Stunning Rebuke of AGW by Scientific American Readers

Nah, just been chuckling at his comments. Probably a second account of that guy who can't spell or use proper grammar.

 

OK, let me see if I have this straight. The random Internet poll you posted was solid proof "there is no consensus" on climate change, yet the scientifically valid posts other people posted just "prove how effective the media is in brainwashing masses."

So, if a poll, no matter how dubious, agrees with what you believe it's perfectly valid, and if a poll, no matter how valid, doesn't agree with your beliefs than it's worthless. Did I miss anything there?

 

And those who don't want the lifestyle choice required by their unbelief in AGW have exercised their scientific doctorates reviewing the data and come up with their opinions based on the scientific method. Right.

 

Nah, they more likely note that the reputable scientific organizations of the world agree about the basic points of AGW, and don't let religious, ideological, or money vested interest turn them into blabbering baboons.

 

Well well. After PriusChat dropped this topic, the Wall Street Journal editorial page picked it up, and SciAm had to respond: Do 80 percent of Scientific American subscribers deny global warming? Hardly

And now we know which three sites directed the most readers to dogpile onto the SciAm poll.

 

Half the poll was shills from just 3 specific sites. That doesn't count those shills from additional sites and mailing lists, and those who quash the referral tag, as I did in my dogpiling days.

This doesn't follow at all. We still have no clue how many poll respondents were SciAm readers.

The last paragraph, describing a previous poll that seems to be of online subscribers, is a bit more informative.

 

You got to give SA credit for big balls. In there rejection of the poll results they pointed to another equally unscientific poll they did with results they liked. So the big question is are badly designed polls only misleading if they don't come up with the results you wanted?

Of course not. Both the SA poll showing a larger belief in the A in AGW and this new one that has a consensus against that belief, are bad polls. By holding up these polls as evidence of global warming these publications and the UN are really mocking science. Of course when the poll says the opposite we are supposed to put on our tin foil hat and say the first poll was good the second was bad. Science is not about consensus its about hypothesis and data. Al Gore and the UN really are attempting to make the world stupider when they pretend otherwise. It is even worse when criticism turns religious and anything not going with the global warming position is labeled as deniers or shills of industry. That is basic dishonesty and a corruption of science.

Well sure, but how many of those readers really have a clue. I mean they are reading totally meaningless poles in SA.

Even when you corect the data for climate gate, and look at mann's mistakes in the drummed up hockeystick and put in better numbers, the evidence is pretty heavy on the side of CO2 contributing to GW. I don't really need to read SA poll results to understand that.

 

There wasn't anything wrong or "unscientific" with the original poll, really. The problem was that it was represented as a poll of SciAm readers, when it was not. SciAm responded with an actual poll of readers.

Both polls would suffer from response bias, but that doesn't make them unscientific. It just means they weren't random samples. Context is always the key.

 

Even if these were all SA readers, it would be 1% of their subscribers.

Of course, the fact that in Galileo's day 99.999% of all educated Europeans believed that the sun revolved around the sun didn't make it true.

 

As long as Climate Change is considered a "Political" issue we can come to no consensus. Also, this is plainly stated to be an "opinion" poll. I've got opinions I could on and on about. That doesn't make them right or wrong, just mine. I subscribe too but I'm not a physicist, I work in mental health.
I suspect that lot's of "dullards" will take on line polls or phone polls. Also, on line polls can be skewed by industry and political interests.

PS I have wonderful friends in Canada and consider the Canadian Rockies to be the closest to Nirvana I've ever been. But they are dependent on the oil sands from Edmonton North.

 

If you want to see what the average American thinks, see post #10.
If you want to see what scientists think, see post #14.

Briefly:

Three-quarters of US adults want the government to do something about global warming ... but they don't want to pay for it.
Among scientists, nearly all climatologists "believe in" global warming, about half of petroleum geologists "believe in" global warming, other disciplines fall between.

Why continue to argue about faulty data when accurate information is available?

 

Internet polls that are designed this way are meaningless. There is selection bias, which is what Scientific American was hoping for, only those that care will self select and they thought only those blaiming humans for GW would care. The second problem is multiple voting. The thrid thing, but I'm not sue is really a problem, is that some voters were not subscribers. A well designed poll can remove or at least lessen the impact of these biases. An internet poll can get rid of the last one, but is unlikely to do anything about the first one, so results are always pretty meaningless about the facts. Internet polls do show who "cares" more about the issue, although those numbers are often inflated.

But here is the next big problem, votes do not equal science or facts. I don't think all the polls that showed american's mistakenly thinking some of the september 11 hijackers were iraqi's made this position any more true, or even showed that americans are stupid. I'm sure this poll was set up to try to show a consensus on AGW. If it did it would be equally meaningless. But don't give the media the wiggle room to continue to choose the bias polls they want, but reject those they don't want.