Oreskes Shreds Contradictory Climate Survey
The climate-change denier sites are alive with chortling over a promised new study that says: "Less than half of all published scientists endorse global warming theory."
The survey, to be published in the small and contrarian journal Energy and Environment, claims to "debunk" an earlier study by University of California (San Diego) science historian Naomi Oreskes - a study that was published in the much more reputable journal Science.
No one could do a better job than Oreskes does here of dismissing the new survey. Even if author, Klaus-Martin Schulte, (a German endocrinologist with no background in climate science or science history) canproduce "32 (peer-reviewed) papers that reject the consensus outright," the other errors and unfounded attacks that have already been reported suggest that his piece, like Benny Pieser's before him, is an agenda-driven polemic that won't stand up to serious scientific scrutiny.
But you have to hand it to the dissembling team led by people like Marc Morano for giving Schulte more public attention than he has ever before earned in his academic career. There are a host of "right" leaning blogs that claim to stand up for certainty - that object at every turn that the proof of anthropogenic climate change is not yet 100 per cent. Yet, whenever some limp piece of information arrives that challenges the overwhelming consensus or actual experts, these high-tone bloggers suddenly drop their standards and shout the querulous claims from the rooftops.
If it need be said again, this is not about science, it's about politics. It's about public relations, and a brand of public relations that gives the practice a bad name.
Did you forget the link to the Oreskes debunking of the new study?
Never mind. Found it here:
http://scienceblogs.com/strangerfruit/2007/08/oreskes_responds_to_schulte.php
Minor formatting issue.
Response to N. Oreskes criticisms...
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton_papers/open_letter_in_response_to_namoi_oreskes_criticisms.html
Monckton is not under any circumstances to be considered a source of reliable information about climate change as his recent article in the Telegraph newspaper (UK), reveals.
Anyone have the background on Science and Public Policy Institute?
I noted links to the Heartland Institute on their website, so presumably it's an ExxonMobil funded clone organisation!
One of the biggest problems with Oreskes' original study is that it is not reproducible. Science should be reproducible and Oreskes' paper isn't. You can follow the methods outlined in the paper and you won't get her numbers.
Actually, I hope you could do a far better job than Oreskes did. Let’s look at a couple of Oreskes outrageously lame points..
Oreskes Point 1: This entire point is an ad hominem attack. She doesn’t dispute any science.
Oreskes Point 2-4: I don’t have the Schulte paper, so I can’t evaluate Oreskes arguments. Other than to point out in point 4 Oreskes writes, “Scientists don't generally use that kind of language [words like catastrophe], although contrarians do.” Huh? Doesn’t Oreskes any of press releases put out by environmental groups or scientists just as James Hansen? See for example, this post: http://climateprogress.org/2007/05/25/yet-another-must-read-by-james-hansen/
Oreskes Point 6: Oreskes writes that Schultz “is [only] a medical researcher.” But Orekes is a “historian of science” who is “trained to analyze and understand scientific arguments.” Whoa. Wait a minute. Medicine isn’t science? And a medical researcher can’t understand scientific arguments? Call me crazy, but I’d trust an actual scientist, as in someone who studies science (in this case a medical researcher) over someone who just studies the history of science.
Stan: even the slightest bit of Googling would help.
Do you know how to use Google Scholar?
Dr. Oreskes is a multiple award-winning, well-published geoscientist who also studies history of scientific arguments. Of course, the argument over climate change isn't a *scientific* argument, but something else, and she has gotten interested in those as well.
She is quite capable of looking at climate-change papers and understanding what they're talking about, and telling the difference between a real rejection of the consensus and and the normal tussles of science, which requires some domain knowledge.
It's not obvious that an endocrine surgeon, even a well-published one, would have that domain knowledge, or have any idea which authors have credible track records. Remember, this sort of study requires an *assessment* by somebody with relevant domain knowledge.
Regarding Dr. Schulte, I'd say there is at least a 50/50 chance that he's a relative innocent who has been pulled into this fight by Lord Christopher Monckton and is a bit naive about the politicization of this topic. Dr. Schulte seems to think that Energy & Environment is a credible journal, for example ... and if he wants to put his reputation in the same category as E&E and Benny Peiser (who tried a similar attack on Oreskes), that's too bad for him.
Why do I get the sneaking suspicion that if Dr. Schulte's study had confirmed Oreske's findings, none of you would be having this conversation? I find it amazing how little scrutiny AGW proponents put to anything that confirms their pre-existing beliefs, and some of the rubbish I've seen that purports to be 'academic' but is actually more polemic.
Funny how both Peiser and Schulte used pretty much the same methodology as the original study yet somehow their's is flawed, but the original still stands? And how did the initial error omitting a keyword that was used in the study happen in a 'peer-reviewed' journal anyway?
Stan Kjar said: "Oreskes Point 1: This entire point is an ad hominem attack. She doesn’t dispute any science".
