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Comments 95951 to 96000:
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Rob Honeycutt at 04:51 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
PopTech... "Was the point of the article to falsely imply you perused 200 pages?" There is an error there that I will correct. I perused through about 200 papers. Not pages. There are 100 pages of articles. But that does not alter any of the results. -
Stu at 04:50 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
Poptech said "That the percentage of climate change papers in relation to AGW and AGW alarm is undetermined and cannot be determined without evaluating each and every paper individually." So, in fact, I was right when back in comment 169 I said: "I know there are more grains of sand on a beach than 850... but I can't count them all. I guess that means by Poptech's logic that his list has as many 'skeptical' papers as there are grains of sand on a beach?" Poptech also asks why Rob is counting papers about climate control in cars... simply because it was intended to be a rough number. One could just as easily ask PT why he includes papers like the one Mr. Marsupial pointed out, that actually gives cause for alarm if AGW continues. In fact, make that a question directly addressed to you Andrew: why's that paper in there? It's behind a paywall but I will assume Dikran has accurately summarised it. Anyway, if one is very generous and assumes that only 1 in 100 of Rob's counts would actually count, then that list is still 10 times longer than Poppy's. -
Rob Honeycutt at 04:45 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
PopTech said... "All I have to demonstrate is his conclusions are based on erroneous results, which I have done." So we are left with an erroneous numerator and erroneous denominator. That's why I said before, it's really too bad that you don't apply a more rigorous standard to your list because it could actually be very useful. Of course, probably not useful for your preferred conclusions. -
pbjamm at 04:44 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
Poptech@209 "That the percentage of climate change papers in relation to AGW and AGW alarm is undetermined and cannot be determined without evaluating each and every paper individually." Excellent. So we agree that the quantity of papers in your list (850) is entirely without context and therefor without meaning. All that remains is the evaluate every paper written about AGW (and its consequences) to arrive at a meaningful ratio. How many of those do you suppose there are? Can't be very many if 850 Skeptical papers makes up a significant percentage of the total. -
Rob Honeycutt at 04:42 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
PopTech... You ask: How did you peruse 200 pages? and Did you count climate control systems in automobiles? I'm saying in response have you contacted all the authors in your list and asked them if they support the position you are assigning to their papers. Do you not see what is right in front of you? We're just reducing the fraction to a lower common denominator. -
Rob Honeycutt at 04:39 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
PopTech... You obviously continue to miss the point of the article. In the article I clearly state that I'm giving you (however dubious) the benefit of the doubt. All I'm doing is applying a very cursorily researched denominator. If you want to drill down into the denominator you have to apply equally rigorous scrutiny to the numerator. We're just engaging in a reduction of the fraction. Believe me, if we carry this exercise out you're not going to fair any better. -
Rob Honeycutt at 04:34 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
PopTech... Did you remove articles because they were published in a journal that is nominally (at best) considered peer-reviewed? (E&E) -
Albatross at 04:34 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
The onus on curator of the list, being a honorable fellow who is interested in presenting the science properly, to specify what portion of the scientific literature on the subject of climate change the papers on his little list (which is padded as I and other shave shown) makes up. It is likely to be more than 0.2%, or even 0.5% or even 1%. Rob here has made an initial effort. Poptech can not plead ignorance. Now he is welcome to improve upon the number shown here, and so long as the results of this search are independently verifiable and his methodology sound, i'm sure Rob will be happy to amend the 0.1% number. The ball is now in Poptech's court-- not to nitpick at the 0.1%, but to undertake their own analysis and arrive at his own number. and given that he claims to be happy to correct things, he can start be removing all those papers on the list which have been refuted by subsequent research. he can start with G&T09, followed by McLean et al. 2009, L&C09 etc etc....he can also remove papers which contradict each other. I can;t believe we are helping poptech...if he implements these changes alone, the list will have much more credibility. But first of all he has to unambiguously decide what he wishes to demonstrate, in terms accepted by the science, and then show those papers which directly speak to to that point. -
