Myth of the 97% Scientist Consensus on Global Warming
In an argument, between those who believe climate change is natural, and those who support man-made global warming, someone is going to throw the “97% consensus among scientists on global warming” card or something similar. By “consensus”, the idea is that scientists consider this a “no-brainer”. The planet is warming up, we’re contributing to it, and 97% of the scientists agree.
The reality? That consensus doesn’t exist. This is based on a study done on a selected number of peer reviewed studies. A look at the actual study does not support the 97% consensus claim. There’s not enough information in the paper to conclude, or infer, that there is a consensus in the scientific community regarding global warming.
From the study’s abstract:
We analyze the evolution of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, examining 11 944 climate abstracts from 1991–2011 matching the topics ‘global climate change’ or ‘global warming’. We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.
The study was done in phases. The first phase started with a keyword search of their database.
The two keywords used were “global warming” and “global climate change”. Most of the people, who have done searches on the Internet, via keyword, would know that different combinations of keywords tend to provide different compositions of results. Why not use something like “average temperature change”, “climate cycles”, “space weather”, “climatic optimums”, “climatic minimums”, or other keywords that could also bring up climate related articles?
By using “global warming” or “global climate change”, the researchers are attempting to get results that would point to a majority agreeing on man-made global warming. Out of the thousands of academic journal articles available, a researcher could drastically narrow down the results. The kind of results they get depends on the keywords used to search those articles.
The timeline used for this search went from 1991 to 2011 excluding papers generated before 1991. Considering that it has been more than five years since the “newest” paper considered for the study, this time range is automatically out of date. Additional studies have been done since 2011, with an increasing amount of the studies pointing to the sun and other natural causes for climate change. The “universe” of results and studies have changed our understanding of the topic since then.
Yet, people would like to throw the “But there’s a 97% consensus that the planet is warming and people are behind it” argument.
Out of the results, the researchers pulled the abstracts out, and categorized them. These abstracts were sent to those who rated these abstracts on whether are not they supported man-made global warming. The results are shown in the abstract, with most of the papers reviewed, out of the 11,944 papers considered, not taking a position on global warming. That was a whopping 66.4%, with the balance going towards those that specified agreement or disagreement with man-made global warming. From this balance, 97.1% supported manmade global warming.
From there, the researchers sent 8,547 invitations to the authors of the papers. They received 1,200 responses from these authors. After they narrowed that list down to 1,189, they invited these authors to self-rate their paper’s support for global warming.
From the 1,189 scientists, reviewing 2,142 of their own papers, 97.2% endorsed man-made global warming.
This is where the 97% shows up. This is the “97% consensus” that is used to argue that the majority of scientists “agree” to man-made global warming. If you’ve read this far, you could tell, by the numbers, that 97.2% of 1,189 scientists does not constitute a near consensus of all the scientists.
Now, ready for the kicker? From the paper itself:
Nevertheless, 11,944 papers is only a fraction of the climate literature…
A fraction of those 11,944 papers doesn’t constitute a scientific consensus, within the scientific community, on manmade global warming. The so called “scientific consensus” supporting man-made good warming doesn’t exist.
You could download the study itself from here:
Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature
Category: Reality Check
Hmm your entire post here seems like a bunch of facts and logic… therefore it’ll never be accepted by the members of the man caused global warming religion. I expect that everyones “favorite” college educated idiot will make an appearance soon to tell you all the reasons you are wrong…
Thanks. That’s what I’m hoping, that crossed my mind before posting.
Thebesig, you left out the threat of carbon. Carbon is the biggest threat to everything.
Never mind that all organic life is based on the carbon atom’s very flexible ability to bond with oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen and phosphorus, and other assorted elements. Carbon is proposed as the biggest threat of all to everything!
We’re doomed! Doomed, I tell you!
WHAT ABOUT the Zika virus? Someone once talked about THAT like it was going to be the doom of Mankind.
Zika?
No way. You’re already dead from the bird flu!
Doom is everywhere, API. Everywhere.
Maybe if we could find a way to use sulfur, which can also form long chain molecules like carbon does, we could reduce the threat of carbon in CH4 (methane) by replacing it with hydrogen sulfide (H2S).
