A Heated Debate: Are Climate Scientists Being Forced to Toe the Line?

originally posted by: amazing
a reply to: ElectricUniverse


Thanks for the detailed info. I do appreciate that you give in depth answers with links and all of that. I really do.

I think you're missing two points though.

A. There really are scientists telling us that AGW is a real thing. Doing real science with really good data. There are thousands of papers and articles out there. That take away is that you don't seem to be listening to any of that data? Perhaps they are wrong, but some of it is just good science.

You are absolutely right. There are scientists telling us that AGW is a real thing. Look at the graphs prior, and you'll see that there are MORE scientists saying that they need more data, or that they don't know, or that they can't arrive at a conclusion that any changes in climate are human-caused. Those papers, are the ones that are more valuable... not the ones that jump immediately to a conclusion without allowing the rest of the fields of science to validate the hypotheses.

Some of them are wrong, some of them are right, some do follow the scientific method and come up with astounding evidence of certain things and some of it is good science.

Equally as true is that some of it is not, and there is plenty of dishonesty and misrepresentation to go around.

B. There is a lot of propaganda (Billions of Dollars worth) From big oil and big polluters paying for science that supports their claims. Like you said, it only takes a small core group.

This is also true. But please don't throw the baby out with the bath water because it goes both ways. There are scientists in both camps and propaganda from both camps that is well-funded. One side doesn't want any taxes and doesn't want to lose its grip on the energy supplies of the world. One side wants more taxes because those taxes don't ever effect the corporations, they effect you and I directly. We all know that taxes on corporations are always (at least in the US) handed down to the consumer. The corporations don't care, they will just price goods higher, cut benefits and freeze wages to make up for the Carbon taxes. It's the American taxpayer that gets squeezed.

I don't know about you, but I pay enough taxes, and as we have seen time and time again, we'll all be led to believe that our tax money is being used to "fix" the problems, when they are in fact just used as buckets-o-money for the governments to play with. Governments are already out of control fiscally, why would anyone want to enable and bolster that? What is the government promising people in return for their taxes? They can't promise lower temps, or lower CO2, so all they keep saying is "it will be used to combat climate change".... that sounds like a spectacular failure of a plan. That's just as generic as "we're going to use your tax money to fight terrorists" - because look at where that's gotten us.

C. By claiming that AGW is a scam you're saying that NASA is wrong...that those 18 scientific associations are all wrong, that hundreds or thousands of scientists are wrong, That many universities are wrong. If that's true, then that has to be the biggest conspiracy of all time. Because, you're implying that the data you just posted supersedes or overrides NASA. That Neil Tyson Degrass lied and is a fraud. That Bill Nye the Science guy is a paid hack. Could be true. But I don't think so.

First of all, you have dissent even at NASA. Plenty of existing and former scientists from NASA have disputed man-made global warming. Dr. Roy Spencer is one of the most vocal former NASA scientists to disagree with NASA and NOAA.

18 scientific associations... think about that. What is an Association?

an organized group of people who have the same interest, job, etc.

So the 18 groups you are referring to, in all likelihood, share the same goals and interests. If the Association's leaders take a position on AGW, do you honestly believe that people employed by that Association are going to speak out against it or dissent and lose their jobs? They would have to believe so strongly against the beliefs of the Association, that they would be willing to put their careers and livelihood on the line.

The same goes for Universities. It's even worse in Universities.

Both Associations and Universities get their funding from State and Federal agencies, and they are extremely sensitive to "tipping the apple cart" when it comes to funding. So again, scientists who have families and children to support just stay quiet rather than picking a side, even if they feel one is more right or wrong than the other.

I'd say they are the smart ones.

Neil Tyson is a Philosopher by his degree, child of a father who was a Sociologist. He works under the title of "science communicator" and is a great speaker, but is not the end-all-be-all when it comes to the final say on science. His job is to try to distill science down to the easiest explanation for common people to understand. That is what he gets paid to do, regardless of the subject. For the right amount, he'd probably say anything.

Bill Nye... LOL Besides very openly supporting Al Gore, and knowing a thing or two about science, he completely and totally misled people with the wrong explanation of global warming.

Back in 2011, Nye and Gore teamed up to show that global warming was real using “a simple lab experiment.” The problem is that such experiments have been discredited by scientists who the say these demonstrations show heat transport, not global warming.

