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Comments 51 to 100 out of 526:

51. Miriam O'Brien (Sou) at 17:18 PM on 13 February, 2011
    Rob, I don't think too many people are taken in by poptech's 'list'. It's true that deniers occasionally quote it as a 'proof', but less and less often these days because it's so easy to show that it's as meaningless as the fraudulent oregon petition. When the list was only 450, Greenfyre wrote this. When poptech dredged up a few more titles to add to his list, articles like this one appeared. Does anyone (except poptech himself) take him seriously these days? Most deniers have now had to turn themselves into delayers because the evidence for anthropogenic global warming is so patently obvious to everyone, so people like poptech have been left behind and mostly forgotten. I expect poptech is grateful that anyone on this site remembers he exists.
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52. Philippe Chantreau at 17:19 PM on 13 February, 2011
    Now Poptech is trying to play in words. You said "does not support" with an implication that it treated of it, which is equivalent to refuting, except perhaps in some rethorician's twisted mind. What are we going to talk about next? The meaning of "is"? This is extending beyond pathetic. You should cut your losses PT.
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53. villabolo at 17:22 PM on 13 February, 2011
    @58, Poptech: Let me join in with the rest and (re)beat a dead horse. What I have created is a valuable resource for skeptics of the peer-reviewed literature supporting their arguments. You still haven't given me a direct answer as to the number of (Non natural) Climate Change peer reviewed papers. Yes, you did state: "I have yet to see any hard numbers on peer-reviewed papers that explicitly endorse AGW. As there are only around 1900 Google Scholar results that even include the phrase "anthropogenic global warming"." Yet notice how you limit your "search" to one particular phrase which is not likely to be used in most papers that would support the concept of AGW regardless of semantics. Most of them are likely to use the phrase "Climate Change". So you justify your selectivity in phrases by saying: "It doesn't count as in explicit support of "anthropogenic global warming" theory, correct. You seem to have made it obvious by the above quote that you are not only disinterested in knowing the ratio of pro versus con, regardless of phrasing, but that there is a simple agenda in this project. Give one side what it wants. You called it "a valuable resource" but it is clear that the value has to do with the illusion of substance. If numbers meant anything, a fair assessment would be to include the numbers of both sides. A one sided count is obviously misleading, since it is targeted at the general public who would be impressed by any number in the hundreds but ignorant of the tens of thousands of papers that would support AGW (Again, a reminder. It doesn't matter that the exact phrase AGW is not mentioned in the paper). This is, to put it bluntly, propaganda.
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54. pbjamm at 18:03 PM on 13 February, 2011
    Poptech @81 " Regardless something that does not support AGW Alarm does not mean it has to "refute" it. It can simply not mention it at all!" By that metric any paper written about physics or astronomy (or any other scientific topic) would quality. AWG Alarm will need a definition as well. @82 "So now when a paper mentions "climate change" it really means that the origin is anthropogenic?" I do not believe that anyone made that claim, but were pointing out that you are dismissing a large number of papers that MAY be relevant but do not use the exact phrase "anthropogenic global warming." The relevance could only be decided on a per paper basis. Those that use "climate change" could support, deny, or take no position on the anthropogenic question. In any case this topic has grown very emotionally heated and is not particularly constructive.
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55. cce at 18:10 PM on 13 February, 2011
    1) If only one out of a hundred of the Google Scholar articles was peer reviewed, the number would still be over ten times as large as PopTech's list. 2) If you search for attribution anthropogenic pdf "global warming" OR "climate change" and require "at least summaries", it will give you results on an important subset of climate change science (attribution) with a link to a PDF somewhere in the results. You can bet that these results overwhelmingly come from peer reviewed sources. The number is twice as large as PopTech's list, despite being a tiny fraction of all the papers on climate change. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_q=attribution+anthropogenic+pdf... 3) The "Oregon Petition" has been collecting names for over ten years and anyone with a BS and a pulse could respond. Since it is a petition and not a survey, respondents were limited only to one response (i.e. agreeing with the petition) which immediately filters out anyone who doesn't agree. It alleges to have signatures of 40 self described "climate scientists." Those 40 climate scientists represent about 0.1% of the total names on the list. The Doran/EOS survey had about twice as many climate scientists (77-79 depending on the question), all active, despite a limited number of recipients (all Earth scientists). The number of climate scientists agreeing with the consensus position represented about 2% of the total respondents, which is ~20 times larger than the 0.1% described as "climate scientists" in the Oregon Petition. Of all of the respondents, 82% agreed with the consensus position, that number increasing with the relevence of their specific expertise. 4) Only the ideologically blind would see an unparalleled global conspiracy rather than accept the evdidence for the consensus on climate change, to say nothing of the evidence for climate change itself. Such blindness usually revolves around alarmist "new-world-order-we'll-all-eat-tofu-while-we-wait-for-our-death-panel-to-assign-our-fate" rhetoric and no rational examination of the facts. As for alarmism on the consensus side, a 2+ degree temperature change compressed over the coming century might be considered "alarming" for anyone who knows something about similar climate shifts in the past.
