by Geoffrey Weiss and Claude Roessiger
The so-called debate about the causes and effects of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is a notable irony. Rather than a forum for free disputation, AGW has in recent years become the site of a consensus equating majority opinion with truth—leaving little, if any, room for debate. After all, doesn’t everyone but a misguided few agree that we are in the grip of an unparalleled, man- made climatic catastrophe?
Posted in Consensus, Uncategorized
by Judith Curry
A new book by Oppenheimer, Oreskes et al. entitled ‘Discerning Experts: The Practices of Scientific Assessment for Environmental Policy‘ makes a case against consensus seeking in climate science assessments.
Posted in Consensus
by Judith Curry Politics versus science in attributing extreme weather events to manmade global warming.
by Judith Curry
The House Natural Resources Committee Subcommittee on Water, Oceans and Wildlife is holding a Hearing today on Responding to the Global Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.
Posted in Climate change impacts, Consensus
by Judith Curry
“You can say I don’t believe in gravity. But if you step off the cliff you are going down. So we can say I don’t believe climate is changing, but it is based on science.” – Katherine Hayhoe, co-author of the 4th National Climate Assessment Report.
Posted in Consensus, Uncertainty
by Judith Curry
Short summary: scientists sought political relevance and allowed policy makers to put a big thumb on the scale of the scientific assessment of the attribution of climate change.
Posted in Attribution, Consensus, IPCC, Sociology of science
by Judith Curry
The professional standards of science must impose a framework of discipline and at the same time encourage rebellion against it. – Michael Polanyi (1962)
Posted in Consensus, History, Sociology of science
by Judith Curry
In our view, the fact that so many scientists agree so closely about the [causes of the] earth’s warming is, itself, evidence of a lack of evidence for [human caused] global warming. – D. Ryan Brumberg and Matthew Brumberg
Posted in Consensus
by Judith Curry
The American Meteorological Society has issued a draft report on the results from a survey of the views of their membership on climate change.
Posted in Consensus
by Judith Curry
Acknowledging the science of global warming does not require accepting that it is immune to criticism.
by Frank Hobbs (franktoo)
At the Senate Hearing on “Dogma and Data”, dogma about the 97% consensus went unchallenged. Democratic Senators constantly recited the phrase “97% consensus”, but it is not clear whether they – or their Republican opponents – had the slightest idea what the phrase meant: 97% of what group support a consensus about exactly what?
Posted in Consensus
by Andy West
A frequent topic at Climate Etc. is the ‘consensus.’ An argument is presented here that the climate consensus is as much about culture as it is about climate science.
Posted in Consensus, Sociology of science
by Judith Curry
A British academic wants an international court to declare climate skeptics wrong, once and for all.
by Judith Curry
Any attempt to impose agreement will “promote confusion between consensus and certainty”. The goal should be to quantify uncertainty, not to remove it from the decision process. – Willy Aspinall
Posted in Consensus, Uncertainty
Posted in Consensus
by Judith Curry
Among the best indirect indicators available to nonexperts is the overwhelming numbers of scientists testifying to anthropogenic climate change. Yet the evidential significance of such clear numbers turns substantially on our nonexpert assessment of these scientists’ trustworthiness. Absent trust, even without active distrust, the numbers’ evidential weight drops considerably. – Ben Almassi
Posted in Consensus
by Judith Curry
We polled 130 environmental attorneys and law professors from around the country about the legality of the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed Clean Power Plan. The results might surprise you. – Brian Potts and Abigail Barnes
by Andy West
Lewandowsky and Oreskes raise the prospect that via the agency of memes, the climate Consensus with its high certainty of danger, could be a socially generated artifact and not a scientific fact.
Posted in Communication, Consensus, Sociology of science
by Judith Curry
The authority of a scientific body is not undermined by questioning, but rather depends upon it – Beatty & Moore
Posted in Consensus
by Judith Curry
A decades’ experience shows that “Consensus messaging” doesn’t work. – Dan Kahan
Posted in Communication, Consensus
by Judith Curry
If deference to the authoritative opinions of experts is essential to our rationality and knowledge, and if that deference unavoidably rests on trust, not only in the competence, but also in the epistemic and ethical characters of our experts–then it is high time that we get to work on the ethics of expertise. Indeed, it is past time. – John Hardwig
Posted in Communication, Consensus, Sociology of science
by Andy West
Climate psychologists have for years now puzzled over public inaction on climate change and also what makes skeptics tick (or sick), apparently making little progress on these issues.
Posted in Consensus
by Judith Curry
Group failures often have disastrous consequences—not merely for businesses, nonprofits, and governments, but for all those affected by them. – Cass Sunstein and Reid Hastie
Posted in Consensus, IPCC, Sociology of science
