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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."

 
Update (Feb 18):  In the comments Poptech has brought up several valid points about the search results I came up with.  In an effort to better quantify the denominator I did some additional research. I did year by year searches going back 40 years on "climate change" and "global warming", excluded citations, and checked for various other erroneous results. 
 
The outcome was, without even addressing the accuracy of the numerator, that the percentage does not change dramatically.  My first cursory search returned 0.1%.  The more detailed work resulted in 0.45%.  It's a big improvement for Poptech, by almost a factor of 5, but still the denominator is so large that it dwarfs the numerator. If a qualified outside group were to audit Poptech's list I believe the numerator would also shrink significantly. 
 
There is plenty of room for skepticism in all areas of science. Good science relies on healthy skepticism.  One highly biased individual creating a subjective list does not rise to the level of good scientific skepticism.
 

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Comments 401 to 450 out of 526:

  1. Poptech: "Choosing the denominator would be subjective." Agreed, but could probably be made less subjective than how you've described your numerator. In sum: Your subjective opinion is that 850 papers is strong evidence. Objectively, though, you can have no idea how strong, without numerical context. Subjectively, my suspicion is that 850 is a trivial number.
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  2. My view of the options, FWIW. 1a) Use part of the list as a museum of invalidated theory, clearly stating the theory (where possible) and the reason why it is invalid : outdated, incoherent, illogical, falsified. 1b) categorize the remaining papers where they may rebut arguments in particular cases (e.g. hurricane trends and many other examples). 2) Just ignore the list. Option 1a has the advantage of giving a resource to people on the internet faced with the real threat to understanding that these papers represent. Option 1b is properly the job of skeptics in each speciality.
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  3. For those of us who can think, option 2) is the best, Eric. It is obvious that PopTech is so ignorant of how review works that he confused appearing in a peer-reviewed publication with being reviewed. Hence the conference proceedings, editorials and other opinion pieces. It is also obvious that he barely read the title of some papers before including them in the list, so some papers have no reason to be there at all. I asked him 3 or 4 times about one specific paper (Mavromichalaki), he still has no answer. This is produced by the guy who calls it "my work" and will rant on and on about objectivity but can not even abide by his own objective, self defined standards when doing "his work." Frankly, if I was just starting to enquire about climate change and I ran into this kind of BS, it would be quite helpful to determine what exactly is there on the "skeptic" side. Not pretty. The 850 number is overinflated but PopTech can't bear to admit it. Either that or it was so hard to come up with that measly number that he does not want to take out even the flimsiest non reviewed opinion piece. After pages and pages of revealing PT's strange thought process, we're left with what was also obvious to start with: the silly list is meaningless. It is unfortunate that there are people out there with such low critical thinking skills that they'll be impressed by it, but we can't remake poeple's education over the internet.
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  4. Eric(skeptic) 's plan 1a seems best to me. Ignoring it only leaves The List out there unchallenged to be used as a bludgeon by people with an ax to grind. Philippe Chantreau: "Frankly, if I was just starting to enquire about climate change and I ran into this kind of BS, it would be quite helpful to determine what exactly is there on the "skeptic" side." After Climategate a skeptic/denier I know waved the emails around as definitive proof that AGW theory was bunk. I decided that it was time I seriously reexamine my stance on the subject. What i found was mostly (but not entirely) Scientific Theory vs Conspiracy Thoeory. Even without any scientific qualifications it was pretty easy to see who was on the side of reason.
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  5. pbjamm and Philippe... When I go to Alexa and check the reach his site gets, it's really very limited. The list does get bandied about here and there, but, in my experience, not nearly as much as the Oregon Petition (which got a lot of play on FoxNews). We've probably all given PT more time and energy than he's worth.
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  6. "We've probably all given PT more time and energy than he's worth." Amen to that ;-).