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56. villabolo at 18:15 PM on 13 February, 2011
    "So now when a paper mentions "climate change" it really means that the origin is anthropogenic? Talk about spin!" Not at all Poptech. It stands to reason that you would have to do some major analysis to separate the wheat from the chaff. The problem with your reasoning is that you imply that there is not much 'wheat' to be sifted. "I do not have mind reading abilities and thus have no way to infer what is not explicitly stated and neither do you." Irrelevant. It is your responsibility, not to read minds, but to do some hard work to come out with an accurate assessment of the situation. Instead, semantics is used as a rhetorical shield. Bottom line, it is absurd to imagine that several thousand Climatologists, throughout the past several decades have not turned out at least tens of thousands of papers supportive or indicative of man made climate change versus your claimed 850. Are we to be naive enough to believe that 850 papers on the "skeptic" side are countered only by (implicit in your arguments) a fraction of 1900 papers on the "other side"? As far as your statement that my concept of "fair" is subjective, I guess that trying to balance both sides is your idea of subjective. But then a visit to your website made it clear where you're coming from.
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57. Marcus at 18:26 PM on 13 February, 2011
    Gee Poptech, if I type in Anthropogenic Global Warming into Google Scholar (with patents de-selected) I get roughly 70,000 hits. When I type in Human Induced Climate Change, I get over 700,000 hits, & 150,000 if I use the term Anthropogenic Climate Change. So, if we combine all 3 term searches, we're looking at around 1 *million* references to anthropogenic climate change/warming. Again, if even one percent of those are peer-reviewed, pro-AGW papers, that still leaves 10,000 papers that support the position of AGW. Makes your list of 850 look absolutely *pathetic*-especially given that many of the papers you cite are poorly peer-reviewed or don't even support the pro-skeptic position you claim it does. Still, I've often found that the vehemence of a defense of a position is often inversely proportional to how strong that position is-something that you've definitely proven here today. Especially given that most of your counter-points have consisted of nothing more than unfounded accusations against others, & absolutely *no* attempt to strengthen your original claim with actual hard *evidence*!
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58. Marcus at 18:35 PM on 13 February, 2011
    Also, if I put all of the above terms into quotation marks, then I still pull out about 600,000 hits. Again, how does the 850 papers, which we're just supposed to *assume* support the skeptic case, stack up? Not very well I'd say, which is why [ -Snip- ] PopTech, is so keen to distract attention away from the weakness of his original list by attacking others.
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    Moderator Response: [DB] Not helpful (keep it clean).
