In the never ending quest for alarmists to one up their incompetent friends they continue to seek out new ways to demonstrate their own computer illiteracy. Enter James Powell who in a meaningless analysis is apparently ignorant that the 'Web of Science' database does not have a "peer-reviewed" filter and the existence of a search phrase in a returned result does not determine it's context. Thus, all that can be claimed is there were 13,950 meaningless search results not "peer-reviewed scientific articles" for a query of the 'Web of Science' database - with 24 chosen by strawman argument.
1. The context of how the "search phrases" were used in all the results was never determined.
2. The results are padded by not using the search qualifier "anthropogenic".
3. The 13,950 results cannot be claimed to be peer-reviewed as the Web of Science does not have a peer-reviewed filter.
4. It is a strawman argument that skeptics deny or reject there has been a global temperature increase of a fraction of a degree since the end of the little ice age.
1. Context matters
The existence of a search phrase in a returned result does not determine its context. So making any arguments for or against an implied position relating to the use of a phrase by simply looking at numerical result totals is impossible. Powell never determined the context of how the search phrases were used in all the results.
Thus, Powell's 13,950 meaningless search results include ones irrelevant to the global warming debate such as,
Case study of visualizing global user download patterns using Google Earth and NASA World Wind
(Journal of Applied Remote Sensing, Volume 6, Issue 1, October 2012)
- Ziliang Zong et al.
2. Padding the Results
Powell padded his search results total by using the phrases; "global warming" and/or "global climate change" instead of "anthropogenic global warming" [man-made global warming] or "anthropogenic global climate change" [man-made global climate change], which would have significantly reduced the number of returned results. Without the qualifier "anthropogenic", results are included where no claim of explicit endorsement or rejection of ACC/AGW can be made.
Others alarmists have been challenged to search for the phrase, "anthropogenic climate change" using Oreskes (2004) methods and they only got 108 returned results. These low number of results are not useful to sell the type of propaganda alarmists like Powell are looking for.
3. Peer-Reviewed?
In his methods, Powell filtered his results by the 'articles' document type which includes content that may not be peer-reviewed depending on the specific journal,
Document Type Descriptions (Web of Science)
"Article: Reports of research on original works. Includes research papers, features, brief communications, case reports, technical notes, chronology, and full papers that were presented at a symposium or conference."
Categories like these have been the subject of debate and confusion in relation to their peer-review status,
"...three categories of articles have been published: review articles up to 10 000 words, original articles of 2500–5000 words and brief communications of 1000–2000 words. Only the first two categories were subject to peer review and brief communications were being published without this quality check." - Health Information and Libraries Journal
"Because of trends in submissions, Nature's Brief Communications will bow out at the end of the year. [...] False rumours that the section was not peer reviewed have occasionally circulated." - Nature
4. Strawman argument
By fabricating a strawman argument claiming he found only 24 papers "rejecting global warming", Powell intentionally misrepresented actual skeptic arguments and failed to count hundreds of peer-reviewed papers authored by skeptics such as,
Can increasing carbon dioxide cause climate change?
(Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 94, Number 16, pp. 8335-8342, August 1997)
- Richard S. Lindzen
* Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is indexed in Web of Science (Science Citation Index).
* August 1997 is between January 1, 1991 and November 9, 2012.
* Can increasing carbon dioxide cause climate change? includes the search phrase "global warming".
and,
On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications
(Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences, Volume 47, Number 4, pp. 377-390, August 2011)
- Richard S. Lindzen, Yong-Sang Choi
* Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences is indexed in Web of Science (Science Citation Index Expanded).
* August 2011 is between January 1, 1991 and November 9, 2012.
* On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications includes the search phrase "global warming".
Powell then mentions, "Note that some papers that one might expect to find listed were classified as "Review" or "Editorial Material" by WoS. I did not count these." It is illogical why anyone would expect "Editorial Material" to be listed if they were looking for peer-reviewed content. However, he intentionally did not count review papers which are commonly peer-reviewed and considered scientifically valid such as,
CO2-induced global warming: a skeptic's view of potential climate change
(Climate Research, Volume 10, Number 1, pp. 69–82, April 1998)
- Sherwood B. Idso
* Climate Research is indexed in Web of Science (Science Citation Index).
* April 1998 is between January 1, 1991 and November 9, 2012.
* CO2-induced global warming: a skeptic's view of potential climate change includes the search phrase "global warming".
and,
The Global Warming Debate: A Review of the State of Science
(Pure and Applied Geophysics, Volume 162, Issue 8-9, pp. 1557-1586, August 2005)
- Madhav L. Khandekar, T. S. Murty, P. Chittibabu
* Pure and Applied Geophysics is indexed in Web of Science (Science Citation Index).
* August 2005 is between January 1, 1991 and November 9, 2012.
* The Global Warming Debate: A Review of the State of Science includes the search phrase "global warming".
Conclusion
In a true sense of irony Powell uses his meaningless analysis as a defense of Oreskes (2004) which is considered useless by world renowned climate experts,
"Analyses like these by people who don't know the field are useless. A good example is Naomi Oreskes work." - Tom Wigley, Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)He then attempts to smear skeptics as "global warming deniers". This is a dishonest ad hominem as skeptics believe there has been a global temperature increase of a fraction of a degree since the end of the little ice age.
Powell's pie chart is simply propaganda for those who are intellectual dishonest and want to be intentionally misleading about actual skeptic arguments or the over 1100 peer-reviewed papers that support them.
Questions:
1. Why is Powell being intentionally misleading and not counting hundreds of peer-reviewed papers authored by skeptics?
2. Why is Powell stating dishonest ad hominems about skeptics, claiming they don't believe there has been a global temperature increase of a fraction of a degree since the end of the little ice age?
References:
Can increasing carbon dioxide cause climate change? (PNAS, August 5, 1997)
CO2-induced global warming: a skeptic's view of potential climate change (Climate Research, April, 1998)
The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change (Science, December 3, 2004)
The Global Warming Debate: A Review of the State of Science (Pure and Applied Geophysics, August, 2005)
The brief goodbye (Nature, September 20, 2006)
Editorial (Health Information & Libraries Journal, June 19, 2007)
Google Scholar Illiteracy at Skeptical Science (Popular Technology.net, February 14, 2011)
On the observational determination of climate sensitivity and its implications (Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences, August, 2011)
1100+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skeptic Arguments Against ACC/AGW Alarm (Popular Technology.net, July 23, 2012)
Climategate 3.0: Tom Wigley says Naomi Oreskes’ work is ‘useless’? (Junk Science, March 13, 2013)
2 comments:
The biggest error in the original article is this line, "had any of the 24 articles presented the magic bullet that falsifies human-caused global warming."
This guy is a scientist? He doesn't seem to understand the scientific method.
The AGW theory is sufficiently vague where climate "change" can mean anything, so how can you falsify a theory that attributes every "bad" outcome to be evidence of their theory?
But there's one glaring fact that does falsify AGW – there's been no warming for the past 17 years. The AGW theory specifically said more CO2 means more warming, and gave specific temperature predictions.
Not one of the computer models predicted the temperature series of the past 17 years.
In science, you propose a hypothesis. Make predictions, run tests, and look at the evidence. If the evidence disagrees with the predictions, then theory is wrong.
Very well said Jim. The observed evidence is contrary to the projected outcome.
I prefer this line though:
When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.
The "Titanic" of the AGW scam is badly holed by the ice they say is missing. It's only a matter of time.
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