A paper published
this week (or more accurately a press release that accompanied it) seemed
to suggest that 97.5% of all climate scientists who have published papers over
the last decade (some 11,944 papers) agree that humans are the primary cause of
climate change. The implication was that the science is settled. Even President
Obama tweeted his “blessing” of this conclusion.
But things are not as they seem. First, 66% of all of the
papers reviewed took no position whatsoever with respect to anthropocentric explanations of climate change – only 32.6 of the papers supported the general idea
that humans cause climate change. That is 3,893 papers. For 0.7% of the papers,
the human explanation was rejected and for a further 0.3% the suggestion was
that the climate system is so complex we do not yet fully understand it.
But if we apply the criteria, suggested by the authors of the paper, that humans must be the dominant cause of climate change for
the reported claim to be true, we have a real problem. This occurs in just 65 of the papers. Do the math.
That is 0.5% of the papers support the contention that humans are the primary
cause of climate change. Put this
another way, more of the papers reject this explanation (75 papers or 0.6%)
than support the strong hypothesis of humans being the dominant factor in climate change. You can
read a detailed analysis of the data base here.
The worrying issue here is about our understanding of the
nature of the scientific endeavor. If science was about consensus, then we
would all be in trouble. It is not, it is about evidence, understanding and
confirmation through theory and verification. The kind of paper that needs to
exaggerate (being generous) so as to make a point stands in the face of scientific
inquiry and is unbecoming.
Now lets get back to the practice of normal science.
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