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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 101 to 150 out of 703:

  1. 140 Ron Thanks. So not really a "typical" example of anything. I guess the rest Of the list is equally dubious? So: what Dana said. 2/10 to Mr PopTech; amusing, but could try harder.
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  2. Skepticalscience readers, Here is a challenge that I hope someone with more time than I will follow though on: 1) Find out how may papers on the list are also cited in the IPCC reports. 2) As I mentioned in my previous post, papers which have been overturned/refuted in the literature are also still on the list-- find all the papers which have been refuted. 3) Find all the papers which are inconsistent with each other or contradict each other (e.g., papers saying it was warmer during previous interglacials or MWP, and others claiming that equilibrium climate sensitivity is low). If the skeptics want to overthrow the theory of AGW they need to present a cohesive, consistent and coherent picture, not one that includes a wide myriad of logical fallacies, contradictions and refuted science.
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  3. Poptech wrote : "It simply has to do with whether a paper(s) or results from their paper(s) support skeptic's arguments against AGW Alarm." Why does it appear so difficult for you to understand the simple fact that, as Pielke Jr has already told you (no, not in a private correspondence or email - why would he bother wasting his time telling you privately what he has told you publically ?), your little list supports only your definition of what a 'skeptic' is and what 'AGW Alarm' means. The list means nothing outside of that, apart from a number that the more credulous of so-called skeptics can use to try to claim that it is a lot. Try to see things as they are in the real world and in other people's minds. Try to come outside your bubble and understand that, just because you think you can self-determine what a particular word means, doesn't mean that it has any validation to anyone else. Try it. Poptech wrote : "I am entitled to the context of the words I use. What is amazing is you believe that a word with multiple definitions, that I use in my own context, must not mean what I say but what you want." I'm not too sure what you're trying to say here. Is it that you determine the meaning of words and can use any meaning of any particular word (that has more than one meaning) as you see fit, and that everyone else in the real world then has to try to work out which meaning you are using in any particular moment ? That the context you have in your head (which is usually hidden from everyone else) should be evident to everyone else in the real world ? Hm, I have news for you - if you play with words and try to claim that their meaning is determined by yourself, you are being shifty, insincere, shallow and untrustworthy. Sorry. Poptech wrote : "Do you support Dr. Pielke's position on hurricanes? "My analysis of a long-term data set of hurricane losses in the United States shows no upward trend..." Roger Pielke Jr." As usual, we have the Poptech shuffle, where nothing is as it seems and words are used to suit the Poptech agenda. The rest of that quote (from 2005) is : ...once the data are normalized to remove the effects of societal changes. That was a response to a K. Emanuel paper, to which Emanuel also responded, but to which Pielke didn't again respond. Ultimately, Pielke's paper is not against 'AGW Alarm' (except in Poptech's version of 'AGW Alarm'), and Emanuel's response took into account Pielke's claims. No 'AGW Alarm' here...only in Poptech's world.
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  4. Albatross, having read many threads on this little list, on many websites over the last year or so, I think you may find that the vast majority of the papers have already been looked at and shown to be not what anyone in the real world would take to be 'AGW Alarm' - whatever that actually means. Examples are Greenfyre and here (both of which have other links), and THE GUARDIAN, for a start. Once you start searching into Poptech and his little list, you see that he pops up everywhere, posting scores of the same old stuff. It makes me wonder whether he has time to do anything else all day ! Anyway, perhaps the best thing to do with such people is to not give them the legitimacy they are looking for - one's attention. Ignore him and he will wither away - all rational people can see his little list for the numbers game it attempts to be (albeit not very many numbers, especially after taking into account that none of them would conform to any definition of 'AGW Alarm' in the real world), and it is going the way (into obscurity) that all such desperate lists or petitions go. If it wasn't for all those who are going to his site to find out which papers he claims back-up his own beliefs, he would probably have very little traffic at all. Perhaps someone can get hold of the list and post it elsewhere, so we can all look at it without increasing his traffic ?