Carbon is, in fact, such a threat that every time someone like the Piuperdink breathes, the air in his vicinity becomes loaded with carbon dioxide.
If only that could be captured and bonded with sulfur, the resultant carbon bisulfide might actually be sufficient to produce a useful product such as viscose rayon.
Plants are sure lovin’ it. Notice how that iconic native plant, poison ivy, is just bustin’ out all over?
And his reasons will boil down to “You don’t toe the Pravda line, therefore you’re racist!”
And he might even pull some previously-unheard anecdote about “this one time at band camp” that makes him know more about your career field (in which he’s never, ever worked or been trained) than you do.
Its all due to Nibiru, creating a pole shift….I saw her dancing at the Jiggly room, she was 1 hot babe !-)
Here’s some more facts from the paper that he left out:
4. Discussion
Of note is the large proportion of abstracts that state no
position on AGW. This result is expected in consensus situ-
ations where scientists ‘. . . generally focus their discussions
on questions that are still disputed or unanswered rather
than on matters about which everyone agrees’ (Oreskes 2007,
p 72). This explanation is also consistent with a description
of consensus as a ‘spiral trajectory’ in which ‘initially
intense contestation generates rapid settlement and induces
Figure 3. Percentage of papers endorsing the consensus among
only papers that express a position endorsing or rejecting the
consensus.
a spiral of new questions’ (Shwed and Bearman 2010);
the fundamental science of AGW is no longer controversial
among the publishing science community and the remaining
debate in the field has moved to other topics. This is supported
by the fact that more than half of the self-rated endorsement
papers did not express a position on AGW in their abstracts.
The self-ratings by the papers’ authors provide insight
into the nature of the scientific consensus amongst publishing
scientists. For both self-ratings and our abstract ratings,
the percentage of endorsements among papers expressing a
position on AGW marginally increased over time, consistent
with Bray (2010) in finding a strengthening consensus.
Also, he left out the conclusion: I’ll let you download the paper and see for yourself but I’m sure you won’t. Spoiler, it’s not what you think and you won’t like it.
Consensus is not science.
Published papers…. HAH! You, of all people, ought to know that when the leftists get hold of the publishing arms, especially the scientific journals, they get to weed out everything and everyone that disagrees with their current fad du jour. In this case, global warming, with a side a human-enhancement.
It’s easy for them to get to a “consensus” by only publishing what papers they agree with, and allowing, every so often, a mildly contrarian point.
The real truth is that humanity has absolutely no discernible impact on climate change. None. Zip. Nada.
Is the planet warming? Maybe. If it is, it’s likely only returning to a warmer period that may well be the norm. The Earth has only recently emerged from another ice age, a rather long lasting one, and we’re likely on the rebound to a warmer state before it starts to swing back down again to cooler temps.
But when you get right down to it, the entire argument supporting human interference with the climate is specious. We simply aren’t that powerful enough to do that, at least not yet. One volcano spews out more sulphuric gas than all of humanity to date. More CO2 as well. One volcano.
The real support for all of this is twofold: power and money. Wealth redistribution, and power. The leftists are using the useful idiots of the green movement as their pawns for political influence, and thus gaining access to cash through guilting the larger nations. It’s like the anti-hunters using “Bambi” to prey on children, but not quite a subtle.
So yeah. More silly ballyhooing and scienty-talk from the shills of the left. But the people aren’t buying anymore. They’ve peeked behind the curtain and scene the sausage making at work.
