Talk:Surveys of scientists' views on climate change

Article should not have been split off
This is basically a list type article where I guess notability is inferred because it includes a number of notable surveys. However notability of a collection of different such surveys has not been established. I would not have too much of a problem with that except I can see no reason it was split out of scientific opinion on climate change. That is a fairly complete article and not too long dealing pretty well with its topic I believe and has had quite extensive attention by a number of editors. So what is the point of splitting this out where it doesn't really form a topic on its own? Dmcq (talk) 23:08, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
 * As part of making logical, non POV fork divisions of content on climate change debate articles. The parent article is itself list-like, and a collection of lists of different types. Itsmejudith (talk) 23:13, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
 * It has some sections which are list like. That doesn't mean they should be removed. Those lists have no real meaning except in the context of the topic of that article. There is no point splitting up articles like that unless they become too long. Anyway I thought you said you wanted less articles and here you are setting up an unnecessary list type article. This article does not have a notable topic. Scientific opinion of climate change has a well documented and notable topic. Why set up articles that have no real meaning in themselves if you don't need to? Dmcq (talk) 23:20, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

To my eye, the reasons for splitting this article off are that (a) most of these surveys are so old, and (b) most of the discussion of the other surveys is so obscure, that neither of these is relevant in an article called Scientific opinion on climate change. On the other hand, there may be editors here who are so attached to the results in the time-expired surveys, or to the arcana of challenge and counter-challenge about the others, that they would want it preserved. The other article is not called History of scientific opinion on climate change or Quibbles over scientific opinion on climate change, and so is greatly improved by the removals (and the better prose presentation of what's left). What remains is to decide of the fate of this material. If it is actually generally uninteresting, then the next step may be AfD for this article. I can envisage no good argument that the material is too obscure to be presented here, yet it should be dumped into another article to whose central topic it adds nothing. --Nigelj (talk) 16:51, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Results of many of these surveys may not be fairly presented
Please see this discussion for possible misuse of some of these survey results. We may also need to restate the results here, to present a more nuanced picture of the actual responses. Thanks, Pete Tillman (talk) 01:46, 27 February 2012 (UTC)


 * This discuusion continues at this talk page, at "Continued problem with the "97%" surveys". Thanks, Pete Tillman (talk) 22:00, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

New bar-chart for surveys
There's a new chart being proposed for this topic. It's under discussion at New bar chart. Hope to see you there, Pete Tillman (talk) 20:39, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Blog link
I just reverted a link to 'Watts Up With That' that was introduced as a 'thorough debunking' of the Doran paper. First, peer reviewed papers are not 'thoroughly debunked' in blog posts, but in other peer reviewed papers, that are then themselves well received by the academic community and cited by many. Second, I don't know who Barry Woods is, but if his views have changed those of mainstream climate science since he wrote this 'guest post' in July, then I would expect him to have received widespread media and scientific coverage over the months. In the absence of either or both of those, I assume it was just blogspam. --Nigelj (talk) 17:52, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Science or Science Fiction? Professionals’ Discursive Construction of Climate Change
I just reverted the addition of a section based on a paper with the above name. The reason is that this paper clearly states in its abstract that it was designed to "contribute to the understanding of ‘defensive institutional work’ by professionals within petroleum companies, related industries, government regulators, and their professional association." However, the addition to this article said it was "a survey of 1,077 professional engineers and geoscientists", and presented a summary of the results as if a randomly selected group of professional engineers had simply given their opinions. The contributor seems to have failed to understand that the survey specifically chose people whose career depended on their employer continuing to contribute to climate change, and was designed to find out more about how they dealt with that, how they justified it to themselves, and "their legitimation of themselves". This is not a general survey of any scientists' views on climate change, and should not be in this article without a lot of discussion as to how it is relevant. Such discussion of psychological and organisational defensive strategies cannot come from us, as that would be serious WP:OR, and I see that the paper appears only to be cited by one, so it is unlikely to be found in the general academic literature at this time. --Nigelj (talk) 20:40, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The authors discuss this point in their blog, so I'll edit the section to make it clear what the point of the study was. It's amazing how often it's quoted as "proof" that "scientists don't believe in AGW" by folks who clearly haven't even read the freely available abstract. Doesn't anybody do their homework anymore? Gzuckier (talk) 07:30, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I think that was a good try. The remaining problem was that, by the time all that was addressed, this had become by far the longest section in the article. I have attempted to reduce this length per WP:WEIGHT. I think it is still too long considering that this is not a representative sample, and this is not a general survey of scientists' views on climate change. Nonetheless, I have tried to reduce to summary form most of the detailed findings and add a little more context and balance. Considering the narrow focus of this survey, and the large amount of extra weight that it appears to take to explain and place it in context, I still question whether it belongs in this article.  --Nigelj (talk) 09:44, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature
A new survey here, which should probably be mentioned. AIR corn (talk) 03:34, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Glenn Tamblyn (talk) 10:32, 9 August 2013 (UTC) This study has been cited on the main Global Warming page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming which links to here. For consistency it should be included here as well. For transparency, although I am not one of the authors of the study, I was one of the 24 crowd-sourced people who carried out the ratings for the study. I will leave it to others to add this reference if considered appropriate.
 * ✅ --Nigelj (talk) 11:57, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Glenn Tamblyn (talk) 10:16, 10 August 2013 (UTC) Thanks

Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA), a professional association for the petroleum industry
This is a false or very misleading statement:

"Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA), a professional association for the petroleum industry"

Since ALL engineers in Alberta is required to be licensed through APEGA to be associated is a given.

http://www.directionsforimmigrants.ca/calgary_qualify_practical_tips_before.htm

--OxAO (talk) 23:45, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * That is not what the link you refer us to is saying. It says nothing about a need to be a member of APEGA, but that they are the only organization capable of/allowed to evaluate your education level if you are an immigrant. --Kim D. Petersen 21:19, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

John Cook, et al - Consensus
In the article, their definition of consensus is much broader than is used elsewhere and includes all endorsements below. (1) Explicit endorsement with quantiﬁcation - Explicitly states that humans are the primary cause of recent global warming. (2) Explicit endorsement without quantiﬁcation - Explicitly states humans are causing global warming or refers to anthropogenic global warming/climate change as a known fact. (3) Implicit endorsement Implies humans are causing global warming. E.g., research assumes greenhouse gas emissions cause warming without explicitly stating humans are the cause.

Since we have various definitions and we actually state it on other pages, we should state what consensus is used in the papers listed here. --DHeyward (talk) 22:35, 27 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I have undone an edit by DHeyward (talk). When summarising scientific papers here on Wikipedia, I understand that we prefer to summarise the authors' summary, i.e. the abstract, rather than to attempt a reinterpretation or re-evaluation of their results and methods. In the long-standing article text we say,
 * "They found that, while 66.4% of them expressed no position on anthropogenic global warming (AGW), of those that did, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming."
 * and the published abstract says,
 * "We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming."
 * The edit I reverted added text gleaned from the methodology table 2, which in the article text was described as "categories" ["To simplify the analysis, ratings were consolidated into three groups: endorsements (including implicit and explicit; categories 1–3 in table 2), no position (category 4) and rejections (including implicit and explicit; categories 5–7)." - under 'Results']. However, in DHeyward's edit, it was described as "criteria". Not only does changing the expressed purpose of the text make a nonsense of the methodology used in the paper, but I am quite sure that it is entirely unnecessary for us to dig around and find such quotes in the paper for the purposes of our summary here, even if it were done accurately. --Nigelj (talk) 22:38, 27 January 2014 (UTC)