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  7. FWIW, I really couldn't give two hoots about his precious list, 'cause its so obviously a pile of garbage. His own words-whether he admits it or not-actually confirm that fact. What got my back up was his deliberate misrepresentation of how the scientific method works, & how peer-review works. Having worked in science for the better part of 16 years, it always irks me when those with no knowledge run off at the mouth-like he was. Still, as Rob says, regardless of what his ego is telling him, his audience actually sounds pretty limited.
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  8. "Which is irrelevant as I have added 15 more papers in it's place and the list already had an additional 25 papers beyond the 850." Hope you bothered to make certain that they claim what you say they claim-because you've shown a pretty bad habit so far of just putting anything on the list that even *sounds* like it supports your position-which is another great example of bad scientific method-gee, no wonder you're so quick to defend Beck's piece of garbage, you're like kindred spirits.
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  9. "Beck's paper was peer-reviewed and supports skepticism of AGW, thus is meets the criteria for inclusion on the list." Oh dear, your skepticism really is highly selective-isn't it? Just because E&E claims papers are peer-reviewed, doesn't make it so. If it were, it would have a far better reputation in the scientific community (it doesn't, btw) & would be listed on the ISI (which is the Gold Standard in scientific circles). If I tried to submit the "quality" of data that Beck tried to pass off, I'd be lucky to keep my job-let alone get published in a genuinely peer reviewed paper. So please spare me your "all-knowing BS", 'cause you don't know *diddley* about peer-review. You're just displaying an extremely bad case of D-K syndrome.
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  10. "ncorrect, what I have shown is that I readily admit that a small margin of error may exist within the list (1%) and I have taken steps to deal with this by actually having more papers than the actual number." As I've said, PT, claiming something is incorrect doesn't make it so-no matter how much you repeat the claim. The fact that your list consists of so many papers from E&E; that it contains so many papers that deal with Paleo-climate, not current climate (& so only speak to past drivers of climate change, not current ones); that many of the papers are opinion-based, not evidence-based; that many are published in obscure journals that have nothing to do with Climate Science or even the Environment; that you readily admit that you don't bother to check whether all the papers on your list are peer-reviewed; that many of the papers have since been debunked (not merely criticized, but outright proven *wrong*); that many of the papers clearly don't even support your "thesis" & that many of the papers are mutually contradictory *prove* that you're not low-balling at all, but are just casting as wide a net as possible to pad out the numbers (&, clearly, the size of that number is massively important to you-no matter your claims to the contrary). If the skeptic argument were so strong, then you'd be able to reach those same numbers purely from pure-science papers, from ISI listed journals, & without having to rely on mutually contradictory positions. That you've failed to do so proves, as I've said before, that your list is *junk*-& saying otherwise won't change a thing.
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  11. So, I decided to look up E-G Beck on Google Scholar &-guess what? He's only ever been published in E&E, & his paper has only been cited by authors publishing in E&E. No one publishing in any other journal seems willing to touch Beck with a 10-foot barge pole.
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  12. Poptech..."If only half should be thrown out. Since you do not know how many should be included it these sorts of statements are just as meaningless." No. You and I both know that most the papers are clearly peer reviewed and are referencing climate change. The statements are meaningful and quite damning to your list. "Rigorous methods have been applied to my list as each selection was independently reviewed. The number of errors found since the list was released has been less than 1%." This has not been demonstrated. In fact, it has been shown to be utterly false.
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  13. I've finally sussed it! ... Pop Tech is a modern, web based version of eliza. Clearly the sites techies have some kind of rule based AI engine, I suspect with a 3 stage markov chain, which does a textual analysis of posts (hence the quotes) and responds with: - that's objective/subjective - a return question - that's not logical - some phrases from a data base of replies etc. They've pre-loaded it with an ontology based on website posts... to narrow down the Q&A domain. This clearly explains why a "popular technology" website doesn't have any popular technology on it... it is a bit of technology! I think it's brilliant!
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  14. Poptech... "ncorrect, nothing has been demonstrated outside of the less than 1% margin of error that the list has maintained since it came out over a year ago." How can you possibly assign a margin of error to your own subjective opinion?