Dennis R. Martinez: Why did you leave out the conclusion? The point of the article is the argument that “there’s” a “consensus”, among the scientific community, is false. The point, that matters, is that the people that did the study only reviewed a small fraction of the total literature that was out there, one that supported their bias based on the search words that they used. Another reason, too why I left the conclusion out, was my understanding the psychology of the people that I have been debating against over the past 13 years. One concept is that people, in desperation, would do that for me in an attempt to “prove” me “wrong”. I will demonstrate that with my series of replies to you. Dennis R. Martinez: Did you know your readers wouldn’t bother to download it You don’t know the audience here, like I do. We are all about going straight to the source of information that is providing both sides the ammunition for their debate. Had you posted here, as long as I have, or longer, you would know the extent that the readers here will go when reviewing source and raw data. The positions they have, regarding this topic, they had long before I posted any of my posts in the comments section, or articles on this website. Dennis R. Martinez: or did you not get that far into the paper? I am a doctoral candidate. On a weekly basis, I have to plow through multiple peer reviewed journal articles that make the one, linked to in the article, look like a short grade school essay. Yes, I plowed through that paper easily. While I read through that paper, I saw comments made in that paper, and anticipated what the opposition would do in disagreement with my article. Unfortunately for you, I know the process involved with the scientific method. You pulled the items from the article, not realizing from what context those comments who made, and for what reason. I will demonstrate that by doing for you what you should’ve done before you got emotional and… Read more »
Dennis R. Martinez: More from your factual paper: The paper isn’t factual. That paper is doing the very thing that you accuse me, and others here, of doing. Dennis R. Martinez: Of note is the large proportion of abstracts that state no position on AGW. This is where the facts stop. Yes, there was a large proportion of abstracts that did not have a position on AGW. However, that was not for the reasons that they stated. Dennis R. Martinez: This result is expected in consensus situ-ations where scientists ‘. . . generally focus their discussions on questions that are still disputed or unanswered rather than on matters about which everyone agrees’ (Oreskes 2007,p 72). That’s an opinion, and it is an error. First, what she also said before making that comment: “A few comments are in order. First, often it is challenging to determine exactly what the authors of a paper do think about global climate change. This is a consequence of experts writing for experts: many elements are implicit. “Naomi Oreskes” The fact that she would mention that it would be challenging to determine exactly what the authors of the papers think null and void’s the comment that you quoted. However, things that are not mentioned in the paper are not mentioned due to space and other requirements. When providing a science paper, for a journal, you are restrained by space. So, it is incumbent on the author to focus mainly on their research questions. I run into the same issue with my dissertation. I have to focus on my research question, and leave out other things that are not related to my research question. This is even a bigger reason to why the “consensus” isn’t mentioned. Whether it exists or not is irrelevant when it comes to a specific research question. Dennis R. Martinez: This explanation is also consistent with a description of consensus as a ‘spiral trajectory’ in which ‘initially intense contestation generates rapid settlement and induces a spiral of new questions’ (Shwed and Bearman 2010); What they also said: “We show that as consensus forms,… Read more »
Dennis R. Martinez: I downloaded it. Downloading the study, and reading it with the intention of understanding the mechanics that went into it, the scientific process that went into it, as well as what was being said, are two different things. You proved that you downloaded it. Unfortunately, based on your explanations, you failed to see what was actually going on. Your responses proved to me that you have absolutely no clue about the scientific process. Dennis R. Martinez: So, are you deliberately misleading your readers False. What I stated above is fact. The claim, that 97% of the scientific community are in agreement is false. Regardless of how that paper is put together, their limitations and assumptions section makes it clear that what they looked at was only a fraction of the total literature out there. You cannot responsibly take a random sample, like what they did, and project the results to the scientific community. Nothing, in that paper, supports the assumption that the majority of the scientific community are in agreement regarding AGW. I provided a link, to the study, for others to download. I did that based on my understanding of the audience. Unlike you, the audience here are able to critically look at first source information and see what is actually going on. Unfortunately for you, you are driven by emotion, specifically anger and the need for control. Your responses show that you’ve been exposed to propaganda, and that you are susceptible to it. Without proof, you claim that I’m misleading when in fact I’m providing facts. The only one that is being misleading, in this exchange, is you. Dennis R. Martinez: or just to ignorant to understand the science you cite. In addition to your doing a poor job going through the study that you downloaded, you also do a poor job when it comes to debating. In order to claim that I am “ignorant” of the science that I cite, you have to base that on the facts. So far, the only thing that you brought here where your opinions fueled by propaganda. Fact:… Read more »
