I often wonder about the torrent of statistics that assail us on every issue today. So many, in fact, that we have to look to ‘fact checkers’ to verify which can be believed or, more accurately, which fit the current narrative. Some time ago I saw a headline which printed the following quote, “97% of scientists agree climate change is real.” Now I know that is not the full quote and often there is a slightly different wording but it is often abbreviated to the above mentioned headline. My first thought was, where were the other 3%? Fallen asleep in the back row when the question was put? Skipped out for a quick smoke or, to get first in line for Lunch? I think, although I cannot prove it, that 97% of scientists agree that the climate changes, otherwise we would be in the middle of a world of molten rock. Following this line of thought, I wondered who were these scientists? Were they all climatologists or did anyone in a white coat in a laboratory qualify? What about those social scientists that are so desperate to prove that Social Science is a real science, do they qualify? Here we get into the weeds and ask how this data was collected. Was there a global meeting of climatologists weighted in some way to represent scientific opinion? I could go on and I often do but I think that we have done enough to illustrate that we should view all such claims with healthy scepticism. Am I being fair in only discussing the abbreviated form of the quote? Partly yes and no. Partly yes because all the above is valid when the abbreviated quote is most often used by the media and others to support a particular view on climate change. Partly no, because the full quote expands on the short format to make a statement, as follows:.
97 percent of climate scientists agree that there is a global
warming trend and that human beings are the main cause–that
is, that we are over 50% responsible. (Fox News, 28/07/15)
Now that we have the full statement does it change our level of scepticism? Well no. In addition to our original questions we now add the requirement that the authors prove that human beings are the main reason for climate change. At this stage I must say that the point of this essay is not to prove or, disprove the issue of global warming but to examine how science is used to support a political ideology. The origin of the 97% claim was a study conducted by John Cook who surveyed papers by various scientists and sought to classify them by adjudicating whether they supported the climate change statement or not. To say that this was a subjective process is an understatement, with Richard Tol saying that, “The paper is a treasure trove of how-not-to lessons for a graduate class on survey design and analysis: the sample was not representative, statistical tests were ignored, and the results were misinterpreted.” The 97% figure seems to have stuck, with the likes of President Obama and others repeating it, whilst others saying that it is a blunt instrument that doesn’t account for a sliding scale of support for the claim. Most people seem to agree that there is some anthropogenic effect but disagree to the extent of the impact on global warming.
Whilst the public may not understand the basis of the statistics being forced on to them from every media outlet, after Covid, they saw the extent of government and Corporate control over the scientific community. David Robert Grimes wrote an interesting piece in The Guardian (27/08/23), entitled, “One scientist can be wrong. But deny the scientific consensus at your peril”. In it he differentiates between ‘The Science‘ and the opinion of individual scientists. Up to a point, I can agree with his definition of Science as he describes it in his article.
Science is not an arcane collection of dogma but an active and systematic method of inquiry. Science pivots on making testable predictions, which are updated as new findings emerge, to reflect the totality of evidence.
Where we differ is when he describes the scientist who dares to challenge the scientific consensus. He immediately pivots to the stereotype of the “Covid conspirator; the “vaccine denier”, even raising the ghost of Andrew Wakefield. No room for an Einstein or a Darwin here. He and the legacy media would use terms like spreading misinformation, climate or, science denier, tin hat scientist so that the established science would be defended against any heretic challenging the established dogma. The problem with his argument is that he acknowledges the fact that, “Scientific positions are always transient, subject to revision when stronger evidence emerges” What he doesn’t explain is how that dynamic works. In his example of how science was presented to the public during the Covid epidemic he offers the WHO and the likes of the CDC as representing the best repository of scientific knowledge. He makes no reference to the abject failure of the WHO to pursue science and truth and challenge the lies from China at the beginning of the epidemic. He ignores the relationship between government funded research, the drug companies and the scientific community which was ruthlessly weaponised against those who supported the Great Barrington Declaration for example. Would he agree that the behaviour of Dr Fauci looked more like someone defending dogma than being open to new research to add to the totality of evidence? Would he agree with Dr Fauci’s response to criticism, “So it’s easy to criticize, but they’re really criticizing science because I represent science”? At this point we should perhaps remind ourselves about the relationship between the individual scientist and the established scientific consensus, from a non scientific establishment source:
“Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science, consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.” (Michael Crichton)
In a paper summarising the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) on the topic of climate change, Tim Palmer and Bjorn Stevens discussed the polarisation and politicisation of scientific debate. They described a scientific world where there are only two possible positions, that you are either for us or against us, where there is no middle ground, no room for debate. They refer to the tendency to ‘circle the wagons‘ against anyone expressing doubt or, anyone challenging the underlying assumptions of a paper. Whilst Palmer and Stevens are for the climate change proposition, they are frustrated by the lack of debate to tease out the complexities of the climate model and the absence of quality research that would inform society.