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  15. In the mountains of Colorado, when I was a child, I once found a tiny nugget of pyrite. I thought I was the richest boy in the world. Poptech, the intensity with which you defend and assign meaning to these 850 studies . . . what happens to that intensity when you think about the hundreds of thousands of published studies, experiments, observations, and instrumental records that support the theory of AGW? Do you say, "Yes, those are all very nice, and they do seem to have a point, but I'm just saying that this handful here is worth looking at"? Or do you say, "Yes, well these 850 clearly destroy the credibility of those many thousands"? Or is it that you have a possibly explicable but certainly overwhelming urge to side with the minority? I'm still not sure, after your hundreds of posts on SkS, of what you, yourself (unless you are a program, as les suggests), find to be demonstrably unsupportable about the theory of AGW. You seem to be more of an empty vessel or messenger than an actual critical voice. You might point to studies, but you don't seem to be able to defend those studies when criticisms of them are shown or linked. You either ignore or don't believe possible that an industry could bankroll a journal to serve a number of purposes, including the creation of doubt about AGW within the democracy--not doubt for the sake of science, but doubt for the sake of democratic immobility. E&E is the obvious example here. I suspect that if this matter were of a more personal nature--say regarding evidence that a large rock was about to fall on your head--you would take the majority opinion. If it is your ultimate purpose to cause confusion and doubt in new SkS readers, you're probably your own worst enemy. As many have said, though, your efforts are appreciated. You are typical of the "it's not happening/it's not us/it's not bad" crowd, and your willingness to keep plunging allows a number of political sideshows to be examined more thoroughly.
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  16. Poptech.... You have such incredible confidence in your list, why not validate it by writing up a paper and getting it published? If a top journal published your paper then you would shut all of us up forever and validate all of your points. And no, we won't shut up if it gets published in E&E. A top journal. Nature or Science or equivalent. Anything less and you're just blowing smoke.
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  17. "Can a moderator explain why this post was deleted as I do not understand what policy was violated" Don't worry Pop. I've had a number of posts deleted as well.
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  18. "I am here in this post to correct misinformation about the list." Interesting because the whole premise of the article was not to challenge the list at all. I said repeatedly that I was giving you the benefit of the doubt. I merely was attempting to put the number into a broader context relative to the full body of science on climate change.
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  19. Poptech... "Whether a paper was peer-reviewed is not subjective..." The issue is less about whether the papers are peer reviewed and more about whether they challenge AGW. The question of peer review comes from your extensive use of E&E which most working scientists consider to be the backwater of science. Kind of the last place you go when you can't get your paper published. "I have no intentions of publishing a paper on the list. " Where is that confidence you exude? Does it disappear when you believe that people will actually put your list under scrutiny? "If you were giving me the benefit of the doubt then you would not have linked to Greenfyre's nonsense" It's perfectly reasonable to point people to the challenges to you work, whether you agree with them or not. "But I am not just here for your comments but also to correct those from other posters." You realize, though, the more you post the more people respond. Right?