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  5. #146: "Here is a challenge... " Albatross, Since this should be about climate change science vs. Poptech science, I'd add one more item to your challenge: Count the number of non-scientific papers. Note that his definition of peer-reviewed starts with "scientific or scholarly writing or research" which should preclude such titles as: -- Ecological Science as a Creation Story -- Climate Policy: Quo Vadis? -- The Case Against Linking Environmental Degradation and National Security -- An Alternative View of Climate Change for Steelmakers (from Iron and Steel Technology) Note too that many papers are behind paywalls. Without access (some don't even have accessible abstracts), who can say if the inclusion of a paper is really justified?
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  6. ""When I use a word,"poptech said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said poptech "which is to be master - that's all." Through the Looking Glass.
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  7. "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all." Through the Looking Glass.
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  8. john byatt - Well said. Rob Honeycutt - While I would agree that this contribution did act as a honeytrap, and brought PopTech online to flail about on his list of contradictory, poorly reviewed papers, I have to say that as a frequent visitor and occasional posting contributor to this site; it's not worth the hassle. The signal to noise ratio is far too low for my tastes - I would prefer that in the future similar posts be either more clearly targeted and more informative regarding individuals promoting "skeptic" views without support, or alternatively avoid calling such individuals out, and describing the weight of evidence and consensus without insulting particular people. Either way works - but the current topic is riding down the middle - calling out particular people without sufficient exposing of their faults. It's an enjoyable post, but again; the noise level here has been far too high.
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  9. #149 Then Pielke truly contradicts himself if you will as he states in Normalized Hurricane Damage in the United States: 1900–2005. "Unless action is taken to address the growing concentration of people and properties in coastal areas where hurricanes strike, damage will increase, and by a great deal, as more and wealthier people increasingly inhabit these coastal locations." So by his own admission, damage will increase, and by a great deal, and if damage increases, then so does the trend.
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  10. KR... I'll tell you what prompted me to write this. I was posting on a denier site called NoTrickZone and a regular there, someone who says he has a decades long background in physics, trotted out the 850 peer reviewed papers. I was taken aback. Why does this guy think that that list has any weight? The list gets trotted out like a lame old show horse to give people this image that there is merit to their skepticism. And my immediate mental response was, "Yeah, but what's the denominator?" Let's put that old show horse in a real race. See how he runs. You're totally right, PopTech causes a total ruckus where ever he shows up. He lives in an alternate universe of logic that makes no sense to anyone else. But I think there is a teaching moment here. Numbers need context. I really don't care how PopTech chooses to slice and dice the data. He's always going to try to find a way to contort logic to fit his conclusions. But what I do care about is that there are other people who read the article who might have a minor epiphany about numbers and their relationships. The article is not aimed at people with PhD's in physics. They know this. But there are obviously people who have not figured this out, like the guy at NTZ, and other people who are snowed by having a "big" number tossed in their face without context. I wish this were the conversation taking place here rather than PopTech running around knocking over the furniture.
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  11. This has been a fascinating set of comments. But everyone is missing the obvious: Poptech, when are you going to re-write your list into a scientific study and get it published in a peer-reviewed journal? There's one other document out there that is worthy of this sort of study. That is U.S. Senator James Inhofe's annual list of "scientists" who dispute global warming. I don't know if anyone has taken the time to analyze it completely, but Inhofe's definition of scientist includes people who are, e.g. TV weatherman.
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  12. FYI...PopTech is mainly rehashing the same arguments deconstructed here (warning: politicalforum.com is much more lax with civility, so hold your nose). PopTech TrainWreck Among many things, when requested to provide specific objective criteria for defining "alarm" (such as a value for climate sensitivity), PT dodges and just repeats the same arguments ad nauseum. The only thing to add since then, regarding the political journal Energy & Environment, even postnormal Judy Curry knows this journal does not have a credible peer review process. JC: "His insistence on not even responding to these criticisms leads people to regard him as a crank/crackpot. Based on Part II, he can probably get this published in E&E, but certainly not in any scientific journal of any repute or credibility." PopTech might want to submit his result to E&E, or perhaps the Cato Journal.
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  13. the irrefutable fact that E&E is peer-reviewed. When E&E editor gives papers that suit her agenda the "peer-review" of a tobacco science journal, then the term comes to mean something very different for what it means in rest of science (essentially "peer" means someone of same ideological leanings and with complete disrespect for process). This is reflected in way real science (and citation index keepers) treat the journal, and frankly those who publish in it. Peer review was created as a gate-keeper to ensure quality and when a journal repeatedly fails to use it the way intended, then articles will not be considered peer-reviewed by the rest of the community.
