Wednesday
Aug032011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill 69% reckon climatologists falsify data
Aug 3, 2011 Climate: other The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of American Adults shows that 69% say it’s at least somewhat likely that some scientists have falsified research data in order to support their own theories and beliefs, including 40% who say this is Very Likely.
H/T Adalberto in the comments.
Reader Comments (33)
The perceived falsifying is caused by incompetence => Nyet!
The perceived falsifying is just normal every day academic fudging that some universities & research institutions surprisingly turn a blind eye too => Nein!
The perceived falsifying is just good robust scientific method in a non-PNS world => Non!
The perceived falsifying benefits somebody big time in a materialistic way => Yup!
John
I know it can be forgotten in the hurly burly of daily life, but scientists are drawn from the general population and therefore it is highly likely that they will represent the full schema of moral values held by the general population. So it is not highly likely that some scientist will have doctored their data, for whatever reason, they will have, at least some of them. Just like the population in general they'll have the same cross section of stupidity, generosity, intelligence, optimism, pessimism etc. you get the picture. However, I can also say with the same certainty that most people working in climate science will be decent hardworking people just as most people in the general population are.
Pretty damning stuff and acutely worrying.
This is not how scientists should be perceived.
Who said "Climate Scientists" were real scientists? They aren't!
Given Climategate, alarmism, data hiding, and downright dishonesty, is anyone surprised?
I thought it might have been worse!
This seems a silly statistic. Like 69% of the people surveyed think that some men don't cheat on their wives.
waiting for the warmist attack dogs to come in....where are dhogaza, chris colose, marco, mashey, hank roberts and the other brain dead idiots....zed and hengist
are welcome too
geronimo writes:
"I know it can be forgotten in the hurly burly of daily life, but scientists are drawn from the general population and therefore it is highly likely that they will represent the full schema of moral values held by the general population."
As recently as the Seventies, this was not true. In the Seventies, research scientists in medical centers, including MDs, made about sixty thousand dollars a year while MDs in private practice made two to four times as much. In the fifties, sixties, or seventies, if you became a research scientist or a professor, you knew that your lifestyle would be middle-class or a little better. There was some moral fiber in that choice.
Hooray for the USA! Sons of David Hume we are.
It's worse than we thought. On more levels.
This inevitably brings up the subject of conspiracies; how could there be a conspiracy so big etc?
Well, a good example is the recent world-wide banking collapse.
Before the crash, many in the banking community knew the whole sub-prime / CD borrowing practise was unsustainable; another group knew but didn't care and the last group didn't understand and didn't care either. They were all profiting and nobody said anything - including the central bankers.
Conspiracy no, common purpose yes, common interest yes, integrity low.
That's a dandy of a poll. Anybody look at the question that produced those headline results?
http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2011/08/03/that-skewed-rasmussen-survey-on-global-warming/
Yeah right. From the purveyor of Jon Krosnick's polls, questions about the 'veracity' of polling questions indeed.
Ignoring the ridiculously skewed nature of the question for a moment, lets look at some other quaint American beliefs:
On the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, a Gallup Poll showed that only 39% of Americans say they "believe in the theory of evolution," while a quarter say they do not believe in the theory, and another 36% don't have an opinion either way.
41% of Americans believe in ESP
In a Gallup poll in 1999 20 percent of Americans were still sure that the sun revolved around the Earth
In a TIME poll last year 24% of Americans thought Barak Obama was a muslim
1 in 5 Americans believe in alien abductions
So yeah, worrying news . . .
@Shub
Tu quoque?
@Scots Renewables
You should check how many Norwegians believe in ESP.
After telling us that they have feelings, worries and cares like the rest of us and that's why they are advocating instead of just reporting facts, is anyone surprised that the rest of us actually believed that and took note of it?
And the worst part about it was that they knew the government would step in to save them... the depth of the conspiracy was so deep you just cannot make it up.
Take away the only direct protection capitalism provides by itself (failure in the form of bankruptcy) and what do you have?
Mark
Keith Kloor
In what way do these seem biased to you?
1* How closely have you followed recent news stories about global warming?
2* Which of the following is most likely to occur to the planet Earth … a period of dangerous global warming, a dangerous ice age or something in between?
3* Some people say we must take immediate action to stop global warming. Others say we should wait a few years to see if global warming is real before making major changes. What do you think?
4* Do scientists agree on global warming or is there significant disagreement within the scientific community?
5* In order to support their own theories and beliefs about global warming, how likely is it that some scientists have falsified research data?
6* Does the media make global warming appear to be worse than it really is, better than it really is or do they present an accurate picture?
BTW: they do separate their results by political affiliation.
If I was a Climate Scientist or a Warmist I'd be more concerned about why the result is as it is rather than the format of the questioning.
69% or 39% is deep do-do, and the blame lies in the UEA not in the strangeness of the views of middle America.
I would have thought this was pretty good evidence myself:
http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=448
I mean Muller is not exactly a denier is he?
Q5 is strangely worded, possibly not deliberately, most likely just by an American.
It should have asked this:
The emphasis changes when worded this way - I wonder if the result would have changed?
And KK, how you you answer the inverse question?
When phrased like this, I think even the team would admit that it's likely that someone has,
You can forget the how the poll questions were framed, that simply sticking one's head in the sand, if this poll represents how Americans, who belong to a highly technological country, percieve scientists then science is in big trouble.