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  20. I keep trying to walk away from this thread, but it keeps going round and round with the same inevitable result as this NASCAR event. But until the crash occurs, here are some interesting numbers: Over at Ari Jokimaki's agwobserver, there is a list of 103 global warming topics. Each topic links to a list of papers (and they're all from real journals). Pulling 5 topics at random, they average 20 papers per topic, so Ari has indexed easily over 2000 papers -- an enormous achievement. As if this wasn't enough, he also has a list of 48 skeptic papers that have been thoroughly debunked -- some, multiple times. But the one that will put this NASCAR into the pits for good is the Thomson-Reuters sciencewatch.com November 2009 Climate Change database: The baseline time span for this database is (publication years) 1999-June 30, 2009 from the third bimonthly update (a 10-year + 6-month period). The resulting database contained 27,989 (10 years) and 11,428 (2 years) papers; 53,136 authors; 176 nations; 2,494 journals; and 10,801 institutions. I believe that was 27989 papers by 53136 authors (and that is a year old). The database allows sorting by author. The top 10 on the leaderboard are: Penuelas J 66, Chapin FS 57, Tol RSJ 57, Thuiller W 48, Allen MR 48, Chowin SL 47, Stott PA 46, Peterson AT 45, Giorgi F 44, Smith P 44. A cursory check of these names show these are mainly supporters of the A in AGW (which doesn't stand for 'alarm'). Seitz, Singer, Svensmark, Shaviv, McIntyre, Idso, Lindzen, Spencer et al. need not apply. It is also sortable by institution. The 10 most prolific are: Chinese Acad Sci 867, NOAA 420, Univ Colorado 414, Columbia Univ 412, USGS 387, USDA 368, UCBerkeley 363, NCAR 362, NASA 332, Max Planck Society 356. Surprised to see the CAS at the top of the pack, I found they are signatories to the Joint Science Academies Statement on Climate Change, which leaves little doubt about their position. The others are all recognizable names with well-known positions. The Marshall Institute does not make the list of top 20 institutions. Names that do not appear among the top 20 journals: E & E, Cato Institute, Iron & Steel, Waste Management, etc; nor do there seem to be any loosely defined 'policy' journals. See the thread on Compendium Maps for a prior reference to this database and some additional information.
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  21. Game, set & match to the muoncounter. All hail! The Yooper
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  22. Yooper, Nah, there are 53136 authors at the front of the line.
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  23. Poptech... I sampled a year that had fewer than 1000 results. I very much took this into account. The sampling is clearly robust. You can't poke holes all you want, Poptech, statistically the results are no different.
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  24. Moderator... Feel free to delete my response as well.
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  25. muoncounter@611 If only you had found and posted this 10 pages ago! I wonder if we shall now have to endure a few pages of Poptech criticizing the your list. Perhaps a rebuttal at his blog.
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  26. pbjamm... Poptech has a rule about carrying a conversation over to his blog from another blog. But of course he is allowed to carry that conversation over here. Hence, we have 619 comments here and he has one there. Go figure.
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  27. Poptech... Yes I certainly can. In fact, it's more likely to work in your favor, bub. I also went back and looked at very early years with few papers and the number of erroneous results is higher. So, I'm sampling a year that has a higher error rate than more recent years. Just get used to it. Your list accounts for a very very tiny fraction of the scientific work on climate change and there are approximately 400 papers a week coming out on this topic these days.
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  28. "Cato Journal" I'm sorry but I can't help but laugh every time I read those words.
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  29. Poptech... Your programmed responses are very tiring. Deflect as you may try, you know I'm right.
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  30. "You cannot claim robustness for something you did not sample." Yes you can. By your logic you could all polling data would be unacceptable. You don't have to have an exact number in order to infer a result.
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  31. PT: "Let me know when you get an actual number." Why? It won't make any difference to you. "I have refuted this some time ago" No, you have not refuted anything. What you have done is state ad nauseum that you have 'rebutted' this or rejected that as 'subjective,' using your own definitions for your own purposes. You cannot provide a single science based argument that could ever counter the likes of SoD, Rabbett, RealClimate, Trenberth, et al. who are the debunkers of your precious 'skeptics' in agwobserver's list. All you can do is repeatedly deny. It's boring and it needs to stop. "Idso and Lindzen have published more papers on the climate than most of them." So what? Here is a nice rundown on Lindzen; on Idso's group here. "That is because E&E is not indexed by them." How do you know that? If E&E is such a valuable paper, why isn't it indexed? And what's all this about 'validating' Rob's numbers? Who gave you the authority to 'validate' anything? If you don't accept what Rob has said, state your opinion as such. Lose the 'validation' concept. Give it up, PT. You've had a run. Time to move on.
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  32. Poptech... Again, you're looking for exacting methods where they have little impact on the results. You're saying that if I can't come up with an exact error rate for each year then the whole exercise is meaningless and that's completely absurd. You're quibbling tiny quantities. Based on the sample I did I got 6%. I don't care, call it 50% if you like, that will only change your number to 1% without even addressing the errors in your figures. You lose on all counts.
