What headlines would look like there.
Obviously, I disagree with the one on global warming. “Consensus” is not a scientific term. And even if it were, it’s not close to 90%.
46 thoughts on “A Mathematically Literate World”
Comments are closed.
What headlines would look like there.
Obviously, I disagree with the one on global warming. “Consensus” is not a scientific term. And even if it were, it’s not close to 90%.
Comments are closed.
Multiple attempts to gauge the views of climate scientists have put the percentage who concur with the AGW hypothesis north of 90%. If that isn’t the right number, what is?
That number remains bullshit, regardless of the degree of repetition.
There is no “right number.” It all depends on who you ask, and how you phrase the question.
A 2009 survey asked 3,000 Earth scientists “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?” 82% answered yes. 97% of the climate specialists in the sample answered yes.
Do you know of any surveys of climate scientists that didn’t report overwhelming support for the AGW hypothesis?
a) That survey was four years ago, before it became clear that Gaia wasn’t cooperating with the models and b) it has been debunked numerous times since.
it has been debunked numerous times since.
There are legitimate criticisms to be made of any survey. But when you have a half-dozen or so independent efforts giving you roughly the same result, and no contradictory surveys, simply dismissing that result isn’t reasonable.
There are no “half dozen independent efforts giving roughly the same result.” The only one that people ever cite is the bogus 97% one. And we just showed you a (more recent) contradictory survey, but you find it inconvenient.
There’s Oreskes 2004 (and Peiser’s confirmation thereof), Cook 2013, Anderegg 2010, Doran 2009 and Powell 2012. That’s five.
And we just showed you a (more recent) contradictory survey, but you find it inconvenient.
It isn’t contradictory at all! Like the others, it shows the overwhelming majority (93%) of climate scientists agreeing with the AGW hypothesis.
So where’s the survey that shows most climate scientists dissenting?
No one has claimed that there is a survey showing most climate scientists dissenting. But surveys are not how science is done.
No one has claimed that there is a survey showing most climate scientists dissenting. But surveys are not how science is done.
Then why are you working so hard to cast doubt on the surveys that have been done?
The fact that multiple independent surveys find 90+% support for AGW clearly matters. If a new survey came out that showed a much lower figure you’d be sure to link to it, whether or not that’s “how science is done”.
Then why are you working so hard to cast doubt on the surveys that have been done?
Because religionists like you are trying to make us think they mean something.
Nobody knows the right number. The questions are loaded. Scientists who only believe in some small impact are counted among those who believe in imminent catastrophe, and the respondents themselves self-select as those who either care whether there is a consensus or not, or who want to remain or jump aboard the gravy train.
We do know this much: there is a significant opposition, which includes some very accomplished and authoritative experts (e.g., Lindzen, Salby,…) and the number of detractors is growing as the Earth continues to fail to warm in accordance with prognostications for going on two decades now.
Is the opposition significant relative to, say, the opposition to the theory of evolution? How would you tell?
Of course it is significant. Opposition to evolution is not scientifically sound. Arguments against it are founded on a profound lack of understanding of the very scientific method (and often of ignorance about things like thermodynamics). Arguments against CAGW are scientifically and mathematically rigorous. It’s stupid to conflate the two. For instance, do you think that Freeman Dyson is a hack, and doesn’t understand physics?
I don’t think Dyson is a hack, but I also think it’s possible to be brilliant in one scientific field and out of step with 90+% of the experts in another. There are plenty of brilliant, non-hack scientists who don’t think humans evolved from single-cell organisms by natural selection. You can pick just about any high-profile, widely-accepted scientific theory and find credentialed dissidents to that theory. In time some of them will turn out to be right! But in general we expect laypeople, and policy makers in particular, to respect the current mainstream scientific view, even when they wish for whatever reason (political, religious, economic, cultural, etc.) that it wasn’t so. We expect kids to get vaccinated, we expect schools to teach evolution, we expect politicians to base decisions on GMO crops on mainstream science, not a fringe minority view — no matter how brilliant and credentialed the authors of that view may be.
You want to pick and choose which mainstream scientific views to respect. You are far from alone in that.
Climate science is physics. Dyson is one of the most brilliant physicists in history. He and others have pointed out the many flaws in the field. Much of the published work is junk, and can be (and has been) easily demonstrated to be so, by anyone who even knows basic statistics, let alone physics.
Jim, you don’t want respect. You want obedience.
You want obedience
If the mainstream science says that vaccines are a good idea, and a policy maker supports vaccination, is that an example of “obedience”? Or is it an example of a layperson taking advantage of the work of scientific experts to make better policy decisions?
Whatever you call it, that’s the sort of thing I want.
If the mainstream science says that DDT is a bad idea, and a policy maker supports banning DDT, is that an example of “obedience”?
How many people have died in Africa from malaria, so Jim can have what he wants?
I don’t believe it was ever the mainstream scientific view that DDT use for malaria prevention should be banned; do you have evidence otherwise?
