Scientific expertise lacking among 'doubters' of climate change, according to analysis...Stanford...

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/june/climate-change-doubters-062510.html

Stanford Report, June 25, 2010

Scientific expertise lacking among 'doubters' of climate change, according to analysis by Stanford researchers

An analysis of the scientific prominence and expertise of climate researchers shows that the few who are unconvinced of human-caused climate change rank far below researchers who are convinced. Most news media accounts fail to include that context when reporting claims from the doubters.

BY LOUIS BERGERON

The small number of scientists who are unconvinced that human beings have contributed significantly to climate change have far less expertise and prominence in climate research compared with scientists who are convinced, according to a study led by Stanford researchers.

In a quantitative assessment – the first of its kind to address this issue – the team analyzed the number of research papers published by more than 900 climate researchers and the number of times their work was cited by other scientists.

"These are standard academic metrics used when universities are making hiring or tenure decisions," said William Anderegg, lead author of a paper published in the online Early Edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week.

Expertise was evaluated by the number of papers on climate research written by each individual, with a minimum of 20 required to be included in the analysis. Climate researchers who are convinced of human-caused climate change had on average about twice as many publications as the unconvinced, said Anderegg, a doctoral candidate in biology.

...

[Dead_Parrot]

1. News from the Ministry of the Bloody Obvious: Dumb fucks are dumb.

Full report on page 4.

[FBI_Un_Sub]

2. More evidence of the Sarah Palinization of America

[Nederland]

3. This study is a joke

It dogmatically divides scientists into two categories: those convince by the evidence and those unconvinced by the evidence. Only an idiot could possibly look at the issue of AGW and believe there are only two possible positions. With such binary thinking at work, it is no wonder that the results are meaningless. For example, the study categorizes Roger Pielke Sr. as one of those "unconvinced by the evidence". Let's look at some quotes by Roger Pielke Sr to understand what he believes and where he stands on human induced climate change:

"Humans are significantly altering the global climate."

"The IPCC assessments have been too conservative in recognizing the importance of these human climate forcings as they alter regional and global climate."

and my personal favorite:

"I am not a climate skeptic."

So why does such a person get categorized by the study as someone "unconvinced by the evidence"? It's simple. Roger Pielke Sr. has to audacity to believe that the IPCC has under-estimated the effect of deforestation on climate, and has publicly disagreed with Gavin Schmidt (one of the primary maintainers of the Real Climate blog) on the subject. You see, it's not enough to believe that humans are changing the climate, that such changes are likely to have catastrophic consequences, and that we need to do something about it. No. You have to believe every single thing that comes out of the mouth of the high priests of climate change, people like Jim Hansen, Michael Mann, and Gavin Schmidt. Oppose those people for any reason and you find yourself on the black list: http://www.eecg.utoronto.ca/~prall/climate/skeptic_authors_table.html

This study is merely another sad example of how dogmatic thinking that has taken over the science of climate change.

[joshcryer]

4. If they think there's a "conspiracy" that well written "contrarian" papers aren't being published...

...then they can post their "contrarian" papers on the web for dissemination. There are a few people who do this, mind you, but they have never been published before. We see people like Watts talking about a paper he wants to publish but he has yet to do so, indeed, Watts has been challenged on numerous occasions to publish his work. Roy Spencer is one of the more intelligent guys who refuses to publish a peer reviewed paper, despite his work on the political side of things. His claim is that it wouldn't be accepted, but if he thought that he could write up his paper and then post it on his site in the event it was (with good reason) rejected.

In our politically polarized environment the converse is actually true, that is, "contrarian" papers are allowed through the peer review without as much scrutiny (Lindzen and Choi (2009)) and are allowed to be posted in journals (not necessarily peer reviewed) even when their credibility is clearly in question (can't find it right now but a contrarian paper was allowed to be posted in a journal, and after the editors were contacted with tonnes of evidence that the "contrarian position" was bullshit, they put up a disclaimer, I'm sure you're more familiar with the incident than I am).

This study, therefore, is relevant and has some basis in reality.

[Nederland]

5. I'm not sure I understand your response

I never claimed a conspiracy was at work or that well written contrarian papers aren't being published. What I said was the this study is fundamentally flawed because it divides scientists up into two groups, when in truth there are many more than just two positions on climate change.

Perhaps you didn't mean to respond to my post...?