Dennis R. Martinez: However, there is a significant gap between public perception and reality, Yes, many in the public buy into the disproven man-made global warm and propaganda. The reality is that man-made global warming is a false science. The reality is that global warming, or global cooling, are due to natural causes. When the mainstream media, populated by a large percent of journalists who identify as Democrat, push a Democrat agenda like man-made global warming, you can’t help but get an audience that is going to have a large percentage of people that believe in man-made global warming. Dennis R. Martinez: with 57% of the US public either disagreeing or unaware that scientists overwhelmingly agree that the earth is warming due to human activity (Pew 2012). Actual research questions from that Pew survey, asking for the respondent’s opinion: 1. Is there solid evidence the earth is warming? 2. Because of human activity. 3. Because of natural patterns. 4. Don’t know. Actual research questions from the Pew survey, asking for respondent opinion on what the scientists think: 1. Do scientists agree earth is getting warmer because of human activity? 2. How serious the problem is global warming? Do you see how the authors, of the study that you downloaded, made an opinion that was not based on the reference used to support that opinion? You can only make a responsible assessment based on the information provided. Those research questions do not address the question as to the reality of whether scientists “overwhelmingly agree” about man-made global warming or not. Also absent, from your reply, is any type of analytical ability regarding what it is that you are quoting. The methodology, from the Pew survey, was based on telephone calls made in October during an election year. This kind of survey would get whacked during a real academic vetting process when reviewing a literature review and study. The authors assume that consensus, without providing solid evidence that said agreement exists. Dennis R. Martinez: Contributing to this ‘consensus gap’ are campaigns designed to confuse the public about the level of agreement among… Read more »
Dennis R. Martinez: The situation is exacerbated by media treatment of the climate issue, where the normative practice of providing opposing sides with equal attention has allowed a vocal minority to have their views amplified (Boykoff and Boykoff 2004). While there are indications that the situation has improved in the UK and USA prestige press (Boykoff 2007), the UK tabloid press showed no indication of improvement from 2000 to 2006 (Boykoff and Mansfield 2008). That’s how the media is supposed to work, stupid! Both sides are supposed to be presented. It’s up to the viewer to make a conclusion, on their own, based on both sides of the argument/story being presented. However, contrary to what this passage says, is the man-made global warming crowd are getting the amplified voice in our mainstream media. The majority of our mainstream media does not want to present both sides of the issue, just the liberal side. This is why people like you are under the assumption that there is a “consensus” among the scientific community. However, when one goes beyond the media report and go straight to the source information, one gets a different outlook on reality. Dennis R. Martinez: The narrative presented by some dissenters is that the scientific consensus is ‘. . . on the point of collapse’ (Oddie 2012) while ‘. . . the number of scientific “heretics” is growing with each passing year’ (Allegre ` et al 2012). Actually, there was no real consensus. As you can see in the study, a look of the studies that they looked at made no position, for or against, man-made global warming. After narrowing their search, they interviewed a fraction of the scientists for their opinion on man-made global warming. Their opinion does not constitute the one held by the entire scientific community. Hence, the reason to why they talked about their search being a limited one. Also, notice the use of “heretics” or other derogatory form of description for those who do not agree with the man-made global warming theory. When you resort to doing that, you disregard the scientific process.… Read more »
Dammit, besig, you’ve gone and gutted Dennith all over the clean floor. Who’s gonna clean that up?!
Maybe we could send Dennis a copy of that poster in FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder’s office:
“I WANT TO BELIEVE”.
(Real) science embraces skepticism.
In 1970 they were talking about a coming ice age? Now just recently I read another report saying the same thing….the earth is constantly in a state of flux and whatever goes around , comes around,been that way for millenia! imho
But that does not fit The Narrative.
real science doesn’t have a narrative 🙂
I’m on the road now and can’t argue, sadly, but I’ll leave some real ‘junk’ science here for your pleasure. Yes, there’s some puns there:
http://www.dailywire.com/news/16682/conceptual-penis-academic-hoax-exposes-absurdity-james-barrett
Durnit, LC, you beat me to it! Congrats!
That is the funniest thing I have ever read.
Another leftwing bullshit barrage from Babbles McButthead in 5, 4, 3,…
Not worth my time. Climate change denying is idiotic at this point.
indeed…the climate changes.
Yes, Commissar, I am a climate denier. I still say climate doesn’t exist!
Dolt.
Rejecting manmade global warming isn’t “climate change denying”. It’s rejecting a theory that has insufficient proof, that’s easily debunked, and is still up for debate. The manmade global warming side of the argument hijacked “climate change” as a description of manmade global warming. Climate changes, history bears that out, that’s not what’s being disagreed with. The climate has been changing for about as long as the Earth has had an atmosphere. For example, it was warmer before the last ice age than it is now, with large sections of the eastern seaboard underwater. Then the ice age came, sea levels dropped, and our shorelines pushed out. We argue that climate change is natural, cyclical. We argue against those who insist that humans are behind global warming.
