Arguments
Meet The Denominator
Posted on 13 February 2011 by Rob Honeycutt
As most here have followed the climate issue for some time I'm sure we have each been faced with climate skeptics throwing out big numbers related to different aspects of climate science.
There is the ever present "31,000 Scientists Who Challenge Global Warming," the infamous Oregon Petition.
And then many of us have run into the ever ravenous PopTech (Andrew) and his, now, 850 Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of "Man-Made" Global Warming (AGW) Alarm
These folks have yet to meet…. The Denominator!
Fig 1 - Okay, this is really the Terminator but bear with me, the effect is about the same.
In this exercise we are going to give both the Oregon Petition and PopTech's 850 papers the benefit of the doubt. We know there are many many reasons to challenge the assumptions of their claims but there is one thing they can not defend. They are only presenting one side of the equation.
First, let's look at the Oregon Petition. They define "scientist" as anyone with a BS degree or better. They state, "This includes primarily those with BS, MS, or PhD degrees in science, engineering, or related disciplines." Thus, 31,000 is their numerator.
According to the US Census for 2000, 28 million people had bachelors degrees and 16 million had graduate or professional degrees. We'll safely assume that half of the bachelor degrees are BA's and not BS degrees. In 2000 that represented about 10% of the population. If the proportions hold today it leaves us with a total of 31 million people of the current US population of 312 million (Note: the Oregon Petition is limited to the US).
Numerator, meet The Denominator! 31,000 over 31,200,000 comes to 0.00099. Or roughly 0.1% of persons holding a BS or better have signed the petition challenging anthropogenic global warming, assuming that every single signature on the list is legitimate. This is what The Denominator does. He crushes big numbers into itty-bitty numbers.
Now let's look at PopTech's 850 papers. Even mainstream skeptics like Roger Pielke Jr. as well as others have taken exception to PopTech's list but again, we're going to give him the benefit of the doubt and allow him the concept that 850 peer reviewed papers actually do challenge AGW alarm. (I know it's a stretch but we're going to cut him a break, this time.)
Here I just went to Google Scholar. I limited the search to the term "climate change" and only searched articles in the subject areas of 1) Biology, Life Science and Environmental Science, and 2) Physics, Astronomy and Planetary Science. That returned 954,000 articles. I did a pretty thorough perusal of 200 articles of the 100 pages of results and it looks like they are all actual papers and not just references to any blogs or websites. A number are listed as "[citation]" so we might pull out about 10% for good measure. But everything else looks to be published works in a very wide variety of scientific journals. I intentionally left out the 177,000 papers that result when I do the same search on "global warming" since I don't know how many of those will be duplicate hits.
Numerator, meet The Denominator! What we are left with is about 850,000 peer reviewed papers on climate change for the 850 peer reviewed papers that PopTech presents. That leaves our friend with 0.1% of peer reviewed papers that challenge AGW alarm, as defined by him.
I'm sure some folks will find ways to quibble about the numbers but I don't think even the very best debater can appreciably alter the resulting percentages. And if they try…
"I'll be back."
It was just an amateur attempt, of course. I picked one or two, then challanged some skeptics friend to pick some too.
I think we went over some 6 or 7. They were all either non-peer-reviewed (E&E or opinion piece, for example), or did not challenge the consensus (like some paleoclimate study saying that sometime in the past we had higher temperatures somewhere, or saying that the PETM cannot be explained by CO2 alone). I'm sure there MUST be some real challenge hidden in there, but the "denominator" certainly chops it down to just a handful (if any).
If this list had more attention of the denialosphere3, it could deserve a rebuttal post here by someone better qualified than myself...
1. It must disagree, even if only slightly, in part with some aspect of CAGW as defined by anyone, even a newspaper, rather than disagreeing with the IPCC or mainstream scientific opinion (eg Knorr).
2. The paper may confirm fundamental properties of AGW (Scafetta & natural GHG feedbacks).
3. The papers can hold completely opposing views with each other and that’s ok (Gerlich, says no greenhouse effect, Scafetta says there is).
4. The paper can be seriously flawed (Idso).
5. The paper doesn’t have to be from a climate scientist, pollitical views are ok.
6. "Poptech", the guy who maintains the list, doesn’t have to agree with the findings of the paper, in this way they can avoid the conflict of point 3 and dispute point 2).
Related topic - the scientific summary in the pdf on that petition site: can you provide an analysis of the points that they raise?
Oh, BTW: I see the comments have already made a good start on it, but I'll mention it anyway: once you have shown that even giving them the benefit of the doubt, the numbers are not behind them, it really does make sense to go ahead and show that they never deserved that benefit of the doubt in the first place. Like Polar Bear said, there are a lot of people with degrees who really don't know much science, even with nursing degrees, where they really should have learned something about it.
Sad to say, there are even a lot of people with medical and engineering degrees who think they know science, but most of what they 'know' about it isn't even true.
Why, I'll go even further and say that there are too many "practicing scientists" who don't even really know science. I have in mind this one individual with a PhD in science who publicly humiliated and ridiculed a fellow scientist for pointing out the unsolved problems in the presenter's thesis in a seminar on biology that took place at a major biotech company. But such criticism IS a vital part of the scientific method: if your conclusion/proposal cannot survive sound criticism, then it is unscientfic.