“Although not an accurate demonstration of the physics of climate change, the experiment we have considered and related ones are valuable examples of the dangers of unintentional bias in science, the value of at least a rough quantitative prediction of the expected effect, the importance of considering alternative explanations, and the need for carefully designed experimental controls,” according to a paper by scientists from Tufts and the Technical Education Research Centers.

...

Nye’s “simple” experiment involved sealing thermometers inside two identical bottles, which were sealed. To illustrate the effects of increased carbon dioxide on temperature, Nye fits a hose from a CO2 canister into one of the bottles. Both bottles are then placed placed under heat lamps.

“Within minutes you will see the temperature of the bottle with carbon dioxide in it rising faster and higher,” Nye said in his video experiment. “The bottles are like our atmosphere, the lamps are like our sun.”

A paper published in a 2010 edition of the American Journal of Physics found that experiments like Nye’s are “not an accurate demonstration of the physics of climate change.”

Source

Take that as you may, but as Mianeye said... question everything.

~Namaste

a reply to: SonOfTheLawOfOne

The people who wrote that 97% consensus paper (Cook et al. of Skeptical Science) conveniently leave out some pertinent information:

How do they "conveniently leave out some pertinent information" when they put it right into the abstract, which you then immediately went and quoted in bold??

Meaning... they threw away the other 66% of the papers because they mentioned climate but didn't attribute it to humans.

Ummm...no. They threw away 66% of the papers because they didn't attribute it to anything - man-made, natural, space aliens, voodoo, whatever - making them completely irrelevant and immaterial to the discussion.

I find it hard to believe you have read this study at all. From your completely confused argument it sounds quite clear that you just did what every other "skeptic" does - ran straight to the denier blogs and had them interpret it for you, and soothe you and reassure you that the study is fake and flawed and all climate scientists are liars anyway doing it for those sweet government grants wheeeeeee...

It seems that you are completely confusing the idea of "no position" with the idea that the cause is therefore unclear or uncertain. Most papers simply take no position because they don't care. Someone writing about the effect of changing precipitation patterns on tree frogs in Bolivia is not going to go out of their way to add "oh and by the way - it is our opinion that these changes are explicitly man-made", because that's not their focus or concern.

You are just creating some false expectation that every single paper on climate change must take a position on the man-made question because you desperately want to believe there is a raging debate over it, so therefore anyone who doesn't mention it at all must be hiding something or secretly admitting it's like, totally natural, shhhh. I could just as easily flip that logic around and say anthropogenic global warming is such a well-established fact that most papers don't mention it because it's absolutely pointless and redundant. They might as well add that as a result of their observations, they believe that water is wet and Liberace was gay.

But anyway, if you read the study yourself and actually saw what it said (instead of twisting it to say what you WANT it to say) you would know the authors took great care to make sure "no position" didn't get confused with "cause is uncertain":

Upon completion of the final ratings, a random sample of 1000 ‘No Position’ category abstracts were re-examined to differentiate those that did not express an opinion from those that take the position that the cause of GW is uncertain. An ‘Uncertain’ abstract explicitly states that the cause of global warming is not yet determined (e.g., ‘. . . the extent of human-induced global warming is inconclusive. . . ’) while a ‘No Position’ abstract makes no statement on AGW.

So 1/3 of the abstracts (3,896 papers) had expressed a position on AGW, meaning that the group had already provided information in the abstract of their paper that they believed in global warming or man-made global warming.

OF COURSE THERE IS GOING TO BE 97% CONSENSUS AMONG THOSE PAPERS WHEN THEY ALREADY TAKE THE POSITION OF AGW!

Again, no – 1/3 of the papers took a position either for or against AGW. It wasn’t 3,896 papers – it was 3,896 papers + 78 + 40. 97.1% (3,896) of those positions were for, 1.9% (78) of them were against, and 1% (40) were uncertain. It’s all laid out in Table 3 – so maybe if I use caps lock too it will help:

READ THE %*$#&! PAPER YOURSELF!

If they were already for AGW then how the heck did they only get 97% instead of 100%?? You’re implying other people can’t do math, but you’re not exactly setting the gold standard for arithmetic there.

The qualifiers of the other 66% of papers that DID NOT support AGW:

"Implies humans have had a minimal impact on global warming without saying so explicitly E.g., proposing a natural mechanism is the main cause of global warming"

"Explicitly minimizes or rejects that humans are causing global warming"

"Explicitly states that humans are causing less than half of global warming"

And that’s strike 3.

