If you follow the subject of global warming alarm, you will have read many times that there is a “consensus” of “97% of climate scientists” on — well, on something.
I’ve actually never been able to find a precise statement of the proposition on which the 97% supposedly agree.
But suppose you can find the statement. And suppose that it consists of some kind of definitive assertion that there has been significant atmospheric warming over the past century, and that most to all of such warming has been caused by human greenhouse gas emissions.
Is this real science or fake science? How do you tell?
It seems that the most common approach of most people to this question is to trust the “scientists.” After all, science is complicated. You are not a scientist, so how are you ever going to understand this?
And even if you are a scientist in some other field, and you have both the talent and the interest to delve into the details of how this conclusion was reached, you don’t have the time.
You are told that 97% of “climate scientists” agree. Really, what choice do you have other than to trust the people who have done the work, and who call themselves the scientists and the experts on this subject?
This approach apparently seems reasonable to a lot of people, including many, many seemingly intelligent people.
But not to me.
The approach does not seem reasonable to me because the scientific method provides a very simple check for testing whether scientific claims are valid, and you don’t need to be a scientist to apply this check. (Another way of looking at it is that the people who apply this check are actually the real scientists, because they are the ones using the scientific method; and the people who call themselves “scientists” and work in “scientific” fields of endeavor and publish in scientific journals and wear scientist outfits, but don’t apply the actual scientific method, are not really scientists. But at this point in time the label “scientist” has been so captured by those who apply it to themselves whether or not they follow the scientific method that I think it is hopeless to get it back.)
Here is the very simple check. When confronted with a claim that a scientific proposition has been definitively proven, ask the question: What was the null hypothesis and on what basis has it been rejected?
Consider first a simple example, the question of whether aspirin cures headaches. Make that our scientific proposition: aspirin cures headaches. How would this proposition be established?
You yourself have taken aspirin many times, and your headache always went away. Doesn’t that prove that the aspirin worked? Absolutely not.
The fact that you took aspirin 100 times and the headache went away 100 times proves nothing. Why? Because there is a null hypothesis that must first be rejected.
Here the null hypothesis is that headaches will go away just as quickly on their own. How do you reject that? The standard method is to take some substantial number of people with headaches, say 2,000, and give half of them the aspirin and the other half a placebo.
Two hours later, of 1,000 who took the aspirin, 950 feel better and only 50 still have the headache; and of 1,000 who took the placebo, 500 still have the headache. Now you have very, very good proof that aspirin cured the headaches.
The point to focus on is that the most important evidence — the only evidence that really proves causation — is the evidence that requires rejection of the null hypothesis.
Over to climate science. Here you are subject to a constant barrage of information designed to convince you of the definitive relationship between human carbon emissions and global warming.
The world temperature graph is shooting up in hockey stick formation! Arctic sea ice is disappearing! The rate of sea-level rise is accelerating! Hurricanes are intensifying! June was the warmest month EVER! And on and on and on.
All of this is alleged to be “consistent” with the hypothesis of human-caused global warming.
But, what is the null hypothesis, and on what basis has it been rejected? Here the null hypothesis is that some other factor, or combination of factors, rather than human carbon emissions, was the dominant cause of the observed warming.
Once you pose the null hypothesis, you immediately realize that all of the scary climate information with which you are constantly barraged does not even meaningfully address the relevant question.
All of that information is just the analog of your 100 headaches that went away after you took aspirin. How do you know that those headaches wouldn’t have gone away without the aspirin?
You don’t know unless someone presents data that are sufficient to reject the null hypothesis. Proof of causation can only come from disproof of the null hypothesis or hypotheses, that is, disproof of other proposed alternative causes.
This precept is fundamental to the scientific method, and therefore fully applies to “climate science” to the extent that that field wishes to be real science versus fake science.
Now, start applying this simple check to every piece you read about climate science. Start looking for the null hypothesis and how it was supposedly rejected.
In mainstream climate literature — and I’m including here both the highbrow media like the New York Times and also the so-called “peer-reviewed” scientific journals like Nature and Science — you won’t find that.
It seems that people calling themselves “climate scientists” today have convinced themselves that their field is such “settled science” that they no longer need to bother with tacky questions like worrying about the null hypothesis.
The centrality of focusing on the null hypothesis is the reason that studies like those covered in my last post (“Things Keep Getting Worse For The Fake ‘Science’ Of Human-Caused Global Warming,” July 12) are so important.
Is there some other factor that could plausibly be causing global warming that more closely correlates with observed temperatures? How about clouds? Or ocean circulations (El Niño/La Niña)? Or volcanic activity?
When climate scientists start addressing the alternative hypotheses seriously, then it will be real science. In the meantime, it’s fake science.
A final word about my favorite subject: the ongoing systematic alteration of the world’s surface temperature (ground thermometer-based) records.
Readers here are undoubtedly familiar with my (now) 23-part series, The Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time. The alteration of the surface temperature records only relates to making the surface temperature record correlate more closely with the increase in atmospheric CO2.
As noted in the Wallace, et al. May 2018 paper, without the alterations, the correlation between atmospheric CO2 and the surface temperature record is low.
In other words, without faking the data, they can’t even show consistency between atmospheric CO2 and temperature increase. And that’s before even getting to dealing with the problem of the null hypotheses.
Read more at Manhattan Contrarian
Thanks to the professional people who commented here. The truth needs your support against the onslaught of climate propaganda.
Well said AIDO . Wonder how many scientists would stick their name to the planet savers proposition that humans can control the earths temperature within 2 degrees ?
