Thanks to John Mashey, I hear that the Oreskes/Schulte playground fight is still getting coverage. As we all know, though, once the kids are in the Principal’s office, the truth normally comes out, and the real perpetrators come to light.
As usual, the spat is a result of some silly name-calling and a misunderstanding about what ‘he said’ and what ‘she said’. And how did this misunderstanding arise?
Before going further I will say that I have read a draft of Mr. Schulte’s paper for E&E. I have also undertaken not to publish it, so my quotations will be confined to the parts of the paper which are already in the public domain. I will comment, however, on the reasoning of the paper, because this is necessary.
There has been enough written about Oreskes’ article in Science (no, it isn’t a paper…) for me not to have to repeat it here, so I will concentrate on the current ‘row’.
Schulte’s paper appears to be testing three hypotheses: 1] There is a unanimous scientific consensus about anthropogenic climate change. 2] There is a scientific consensus about ‘catastrophic’ climate change, and 3] recent or current climate change may be having an impact on the health of individuals.
To test the first two hypotheses, Schulte adopts Oreskes’ informal methodology of reviewing the peer-reviewed literature, but instead of replicating Oreskes’ work, attempts to ‘follow through’. Without breaching confidence, it is hardly going to be a surprise that he successfully manages to disprove both of the hypotheses. The first is disproven because there is at least one peer-reviewed paper which challenges the ‘consensus position’. The jury is out on whether there were actually three, seven, or thirty-two in total, but in this case it doesn’t matter, so long as there is at least one. How significant is this? The answer should be evident; not at all.
The second hypothesis is disproven because only one paper was found which explicitly mentioned ‘catastrophic’ climate change, hence there can be no general consensus that this is a consequence of GW or AGW. Once again, though, this is not revealing anything which is especially surprising or important.
If I have fairly represented the essence of Schulte’s paper (and I have tried to), it should be clear that there is no attempt to ‘refute’ or ‘disprove’ any claim made by Oreskes. There is, though, a response to the apparent unanimity that Oreskes’ paper seems to imply (though, of course, she doesn’t actually claim unanimity). Oreskes’ response has been that the paper misrepresents her article. Schulte claims that it doesn’t and she should apologise.
Inasmuch as Schulte does not explicitly make the claim that Oreskes’ work was wrong, she has no case to answer; but we know why she had to respond (the EPW gang again).
Is Schulte justified in claiming that Oreskes reply was ‘unprofessional’? I fear there may be some problem here. This is from Schulte’s letter; he says it is in all of the drafts of his paper:
“The question whether there is a unanimous scientific consensus about climate change was investigated by means of a review of the recent peer-reviewed literature, carrying forward the research by Oreskes (2004), whose short essay had stated that none of 928 abstracts of papers published between 1993 and 2003 and found on the ISI Web of Science database using the search term “global climate change” had rejected the scientific consensus to the effect that –
There’s that word, ‘unanimous’ again. Schulte does not say that this is what Oreskes was doing; but does the wording he has chosen imply that this was the object of Oreskes’ work? If so, she can claim that she has been misrepresented, if not, he can claim that she has made a false allegation.
This all seems so trivial, though. It really does look like a typical playground fracas. So what started these two off? Guess. You can pick between the following; Young Monckton, the mischievous rascal and pot-stirrer, or the EPW Gang, a well-known bunch of scallywags with a track record in stirring up trouble. These are the real perpetrators of the trouble. They have gone around the playground telling everyone that ‘X’ has called ‘Y’ a liar. Of course, he didn’t. ‘Y’ has got upset with ‘X’ because of the rumours, ‘X’ has got upset with ‘Y’ for accusing him of something he didn’t do…
I am afraid that some of my co-bloggers are going to have to understand that this is another tactical victory for the playground bullies; once again, they have managed to use their sneaky and underhand methods to create a fuss over nothing, and now the whole school is abuzz with the story.
But, one little piece of reassuring thought comes out of the whole mess. Thanks to these two show-and-tell projects, we now know that, out of 1467 abstracts on the subject of ‘global climate change’, there are 4 (there may be a few more) which appear to challenge the ‘consensus’ position. That’ll be 0.27%. This means, surely, that 99.73% do not challenge this position. (We won’t go into the details now). Does this look like a scientific consensus?
Now get out of my sight. be assured I will be calling your parents, and this whole sorry mess will go on your records. Mr Jones, will you send for Monckton, please?