I still have my furnace running, Thebesig. I am sad.
Not sure what asshole you pissed off on facebook, but they sure had a lot to say, other than actually giving their name, or anything other than insulting you..
Oooh, and as a bonus, you got Lars’s panties in a wad.. he’s gonna take his toys and go home…
That retard didn’t have much to say. Most of what was posted in his reply was a copy and paste of a study, with him pointing to it and essentially saying, “What they said,” without realizing that the parts that he quoted led to references that did not necessarily support either the paper that he was quoting, or his own argument.
Absent from his commentary was any kind of critical thinking or analysis. The results, of his doing that, led to my series of replies to him.
Whatsammatter, Commissar? Allergic to actual science?
Exactly. It is not worth your time. Nor our time.
What is he babbling about now?
Earth’s climate changes on a recurring if irregular basis. I have a chart that shows those changes quite clearly. Does anyone have a clue what he’s yapping about this time?
And I am still waiting to freeze to death like my teachers told me was going to happen in the 70’s.
Fuck you communist Lars, explain to me why I never froze to death. The summers are very hot where I live. And they have been hot as long as people remember. It was 108 today, and it will be tomorrow, but that’s the way it is. And it was 85 last week, we all smile at each other and say summers here. In communist land I guess it should be 72. Maybe if we all voted for Bernie it would be 72 all year long. The Indians out here were found in the 1700’s to have built their abodes half in the Colorado river to cool down in the summer. History does not count to communists, they can cure all just like the fascists, Fuck you Lars.
If it gets warmer or colder Bernie won’t really notice. He owns three houses so he can always be where the temperature isn’t too extreme.
Looky there, Babbles McButthead knows he hasn’t even a single rational argument, so he sneers at us and goes back to his “Safe Space” to pout!
But… BUT… HE HAS “EMPIRIC DATA”!
Great post. I have always wondered how 2.8% of people who call themselves scientists were brain damaged.
So, 97.2% of the scientists that wrote papers supporting human causality to global warning agree with what the wrote?
Hmm…did 2.8% change their mind or are there multiple papers by the same scientist. 1 bad seed in the crop can reek havoc on these kind of things.
I concede, I have read this study now several times and I have no idea how these people come up with and meaningful analysis.
I did a study of my own and found that 99.9% of ISIS terrorists that were shot in the face did not commit another act of violence.
I would say the Soviet is maybe 50-50 or probably 60-40 when it comes to loving me at any one moment.
Oh, and if you smoke 3 packs of cigarettes a day, drink like a fish, and sit on your ass most of the time the chances of you developing Alzheimers is reduced by…lets say…85%.
I have generally found that 97.2% of people couldn’t agree on anything. So since that number seems to be wrong 100% of the time I therefore summarize that data to be completely arbitrary.
Lord, I must be bored.
@thebesig, you missed a couple of points. At least according to the digest I read a couple years ago.
First, they used Google as their search engine, as opposed to more specialized engines geared towards research.
Second, they only searched for hits on “global warming,” or CAGW, or such. Thing is, that will not turn up papers discussing (say) atmospheric research if it doesn’t use those words, even though that would be valid data.
Third, many researchers complained at the time that the study mischaracterized the conclusions found in their papers.
…Upon re-reading, I will say you did mention the issue of search phrases, but did not (to my mind) emphasize how easy it was to miss a large number of papers which never mentioned “climate change,” yet were highly relevant to climate research.
@Casey, I based that on the study itself, the study being used to back the “97% consensus” claim. I mentioned above what search words they used, that was based on their study. Also, their study states that they searched ISI Web of Science’s database. Also, when I said this:
I was pointing out the fact that they were excluding articles that rejected the theory they were supporting. Given that I pointed out that 97.2% of 1,189 scientists don’t constitute a consensus, and made other “fraction” comparisons with the total number of studies used, it’d be natural that the majority of those that wrote those papers will argue that their research was mischaracterized.
I addressed what you claimed I missed.
