Despite seven months of intense effort to recruit physicists to sign a politically motivated petition disputing anthropogenic climate change, a mere, 0.45% of the American Physical Society‘s 47,000 members signed on.
It’s a humiliating defeat for the climate change Deniers who make such false claims as ”many scientists dispute’ and ‘there is no consensus. The Petition drive was announced in the prestigous journal Nature, APS publications, numerous popular and electronic media, as well as heavily promoted by the petition organizers. Despite all of that effort and publicity, a mere 0.45% was all that they could manage.
Consider that the success rate for Nigerian email scams is estimated to be 0.1% to 0.2%, ie roughly speaking about the same. (Tip of the Hat to Grumbine for the genesis of seeking a comparison)
Of course the reason for that APS Council’s rejection is unrelated to the number of the signatories, but rather was based the quality of the alleged “science” justifying the call. The “scientific” claims are a sad cobbling together of the argumentum ad ignorantiam and appeal to authority logical fallacies, along with the unbelievably idiotic “it’s happened in the past” argument. As “science” it should embarrass a freshman.
Not that there was ever any risk that the APS would actually reverse it’s stance; they are scientists after all. However the Deniers had hoped to demonstrate some meaningful level of grossly uninformed dissent within the APS, so the dismal showing is an embarrassment.
John Mashey has done an impressive (128 page) analysis of the petitions signatories and the politics behind the petition which can be downloaded at DeSmogBlog.
Most significant is that of the signatories
– only one is/has ever been active in climate research
– all work(ed) in fields and specializations largely unrelated to climate science (eg astrophysics, aerospace, defense, nuclear)
The effort was instigated by a core group dominated by members involved with four industry funded groups that pose as “think tanks”, but in reality are little better than Public Relations firms.
This is consistent with the pattern of climate change Denial being driven by a tiny handful of lobbyists and consultants (here and here) working through a network of phony think tanks and astro-turf “citizens groups.”
In this case the key relationships seem to have been to:
As APSmith observed (reported at Get Energy Smart Now!!!), they have been involved in campaigns that claimed:
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- that ozone depletion is nothing to worry about
- that smoking doesn’t cause cancer
- that second-hand smoke is nothing to worry about anyway
- and now that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is nothing to worry about.
This petition seems to be just another in a long series of phony petitions which the core group has a “a long history of manufacturing …” (here and here). As Mashey documents, it’s nothing more than another industry attempt to bypass science and influence policy politically.
In a rather sad attempt to spin the story, Chair of the Exxon funded G.C. Marshall Institute William Happer said “They basically sent both statements back to their committee on public affairs and asked them to reconsider, I think it’s a big victory for us.”
Ever a bastion of scientific ignorance, Lubos Motl frames the defeat as “APS fat cats stick to the sinking AGW bandwagon” and even has a message for the APS, literally “and tell them, fuck you.” A great example of the cogent, fact based scientific arguments we know so well from the Denialosphere.
Despite Lubos’ delusions of APS political correctness, the truth is that [emphasis added]:
“What this means is that the APS, which is the preeminent society of physicists in the US, and which tends to be extremely conservative in its policy and statements, continues to support the prevailing consensus of AGW model based on the scientifically available studies and results.”
Nonetheless we can expect that there will continue to be more attempts by this cabal of industry consultants and lobbyists to try and create the impression that “the debate is not over.”
More on this story may be found at:
“Since 1982, spring in East Asia (defined here as the eastern third of China and the Korean Peninsula) has been warming at a rate of one degree Fahrenheit per decade.” Earth Gauge
We give our consent every moment that we do not resist.
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Thanks for the writeup!
Minor nit re “none”: [1]
I wrote (p.9):
“I could find only one actual climate scientist with a credible sustained track record”.
That’s Sultan Hameed, and I remain mystified, as he’s done papers with credible people at NASA GISS. He’s convening a session at next AGU with Willie Soon, and maybe some attendee will report.
Likewise, saying that “all worked in those fields” is a little strong. many of the people have connections there, and some parts of astrophysics can certainly be relevant (there are after alstrophysicists (like Judith Lean) who contribute strongly.) Of course, most astrophysicsts do work having no connection to climate. Likewise, some aerospace people may contribute to climate science, but most don’t. [2]
I’d say: most of the signers worked in fields mostly unrelated to climate science, and for the details behind that opinion, a skeptical reader needs to pick some examples from Appendix 6 and see what they think.
Of course, the real proof is in the peer-reviewed literature in credible journals, and factually, regardless of someone’s field, there was very little climate science (with the one exception noted above). Of the first 121 signers, I spent a lot of time with Google Scholar, and for many, found lots of papers, just not on climate. [3]
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Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Digg by neognostic: What is a lonely physicist to do? The .45% were with hookers that Big Oil supplied to them, sign or no fun. Great article my friend!…
It’s interesting the consistency with which numbers like that 0.45% show up.
