dENNIS bray
sorta disambig see storch and 97%
mashey 2012
p141
Z.2005.06-14 James M. Taylor
Survey Shows Climatologists Are Split on Global Warming
Alarmist “consensus” does not exist
A survey of climatologists from more than 20 nations has revealed scientists
are evenly split on whether humans are responsible for changes in global
climate. Meme-03
The findings refute699 a widely reported study by a California “Gender and
Science” professor700 who claimed that, based on her personal examination of
928 scientific papers on the issue, every single one reached the conclusion that
global warming is real and primarily caused by humans.
Professor Claims Scientific Unanimity701
In December 2004, Dr. Naomi Oreskes of the University of California at San
Diego received widespread media attention for claiming her review of scientific
literature showed scientists were in unanimous agreement that global warming is
occurring and is being caused primarily by humans.
In an article titled “Undeniable Global Warming,” Oreskes wrote in the
December 26 Washington Post, “There is a scientific consensus on the fact that
Earth’s climate is heating up and human activities are part of the reason. We
need to stop repeating nonsense about the uncertainty of global warming and
start talking seriously about the right approach to address it.”
Climatologists Dispute Oreskes
The May 1 London Telegraph, however, noted Oreskes’ “unequivocal
conclusions immediately raised suspicions among other academics, who knew of
many papers that dissented from the pro-global warming line.” The newspaper
reported that Dr. Benny Peiser, a senior lecturer in the science faculty at
Liverpool John Moores University, “decided to conduct his own analysis of the
same set of 1,000 documents [cited by Oreskes]—and concluded that only one
third backed the consensus view, while only 1 percent did so explicitly.”702
notes
699 No, neither Peiser nor Bray did that.
700 Taylor denigrated an award-winning scholar and then relied on Peiser. Oreskes
was an exploration geologist before her Stanford PhD in geosciences and science
history and is Professor of History and Science Studies at UCSD.
history.ucsd.edu/people/faculty/oreskes-naomi.html
Calling her a Professor of “Gender and Science” is an obvious, purposeful attempt
to attack her credibility with the E&CN audience.” When she has spoken at
Stanford, members of the National Academy of Sciences take time to hear her.
701 Consensus is not unanimity and she did not claim the latter. She knows better.
Taylor tries to conflate the study with views of scientists, who have a strong
consensus, but no unanimity.
702 Peiser was a social (sports) anthropologist at a low-ranked UK school.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benny_Peiser
The London Times then reported on Professor Dennis Bray, of Germany’s
GKSS National Research Centre.Bray surveyed hundreds of international
climate scientists, asking the question, “To what extent do you agree or disagree
that climate change is mostly the result of anthropogenic causes?” Bray received
530 responses from climatologists in 27 different countries.
With a value of 1 indicating “strongly agree” and a value of 7 indicating
“strongly disagree,” Bray reported the average of the 530 responses was 3.62,
almost right down the middle. More climatologists “strongly disagreed” than
“strongly agreed” that climate change is mostly attributable to humans.
“The results, i.e. the mean of 3.62, seem to suggest that consensus is not all that
strong,” Bray reported in his findings. “Results of surveys of climate scientists
themselves indicate the possibility that Oreskes’ conclusion is not as obvious as
stated.”703
Journals Swayed by Politics
Lorne Gunter, a columnist for the Canadian journal National Post, was more
blunt in his assessment of the survey.704
“It’s a long way from a consensus backing the most extreme global warming
scenarios, as environmentalists and UN officials would have us believe,”
observed Gunter.
“Interestingly but hardly surprisingly, Dr. Bray has had trouble getting his
findings published. Science magazine turned down even a letter-to-the-editor
from him,” Gunter added. “That’s doubly galling because back in December...
notes
His study got whittled down to nothing, as he was finally forced to admit.
“Peiser says he withdrew his criticism in March this year.”(2006) --Media Watch.
“Peiser obviously doesn’t know the difference between consensus and uncertainty,
between different kinds of uncertainty, or between research on climate and
research on climate policy.” - Sylvia Tognetti.
notes:
www.desmogblog.com/skeptics-journal-publishes-plagiarized-paper pp.7-8.
703 Even professional poll designers make errors, and Bray and von Storch were
not professionals. See comm.stanford.edu/faculty/krosnick for studies.
The 2003 Bray/von Storch survey was not well designed: the question was
ambiguous and the online poll arrangement allowed for gaming.
www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/a-statistical-analysis-of-theconsensus
I think they did a better job in August 2008:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
‘To the question "How convinced are you that most of recent or near future
climate change is, or will be, a result of anthropogenic causes?" the responses were
34.6% very much agree, 48.9% agreeing to a large extent, 15.1% to a small extent,
and 1.35% not agreeing at all.”’
704 Why does Lorne Gunter’s opinion matter? He is no scientist, but he has a long
history of opinions, www.desmogblog.com/search/node/lorne%20gunter .
...Science didn’t hesitate for a second to print a discreditable paper by Dr. Naomi
Oreskes of UC San Diego in which she claimed that in her analysis of 928
abstracts from peer-reviewed climate research papers, ‘Remarkably, none of the
papers disagreed with the consensus position.’” Concluded Gunter, “Actually,
were Dr. Oreskes’ assertion of unanimity true, it might only prove how totally
co-opted the peer journals have become by enviro group-think and how willing
they are to censor dissenting views in an effort to preserve and polish the notion
of worldwide scientific consensus.”
This was a direct and false attack on Oreskes. IRS-3E