Edit: Irace86 has much quicker fingers than I. Nevertheless, I spent a bit of time on the following and insist that you all read it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MuseChaser
That's not what you stated as fact; you stated that, unequivocally, 97% of climate scientists agree that climate warming is caused by man. That is a false statement on several levels, and you made it. Own it. First of all, the study you cited is flawed on several levels (see the Forbes article linked below), and secondly, the article to which you referred discussed "climate change," and not the more specific (and not coincidentally even more difficult to defend) charge of "climate/global warming."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/uhenerg...h=422ac4d71157
Again, read the Forbes link above. I read yours... you read mine. Regardless of how I "seem to be acting" to you, not once have I intimated that the scientists to whom you defer for your opinions are acting intentionally deceitfully, nor involved in a global conspiracy. I said that they, like everyone, are susceptible to outside biases, and that 97% do not agree that man is the cause of climate change/global warming. THAT is fact.
I have also never said anything to indicate a lack of support for moving away from fossil fuels.
If you insist on mischaracterizing my words, outside studies, and stating your strongly held opinions as fact, I can't stop you. You may wish to cease doing so, as it only serves to further weaken your already weak stance. |
I read the Forbes piece and must confess, I'm a bit surprised you cited it as it seems to undermine rather than support what I gather to be your position. I could be mistaken, but you, as did Mr. Ritchie seem fixated on the magic 97% figure.
He goes to great pains to debunk that number critiquing several (what I would call) meta-analyses of papers produced between 2003 and 2016. And, he does, in fact raise legitimate questions about the 97% estimate. His first bar chart leads him to the statement that "... over half the surveys in the publishing category and all the surveys in the non-publishing category are below 97%." Touche But what does that mean?
Of the published surveys, none produces a figure lower than 84% and, tellingly the numbers trend upward until 2008 from which point all indicate census levels in excess of 90 % and four come to the infamous 97% number. On the unpublished side, the level of consensus is lower, peaking at 92% in a 2014 piece. But, of the 9 pieces he cites, only 3 indicate a level less than 80% and all were produced before 2014.
As a practical matter does the absolute number really matter? You seem to have spent time in an academic setting and are no doubt familiar with the related concepts of measurement error and false precision. I have no idea what the Ns of the surveys in question were and no way of drawing a confidence interval around their various point estimates. What I can say with certainty is that, unless they surveyed the universe of climate (I presume) scientists, each of the numbers provided is subject to measurement error and therefore, inexact. Does it matter that the 97% number is wrong. If it does, we need accept that all survey derived estimates are wrong. It seems to me that what we can conclude from Ritchie's piece is that, given the fractious nature of most scientific communities, there is pretty overwhelming support for the assertion that climate scientists subscribe to some version of anthropogenic climate change. Must we go beyond that? To do so seems almost cruelly pedantic.
The chart from the Bray and von Storch paper seems similarly unhelpful. The item they present represents the results of a Likert item measuring respondents beliefs in the anthropogenic foundations of climate change. First, I think Ritchie misread the text of the item. A seven point Likert scale would start at the low end with "Not at all convinced" not "not convinced" which would be scored as a 2. 4 is the "Not Sure" category and 5, 6, and 7 are various levels of positive conviction.
As to interpretation, ignoring the "somewhat convinced" group in category 5, over 69 (let's call it 70) % of the respondents were either "convinced" or "very much convinced" of the efficacy of the anthropogenic nature of climate change.
All of which leads me to this question: What is your point? To poke a hole in a number which anyone who has done or paid attention to an opinion survey knows is not true? Of course it's not true. A point estimate is, in the best of circumstances almost certainly not correct. The true value will lie within the confidence interval of the survey. The point estimate simply offers us something to talk about.
Now, I have rattled on for quite some time, but again, what is your point?