Rob Honeycutt at 04:30 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
PopTech said... "Rob, why are you counting results about climate control systems in automobiles?" Give me a break. -
Rob Honeycutt at 04:27 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
PopTech said... "Rob, how did you peruse 200 pages?" Are you avoiding questions again? Can't take the heat? -
Don9000 at 04:22 AM on 15 February 2011Guardian article: Australia's recent extreme weather isn't so extreme anymore
Ken Lambert: Although I am an English teacher and American literature professor by training, I will comment on the "12m" flood datum. You write: "In the Brisbane flood 2011, the hydrologist who oversaw the planning of Wivenhoe dam was quoted in the 'Australian' thus: 'When John Oxley discovered Brisbane 180 years ago, the local Aboriginal people were very agitated about flooding and they showed him high water marks that would have been 12m'." To begin with, your dates are very unclear, and the claim put forward about Oxley's "discovery" of Brisbane is a sloppy misuse of the English language. My first factual correction: 2011 less 180 yields 1831, a date that is too late for the establishment of the English settlement at North Quay, which took place in 1825 after the penal colony at Redcliffe, dating to 1824, was abandoned. In other words, I must conclude the unnamed hydrologist you say the _Australian_ was quoting in its story about the 2011 flooding actually made this statement in 2004. You should have made this clear. Next I will take on the "would have been 12m" figure itself. To begin with, as you present it, this is a number with a very hazy provenance, and hardly one I would bruit about in a triumphalist fashion. Note that the unnamed hydrologist uses the words "would have been" to introduce the number, a verbal hedge that suggests the possibility that either Oxley or the hydrologist was skeptical of the claim. With that in mind, before anyone can comment on the validity of the claim, the very first thing that would need to be done is to look into Oxley's writings,extract the relevant data, and evaluate it for its actual value. Thus, your apparent belief that you have scored a great point by citing this putative record of a 12 meter flood is not exactly founded on sound scientific methodology. -
muoncounter at 04:20 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
#199: "stated on the list that all the papers are science papers only that they are peer-reviewed." More obfuscation and hiding behind semantics. Your own definition of 'peer-reviewed' begins with scientific or scholarly research. Papers about policy don't fit; especially since you dispute the science, there is nothing to talk about in policy. This bickering should really be done on PT's site; its just noise here. Or does PT not take comments as freely as SkS? -
pbjamm at 04:16 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
Poptech, What exactly is it you are arguing for here? Are you arguing that a large percentage of Climate Change papers are alarmist? Skeptical of AGW? Skeptical of the dangers? All we currently have is your 850 number that you believe support your position. But, even after reading this entire thread, I am not sure what that is. The point of the original article is still valid. Without the total number of papers published on the subject your 850 is entirely without context. -
Phila at 03:56 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
I've never seen a comment from PopTech, here or anywhere else, that I'd describe as anything more than trolling. Given the fact that he's basically incapable of admitting error, and is pretty much his own worst enemy, why give him so much patient attention? -
Dikran Marsupial at 03:54 AM on 15 February 2011Crichton's 'Aliens Cause Global Warming'
BP@47 wrote "Fine piece of Argumentum ad Ignorantiam, that. However, Marcus has explicitly stated it was unusual as it's "the fastest rate in at *least* the last 10,000 years"." Sorry, that really is very funny, nice attempt to distract attention from the fact that you had used a regional trend to try and refute a claim about global trends. As to Argumentum as Ignorantiam, that would be true if I had said that the AGW hypothesis rests solely on the fact that we can't explain the current warming without AGW, but I didn't write that. Instead I wrote that there was a known mechanism with good support from experiments, observation and theory. As it happens Marcus was quite possibly wrong on that point, but that doesn't make your reply any better. BTW, it isn't all that surprising that sub-decadal trends are dominated by ocean temperature changes; that is why discussion of trends generally includes dicussion of complicating factors, such as ENSO. -
Rob Honeycutt at 03:51 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