 * "Categories" or "criteria" isn't the issue, nor is the abstract which doesn't define consensus nearly as broadly as the paper. I paraphrased and it was already cited.   We are not limited to the abstract.  We use "consensus" in various places WP.  We imply it means a number of things.  This paper includes statements such as "green house gases cause warming" as being within consensus.  I'm okay with that but it needs to be consistent.  We often repeat the findings of that paper in articles where consensus would be considered much more stringent.  So either we should define what this paper means by consensus or not use it the same way in other articles.  --DHeyward (talk) 00:07, 28 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Straight from the source and required no reanalysis. I can quote it in the article if need be: "To simplify the analysis, ratings were consolidated into three groups: endorsements (including implicit and explicit; categories 1–3 in table 2), no position (category 4) and rejections (including explicit and implicit; categories 5-7)....  Among abstracts that expressed a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the scientiﬁc consensus."  That means 97% were in category 1-3 listed.  There was no further breakdown of categories 1-3 that I saw.  I am happy to quote and cite the passages related to endorsing consensus and what it means in that paper.  Please read it and see if I am missing something but it appears that the listed categories is the definition of consensus for this paper.  --DHeyward (talk) 00:21, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
 * You seem to have misunderstood. This is not a discussion about the IPCC's assessment of global warming, and is not related to any other Wikipedia articles. It is a scientific paper that draws a very particular conclusion about a percentage of scientific papers' abstracts that "endorse the consensus position that humans are causing global warming". If you read on in our article, you will find that the main point about this research, as picked up by notable secondary sources is that a large proportion of abstracts actually state no position on AGW, and that this is as expected in a consensus situation, because the fundamental science of AGW is no longer controversial among the publishing science community. if you want more analysis of a published paper, or you wish to draw attention to something that you think is highly suspect in their methodology, you don't do it yourself. You look in the published responses, and the responses to the responses, via the citations etc. The scientific community is quite astute. If there is something to say, or some discrepancy between the way something is defined in the abstract and in the body of the paper, you can be pretty sure someone has already picked it up and said it. Secondary sources please, if you think you have found a problem in this paper. --Nigelj (talk) 18:08, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I think you are misreading what I wrote. Articles use the term "consensus" and then make statements that humans are "largely responsible", "primarily responsible", "responsible" and "causing" global warming.  Those are not the same things.  This is not any analysis that isn't in the paper itself and done by the authors.  If you believe that the consensus is "humans are contributing to warming, no matter how slight" that is what this paper states and is measuring with explicit and implicit assessments (implicit is as small as a tacit acknowledgement that CO2 is a greenhouse gas).  If you believe consensus is "Humans are responsible for more than half of the warming" then the definition of consensus in this paper is different.  This is very obvious from the abstract, using their wording in its broadest sense.  The details inside the paper are their own words that define what each of the categories mean and how they arrive at 97%.  I don't disagree with it at all but it's important that if we are going to use a word differently to describe the same thing, it should be consistent throughout. This papers statement that "humans are causing global warming" is a very broad statement and not consistent with other uses of consensus or even global warming so we should define the terms as the authors are using them.  IPCC is very careful about word choice as well so we should not mix them together and pretend it's the same.  We read the IPCC reports to get details on what "likely" and "very likely" mean.  This is no different and reading the paper gives definitions of what the authors state "consensus" is and what "global warming" is.  --DHeyward (talk) 00:00, 29 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Cook's survey has been widely criticized for flawed methodology, and Cook himself is a very active partisan in the "climate wars", never a good sign for objectivity. Are we using his survey here? We shouldn't. --Pete Tillman (talk) 18:48, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Sources? --Nigelj (talk) 22:29, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Here are a few:
 * 97% Study Falsely Classifies Scientists' Papers, according to the scientists that published them, Popular Technology May 21, 2013. Interviews with scientists who dispute how Cook et al. classified their papers.


 * "97% global warming consensus meets resistance from scientific denialism. The robust climate consensus faces resistance from conspiracy theories, cherry picking, and misrepresentations" at The Guardian, 28 May 2013. Nuccitelli attempts to defend his survey.


 * Causes of warming: Surveys to decide climate conflict, Der Spiegel, 18.05.2013 (in German). English summary by Pierre Gosselin. Sample:
 * "About two thirds took no position on the subject – they remained on the sidelines. 97% of the rest supported man-made impact. Also in an additional step, 35% of the authors who took no position were left out of the survey results altogether."


