use, Brandon. It’s a variation on “You are known by the company you keep”. “You are known by the people you quote”.-Chairman Pol Pot
The Jeffrey Dahmer one is “You are known by the people you eat”.
Vhere’s the Rube Goldberg rule when you need it. This is wery confusing.
Don Monfort, calling me tone-deaf while accusing me of throwing tantrums is funny. My tone has always been calmer and more pleasant than yours. If I throw tantrums, your posts must be hissy fits!
AJ, I’m afraid I don’t know that rule. Could you explain?
Brandon,
I am not talking about your demeanor, Brandon. Everybody knows your style, except you. Anyway, this is about tone deafness:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Socially%20tone%20deaf
My apologies Brandon. It’s Godwin’s Law. Just skimming thru the comments. Nazi seems to be a common word.
AJ, Boris sort of tried to use Godwin’s Law to shut down a conversation here based upon something I said about a year ago. Now that you mention it, we probably should have just responded by calling Godwin’s on him. Oh well. Live and learn.
Don Monfort, I’m through responding to these inane comments of yours. But for the record, you accused me of throwing tantrums. That speaks to both my demeanor and temperament. Neither of which are anything like you depict.
Yes AJ, Brandon has run afoul of Godwin’s law. And he admits to being a habitual offender. I hope he doesn’t insist on representing himself, this time. He would be much better off with a scheister in a cheap suit. Just funnin’ you, Brandon. Don’t get mad.
I made the point that the “consensus” was not defined in the comments to Dana’s Guardian article last Tuesday, the same day he wrote it.
Link to comment.
He has not responded (yet).
“we probably should have just responded by calling Godwin’s on him”
I was calling Godwin’s on you, Brandon. I just wanted to see if you were truly impartial, but your book review shows you have an ax to grind. (And the Nazi ref was just the tip of the iceberg as far as that review goes.) That’s fine. Enjoy your ax. But it explains why you want to misrepresent the Cook paper so bad.
The fact that you don’t realize that reffing Nazi’s and “big lies” over spreadsheet requests (or non-requests) is hilariously hyperbolic–well, that’s just sweet, sweet icing.
Boris,
One does not have to be truly impartial to be able to make a correct judgement on some issue. Do you believe that Cook, dana, et al are truly impartial? Mikey Mann? Boris Badenov?
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100912042619/villains/images/0/0a/Boris_Badenov.jpeg&imgrefurl=http://villains.wikia.com/wiki/Boris_Badenov&h=193&w=261&sz=6&tbnid=rAyBBnJBQNAemM:&tbnh=93&tbnw=126&zoom=1&usg=__UWPnNovSoWUa03gG1ZGjCNoWL_k=&docid=Uw9he9qBeMaRMM&sa=X&ei=kHOrUczOAs7migL_joGYDQ&ved=0CD0Q9QEwAg&dur=676
In science, we’re taught that the motives of the individual shouldn’t be considered when presented with their arguments. Rather we should determine impartially the veracity of the arguments, considering them on their own merits.
So no, we don’t dismiss Dana’s paper because it’s Dana. Or Mann’s newest paper because it’s Mann. Nor do we say, “well Brandon has an axe to grind with Mann, so we dismiss his review of Mann.”
Speaking of hyperbolic, isn’t there something more than a bit ironic in Boris accusing Brandon of hyperbole, after engaging in it to the extreme wrt Godwin’s law?
@ Carrick,
I think Boris’ definition of irony is ” having something to do a ferrous substance”
If you agree that humans contributed 51% (ie, >50%) of the recent warming, this trend line will fall well below the IPCC scenario B, and lead to <2deg C warming by 2100, which most people would not consider alarming. In what way does that support the alarmist position of the 97%?
Carrick,
Amen. People tend to overlook the fact that motives don’t make any difference. It doesn’t matter if I hate the result I obtain or I love it. If I scrupulously followed an objective methodology, my motives are completely irrelevant.
So I don’t care why anybody argues what they argue. I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t even really want to think about it, unless I already think they’re dishonest. I care if what they’re saying is right.
Earlier in this thread, I shared an e-mail I sent to a site discussing its coverage of the Cook et al paper, and how that coverage was wrong. I said then I didn’t expect it to accomplish anything.
I’m pleased to say I was wrong. I received a response today, and it turns out they took my concerns seriously. They made several changes to the piece, and the result is one of the most accurate articles discussing Cook et al. I’m still not a fan of the article, but I am quite pleased by the way they handled my concerns.
Sometimes my pessimism is misplaced.