Smasharoo wrote:
Tell me, what would I search on google to identify the percent of PhDs that agree that global warming is a concern?
I tried this, to see how difficult it was. It took me maybe 90 seconds. 75% it seems, according to exhaustive metanaylsis of published papers in peer reviewed journals. I'm not going to link it, because it's funnier this way, but to verify I went through the effort, I'll state that the analysis was done by a woman, and she has a PhD from Stanford.
I'd imagine anyone could find it in under 5 minutes.
So I searched for "IPCC consensus global warming" and came up with your article:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686
Fair enough. In the interest of disclosure:
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The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.
Admittedly, authors evaluating impacts, developing methods, or studying paleoclimatic change might believe that current climate change is natural. However, none of these papers argued that point.
I wish she had specified what percent fell under the explicit endorsement category, as well as what percent of those were PhDs. That would be more relevant, but beggars can't be choosers. Now let me illustrate the importance of this little exercise. When Gbaji first started arguing about the percent of scientists, on the topic of what percent fall under the consensus that it is a problem, you said "94%. 89% have PhDs."
This statement was of course, complete ********* Gbaji could argue it into the ground, but he didn't really need to. It was quite apparent you were just blowing smoke, a fact you admitted only a few posts later when I asked you about it. Had I not asked, you'd probably never have admitted it, and undoubtedly, at least a few people would walk away from this discussion with bad information. Instead, I pushed you and you finally did look it up. We now have a fairly solid number, even if that number is lacking in certain detail that would make it even more useful. I could have done the research as well, you're right. But the point of the exercise was to illustrate to you the effectiveness of presenting actual information alongside your own opinion, and how much more effective it makes your argument. I don't suppose you'll actually take that point with you when you leave this thread, but perhaps others will. Still a positive result.
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Assuming it was a valid statistic, you must have gotten it from somewhere, and are thus far more likely to point me in the right direction than my initial attempt at googling it. Sure, I could probably find it after several minutes or hours of searching and scouring documents, but I could also just ask you where you got your numbers and be done a lot quicker. I really don't understand how you repeatedly fail to comprehend this logic.
I fail to see the value in linking something. People link things all the time that are completely worthless. 99% of the time when someone links something, I'm going to research it anyway if I care much about it, rather than lending it more credence because someone provided a hyper link to a web page. Even if Joph links to a peer reviewed paper, I'm likely to hit Google Scholar and see what else is out there. No, I'm going to have to go with laziness, sorry.
Right. Because nobody in the entire history of human civilization built their work upon that already done by others. Everybody starts from scratch and does their own research.
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Not at all. Assuming the statistic directly contradicted what I know or perceive to be true, I'd simply indicate that I'm interested in whatever research led you to that statistic and ask that you email it to me later.
I'm amazed anyone does this.
Maybe you DO lack culture.
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If that seems rather unorthodox to you, I'll hazard a guess that you typically dine or interact with people who don't question your views. Maybe this is because you find it easier to bolster your ego, or maybe you just can't handle people challenging your views.
I mostly hang out with poker players, few of whom share my views. We largely talk about poker or game theory or politics. Rarely do we discuss climate change. I'm trying to imagine asking one of them to email the source of something without laughing, but it's really not working out.
That's incredibly disappointing, IMO.
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I could arrive at either conclusion based on your attitude here, so I'm not sure which is more likely.
While I find your psuedo-psychobabble analysis of me funny, you don't really believe my posting persona and my actual personality are the same, do you?
Already answered that question in my last post.