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  33. "You have still failed to disclose your sampling methods." I'm sorry I didn't notate the process. Make up your own. It won't make an appreciable difference in the results.
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  34. How can I sample results that I do not have and cannot obtain? Why will you not disclose your sampling method? The method matters little or not at all. Why can't you make up your own? You're not good enough with Google Scholar?
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  35. #611 Thanks Muoncounter, I no longer need to read any more of this car-crash of a thread.
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  36. I've been moved to post on this site for the first time due to the utterly depressing nature of this thread. Poptech - I'd never heard of you before this, and I wish you no ill will, but after 600+ comments you've come across as someone who's much more interested in arguing rhetorical points for the sake of it, rather than investing time in learning about climate science. Your debating style reminds me of an evasive politician, and as such you lose a significant amount of credibility. As for the rest of you commenting here, you're all understandably exasperated with this, but it's made you lose your cool many times, which also diminishes your credibility. Please find some way to avoid this kind of situation in the future, because it damages the reputation of this otherwise useful resource.
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  37. Here's the most conservative estimate for the denominator that I could find. It comes from The Atlas of Climate Change. I've scanned in a part of it here. Using the term 'climate change', they searched the database at Web of Science and found 17,761 papers published between 1971 and 2005. Bearing in mind that they define Climate change thus (my emphasis): 'A statistically significant variation in either the mean state of the climate or in its variability, persisting for an extended period (typically decades or longer). Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external radiative forcing, or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use. The UNFCCC, in its Article 1, defines it as: "a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods." This Atlas generally follows the UNFCCC's distinction between "climate change" attributable to human activities altering the atmospheric composition, and "climate variability" attributable to natural causes. Although often used to mean climate change, global warming is only one aspect of this - the increase in global mean temperature.' 850 papers is 4.8% of 17,761, making it very close to KR's estimate at comment 238.
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  38. Alex... Great stuff. And well put. Just ordered a copy of the book. Their definition is interesting. It seems like it would eliminate most paleoclimate reconstructions that we rely on to understand climate today. But I'll check out the book.
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  39. One might also note that, according to the same paper 2000 new papers a year are being published. That adds at least another 10k to the number. "...the phrase "climate change" does not mean it explicitly endorses "anthropogenic global warming"..." It doesn't have to. We are putting your 850 papers into the broader context of the full body of climate science.
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  40. Poptech... "Rob, do you support that none of these numbers 954,000, 850,000, 189,553 or 17,761 represent the number of peer-reviewed papers that explicitly or implicitly endorse "anthropogenic global warming"?" The exercise here was merely to show people that they can't just look at one number, such as 31,000 scientists or 850 papers, and think that tells them anything at all. They have to put the number in context. Whether 987K is correct or 17k is correct, I don't really care. Any of these denominators still makes your number very small. And don't say "this has not been established" again for the 300th time. It's utterly foolish to entertain for even 2 seconds that 850 papers represents a significant portion of climate research. And that's my last word in this thread. I'm done.
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  41. "I've spoken to the publisher, two editors of the journal and six authors who all confirmed that E&E is peer-reviewed. It is amazing to see what lengths you will go to misrepresent a journal you do not like. Are there scholarly peer-reviewed journals not listed by the ISI? What is considered the gold standard is subjective." Again with your selective skepticism, PT. Have you asked anyone from *outside* of E&E whether or not their peer-review standards are up to accepted standards? No, you merely rely on those who edit the journal & a mere handful of authors who've been published there (indeed, probably the only "authors" who've even bother submitting to E&E)-none of whom are going to tell you otherwise. The fact remains that there are very few-if any-reputable scientists that will try & get their work published outside of ISI listed journals, because all of the scientific community recognize that only journals with the highest standard of peer-review will get accepted. E&E still hasn't made the cut, & only a mere handful of scientists actually submit work for publication within it-in itself a damning indictment-as is the fact that no E&E papers seem to ever get cited in papers published outside of E&E (talk about "confirmation bias"). Your pathetic attempts to claim that standards in science are merely "subjective" continues to reveal nothing more than your complete *ignorance* of science. Which is why everything you say here about science is complete & utter garbage. Take it from someone who actually *works* in the scientific community, & who knows junk science when he sees it-& the "work" of Beck & MacLean definitely fit that bill, no matter how "subjective" a standard you apply. "Incorrect, the existence of a criticism does not mean a paper is debunked." Seriously, Poptech, your reading skills are *abysmal*. I said, not merely criticized, but utterly *debunked*-i.e. "proven to be factually incorrect." Beck's & MacLean's work have both been *proven* to be factually incorrect, but you've still left them on your list-just because they support your supposed skepticism.