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  14. I gave up on reading all these comments, back and forth about the numbers of papers supporting or not supporting AGW. I fail to see why this criterion measures anything. (See Malcolm Gladwell's discussion of college rankings in the Feb 14 and 21 2011 New Yorker. The metrics challenged in this post are probably not reflective of anything, since it is not clear what is being measured.) In any case, the most recent (2009)Census figure for BS and above is 60 million (you can get the spreadsheet here: http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/data/cps/2009/tables.html .
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  15. Please Poptech, reveal the 'validity' of your 850 "peer reviewed" papers by citing just one on a specific subject like "Global Cooling" since the late 1990s. Then have it subjected to critical analysis. Repeat the process 4 times with other subjects, chosen at random, and see how many of them withstand critical analysis. Here's what I'm getting at. Let's imagine a person of supposed confidence, in a work environment, makes 50 specific statements on a wide variety of work related issues. Then, upon actually investigating 5 of those 50 statements, chosen at random, you find out that they're either damn lies or half truths. Would you even bother to investigate the other 45 statements? Intuitively you'll know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if 5 statements are false then the other 45 have a very high probability of also being false. Falsification is a scientific proceedure. What attempts have you made at falsification?
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  16. villabolo - Ah, yes, sampling - a wonderful technique. I tried that on Googling 'anthropogenic "global warming"' applying only to biology, chemistry, and physics - no patents, no citations. I got 19,600 results. Reading five of the first 10 pages returned, I found only 1 (~2%) that did not attribute recent warming to anthropogenic causes, and another 1 (again, ~2%) that found it difficult to distinguish natural from anthropogenic causes. All of the results I looked at discussed global warming and anthropogenic causes thereof. PopTech - the consensus indicates that, while there are a few objections to AGW, the mass of people looking at the problem do not agree. There are definitely people who agree with your outlook - but they are the vast minority. There are always folks who disagree with the consensus (such as this one, or this). The existence of people who disagree with well established results and what is quite frankly established science does not invalidate established science, but is rather a commentary on the delightful perversity of humankind.
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  17. Poptech @149 Yes/No are not the only possible answers here. After reading through the response by Emanual linked by JMurphy@147 I think the most honest answer is "I dont know." It appears that Emanual and Pilke could both be right since they are talking about two different measures.
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  18. "What is considered "quality research" is subjective." Well, with that one line, you've basically *failed* Science 101. Not only that, but you've also proven that any claims about how you've confirmed all the papers on your list cannot be taken seriously-as you clearly wouldn't know "Quality Research" if it punched you in the nose. In fact, most reputable Journals have very clear & objective rules for what defines *quality* research-& Beck's paper fails on pretty much every count. Yet still it got accepted by E&E. Also, what does Beck's paper qualifications have to do with anything? All you've done is proven my original point, that the guy lacked any practical research experience & is most *definitely* not an expert in Atmospheric Chemistry. Indeed, I'd argue that my own qualifications & background gives me *more* authority to speak on atmospheric chemistry than the qualifications of Beck.
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  19. "Do you support Dr. Pielke's position on hurricanes?" Sorry, but how is that even relevant? Whether or not we support Pielke's position on Hurricanes has absolutely no bearing on his position regarding your misuse of his papers on your list. He has been very polite in telling you-on more than one occasion-that his papers do not say what you claim they say, yet still you use them in your list. Are you calling him a liar? Are you calling him ignorant? Come on, Poptech, don't avoid the question: did Pielke effectively tell you that his papers do not say what you're claiming they say?
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  20. I wonder how PopTech would classify a paper by Cliff Ollier setting out novel views about Greenland ice loss, published in a reviewed journal at http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/gsl/site/GSL/lang/en/page7209.html Does PopTech take take into account that Olliers position is subsequently demolished by a paper published in the same journal a month later, at: http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/gsl/geoscientist/features/page7523.html The first paper would I am sure get on the PopTech list but I very much doubt that any note would be taken of the second paper.