There are another 159 articles in Nature that contain the exact phrase "global warming" and don't contain the phrase "climate change." You see where I'm going with this? There are nearly as many papers published in one year in one highly reputable journal as you've been able to collect (using your absurd standards) in several years time. The Denominator simply crushes you into nothingness. -
Berényi Péter at 03:50 AM on 15 February 2011Crichton's 'Aliens Cause Global Warming'
#46 Albatross at 03:25 AM on 15 February, 2011 In addition, you seem to be assuming that the current rate of warming is only going to last 40 years, it is not, and you also do not seem to be allowing for the fact that the rate will not increase in coming decades. No, I do not assume such a thing. As far as I know we do not have instrumentation to measure future temperatures yet, therefore I do assume they are unknown. That's all. On the other hand you seem to assume a lot about coming decades, based on what? -
Philippe Chantreau at 03:47 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
Muon @ 180 and Dikran @ 185. I had already noted these problem with PT's list when it contained 700 papers, a little while ago. Many papers without science content that are related to policy or social aspects. Many papers that a superficial look would suggest as undermining some aspect of AGW (the A or the W most of the time), but that, on closer reading, can introduce even more cause for concern. Many publications that are obscure at best, and of course, the heavy reliance on that travesty of a journal that is E&E. As PT admitted himself, he can't read them all, so some are bound to show pretty much the opposite of what he would like, as you found, Dikran. I'm glad I didn't spend too much time digging in the list, because it soon struck me that what I did spend had been a total waste. I avoid doing that nowadays. -
Rob Honeycutt at 03:47 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
In just 2010 - 2011 there have been 398 articles published in Nature that contain the exact phrase "climate change." -
dana1981 at 03:46 AM on 15 February 2011Monckton Myth #11: Carbon Pricing Costs vs. Benefits
John Brookes - no question, these sorts of economic analyses are very difficult, which is why many don't even attempt to quantify the benefits from avoiding climate change. But I think the key is that despite these difficulties, economic analyses constistently show both that the costs of carbon pricing are minimal, and that the benefits outweigh the costs by a significant margin. How much of a margin is a difficult question to answer because of the issues you raise and many others, but I think we can say with good confidence that with carbon pricing, benefits > costs. -
les at 03:44 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
189. As I pointed out, use by year. Is it that hard? -
RickG at 03:42 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
190 Poptech Does your list include those often cited papers by Christopher Monckton? You know, the one's that he says support his anit-AGW claims but the authors of the papers say they don't. -
Rob Honeycutt at 03:42 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
PopTech said... "Rob, how is this possible if only 1000 results are listed?" Come on, are you really so uncreative that you can't think of a way? Break it down by years, by journals, by authors. There are plenty of ways do parse out the data in chunks that are smaller than 1000 papers. -
Berényi Péter at 03:41 AM on 15 February 2011Crichton's 'Aliens Cause Global Warming'
#45 Dikran Marsupial at 00:57 AM on 15 February, 2011 It is only unusual in that it cannot be explained by natural mechanisms, given our current understanding of climate physics. Fine piece of Argumentum ad Ignorantiam, that. However, Marcus has explicitly stated it was unusual as it's "the fastest rate in at *least* the last 10,000 years". If it's not that unusual (as it is not), you should show peer reviewed papers demonstrating the natural causes behind each multidecadal warming event other than the current one in the first place. As soon as it is done while no paper is found which would explain this particular event by natural causes, it still does not prove anything beyond the fact our understanding is not perfect. But we already knew that. However, there plenty of are papers that identify natural causes behind the recent warming, and that does prove something. Consider e.g. this one: Earth and Environmental Science, Climate Dynamics Volume 32, Numbers 2-3, 333-342 DOI: 10.1007/s00382-008-0448-9 Oceanic influences on recent continental warming Gilbert P. Compo & Prashant D. Sardeshmukh It says land warming is almost completely explained by warming of ocean surfaces, no direct GHG influence is needed. The paper says nothing about causes of SST change, but it must be internal redistribution of heat in oceans, as we do know heat content of the upper 700 m of oceans is stationary during the last 8 years (since installation of the ARGO network). If warming is caused by SST indeed, there is no recent warming whatsoever, as SST has no trend either. It may well be the case there's no event to be explained at all, exceptional or otherwise.