I missed the part where they were excluding articles that rejected the theory they were supporting.
3. Results
The ISI search generated 12 465 papers. Eliminating papers
that were not peer-reviewed (186), not climate-related (288) or
without an abstract (47) reduced the analysis to 11 944 papers
written by 29 083 authors and published in 1980 journals.
To simplify the analysis, ratings were consolidated into
three groups: endorsements (including implicit and explicit;
categories 1–3 in table 2), no position (category 4) and
rejections (including implicit and explicit; categories 5–7).
We examined four metrics to quantify the level of
endorsement:
(1) The percentage of endorsements/rejections/undecideds
among all abstracts.
(2) The percentage of endorsements/rejections/undecideds
among only those abstracts expressing a position on
AGW.
(3) The percentage of scientists authoring endorsement/
rejection abstracts among all scientists.
(4) The same percentage among only those scientists who
expressed a position on AGW (table 3).
Could you point it out?
You missed that part because in your emotion driven reaction and response, you ignored what you wanted to ignore and saw what you wanted to see in order for you to have an argument. In order to put that into action, you advanced a strawman.
Go back and reread the post that you replied to, as well as the original article posted above. What part of:
“The two keywords used were ‘global warming’ and ‘global climate change’. Most of the people, who have done searches on the Internet, via keyword, would know that different combinations of keywords tend to provide different compositions of results. Why not use something like ‘average temperature change’, ‘climate cycles’, ‘space weather’, ‘climatic optimums’, ‘climatic minimums’, or other keywords that could also bring up climate related articles?” — thebesig
Did you NOT understand?
Go ahead, do a Google search on any topic. Change the keywords that you used. Watch the kind of results that you get depending on the keywords that you use. Any of those keyword searches that I mentioned in the above article, and in my reply, could provide different kinds of results. It also provide researchers with additional articles related to climate change. However, by restricting it to the two keyword searches that they used, they were deliberately getting the papers, out of the total population of papers, that came closer to supporting their argument.
I see this happening during my own literature database search while working on my dissertation.
If, after reading this explanation, you don’t see what I am talking about, hire an interpreter who is capable of translating from English generated so that a fifth grader could understand it into retard terms.
Missed that bit. Sorry. 😛
No problem.
You would think that scientists have some fancy database of actual papers where they can pull studies discussing a particular subject.
The fact that they used “Google” to do a search is just so ridiculous I can’t even comprehend how they call themselves scientists. Especially since Google has been shown to have political leanings, the algorithms show you results based on what it expects you want to see, and even accepts funding from businesses that want their websites to pop-up at the top of searches for their particular site (and not just the “advertisement” sites.)
This is similar to when they had a conference to talk about Pluto being a planet and a small room of scientists decided Pluto was a dwarf planet within days just to get it done. Just so scientists could say, I was in the room and got to vote about Pluto being a planet!
There are search engines optimized to look through online research papers. Alexis? It’s been a long time since I read up on that.
According to the linked paper, they used a database on a science related website. Today, with “Google scholar”, you can search for some of these academic articles.
“But there’s a 97% consensus that the planet is warming and people are behind it.” Well, even if that were true, so what? There was a 97% consensus among Big Media that H. Wideload Clinton would be president right now. And that was probably more pure math behind the election confidence than global warming enjoys. There’s a tremendous amount of grant money available to researchers who agree with algore and co. Don’t agree withe them? Rotsaruck getting funding.
And once upon a time, there was an even grater than 97% consensus that the Earth was flat… we all know how well that worked out..libtard dumbasses!
When was that? Probably not any time since, oh, 300 B.C., when Alexander spread Greek learning from the Mediterranean to the Indus river.
Norman, you were right, it was a very long time ago, so what’s your point??? Mine, since you obviously missed it is that at the time, the greatest scientific minds in the world agreed about something, and were then proven wrong… if you need more examples, how about the sun revolves around the earth, or if you go over 60 mph it will kill you(first advanced when trains were invented, is that recent enough??) I could try to explain more, but if you just scroll up and read what thebseig wrote, he explains it at least as good as i could
A more relevant example would be that until the 1600s the consensus was that vermin spontaneously appeared from trash. This was before microscopes allowed scientists to examine the reproductive organs of insects and such.
