Inaccuracies in Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth

[mendeleev 68]

So your founding document on whether there is a "consensus" hasn't been peer reviewed. Does this mean our "scientist" will no longer claim there is a consensus? That is what a good scientist would do. There is much more than I have room to post here. I invite you to put your scientific standards to work here and retract your position that there is a consensus.

Once again, our political partisan reveals just how small his understanding is about how modern science works. The tutorial here concerns peer review.

Peer review is a process we use in journals (and that universities use at tenure time) to assess the quality of a specific research contribution or the worthiness of a candidate for tenure. I stopped working at Universities after I finished my postdoctoral fellowship at Texas A&M University (that hotbed of liberalism where I first learned about the science of global warming) so I will confine my remarks to the topic really at hand -- peer review of research contributions.

When a scientist or group of scientists have a manuscript they want to publish, they submit it to a scientific journal for publication. The editor reviews the manuscript and send it out to a few (usually two, sometimes three) scientists whose work is known to the editor to be reliable. These peer reviewiers make comments on the manuscript anonymously for the benefit of the editor. Comments go to the scientific merits and demerits of the manuscript, and, alas, increasingly these days, as to whether the language (typically English, since almost all of the best scientific journals are in English these days, even those published in places like Japan) is sufficiently clear, grammatical, and correct to permit publication. Reviewers are also asked to recommend whether the manuscript be accepted in its current form, after minor revision, after major revision, or be rejected for publication.

This process does improve the quality of the scientific literature. At times, referee comments have helped me substantially improve a manuscript that I've submitted. There were two other occasions where I was a party to work that colleagues wanted very much to publish. I thought the manuscripts were marginal, but went ahead with their request to submit them, since I didn't have time to fix them. In both cases, referees recommended rejection and that is what happened. (I was relieved.) In one of those cases, my coauthors took my suggestions, combined two marginal manuscripts into one very substantially improved manuscript, removed rather strange speculation, and the result was published in quite a nice place.

This is the process that original research goes through in order to be published. Textbooks are rather different and do not go through such laborious review. Authors of textbooks are rather well-known in their fields. And those authors get assigned editors from publication houses that, in many cases, are quite scientifically literature in their own right, and these editors help make sure that the textbook deserves publication.

Now, our favorite partisan complains that the IPCC did not go through peer review. Here we differ. The IPCC consists of a couple thousand leading climate researchers over the world. Their job -- that is, the IPCC part of their job -- isn't to perform new research and get it published. Rather, they review the existing scientific literature and assess its implications concerning climate change. They argue about text internally for a long time. Their work product is often superior to the peer review that we get in the scientific literature for review articles. In a very real sense, this very large group of scientists perform their own internal peer review. They do it very well.

But one of the inherent drawbacks of IPCC is that their work necessarily presents a view of climate science that is two or three years out of date. "IPCC is not at the leading -- or bleeding -- edge of science", Kevin Trenberth, senior scientist at the (US) National Center for Atmospheric Research, was quoted as saying, commenting on the work that he was a part of. As evidence of that, newer research indicates that sea level rise (assuming that Greenland in fact does not melt) will probably be at the high end of the IPCC projections. It may become very difficult for the Dutch to keep Amsterdam above water, and we'll face some very interesting problems with many of our coastal cities.

[HAL 9000 96]

Or Venice for that part.

Great characterization of the peer review process, novotul.

Scientific grants are also prone to this sort of process of review with the caveat that the editor in many cases tends to be a board of scientists at a particular grant agency.

I wish I had not had the technical problems in posting the abstracts Gary "cited" since the conclusions the authors phrased were quite different from the conclusions he seems to want to draw to "cast a shadow of doubt" on the global warming phenomenon. I won't bother now.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Gary, please...I hope you really take into consideration Novotul's expertise and his incredibly well written posts. After all this time here in OT, the countless posts of GW not being real science. Here's a bonafide scientist that has answered every question or doubt you've had about climate change. God has answered my prayer.

Edited October 15, 2007 by Mister Fancypants

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Gary, please...I hope you really take into consideration Novotul's expertise and his incredibly well written posts. After all this time here in OT, the countless posts of GW not being real science. Here's a bonafide scientist that has answered every question or doubt you've had about climate change. God has answered my prayer.