These qualifiers absolutely did not apply to the 66% that were thrown out. They applied to the 1/3 that were tabbed up – again, it was found that 1.9% of those 4014 papers took one of these 3 positions.

You have completely misrepresented (and frankly butchered) this simple study, so all of your criticisms are invalid. I don’t know if you’re doing this deliberately or obtusely, but the result to the end user is intellectual dishonesty nonetheless.

What really gets me though is the level of condescending remarks you’ve felt the need to pepper in between the caps lock and the hyperbole - implying people can’t read, do math and only hear whatever they want to hear.

You’ve committed every one of these sins to the extreme in that reply. I sincerely hope the irony is not lost on you and next time you take a long hard look into the concept of projection bias before ever posting another comment on global warming again.

- Have a nice day!

originally posted by: network dude
a reply to: ShadowChatter

Wow, when you put it all in one post, it almost looks like a conspiracy.

I would think even the AGW believers should have an issue with this. It sure isn't how science is supposed to work.

Network Dude I’m responding to this only because I’ve found you to be one of the more reasonable (actual) skeptics in this crackpot factory of climate phonies – but I’m really disappointed in this comment.

Do you think just because someone can post a bunch of headlines or links to blog posts that makes for a compelling argument to something?

I think we’ve already established long ago there is a helluva lotta propaganda in this debate. But try actually reading some of those links and filtering through them with your always useful critical thinking hat. One of the defining things that makes a climate denier a denier is the way they readily accept any and all information merely selling itself as skeptical of AGW, without blinking or applying any actual skepticism to that info.

Try looking at the sources or just reading some of those links you applauded. I only glanced at the ones that might have some shred of objectivity or credibility to them, i.e. the Guardian article rather than the link to “globalclimatescam.com”:

So the chief scientist at Israel’s Ministry of Education was fired after making comments like -

I don't recycle, I put plastic in the trash. The earth will not be harmed, God promised us

And you assume that’s evidence of some global conspiracy to snuff out the apparently massive but hushed scientific dissent on climate change?

Or maybe the Israeli Ministry of Education just felt this guy wasn’t quite setting the right example for kids lol?



This debate is chock full of propaganda and the phony skeptics eat it all up readily as long as it supports the team. Furthermore they constantly cherry-pick, bend, twist and transform everything else to fit those preconceived notions, and this thread has plenty of examples of that too (see above).

I find it pretty telling that 30 flags in, and no one has noticed that one of the main anecdotes used in the OP – that of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper silencing scientists on AGW is actually about the silencing of pro-AGW scientists.

Harper’s government is notoriously conservative, in bed with Alberta oil sands interests, and has a ridiculous environmental record. He is well known for his silence on climate action:

Stephen Harper criticized for lack of action on climate change

His muzzling of pro-AGW and other environmental scientists that threaten tar sands development is also well documented on ATS (by OPs who actually practice reading comprehension, rather than just seeing headlines and projecting whatever it is they want to hear):

Science Journal to Feds: Stop Muzzling Scientists


Meanwhile if climate scientists in the U.S. are just “toeing the government line”, then why is the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology full of deniers?

Recently they held another one of their witch trials “hearings” on climate change, where they just incessantly repeated the exact same myths and memes about man made global warming that you hear mindlessly regurgitated on ATS.

You can read about, and view, much of the nonsense here, but I prefer the edutainment approach, so I highly recommend this Jon Stewart breakdown instead (Congress part starts at 3min):


I mostly love this video though because of the ice lesson at the end. It 100% nails the frustration I feel having to constantly explain the most trivial concepts on climate change to obtuse "skeptics" over and over and over and over again


Anyway, there are many more examples I could cite of the government actually being on the side of climate denial, but the absolute best and most powerful comes back to the Bush Administration. Many people already know they were quite happy to downplay and derail the consequences of man made global warming, but most don’t know just how conniving they were about it.

I think the following video should be absolutely required viewing for any wannabe skeptics before they take even one single step into the climate debate. Mostly just to save themselves the embarrassment of looking like buffoons when they inevitably announce to their friends “they used to call it global warming, but now they call it climate change hmmmm lololol”:



Or just read the memo itself right here.

It’s like the official government handbook on manipulating skeptics.








Needless to say, this thread is a joke.

- Toodles!

originally posted by: mc_squared
a reply to: SonOfTheLawOfOne

Ummm...no. They threw away 66% of the papers because they didn't attribute it to anything - man-made, natural, space aliens, voodoo, whatever - making them completely irrelevant and immaterial to the discussion.

