know concensusSep 2nd, 2007 - 22:48:06

29 Aug 07 - In 2004, history professor Naomi Oreskes examined peer-reviewed papers published on the ISI Web of Science database from 1993 to 2003 concerning climate change. She found a majority supported the 'consensus view,' defined as humans were having at least some effect on global climate change.
Medical researcher Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte recently updated this research. Using the same database and search terms as Oreskes, he examined all papers published from 2004 to February 2007.

Of 528 papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the so-called consensus on climate change. If one considers 'implicit' endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement), the figure rises to 45%. However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis.

This is no 'consensus.'

The figures are even more shocking when one remembers the watered-down definition of consensus here. Not only does it not require supporting that man is the 'primary' cause of warming, but it doesn't require any belief or support for 'catastrophic' global warming. Of all papers published in this period (2004 to February 2007), only a single one makes any reference to climate change leading to catastrophic results.

Schulte's survey contradicts the United Nation IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report (2007), which gave a figure of '90% likely' man was having an impact on world temperatures. But does the IPCC represent a consensus view of world scientists? Despite media claims of 'thousands of scientists' involved in the report, the actual text is written by a much smaller number of 'lead authors.' The introductory 'Summary for Policymakers' - the only portion usually quoted in the media - is written not by scientists at all, but by politicians, and approved, word-by-word, by political representatives from member nations. By IPCC policy, the individual report chapters - the only text actually written by scientists - are edited to 'ensure compliance' with the summary.

By contrast, the ISI Web of Science database covers 8,700 journals and publications, including every leading scientific journal in the world.

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real knowSep 2nd, 2007 - 22:50:17

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.

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