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  42. Alex, "you're all understandably exasperated with this," Your Atlas cite should indeed have been the end of this train wreck. I'm curious: After the last few comments, do you have any further thoughts on the loss of credibility aspect of your comment here?
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  43. "Are these the high impact journals skeptics cannot get published in?" Ah, when all else fails, fall back on the old conspiracy theory-that high impact journals refuse to publish the work of skeptics. You deride so-called conspiracy theorists in other areas (like the JFK assassination & the 9/11 Troofers), yet you use *all* of their tactics to push your arguments. The fact is that *good* science has to meet very high, objective standards to get published in high impact journals. Even relatively medium-impact, ISI-listed journals still hold to very high standards. We leave the low-standard Junk Science to journals like E&E & Cato, which have an avowed goal of promoting AGW skepticism. Not exactly the best source of unbiased information.
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  44. I know I shouldn't but I came across this very funny analysis (thanks Tamino)of an E&E paper which gives some insight into the quality of E&E's editorial work, as well as the "peer-review". I know PT is completely indifferent to such considerations but just so anyone else doesnt confuse E&E with a science journal.
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  45. poptech@653 The majority of papers that are substantially in error are never corrected by a peer-reviewed comment. Instead the papers are normally merely ignored by the scientific community and cause no real harm. So expecting there to be a published comment indicates that you are unfamiliar with scientific publishing. I have written two comments papers myself (neither in climatology), but that doesn't mean I have only ever seen two incorrect journal papers. As has been pointed out to you, a paper collection exercise is pointless, the reference list in the IPCC WG1 report is much longer than your list of 850 papers, and also has the advantage of a substantial commentary explaining why the papers are relevant. You need to consider whether the papers are (a) correct and (b) actually do suppport skepticism except your own. The fact the paper was published with a repeated paragraph suggests that not only did the editor not bother reading the galley proofs properly, but neither did the authors!
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  46. 653 Poptech, Surely you are not suggesting that the Archibald (2006) paper has any credibility.
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  47. Poptech: I agree that there appears to be a printing error on his paper and I have seen errors like this in all types of works. But how many peer review journals (other than E&E) can you cite containing printing errors of that magnitude? Examples please.
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  48. Poptech: I have not seen a published criticism with a response from the author to make a determination on the validity of the blog criticism. So I am unable to answer your question. If a comment is published I will be more than willing to read it. I didn't ask you whether or not there are any published comments on it. I asked if "you" thought the article was credible science.
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  49. 656 RickG: He's suggesting that the NIPCC has the same credibility as the IPCC report... it's probably subjective, though.
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  50. Poptech@655 "I agree that there appears to be a printing error on his paper" It isn't a printing error, as those who have published in journals will know, the typsetter sends a "galley proof" to the authors and the editors, and the paper is only published once the galley proof has been accepted by the authors and editor. The galley proof shows exactly how the paper will appear in print, so if there is an error it is the responsibility of the authors and the editor who approved it. As I said, it doesn't say much for either party that a repeated paragraph got through as it indicates they didn't read the galley proof properly. "and I have seen errors like this in all types of works." Can you give an example where it has occurred in a peer-reviewed journal? I suspect not, for the simply reason that such an error would have been detected during (competent) peer review.
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