Be in no mistake the behaviour of climate scientists and those who have attempted to excuse their behaviour have seriously damaged science. Unfortunately the proponents of CAGW have been consistently warned to clean up their act - they have ignored those warnings. Also, the interventions by Sir Paul Nurse and Steve Jones have made things worse by indulging in conflict theory.
Scientists in creating a war with sceptics now find themselves in conflict with the public.
Where does science go from here when public trust has been lost?
De Latchio - that was a good analogy!
Keith Kloor - We who follow the debate know with 100% certainty, that climata data is being fudged with. Now, this does neither mean that 100% (or 69%) of the data is fake, nor that the same percentage of the scientists and reserachers practice data torturing/massaging. They aren't and don't!
It merely means that 31% of the adult population still is unaware of the fact (or refuse to believe it). Your criticism seems directed towards that with differently phrased questions, the percentage of affirmative answers, to a question where we know the answer is 'Yes!', could have been lower.
Sorry:
... the percentage of affirmative answers, to a question where we know the answer is 'Yes!', could have been lower.
Yes, maybe, but who cares?
anonym
One looks at Krosnick-conducted polls, as prima facie evidence to understand the brain-dead thinking behind the use of 'polling' to resolve questions in the climate debate. That guy is the master of leading questions.
So yeah, tu quoque to KK first.
Secondly, if you look at Roger Pielke Jr, who also doesn't hesitate using polls to bolster support for his iron law thesis, you quickly realize that many of these questions just trigger consensus-favorable responses simply because they are environmental tropes.
The real value of the question, this time with the Rasmusssen poll, is the sheer number of people, who did not overcome their reflexive distrust of climate scientists and their claims. Is that because of Climategate? Surely, yes. Climategate must account for small fraction of that 69%. Is that because of the constant fear-mongering and exaggeration in the media about the climate, carried out in the name of climate scientists? Absolutely yes, and in all likelihood accounts for the major fraction of that 69%.
Some people don't want to look at the mirror because what one sees, doesn't look good. So you go looking elsewhere for ugliness.
had one of Steveta_UK's questions been asked only of climatologists I wonder if the percentage would have varied by much. The follow-on would then have been "should you have said anything about it?"
Scots Renewables given those quite mad views are also held by those supporting AGW , what effect does that have on this idea ?
Poll are always problematic in design and so need to be taken with a pinch of salt but this is also true of mythic 97% of scientists agree towed out to support AGW and yet this is treated as absolute proof of a consensus .
By the way if I take a poll of Catholic priests and 97% agree god exists , does that mean he does or is consensus from the experts not on its own enough even when its real?
Mac said:
"Pretty damning stuff and acutely worrying.
This is not how scientists should be perceived."
I disagree. It is healthy to be sceptical, to a point. We should take scientific claims with a pinch of salt. The size of the pinch will depend on our views and knowledge and the stated views and knowledge of the scientists making their claims. It is not unreasonable to ask 'What are they trying to sell? We should ask questions rather than blindly believe them.
We should dig into things more ourselves. We should be able to discuss science with scientists rather than be expected to fall down for the divine right of experts. This process would see us educating ourselves and scientists learning how to communicate with the public in a grown up fashion. If they wish to write science papers that are equivocal and non-committal they *must* take it on the chin when people don't immediately leap into action. If they want to continue crying wolf they must likewise take it on the chin that people get bored with scaremongering. The public's view of science will improve when science as an industry improves.
There also appears to be a core of activist scientists growing fat on taxpayer money who are doing science a great disservice by shouting down dissent, crowding out competing ideas and slurring anyone who disagrees with them. What they are doing is not science it is politics and once they stray from their relative safe ground of expert opinion and into activism we must be especially wise to their claims and motivations.
@ KnR
By the way if I take a poll of Catholic priests and 97% agree god exists , does that mean he does or is consensus from the experts not on its own enough even when its real?
Erm . . . I am sure you didn't mean to choose such a daft analogy and that you are aware of the fundamental differences between science and religion :-)
Scots Renewables
Erm2 ......... as sure we are aware of the difference between science and advocacy.
Climate science is a separate beast to traditional classic science. 'Climate science' is a modern phenomenon. It grew from a backwater of meteorology, geology, geophysics, ecology, oceanography and atmospheric physics, the traditional disciplines of the earth sciences, only about 30 years ago. Its dominance in natural science academic priorities today was driven by a cultural environmental scare campaign organised and managed on a virtual revolutionary scale by politically motivated funding. Only the most gullible could believe that this vast funding was a sudden philanthropic endeavour by politicians to unravel the innocent complexity of celestial climate paradigms.
We all know what it was driven by, the appeal that 'cause' had to recruitment of researchers to its ranks, to its fellow travellers in the media, and where all the jobs now lie in that field today. Pure science has only the weakest of ethical self discipline in defence against being coaxed to support belief, and no match for those with a perceived higher moral agenda.
wikipedia is once again considering actually calling the article about climategate "climategate" rather than calling it something else because -gate, you know, makes it sound like something *bad* happened. Come and vote!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy#Requested_Move
Well, this obviously indicates that 69 per cent of the US population is white, male, middle aged and has a superiority complex.
Lincoln: "You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."