They didn't attribute it to anything at all? You sure about that?

The other 66% of papers are all related to climate change, and if you did actually read the paper instead of cherry-picking the parts for your argument, you'd have seen the following:

... we searched the ISI Web of Science for papers published from 1991–2011 using topic searches for 'global warming' or 'global climate change'. Article type was restricted to 'article', excluding books, discussions, proceedings papers and other document types.

Meaning that they only looked at abstracts that specified something related to climate change so that they weren't getting papers that were unrelated.

Then, to further improve the results:

The ISI search generated 12 465 papers. Eliminating papers that were not peer-reviewed (186), not climate-related (288) or without an abstract (47) reduced the analysis to 11 944 papers written by 29 083 authors and published in 1980 journals. To simplify the analysis, ratings were consolidated into three groups: endorsements (including implicit and explicit; categories 1–3 in table 2), no position (category 4) and rejections (including implicit and explicit; categories 5–7).

That result set is what is populated in Table 3.

Here is what the paper says about the other 2/3 and what "no position" in category 4 (inclusive of A and B) represents:

(4a) No position Does not address or mention the cause of global warming. (no examples)

(4b)Uncertain Expresses position that human's role on recent global warming is uncertain/undefined

Example: 'While the extent of human-induced global warming is inconclusive...'

That seems pretty clear to me what they mean by uncertain, and it doesn't match either of your definitions, and that's 2/3 of the papers excluded from the 97%.

I find it hard to believe you have read this study at all. From your completely confused argument it sounds quite clear that you just did what every other "skeptic" does - ran straight to the denier blogs and had them interpret it for you, and soothe you and reassure you that the study is fake and flawed and all climate scientists are liars anyway doing it for those sweet government grants wheeeeeee...

Completely irrelevant, stereotypical, off-top and utter nonsense since you have no idea what I did or how I arrived at my conclusions.

It seems that you are completely confusing the idea of "no position" with the idea that the cause is therefore unclear or uncertain. Most papers simply take no position because they don't care. Someone writing about the effect of changing precipitation patterns on tree frogs in Bolivia is not going to go out of their way to add "oh and by the way - it is our opinion that these changes are explicitly man-made", because that's not their focus or concern.

Then it's likely that those papers were excluded, as I just pointed out. You didn't read through the criteria correctly.

You are just creating some false expectation that every single paper on climate change must take a position on the man-made question because you desperately want to believe there is a raging debate over it, so therefore anyone who doesn't mention it at all must be hiding something or secretly admitting it's like, totally natural, shhhh. I could just as easily flip that logic around and say anthropogenic global warming is such a well-established fact that most papers don't mention it because it's absolutely pointless and redundant. They might as well add that as a result of their observations, they believe that water is wet and Liberace was gay.

The whole point of Cook's paper was to put each abstract into a category of endorsement, so I'm not creating any expectations. You are trying to debate my character, like you do in a lot of your posts, and not the merits of the argument, so let's move on to that instead.

Again, no – 1/3 of the papers took a position either for or against AGW. It wasn’t 3,896 papers – it was 3,896 papers + 78 + 40. 97.1% (3,896) of those positions were for, 1.9% (78) of them were against, and 1% (40) were uncertain.

1/3 of the papers were bucketed into either "support for AGW" or "rejection of AGW", and of those, 97% of those papers were for AGW, thus the consensus. Of the ones that took a CLEAR position, 97% of them agree.

The other 2/3 that didn't take a position explicitly weren't that the papers didn't relate to climate change as you stated and I've shown you are wrong on... it's that they didn't specifically state in their abstracts whether the paper was for or against... NOT that the paper was completely irrelevant in global warming debate.

A paper on changes in snowfall or precipitation damn well do have to do with climate, but just because they don't say it's man-made or not, should NOT exclude them from a study on whether ALL climate scientists agree on the cause, because they are in fact studying climate. Someone who studies rainfall may not agree with either side, but that group has to be included for it to be a fair an accurate measure.

These qualifiers absolutely did not apply to the 66% that were thrown out. They applied to the 1/3 that were tabbed up – again, it was found that 1.9% of those 4014 papers took one of these 3 positions.

Ah, you're right... I guess I must not have gone to a "skeptic" site or I wouldn't have done that! I didn't include those extra 118 papers into the 32%. So it's more like 33% of the papers, which was an honest mistake but doesn't change the argument.