 * Judith Curry quotes Mike Hulme's reaction to Cook, Nuccitelli et al:
 * "The “97% consensus” article is poorly conceived, poorly designed and poorly executed. It obscures the complexities of the climate issue and it is a sign of the desperately poor level of public and policy debate in this country that the energy minister should cite it. It offers a similar depiction of the world into categories of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ to that adopted in Anderegg et al.’s 2010 equally poor study in PNAS: dividing publishing climate scientists into ‘believers’ and ‘non-believers’. It seems to me that these people are still living (or wishing to live) in the pre-2009 world of climate change discourse. Haven’t they noticed that public understanding of the climate issue has moved on?" Source:

The  Cook,  Nuccitelli et al survey is a bad joke. Cook's co-author Dana Nuccitelli is even more careless and biased than Cook. It's deeply embarrassing that this was published in a respectable journal. If we include it, only as an example of how not to do a survey! Pete Tillman (talk) 00:00, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I think you'd need something from the peer-reviewed literature, not blogs. Re the Der Spiegel piece, our second paragraph on the study in the article here is about the 'no position' papers, but sourced to a science historian and Environmental Research Letters (IOP Publishing). --Nigelj (talk) 20:14, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

There is also a thread on this same subject at Talk:Global warming; Since this one seems to have quieted for the last several days, per WP:MULTI please continue at the active thread, which is on the other page. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:51, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Corrected caption for Anderegg survey per sources
The conclusions of the Anderegg (2010) survey include "97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC (Anthropogenic Climate Change) outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change"

This would have been IPCC AR4 (2007) which said: "most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations."

Corrected caption, which previously said "97–98% of the most published climate researchers say humans are causing global warming." --Pete Tillman (talk) 01:24, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Summary of surveys at lede
Another editor added a lengthy quote from AR5 here, replacing my earlier short summary (from AR4):
 * They have generally concluded that the majority of scientists are convinced that human activity is very likely causing most global warming.

The problem with using AR5 is that it's a 2013 document. Only 3 surveys in our article are dated 2013, and none appear to mention the AR5 statement. So I don't think we can use this as a summary of the survey results -- especially for those surveys that predate the report. --Pete Tillman (talk) 00:14, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Graphic
I've removed the chart graphic. It's unsourced and patently wrong - not only in the percentages, but in labeling the category as scientist opining that global warming is "largely caused by humans."

As indicated in the summary of the graphic (click on the graphic), Doran and Zimmerman addressed whether human activity "is a significant contributing factor" in global warming, not whether global warming was "largely caused by humans." That's four of the eight columns comprising the chart.

The chart is wrong on it's face, based solely on that study alone. Moving on the STATS/Harris study, "A slight majority (52%) believe this warming was human-induced..." The 84% figure used in the graphic is for the opinion that, “human-induced greenhouse warming is now occurring" (http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/19/climategate-copenhagen-science-opinions-contributors-s-robert-lichter.html)

So that's five columns that are clearly wrong.

As the body of our article states, Bray & Von Storch found that only 34.6% of respondents were very much convinced that most of the recent global warming was anthropogenic. BTW, the study notable only asked about "recent" change, not change in general, so even that 34.6% doesn't fit the more general label of the chart, which uses a clearly eroneous 94% figure.

So that's six columns that are bogus.

Anderegg, et al. addressed only anthropogenic causes of recent "unequivocal" climate change. Not exactly on point to the chart label, but close enough, I guess.

I couldn't find enough about Farnsworth & Lichter to verify it.

So, six columns are wrong, one is kinda right, and one remains a mystery.

John2510 (talk) 19:48, 25 November 2014 (UTC)


 * This issue has been discussed at length at New bar chart and elsewhere -- also see the talk pages listed at the chart's commons page. While I agree that there's some political spin here, this chart is a good-faith effort, and there's no doubt that most climate scientists' views are as described. Whether they are right is another question.... ;-] --Pete Tillman (talk) 08:27, 26 November 2014 (UTC)


 * John2510 initiated another discussion along these lines, archived at Consensus View of Article Abstracts Discussing Global Climate Change. Pete Tillman (talk) 09:23, 26 November 2014 (UTC)


 * That discussion, on another article's talk page, clarifies that the chart is not RS, and is indeed OR. Both you, and the originator of the chart, agreed there that it should be "fixed" to label it "Significant Human Impact" - but that apparently has never been done.  The OR aspect of it is forgivable (as far as I'm concerned), if it wasn't patently wrong.  Maybe you could convince the guy who made this up to make the fix everyone agrees it needs, or make a new correct one yourself (if we're abandoning RS, I guess it doesn't matter who makes it).  Until it's right, it shouldn't be on WP.  Hyperbole, and downright misrepresentation of studies, don't further climate science, and fuel skepticism.