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Rob Honeycutt at 03:41 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
PopTech... Here's a start on verification just to give you a taste. How many papers have been published in Nature that contain the exact phrase "climate change?" 3120. Yes that's more than you can actually pull up at a time. So you'd have to bread it down into yearly segments. But that's just one reputable journal out of probably 10,000 or more peer reviewed journals. You can see where this is going. We slice and dice all you want but the results are likely to come out pretty close to the same. -
Dikran Marsupial at 03:40 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
Poptech@189 While google only return the first 1000 results on-line, that doesn't mean it would not be possible to get the full list off-line by writing to Google. However, your one-line reply highlights the point Rob was making, which is that you don't apply the same skepticism to your own list, which is why you evaded answering the substantive point Rob made. Still, it is your choice... -
Albatross at 03:25 AM on 15 February 2011Crichton's 'Aliens Cause Global Warming'
BP @44, I agree with Dikran, s/he makes some excellent points. In addition, you seem to be assuming that the current rate of warming is only going to last 40 years, it is not, and you also do not seem to be allowing for the fact that the rate will not increase in coming decades. -
Rob Honeycutt at 03:24 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
PopTech said... "Rob, is it possible to verify your number of 954,000 using Google Scholar?" Of course it's possible. It would be a massive task. But again you fail to apply any rigor to your list so I would say we're on equal footing here, bub. -
Rob Honeycutt at 03:22 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
PopTech.... The whole point of the exercise is that it's more of a cartoon response to your cartoon claims. You come in here ranting and raving and knocking over the furniture about my methods and how nothing can be verified but you categorically and emphatically refuse to apply even the slightest skepticism to your own list. Look, no one claims that there are not papers that challenge AGW. Of course there are! There must be for science to operate correctly. But you've gone so far overboard trying to build and defend your list that you've rendered it utterly worthless. It's sad because it honestly could be a great resource if you applied even just a little bit of scientific rigor to it. But you seem emotionally incapable of such a project. I guess the problem here is that, if one were to do a real study the results would not support what you would like to find. In that you are clearly not a skeptic. You are a climate change denier. -
pbjamm at 03:21 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
apiratelooksat50(177) "Since, apparently it matters, would the regular posters here be willing to list their degrees and experience?" Does it matter? I do not need an advanced degree to accept the findings of experts who do. If I wish to contradict them and their findings I had better be able to show either (1)my work or (2)some evidence that I have extensively studied the subject at hand. (1) requires a research paper of some sort. (2) can be managed with a relevant scientific degree. With that said, if I claim to have advanced degrees in Fluid Dynamics, Thermodynamics, Climatology and Rock History who can contradict me? -
Dikran Marsupial at 03:20 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
Poptech@182 It is not possible to verify your list of 850 papers that 'Supporting Skepticism of "Man-Made" Global Warming (AGW) Alarm', as it appears that whether a paper supports skepticism of AGW alarm is rather subjective, especially once you include the word (alarm). There are plenty of papers in your list that suggest that AGW is likely to be a problem, for example: Joan Feynmana, "Has solar variability caused climate change that affected human culture?, (Advances in Space Research, Volume 40, Issue 7, pp. 1173-1180, March 2007) A paper that shows that in the past, climate change (caused by changes in solar activity) has caused the collapse of societies in the past. No cause for alarm there then! The paper provides no evidence to suggest the current warming is due to an increase in solar activity (we measure it these days, so we would know). So I can't see why this paper should be a cause for any skepticism regarding AGW "alarm", unless of course one was rather uninformed. -
mozart at 02:50 AM on 15 February 2011Monckton Myth #11: Carbon Pricing Costs vs. Benefits
Brookes: Ever heard about the Dust Bowl? These things happen, and unless you can statisticaly prove the floods, droughts etc are increasing in frequency, they are just the tail of the probability curve. One thing that would be hard to deal with now though, with huge population dependency on the global growing regions,is another mini Ice Age. There were three minima with major agricultural declines, 1650, 1770, and 1850.....extrapolate.Moderator Response: We are not going to have another mini ice age anytime soon. See (and comment on) the Post "What would happen if the sun fell to Maunder Minimum levels?." For more detail about the causes of the last mini ice age, see (and comment on) the Post "A detailed look at the Little Ice Age." -
Eric (skeptic) at 02:44 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
#175: there may or may not be more alarm papers than non-alarm papers in the denominator. But there are a lot more papers there. Your job, if you choose to accept it poptech, is to focus on the numerator and clean it up. As a token AGW science defender on a U.S. conservative forum, one of my biggest problems is disorganized lists such as yours without quality control that get cherry picked so I have to spend time explaining why N2 is not a greenhouse gas. -
Daniel Bailey at 02:33 AM on 15 February 2011It's cooling