The main argument was not about splitting hairs on the smaller group that support AGW, it was on the larger group that clearly state that they have no position or are uncertain of the cause, yet they make up the larger majority of scientists publishing climate based papers and abstracts.

You've indirectly supported my point, which is that if you take all of the papers that discussed climate change (11,944), 2/3 of them were excluded from the 97% calculation. The other 1/3 had to explicitly take a position to be counted, and the 97% figure was derived from explicit support for or against, and is NOT a measure of "97% of climate scientists".

I think my simple mistake is far outweighed by your massive oversight and overtly clear bias.

~Namaste

a reply to: mc_squared

And that's why I linked your post.

originally posted by: Kali74
a reply to: mc_squared

And that's why I linked your post.

Instead of linking your own sources.



You have yet to produce a solid argument or rebuttal of your own.

You don't debate, you regurgitate.

~Namaste

a reply to: SonOfTheLawOfOne

For one thing I most definitely have debated the topic in the past, with links and quotes blah, blah, blah. I'm busier these days and really don't have the time or inclination to do so right now, nor do I need to because I know exactly what I'm dealing with, maybe in time it will spark up or maybe a different poster will actually inspire me to, I don't know... for now, I feel justified when 99% of DENIERS simply post: "duhhhh isn't the Antarctic gaining ice", "derp Al Gore derp derp derp", "AGW religious fanatics hurrr hurr derpity".

FNG

And BTW isn't what you're doing just regurgitating Idso nonsense? LMAO

originally posted by: Kali74
a reply to: SonOfTheLawOfOne

For one thing I most definitely have debated the topic in the past, with links and quotes blah, blah, blah. I'm busier these days and really don't have the time or inclination to do so right now, nor do I need to because I know exactly what I'm dealing with, maybe in time it will spark up or maybe a different poster will actually inspire me to, I don't know... for now, I feel justified when 99% of DENIERS simply post: "duhhhh isn't the Antarctic gaining ice", "derp Al Gore derp derp derp", "AGW religious fanatics hurrr hurr derpity".

FNG

And BTW isn't what you're doing just regurgitating Idso nonsense? LMAO

We're all busy, but you aren't too busy to have the time or inclination to post why you linked to someone else's posts that aren't your own arguments. Post links and quotes and I'll read them and debate you on them but I haven't seen any from you in several of the climate threads you've been posting on.

And again, you've mistaken me for someone else because I'm not a "DENIER" and didn't post anything about Antarctic ice. I don't disagree about pollution, or human impact on the planet.... I don't deny anything, but I also don't buy into something that I am perfectly capable of understanding the science behind myself and being able to be critical of it.

What in this thread did I post of Idso's? And why is it nonsense? How am I regurgitating it when I'm raising arguments on both sides of the debate?

It really is a poor sign of character to label people just because they disagree with you, or something you believe in.

~Namaste

a reply to: SonOfTheLawOfOne

Are you 99% of deniers? You may not have posted Idso crap in this thread but you did in the last one you decided to "call me out" in. I'm busy and not INCLINED to bother digging up links, I used to... and don't feel like it currently. What part of that didn't you understand? If someone can incorrectly post in every AGW thread that the Antarctic is gaining ice and misquote Al Gore and twist science all without links, why can't I post what facts I have committed to memory? You don't attack them for it... and it's hilarious that you think you're bringing up both sides of the debate or that you think there's even a debate to be had.

originally posted by: SonOfTheLawOfOne

originally posted by: Kali74
a reply to: SonOfTheLawOfOne

For one thing I most definitely have debated the topic in the past, with links and quotes blah, blah, blah. I'm busier these days and really don't have the time or inclination to do so right now, nor do I need to because I know exactly what I'm dealing with, maybe in time it will spark up or maybe a different poster will actually inspire me to, I don't know... for now, I feel justified when 99% of DENIERS simply post: "duhhhh isn't the Antarctic gaining ice", "derp Al Gore derp derp derp", "AGW religious fanatics hurrr hurr derpity".

FNG

And BTW isn't what you're doing just regurgitating Idso nonsense? LMAO

.... I don't deny anything....

~Namaste

...Except ignorance...You forgot ignorance...!


But, seriously...Anyone who thinks that Al Gore has even half of a clue, is straining the limits of credulity! The guy is such a joke that comedians don't even bother with him, because he is already his own punch line! It could be worse, though...He could be Joe Biden!

a reply to: GoOfYFoOt

But you have no links!!!!!

originally posted by: Kali74
a reply to: GoOfYFoOt

But you have no links!!!!!