 * You say, "...there's no doubt that most climate scientists' views are as described." I'm not sure what you mean by that.  The bulk of the scientist did not say (and were not asked) whether they thought that global warming was largely caused by humans.  If folks want to speculate what scientists think about that, or want to do study, that's fine, but that's not what the studies illustrated by the graph determined.  Using the graph in this way is basically saying, "We know the studies didn't address this, but we think that's what they think, so we're going to use it to illustrate what we think they think... but were never asked about." John2510 (talk) 17:36, 26 November 2014 (UTC)


 * You're right about changing the chart to read "Significant Human Impact". I did ask User:Dragons flight, who made the chart, to change it, back around March 2012 . He never did. I'll ask again.


 * I don't know how to edit his graphic. Do you? --Pete Tillman (talk) 20:43, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
 * That would be a perfectly good solution, as far as I'm concerned. I think the original file that was used in generating the graphic (maybe Excel?) would have to be modified by someone who has that file.  It's now been converted into a picture file, and can't really be edited.  Another option would be to create a new one.  I'm genuinely not trying to supress this, I just want it to be right.  I'll stand down to see if you can get a response from the originator.  Thanks.  John2510 (talk) 21:11, 26 November 2014 (UTC)


 * I've sent him a note: . Pete Tillman (talk) 04:30, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Revised graphic
I can edit the picture file so the heading under the left group of lines says "Significant Human Impact". See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Climate_science_opinion2r.png. Unfortunately I'm not familiar with the correct buttons to press when uploading a changed creative-common-attribution image file, so don't use it now. If it's what you want, I think I should delete it and then try to upload it again as a modification of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Climate_science_opinion2.png. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 18:27, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * That looks good to me. Thanks, Peter. I think you are better off leaving it as a new file (acknowledging the source) rather than overwriting Rohde's chart. I put it up so others can comment. It's interesting that the "AGU/AMS Member Scientists" views were unchanged at 84% from 2007 to 2011. Cheers, Pete Tillman (talk) 22:19, 30 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Now I'm wondering if "Little or no human effect" is an accurate summary of the surveys, or just an outlier? For instance, for Bray and von Storch 2008 per our article, 84% of respondents thought most GW was (or will be) anthropogenic, while 16% thought the human effect would be small or nil. Present chart doesn't present this result, but probably should, as this presents 100% of respondents views (vs 90 in present chart)


 * Farnsworth and Lichter 2011: this survey is paywalled, but I found (& added to cite) the full text online. From their Table I, "Q: In your opinion, is human-induced greenhouse warming now occurring?" Yes, 84%. No, 5%. Don't Know, 12%. So our present graphic (and the revised text) presents these results fairly, imo.


 * Doran and Zimmerman 2009: Results are presented fairly in our graphic, imo. --Pete Tillman (talk) 06:12, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I think the proposed revision is a decent compromise. I appreciate everyone's good faith efforts on this.  I will say that I think it remains somewhat hyperbolic, in that saying anthroprogenic climate change is occurring, and that it's significant, aren't quite the same.  When people spit into the ocean, does it add to the ocean's volume?  Undeniably, the answer is yes.  Is it signficant?  No.  I think these surveys, like many surveys, asked questions that drove the outcomes, and now the outcomes are being misstated.  But, like I said, I can live with this as a big step in the right direction.  John2510 (talk) 18:31, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

A. The original was at the Commons. We're not supposed to revise those images by way of uploads to the English Wiki. See WP:TOCOMMONS. I have manually uploaded the new version to the Commons. B. That said, I oppose the new heading "significant human impact" because usually that phrase means cc's impact on us, whereas in this graphic we're trying to depict scientists' opinions on the cause of cc. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:00, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
 * You have another label that is unambiguous and also accurate? "Significant Human Causation" would work, I guess.  The problem with the prior graphic is that it's just plain wrong, which seems worse than being arguably ambiguous.  John2510 (talk) 22:14, 2 December 2014 (UTC)