Yup. Still happening:
Yes, Virginia, Polar Amplification is Real:
The Yooper
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John Brookes at 02:04 AM on 15 February 2011Monckton Myth #11: Carbon Pricing Costs vs. Benefits
On the Australian ABC's 7:30 report tonight they talked to someone from Munich Re, who are especially interested in disasters because they are re-insurers. The Munich Re person explained how weather related disasters in Australia were increasing rapidly, and that Munich Re attributed some of them to climate change. Yet the skeptics keep insisting that you can't blame AGW for any weather events, and they keep saying that there is no evidence for increased extreme weather events. -
Meet The Denominator
One of the largest problems I have with PopTechs list is that it is inconsistent. For example: the inclusion of the Gerlich and Tscheuschner 2009 paper denying the greenhouse effect entirely, along with the Lindzen papers arguing low climate sensitivity to the acknowledged greenhouse effect, mean that the list makes no consistent point. The contents are simply self-contradictory. To quote: "Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said 'one ca'n't believe impossible things.' 'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the White Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast..." PopTech, it might be a useful list if it were categorized as to argument, so that particular issues could have a body of work supporting a discussion; preferably separated between peer-reviewed science and policy papers. Currently, however, it's just a number (850 at the moment) of disjointed papers and articles pointing in every direction possible, a pile of jackstraws - lacking coherence and utility. -
muoncounter at 01:57 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
#174: "hence the exact number won't matter - it will dwarf 850." Even 'the 850' is still inflated - it includes policy papers which have no science content. If PT wants to challenge the science, he must stick to science papers, not the opinions of policy wonks. -
Ron Crouch at 01:57 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
Why is it that you avoid addressing issues that others in this thread have raised Poptech? You insisted that certain of your questions be addressed and they have, but you don't give the same consideration in return. Is it a case that you don't know or you simply clam up when things don't go your way? The best way to treat your list of 850 would be to transpose it onto toilet paper so that at least some good use might be made of it. I'm sorry but the generous figure of 2.4% dissent that I gave you illustrates your weak position. There will always be some level of dissent, that's normal. When you come across something that is Earth shattering enough to sway the 95% opinion that you and others are not barking up the wrong tree, let us know. You can harp over the numbers all you want but it does not change the complexion of things one iota. In the mean time your arguments are as weak as an individual in Germany who contends that he can use "geometric harmonic index" to explain global temperature trends over the last ~5,000 years, and extrapolate it a further 1,000 years into the future. Go check it out, maybe it qualifies for your list. As I said before, your time would be better spent if you set your mind to be constructive because you add nothing worthwhile to any debate or discussion -
les at 01:43 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
173,174: fair enough... in fact - and this is nit picking - it wont, as they say, go beyond result 1000 (give 10 results per page, that's page 100)... very odd. If someone has the time, you can always do it year by year, of course... so not impossible to verify. but the post does say 200 pages. Just to save a little face... we can verify the rogerpielkejr.blogspot post... it's only 1 page ;) -
apiratelooksat50 at 01:40 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
Since, apparently it matters, would the regular posters here be willing to list their degrees and experience?Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] It doesn't matter, unless perhaps someone tried to make an argument from authority based on their own claimed expertise, in which case it would be for them to demonstrate the support for their claim. In science the merit of an argument is based on its internal consistency and support from experiment, observation and theory; the source of the argument is irrelevant. -
Dikran Marsupial at 01:38 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
Poptech@175 Go get yourself a copy of the IPCC WG1 scientific basis report (you know the one that demonstrates AGW is a cause for concern) and count the references. Then remember that the IPCC report is only a summary overview of the key research. -
Stu at 01:28 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
Yeah I got what he meant Les. It will tell you how many results there are, but wont let you see any beyond page 100. Of course Poptech would not be satisfied until every one had been gone over with a fine tooth-comb to find hints of skepticism via his foolishly broad definition of 'alarm', whereas all the rest of us can see that there are undoubtedly way, way more papers that conclude that AGW is cause for alarm (by Poptech's definition) than the other way around, and hence the exact number won't matter - it will dwarf 850. -
mozart at 01:09 AM on 15 February 2011Monckton Myth #11: Carbon Pricing Costs vs. Benefits
@Tamblyn: you touch on two related problems, that are ultimately just as challenging as climate...population growth and resource depletion. The happy clappy thought that science is going to find ways to replace scarce metals and energy sources for future generations, is incredibly optimistic. Malthus will ultimately be proven correct. -
les at 00:59 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