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September 7, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Steve Bloom
So, as you quoted it, Schulte uses the strange phrase “unanimous…consensus” to quite consciously mischaracterize Oreskes’ work and you don’t think she has cause for complaint? Also, there’s the small detail that Schulte really isn’t qualified to interpret those abstracts, as amply demonstrated at Deltoid and by Andrew Dessler.
As Andrew points out, lmowledge of the climate science field is essential to such a task. In my case, a minimal knowledge of it allowed me to ID the Gerhard AAPG paper (one of Schulte’s seven) as incorrect without even needing to read the abstract. Why? Because I’m familiar with the AAPG and Gerhard. It turns out that Web of Science screwed up and put the Gerhard paper in with the regular ones rather than in the (non-peer-reviewed) review category where it belonged. Obviously Schulte had no means of knowing about that.
In regard to the propaganda aspects, I don’t count these things as having much value until and unless they get out into the mainstream media, which I don’t believe this one has (per a Google News search for “Oreskes”). Don’t overstate the significance of the simultaneous gabbling of the denialist blogosphere, especially just now as they’re so actively engaged in not talking abut the Arctic sea ice.
But on to the important question, as you seem to have become some sort of insider on this: Is Schulte Monckton’s endocrine surgeon?
September 7, 2007 at 6:40 pm
fergusbrown
Hi Steve.
I’m not going to play the ‘blame game’; it’s a lot of fuss over very little, and should sensibly be consigned to the recycle bin of history.
Andrew’s comment was, indeed, excellent. Another point is that you’d realistically have to have at least some knowledge of five or more specialist disciplines, such as Atmospheric chemistry, or palaeoclimatology, to do a really good job. OTOH, the abstracts are written in English (notwithstanding Zhen…), and most of them can be understood well enough by a casual reader with the inclination.
In answer to your last, I don’t know, and it would be unprofessional fro S. to tell me if I asked, so I won’t. My suspicion is not; rather that he is a colleague of the consultant who fixed M., with an interest.
Unfortunately, I can’t replicate either piece of work, as I don’t pay for the Web of Science and am not yet in a faculty. As Andrew points out though, if one were looking for a measure of scientific consensus, this methodology is probably not the most subtle tool. My approach is in essence simpler; of you want to know what a person thinks about something, ask them.
September 7, 2007 at 7:06 pm
John Mashey
On July 19, Monckton published a lot of the details of Schulte’s work on the SPPI website, where it remains today.
Schulte’s “Open Letter” to Oreskes/Fox, sent Sept 3, was then published on that SPPI website, under an SPPI logo, and labeled as an SPPI Reprint.
That lettter says, up front:
“My attention has been drawn …commenting on a forthcoming but not yet finalized paper of mine, an early draft of which was circulated without my authority.”
Really? If so, Schulte had 6 weeks to castigate Lord Moncton and SPPI for publishing something supposedly in review at E&E, and demand that the Monckton paper be removed, IF IT WERE INDEED UNAUTHORIZED. The Monckton piece was clearly the release route.
Instead, Schulte attacks Oreskes (but not Monckton/SPPI), and then publishes his Open Letter on the same SPPI website, under their logo.
I used to think Schulte was an innocent sucked into this, and be a little sorry for him, but he’s clearly an active participant in this disinformation/harassment effort.
After that, the rest of the Open Letter is *irrelevant* quibbling, if amusingly out of touch with reality.
The next day (09/06/07), Bob Ferguson sends out a press release, via BusinessWire (!):
Researcher Demands Apology for Professional Discourtesy from Essayist Who Claimed Climate “Consensus,” Reports SPPI
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070906005790&newsLang=en
Note that Schulte is deemed a researcher, while Oreskes is merely an “essayist.” RIGHT.
Schulte may not know Morano or rest of EPW gang, but I bet Ferguson does.
We don’t know whether Schulte is Monckton’s surgeon, but it doesn’t matter, as they’ve pretty clearly been working together, regardless of how they first got in contact.
»
September 7, 2007 at 7:27 pm
fergusbrown
If you check the content of Schulte’s letter against the Monckton article, you’ll not that several paragraphs seem to have been lifted almost verbatim. Honest; check it out…
September 7, 2007 at 8:39 pm
Steve Bloom
Actually, Fergus, I think that someone without the background would be quite frequently confused about whether to put an abstract in the neutral or implicitly endorses category, and I’m confident that Schulte’s numbers are evidence for that. We’ll see what Tim’s ultimate results show, although then it will become a matter of debating whether Schulte’s likely multitide of errors resulted from maliciousness or just amateurism. You be the judge!