 * What about "Significant Human Effect"? That's consistent with the other half, plus it's shorter ;-] --Pete Tillman (talk) 22:48, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
 * In reply to "You have another label...?", yes. As this table is about a single dimension of the issue (Human's role) the main title needs revision as well.   I suggest
 * (A) Change top line to "Opinions of Climate and Earth Scientists on Human Role in Global Warming"
 * (B) Change "Significant human impact" to "Significant" and change "Little or no human effect" to "Little or none".
 * NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:28, 3 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Works for me. Good idea-- thanks! Cheers, Pete Tillman (talk) 00:36, 3 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I have made a new graphic with changes (A) and (B) described above, and a change suggested by Tillman to adjust the Bray + Storch bar so it's 84%/16% rather than 94%/6%. I couldn't duplicate the font and exact colour for the original bar. NewsAndEventsGuy is doubtless right about where the graphic should be, but I once again updated https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Climate_science_opinion2r.png. (Reload.). That's because the commons graphic is also being referenced by "Scientific opinion on climate change", and by "List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming". Are the people who watch those pages aware of this discussion?Peter Gulutzan (talk) 18:22, 3 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm happy with the new graphic. Thanks, Peter. I think you're wise to put up a draft first here for discussion. I'll put copies of the new graphic on the other 2 talk pages tomorrow (getting late!). Cheers, Pete Tillman (talk) 06:56, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Posted a note at those 2 talk pages. Pete Tillman (talk) 15:05, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Some comments from the original graphic creator. Yes, I agree with changing the category labels. In fact, I agreed years ago, but never actually did it. Too busy or forgetful perhaps, not sure which. I'm also not sure why it had Bray & van Storch as 94/6. I haven't found any records that give a reason for that, and my recollection is unclear. The guess, given above, that it might have been a transcription error from question 20 rather than 21 in their survey is about as plausible as anything. The question asked was: "21. How convinced are you that most of recent or near future climate change is, or will be, a result of anthropogenic causes?", and responses were given on a 7 point scale where 1 was labeled "not at all" and 7 was labeled "very much". According to, the responses were 1: 1.351%, 2: 2.973%, 3: 6.757%, 4: 5.405%, 5: 17.03%, 6: 31.89%, 7: 34.59%. Where one draws a dividing line between "little or no impact" human impact and "significant" impact is rather ambiguous on such a scale, especially since the question asked about "most of ... climate change". Just to go through the options: 1-2 vs. 3-7: 4.3%/95.7%, 1-3 vs. 4-7: 11.1%/88.9%, 1-4 vs. 5-7: 16.49%/83.51%, 1-5 vs. 6-7: 33.5%/66.5%. As noted, none of these are 94/6, so I don't know where that could have come from. It appears that Bray has used as 1-4 vs. 5-7 grouping when describing this work, so that's probably a fair choice. On a different point, sometime after the figure was created I did manage to track down a copy of the Zimmerman master's thesis that described the Doran & Zimmerman survey in greater detail. The response for Earth Science faculty and researchers was 82% yes / 6.7% no / 11% not sure. The "yes" result was available when I made the figure and is included, but I had not been able to track down the "no" result at that time. So that could also be added to the figure if people want. I'm still trying to figure out if I have the original image file somewhere, but at this point I'm not sure. Dragons flight (talk) 21:05, 4 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the comments. It seems worthwhile reporting the 6.7% "No" (rounded up to 7) in the missing column of our graphic. We should add these to the figure's description as well, to maintain an audit trail for verifiability.