In our view, the political situation, whereby some influential people and institutions misrepresent doubt about anything to insinuate doubt about everything, certainly contributes to a reluctance to be too openly critical of our models. ( Palmer and Stevens, PNAS)
I wonder what Palmer and Stevens would have made of the latest outburst from the UN Secretary General.
“At a news conference a few days ago, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres … said, “Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning.” …. “The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived.”(Skeptical Science, 12/08/23) Here we have an example of the “influential people and institutions” who would claim to represent science but clearly only offer escalating scare tactics that have diminishing returns on a weary public. A public that might question why the UN Secretary has so little to say to the two biggest polluting countries, whose representatives he must meet on a weekly basis (You know who we mean, Mr SecGen). The public has also seen Mr. “I represent the science” backtracking on mask mandates, having to admit that the data on masks preventing the spread of Covid is less strong than he previously claimed. The ordinary citizen, who had to suffer the resulting mask mandates based on the recommendations of Mr. “I represent the science”, hasn’t forgotten those that ignored the mask mandates without consequence. Muriel Bowser, Bill de Blasio, Lori Lightfoot, Ralph Northam, Andrew Cuomo, Nancy Pelosi, Gavin Newsom, Dianne Feinstein, Gretchen Whitmer and the entire BLM army to mention a few. Do we sense a theme here? Perhaps it would help if I add in the globe trotting White House climate czar John Kerry and his reply to a question on his travelling to Iceland by private jet in 2019 to accept an environmental award. (Mairead McArdle, 03/02/21)
His response? “the only choice for somebody like me.” and there we have it!
So now we have the final and all embracing ingredient that makes up the scientific community stew. When David Robert Grimes wrote his Guardian article, he described the theoretic model of scientific progress. It was the Greek idea of thesis, antithesis and synthesis but he failed to observe the model in actual practise. He obviously hadn’t heard the Bernard Shaw quote that, “All great truths begin as blasphemies” or, Max Planck saying, “science progresses funeral by funeral”. In other words, scientists are no different from any other professional group. They form associations and recruit like minded people, to misquote John Kerry, ‘people like us’. They then ‘circle the wagons’ and defend the group think against those who travel in economy. When you extend this group to friends and contacts in government, the universities, big pharma and the legacy press, you see the extent of the scientific, corporate, academic and bureaucratic nexus that controls the money that controls what is the approved science. Finally, to summarise why David Robert Grimes article missed the point, I would take liberties with the title of his article and change one word, as follows.
One scientist can be
wrongright. But deny the scientific consensus at your peril
Sources
Tim Palmer and Bjorn Stevens, 02/12/19, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), The scientific challenge of understanding and estimating climate change, www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1906691116
John Hartz, Skeptical Science, 12/08/23,Explaining climate change science & rebutting global warming misinformation , //skepticalscience.com
Alex Epstein, Forbes, 06/01/15, ‘97% Of Climate Scientists
Agree’ Is 100% Wrong, www.forbes.com/sites/alexepstein/2015/01/06/97-of-climate-scientists-agree-is-100-wrong/?sh=12295c383f9f
Richard Tol , Fox News Opinion, 28/05/15, Climate change: Mr. Obama, 97 percent of experts is a bogus number, www.foxnews.com/opinion/climate-change-mr-obama-97-percent-of-experts-is-a-bogus-number
Mairead McArdle, 03/02/21, National Review, Kerry Defended Taking Private Jet to Iceland for Environmental Award: ‘the Only Choice for Somebody Like Me’, news.yahoo.com/kerry-defended-taking-private-jet-171410846.html