Yeah...I don't have the time or the inclination, to provide them...

J/K

Just look up any video of him , and note the stuffed shirt, and the blank expression, throughout!

a reply to: GoOfYFoOt

Which is totally fine.

originally posted by: Kali74
a reply to: SonOfTheLawOfOne

Are you 99% of deniers? You may not have posted Idso crap in this thread but you did in the last one you decided to "call me out" in.

So the Idso reference, I'm assuming, is probably to what you've read on the biased source "DeSmogBlog" here about the funding from the Heartland Institute. But you didn't ever provide me with a reference to look at, you just said:

I don't think that site honestly represents academia, and the Idso Father and sons team aren't exactly unbiased are they? Do you know anything about them?

Yes, I know about them.

And that's fine, because I don't side with the Heartland Institute, I don't work for them, and I disagree with some (not all) of their agendas.

Likewise, Idso has some good work under his belt that is solid, and some that appear to be slightly more biased toward one side of the debate.

However, I do agree with Idso's work that shows increased CO2 is good for plants and good for the growth of food that we need to feed the population of earth. As I've said before, farmers that grow in greenhouses specifically boost their CO2 to get bigger yields, and this is not at all debated. The same goes for growth on the planet. A lot of Idso's work is done around the biosphere, and you can't just throw it all out when there are parts of it that are completely validated just because you don't agree with how he gets paid or a paper he wrote on a different subject that you don't agree with. His work in the biosphere and agriculture is highly recognized.

Not every scientist publishes a "winning" paper and often, they are later updated with new findings or eventually, may be invalidated entirely. It doesn't change the fact that those studies are what led to the eventual truth. You are dismissive of their work as it relates to anything climate-related, just because specific paper(s) addressing global warming are oppositional. You completely exclude the fact that the Idso "father and son team" have verified experimentally that increased CO2 causes increased plant and tree biomass.

If someone can incorrectly post in every AGW thread that the Antarctic is gaining ice and misquote Al Gore and twist science all without links, why can't I post what facts I have committed to memory? You don't attack them for it...

You can post facts you've committed to memory, but that doesn't mean your memory serves you correctly.

When it doesn't, you can count on people just like me, to come correct.

If I'm not supporting both sides of the debate, maybe you should re-read my post at the top of page 3 of this thread, where I said:

There are scientists in both camps and propaganda from both camps that is well-funded. One side doesn't want any taxes and doesn't want to lose its grip on the energy supplies of the world. One side wants more taxes because those taxes don't ever effect the corporations, they effect you and I directly.

Show me where you've done the same? When have you admitted that the pro-AGW groups have made mistakes?

I support both sides of the argument. I don't have to pick a side to disagree with one side or the other or both.

and it's hilarious that you think you're bringing up both sides of the debate or that you think there's even a debate to be had.

The fact that you clearly see scientists (and everyone else) arguing and debating over the topic, and that obviously, there are more scientists who take a "no position" or "uncertain about human cause" position, and yet still openly deny that there isn't a debate happening, or one to be had, is straight up ignorant.

There's a lot of convincing science that the planet's climate is changing, which I support.

There is not enough convincing science that it will lead to catastrophe from an unnatural cause.

Our historical record shows that climate has changed on its own. I can believe that man is contributing to changes on the planet (deforestation, pollution, soil starvation, etc) WITHOUT believing that CO2 is the DIRECT and ONLY cause that every man, woman and child should be taxed for, and every business punished for, without extremely clear and convincing evidence.

I don't persecute you or others for the evidence you present, when you present it.

I debate it, and that is the difference between us. You call us "skeptics" and "deniers" and label everyone in opposition to you while judging us all solely based on whether we believe in AGW or not.

I don't know what you call it, but where I grew up, that's called stereotyping, which leads to profiling, racism, bigotry and divisiveness. If that's the position you want to take, as I've said before, we will just have to agree to disagree.

~Namaste

originally posted by: chiefsmom
a reply to: WeAreAWAKE
I have to question you.
How in the world do you stop the earth from doing what it has been doing, for Millions of years?

Say we shut down every factory. We were able to "Magically" get rid of every pollutant.

You don't think the earth is still going to go through Cool cycles? Hot Cycles?

Didn't the earth have an Ice Age? Wasn't a lot of it Tropical at one point? (thinking of fossils found in Greenland.)

