Or it could be a 'clue' that something akin to curve fitting occurred.

the equally valid opinion of other respected climatologists that the methods are fine, does not hold any weight with you. Why is that?

Maybe you could show me where these respected climatologists defend breaking anonymity and blindness etc?

I'm not really sure how the opinion of AMS members is relevant to climatology

Meanwhile a paper studying "United States television news coverage of anthropogenic climate change" and a survey looking at "Informed and uninformed public opinions on CO2 capture and storage" are considered climate science literature that endorses consensus.

You don't need expert domain knowledge to see that a) Cook stated that social science research and surveys were not to be included and b) they included social science research and public surveys anyway. Please show me respected climatologists defending such actions.

So yeah, I question the value of former cartoonist "I am not a scientist" John Cook's dubious paper claiming a vast scientific consensus, when clearly agreement among AMS members is only at ~65%. That's just one example of contradictory evidence.

You respond to this contradictory evidence by immediately dismissing the views of AMS members as irrelevant. Don't let inconvenient facts get in your way!

I agree that if science was a popularity contest among government funded scientists then Cook would win.

However, the evidence I've seen regarding consensus is mixed. I've seen some worthless studies - one "97%" survey only surveying~75 scientists and asking a near worthless question - and I've recently seen a paper that only shows ~65% agreement among AMS members for example.

So I'm not convinced there is a 97% consensus. But that is besides the point. What is most important is quality of the method used to produce results. If you mislead about your methods you should be disqualified immediately. That didn't happen in this case.

And if you happen to arrive at the 'correct' result even though your method is misleading and/or completely bogus there is something wrong. A broken clock is correct twice a day I suppose but what are the chances that a bogus method would produce exactly the 'correct' 97% result?

Again, you argue that since the paper produces "correct" results then the paper must be correct. Using that criteria you would have to accept every paper that produced the magic 97%, no matter what kind of garbage methods they used.

Here is Richard Tol's response to that: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.en...

Some things take expert domain knowledge, some things do not. For example: having non-anonymous raters but claiming otherwise. It's fundamental. You can't explain that away by hiding behind claims of 'expert domain knowledge'.

And what expert domain knowledge does Cook have exactly? He initially described himself as a cartoonist and self employed web-dev when he started his activist blog. He explicitly stated that he was NOT a climatologist or a scientist. And now he is a "communication fellow" or whatever and he is working on a PhD in cognitive psychology?? If you want to appeal to authority you should find a better expert.

Meanwhile you reject criticisms from a PhD in social psychology and an IPCC lead author, despite a mountain of blatant evidence. Someone dismissed Judith Curry's views because she wrote about it in her blog. Imagine that: dismissing Judith Curry as a mere 'blogger' when defending a paper written by... a mere blogger. Unbelievable.

Apparently alarmists will defend crap science as long as it produces 'correct' results.

You know what would cause that even faster than your grant not being renewed? Getting caught lying about your results, or showing consistent bias.

According to IPCC lead author Richard Tol: "they admit that Cook 2013 misleads the reader on the independence of the raters and on the information available to the raters. This is normally sufficient for a retraction: the data behind Cook 2013 are not what Cook 2013 claim they are."

Yet people are defending it right till the end because it produces the 'correct' results. Apparently scientific integrity is not so important when you are waging a propaganda war against climate deniers.

I gave you a peer reviewed critique by an IPCC author and that wasn't good enough to raise any doubts or questions. Peer review is apparently only useful when it produces 'correct' results.

And Cook did not follow his stated methodology. Science 101. He was caught red-handed when the private discussions of the 'anonymous' raters were made public.

So the question is: how can you keep defending such a paper?

Nobody is asking you to blindly 'believe' anything. Is that how you decide things? Believe whoever has the most clout or authority? As I said, there is a mountain of evidence to support Duartes claims, but rather than examine it for yourself you try to chip away at his qualifications.

What exactly is former cartoonist turned activist blogger John Cooks expertise that nobody has the qualifications to challenge him? Despite mountains of evidence staring you in the face?

The truth is that Cooks paper touts the 'correct' results - "97% consensus" - so you will defend it no matter how bad it is.

When scientists disagree, they try to persuade each other with evidence.

That's the idealized conception of it but I think it's a bit naive to believe that's how things work in the real world. I always have a laugh when scientists are put on this silly pedestal. Scientists are people just like the rest of us, with all the ego, politics, turf wars etc. For a blatant example: deriding dissenting scientists as "deniers" is a nifty form of persuasion that has nothing to do with evidence.

I don't think the evidence for a vast consensus is very strong. Other evidence I have seen shows little or no consensus. In fact, this constant bleating about consensus rather than evidence is yet another example of how science really operates: consensus thinking and appeals to authority.