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  21. As always, fascinating. The various means the "denial" community come up with of "disproving" stuff. It's going to keep philosophers of science, sociologists, psychologists etc. in work for years to come. I had no idea of Pop Tech's particular techniques before... and yet it seems to date back to 2009. Better Check That List / rogerpielkejr.blogspot "My attention has just be called to a list of "450 Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of "Man-Made" Global Warming." A quick count shows that they have 21 papers on the list by me and/or my father. Assuming that these are Hypothesis 1 type bloggers they'd better change that to 429 papers, as their list doesn't represent what they think it does." all be it with a smaller, and shrinking, numerator.
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  22. Poptech@71 wrote "Show me a paper that does not mention "anthropogenic global warming" but explicitly endorses it." Just as an exercise, I tried to find the phrase "anthropogenic global warming" in the IPCC WG1 scientific basis report. I ocurrs exactly once and once only (on page 896, in a discsussion of the projected regional climate change for central and south america.) Now if that one reference were deleted, would the IPCC WG1 report no longer be "expicitly endorsing" "anthropogenic global warming" (other than in mere pedantry)? Poptechs challenge just demonstrates that he has not really looked at the literature, there are plenty of papers by e.g. James Hansen that do not contain the phrase "anthropgenic global warming", does that mean they don't support the hypothesis that much the observed warming since the late 20th century is due to an anthropogenic increase in long-lived GhGs? No, of course not. Poptech has been told before that if he wants to curate a resource that would actually be of benefit to the skeptics, he needs to do more than just collect papers. He needs to organise them by topic (much as John has done here at sks - which is why it is a vauable resource); but more importantly he needs to weed out the papers that are incorrect - otherwise he is sending skeptics into battle* armed with blanks. I'm sure they'll thank him for that! A skeptic version of skepticalscience would be a really good thing for the debate, if it would stop the same old tired canards being trotted out again and again, rather than encouraging their reuse, which is all that Poptech's list really achieves. * N.B. as far as the science there are no "sides" and no "battle" - we are all seeking the truth.
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  23. No-one has the time to verify that many results anyway. Maybe one person with too much time on their hands would look at all publications from a certain year and extrapolate from there using data for all published articles. Anyway, the obvious point remains that regardless of the exact numbers involved, you have 850 papers (some of shall we say, less than stellar quality?) and there are thousands and thousands of climate papers out there that evidently implicitely work from the grounding that AGW is happening or explicitely state that it is. If they didn't, they'd be on your list right? So, are you denying that there are vastly more papers than your 850 that explicitely or implicitely accept that AGW is real (even the parts you might find 'alarming'), just because the exact number of those papers is so large it can't easily be quantified? I know there are more grains of sand on a beach than 850... but I can't count them all. I guess that means by Poptech's logic that his list has as many 'skeptical' papers as there are grains of sand on a beach?
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  24. Nope. Should be possible, like I said, to take a sample and extrapolate. I certainly can't be bothered tho - you just ain't worth it.
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  25. #168, 169 Poppy Tech: Check Mate Anyone understand what he's saying? I tried Robs search and it works much the same, no 1,000 result limit. I've no idea what the Google Scholar Help link is on about, but it's under the heading of "Citation Export", so I suppose it's something to do with the API, judging by the other help questions... Makes on wonder about the reliability of his list if it involves using advanced technology like google, without him having a clear understanding of that technology...
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  26. Yeah I got what he meant Les. It will tell you how many results there are, but wont let you see any beyond page 100. Of course Poptech would not be satisfied until every one had been gone over with a fine tooth-comb to find hints of skepticism via his foolishly broad definition of 'alarm', whereas all the rest of us can see that there are undoubtedly way, way more papers that conclude that AGW is cause for alarm (by Poptech's definition) than the other way around, and hence the exact number won't matter - it will dwarf 850.
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  27. Poptech@175 Go get yourself a copy of the IPCC WG1 scientific basis report (you know the one that demonstrates AGW is a cause for concern) and count the references. Then remember that the IPCC report is only a summary overview of the key research.
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  28. Since, apparently it matters, would the regular posters here be willing to list their degrees and experience?
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    Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] It doesn't matter, unless perhaps someone tried to make an argument from authority based on their own claimed expertise, in which case it would be for them to demonstrate the support for their claim. In science the merit of an argument is based on its internal consistency and support from experiment, observation and theory; the source of the argument is irrelevant.