 * For Bray & van Storch, the breakdowns in our article are those the authors gave in the summary cited there, so those seem reasonable choices for the graphic. Pete Tillman (talk) 21:50, 4 December 2014 (UTC)


 * For adding 7% in the Doran + Kendall Zimmerman "Little or none" bar: would require a citation to Kendall Zimmerman's master thesis, which would have to be accepted as a reliable source.Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:49, 5 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I've transferred to The Commons and added lengthy comments in both the original and new pages. If Dragons flight wishes to update more, good.Peter Gulutzan (talk) 19:14, 7 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Going to have to look into this some more, but so far it seems several different types of questions are being mixed up inappropriately. Some of the questions are asking about how convinced the scientist is that global warming is occurring, this is FAR different then saying that a significant amount of global warming is occurring.  One is asking for a "how convinced are you that ANY man made global warming is occurring" and the other is asking "if the amount of man made global warming is large", two very different questions.  --Obsidi (talk) 03:10, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

not in the ref give (cp from my talk)
(this started on my talk page, but is really a general discussion, so I've copied it here William M. Connolley (talk) 10:29, 2 December 2014 (UTC))

Can you please explain why you reverted this change to Surveys of scientists' views on climate change? —Doug Bell 01:05, 22 November 2014 (UTC)


 * The clue is not in the ref given William M. Connolley (talk) 18:40, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Did you bother to read the reference? What precisely is it that isn't in the reference? To save some back-and-forth time, I'll answer that for you. Nothing. There was nothing in the changes I made that wasn't in the reference. The changes I added were minimal and neutral. The entire article, on the other hand, tilts to one side, although not badly. It would certainly be improved by not being so selective in what it includes, and by removing prejudicial language. —Doug Bell 00:43, 25 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Are we talking about the same edit? I'm talking about this one William M. Connolley (talk) 10:05, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that edit.

Here is the text I added:


 * categorizing 903 researchers (65.8%) as convinced by the evidence and 472 researchers (34.4%) as unconvinced by the evidence for ACC (Anthropogenic Climate Change)

Here is the reference I supplied, which is part of the study the section is discussing, and is linked to from the study.

How is what I added not in the ref given? —Doug Bell 00:58, 27 November 2014 (UTC)


 * I think you miss, or your edit miss-states, the point of that PNAS paper. Anderegg et al were actively mining for a large set of "unconvinceds" - that 35% of unconvinced researchers is not the result of their study, it's part of the design. They looked at mainstream-critical public statements to actively find those people (and they looked at a few mainstream-supporting statements to find "convinced" experts). Then they looked at the relative levels of expertise of the two groups, and found out that the hard-found pseudo-skeptics are not well represented in the literature, i.e. only very few of them have demonstrated expertise. Your edit does not reflect this point, it seems to sell the premise as a result. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 03:38, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Well, you have to look at the whole edit in context. I also added an explanation following that excerpt above to the article:


 * Based on analysis of the publications by the researchers, the paper drew the following two conclusions

That puts the numbers in context. Since the criteria selected to quantify/qualify researchers were themselves arbitrarily chosen to produce the desired results, I think that's a pretty neutral statement to qualify the research. As you said, they were mining for "unconvinceds" as part of the design. They collected a large number of unconvinced, perhaps to dilute the prominence of the "well-represented" scientists among them. I'm not going to speculate on the researchers' motives, but I think my edit to the article at least counters the bias in how the findings are currently presented in the article. —Doug Bell 21:20, 1 December 2014 (UTC)


 * By "the bias in how the findings are currently presented in the article" I gather you mean compliance with weight and WP:PSCI policy. Trying to counter the bias inherent in the system isn't good, even if you feel a fringe viewpoint is being repressed. . dave souza, talk 21:42, 1 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Doug, the experimental design was not "arbitrarily chosen to produce the desired results". As to "diluting" the prominence of well-represented scientists among the unconvinced: if you undilute the sample by removing those of lesser prominence, the number of unconvinced gets less. You can say there are some well-qualified scientists that are unconvinced (but like, what, three or four?), or you can say there thousands of self-alleged "scientists" (e.g., the Oregon Petition), but you don't get both: there are not thousands of well-qualified scientists who are "unconvinced". ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:44, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

What do the secondary reliable sources say? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:21, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

What causes you to conclude that the experimental design was not arbitrary, and not tailored to match the data? (Tempting to expand on, but I won't.) There were several arbitrary values and cutoffs used in the study, and as was pointed out in Bodenstein's critique of the study, the criteria used to measure scientific "expertise" will naturally favor the majority consensus. Furthermore, the study only looked at researchers on either end of the advocacy scale, which tends to omit scientists with views towards the middle (i.e. agree with some aspects and conclusions of the IPCC, but not all.) That leads to an overstatement of the conclusion. All I was trying to do was to provide some context to how the results were determined.