[joshcryer]

10. Responding to the asinine "black list" claim.

They made it clear what their methodology was, and you failed to understand or appreciate it. I'm sure you'd also find a statement like "what elements are electrically conductive at room temperature?" dogmatic, since it makes things "black and white." (Differentiating between elements that are conductive at room temperature and elements that are not conductive at room temperature.)

What a joke.

[OKIsItJustMe]

12. I'm sorry, I just can't help myself

But what about semi-conductors?

:hide:

[joshcryer]

13. I'm not aware of any element being a semi-conductor at room temperature.

You could conceivably do it with a plasma, so I should've clarified my statement further by saying "at 1 atmosphere."

The statement was intended to show how we classify metals, though it was clumsy I admit.

[OKIsItJustMe]

14. Are you thinking of super-duper-conductors?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor">Semiconductors are a different matter. (That's why your computer works at room temperature.)

For my part, I was making a semi-joke.

[Nederland]

17. Apparently the joke is on you...

...because yes, I would say that a statement like "what elements are electrically conductive at room temperature?" is dogmatic. And I would be right:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_resistivities_of_the_elements_%28data_page%29

[joshcryer]

18. Not if you wanted to classify metals.

Nonsense.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. Re: It dogmatically divides scientists into two categories

I don't believe you've fairly represented the study:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/22/1003187107.full.pdf+html?sid=b621b61e-d7c7-467d-9712-6753564bf47e

…

Because the timeline of decision-making is often more rapid than scientific consensus, examining the landscape of expert opinion can greatly inform such decision-making (15, 19). Here, we examine a metric of climate-specific expertise and a metric of overall scientific prominence as two dimensions of expert credibility in two groups of researchers. We provide a broad assessment of the relative credibility of researchers convinced by the evidence (CE) of ACC and those unconvinced by the evidence (UE) of ACC. Our consideration of UE researchers differs from previous work on climate change skeptics and contrarians in that we primarily focus on researchers that have published extensively in the climate field, although we consider all skeptics/contrarians that have signed prominent statements concerning ACC (6–8). Such expert analysis can illuminate public and policy discussions about ACC and the extent of consensus in the expert scientific community.

We compiled a database of 1,372 climate researchers based on authorship of scientific assessment reports and membership on multisignatory statements about ACC (http://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1003187107/-/DCSupplemental/pnas.201003187SI.pdf?targetid=nameddest=STXT">SI Materials and Methods). We tallied the number of climate-relevant publications authored or coauthored by each researcher (defined here as expertise) and counted the number of citations for each of the researcher’s four highest-cited papers (defined here as prominence) using Google Scholar. We then imposed an a priori criterion that a researcher must have authored a minimum of 20 climate publications to be considered a climate researcher, thus reducing the database to 908 researchers. Varying this minimum publication cutoff did not materially alter results (Materials and Methods).

We ranked researchers based on the total number of climate publications authored. Though our compiled researcher list is not comprehensive nor designed to be representative of the entire climate science community, we have drawn researchers from the most high-profile reports and public statements about ACC. Therefore, we have likely compiled the strongest and most credentialed researchers in CE and UE groups. Citation and publication analyses must be treated with caution in inferring scientific credibility, but we suggest that our methods and our expertise and prominence criteria provide conservative, robust, and relevant indicators of relative credibility of CE and UE groups of climate researchers (Materials and Methods).

…

Why did Pielke make the list of researches "unconvinced by the evidence?" Because he signed this statement:
http://www.sepp.org/policy%20declarations/statment.html

Statement by Atmospheric Scientists on Greenhouse Warming

WASHINGTON, D.C., FEBRUARY 27, 1992---As independent scientists, researching atmospheric and climate problems, we are concerned by the agenda for UNCED, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, being developed by environmental activist groups and certain political leaders. This so-called Earth Summit is scheduled to convene in Brazil in June 1992 and aims to impose a system of global environmental regulations, including onerous taxes on energy fuels, on the population of the United States and other industrialized nations.

Such policy initiatives derive from highly uncertain scientific theories. They are based on the unsupported assumption that catastrophic global warming follows from the burning of fossil fuels and requires immediate action. We do not agree.

A survey of U.S. atmospheric scientists, conducted in the summer of 1991, confirms that there is no consensus about the cause of the slight warming observed during the past century. A recently published research paper even suggests that sunspot variability, rather than a rise in greenhouse gases, is responsible for the global temperature increases and decreases recorded since about 1880.