I don’t believe it was ever the mainstream scientific view that DDT use for malaria prevention should be banned
Whatever you lying sack. Rachel Carson received her Presidential Medal of Freedom from Jimmy Carter. There’s your scientist getting her award from the policy maker, while millions die worldwide because you don’t want to believe.
Jim you want obedience because it isn’t about believing in global warming. It is about the implementation progressive policies.
Even if the scientists were our betters who we should have blind faith in, that in no way should translate to blind faith and obedience to politicians and activists who have shown time and time again a lack of integrity, lack of respect, and a record of incompetence.
We have plastic grocery bags becaue environmentalists thought we were killing all the trees. We have plastic watter bottles because environmentalists thought tap water was bad for you. Environmentalists are now pushing canvas bags that make great bacterial colonies and metal water bottles mined from the Earth.
Why should we have blind faith in politicians and activists?
Also, it is interesting in how religiosity is used by AGW alarmists. You use respect in the biblical context.
Science isn’t about popularity of a particular view, even among professional scientists, it’s about facts. I can virtually guarantee that in every field there is some belief held by 90% of the scientists in that field which is utterly false. Belief doesn’t make truth, evidence and experiments reveal what the truth is.
Exactly so. But Truth is elusive, and public policy decisions need to be made. “What 90% of the experts in the field believe” isn’t Truth, but it’s the best approximation available.
No, it’s not.
What better approximation is available to a lay policy maker?
Sometimes the science is simply too uncertain to be of use to a policy maker. That is the case here.
That is the case here.
And who makes that judgement — the experts in the field, or others?
Both. And one can be an “expert in the field” without doing it for a living, or on a government grant.
It doesn’t matter how many agree. The AGW theory has no predictive power and is based on a physically impossible idea (that one of the heaviest gases in the atmosphere will form a layer in the upper atmosphere rather than collecting near the surface). Of course if getting funding is contingent upon giving lip service to the impossible…
Rand, is this an example of “scientifically and mathematically rigorous” criticism of AGW?
No. But that doesn’t make it incorrect.
Making bogus associations with religion or evolution isn’t scientific either. Argue on the merits of the topic. We could all rattle off a list of examples where concensus was wrong and when authority was incorrect. Like slavery or the accuracies of Obamacare predictions by Democrats.
Where do you get the idea that CO2 has to form a layer in the upper atmosphere to have a greenhouse effect?
Arrhenius. Where did you get the idea that the greenhouse effect could possibly work on a planet wide scale without a layer of IR absorbency in the stratosphere?
Surely you know that hot air rises. Do you know why? If your answer is that hot air is less dense (and therefore more buoyant) than cold air, you get a gold star. And if you look at the density of the most common molecules in Earth’s atmosphere – the volume occupied by a single molecule divided by its molecular weight – you’ll find that the molecules are all about the same size relative to the space between molecules, and that the molecules with the highest molecular weight have the highest density. That’s why you see Argon close to the surface and Hydrogen at the exosphere. And you’ll realize that CO2 is denser than O2 or N2 and it collects at the surface just like Argon. And that Arrhenius was wrong and the entire AGW edifice rests upon Arrhenius.
Well, you would realize that if you were honest with yourself, anyhow. Because the existential threat of AGW was invented for a reason that has nothing to do with saving the world and everything to do with forcing others to bend to your will.
I’ve seen a recent survey, I think by the American Meteorological Association, that put the number at about 52%.
The authors of that survey summarize it as indicating “high levels of expert consensus about human-caused climate change”:
Consider the possibility that they don’t publish in those journals because their “non-consensus” papers aren’t published in those journals, as a result of pal-review. Which in fact we saw in the leaked emails from East Anglia.
Why isn’t that a reason to doubt every mainstream theory?
Growing up among creationists I can’t tell you how often I heard that a cabal of evolutionists was keeping the truth from being published in peer-reviewed journals.
It’s a reason to be skeptical of every mainstream theory, until it is repeatedly validated. Climate science has been invalidated. The models are not predictive of reality.
The difference is that we have proof via the CRU emails that in fact valid dissenting papers were being rejected.
we have proof via the CRU emails that in fact valid dissenting papers were being rejected
Really? Which ones? And isn’t “valid” in the eye of the reviewer? I’m sure creationists think their papers are valid too.
Valid in the eyes of working researchers in the field, like Judy Curry.
Jim, you link starts out saying:
He’s probably an evil Jew being paid by the Koch Brothers, and certainly a heretic in league with Satan!
Doesn’t look like science at work to me.
It isn’t science work, any more than this thread is — it’s a blog post. Keep reading until you come to the statement by the study authors — that’s what I was citing.
Doesn’t the language call into question the impartiality of the AGW scientists? It doesn’t look like AGW alarmists are operating strictly on scientific foundations.
I dunno, Baghdad Jim, if you ask everyone in the country (none of whom have ever seen the Emperor in person) how long his nose is, do you think taking the average of their guesses is going to be the right number?