When I did my look at the OISM petition last year, I found 0.3% of medical people, and 0.8% of engineers had signed up.
For all 3 cases, it’s junk mail rates. A cynic might think if similar effort were put in to it, you could get far higher numbers to sign up in favor of astrology.
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Thanks for cleanup, these were indeed nits, and I understand all too well about length. It takes *work* to make things shorter. and still keep all the meaning. Also, when one does a classification exercise like this, one may have several hypotheses about the right buckets and I went through several. For a while, I was trying to use much more precise physics subdisciplines, until I realized that was mostly a waste of time. In practice, any given person:
1) Might do something like superconductors, biophysics, semiconductors … no plausible connection with climate, although a few specialties might have generated personal connections.
2) Might do something like astrophysics or satellite systems for environmental monitoring, where it was at least possible that they had more exposure to climate science.
3) Might be in 2), but simply hadn’t actually done any.
re: argument from authority: yes, after all, I think the whole point of this was to have a petition that looked like authoritative for the general public.
re: Nigerian scams, oil [1]
Most of the signers have physics PhDs, and there is only a discernable oil connection for a few of them. I have often written that blaming all this on the fossil companies just invites an easy comeback taht it isn’t true. Most of the signers are*not* fossil-related, although more are so than those obvious from the petition affiliations. (For example, Levine is listed as “industrial and defense engineering,” but worked in petroleum services for at least 13 years.)
However, I think it shows that this belief-set often arises from other extra-science reasons, and in well-educated physicists, those reasons must be very strong to overpower the science.
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Actually, I was referring to the reference that came via uberVU, which reminded me I often see people quikcly assume that this belief-set comes from being paid by Big Oil. [1]
Nigerian 419 scams are at least amusing. I recently got one
a) Purporting to e from BritishTelecom.
b) With a domain name in China
Globalization! [2]
(But, if only climate had the logical equivalent of scambaiters…) [3]
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We can appeal to expert opinion. It is not a mistake in reasoning, per se. We frequently can’t do without appeals to experts and their information.
The important thing is to pragmatically and critically evaluate the quality of sources of information when we appeal to authority. This is what we do when we cite the voluminous climate research and overwhelming evidence of AGW accepted by the majority of the world’s climate scientists. This is not an error in reasoning – quite the opposite.
In contrast, by appealing to notoriously irrelevant, industry-funded and anti-science lies and frauds, this teensy-tiny group of deniers are making a fallacious appeal to authority.
Of course, these individuals could be correct in their rejection of AGW in addition to having no climate science qualifications, obvious vested interests, and unusual views about climate science that have no evidentiary basis in the relevant science. But really, what are the chances? 😉
Hi, it’s probably somewhat unsafe and maybe even unwise to attend a blog of green alarmist cranks. But I just need to correct some blatant misunderstandings.
My “f**k you” comment was directed to bureaucrats who sent me an e-mail complaining that I used the logo of APS in a previous article about APS. I replaced the logo by the message that may make these idiots think whether it’s a good idea to harass physicists in this way.l
Otherwise, claiming that APS is a conservative institution is unbelievable. It may be less radical than some other institutions of politically correct cowards, little chickens, and liberals, but it is still *a* society controlled by cowards, little chickens, and liberals, as this story has shown very well.
It’s a society led by the “giants” of the Merry Cherry caliber. No surprise that Nobel prize winners have no influence on the “official” documents of the society.
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Luboš Motl
That’s brilliant! Can I quote this freely?
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Mr. Motl, I would direct you to place comments here
http://denialdepot.blogspot.com/
where your demonstrably superior grasp of blog science will be fully appreciated.
Don’t waste your time on these watermelon loons at greenfyre! They are all part of the vast global conspiracy of scientists who are in a feeding frenzy of government funding for their global warming religion.
And Al Gore has a big house too, you betcha!
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Denial Depot: is there anywhere that better encapsulates the AGWSceptic position?
I have yet to find one. Perhaps, for comic relief, this:
http://www.venganza.org/
Purely in the interests of understanding the vile depths into which our opponents will delve, of course. For research purposes, that is to say.
Perhaps you are unaware of STR? They really do test Poe’s Law!
Oh Thanks for that one!
Can anyone debunk or at least put this in perspective? It’s circulating…
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/12652
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HuffPo is so big now, I get the feeling they never pay attention to readers anymore. I think I’ll try Media Matters?
The article says, L. Bush had 1.
They may be counting differently. In other words maybe L. Bush had advice from the same sorts of paid staffers but they weren’t listed as hers.
HuffPo is so big now, I get the feeling they never pay attention to readers anymore. I think I’ll try Media Matters?
The article says, L. Bush had 1.
They may be counting differently. In other words maybe L. Bush had advice from the same sorts of paid staffers but they weren’t listed as hers.
And exactly, Michelle is actually doing things.
Found the answer http://www.factcheck.org/2009/08/michelle-obamas-staff/
debunked last August and still being recycled! Lies, damned lies and statistics!
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