32,000 scientists dissent from global-warming “consensus”

[Signal 11]

true, but then sometimes I think it does take older scientists with established reputations and nothing to lose to actually raise their heads above the parapet if there are valid concerns about some of the basic areas of the IPCC's work.

He doesn't have any expertise in climate science and his objections to the ice core data have been shown to be baseless (PDF!).

The rest of his paper is just the same old long-debunked arguments we have all seen before.

 

[d.a.s.h]

also the younger ones have been brought up with anthropogenic co2 driven climate change being scientific authodoxy their entire scientific lives, whereas the older ones can still remember when this wasn't the case

But it's young scientists who typically challenge orthodoxies, much more so than older ones.

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

. . . which sounds harsh. Arthur C Clarke's First Law of Prediction gives a more nuanced view:

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

 

[scifisam]

OK, Dyson definitely does sound like a proper 'expert,' then. No idea why that petition claimed he only had a BA in Maths, then.

 

[Signal 11]

OK, Dyson definitely does sound like a proper 'expert,' then.

...in physics, not climate science.

 

[scifisam]

...in physics, not climate science.

True. But that's at least better than only having an undergraduate degree.

 

[laptop]

At some point Dyson probably thought the most pressing problem facing humanity was getting off the planet and starting work on the Dyson sphere.

I think that at that time he was assuming that limitless energy would somehow become available.

Now he seems to be saying that the most pressing problems are stuff like clean drinking water for all.

That is important. I think that now he's ignoring how things actually get done. Where do you put the lever into the political machine to make it happen?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

You may not shift the burden of proof. Provide the evidence requested or withdraw your claim.

In 2005, Scientific American reported:
“ Scientific American took a sample of 30 of the 1,400 signatories claiming to hold a Ph.D. in a climate-related science. Of the 26 we were able to identify in various databases, 11 said they still agreed with the petition —- one was an active climate researcher, two others had relevant expertise, and eight signed based on an informal evaluation. Six said they would not sign the petition today, three did not remember any such petition, one had died, and five did not answer repeated messages. Crudely extrapolating, the petition supporters include a core of about 200 climate researchers – a respectable number, though rather a small fraction of the climatological community.[18]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_petition

 

[laptop]

In 2005, Scientific American reported:
“ Scientific American took a sample of 30 of the 1,400 signatories claiming to hold a Ph.D. in a climate-related science. Of the 26 we were able to identify in various databases, 11 said they still agreed with the petition —- one was an active climate researcher, two others had relevant expertise, and eight signed based on an informal evaluation. Six said they would not sign the petition today, three did not remember any such petition, one had died, and five did not answer repeated messages. Crudely extrapolating, the petition supporters include a core of about 200 climate researchers – a respectable number, though rather a small fraction of the climatological community.[18]

There's no reason why you should be expected to understand sampling and statistics.

There's every reason to expect you either to learn to read and to tell the difference between "there are 200" and "someone crudely estimated 200" - or shut the fuck up.


E2A: Or, as Ludwig Wittgenstein put it: "Whereof We Cannot Speak, We Must Remain Silent".

 

[editor]

At some point Dyson probably thought the most pressing problem facing humanity was getting off the planet and starting work on the Dyson sphere.

The material for building the sphere, Dyson suggested, could come from disassembling the planet Jupiter and utilizing the minerals and metals from its deep interior

Easy peasy!

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

There's no reason why you should be expected to understand sampling and statistics.".

Fuck off.

 

[Refused as fuck]

To be fair, once you've disassembled Jupiter, the rest builds itself.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

There's every reason to expect you either to learn to read and to tell the difference between "there are 200" and "someone crudely estimated 200" - or shut the fuck up.

Tell it to the editors of Scientific American, fuckhead.

 

[Refused as fuck]

Their wording is fairly clear.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Posted elsewhere, but copied here for the purposes of showing 32,000 (31,000 in the post) is in fact, fuck all.......

I suppose the main point of this news, from the sceptic camp, is that if 31,000 American scientists disagree with the theory of global warming, then the there can't be a scientific "consensus" about the truth of anthropogenic global warming. (AGW) So boo to you, you global warming scare-mongers, put that in your chimney and smoke it.

This claim is utter nonsense, it is beneath any intelligent person's dignity to bother to reply to it, and just goes to show how supremely stupid climate warming deniers are. But, here we go again, let's examine their claim in a bit more detail. First, how many "scientists" are there in the US? In other words, how many people with science degrees live and work in the US? If you look this up on Google you find the answer here.

Google answers brings up figures from the "Department of Professional Employees" and this is the quote: "Reflecting the importance of advanced technologies to an expanding global economy, employment in science and engineering dramatically increased during the second half of the twentieth century. According to government sources, the number of scientists increased from 150,000 to 2,685,000 between 1950 and 2001" In other words, whilst 31,000 scientists sounds impressive, that number is just 1.15% of the total number of scientists in the US. If one can make a (broad) assumption that anyone who didn't sign this petition (which has been circulating for ten years) doesn't agree with it, this means that 98.85% of scientists in the US support the theory of AGW, or at least support it enough or are neutral enough not to be bothered to sign the petition.

