Comments on: Consensus discussion – Liars or Statistics?

By: de S

de S — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 23:57:38 +0000

The question about search strings and results is perfectly valid. In a later paper Oreskes claims that she chose ‘global climate change’ instead of ‘global warming’ as though that would eliminate bias, but she could easily have keyed in something like global+(’climate change’ OR warming), and even included other variables to ensure a comprehensive search. A ‘NOT’ function could be used to exclude categories of irrelevant articles.
And a ’study’ that has been quoted so widely really should be held up to the same scrutiny what it purported to examine – peer-reviewed journals.
I find it rather curious that ‘global’ wasn’t mentioned as part of the keywords she used in the original article, though there was later a correction. Why would that be so? Was it just carelessness?
“The simple fact is that Oreskes found no deviation from the consensus that is worth mentioning” Just one question – did she ever look for one?
Holding up an oft-repeated study that makes blanket statements and sweeping conclusions up to scrutiny does not automatically mean someone is a ‘denialist’. Ad hominem attacks and claims of irrelevancy as though one is in a courtroom and trying to get testimony struck from the record is not the way to further knowledge on anything, and only ends up giving credence to the arguments of those same ‘denialists’…
Also Fergus Brown worked with two others on a study regarding the same subject, which may explain the lack of interest (and ironically ended up being rejected by EOS).
http://climatesci.org/2008/02/22/is-there-agreement-amongst-climate-scientists-on-the-ipcc-ar4-wg1/

By: Bradley G Ouimette

Bradley G Ouimette — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 18:36:52 +0000

Good points. We shall see who is behind this “Climate Change”. Only time can tell that.

Does anyone even remember in the 1970’s the scare about the ice age coming again?

By: guthrie

guthrie — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 21:02:49 +0000

Well, there we have a real problem in that you appear not to have read Schultes paper anymore than anyone else. I note that Fergus Brown, who has read it, disagrees with you as well. Fergus’s answer is more polite and sensible than I feel like writing just now, so will refer you back to him.

By: admin

admin — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 13:30:53 +0000

Thank you for your comment but I think we will have to disagree on this topic.

Without a doubt, “climate change” would have included other topics but since she was reading each paper, these could have easily been discarded as not being on topic and a list published of which fit that category.

Assuming that “anthropogenic” was not used is not really the point, is it. The point is how many articles with that term came to the same conclusion. I would “assume” that every article in her study included that term since that is the scientific term for the phenomenon and she was reviewing scientific journals.

Finally, your argument against Schulte fails the simple logic test. His paper isn’t published so we don’t know all of the details but his sample base is quite similar in size given that it covers a smaller time frame. Evidently, his conclusion is that a consensus NO LONGER exists because a substantial percentage of his sample base questions the phenomenon in some manner.

But actually, I think you missed the point in my article and I take that as bad writing on my part for not making my case well. My point is that neither study was scientific in nature or used good statistical methods to derive its conclusion. The conclusion is likely very much based on personal interpretation of certain articles that may or may not be a statistically significant percentage of the the articles on the subject. In other words, both studies have no meaning and therefore should be ignored.

By: guthrie

guthrie — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 07:53:34 +0000

Actually, I disagree. You are quibbling the same way that denialists do.

Why, for example, should Oreskes have used “Climate change” as a search string, when the question is to do with AGW? If she had used “climate change”, that would have drawn in all sorts of papers about paloclimate and local climate change etc etc. At least “Global climate change”. Also “Anthropogenic warming” may not have been used very much at all in the literature. The simple fact is that Oreskes found no deviation from the consensus that is worth mentioning, and denialists cannot stand this. Shultes final quote is so far off the mark it is laughable- the point is that in science, what is consensus is then rapidly left behind and merely refered to when necessary. Scientists don’t see any need to re-fight old battles, unlike denialists.