You don't, because there is no way to tell. THAT IS THE POINT. Oreskes' paper is not a reflection of actual "consensus view" because there is no way to tell merely from the published papers. That's not the way science publishing works. And I'd be willing to be she knows that, and knew it then.

If you want to find out what meteorologists and climatologists actually think about greenhouse warming, you have to actually ask them. (Interesting, is it not, that neither Oreskes or this more recent "97%" paper did not actually ask anybody what they think, even though they were supposed to be about what people think?)

But that has been done. They were asked. And the results are very different from "97%".

I already did point them out. It just went over your head. That's not "flippant", it's a factual observation.

The POINT is that in 2004, the only climate papers that mentioned "climate change" were papers about greenhouse warming. But there were lots of papers about climate that did not mention "climate change" at all. Those were excluded from the study.

So Oreskes' sampling method (and similarly, another such "study" this year) SELECTED for papers that were about greenhouse warming. Keep in mind here that if somebody writes a paper about climate, and does not conclude that climate is significantly changing, they aren't going to mention "climate change" because the paper is not about climate change. They won't mention it because they aren't trying to disprove it... their paper is about something else.

There was a study done, however, using proper statistical methods. And the "consensus" they found was hardly overwhelming... 52%. That is the difference between the statistical error you did not see, and a properly done study. And that difference is pretty damned large.

No. That would be an incorrect inference.

First, "majority" has nothing to do with it. Consensus is not science. But second, and more important, is that I was referring to scientists in general, not necessarily climatologists.

Trying to say "listen to climatologists about climate science" is disingenuous. Because you don't have to be a climatologist -- or even a scientist, for that matter -- to see that an improper statistical method was used, or that the math is inconsistent.

But even if you ARE confining it to climatologists, the whole point of this discussion was that they do NOT all agree. Or even 97% of them. Those are "statistics" that came from statistically invalid "studies".

I'm not making broad claims about how many do believe and how many don't... although I there is good evidence that it is nowhere near to 97%. Just for example: if it were, they wouldn't have to fudge their "studies", as it has been clearly shown they have.

But as it turns out, other people ARE making those claims. A comprehensive study of meteorologists HAS been done, which did not use fraudulent statistical methods. And the "consensus" it found amounted to 52%. Not exactly overwhelming,

Pardon me. I misread your comment a bit so that did not make a lot of sense. What I meant was to do a study that did not specifically search for "global climate change".

Simple: a thorough search of ALL climate papers. As opposed to a search for papers on "global climate change". Because papers about climate that don't support "global climate change" aren't likely to mention global climate change, for the simple reason that they aren't about global climate change.

You seem to assume that any scientific paper that isn't about "global climate change" must be attempting to refute global climate change. But normally, if a paper is about climate but does not come to the conclusion that climate is changing significantly, it isn't likely to announce what it DIDN'T find. That's not how it works. It will simply report the things that it DID find.

I repeat: searching for papers specifically about "climate change" is going to find papers that are attempting to show climate change. Because that's what papers do. It is not going to find the papers that aren't.

Where the hell do you live, that your family and neighbors are all so keenly aware? Everywhere I've been, you have one big group of drooling idiots who treat their party like a friggin' sports team and never put any thought beyond what some PR drone tells them to think. I want to live where you live.

Buy your own SmallFurryCreature's Terrorist-Repelling Rock today! Approved by the TSA!

Calling names is not an argument. Do you have an argument to make?

More ad-hominem. Easy enough to insult people, but that's not a refutation. What are the specific errors to which you refer? Would you care to share them, and show why they are wrong?

It's not valid and it's ridiculously easy to show that. A survey that self-selects for the thing it's trying to prove is not a valid survey. That's hardly a complex concept... it's Statistics 101.

The Petition Project wasn't a "survey", and I made no claim that it "proves" anything at all. It does suggest pretty darned strongly, however, that there was no overwhelming consensus among science professionals.

I have no idea what you're talking about. What "politically inspired survey"? If you mean the petition project, it was not a survey. But aside from that, why do you say that it was "politically inspired"? Do you have evidence of that? Further, why do you seem to feel that Oreskes' survey was NOT politically inspired? Do you have evidence of that?