Another good example would be the ridicule some scientists suffered after suggesting meteors were extraterrestrial.
The flat earth myth came from Washington Irving’s biography of Columbus. Irving claimed the clerics of the Spanish court thought the earth was flat, when in fact their actual position was that Columbus’ estimate of the earth’s size was far too small. In this they were correct. Even the ancient Greeks were familiar with the concept of a round earth. What is ironic is that rationalistic scientists used this story to illustrate the ignorance & dogma of Christians who argued against the theory of evolution. It’s been whipped out in similar situations for the past 170 years. The irony? The allegedly logical & factual scientists were one relying on the dogma about belief in a flat earth instead of investigating historical fact.
Some porn queen needs to name herself Global Warming. Man, what a scream that would be.
Doesn’t the singer Pitbull use that theme in his album titles?
Now, see, if they’d used the psychology of advertising to round that 97.2% number up to 98%, it would be even more threatening. Round numbers count for everything.
And #bunnieslivesmatter!
Another case where that 98% applies significantly:
“98% of us will die at some time in our lives.” – Cal Naughton Jr.
98% of all species that have ever lived are extinct.
Let them go in peaces. – George Carlin
Nicely written.
Thanks, that was generated using Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech to text.
Almost 15 years ago Mars and Earth came about as close to each other as we ever do. Along with a large number of other amateur astronomers I viewed that planet then with a modest back yard telescope. A common thread among the community then was how the Martian polar ice caps had shrunk in recent months. At that time “Global Warming”, was the craze but to those of us looking at Mars, it was Solar System Warming, or something – we didn’t suspect anything other than our Sun. As much as we kept yelling to look up and see what is happening on other than our Earth, it seemed that no one was interested in such a far off place and how could that have any influence on us here. Seems it keeps coming down to the scarey fact that about half of our population have an IQ with two digits and they are surprisingly vocal. Whatever mine is, at least I consider climate change on distance planets in the mix of things we are seeing and I can’t blame man for much of what is being witnessed overall. In fact I’d suggest that a look at Jupiter lately indicates some climate change is taking place there right now too. Climate change is certainly a verifiable fact. Blaming it on the actions of man is silly.
the Holocene Climactic Optimum, the Roman Warming Period, and many other warming periods in the past were warmer than it had been during our lifetimes, or even during the 20th and 21st centuries. During the period before the last major glaciation, a large percent of the eastern seaboard was seafloor as it was warmer during that interglacial period than the one we were born in.
I usually ask those, that I debate with, where human industrial activity, and SUVs, who during those periods.
Thebesig, there is paleontogical evidence that 7,000 years ago, the Swiss Alps were free of snow.
It comes and goes as it wishes to. WE have no control over it. Period. I’m waiting for reports – er, complaints of permanent ice returning to the area of the Northwest Passage.
The clowns who spew this garbage (the “studies,” not you, thebesig) fail to understand that many among the unwashed were steeped in simple concepts like scientific method, logic, critical thinking, and such and some literally wrote the book on how to conduct accurate statistical analysis. Pretending that 97.2% of 32.6% of a whole arbitrarily constructed from either carelessly accumulated or purposefully skewed data would have gotten these “scientists” laughed out of a college/university science program only a few years ago. There are so many errors in that study that the results hold absolutely nothing of value.
When you start with meaningless data the conclusions are also meaningless. On the other hand, it is possible to use flawed data, flawed logic, and finally draw correct conclusions, but they are till meaningless simply because the methodology getting there was flawed. And cannot be replicated.
Besides, studying studies only produces a conclusion that indicates how many people studied the topic not the relative importance of the topic compared to anything other than the whims of those producing studies.
And you have to love that peer-reviewed research…
The authors’ note that, yes, they did in fact argue that the “conceptual penis” causes climate change. Here’s an excerpt from their section on the climate, which they, of course, blame on the “hypermasculine machismo braggadocio isomorphic identification with the conceptual penis”:
http://www.dailywire.com/news/16682/conceptual-penis-academic-hoax-exposes-absurdity-james-barrett
Yep – Section 2.2, to be precise. Here’s an excerpt:
Yes, you read that correctly. The article claims that the dong is responsible for global warming.