After all: in Newton's 'Opticks', where he gave his still valid description of the scientific method, he says:
"And if no exception occur from Phaenomena, the Conclusion may be pronounced generally (p380)". But how will we KNOW whether or not exceptions occur, if we silence objections like this? We MUST allow them, as long as "they are taken from Experiments or other certain Truths (ibid)". In the case I am criticizing, they were.
Objections can be silenced only when they are truly unscientific, such as the objections of Lindzen and Monckton, which are neither from experiments nor from any other kind of "certain truths".
NB: Newton's 'Opticks' is in Google Books. It is worth reading the citations above in context, since his description of the scientific method is SO good!
Right you are. But isn't it sad? Doesn't it say something is terribly wrong about our so-called "scientific peer review"? After all, the paper really did somehow manage to squeak past. Even if they are a minority of papers that passed peer review, this is really, really bad.
Don't worry about not being counted as a real scientist just cause you live outside the U.S. The Ville, cause "Your not a Real American unless Your a Marine" either, or so the story goes. And to think that all these years I was raised to believe that a Real American was -- an Indian.
I got 622,000 by folowing the same exact criteria but when I dropped the quote marks on "climate change" I got 956,000.
Hope that makes sense!
More than or less than 850?
If greater than 850, by how much? An order of magnitude or two perhaps?
By the way, what do your links at #17 have to do with the number of Climate Change articles?
Hmmm, this just displays your ongoing, blind ignorance to what scientific consensus actually is. Its not a popularity contest, no matter how much you try & make it so-its about the *scientific evidence* that either backs or debunks an existing theory. To date, though you've been quick to cite those papers that allegedly support skepticism of AGW (even though some are contradictory or don't, in truth, support skepticism as you claim) you've not been honest enough to do your own search of the literature to see how this stacks up against papers that *don't* support AGW skepticism. If you were an honest skeptic, & not merely a propagandist, then you'd have the common decency to do this.
How Sonia B.C. managed to have this piece of garbage listed as a peer-reviewed science journal reflects on her relational skills and aptitudes to work the system more than anything else.
If it appears in print, it is a rather sad thought that a tree was cut to support this nonsense. Even the pesky junk mail deserves to exist more than this thing.
If I were to go through a more rigorous exercise from my side of the issue that would require that I do the same on your side as well, such as evaluating whether E&E can legitimately be considered peer-reviewed.
This is a case of, be careful what you ask for.
So sure are you, Poptech. On what basis do you make such a bold claim? How do you know Rob didn't do exactly that? You expect us to take-at your word-your claim to have thoroughly checked all the papers you list as supporting the skeptic position-even though the evidence strongly suggests otherwise, yet you don't afford the same courtesy to Rob or any of the other posters here. Talk about typical denialist hypocrisy.
That's not the case because I would never use such absurd standards to evaluate a scientific issue. Would I poll everyone with a BS or better to evaluate a medical procedure? No.
The proper way to evaluate a specific scientific issue is to ask the specialists in that field of research. And I'm sure you are quite aware of the results of Doran 2009.
If you are going to claim that other journals "arbitrarily refuse papers because they come from a skeptic" you are going to have to back that up with some evidence.
In other words, E&E does not bother to thoroughly review their published papers, unlike other journals.
It only needs one person to be right.
The AGW paradigm may be correct but it will not be proven by numbers – it will only be proven by facts that are shown to comply with measured data.
AGW has mountains of measured data. If the doubters intend to overturn the established order they had best get to work producing some numbers and data of their own. It can be done, if your doubt is science based.
What you do in qualifying your list this way is essentially render it meaningless. Basically what you've done is stated that whatever you say goes regardless of any outside normalcy. You've created your own alternate universe that has no bearing on the world the rest of us live in.
Your history is a little fuzzy. Einstein developed ideas put forward by others years earlier. You could research this stuff you know.
Funny how if you search Google Scholar using "1500 year climate theory" in quotes, you get 0 results. "1500 year climate cycle" gets a measly 2 pages, mostly Singer, Loehle and company.
But I always thought it was the quality of the papers, not the quantity of papers that counted.
Really? Hm, the rest of the scientific community doesn't seem to agree with that position.
Poptech, are you going to publish your research in E&E or on your own website? I'd be very interested in seeing the data (if any) that you have based your 'theory' upon. Perhaps your 'theory' is only a hypothesis of yours and you have not yet collected any data one way or another.
Sorry, mods. I've had a bit of fun since poptech has joined in and has highlighted how far he is willing to go in his unscrupulous mischief. He is targeting those lacking basic research skills who are of a denialist bent. Not sure why he thinks anyone on this website would fall for his transparent 'tricks'.
Hm, so by your standard a paper that mentions "climate change" doesn't count. A paper has to specifically use the term "anthropogenic global warming?"
Fascinating.
Or not. Try anthropogenic "global warming" (quotes as shown), you get 47700 hits on Scholar.
What is meaningful is the fact that you are creating a red herring that is suggesting to people that there is a wide body of research that contradicts climate change.
All I've done is put your list in a broader perspective. Sorry if that's inconvenient for your.
Ah. Climate change has nothing to do with anthropogenic global warming? Is this right?
I read from you that your research led you to discover many such papers (i.e. your list) and you claimed that only a small portion is in E&E. You're really a funny guy.
And by the way, the words I attributed to SBC are her own. E&E is not worth a rabbit's turd to anyone doing real science, whether you like it or not. Your Gish gallop here is entertaining but makes as much sense as Monckton's self contradictory ramblings. Have a nice life in fantasy land.