Cooks paper is atrocious but people want to push this idea of consensus so I guess it gets a free pass. It seems warmists are blinded by bias: they can't pick out a horribly rotten apple sitting right on top. So how can we trust them to get anything right? They can't see clearly.

So former cartoonist, activist blogger John Cook's paper is akin to "evolutionary theory" in your analogy...??

To review, in their paper, they described their method as: "Abstracts were randomly distributed via a web-based system to raters with only the title and abstract visible. All other information such as author names and affiliations, journal and publishing date were hidden. Each abstract was categorized by two independent, anonymized raters."

All three substantive features of their method are false. Raters were not blind to authors (or any of the other info.) Raters were not independent. Raters were not anonymized. - http://www.joseduarte.com/blog...

The above is easily verifiable.

Hey, point me to a good study that shows that "published papers that seek to test what caused the climate change over the last century and half, almost unanimously find that humans played a dominant role". I'll read it and get back to you.

The Cook study, as I have indicated above, is worthless.

A poster above (arguing for the consensus position btw) posted a recent survey that indicates only 67% of AMS members believe that a majority of warming since 1950 is anthropogenic. That's not a consensus. https://gmuchss.az1.qualtrics....

Since when are ordinary people supposed to ignore mountains of evidence right in front of our noses simply because NASA pretends it doesn't exist? You sure give the government a lot of power if you are not willing to think for yourself. Do you EVER disagree with a US government agency?

Yeah, how dare I say something that contradicts a US government agency, eh?

Maybe you should ask NASA why they would endorse such a terrible study. It should be blatantly obvious to anyone who took a high school science course:

To review, in their paper, they described their method as: "Abstracts were randomly distributed via a web-based system to raters with only the title and abstract visible. All other information such as author names and affiliations, journal and publishing date were hidden. Each abstract was categorized by two independent, anonymized raters."

All three substantive features of their method are false. Raters were not blind to authors (or any of the other info.) Raters were not independent. Raters were not anonymized.

They falsely described their methods. That is a very, very serious thing. There is no science without an accurate description of methods, and this paper, like all papers, was published on the assumption that they followed the methods they described.

Normally the way science works, that's the end. Nothing else needs to be done by anyone. There are no results to evaluate if they didn't follow their methods. Why? Because valid results critically depended on those methods, and when people don't follow their stated methods, we don't know what they did and thus can't rely on the results. Climate science, or its journals, can't be an exception to this basic norm and epistemic requirement of valid science. Why would they be an exception? (This has nothing to do with the truth of AGW or the reality of a consensus -- this is about a fraudulent and invalid study.) (from http://www.joseduarte.com/blog... )

And of course Richard Tol is not to be trusted, even though he apparently agrees with the *result* and is criticizing the method...
http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

How dare he disagree with the experts in the US government!

Again, you meant to accuse me and NASA [nasa.gov] of apparently not being able to tell how bad a study is.

Apparently not. How bad does this paper have to be before you or NASA criticize it? You might as well have papers that rely on tarot readings - as long as they get the magic 97% result I doubt you or your ilk would complain.

Here's a peer reviewed critique from Richard Tol: http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

The little graph you keep posting from their activist blog shows their paper got it wrong 62% of the time?? Is that supposed to be a defense??

As to the Curry post, I said it was "a much better discussion on consensus" than what you were providing. If you want to read into it that's your business. However, I will point out that 67% is not a consensus.

But I'm more interested in the quality of the paper making this 97% claim. Unfortunately it seems global warming activists, scientists, and even NASA (!) will endorse really, really bad papers as long as they produce the 'correct' results. It's a travesty.

You seem to think I am arguing with the results of John Cooks paper. I'm not and either is Tol. (I happen to think his results are wrong, but that's besides the point.)

You on the other hand are giving a free pass to an atrociously bad paper because you agree with the results. And so are many scientists.

The conversation was about the Cook study. And apparently you can't tell how bad a study is even if it's atrociously bad. "From the start we would never be able to claim that ratings were done by independent, unbiased, or random people anyhow." http://www.hi-izuru.org/forum/...

Climate activists would be better off saying 'Yes that *particular* study IS crap' but you won't see that kind of plain honesty coming from the warmist camp. And no, you won't find much candor in the skeptic community either, although I think skeptics can afford to be more candid.

Funny you should link the Zimmerman study - they surveyed 3145 respondents, but only used 77 of those to get the magic 97% number. The question asked was “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?” Most skeptics and luke-warmers, including me, would answer 'yes' to that question. So the survey is essentially meaningless.

Here's a much better discussion on consensus: https://judithcurry.com/2013/1...