But just to make a couple of related points about familiarity with the field: To disagree with Andrew slightly, one would have to be either in his field *or* a member of the much larger group (mostly scientists, but including some amateurs like me) who have closely followed the iris debate (key phrase: tropical upper troposhere humidity). Unfortunately I can’t use myself as a good test case for Andrew’s example, since when I first saw the abstract all I needed to know to establish its relationship to the consensus was the title and the author; i.e. the text was superfluous. This illustrates another advantage Oreskes had over Schulte (although I suppose one could argue that from the strict standpoint of her methodology it would have created a bias even while making the results more accurate).
September 7, 2007 at 10:28 pm
John Mashey
Well, Fergus: you wanted more action on your blog.
I’ve noticed similarities in wording, but I’ve had a bunch of other things to do ahead of that, such as checking with various UK friends and getting a coherent timeline/writeup together to send to others. But that’s on my list.
September 7, 2007 at 11:30 pm
fergusbrown
Actually, Steve, I think on reflection I agree with you. One tries to be generous and assume that others are as we are, but it took a while for me to learn how to read abstracts. I’d have thought that the good Dr. was used to it, though. But how well could he (actually, how well could anyone, including a scientist) determine the relationship from the abstract alone?
I wasn’t being greedy, John: writing a blog takes time and effort, and if only three people a day click on it makes you wonder. Happily, I’m having a busy week, but whether it stays that way will depend on whether we have anything interesting to say.
I was wondering how many people would continue to visit that EPW minority website if we didn’t stop falling for the cheap tricks these people pull. Every time a new press release comes out, it turns out that the claims bear no relation to the facts. given this, why bother with the analysis, we are in a strong position to infer that if you heard from there, it’s not true…
September 8, 2007 at 1:47 am
Steve Bloom
Fergus, just in case you don’t know about this, Morano got his start some years back working for Rush Limbaugh as the latter’s man in DC. Al Franken (a political humorist now running for the U.S. Senate) did very well a couple of years ago with a book whose scope included the period of Morano’s Limbaugh employment (although really I don’t think either has changed), entitled Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Liar. (I never read the book and so don’t know if Morano got amy specific mentions.) For further edification you might visit Limbaugh’s site for a general sense of things and then search there on “global warming” for the makings of a fit of apoplexy.
But anyway, there will always be a conflict between silence and derision when it comes to this sort of thing. We’ll see how this one plays out. Again, IMHO if it doesn’t get any meaningful MSM coverage it’s not a problem.
Speaking of the MSM, bear in mind that there is considerable value to “burning” the sources of this material for the future. We want the legitimate media to be clear that Morano, E&E et al can’t be trusted on anything, and in order to achieve that end a certain amount of noise must be made.
September 8, 2007 at 10:16 am
fergusbrown
Thanks for the background, Steve. I know quite a bit of it, but it is useful for visitors from outside the USA to understand such contexts, and the reasons why Limbaugh’s name, for example, is now often used with derision attached.
A good way to predispose readers to a certain expectation is a good nickname. Perhaps Limbaugh is the ‘Lord of the Wrongs’ and Morano is his ‘Gollum’, but as i felt a certain sympathy for Gollum, maybe ‘call me Munchausen’ Morano would be better.
btw: how many people in the EPW does it take to change a lightbulb?
Are you kidding? There is no lightbulb…
September 9, 2007 at 9:46 am
Schulte replies to Oreskes [Deltoid] · Articles
[…] Also posting is Fergus Brown who reckons that Monckton and Inhofe’s gang are to blame for stirring up trouble between Oreskes and Schulte. […]
September 9, 2007 at 2:20 pm
bigcitylib
Fergus, is this the email you have for Schulte?
klaus-martin.schulte@kingskh.nhs.uk
I have found this and another from his time in Germany. I’ve been running them through various search engines to see if Mr. Schulte has ever contributed to any skeptic news groups, but found nothing. If you have a different email, I would appreciate knowing what it is (for the same purpose).
September 9, 2007 at 2:47 pm
fergusbrown
Not quite; it should read: @kch.nhs.uk
I don’t believe the doctor has been involved in anything like this before.