59. john byatt at 18:54 PM on 13 February, 2011
    The only purpose served by this list is for deniers to make the claim that there are 850 papers that,and they always use the words refute or deny or are sceptical of or disprove, when you ask them to post one then it will usually be one of these as posted at abc unleased by Cox Lindzen and Choi’s follow up paper: http://www.legnostorto.com/allegati/Lindzen_Choi_ERBE_JGR_v4.pdf Spencer and Braswell: http://noconsensus.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/spencer-braswell-jgr-20101.pdf Knox and Douglass: http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~douglass/papers/KD_InPress_final.pdf Miskolczi’s revised paper: http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/E&E_21_4_2010_08-miskolczi.pdf McShane and Wyner and the Hockey-stick: http://www.imstat.org/aoas/next_issue.html McKitrick and the hot-spot: http://rossmckitrick.weebly.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/mmh_asl2010.pdf Koutsoyiannis and model prediction failures: http://pdfserve.informaworld.com/278978__928051726.pdf they will never cite the ones that do not even dispute AGW, useless list that I would not even bother to debate, with a few more definitions he could probably claim 3000 , that was how it went from 500 to 850, So when the say there are 850 papers that...........AGW just ask them to post one , they wont .. just like these papers above the list is useless rubbish
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60. john byatt at 19:18 PM on 13 February, 2011
    This is how Cox references a paper http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/43878.html "McShane and Wyner’s paper demolishing the centrepiece of AGW science, the Hockey-stick, McKitrick’s paper demolishing another centre-piece of AGW, the Tropical Hot Spot and Koutsoyiannis’s follow-up paper showing the AGW computer models have no predictive skill." then claimed that he included correct references but the dog ate them
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61. Bjarne Mikael Torkveen at 19:54 PM on 13 February, 2011
    I am amazed at the hypocrisy of the climate deniers in the case of these lists. They constantly say that science is not made by consensus, and yet here we have to examples (OISM and PopTech) of climate deniers trying to...build a consensus.
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62. Marcus at 20:06 PM on 13 February, 2011
    "McKitrick’s paper demolishing another centre-piece of AGW, the Tropical Hot Spot". This, of course, displays the deception engaged in by PopTech. Even if the Tropical Hot Spot were a center-piece of AGW (it isn't, as the Hot Spot is meant to exist *regardless* of global warming) then McKitrick's paper wouldn't successfully demolish it, as McKitrick hasn't even proven that the Hot Spot doesn't exist-only that its very difficult to find with current technology. So, if this is the kind of "standard" of PopTech's much vaunted list, then no wonder he's not prepared to provide evidence to further back his list.
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63. Marcus at 20:11 PM on 13 February, 2011
    "McShane and Wyner’s paper demolishing the centrepiece of AGW science, the Hockey-stick". This, also, is highly deceptive. None of the contrarian papers have come close to proving that the *adjusted* "hockey stick" is wrong-& several papers, using better methodologies, have actually further reinforced the adjusted hockey stick-i.e. that though the planet has warmed in the past, it was neither as warm as today, nor did it warm as fast as it has in the last 60 years. Of course, the added deception is that debunking the hockey stick would somehow demolish AGW, given that pre-industrial warming doesn't rule out anthropogenic warming now-especially given that all the natural forcings suggest the planet should be *cooling*, not warming!
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64. john byatt at 21:02 PM on 13 February, 2011
    and they never reference one of PT's papers,actual link to the site and pdf, only he does that they will give a link to what some fool like watts has cherry picked out of it, we finally got Cox to give the actual papers but it was nearly all over by then, must admit though it was good fun playing with PT's mind but that is another story
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65. Marcus at 21:06 PM on 13 February, 2011
    You know, as much as PopTech tries to defend E&E, the facts just don't support him. Here is a classic example of the kind of "quality research" that E&E lends its name to-you might recall the work of the Biology Teacher, E-G Beck, who collated the works of early (19th Century) chemists (who were studying ways to quantify CO2) & claiming his reconstructions of this data "proved" that CO2 levels were higher than in the mid to late 20th century. Of course he failed to mention that (a) the methods used to quantify CO2 had much higher margins of error than today's methods & (b) that all the samples were collected at surface level, & most were collected in urban environments with high levels of CO2 (from factories & wood fires). Of course, none of these obvious problems prevented E&E from publishing this piece of bilge. Which, of course, simply reinforces the view that E&E is only interested in pushing *propaganda*-not in advancing science.
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66. john byatt at 21:16 PM on 13 February, 2011
    Plenty of stuff like this on the internet, “Poptech's again referring to his own self-publi­­­­shed "popularte­­c­hnology­" webpages, which are riddled with disinforma­­­­­tion and lies. For example, when are you going to remove the following patent, science denier tabloid-so­­­­­urced lie* from your "popularte­­­chnology­" webpages, Poptech? "Climatega­­­­­te U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995" Oh, right - as you Poptech have repeatedly told us you are "never" going to remove that lie, thus demonstrat­­­­­ing that you have no intent or interest in promoting the truth about climate science.
