Schollenberger wasn’t just trying to publish the study itself. That’s already public information, posted under creative commons, and is available. I already posted a link to the results in the past thread where this was discussed (see above). What he did that was a (legal) problem was threaten to post the location of all the data for all the source studies used in the survey.
Currently, we know the actual, measured distance to the sun. There’s no reason to use the term anymore. A “consensus” is used to discuss those things we have no solid answer for, but do have some results for. For example:
“Informally, the term “solar system” is often used to mean the space out to the last planet. Scientific consensus, however, says the solar system goes out to the Oort Cloud…”
See my comment to Chenille regarding this.
Another way of saying this…the way they would have said it when I was a kid was “It is believed…”
But that doesn’t really carry the same weight as “scientific consensus”, does it? NASA is a highly politicized organization. Kudos for whoever wrote this (no scientist is credited) to work-in a political dog whistle in an article as mundane as the solar system.
Consensus, much like the term, “theory” isn’t referring to an “uneducated guess”.
No. It’s an appeal to authority. It is a not-so-subtle implication that a vote was taken by all the scientist that matter and they have selected the right answer. Again, there is no need to appeal to consensus when the science is sound. It is typically used to imply that a controversial claim has been declared (by whom, we don’t know) above dispute.
It is not a term with an established usage like “theory” which is the broad area between a Law and a hypothesis. A theory might be well established or it might be pure SF-style speculation with only the slightest nod to evidence. You have attempted to get the smell of “theory” onto the word “consensus”. No sale.
One last thing, while scientific consensus is not a part of the direct scientific method, collaboration is often a part of science, because replication is a part of the scientific method.
On this we agree. But “consensus” is not collaboration. And multiple computer models that use different algorithms and data and assumptions but come to roughly the same conclusion is not collaboration. In fact, that is a suspicious sign. A computer model is not evidence, regardless of how often it is run. At any time the computer model does not match the events on the ground, it demonstrates that the model was in error.
The UQ survey in question is similarly “calling on the crowd” to draw a line. It both treats and reports the information completely correctly,
Cook’s 97% consensus claim was rebutted in subsequent analyses of his study. A paper by the following leading scientists was published in the journal Science and Education last year found that Cook’s study misrepresented the views of most “consensus scientists”.
- David R. Legates, Professor of Geography, University of Delaware. Former Director of the Center for Climatic Research and a former Delaware State Climatologist.
- Willie Soon, astrophysicist and geoscientist at the Solar and Stellar Physics Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian
Center for Astrophysics, receiving editor for the journal New Astronomy. - William M. Briggs, Adjunct Professor of Statistical Science, Cornell University
- Lennart Bengtsson, Head of Research and then director at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts from 1975 until 1990; director of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Senior Research Fellow at the Environmental Systems Science Centre in the University of Reading
They said, the definition Cook used to get his consensus was weak. Only 41 out of the 11,944 published climate studies examined by Cook explicitly stated that mankind caused most of the warming since 1950 — meaning the actual consensus is 0.3 percent. Legates said "It is astonishing that any journal could have published a paper claiming a 97% climate consensus when on the authors’ own analysis the true consensus was well below 1%,” Bergtsson said, “The problem we now have in the climate community is that some scientists are mixing up their scientific role with that of a climate activist.”
Shortly after the release of this paper, Bergttsson requested that his name be removed from it. And he dissassociated himself with working with the scientists in the future. He wrote this letter to them apologizing:
"I have been put under such an enormous group pressure in recent days from all over the world that has become virtually unbearable to me. If this is going to continue I will be unable to conduct my normal work and will even start to worry about my health and safety. I see therefore no other way out therefore than resigning from GWPF. I had not expecting such an enormous world-wide pressure put at me from a community that I have been close to all my active life. Colleagues are withdrawing their support, other colleagues are withdrawing from joint authorship etc.
I see no limit and end to what will happen. It is a situation that reminds me about the time of McCarthy. I would never have expecting anything similar in such an original peaceful community as meteorology. Apparently it has been transformed in recent years.
Under these situation I will be unable to contribute positively to the work of GWPF and consequently therefore I believe it is the best for me to reverse my decision to join its Board at the earliest possible time.
With my best regards, Lennart Bengtsson
I can’t understand why there scientists with a non-“consensus” opinion would not be as open about it as those with a pro-“consensus” opinion.