As you said if scientists didn’t support the earth has a fever industry they didn’t get published . That is changing as more and more scientists are tired of being associated with an overblown fraud and having their credibility ruined by
rent seeking crooks .
Where did the impressive figure of 97% come from? Enter, Australian John Cook. Cook is a cartoonist by profession. He is also a blogger. Although he has a degree in physics, he has no background or qualifications in climate science.
In 2013, he recruited a team of 24 volunteers. These amateur Environmental activists were recruited from those who made supportive comments on Cook’s alarmist blog, quite inappropriately called ‘Skeptical Science’. These would naturally have a bias in favour of the thrust of the survey. The survey had barely begun before 12 of the volunteers dropped out, leaving the other 12 to look at 11,944 papers. Clearly, they could not have time to read and evaluate the full papers; instead, they used a computer search engine to scan the papers’ extracts, the short summary that precedes most papers.
One thing to note: this ‘survey’ was done only on papers printed in academic journals. Sceptics or anyone challenging the ‘consensus’ finds it difficult to the point of near impossibility to get published in any of them.
The computer searched the extracts for the phrases ‘Global Warming’, or ‘Global Climate Change. The choice of papers was not limited to those specifically dealing with climate. Some of them were on different topics altogether, such as ‘Livestock Waste’, International Journal of Vehicle Design’ and ‘Waste Management’.
The results of the survey which sought to see if the scientific community did or did not endorse the proposition that man’s activities are changing the climate to a harmful extent were:
Response No of extracts % of total
Yes, more than 50% of the warming 65 0.54%
Contributes to warming, but don’t know how much 3,831 32.07%
Uncertain 40 0.33%
No 78 0.66%
No opinion either way 7,930 66.40%
Total 11,944 100%
See how he got his 97% figure? Yep, he just ignored the 7,930 papers that had no position
either way. The 3,896 that ‘endorse’ the position amounts to 97% only when the ‘no opinion either way’ 7,930 are taken out. This is a flagrant abuse of the proper method of compiling statistics.
The true figure of those that endorse the position – either explicitly or implicitly – 3,896 actually amounts to only 32.6% of the total number of papers, just under one in three. And those who believe that CO2 is dangerous by causing more than half the warming of the world comprise a measly half of one percent.
Cook was not the only one to come up with the 97% figure.
The United States Academy of Science surveyed the papers of 1,372 climate researchers actively publishing in journals. They found that 97% agreed with the IPCC line. Since sceptical (realist) scientists find it almost impossible to have their work published, this is hardly surprising.
A paper published in the journal of the American Geophysical Union entitled ‘Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change’ was the result of an on-line poll of climate scientists. A mere 79 scientists responded. Surprise, surprise, 75 of them (97.9%) agreed with the IPCC.
Consensus has no place in real science. However, even as it has been applied to the climate change fraud it isn’t valid. Despite the two bogus studies, it probably is true that near 97% of scientist believe that the world is getting warmer. The climate change movement then jumps to the conclusion that 97% support measures such as the Green New Deal. The reality is of that 97% or whatever the figure is, some do not believe the warming is caused by man. Of those who do, some believe that the warming won’t amount to much. Of those who do, some believe that the warming is good. Of those who believe the warming will be harmful, some believe that the cure, such as the Green New Deal, is worse than the problem. Others are realistic enough to know that no matter what the US does, increased emissions by developing nations will make controlling them impossible.
The null hypothesis challenge also applies to assessing results of measures that might be applied to “correct” the climate. If global warming policies and practices were to be imposed on a huge scale for a period of time, two possible results will ensure and both of them would be false scientifically:
1. Climate would demonstrate a slight or greater cooling, supposedly confirming that humans were the cause of global warming and the measure were sound and justifiable, or . ..
2. Climate would not respond to the corrective measures, possibly even showing signs of worsening, thereby give cause for the alarmists to pressure policy makers to increase their efforts to correct the climate crisis.
We lose either way. Better that we push that null hypothesis now, and make it clear that climate is not in crisis, that humans do not measurably influence climate and that nothing we can do within any degree of reason would make any difference anyway.
If you don’t like the weather, go somewhere else.
Union for Concerned Scientists and eco anarchist groups are filled with socialists.
Liberals use the scary climate message as a means to promote their hatred of capitalism and as a platform for their preachy personal agenda’s .
Population control and world government are their real agenda . as they seek
legitimacy through made up science fiction .
If you don’t know what natural variables impact on climate is then a mouse trace gas is sure as hell not the tail wagging the dog . Pretending otherwise
is scientifically and intellectually dishonest .
These groups rely on a very stupid and bullied MSM to sell their crap .
That same liberal rag TIME that was blabbering off about Global Warming back in the 1990’s was going off about Global Cooling back in the 1970’s we all know the M.S. Media are all mostly Democrat voters and supporters
The 97% was calculated from the SMALL number of scientists who bothered to answer a survey sent out, probably to a few who would back the idea of climate change being caused by humans because their livelyhood . depended on it.
You are exactly right, and there were two different “studies” that came to the same 97% number. The one you are referring to was based on a survey involving 77 carefully selected climate scientists, all active in climate alarmism. 75 of them agreed that man caused climate change was real and was a serious problem. From that ultra small, carefully selected group, came the idea that 97% of scientists believe in man caused climate change. (Implying 97% of ALL scientists) The other source counted climate related research papers and it was equally invalid.
Most of the 97% are NOAA connected. You know, the agency that has an exclusive on the Best Available Science diarrhea of the progressive PEER members.