And what "rigorous" surveys do you refer to? I haven't seen any. So far I've seen 3 studies that (A) pretend to take themselves seriously, and (B) purport to support an overwhelming consensus supporting greenhouse warming. Of those 3, the first is the discredited Oreskes study of 10 years ago.

Of the other two, the Cook survey commits the same cardinal statistical sin that Oreskes did, with a "survey" that was essentially self-selecting. Further, out of 10,000 survey questionnaires sent out, the "results" were cherry picked from only 75 of the returns. And not only that, but memos regarding that study were made public which make it very clear that the "study" was performed with the clear intent to demonstrate a consensus... that is to say, the conclusion was foregone. If you want an example of an ADMITTED "political" motivation for a survey, there you have it.

The third study, by William Anderegg et al., used clearly political criteria such as opposition to the Kyoto protocol, rather than actual opinions on whether greenhouse warming is real, to categorize its results. So it doesn't show what it pretends to show either.

Why should that convince me? By what crazy rules of the universe should a plethora of evidence suggesting skewed (possibly even dishonest?) surveys on the side of the greenhouse gassers, and an utter LACK of evidence of any wrong doing on "the other side", convince me? What is there to change my mind?

So, no. If anything, what appear to be deliberate attempts to skew survey results does not "convince" me at all. Rather the opposite: it tends to make me even more skeptical of their science.

If it appears that survey results are being skewed, what reason would I have to think they aren't faking their science results, too? After all, they're some of the same people.

It was 10 years ago, and I didn't want to dig it up. You are correct, but it makes little difference.

Again, pardon me, as I said it was a long time ago. Yes, theoretically it could go either way, but get real; in the real world it did not. Nobody in 2004 who was publishing papers on climate change were predicting "global cooling". However, a substantial body of scientists were also publishing climate papers that were not predicting climate change. And therein lies the important difference, because those papers did not mention "climate change". And why should they? They weren't about climate change.

I will be polite and say that is disingenuous. There were other CLIMATE papers that did not mention "climate change". Those were EXCLUDED from her search, which is enough to INVALIDATE her statistics. Do you get it yet?

Yes, she did, because the only papers ABOUT "climate change" in 2004 were about greenhouse global warming. That's WHY her statistics were invalid. Seriously, do you still not get it?

I was going to address the rest of your comments but I'm just going to stop here. Either you missed the entire point or you're pretending certain fundamental rules of statistical study don't exist. Either way, there is no reason for me to continue.

"... of the climate researchers most actively publishing". Uh-huh.

Uh-huh. Wow, how about that?

So they found that the people most actively promoting climate change were in agreement with climate change. Big surprise.

And then they base more of their results (ii) on ad-hominem: "the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC..."

Haha. That latter is really a hoot. "Hey... let's judge people's science based solely on their reputations, and how many papers they've published! We'll show those deniers!"

Statistical garbage.

Then quitcher bitching and do it. Because until it *IS* done, there are no good statistics. Bullshit is bullshit.

Well, some kind of explanation would be nice, but it's not as easy as it might seem.

If you're a developer, an explanation such as "It's kind of like make for Ruby" might suffice. But really, it's not quite like make, and strictly speaking it's not just for Ruby. So more than a very basic comparison with make gets pretty complicated.

And if you're not a developer... well, it's a tool that tells compilers how to compile source code into programs. Sort of.

"ilPapa"(2366).

I have just one question. I'm not sure I'd ever agree with your position but I would like to better understand it. I remain open-minded about its potential merits.

Why do you believe that a reasonable legal (i.e. case law) limit is better than any other method of providing an effective limitation?

For example, if the average person learned not to ever believe anything important without first investigating it, then false statements stemming from unlimited free speech would be effectively limited. Such statements would exist but they wouldn't have any power. As a bonus this mentality would be much more resistant to the various marketing and propaganda techniques.

What makes you sure that legal limits would be better than another solution that we've never seriously tried?

It would have taken all of three words to give those of us who are not developers a hint about what "Rake" is.

I mean, for chrissake...

I guess the President's corporate sponsors have figured out that patent trolls are an expensive nuisance.

So Obama's going to go after patent trolls while pushing for international trade agreements that will allow the biggest corporations to use IP laws to further crush competition and keep regular people poor. Typical.

I'm furious with myself for ever having supported that guy.