I generally feel uncomfortable discussing subjects like this that require expert knowledge of a specific field with which I am professionally unfamiliar. These days its relatively easy to trawl the internet and find evidence to support a position, it wouldn't make me particularly qualified to assess that evidence or place it within the overall frame of knowledge that comprises that field of study.

It does however make it easy for people to make political arguments in lieu of scientific ones.

[HAL 9000 96]

Gary, please...I hope you really take into consideration Novotul's expertise and his incredibly well written posts. After all this time here in OT, the countless posts of GW not being real science. Here's a bonafide scientist that has answered every question or doubt you've had about climate change. God has answered my prayer.

I generally feel uncomfortable discussing subjects like this that require expert knowledge of a specific field with which I am professionally unfamiliar. These days its relatively easy to trawl the internet and find evidence to support a position, it wouldn't make me particularly qualified to assess that evidence or place it within the overall frame of knowledge that comprises that field of study.

It does however make it easy for people to make political arguments in lieu of scientific ones.

Wouldn't it be great if an issue such as this was viewed and acted upon as what it really was? Unfortunately, politics stigmatize just about any issue that involves "counterpoints" although it is beyond a doubt that one particular side favors using pseudoscience and other non-scientific tactics to tarnish more than just a logical argument- the dissociation between different factors that may (more than may not) contribute to an entire phenomenon with both natural and artificial causes.

Too sad this mentality extends itself into those that actually have the decision-making power, and we're not talking about one particular political party here... both are guilty of hoopla in their own ways.

[Caladan 19]

You're all wrong! Peer review just means vigorous applause!

[HAL 9000 96]

You're all wrong! Peer review just means vigorous applause!

Don't I wish!!!!!

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Gary, please...I hope you really take into consideration Novotul's expertise and his incredibly well written posts. After all this time here in OT, the countless posts of GW not being real science. Here's a bonafide scientist that has answered every question or doubt you've had about climate change. God has answered my prayer.

I generally feel uncomfortable discussing subjects like this that require expert knowledge of a specific field with which I am professionally unfamiliar. These days its relatively easy to trawl the internet and find evidence to support a position, it wouldn't make me particularly qualified to assess that evidence or place it within the overall frame of knowledge that comprises that field of study.

It does however make it easy for people to make political arguments in lieu of scientific ones.

Wouldn't it be great if an issue such as this was viewed and acted upon as what it really was? Unfortunately, politics stigmatize just about any issue that involves "counterpoints" although it is beyond a doubt that one particular side favors using pseudoscience and other non-scientific tactics to tarnish more than just a logical argument- the dissociation between different factors that may (more than may not) contribute to an entire phenomenon with both natural and artificial causes.

Too sad this mentality extends itself into those that actually have the decision-making power, and we're not talking about one particular political party here... both are guilty of hoopla in their own ways.

I'm surprised that there hasn't been a similar attempt attempt to rubbish theoretical physics. It too - after all, is based on models and theories that aren't experimentally tested (string theory, has never been). Presumably because the work of theoretical physicists doesn't impact public policy.

Perhaps it should be - we are after all contributing to the 'heat death' of the universe

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Gary, please...I hope you really take into consideration Novotul's expertise and his incredibly well written posts. After all this time here in OT, the countless posts of GW not being real science. Here's a bonafide scientist that has answered every question or doubt you've had about climate change. God has answered my prayer.

I generally feel uncomfortable discussing subjects like this that require expert knowledge of a specific field with which I am professionally unfamiliar. These days its relatively easy to trawl the internet and find evidence to support a position, it wouldn't make me particularly qualified to assess that evidence or place it within the overall frame of knowledge that comprises that field of study.

It does however make it easy for people to make political arguments in lieu of scientific ones.

Wouldn't it be great if an issue such as this was viewed and acted upon as what it really was? Unfortunately, politics stigmatize just about any issue that involves "counterpoints" although it is beyond a doubt that one particular side favors using pseudoscience and other non-scientific tactics to tarnish more than just a logical argument- the dissociation between different factors that may (more than may not) contribute to an entire phenomenon with both natural and artificial causes.

Too sad this mentality extends itself into those that actually have the decision-making power, and we're not talking about one particular political party here... both are guilty of hoopla in their own ways.