Furthermore, the majority of scientific participants in the survey agreed that the theoretical climate models used to predict a future warming cannot be relied upon and are not validated by the existing climate record. Yet all predictions are based on such theoretical models.

Finally, agriculturalists generally agree that any increase in carbon dioxide levels from fossil fuel burning has beneficial effects on most crops and on world food supply.

We are disturbed that activists, anxious to stop energy and economic growth, are pushing ahead with drastic policies without taking notice of recent changes in the underlying science. We fear that the rush to impose global regulations will have catastrophic impacts on the world economy, on jobs, standards of living, and health care, with the most severe consequences falling upon developing countries and the poor.

...

Pielke is a relatively well published researcher, so, if (as you suggest) he has been inaccurately labeled as "unconvinced" then his numbers would tend to unfairly benefit the "expertise" and "prominence" (i.e. "credibility") of the "UE" side.

[Nederland]

7. I'm not sure I see your point

I'm claiming the study is flawed because it dogmatically divides the scientific community into two camps, when in fact there are numerous positions that are possible. I see nothing in your post that contradicts that observation. Your link to the statement that Pielke signed merely demonstrates my point regarding the study. First of all, categorizing a scientist into the "unconvinced" camp based upon a single statement signed 18 years ago, and not even bothering to look at the more than hundred peer reviewed papers he has publish since then is not the mark of a well researched study. However, the real problem with the study is not that they categorized Pielke incorrectly, but that their dogmatic division of scientists into one of only two camps makes it impossible to categorize him correctly. It would be like a study on religion that reports the American population as 1.7% Jewish and 98.3% Christian. That fact that the 1.7% Jewish statistic is accurate does not make up for the fact that lumping everyone into one of only two religions is idiotic.

[OKIsItJustMe]

9. It appears you're a bit dogmatic yourself

…

So why does such a person get categorized by the study as someone "unconvinced by the evidence"? It's simple. Roger Pielke Sr. has to audacity to believe that the IPCC has under-estimated the effect of deforestation on climate, and has publicly disagreed with Gavin Schmidt (one of the primary maintainers of the Real Climate blog) on the subject. You see, it's not enough to believe that humans are changing the climate, that such changes are likely to have catastrophic consequences, and that we need to do something about it. No. You have to believe every single thing that comes out of the mouth of the high priests of climate change, people like Jim Hansen, Michael Mann, and Gavin Schmidt. Oppose those people for any reason and you find yourself on the black list …

You're absolutely certain that Pielke has been misclassified.

Their classification scheme is simple (Convinced or Unconvinced) does that perforce make it invalid? If you think about it for a moment, this actually covers the spectrum of views rather nicely.

If, a researcher publicly questions some aspect of the science, then, that researcher is classified as "unconvinced." (What exactly is invalid about that?)

Allow me to draw an analogy for a moment. Let's talk about things which are in the water, as opposed to things which are not in the water. Now, admittedly, there are all sorts of considerations which are left out of this (how deep are they in the water? are they on land? are they flying?)

However, one general conclusion can be drawn from this (admittedly) simple classification. Things which are in the water tend to be all wet.

[Nederland]

15. Read what I wrote

You're absolutely certain that Pielke has been misclassified.

No. What I said was this:

However, the real problem with the study is not that they categorized Pielke incorrectly, but that their dogmatic division of scientists into one of only two camps makes it impossible to categorize him correctly.

I think that is clear enough.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Here's why he is 'unconvinced by the evidence':

The 2010 answer to the question by Andy Revkin

“Is most of the observed warming over the last 50 years likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations”?

remains NO.

The added greenhouse gases from human activity clearly have a role in increasing the heat content of the climate system from what it otherwise would be. However, there are other equally or even more important significant human climate forcings, as I summarized in my 2005 post and in the 2009 article

http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2010/05/04/update-to-andy-revkins-question-in-2005-is-most-of-the-observed-warming-over-the-last-50-years-likely-to-have-heen-due-to-the-increase-in-greenhouse-gas-concentrations”/

He's pretty clear about his belief; and that is that changes in greenhouse gases are not important.

[Nederland]

16. Precisely

He believes that deforestation is a larger contributor to warming than CO2. Is he right? Probably not. That's not the point. The point is that there is a world of disagreement between a person like Roger Pielke Sr and an idiot like Anthony Watts, but this study lumps them together into the same category.

[JohnWxy]

11. They certainly have a gift for understatement.