Capitol Hill Blue Forums Life and Moral Issues Morality & Society Global Warming's Six Americas in May 2011

This must be a very tenacious joke being perpetrated here. PF is trying to debunk the raw information from a survey that has no message or bias, even before reading it. "Sup with that?

I am reminded of a test in a junior high school class that began with the instruction, "Read the entire set of test questions before beginning your answers", and ended with the instruction, "Now that you have read all the questions, you are finished and must not provide any answers, or you will fail the test."

I posted the link to this survey because I found the information to be rather calming, in the midst of all the uncertainties of climate science and politics, because you can see and assess what the rest of humanity is thinking about it. I found no proof of any position, or even bias towards any particular belief set in the document. I saw no way to use the survey to support my "beliefs" about climate issues.

PF is apparently demonstrating to us the typical behavior of a "climate position evangelist" as someone who cares so little about information and data that documents don't even need to be read before pulling out the scalpels and red pens.

i guess it never occurred to you that they were polling non-scientists. the probable reason for change in terminology is for ease of understanding ... SCF is scientific lingo but "primarily caused" can be understood by anyone

none of the authors are directly involved in climatology but with communications and are all on a communications panel

they are not doing research ... it is a poll about peoples perceptions regarding climate change ... it is used for communications purposes

don;t worry you are safe ... nothing proved or disproved

do scientists do sloppy research ... read a history of science

tech check: i am guessing (you're offended if i conclude anything)based on previous posts you believe the conclusions of climate change is based on bad science and the deniers science is based on good science ... so a question wouldn't the deniers have just as good a chance of doing sloppy science as anyone else??? could you provide a list of such sloppy science from deniers(since i know you are more interested in good science)

it is probably in the ball park

well it is biased since it was conducted by a climate change communications panel. they are trying to understand the perceptions of people regarding this issue and apparently the next step would be to devise a better communications package to inform people regarding the issue

the poll was not meant to persuade anyone of anything but to provide information

I wouldn't call that a bias, I would call that the subject of the survey. People having a variety of beliefs about climate change is a fact.

Otherwise, I agree with your comments.

I wouldn't call being invested in the business, a bias, rather I'd say it might present a possible conflict of interest.

Being biased is unavoidable, but what is of interest is the accurate knowledge of that pre-existing bias, minimizing how it affects the work, and accounting for the bias.

Indeed, I do not care what baggage they come with, because I try to concentrate only on what it is they are saying.
You do not care for that ? Pity.

You claim the probable reason is for ease of understanding, without providing any support for that claim, or explanation for the change to something very different in meaning.


Meeting the requirement which you pose as so important, that of being "understood by everyone", is, unfortunately not enough !

It must also mean the same thing - not something different.


Take away the bit that you might claim is a scientific rendering ( the word "significant"), and, in everyday plain language, we can say that being "a contributing factor", does not equate to being "the primary cause".

Your plodding over the fact that they are themselves involved with climate science, in some way, is only making the problem look worse. An excuse of "ignorance" ( it's not their field) is then not available; they then would be quite ignorant, and as well, they did not check. The reviewers missed it too.

In what way this error might affect the work, and to what degree it might be affected, is, however, unclear at this point.

I would think it shouldn't matter that much, because so far I've only seen that they said it when they were explaining to us what they did - the "blabbing and spinning" part. I'll try to find out if there has been a response from the authors on that issue already.

It's got a crack, a bit worse than a surface blemish, but we'll see later...reading on.

This is golden:

They did have that erroneous belief flavouring the poll question.

Global Warming has natural causes and anthropogenic. This question asks about warming, not AGW.

The "informed" answer, would not be that "97%" agreement from the Doran article.

To say "warming is mostly caused by man" is really changing the statement far away from where you would get such an agreement from climate scientists.

They fouled the poll question. This is the difference between the statement which garnered Doran's 97 % "yes" agreement and what these authors believe was said :
as contrasted with the faulty recollection

it was not a claim but a suggestion for your consideration ... you dismissed (does that make you a dismissive?) the suggestion by saying i had no supporting evidence and then continued with it had different meanings.

let's see .. i assumed you could think logically ... i may be wrong ... and i assumed you could think for yourself ... i could be wrong ... but then you may require that every single iota be included and you consider only the literal meaning of everything in which case you have to parse each iota individually and separately and reassemble to discover it's true meaning ... so if i understand correctly and if you are the person i have described then yes you are right ... they did not use the exact same words and may i also conclude by extension that any change in wording would also alter the meaning beyond recognition ... have i captured the essence of your thoughts???

may i suggest again, but suspect you will dismiss again, that if we poll a requisite number of people on the difference in meaning my guess is they will invariable agree the two statements mean essentially the same thing ... but go ahead and dismiss (you design the poll & questions and analyze and report back with the results)

explanation for word change ... really??? what are you the personal word police that everyone must pass your muster if a word is changed??? what about translated works? you think that the words will remain the same and perhaps the meanings may change? only the mathematics remains the same the words change ... geez

the only problem is your lack of attention to reality ... any inherent design flaw is their problem and has nothing to do with climate change

LOL please convey your poll design analysis to the authors ... i am sure they would be most interested in your critique

are you a denier??? a dismissive?

Your suggestion is weak, because the two statements are quite different in meaning.

Your notion of "why they did it" is just that, a notion pulled out of thin air, and you offer no plausible reason to agree with you, in any case - since they gave a quite different statement than Doran reported the scientific agreement on

There is no reason to agree with your assertion, over a competing notion such as: it was sloppy error in recall or in fact checking.

If one or the other of these notions is correct, or if they are all wrong, has no material effect; guessing correctly as to motive or reason, does not fix the study.

Noted that you continue to hold the incorrect belief that you can make a claim, then claim that it was not a claim, rather that it was just an opinion.

That is incorrect. In some countries, criminal defamation charges can be laid, in intentionally harmful cases of what you are engaged in doing; stating your fictions as fact. Were your fictions to be extremely damaging in nature, and of the sort of mean-spirited antagonistic misrepresentations you are presenting as fact, you could wind up in trouble for it.


*It's not good enough to later say it was only opinion.*