  29. 173,174: fair enough... in fact - and this is nit picking - it wont, as they say, go beyond result 1000 (give 10 results per page, that's page 100)... very odd. If someone has the time, you can always do it year by year, of course... so not impossible to verify. but the post does say 200 pages. Just to save a little face... we can verify the rogerpielkejr.blogspot post... it's only 1 page ;)
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  30. Why is it that you avoid addressing issues that others in this thread have raised Poptech? You insisted that certain of your questions be addressed and they have, but you don't give the same consideration in return. Is it a case that you don't know or you simply clam up when things don't go your way? The best way to treat your list of 850 would be to transpose it onto toilet paper so that at least some good use might be made of it. I'm sorry but the generous figure of 2.4% dissent that I gave you illustrates your weak position. There will always be some level of dissent, that's normal. When you come across something that is Earth shattering enough to sway the 95% opinion that you and others are not barking up the wrong tree, let us know. You can harp over the numbers all you want but it does not change the complexion of things one iota. In the mean time your arguments are as weak as an individual in Germany who contends that he can use "geometric harmonic index" to explain global temperature trends over the last ~5,000 years, and extrapolate it a further 1,000 years into the future. Go check it out, maybe it qualifies for your list. As I said before, your time would be better spent if you set your mind to be constructive because you add nothing worthwhile to any debate or discussion
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  31. #174: "hence the exact number won't matter - it will dwarf 850." Even 'the 850' is still inflated - it includes policy papers which have no science content. If PT wants to challenge the science, he must stick to science papers, not the opinions of policy wonks.
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  32. One of the largest problems I have with PopTechs list is that it is inconsistent. For example: the inclusion of the Gerlich and Tscheuschner 2009 paper denying the greenhouse effect entirely, along with the Lindzen papers arguing low climate sensitivity to the acknowledged greenhouse effect, mean that the list makes no consistent point. The contents are simply self-contradictory. To quote: "Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said 'one ca'n't believe impossible things.' 'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the White Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast..." PopTech, it might be a useful list if it were categorized as to argument, so that particular issues could have a body of work supporting a discussion; preferably separated between peer-reviewed science and policy papers. Currently, however, it's just a number (850 at the moment) of disjointed papers and articles pointing in every direction possible, a pile of jackstraws - lacking coherence and utility.
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  33. #175: there may or may not be more alarm papers than non-alarm papers in the denominator. But there are a lot more papers there. Your job, if you choose to accept it poptech, is to focus on the numerator and clean it up. As a token AGW science defender on a U.S. conservative forum, one of my biggest problems is disorganized lists such as yours without quality control that get cherry picked so I have to spend time explaining why N2 is not a greenhouse gas.
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  34. Poptech@182 It is not possible to verify your list of 850 papers that 'Supporting Skepticism of "Man-Made" Global Warming (AGW) Alarm', as it appears that whether a paper supports skepticism of AGW alarm is rather subjective, especially once you include the word (alarm). There are plenty of papers in your list that suggest that AGW is likely to be a problem, for example: Joan Feynmana, "Has solar variability caused climate change that affected human culture?, (Advances in Space Research, Volume 40, Issue 7, pp. 1173-1180, March 2007) A paper that shows that in the past, climate change (caused by changes in solar activity) has caused the collapse of societies in the past. No cause for alarm there then! The paper provides no evidence to suggest the current warming is due to an increase in solar activity (we measure it these days, so we would know). So I can't see why this paper should be a cause for any skepticism regarding AGW "alarm", unless of course one was rather uninformed.
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  35. apiratelooksat50(177) "Since, apparently it matters, would the regular posters here be willing to list their degrees and experience?" Does it matter? I do not need an advanced degree to accept the findings of experts who do. If I wish to contradict them and their findings I had better be able to show either (1)my work or (2)some evidence that I have extensively studied the subject at hand. (1) requires a research paper of some sort. (2) can be managed with a relevant scientific degree. With that said, if I claim to have advanced degrees in Fluid Dynamics, Thermodynamics, Climatology and Rock History who can contradict me?