#168, 169 Poppy Tech: Check Mate Anyone understand what he's saying? I tried Robs search and it works much the same, no 1,000 result limit. I've no idea what the Google Scholar Help link is on about, but it's under the heading of "Citation Export", so I suppose it's something to do with the API, judging by the other help questions... Makes on wonder about the reliability of his list if it involves using advanced technology like google, without him having a clear understanding of that technology... -
John Brookes at 00:59 AM on 15 February 2011Monckton Myth #11: Carbon Pricing Costs vs. Benefits
My problem with any economic analysis is just how you quantify the negative effects of warming. I can imagine doing this if you say, "we'll have 10% more droughts", and then calculate the rise in the price of food. But what if the rise in the price of food leads to starvation, riots and civil war? Is that factored into the costs? If Queensland floods more often, how do you calculate the cost of broken hearted farmers having to walk off the land? On the other hand, when you look at the cost of cutting CO2 emissions, how do we factor in human ingenuity? Its a bit like someone in 1950 trying to quantify the influence of the computer - very hard to do accurately, with a tendency to be too conservative about our ability to make things better and better. -
Dikran Marsupial at 00:57 AM on 15 February 2011Crichton's 'Aliens Cause Global Warming'
BP@44 Marcus' challenge clearly relates to global temperatures, so pointing out there have been occasions when "NH Extratropics" have warmed faster clearly does not show the claim to be "unsubstantiated" because that is a regional warming, not a global warming. "it is your turn to show us an *unnatural* mechanism that you think was responsible for warming a thousand years ago." Straw man (and a rather silly one at that). Nobody is saying that warming a thousand years ago was unnatural. More importantly, the hypothesis of AGW is not based on an assertion that the warming we have observed is unprecedented, the hypothesis is based on a mechanism with observational, experimental and theoretical support, not on the observed warming even being unusual. It is only unusual in that it cannot be explained by natural mechanisms, given our current understanding of climate physics. It can be explained however, if include anthropogenic influcences. -
Stu at 00:54 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
Nope. Should be possible, like I said, to take a sample and extrapolate. I certainly can't be bothered tho - you just ain't worth it. -
Ken Lambert at 00:48 AM on 15 February 2011Guardian article: Australia's recent extreme weather isn't so extreme anymore
Daniel Bailey #27 Deleting my posts won't change the facts Daniel.. Johnd and I have made some simple logical points about the range of extreme events in Australia. To suggest that 30 years is a significant period to judge changes in flood/drought events is preposterous. Not even 100 years is a significant period when we have seen only one such other drought event (the Federation drought) and one other such flood event in Brisbane (the twin floods of 1893) of similar severity. Adelady - as Harry Butler famously said; "The Aboriginals were great naturalists but not great conservationists". They were not crash hot on science either - certainly not up for sailing 12000 miles around the world to observe the transit of Venus or inventing Harrisons clock to measure longitude. I have not read his 1824 log for some time but I seem to recall that John Oxley had observed debris high in the trees along the Brisbane river and the local Aborigines were quite agitated about floods - indicating that the 12m flood had been fairly recent in 1824. Our cruel and exploitative British ancestors were actually rather good at recording things and navigating their way around - if not too hot at bush survival. I would expect that the 12m height of the debris was a fairly accurate estimate if not actually measured.Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] You erroneously assume I deleted your post, which I did not do. My comment was for others to read on the dichotomy of your inconsistent position WRT time series and statistical significance. As to the content of your comments, as long as it complies with the Comment Policy, I leave them alone. -
Stu at 00:29 AM on 15 February 2011Meet The Denominator
No-one has the time to verify that many results anyway. Maybe one person with too much time on their hands would look at all publications from a certain year and extrapolate from there using data for all published articles. Anyway, the obvious point remains that regardless of the exact numbers involved, you have 850 papers (some of shall we say, less than stellar quality?) and there are thousands and thousands of climate papers out there that evidently implicitely work from the grounding that AGW is happening or explicitely state that it is. If they didn't, they'd be on your list right? So, are you denying that there are vastly more papers than your 850 that explicitely or implicitely accept that AGW is real (even the parts you might find 'alarming'), just because the exact number of those papers is so large it can't easily be quantified? I know there are more grains of sand on a beach than 850... but I can't count them all. I guess that means by Poptech's logic that his list has as many 'skeptical' papers as there are grains of sand on a beach? -
caroza at 00:23 AM on 15 February 2011I want to earn my future, not inherit it
Well said and + 1 vote. I hope everyone who visits Skeptical Science follows suit, and I wish more people your age would speak up about what is being bequeathed to them. (I frequently find myself feeling grateful for being 49 and not having children, because I won't have to see the worst of it, which is an awful way to think). Btw, does anyone know where we could nominate WUWT for Best Science Fiction blog....? ;)
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