I'm surprised that there hasn't been a similar attempt attempt to rubbish theoretical physics. It too - after all, is based on models and theories that aren't experimentally tested (string theory, has never been). Presumably because the work of theoretical physicists doesn't impact public policy.

Perhaps it should be - we are after all contributing to the 'heat death' of the universe

No kidding.

[Nessa 23]

Global Warming is a government conspiracy!!!

Rush wasn't 'up' for it, to the extent that the 'nomination' system for the Nobel is completely, 100% bogus. Fun fact: once I finish my degree, *I* can nominate people for the Nobel.

nominate connie rice

she is gay..and an azz kisser..

don't you talk about connie like that, she's hawt

are you crazy?

[Ban Hammer 13,651]

Global Warming is a government conspiracy!!!

Rush wasn't 'up' for it, to the extent that the 'nomination' system for the Nobel is completely, 100% bogus. Fun fact: once I finish my degree, *I* can nominate people for the Nobel.

nominate connie rice

she is gay..and an azz kisser..

don't you talk about connie like that, she's hawt

are you crazy?

i married you didn't i?

[mendeleev 68]

You're all wrong! Peer review just means vigorous applause!

When I've written first rate manuscripts, its true.

When I've been party to manuscripts that, on reflection, weren't third rate -- it *was not* true!

[RaspberrySwirl 20]

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/sto...2190770,00.html

Revealed: the man behind court attack on Gore film

Fuel and mining magnate backed UK challenge to An Inconvenient Truth

Jamie Doward, home affairs editor

Sunday October 14, 2007

The Observer

The school governor who challenged the screening of Al Gore's climate change documentary in secondary schools was funded by a Scottish quarrying magnate who established a controversial lobbying group to attack environmentalists' claims about global warming.

Stewart Dimmock's high-profile fight to ban the film being shown in schools was depicted as a David and Goliath battle, with the Kent school governor taking on the state by arguing that the government was 'brainwashing' pupils.

A High Court ruling last week that the Oscar-winning documentary would have to be screened with guidance notes to balance its claims was welcomed by climate-change sceptics.

The Observer has established that Dimmock's case was supported by a powerful network of business interests with close links to the fuel and mining lobbies. He was also supported by a Conservative councillor in Hampshire, Derek Tipp.

Dimmock credited the little-known New Party with supporting him in the test case but did not elaborate on its involvement. The obscure Scotland-based party calls itself 'centre right' and campaigns for lower taxes and expanding nuclear power.

Records filed at the Electoral Commission show the New Party has received nearly all of its money - almost £1m between 2004 and 2006 - from Cloburn Quarry Limited, based in Lanarkshire.

The company's owner and chairman of the New Party, Robert Durward, is a long-time critic of environmentalists. With Mark Adams, a former private secretary to Tony Blair, he set up the Scientific Alliance, a not-for-profit body comprising scientists and non-scientists, which aims to challenge many of the claims about global warming.

The alliance issued a press release welcoming last week's court ruling and helped publicise Dimmock's case on its website. It also advised Channel 4 on the Great Global Warming Swindle, a controversial documentary screened earlier this year that attempted to challenge claims made about climate change.

In 2004 the alliance co-authored a report with the George C Marshall Institute, a US body funded by Exxon Mobil, that attacked climate change claims. 'Climate change science has fallen victim to heated political and media rhetoric ... the result is extensive misunderstanding,' the report's authors said.

Martin Livermore, director of the alliance, confirmed Durward continued to support its work. 'He provides funds with other members,' Livermore said.

In the Nineties, Durward established the British Aggregates Association to campaign against a tax on sand, gravel and rock extracted from quarries. Durward does not talk to the media and calls to the association requesting an interview were not returned last week. However, he has written letters to newspapers setting out his personal philosophy. One letter claimed: 'It is time for Tony Blair to try the "fourth way", declare martial law and let the army sort out our schools, hospitals and roads.'

He later clarified his comments saying he was merely pointing out that the army had done a 'fantastic job' in dealing with the foot and mouth crisis. He has also asked whether there has been a 'witch-hunt against drunk drivers'.