As to "fringe viewpoint", that's not where I see the bias. The degree to which scientists agree starts to break down quickly as it is qualified in finer levels. The majority consensus among scientist that temperatures are warming and anthropogenic greenhouse gases are a contributing factor gets dressed up as the overwhelming majority of scientists agree with the assessment of the IPCC, which simply isn't the case. Even the studies listed in the article demonstrate that.

There is substantial disagreement on many aspects of climate science, even among contributors to the IPCC reports. The summary sentence at the top of the article overstates the consensus of the studies in the article. There are omissions and prejudicial language, not terrible as I said above, but undeniably present, that push the narrative of "97%" consensus. That overwhelming majority consensus applies to a significantly milder statement than what's contained in the IPCC reports.

All I'm looking for is a neutral representation of the surveys. —Doug Bell 00:46, 2 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Mere assertion. Doubt appears to be your product, but for WP you need a reliable secondary source. As it is, the article gives equal validity to Cornwall Declarators and unknowns like Bodenstein. . . dave souza, talk 07:46, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

My edit to the article was not based on doubt, it was based on an attempt to provide context that materially impacts how a reader would interpret the study's conclusion. I tried to keep the addition proportional to the rest of the discussion, and not to give it undo weight, either in phrasing nor implication.

The source for the information in this case is the primary source itself. There is no added analysis nor interpretation of the source, simply the addition of what I think is relevant context. I fail to see in what manner this makes my product "doubt". —Doug Bell 02:33, 5 December 2014 (UTC)


 * You should know that synthesis isn't acceptable. As Stephan notes, the "context" you've been trying to add is effectively misrepresentation of the study, and you're still failing to show a secondary source for that argument. . dave souza, talk 21:01, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

The information I'm presenting is NOT synthesis. It goes to the heart of the methodology chosen for the study. The study determined a means of selecting researchers to consider. Giving the number of researchers used in the study is completely relevant. —Doug Bell 01:01, 8 December 2014 (UTC)


 * You're synthesising misleading percentages from Supporting Information, not the heart of the study, and misrepresenting the methodology as described in that document. Classic synthesis to produce a conclusion not in the original. . dave souza, talk 09:20, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I disagree that I'm producing a conclusion not in the study. However, I'm open to your suggestion of how to remove the representation in the current description that there were only a very few researchers that disagreed. The selection of researchers in the study, along with how they were qualified is very relevant. The current article misrepresents the findings by not including any discussion of methodology, but listing the total number of researchers and a carefully phrased statement on consensus. Without careful parsing of the text, a reader would come to the conclusion that only a handful of the 1372 researchers in the study had a difference of opinion. Even with careful parsing, the reader could come to the same conclusion. As I see it, the current description is synthesis.

So how would you suggest wording it so as to remove the false presentation in the current article? —Doug Bell 21:01, 8 December 2014 (UTC)


 * @, Can you provide a credible secondary reliable source?  Notice, please, that I asked you this before and also note what it says at WP:DISRUPTSIGNS, "...repeatedly disregards other editors' questions...".  NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:12, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

First, your question followed J. Johnson's comment, not mine, and wasn't directed at me. I thought you were asking Johnson the question since he was making assertions of fact not in the primary source regarding selection of methodology, whereas I had merely discussed possibilities and specifically stated I didn't want to speculate. It was completely natural to assume your question was directed at Johnson.

Second, I said in response to a question from someone else that I'm using the primary source. So even though I didn't directly answer the question that you didn't directly ask me, that answer is responsive to your question anyway.

Third, you're the one being disruptive here. You asked the question once, ambiguously, and you come back to ask again and start referencing Wiki policy on disruptive editing quoting "...repeatedly disregards other editors' questions..."? I've been completely responsive and engaged in the discussion, while you on the other hand pop in with a single question with no supporting context and then return to quote Wiki policy. