How Many Constitute 97%?

By Rich Kozlovich

(Editor's Note:  Originally posted here on Tuesday, December 23, 2014, again on May 11, 2017 - but with this constantly being thrown up I felt it worth posting again.  It will be interesting to see what the left does when the Canadian courts finally rule against him and the counter suits begin against Mann and most likely David Suzuki.  Those won't be SLAPP suits.  RK)

In order to have clarity on any subject we first need it defined. From the beginning The High Priest of the Church of the Warming Globe, Al Gore, proclaimed in Pontifical confidence - "The science is settled"! We have been told from the beginning that "97% of scientists agree" that mankind's introduction of CO2 into the atmosphere is warming the globe so dramatically we only had months before we reached the tipping point of no return, therefore "we can't wait", we must act now.

The first thing that struck me about the phrase "97% of scientists agree" was they didn't claim 97% of "all" scientists agree. That should have triggered this question in everyone's mind.

How many constitute 97%?

The number of scientists should have been of more concern than the percentage of scientists. Why? There's a reason statistics is called the arcane science. If there was anything that generates more logical fallacies I don’t know what it is, because you can make statistics say anything you like if you leave important things out.

In July of 2012 Barry Woods wrote an article entitled, "What else did the ‘97% of scientists ’say?" he asks, "I wonder just how many politicians, environmentalists or scientists who use the phrase ‘97% of scientists’ (or those who more carefully use ‘active climate scientists’) to give weight to their arguments regarding climate change to the public, have any idea of the actual source of this soundbite?”

He goes on to say: 

“Perhaps a few may say the ‘Doran Survey’, which is the one of the most common references for this ‘97% of active climate scientists’ phrase. In fact, the Doran EoS paper merely cites a MSc thesis for the actual source of this 97% figure and the actual survey.”…. “

The Doran paper has been criticised by many sceptics in the past, where a survey of 10,256 with 3146 respondents was whittled down to 75 out of 77 “expert” ‘active climate researchers’ (ACR) to give the 97% figure, based on just two very simplistic (shallow) questions that even the majority of sceptics might agree with. Lawrence Soloman made one of many critiques of the Doran Paper here and offers a very good summary, some other reviews here, here and here”

Let’s take a look at this. The 97% figure they tout is in reality the views of just 75 out of 77 scientists of unknown scientific discipline. Originally a survey was sent to 10,265 scientists - a credible number - but this is where the story starts to get interesting - only 3,146 responded. It would appear that right from the very beginning they lost approximately 60% of “all” scientists by not responding.  I think it isn't unreasonable to presume they didn't respond because they didn't agree with the basic premise of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) that mankind was responsible. That leaves 3,146 to make up that 97% figure. Right? Well, actually no, and the story of the fabled 97% gets even better.

Now we need to ask: What did all those 3,146 scientists have to say? We don’t know! Why? Because they apparently didn’t like what almost all of them had to say since the number of “acceptable” responders was whittled down from 3,146 to 77.

Remember they lost approximately 60% of “scientists” right from the get go, and now they’ve dumped another 3,069 leaving 77, and only 75 agreed. Think about this. The percentage of scientists who actually agree (using their own base of 10,265) is only approximately .075%. One might ask why they allowed two “deniers”, or at the very least two not entirely on board with AGW? If they published a claim of 100% even the Warmists would have laughed at them.

There are a number of things we take away from this. This mythical figure of 97% of scientists isn’t even 97 scientists and consensus isn’t science, it’s politics and if you “check out the history of science…you will find that scientific discovery is generally made by ignoring the ‘consensus..’  We know the world officially stopped warming 18 years ago in spite of the fact CO2 levels have risen - a rise and fall has been going on all through the Earth's history - and currently only constitutes .037% of our atmosphere, of which humanities contribution to that number is infinitesimally small - we've passed virtually every tipping point they touted and the world’s still here - the oceans haven't risen, the poles haven't melted and all the models predicting a warming disaster have failed or are failing.

 

The Hockey Stick Graph has been shown to be so seriously flawed it has been called fraudulent, and since he lost his SLAPP suit against scientist Tim Ball in Canada he faces “Massive counterclaims, in excess of $10 million, have just been filed against climate scientist Michael Mann after lawyers affirmed that the former golden boy of global warming alarmism had sensationally failed in his exasperating three-year bid to sue skeptic Canadian climatologist, Tim Ball. Door now wide open for criminal investigation into Climategate conspiracy.”  

 

Dr. Tim Ball used, what's called in Canada the Truth Defense, also known as the Scorched Earth Defense. All Mann had to do was to "hand over those “hockey stick” r-squared correlation coefficient numbers" to demonstrate the validity of his work.  Why didn't he in Canada? And why is he apparently failing to do so in his SLAPP suit against Styne here in America?

 

As for the statement that "97% of scientists agree", we can now confidently say that figure along with everything else the warmists have presented is so seriously flawed they can be ignored with impunity.  It's clear from their own figures there are only .075% of "some" scientists polled who think mankind is destroying the Earth with carbon dioxide emissions and the only thing that will prevent it is to destroy our modern industrial society, return to nature and live short miserable lives.  And many of the world’s leaders think this is a good idea!  

Did I ever mention in the past you can’t fix stupid? Which in this case couples corruption and insanity

Editor's Note:  Here's an update on the Mann/Ball Canadian lawsuit.  No matter how Mann's attorney attempts to twist the facts there's one incontrovertible truth - Mann has refused to turn over the documents as he agreed, and under Canadian law "Not releasing his secret science for open courtroom examination means, legally, this is an omission proving a guilty mind. B.C. case law is specific on this, it tells us intentional withholding of key evidence is an “admission of guilt” (id.)."