Please tell me how Point 1 is an ad hominem attack. It consists of at least 8 factually accurate statements. If you have any evidence that the statements she made are not, in fact, true then please present it. Otherwise you are just showing that you do not really know what you are talking about.
Ian Forrester
Your claim that the author of this new study is not a climate scientist is very funny, Richard, although I am sure you didn't intend it to be. Oreskes isn't a climate scientist either. She is an historian. And why do you have to be a climate scientist to look up the subject matter of research papers and count how many there are and what they discuss? Anyone who does research for a living and works with statistics is capable of doing this kind of research.
To begin with, Oreskes is professor of history, but her undergraduate and Ph.D. degrees are in geology.
Moving on, you say: "why do you have to be a climate scientist to look up the subject matter of research papers and count how many there are and what they discuss? Anyone who does research for a living and works with statistics is capable of doing this kind of research."
Ok, kettle, tell me how Schulte would classify this abstract:
"An analysis of the regulation of tropical tropospheric water vapor":
"We use a simple trajectory model of mid- and upper-tropospheric H2O to investigate the mechanisms that regulate mid- and upper-tropospheric humidity. Our model advects water passively and contains no microphysics other than the requirement that water vapor is immediately removed so as to prevent the relative humidity (RH) from ever exceeding 100%. We demonstrate that our simple model accurately reproduces H2O measurements made by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder onboard NASA Aqua satellite. Our results show that, given the large-scale circulation of the troposphere, detailed microphysical processes need not be included in order to accurately simulate H2O. We have also identified three preferred regions where air parcels in the mid- and upper troposphere experience their final dehydration. The first is in the equatorial upper troposphere, and is associated with convective outflow at the top of the tropical Hadley circulation. Final dehydration of air that detrains at potential temperature above ~340 K predominantly occurs here. The other two regions are found at lower altitudes in the mid-latitudes of both hemispheres, and are associated with dehydration during isentropic excursions to mid-latitudes. Final dehydration of air that detrains at potential temperatures below ~340 K predominantly occurs here. Finally, we analyze the water budget of the dry Eastern Pacific subtropics and find that dehydration in both the equatorial upper troposphere and the mid-latitudes contribute to the dryness there." http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2006JD007683.shtml
In Schulte-terms, does this paper accept or reject the consensus view on climate change?
No clue? Me neither. From the abstract alone, even many experts in the field would find it very difficult to ascertain whether the the paper supports the IPCC view. To endocrinologist Schulte, it probably scores as "neutral".
But that is a complete misrepresentation of what it actually indicates. The paper is strongly supportive of the IPCC view. We know that because the author Andrew Dessler says exactly that here: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/1/12556/89102
Furthermore, suppose endocrinologist Schulte did a survey of all abstracts in scientific journals over the last three years that contained the words "natural selection". How many of them do think would contain a statement such as "we strongly (nay - explicitly!) endorse the theory of evolution". How about close to ZERO. Why? Because anyone working in the field would have no need to say that in their abstract, anymore than a chemist would need to declare his/her endorsement of atomic theory each time they submit a paper. It's not stated because it is widely understood. But if you were to conduct a search Schulte-style, you would be declaring that "94% of chemistry papers do not explicitly endorse atomic theory!!!!".
Pot.
1) In a Web era, if someone is visible and has an easily searchable name, it is trivial to look them up before confidently posting silliness. In this case, the very first hit from:
Google: naomi oreskes ==>
http://historyweb.ucsd.edu/oreskes/pages/profile.html
and one can read the publications list.
and the 3rd is a relevant Wikipedia entry.
Anyone reading those would think twice before dismissing her as "an historian", especially noting her time from Dartmouth. Note that some people change emphasis over their careers, which doesn't mean they forget what they used to do.
2) Of course, it helps to know a few less-obvious facts:
A) Imperial College is sometimes considered the "MIT of the UK"; it generally ranks in the top 3 or 4 in UK league tables [Cambridge & Oxford, IC&LSE]; it has long had strong geosciences, especially when Dr. Oreskes was there.
B) California universities in general and Stanford in particular are fond of interdisciplinary programs & degrees, and in general, a professor's primary department may tell you something about what they do, but it doesn't tell you that they *don't* do something else.
It may not be obvious that an assistant professor in the Department of Surgery would also be an assoc prof. in Mechanical Engineering, but it happens. A scientist in a History department is probably less uncommon.
Bravo! Great post.
Keeping in mind that the requirements for most medical schools in the US are; one year of bio, one year of chemistry, one year of organic chemistry and one year of physics all with labs. MCATS test on this science foundation. While in medical school students study...medicine. A medical doctor does not have the training to establish inclusion criteria for metaanylsis in climatology. And there is no reason to believe that they have the statistical background to understand it. (many MD need to go on to get MPHs)
Agreed, excellent summary of reality...2 thumbs up
I don't know how Schulte would classify that essay. Why don"t you ask him?
http://n3xus6.blogspot.com/2007/09/consensus-smashed.html
Scroll down for all three panels... cheers, tidal