Not fighting with you. I just don't understand why it seems all of these things that happened way, way, back, don't seem to be important, compared to what they are trying to make us believe now.

Friend...I don't know how you got any of that from my post. Basically what I said is that if you tear down government and fix that, all this climate change crap will go away...with a lot of other crap.

a reply to: SonOfTheLawOfOne

The other 2/3 that didn't take a position explicitly weren't that the papers didn't relate to climate change as you stated and I've shown you are wrong on... it's that they didn't specifically state in their abstracts whether the paper was for or against... NOT that the paper was completely irrelevant in global warming debate.

I never said the papers don’t relate to climate change, of course climate change papers relate to climate change, how 'bout that! What I said is they are irrelevant to the discussion because they take no position on the causes of climate change – which is what this study is all about determining a consensus on. You seem to be agreeing with this assessment so I don’t even know what you’re trying to argue here, other than talking in circles to convince yourself my assessment was somehow wrong.

I’ll grant you one thing though: the fact that Cook et al decided to group both “No Position” and “Uncertain” under a sort of recursive reference to (a looser definition of) No Position during the analysis is a bit confusing, so I can see how someone might get tripped up there.

It’s unfortunate (mostly because it now means I’m stuck wasting part of my Saturday trying to explain it you lol…thanks a lot, skepticalscience jerks! *shakes fist*)

I know exactly why they did it though, because they wanted to keep the actual ratings procedure as simple as possible during the analysis, so as to not skew the results with unnecessary ambiguity.

But as I already showed you previously - they still ultimately took care to tease out “Uncertain” from the No Position wasteland, because uncertain is a type of position (neutral, but it does not endorse consensus on man-made global warming all the same). So they plucked that result out and inserted into the final 97% tally. Basically, they made sure they weren’t throwing any babies out with the bathwater.

But now apparently you just keep insisting on splashing around in that bathwater anyway. Again, I’m not sure whether you’re doing it deliberately or haphazardly, but either way – there goes the rest of my Saturday I guess:

Here is what the paper says about the other 2/3 and what "no position" in category 4 (inclusive of A and B) represents:

(4a) No position. Does not address or mention the cause of global warming. (no examples)

(4b) Uncertain. Expresses position that human's role on recent global warming is uncertain/undefined

Example: 'While the extent of human-induced global warming is inconclusive...'

That seems pretty clear to me what they mean by uncertain, and it doesn't match either of your definitions, and that's 2/3 of the papers excluded from the 97%.

It might seem clear to you, but it’s very clear to me that you’re still confused.

Because you’re grouping “uncertain” into the 2/3 when I already showed you they filtered it out and placed it firmly into the 1/3.

Don’t believe me? Then explain why there is an explicit category for Uncertain in Table 3? How did that get there, and what's that 1% doing next to it?

All that’s left in the no position pile is a bunch of papers that fit under 4a) No Position, the part you conveniently decided not to bold, aka the part that matches exactly with my previous definition of no position.

And if you still don’t believe me then go ahead and read all the #4 category papers you want for yourself. John Cook and those evil data-tainting warmists made it very easy to access every paper used in this study. You just go here and type in a search term (I used “climate”) and select #4 from the Endorsement Level drop down, and voila:

A 20-year Record Of Alpine Grasshopper Abundance, With Interpretations For Climate Change

(+4511 other results)

Feel free to exercise all the mental gymnastics you want saying papers like that somehow speak on man’s role in climate change, but are just "undecided".

a reply to: Kali74

Haha thanks, now look what you got me into *shakes fist* Have you seen that Jon Stewart video I posted above. The ice thing = right here right now.


a reply to: SonOfTheLawOfOne

And for the record - Kali and I are on the same page and share plenty of information on here and beyond. I’ve learned a ton of knowledge from her and hopefully vice versa, so trying to use the fact that she linked to one of my posts as some sort of detrimental point just sounds like a desperate attempt at deflection from the very precarious position you’ve put yourself in here.

If you want to get into off-topic insults though, then why don’t I bring this up:

Neil Tyson is a Philosopher by his degree, child of a father who was a Sociologist. He works under the title of "science communicator" and is a great speaker, but is not the end-all-be-all when it comes to the final say on science.