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67. Marco at 21:36 PM on 13 February, 2011
    Marcus, the funniest part about Beck's article is that Arthur Rörsch, involved in the journal and that particular article, claimed it was the most thoroughly peer reviewed paper of E&E. And still it contained clear and unacknowledged problematic issues, which even a cursory reading would reveal to anyone *critically* reading the paper.
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68. john byatt at 21:36 PM on 13 February, 2011
    Dont think this is ad hom as it goes to the heart of his credibility Donald Poptech is exaggerating his qualifications when he claims to be a computer scientist. Those of us who know him of old know he’s a computer technician- Dell A+, not university. —- Well then he fits right in with Ball & so many other Deniers who specialize in resume stretching [actually Eli is polite to the point of being inaccurate to call it “stretching” … in many cases it is outright fabrication.
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69. Paul D at 21:49 PM on 13 February, 2011
    Poptech: "I have yet to see any hard numbers on peer-reviewed papers that explicitly endorse AGW." Well done Poptech, it seems you understand science at least to a certain degree. Why would a research paper endorse AGW?? Science funding isn't largely to prove AGW, the majority of climate science funding is to improve knowledge about climate. As a result of that research, we understand the climate and that understanding shows warming! I suppose your comment could also show that you are ignorant on the subject, but I'll let others decide.
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70. Paul D at 21:59 PM on 13 February, 2011
    Poptech: "The list is very meaningful which is why you and the others here are so desperate to yet failed to discredit it." Maybe if you are obsessed with lists rather than science. Are you obsessed with lists Poptech? Or do you actually understand any of the paper that you list?
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71. Stu at 22:05 PM on 13 February, 2011
    Poptech, you state that your list is intended as a resource for skeptics rather than a list of papers you explicitely agree with. Okay. So does it bother you that since they can't all be correct, by definition you must be equipping your fellow skeptics with false information? Think about it.
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72. JMurphy at 22:30 PM on 13 February, 2011
    I have a feeling that this thread is going to go round and round in circles (as is usual when Poptech is involved) and end up lasting months, but at least it will stop him spamming other sites ! Anyway, good examples of his reality-creating are : Yes all the papers support skeptics arguments against AGW Alarm. "The following papers support skepticism of AGW or the negative environmental or socio-economic effects of AGW." Now, his first statement uses his own version of 'alarm' (does anyone actually know what he means by this ? I have never seen his definition and don't believe there is one) to claim that his own version of 'skepticism' (against his own version of 'alarm') is confirmed by his little list. Talk about confirmation bias. You can't argue against someone like this, which is why he always goes round and round in circles. However, that first statement is then discarded and another version of his beliefs appear in his second statement, which he self-quotes from his site. No mention of 'alarm' there, for some reason. Why ? Simply so he can claim that the papers support his version of 'alarm' and, at the same time (and in the same breath) that they support a general, fuzzy skeptical view. In his own reality, he has covered all angles and can argue semantics until everyone else gets dizzy. Again, you can't argue against someone who has closed off his mind so completely in this way. And, as he knows, some of the authors have told him that their papers do no support his strange views : "There is nothing in my writing that fits in this category. If they sopport _your_ skepticism then I suggest retitling the post to be: "450 Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting My Skepticism of "Man-Made" Global Warming"" Roger Pielke Jr's Blog - Better recheck that list "I'd suggest then that you clarify your post and its title to more accurately reflect what it purports to show." Roger Pielke Jr's Blog - Better recheck that list In fact, the IPCC should be included in Poptech's little list because they are so conservative in their projections that they can obviously be accused of against 'alarmism'. But then, having just shown how subjective his world-view is, he asks this : Please provide the objective criteria (not your subjective criteria) for determined who is a "specialist"." Yes, that's right : someone who bases his whole little list on his own subjective definitions of 'alarm' and 'skepticism' is demanding someone else provide "objective criteria" ! Pot, meet kettle. Again, you can't argue against someone who can demand the real world have a higher degree of proof than occurs in his own reality. Finally, we have the typical response of those who believe they have the secret knowledge that will overturn accepted norms : This is just a theory of mine based on researching this. I have enough circumstantial evidence to consider the theory plausible. In Poptech's world, I'm sure he does have such a theory but, like all those who hold such high opinions about themselves and their abilities, in the real world people know the difference between 'theories' and 'hypotheses' and know how to back-up such claims. In the real world, such claims should be treated with a large pillar of salt. Oh, and the response from Poptech will be along the lines of - 'no, it's not', 'no, I'm not', 'no, I don't', 'no, it doesn't', etc. ad nauseum.