However, his (private) comments do strongly resemble those of Monckton, so I’d guess that, whilst he may once have been cautiously skeptical of the relationship between AGW & patients’ health (I wonder if he saw the deSmogBlog piece on this?), I suspect he has been ‘converted’, as many rational people are, by having his predisposition supported by apparent criticisms of the AGW hypothesis.
email me on fwmb@btinternet.com if you want more private discussion of this.
September 10, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Hank Roberts
> I was wondering how many people would continue to visit that
> EPW minority website if we didn’t stop falling for the cheap tricks
> these people pull.
Ding!
I also wonder what they’re doing that really makes a difference, while throwing bloody bones like this issue to distract the guard dogs from paying attention to what’s really going on.
September 10, 2007 at 9:11 pm
fergusbrown
From what I can see, mostly sorting out salmon catches or some such. Not being au fait with the structure of the US political machinery, it’s hard to gauge how ‘big’ the EPW is in the first place, or how significant the ‘minority’ end of it is. one is tempted to suggest it’s small potatoes, but that might just be exactly what it’s about…
September 10, 2007 at 10:36 pm
John Mashey
re: EPW
look up Marc Morano:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Marc_Morano
John Rennie’s SciAM piece “Senator Inhofe’s Pet Weasel” is interesting:
http://blog.sciam.com/index.php?title=senator_inhofe_s_pet_weasel&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
There is reason to believe Morano has a *very* big email list … with a lot of people eager to pick up whatever EPW says.
In denier-land, not small potatoes at all.
Google: less than half all published scientists endorse global warming
–> 1.1M hits. Try it. Note where EPW comes on the list.
September 10, 2007 at 11:43 pm
fergusbrown
Hi John: yes, I have seen evidence of the spread of claptrap (does that make it sound like a venereal disease? Good.) on forums where people who might otherwise be merely uncertain are fooled into thinking that this garbage is significant.
Then when you add the recent posts on other blogs about the capacity for people to sustain their own self-deceptions, we have a mixture which has far more potency than it deserves.
How do you counter this? If by refuting you repeat the myth, you help perpetuate it, if you ignore it, it sits and festers, like a scab. This sort of suggests affirmative action – a counter-culture of potent (but not dishonest) headlines and interpretations of reports; hang on; the media do that, and the public don’t believe them, either.
We need to get a strategy team together to work out how to push the process in the other direction. (Yes, they probably already exist, too.
One possibility that comes to mind is a newsletter from ‘our’ point of view; hopefully, a mailing list could grow fairly fast. if the product is right and the support structure in place. Let me think on it.
Regards,
September 11, 2007 at 2:09 am
Hank Roberts
This may be the back-story:
http://tableforone.tpmcafe.com/blog/tableforone/2007/sep/10/the_cheney_project
September 13, 2007 at 10:03 pm
Sean O
I commented on this on my blog “Is It Getting Warmer?” as well. I am amazed that this level of discussion has been realized regarding two essays that were never critically reviewed. In addition, the methodology of both researchers must be seriously doubted. You can read the rest of my thoughts at http://globalwarming-factorfiction.com/2007/09/11/consensus-discussion-liars-or-statistics/
September 13, 2007 at 11:31 pm
fergusbrown
Hi Sean, and welcome.
Your amazement is, it seems, shared by Chris Mooney on DeSmogBlog, who thinks that it is a non-story. But your essay doesn’t really discuss this; instead, you take the opportunity to present a claim that there is no consensus on the science, if not explicitly, at the least by implication.
Your comments on the Oreskes essay from Science may be your opinion but they contain factual errors, both about the essay itself and the implications of it. In doing this, you are once again raising a familiar straw man argument about unanimity of agreement which is an irrelevance.
I would point out that Oreskes did not present her information as a methodological study of opinion, but as a ‘quick check’ of the degree of agreement; that she found no disagreement was a coincidence, but helped her to form the conclusion that, in science journals at least, there isn’t any disagreement with the basic hypotheses of AGW.
Schulte used Oreskes methodology to check for two straw men, ostensibly to confirm whether or not GW could adversely effect his patients’ health; first, he looked for unanimity, then for references to ‘catastrophic’ change. He succeeded in finding 3 or 4 papers out of 500+ which challenged the consensus view (disregarding their reasoning or validity), and hence successfully showed that there was no unanimity. Likewise, he found little reference to ‘catastrophe’.
These findings are both trivial and meaningless. If you find 99% of cases for something and 1% against it, why would you conclude that therefore the 1% must be the correct view? This is patently illogical.