FWIW: the actual “peer-reviewed article” has been archived in case the “Scientific Journal” that was stupid enough to publish it pulls it from their Internet site (I’d guess it’s a good bet they will). The archived version is available for viewing/download at
http://www.skeptic.com/downloads/conceptual-penis/23311886.2017.1330439.pdf
They have the whole thing over at WUWT, in case anyone wants to read it.
The comments are priceless, too.
AZ to VA in my field there is an individual who created his own professional journal to get his “science” published. He is so awesome he is his own peer review. Nice huh?
When proponents of an idea only publish the work of those they agree with, you will have incredible statistics to tout. There is no knowledge gained from that…only the vapid continuance of a set of opinions masquerading as science. I was fortunate to participate in conference last week chock full of PhD types who focus on regulation radioactive air emissions, some of it was pretty long-haired. Did they all agree with each? HELL NO! I think I learned more from the debates, than I did from the Power-points…(Again, imagine that :)).
I was going to go off about environmental modeling, but that would be another topic.
Regarding the climate change thing; yep its going on, always has and always will. If there were still dinosaurs running around we would be blaming climate change on them.
How would you like to have been the dude/dudette to discover that the Bering Land Bridge was umm closed for renovation (not there, underwater, freaking gone)? I imagine something like WTF went through their mind. Followed by DAMMIT now we got to invent floaty things…hmmmm lets call it a boat or something…
I have absolute proof of man-made global warming. I think you guys must be just too dumb to realize it. Let me explain. I am outside during the winter and I feel cold. I step indoors and I immediately feel a lot warmer. Why, you ask? Because man has directly and deliberately increased the temperature in the building. So the warming I feel is entirely man made. And this is happening throughout the world. So, it is global.
On the opposite side, I stand outside during the summer and I feel hot. I walk inside and immediately feel cooler, due to air conditioning. Ahhh…. man-made global cooling.
Hmmm it seems we have off setting penalties. Repeat the down.
I don’t recall where I saw this, but it might’ve been here on TAH. This video is fantastic as a response to the climate change crap.
The fact that they are using statistics to specifically find the answer they want is really not so surprising. Statistics will tell you whatever you want them to, IF you have a prescribed answer you are looking to get before you start them.
It is 45ish minutes, but the guy dismantles Bill Nye’s talking points so well it is fantastic. Along with the fact that there was supposed to be a debate and it was cancelled by the climate change troupe’s side.
OK, so 97.2% of 32.6%… since when did 31.6% become an unassailable supermajority?
Oh, you didn’t get that message? It recently handed out. I believe it was on a Tuesday in April.
OK, let’s take a poll of TAH members:
Yes, I believe that man is the cause of climate change.
or
No, I do not believe that man causes climate change.
Here’s the results:
The New York Grimes
Wednesday, May 24, 2017
Overwhelming Consensus on Climate Change
The report is in! Over 97% of the members at the “This Ain’t Hell” website and blog have overwhelming voted that Global Warming is Fake News. That’s right, a consensus!
You read it here first, be sure to share this with your liberal family and friends.
It’s fake news at my house. I still have the furnace running. That’s where you get them – the furnace, still running, and still having to wear a sweater because when you go to get the mail, you freeze your ass off. That’s the key. There was another key, but I couldn’t find it… but I will.
Meantime, on another planet….
I too had free access to journals and articles in a couple of my jobs. I would read the climate science papers – the real science not the BS sociology stuff. Most often the studies followed good science practice, until the conclusion. Without fail, there would be a non-sequitur whereby the study indicated man made global warming – though there was no connection in the study whatsoever. Early on I concluded that the entire climate science field was not about doing good science but about chasing the grant money. Guess who controls the grant monies?
I was not a big swearer but “WTF” became a regular part of my lexicon from analyzing these sorts of studies.
thebesig: excellent smack down on Martinez. I have family who like to post garbage anti-gun studies. It is delightful to deconstruct the so-called science in these studies. It is funny when they shut up because none have any science background, yet they sill believe the anti-gun “scientists” – usually sociology types whose misuse of statistics is nothing short of appalling.
aGrimm, are we related? the family you speak of sounds remarkably like my siblings…lol.. even though a couple of them do have some scientific background, they’ve let leftist indoctrination win out, and buy anything the left serves them..