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73. Marcus at 22:37 PM on 13 February, 2011
    Yes Stu, by handing his fellow deniers a list full of often mutually contradictory papers-some of which don't even support the skeptic position-he is really leaving them open to complete demolition by any non-denialist with half a brain. Some of the papers, though, are pure pseudo-science (especially the stuff from E&E). For example, the hypothesis regarding a natural 1500 year cycle simply isn't supported by available evidence. For instance, if the cycle is around 1500 years long, then why do we have one warm period starting around 3,000BC (almost 6,000 years after the peak of the Holocene Optimum), then nothing until 300BC (2700 years later), then another one starting in 500AD (only 800 years later), then another one starting in the 1700's-less than 1200 years later-& ending in the 1940's. Then the most recent warming-supposedly-occurring only 10-20 years later. Doesn't sound like much of a "cycle" to me-especially given that they've shown that different causes-& even a combination of causes-have been responsible for each warming event.
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74. ProfMandia at 23:37 PM on 13 February, 2011
    Rob, This is excellent and I am adding bits of this to my site. Scott Mandia
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75. Stu at 23:55 PM on 13 February, 2011
    It already is, "...negative environmental or socio-economic effects of AGW." That's a very broad definition. In your opinion then is there no distinction between legitimate concerns about such effects in a warming world (indeed, regardless of the cause of warming) and yelling 'we're all gonna die cos of globl warmin!!' from the rooftops? In my mind AGW alarm (or alarmism) is very different from plain facts and theories about what will happen if the planet warms up within the range of projections. Evidently not in yours...
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76. muoncounter at 00:24 AM on 14 February, 2011
    #106: "the results just contain those words" Try again (or rather, don't bother with another repeat of the same old carp). Your premise was blown way back here. What other contexts exist for the 47700 items under the search 'anthropogenic "global warming"'? Actually, you just made up that example, as the sentence you 'quoted' does not appear as a search result. Oops, there went whatever credibility that was left. I wonder why this entire exercise isn't spamming up your 'forum,' rather than here, where there are actual discussions of substance.
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77. muoncounter at 01:13 AM on 14 February, 2011
    #109: "I just gave an example" The word 'example' is defined as a specimen or instance that is typical of the group or set of which it forms part Since you admit that your 'example' is not a member of the group you specified (search results for the words anthropogenic global warming without any quotes), we must conclude that your use of the word 'example' is made up to suit your purposes (just as your use of the made up 'AGW Alarm'). Whatever credibility you may once have had was done in by your own words -- again. The rest is just noise. Too bad the web doesn't have a squelch control, the way old ham radios did.
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78. Eric (skeptic) at 01:45 AM on 14 February, 2011
    Fascinating thread, the attack and defense of generalities. There are a few scientists who believe CO2 is not historically high, skeptic Ferdinand Englebeen shows conclusively that they are wrong. A slightly larger number, but still only a dozen or two that believe that CO2 is not a major GHG or that increases in CO2 do not increase GAT. Another skeptic, Jack Barrett, uses MODTRAN to show that their basic arguments are wrong. Often their arguments contradict each others. The only skeptic papers worth arguing about, IMO, are those which acknowledge AGW and show low or no amplification or show that 2C or less in a century is manageable, or that give a broad perspective of drawbacks and benefits of CC. Those can be countered with specific arguments to the point where presuppositions, logic and conclusions can be compared. My advice to Poptech is to categorize the papers by type of argument. I believe the urgent-action-required side could use categories like models showing sufficient warming to melt Greenland in century timescales or trends in catastrophic impacts or other CAGW arguments. The rest of the papers supporting AGW, of which there are thousands, are settled science, but should not be conflated with catastrophic projections for which urgent action is required.
