Leaving aside that this is often the only ‘fact’ with any specific numeric value that they can cite, it is a specious argument. Science is not supposed to be a belief. Religion is a belief because it cannot be quantified, verified, and organized into a scientific process with hard data results that can be replicated. Climate change has to use ‘belief’ because it has the same problem.
Actually this is an unfair analogy…. to religion. There have been many scientific, verifiable, finds that support events described in the Bible, from the star by which the wise men found Jesus to the parting of the Red Sea. So, sorry about that God.
Those of us who have had to wipe the spittle off our faces following that 99 percent riposte know in our gut it is false. This article is for you.
Where did the 99 percent come from? On 11/15/12 James Lawrence Powell posted it on his blog and later to his website: http://www.jamespowell.org/PieChartI/piechart.html. Inside a big fat black pie chart he states: “13,950 peer reviewed climate articles, 1991-2012, 24 reject global warming.”
Fortunately for us Mr. Powell provides us with his methodology in another page on his website. Unfortunately for him, his conclusions appear foolish.
Let’s break down his conclusion:
“13,950 peer reviewed climate articles.”
- Mr. Powell states he utilized the Web of Science, (University access required so I can’t retrace his steps.) This Web site states that the Journals are peer reviewed; it makes no claim that every article in them is peer reviewed.
- Peer reviewed means that someone is willing to put his career and credibility (not to mention social life) on the line to support the validity, originality, significance, and clarity, of an article that goes strongly against the academic and political main stream.
- A researcher had to have:
- the time, funding, and research resources to write the scientific article. This often comes from a University and/or a government grant.
- the belief that it was worth submitting it to a journal that would be included in a University-only access website search engine.
- The journal would have to consider the political, social, and financial ramifications of accepting an article with an extremely unpopular view and risk being caught at it by witch hunters such as Mr. Powell.
Even so, kudos are due Mr. Powell for trying at least some quality control. This new bar for credibility is a marked change from the UN IPCC method that included anything they could get their hands on. From “an off-the-cuff jest made by an Indian glaciologist to a World Wildlife Fund reporter” to anecdotal evidence of the Alp’s glacier melt in a hiking magazine and other less documented ‘evidence’, http://www.rangemagazine.com/f...ge-climate_fraud.pdf.
Mr. Powell served as Acting President of Oberlin, President of Franklin and Marshall College, President of Reed College, President of the Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia, and President and Director of the LA County Museum of Natural History. He served for 20 years on the National Science Board which advises the President and Congress on national policies related to science and engineering and education the board is completely made up of political appointees. Oh, and he has an asteroid named after him.
Suppose you are a researcher at one of those colleges and ask for an office, financial support, and use of the library to investigate a theory that undermines or refutes the theory of manmade global warming. Do you think President Powell would agree to fund and house you? This results in fewer articles written, a kind of scientific abortion.
In a publish or perish academic world the wonder is that so many articles proposing alternate global warming theories and/or rejecting manmade weather exist, not that there are so few. Also, those that publish have gotten to teach generations of students since the 1980’s. Given this monopoly of the system it’s a wonder we mostly see the damage of Global Warming’s monotheism in the media and not in every career requiring a degree.
Mr. Powell is currently Executive Director for the National Physical Science Consortium, a partnership between government agencies and laboratories, industry, and higher education. They pick and choose among applicants for fellowships in science and technology. How many of the researchers would feel free to express views outside the party line knowing Mr. Powell’s well publicized opinions? This creates a filter for selection of our future scientists.
Since Mr. Powell made his claim other pro-man-made weather proponents have tried to fix the more obvious failings of his ‘research’ but repeat the main flaw in his argument. Mr. Powell’s source data is biased to support his assumption. In order to have sufficient credibility to be selected as a peer reviewer you must already be a “believer”.
“13,950 peer reviewed climate articles.”
Mr. Powell stated in his methodology in his website, www.jamespowell.org, that he
- conducted a search for articles that had the phrases “Global Warming: and “Global Climate Change” in the title or body.
- “Read some combination of titles, abstracts, and entire papers as necessary.” Mr. Powell does not provide the parameters for “as necessary”.
I’ve been in research, or utilized the articles resulting from research, since 1987. The abstract is usually 1 to 3 paragraphs of findings the author wants to highlight. To know what is in it you also read the discussion and conclusions.
Mr. Powell should know this. His biography on his website states he has a degree in Geology and a Ph.D in Geochemistry from MIT (which gave him the expertise in climate science for his reviews of all those articles.)
The search parameters were not limited to climate articles but to any article with any mention of the above two phrases in any way whatever. So, an entire article with one sentence like “His office had anti-Global Warming posters on the door” would make the cut. Not only would it make the cut but it wouldn’t be counted in the 24 that “reject global warming.”
Keep in mind, Mr. Powell was highly motivated to have the number be large, but credible as having articles that had been properly categorized.
“24 reject global warming.”
Mr. Powell states in his methodology:
"What I have found is the proportion of articles with topics “global warming” or “global climate change” that reject AGW as I define reject.”
But that is not what he says in his title and that is not how his research is used by political pundits, magazines such as Science, and our spitting conversation partner. They repeat the title, not what Mr. Powell actually found.
Keep in mind, if the article included a line that stated “My uncle Herbert thinks Global Warming is whooey!” it was swept up in the search results, one of the 13,950. If it did not go on to state “And he thinks Man Made Global Warming is a scam to redistribute American wealth to China”, in the title or abstract (or it was one of the thousands Mr. Powell did not read) it was counted in the 13,926 articles described as not rejecting any part of “global warming.” In fact, Mr. Powell’s question was so broad that if an article even discussed the pros and cons of manmade global warming or reviewed the theories that do not support manmade global warming but do not endorse them, it, too, is put firmly in the pro global warming tally.
So, Mr. Powell’s conclusion from his research, “13,950 peer reviewed climate articles 1991-2012 24 reject global warming” is a statement not only unsupported by, but actually unconnected to, his research methodology. At best he could state “Of all the articles that referenced, or were for or against global warming 24 rejected anthropomorphic causation.”
Now, a real research question would be “Of those scientific articles, whose topic is the causation of climate change, how many propose we caused it and how many propose that we did not?”
Mr. Powell’s methodology is similar to comparing all Braeburn apples produced between 1991 and 2012 to all fruit produced between 1991 and 2012. Instead of comparing all Braeburn apples produced to all apples produced. Thus leaving fact aside in favor of drama.
Image Credit: CC BY-SA 2.0 (Flickr)/Arctic Wolf Pictures
Susen Trail Biography: A BS in Zoology led to an AS in Molecular Biology which I used in research for 6 years. After finding out that the pay would continue to be lousy I applied for and won a full scholarship to the University of Michigan Industrial Hygiene program and achieved a Master’s degree in that subject with a minor in Hazardous Waste Management. I’ve been working in that field ever since, attaining the elusive Certified Industrial Hygienist and maintaining it by constant continuing education. Including reading, thoroughly, up to 12 scientific journal articles a month. For hobbies I data mine 3 different political and economic news sources on most days, I enjoy putting the ‘puzzle pieces’ together. I also train and show dogs. For fun I ask liberals “How are you going to make that work?”