Dimmock also received support from a new organisation, Straightteaching.com, which calls for politics to be left out of the classroom. The organisation, which established an online payment system for people to make contributions to Dimmock's campaign, was set up by Tipp and several others. Its website was registered last month to an anonymous Arizona-based internet company.

Tipp, who is described on the website as having been a science teacher in the Seventies and Eighties, declines to talk about who else is backing it. 'There are other people involved but I don't think they want to be revealed,' he said.

He said he thought his organisation could bring more cases against the government. 'There are a lot of people who feel the climate change debate is being hyped up,' Tipp said. 'To try to scare people into believing the end is nigh is not helpful. We've been contacted by other teachers who raised concerns. There's a lot of interest, especially from people in the US.'

[Widge 0]

'To try to scare people into believing the end is nigh is not helpful. We've been contacted by other teachers who raised concerns. There's a lot of interest, especially from people in the US.'

wonder if they have heard from Rush Limbaugh yet ?

[MrConservative 0]

So your founding document on whether there is a "consensus" hasn't been peer reviewed. Does this mean our "scientist" will no longer claim there is a consensus? That is what a good scientist would do. There is much more than I have room to post here. I invite you to put your scientific standards to work here and retract your position that there is a consensus.

Once again, our political partisan reveals just how small his understanding is about how modern science works. The tutorial here concerns peer review.

Peer review is a process we use in journals (and that universities use at tenure time) to assess the quality of a specific research contribution or the worthiness of a candidate for tenure. I stopped working at Universities after I finished my postdoctoral fellowship at Texas A&M University (that hotbed of liberalism where I first learned about the science of global warming) so I will confine my remarks to the topic really at hand -- peer review of research contributions.

When a scientist or group of scientists have a manuscript they want to publish, they submit it to a scientific journal for publication. The editor reviews the manuscript and send it out to a few (usually two, sometimes three) scientists whose work is known to the editor to be reliable. These peer reviewiers make comments on the manuscript anonymously for the benefit of the editor. Comments go to the scientific merits and demerits of the manuscript, and, alas, increasingly these days, as to whether the language (typically English, since almost all of the best scientific journals are in English these days, even those published in places like Japan) is sufficiently clear, grammatical, and correct to permit publication. Reviewers are also asked to recommend whether the manuscript be accepted in its current form, after minor revision, after major revision, or be rejected for publication.

This process does improve the quality of the scientific literature. At times, referee comments have helped me substantially improve a manuscript that I've submitted. There were two other occasions where I was a party to work that colleagues wanted very much to publish. I thought the manuscripts were marginal, but went ahead with their request to submit them, since I didn't have time to fix them. In both cases, referees recommended rejection and that is what happened. (I was relieved.) In one of those cases, my coauthors took my suggestions, combined two marginal manuscripts into one very substantially improved manuscript, removed rather strange speculation, and the result was published in quite a nice place.

This is the process that original research goes through in order to be published. Textbooks are rather different and do not go through such laborious review. Authors of textbooks are rather well-known in their fields. And those authors get assigned editors from publication houses that, in many cases, are quite scientifically literature in their own right, and these editors help make sure that the textbook deserves publication.

Now, our favorite partisan complains that the IPCC did not go through peer review. Here we differ. The IPCC consists of a couple thousand leading climate researchers over the world. Their job -- that is, the IPCC part of their job -- isn't to perform new research and get it published. Rather, they review the existing scientific literature and assess its implications concerning climate change. They argue about text internally for a long time. Their work product is often superior to the peer review that we get in the scientific literature for review articles. In a very real sense, this very large group of scientists perform their own internal peer review. They do it very well.

But one of the inherent drawbacks of IPCC is that their work necessarily presents a view of climate science that is two or three years out of date. "IPCC is not at the leading -- or bleeding -- edge of science", Kevin Trenberth, senior scientist at the (US) National Center for Atmospheric Research, was quoted as saying, commenting on the work that he was a part of. As evidence of that, newer research indicates that sea level rise (assuming that Greenland in fact does not melt) will probably be at the high end of the IPCC projections. It may become very difficult for the Dutch to keep Amsterdam above water, and we'll face some very interesting problems with many of our coastal cities.

Are you a climate scientist? If not then you would know about peer reviews and how studies are authenticated but your opinion on global warming isn't any more valid than anyone elses. True?