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79. Stu at 01:54 AM on 14 February, 2011
    "Not at all as that is for science to decide not those who wish to censor science." Oh good grief. Do you realise how foolish you sound? I'd say that maintaining papers on the list whose authors have objected to being on the list is, if not censoring science, akin to censoring scientists. Or rather, smearing them by association. Aside from the regular papers whose results you have somewhat misinterpreted (or interpreted as being skeptical of AGW rather than simply discussing climate science), you are giving an airing to a lot of papers that really shouldn't see the light of day. Not because anyone's censoring them, but because they're bad science, mainly published in low-rent journals, and no-one's ever going to cite them. I talking about papers like Khilyuk & Chillingar's efforts. But hey, if you wanted to provide a resource that makes your fellow 'skeptics' more wrong, then mission accomplished!
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80. JMurphy at 01:55 AM on 14 February, 2011
    Poptech wrote : "I did not use the scientific definition of the word theory." Now that explains a lot. Thank you. Just like you don't use a real-world definition of 'alarm', 'AGW alarm' or 'skepticism' - you use the versions you have created in that Poptech world of yours. Let's face it, you can make any word mean what you want it to mean and no-one can get past that confirmation bias of yours. Round and round and round you go, where you end up, no-one knows from post to post. Amazing.
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81. Stu at 01:58 AM on 14 February, 2011
    "What is considered a "legitimate concern" is subjective. This is the problem with many of the arguments here, they are in the context of the author's personal opinion which may not relate to someone else." Granted*, but by your definition a paper that concludes 'in a certain region crop yields fall in warmer years' is alarmist - even if it's based on observations rather than projecitons. But how can it be alarmist if it merely states this and makes no policy recommendations? *By the way, in my opinion your opinion is ( - tiny snip- ).
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    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] Let's take the high road, Stu. There are ways to say what you said that do not violate the Comments Policy.
82. RickG at 02:00 AM on 14 February, 2011
    Poptech reminds me of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
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83. muoncounter at 02:00 AM on 14 February, 2011
    #116: "an instance serving for illustration" If you had included the last word in that sentence ('specimen') in your cut and paste, you would have the correct context. What you provided was neither an instance nor a specimen, but an illustration. You made it up to make a point, something the deniersphere seems to do quite frequently. If you cite 'illustration' as 'example,' it is evident that you draw no distinction between fact and fiction. Further commentary is pointless.
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84. Stu at 02:10 AM on 14 February, 2011
    Mod, an unsnipped duplicate version of my post is still here. Did I accidentally re-submit it? Anyway, the snip makes it look like I've been very naughty. Readers, try and guess what word I used ;-)
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    Moderator Response: [DB] It was only 1 word (the toe went over the line). Very naughty & the whole comment would've been disappeared. :)
85. Miriam O'Brien (Sou) at 02:13 AM on 14 February, 2011
    Is it time to close off this thread? Poptech has been given enough rope and has used it well to hang himself several times over. We get it. Poptech has attempted to justify the unjustifiable and has not succeeded. Rob's post was worthwhile, drawing out Poptech to demonstrate just how worthless his list is (as demonstrated by the fact that almost no-one uses it anymore in trying to convince people to their odd beliefs). And no-one from the Oregon Petition fraud has even bothered to comment. Probably because the fraud has already been well and truly exposed for what it is.
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86. Stu at 02:31 AM on 14 February, 2011
    "What is "bad" science is subjective." This is about as untrue as a statement can get. Science that is demonstrably incorrect is bad science. That's entirely objective. Right here is a brief blog post (with references), perhaps one you've seen before, that describes concisely why Khilyuk & Chilingar (2006) is wrong, by my objective definition above. Face it: your list contains bad science as measured by the objective position of whether it is demonstrably correct or not.
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87. Rob Honeycutt at 03:37 AM on 14 February, 2011
    I have to say, I find PopTech to be a fascinating individual. The metal contortionism he's willing to go through to defend an ultimately indefensible position is nothing short of astounding.