Neil deGrasse Tyson:

In 1988, Tyson was accepted into the astronomy graduate program at Columbia University, where he earned a Master of Philosophy in astrophysics in 1989, and a Doctor of Philosophy in astrophysics in 1991

You think he’s a “Philosopher by degree” because he has a Doctor of Philosophy - aka a PhD (in Astrophysics no less)??? And you’re lecturing us on how to interpret academic papers??

originally posted by: mc_squared
a reply to: Kali74

Haha thanks, now look what you got me into *shakes fist* Have you seen that Jon Stewart video I posted above. The ice thing = right here right now.

a reply to: SonOfTheLawOfOne

And for the record - Kali and I are on the same page and share plenty of information on here and beyond. I’ve learned a ton of knowledge from her and hopefully vice versa, so trying to use the fact that she linked to one of my posts as some sort of detrimental point just sounds like a desperate attempt at deflection from the very precarious position you’ve put yourself in here.

For what record? Why should I care about your corroboration?

You think I have any reason to believe that?

Please... you are so off-topic, it's not even funny, but I will indulge...

It explains why you both post the same garbage to support your arguments and use the same exact tactics to try and demean and belittle people who poke holes in your ideology.

I like John Stewart, but please show me a paper he has published... because he's got so much to contribute to the scientific debate. Otherwise, it's irrelevant and op-ed, at best.

If you want to get into off-topic insults though, then why don’t I bring this up:

I didn't go off-topic, I answered someone else's post, so you're slinging mud at the wrong person. Someone mentioned Tyson, I responded with my comments.

Neil Tyson is a Philosopher by his degree, child of a father who was a Sociologist. He works under the title of "science communicator" and is a great speaker, but is not the end-all-be-all when it comes to the final say on science.

Yep. I said it. So what?

Oh, I see... I should have clarified what I meant by Philosopher.

Neil deGrasse Tyson:

In 1988, Tyson was accepted into the astronomy graduate program at Columbia University, where he earned a Master of Philosophy in astrophysics in 1989, and a Doctor of Philosophy in astrophysics in 1991

You think he’s a “Philosopher by degree” because he has a Doctor of Philosophy - aka a PhD (in Astrophysics no less)??? And you’re lecturing us on how to interpret academic papers??

You are real piece of work.... lol

You are completely twisting words and trying to play syntactic games with what I said.

I'm very well aware that he studied astrophysics, but what I was suggesting by my comment is that as a PhD (ie - Doctor of Philosophy), his primary pursuit is academia, and more importantly, that he has appeared on television and media far more than any research he has published, which was what I probably should have said instead.

Instead, you want to go completely and totally off-topic, try to make something I said look like it's something else, all so you can detract from the debate and the argument in the topic.

But that's fine, I'm perfectly ok with being vilified to make you feel better so that you can inflate your already over-abundant ego just a little more.

Good job, you should pat yourself on the back a little more while you're at it, I'm sure Kali is proud too.



~Namaste

originally posted by: mc_squared

How do they "conveniently leave out some pertinent information" when they put it right into the abstract, which you then immediately went and quoted in bold??

Meaning... they threw away the other 66% of the papers because they mentioned climate but didn't attribute it to humans.

Ummm...no. They threw away 66% of the papers because they didn't attribute it to anything - man-made, natural, space aliens, voodoo, whatever - making them completely irrelevant and immaterial to the discussion.


...

He doesn't "have to run straight away to the denier blogs"... You are trying to excuse the fact that "they threw away 66% of the papers" alongside other "tricks" being used by the AGW crowd to dismiss that "there is no such thing as 97% of all scientists agree"...

Like SonOfTheLawOfOne was saying the "97% of all scientist agree" numbers are based on a LIE. If you "throw away 66% of the research and only take into account researchers that have a bias in favor of AGW, then you are not just claiming that a biased conclusion is fact, but in fact you are using a biased conclusion based on a LIE and you call it a fact...

The 97% number is based on 36% of scientists who responded. So 97% of 36% of those papers that were used in the study claim that climate change is man-made...

The only crackpots are people like you mc_square who even after knowing this you still spout these lies as "truth"...

I can understand that there will be people who would be confused about the numbers being claimed about a consensus of scientists. But when you see people like mc_square continue to try to dismiss these facts, even when he admits it is based on a lie, it should tell you who are the "crackpots and liars"...

a reply to: chiefsmom

The problem is, we have allowed politics and big business to fund science. And they fund that science to get the results they want, not necessarily the truth.

Nice and neat and right to the gist of the matter.

Beauty of a post .....
Regards, Iwinder
eta
Star & Flag to the op for a brilliant thread, many thanks for your hard work.

Regards, Iwinder