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  36. PopTech.... The whole point of the exercise is that it's more of a cartoon response to your cartoon claims. You come in here ranting and raving and knocking over the furniture about my methods and how nothing can be verified but you categorically and emphatically refuse to apply even the slightest skepticism to your own list. Look, no one claims that there are not papers that challenge AGW. Of course there are! There must be for science to operate correctly. But you've gone so far overboard trying to build and defend your list that you've rendered it utterly worthless. It's sad because it honestly could be a great resource if you applied even just a little bit of scientific rigor to it. But you seem emotionally incapable of such a project. I guess the problem here is that, if one were to do a real study the results would not support what you would like to find. In that you are clearly not a skeptic. You are a climate change denier.
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  37. PopTech said... "Rob, is it possible to verify your number of 954,000 using Google Scholar?" Of course it's possible. It would be a massive task. But again you fail to apply any rigor to your list so I would say we're on equal footing here, bub.
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  38. Poptech@189 While google only return the first 1000 results on-line, that doesn't mean it would not be possible to get the full list off-line by writing to Google. However, your one-line reply highlights the point Rob was making, which is that you don't apply the same skepticism to your own list, which is why you evaded answering the substantive point Rob made. Still, it is your choice...
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  39. PopTech... Here's a start on verification just to give you a taste. How many papers have been published in Nature that contain the exact phrase "climate change?" 3120. Yes that's more than you can actually pull up at a time. So you'd have to bread it down into yearly segments. But that's just one reputable journal out of probably 10,000 or more peer reviewed journals. You can see where this is going. We slice and dice all you want but the results are likely to come out pretty close to the same.
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  40. PopTech said... "Rob, how is this possible if only 1000 results are listed?" Come on, are you really so uncreative that you can't think of a way? Break it down by years, by journals, by authors. There are plenty of ways do parse out the data in chunks that are smaller than 1000 papers.
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  41. 190 Poptech Does your list include those often cited papers by Christopher Monckton? You know, the one's that he says support his anit-AGW claims but the authors of the papers say they don't.
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  42. 189. As I pointed out, use by year. Is it that hard?
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  43. In just 2010 - 2011 there have been 398 articles published in Nature that contain the exact phrase "climate change."
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  44. Muon @ 180 and Dikran @ 185. I had already noted these problem with PT's list when it contained 700 papers, a little while ago. Many papers without science content that are related to policy or social aspects. Many papers that a superficial look would suggest as undermining some aspect of AGW (the A or the W most of the time), but that, on closer reading, can introduce even more cause for concern. Many publications that are obscure at best, and of course, the heavy reliance on that travesty of a journal that is E&E. As PT admitted himself, he can't read them all, so some are bound to show pretty much the opposite of what he would like, as you found, Dikran. I'm glad I didn't spend too much time digging in the list, because it soon struck me that what I did spend had been a total waste. I avoid doing that nowadays.
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  45. There are another 159 articles in Nature that contain the exact phrase "global warming" and don't contain the phrase "climate change." You see where I'm going with this? There are nearly as many papers published in one year in one highly reputable journal as you've been able to collect (using your absurd standards) in several years time. The Denominator simply crushes you into nothingness.
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  46. I've never seen a comment from PopTech, here or anywhere else, that I'd describe as anything more than trolling. Given the fact that he's basically incapable of admitting error, and is pretty much his own worst enemy, why give him so much patient attention?
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  47. Poptech, What exactly is it you are arguing for here? Are you arguing that a large percentage of Climate Change papers are alarmist? Skeptical of AGW? Skeptical of the dangers? All we currently have is your 850 number that you believe support your position. But, even after reading this entire thread, I am not sure what that is. The point of the original article is still valid. Without the total number of papers published on the subject your 850 is entirely without context.
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  48. #199: "stated on the list that all the papers are science papers only that they are peer-reviewed." More obfuscation and hiding behind semantics. Your own definition of 'peer-reviewed' begins with scientific or scholarly research. Papers about policy don't fit; especially since you dispute the science, there is nothing to talk about in policy. This bickering should really be done on PT's site; its just noise here. Or does PT not take comments as freely as SkS?
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  49. PopTech said... "Rob, how did you peruse 200 pages?" Are you avoiding questions again? Can't take the heat?
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  50. PopTech said... "Rob, why are you counting results about climate control systems in automobiles?" Give me a break.
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