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88. dana1981 at 03:38 AM on 14 February, 2011
    Eric in comment 117 made a good point. The problem with the Poptech list is that as designed, it's essentially worthless. Nobody has the time to look through 850 papers, so all that can be gleamed from the list is the number 850. But aside from the subjectivity of the list ("alarm"), it also contains known garbage like E&E papers, including EG Beck's nonsense. That a a paper is "peer-reviewed" by some definition of the word doesn't necessarily mean there is any worth to it. Now, if the list were at least categorized as in Eric's suggestion, something useful could come out of it. We could skip over the Beck-style garbage and look just at papers about hurricanes, for example. But just as a list, all Poptech gives us is an utterly meaningless number, which is exactly how "skeptics" use the list - as nothing more than a number. So Rob's treatment of the list as such in The Denominator is perfectly valid. You can complain about his methods, and we can complain about Poptech's. Bottom line, Poptech's list doesn't tell us anything worthwhile. I also urge everyone to remember the list purports to contain skepticism of AGW alarm, not AGW. Some comments are making this mistake.
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89. Rob Honeycutt at 03:48 AM on 14 February, 2011
    PopTech... "Fascinating how everyone avoids the Pielke question." If you are going to use one statement from one scientist in one paper as a method to validate your entire invalid list, yes, we have reason to avoid the question.
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90. Stu at 03:58 AM on 14 February, 2011
    'Stu, "We get it. Poptech has attempted to justify the unjustifiable and has not succeeded."' ^ I didn't say that. "That is not peer-reviewed." What's your point? I never claimed that it was. FWIW, its reference material is: http://www.springerlink.com/content/36w570322514n204/ I said: "Face it: your list contains bad science as measured by the objective position of whether it is demonstrably correct or not." You said: "Incorrect." Wow, crushing argument. Let's leave aside the fact that you've previously acknowledged that there are some papers in the list that, if correct, mean that others in the list are incorrect (i.e, that you have refuted yourself). The above statement seems to suggest that you are in agreement with C&K when they say: "Comparing these figures, one can conclude that anthropogenic carbon dioxide emission is negligible (indistinguishable) in any energy-matter transformation processes changing the Earth’s climate." which is a demonstrably false statement because they neglected the time over which those emissions happened. And if you can't see that, there's no helping you. "Do you support Dr. Pielke's position on hurricanes?" Sure, I think he's right. Data is data. But he was also right when he said: 'the title of your post is: "450 Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of "Man-Made" Global Warming" There is nothing in my writing that fits in this category' So perhaps it's more about your sloppiness than anything else ;-)
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91. Paul D at 03:58 AM on 14 February, 2011
    Poptech: "No, I am only obsessed with correcting misinformation about my work." What work? From what I see, you are leeching.
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92. Ron Crouch at 04:01 AM on 14 February, 2011
    In case you haven't heard I'm no scientist, nor do I have any affiliation with any research into the matter Poptech. But I do read a lot. Now I'm going to be very generous and whittle the searches I've made on Google Scholar and limit it to 35,200. That would give you a representative figure of 2.4%. That gives your argument far less validity than the IPCC claim of 95% certainty in my eyes. That means to me that there are a further 2.6% that are undecided or abstain from leaning one way or the other. A 95% certainty is good enough odds for this average Joe. So if you think that the average person these days is gullible enough to buy your nonsense, think again. Learn to be constructive or get out of the kitchen.
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93. Rob Honeycutt at 04:09 AM on 14 February, 2011
    I think people too often dismiss the impact that PopTech's 850 papers site has. People locate that site and swallow the premise hook, line and sinker. The general audience doesn't think about it. That's why this simple method of applying the denominator is important. It's an easy concept to grasp and puts such numbers in proper perspective. This method of applying the denominator is a great way for the general public to apply true skepticism.
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94. les at 04:46 AM on 14 February, 2011
    Could some please help me regarding Do you support Dr. Pielke's position on hurricanes? I'm not families with him... Is this Policy wonk our man? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_A._Pielke,_Jr. Who posted this? http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2011/02/quote-clarification.html If so, this can't possibly be a good example of an unambiguous anti or pro anythin person??? Thanks for clarrificstion.
