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Re: [Phys-l] Scientists speaking outside their fields. Was...The Cause of Global Warming...



On May 22, 2007, at 10:43 AM, Daryl L Taylor wrote:

This thread began with a link to a chat by Naomi Oreskes. I need to bring up the point that she published a paper in Science 03 Dec 2004, in which she claimed to have reviewed all 928 papers written on climate change from 1993-2003 and found that 75% conclude explicitly or implicitly that we are causing global warming and the other "25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change". Paper is at http:// www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686


Unfortunately for Naomi, Benny Pieser of Moores U in UK, yes a skeptic and an anthropologist to boot, re-ran her data and found glaring errors. http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/NationalPost.htm

His findings after reviewing the same 928 papers and 200 more he found were that only 13 papers (<2%) explicitly agreed with anthropogenic causes. When taken to task, Oreskes agreed that "there was indeed a serious mistake in the Science essay."

Take it for what it's worth, but I find little faith in anyone, regardless of their credentials, passing off information that just isn't so.

I don't see any obvious contradiction between the statements above from Oreskes and Pieser. Moreover, I note that in Pieser's essay he writes, "According to an essay by Naomi Oreskes, published by Science in December, 2004, there is unanimous "scientific consensus" on the anthropogenic causes of recent global warming." But Oreskes simply, unequivocally said no such thing in her essay. Finally, the statement that, "Oreskes agreed that 'there was indeed a serious mistake in the Science essay,'" appears, at best, to have been taken out of context. From what I can tell, she seems to have been referring to errors in assembling her data set--errors that wouldn't seem likely, as far as I can tell, to bias the set. Contrary to the implication, she does not seem to be referring to errors in her analysis of the data set. (I haven't been able to track down a source for her statement. The references I have found point to a page at davidappell.com, a domain that apparently no longer exists.)

I appreciate the fact that Oreskes' work has been misrepresented by those on the anthropogenic warming side of the fence, including Al Gore, but it seems to me that Pieser's work is at least inexcusably sloppy and possibly willfully dishonest. Accordingly it seems to me that he is easily dismissed as a credible critic for precisely the reasons Daryl states in the last sentence above.

John Mallinckrodt

Professor of Physics, Cal Poly Pomona
<http://www.csupomona.edu/~ajm>

and

Lead Guitarist, Out-Laws of Physics
<http://outlawsofphysics.com>