I enjoyed looking at your blog, but I don’t think we are looking at the world from the same place at the moment. Your skepticism is no doubt sincerely held, as is my conviction, but the science (and the reasoning, and the evidence) is currently on my side at the moment. Please feel free, though, to offer your own reasoning of the AGW situation and why you feel you must doubt it.
Respectfully,
September 18, 2007 at 8:02 pm
John Mashey
re: Fergus Sept 07 wording
I know you know this, but other readers here might not:
Tim Lambert identified clear plagiarism over in Deltoid Sept 09.
Also, there is good evidence that it wasn’t just copying words, or selecting words from Monckton’s on-line PDF, but starting directly from Monckton’s Word file:
Schulte’s letter uses the same (unusual) Wingding bullets as does Monckton. At least when I select from the PDF, the Wingdings turn into little squares…
September 20, 2007 at 9:49 pm
John Mashey
DeSmogBLog reports that E&E does not intend to publish the Schulte piece…
http://www.desmogblog.com/schultes-analysis-not-published-not-going-to-be
September 20, 2007 at 10:18 pm
fergusbrown
Thanks for the update, John. Given what Timo offered on the ‘appeal’ post, it does look like they’ve a couple of whoppers for this month anyway… but I ask myself; are they worth the effort?
September 21, 2007 at 12:17 am
John Mashey
Well, it depends:
In general, UK imports to the US are generally welcome …
but importing Monckton can be done without: we already have enough of that.
A lot of junk is created because there are no consequences to the creators, but in this case, someone writing a letter whose main purpose looks like harassment, containing clear plagiarism, and then having it posted on the same website as a copy of the source, and then having a press release sent out about it … is so over-the-top that it should have consequences.
One may recall Voltaire’s idea of occasionally shooting an admiral “pour encourager les autres”, and in this case, perhaps that might become a very fine idea…
September 21, 2007 at 12:47 am
fergusbrown
Hi John: well, I’d be surprised if the good doctor pursues his new-found interest in social/climate science, after this experience, but the Viscount is another matter entirely; I am sure we can expect more of this in the coming months, assuming he/they can find someone to ‘front up’ for him/them.
Your last comment may be meant humorously, but we have to be careful to stay the right side of the line; you never know who might read this.
Should Schulte be held accountable? Is he the real ‘villain’ of the piece? I’d say no, because he isn’t. Egg on face should be sufficient admonishment. How to deal with Moncton is another question; how do you get to a person who appears to have no shame?
September 21, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Adam
“how do you get to a person who appears to have no shame?”
Ignore him? Does he just crave the attention? The difficulty is getting the likes of the Tottygraph to do the same.
September 29, 2007 at 7:15 am
John Mashey
Well, Schulte is still pursuing…
http://scienceblogs.com/strangerfruit/2007/09/oreskes_offers_updated_respons.php
Oreskes says he wrote, as of Sept 19.
“Withdraw your unfounded personal allegations against me, with the expression of your apologies. Failure to do so within 14 days will oblige me to take appropriate measures to protect my position without further notice.”
September 29, 2007 at 9:01 am
fergusbrown
Hi John. As you might have guessed, S. didn’t respond to my email suggesting he back off (and it was soo diplomatically written). Deadline is Monday. If he pursues this further, he risks further exposure and ridicule, as well as the possibility of his employer being involved. One must presume he doesn’t care.
Do you suppose he has any experience of the American legal system?
Regards,
December 11, 2007 at 7:46 am
Global Warming: The Origin and Nature of the Alleged Scientific Consensus - Page 8 - World Affairs Board
[…] Environment is unlikely to publish it at all. This guy claims to have seen the results, though: The truth will out… Old man in a cave who joins those results with Oreseke’s to come up with this opinion: Thanks to these two […]
December 11, 2007 at 10:42 am
Global Warming: The Origin and Nature of the Alleged Scientific Consensus - Page 8 - World Affairs Board
[…] Environment is unlikely to publish it at all. This guy claims to have seen the results, though: The truth will out… Old man in a cave who joins them with Oreseke’s to come up with this opinion: Thanks to these two show-and-tell […]
June 9, 2009 at 7:01 pm
But what about the experts? 82% say Humans Cause Global Warming - Page 3 - U.S. Politics Online: A Political Discussion Forum
[…] Schulte replies to Oreskes : Deltoid http://www.ucar.edu/governance/meeti…al_warming.pdf The truth will out… Old man in a cave and here is video of Naomi Oreskes discussing AGW denial: YouTube – The American Denial of Global […]