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95. Philippe Chantreau at 04:55 AM on 14 February, 2011
    Rob, the general population will swallow just about anything anyway. The truth is that both the OISM list and PT list of papers are sad attempts at creating doubt about the general state of the scientific knowledge when there is no such doubt. Neither one of these things deserves any attention from one actually trying to understand the science. The only reason why they are attracting so much attention is because they are given such resonance by blogs and people in the press trying to spread doubt. Is there anyone out there doing science who gives a hoot about these stupid lists? Please...
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96. Ron Crouch at 05:08 AM on 14 February, 2011
    Yes Les Roger A. Pielke, Jr. is your man.
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97. Ron Crouch at 05:38 AM on 14 February, 2011
    I represent that general population Philippe and I certainly don't swallow anything, I don't care what it is. It all deserves closer inspection. So I do as my mother taught me to do except I've changed the wording slightly to suit the modern age. I believe nothing of what I hear and only half of what I read. You could put fifteen pages of citations, appointments, etc. etc. to a persons name and I say, yeah, so what, the person is human and therefore fallible. I don't do science and these lists are meaningless to me, so I too have no reason to believe that anyone doing real science would care either. The world is no longer full of ignorant uneducated savages, yet there is always some predator waiting in the wings to prey upon sentiment.
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98. dhogaza at 05:58 AM on 14 February, 2011
    Nothing discredits poptech more thoroughly than dozens of posts by poptech himself. Nice honeytrap you've written, Rob!
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99. dana1981 at 06:03 AM on 14 February, 2011
    Ultimately the problem with lists like Poptech and the Oregon Petition is that they don't apply any filters. Poptech's response is that people can look at his list and evaluate the papers themselves. The problem is that when your list is 850 papers long, that becomes completely impractical. The length of the list is a detriment. If, for example, it filtered out garbage papers like those published in E&E, and categorized them by exactly what areas the papers are examining, it would be feasible to get something useful from the list. But as it is, it's just a list of every paper Poptech can find that he thinks are skeptical of AGW "alarm". It's pure quantity over quality, and the only thing anybody can get out of it is the number 850. And considering that the 850 includes garbage like EG Beck's paper, the number itself is utterly meaningless. So if all that can be gleaned from the list is the number 850, it's an entirely valid argument to point out that compared to the total number of scientific papers on the subject, 850 is a drop in the bucket. And it is. Poptech, you've clearly put a lot of time into compiling this list. I would suggest that your time would be better used applying some filters and organization than continuing to add quantity rather than quality.
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100. Albatross at 06:08 AM on 14 February, 2011
     Oh dear, not the infamous list again. I'm sure that the creationists have compiled similar lists in a (futile) attempt to challenge the theory of evolution. One hardly knows where to begin with the issues. First, the title does not make sense. what does the author mean by "skepticism"? Scientists are by their very nature skeptical; and the author seems to be confusing "uncertainty" with the actual meaning of "scepticism". Why is "man-made" in quotation marks? That is usually done to imply that something is not real, when AGW is in fact an established theory, some might even go so far as to argue it is a "fact". And it is not sure what the term "alarm" is meant to convey, is it pejorative, or is it a claim that the impacts of AGW will not be "alarming"? Moreover, there is clearly a mismatch between the papers cited to support the title. There are also gross contradictions in the list-- some papers like G&T09 which essentially deny the existence of the greenhouse effect, others which deny it is warming, others which say it is warming but that that the warming is caused by natural cycles, others which claim that the warming is there but that is is nothing compared to the warming observe din previous interglacials, others which attribute the warming to the sun (an external driver)...I could not compile a more incoherent, contradictory potpourri of papers if I tried. There are also some beautiful examples of how the list has some serious issues and not to mention the numerous examples of own goals. An example of an own goal is citing a debunked paper like G&T09-- a fundamentally flawed paper which has been soundly refuted in the literature. Including such a fatally flawed paper (which is wrong) is not a reason to be sceptical of AGW, in fact it is a reason to be skeptical of the sub-par "science" undertaken by so-called "skeptics" contrarians and deniers of AGW. In fact, all those papers written by "skeptics" which have been overturned in the scientific literature (and there are quite a few) should be removed from the list. I could go on, but this really is like shooting fish in a barrel....
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