My dictionary states that "consensus" means broad or widespread agreement. If 98.85% is not a consensus, I would appreciate global warming sceptics explaining exactly what they mean by the word consensus. Or alternatively, you could say that only 31,000 scientist in the US bothering to sign this petition over ten years is adequate and irrefutable proof that there is indeed, as everyone knows, a massive scientific consensus about AGW.

 

[Signal 11]

one was an active climate researcher

That's impressive.

Care to give any of the details that you were asked for?

You'll be kind enough to provide their names, degrees, links to their publication history and the amount of funding each receives from the carbon lobby?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

That's impressive.

Care to give any of the details that you were asked for?

My comment was that there was a core of signatories, made up of 200 climatologists. That assertion is backed up by Scientific American, as quoted above.

If he wants details of their cvs etc, he can dig them up himself. He's the one doing the alleging now, ie, that they are all in the employ of the carbon industry etc.

 

[Signal 11]

My comment was that there was a core of signatories, made up of 200 climatologists. That assertion is backed up by Scientific American, as quoted above.

No it isn't. The quote said they found one active climate researcher. If you wish to assert that there were more, provide the evidence as requested.

 

[laptop]

Scientific American is being a bit over-generous, possibly on legal advice.

Note that this refers to the 1999-2001 "Oregon petition", with 31,000 claimed signatories. The deniers seem to have implicitly accepted that this is fundamentally the same as the "new" petion, also a Fred Seitz project, mentioned in the OP.

“ Scientific American took a sample of 30 of the 1,400 signatories claiming to hold a Ph.D. in a climate-related science. Of the 26 we were able to identify in various databases, 11 said they still agreed with the petition —- one was an active climate researcher, two others had relevant expertise, and eight signed based on an informal evaluation. Six said they would not sign the petition today, three did not remember any such petition, one had died, and five did not answer repeated messages. Crudely extrapolating, the petition supporters include a core of about 200 climate researchers – a respectable number, though rather a small fraction of the climatological community.

For clarity let's spell out the 30:
4 not found - did they ever exist?
1 dead
5 not answering email from Scientific American - mad or dead?
6 would not now sign
3 do not remember the petition - did they actually sign, themselves?
11 still agree

and of the 11:
1 active climate researcher
2 "relevant expertise" but not active.
8 had said they were climate change researchers, but had no actual expertise

So the central estimate of the number of active climate researches is 127. The one they found might be the only one. Anyone got the time to work out the odds on that, or the 1-sigma range of estimates around 127?

Extrapolating the central estimate:

				of 11	of 30	of 1140	of 31,000
active climate researcher	1	-	127	127

"some expertise", not active	2	-	254	254

lying/exaggerating		8	-	800+	22,000 ?!?

withdrawn support		-	6	230	6200

no knowledge of petition	-	3	110	3100

not found/nonexistent		-	4	150	4100

Given the tiny sample it ought to be obvious that I do not claim these are the actual figures - they are merely the central estimates of a fairly wide range of plausible estimates. I have rounded numbers so as not to give the impression of spurious accuracy.

 

[Signal 11]

You have a typo in the top line: 1140 should be 11400. I don't think it's even worth trying to work anything out from that sample (even if I could remember how to do it ). It's clear that there has been some staggering dishonesty.

We are being asked to take these people seriously as experts. Seriously enough to outweigh the overwhelming consensus (98.85% using a comparable standard, as detailed above in post #194). I'm certainly not going to do that without being able to check their credentials.

 

[teuchter]

Everyone seems to be arguing about the scientific credibility of this petition's signatories.

But it seems to me that the petition is mainly about a political approach, rather than particularly challenging current scientific opinion.

It doesn't say that global warming/climate change isn't happening, or is unlikely to happen. It does say that the change won't cause "catastrophic" damage but then that is a rather subjective term. It doesn't rule out the possibility of harmful change, nor does it deny that such change is being caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases.

It seems mainly to be pushing for a certain kind of political approach to the problem - asking the US government not to sign up to Kyoto or similar protocols.

Therefore the scientific credentials of the various signatories don't seem to be to be especially relevant. And credibility as a scientist doesn't necessarily translate into a better than average ability to make wise political decisions, surely.

 

[laptop]

You have a typo in the top line: 1140

That's the 1140 who claimed to be climate scientists, according to the Scientific American quote. Almost all of whom appear to have been... exaggerating.

 

[Signal 11]

^ I see what I did wrong now.

the scientific credentials of the various signatories don't seem to be to be especially relevant.

I've no idea how you came to that conclusion after reading the press release or any of the posts from the people promoting this.

But perhaps you'd like to explain why we should take any notice of them, in your opinion?

 

[teuchter]

^ I see what I did wrong now.


I've no idea how you came to that conclusion after reading the press release or any of the posts from the people promoting this.

But perhaps you'd like to explain why we should take any notice of them, in your opinion?

I think you're misunderstanding my point: what I'm trying to say is that we shouldn't really take much notice of them because they are just a bunch of people trying to promote an essentially political point. They are trying to say that because they are "scientists" we should particularly value their opinion, but I am saying that whether or not they are scientists doesn't actually have much relevance to the main thrust of their argument.

The petition is being presented as a substantial number of scientists disagreeing with the mainstream scientific opinion on global warming. But as far as I can see, the wording of the petition is such that you could be a signatory without actually disagreeing with the mainstream opinion to any great degree.

Therefore the claims being made such as the one in the title of this thread - '32,000 scientists dissent from global-warming “consensus”' - are quite false, even in the event that all of those 32,000 really are credible scientists.

 

[Signal 11]

^ Fair enough.

 

[Aldebaran]

I think they should all take a sightseeing tour of gletschers, armed with pictures of the same gletschers some 60 years ago (and don't forget the Kilimandjaro who lost some 80% of his ice cap in about 60 years time) and then argue again that nothing extremely weird and alarming is happening and that in addition it is not happenening at a speed never recorded before.

That is the whole crux of the debate: Of course the planet went through colder and warmer periods in the past but never before a climate change came about at such a dramatic speed making it impossible for life (all life) to adapt to these changing conditions.
It is in fact causing the motion of the evolution of species to become overruled. They become extinct before they even can start to generate means of adaptation to new circumstances.

salaam.

 

[d.a.s.h]

Of course the planet went through colder and warmer periods in the past but never before a climate change came about at such a dramatic speed making it ompossible for life (all life) to adapt to these changing conditions.

I'm not sure that's the case, i.e. that climate change has never happened before with such speed.

Human beings have survived pretty dramatic climatic changes before. Such changes are likely to have been drivers of major human migrations in the distant past. But when those occurred, the total human population was probably just a few million, or even less, depending on how far back you look. There was plenty of spare room to go round.

It'll be a very different matter if significant temperature changes do occur in a world with 9 or 10 billion people in it by mid-century. Even current levels of international migration are helping revive xenophobic and nationalistic political movements in Europe and elsewhere. Imagine that increased several times over.

 

[spring-peeper]

That is the whole crux of the debate: Of course the planet went through colder and warmer periods in the past but never before a climate change came about at such a dramatic speed making it impossible for life (all life) to adapt to these changing conditions.

I was wondering how you knew that the other warming/cooling periods didn't happen this quickly. We were taught in school that the dinosauras were wiped out due to a meteor hit that spread ash into the sky and cut out the sunlight.

I've been out of school for a while now. When did this theory change?

 

[Fruitloop]

The KT extinction event is still very much current science unless you're nuts.

 

[free spirit]

Everyone seems to be arguing about the scientific credibility of this petition's signatories.

But it seems to me that the petition is mainly about a political approach, rather than particularly challenging current scientific opinion.

It doesn't say that global warming/climate change isn't happening, or is unlikely to happen. It does say that the change won't cause "catastrophic" damage but then that is a rather subjective term. It doesn't rule out the possibility of harmful change, nor does it deny that such change is being caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases.

It seems mainly to be pushing for a certain kind of political approach to the problem - asking the US government not to sign up to Kyoto or similar protocols.

Therefore the scientific credentials of the various signatories don't seem to be to be especially relevant. And credibility as a scientist doesn't necessarily translate into a better than average ability to make wise political decisions, surely.

ahem... post 164

 

[free spirit]

I was wondering how you knew that the other warming/cooling periods didn't happen this quickly. We were taught in school that the dinosauras were wiped out due to a meteor hit that spread ash into the sky and cut out the sunlight.

I've been out of school for a while now. When did this theory change?

The KT extinction event is still very much current science unless you're nuts.

or does aldebaran subscribe to a more creationist viewpoint?

in which case as I understand it the dinosaurs weren't so much wiped out as never actually existed and were merely placed in the ground as fossils by God as a test of faith for the true believers or something.

part of the whole background to the climate change issues is the fact that the climate has changed dramatically fairly rapidly on many occasions in the past (due to a variety of factors), and these changes have often led to mas extinction events where vast swathes of the species on the planet have been wiped out.

IMO it is arrogant in the extreme for us to think that we can cause such a dramatic change in the earths climate as we're looking at in such a short timescale without at the very least that change having a dramatic impact on the carrying capacity of the planet in terms of how many humans it can support... maybe not full on human extinction, but will we / nature really be able to adapt to such rapid changes fast enough to continue to support the 8 billion plus people that will need supporting by then? I predict not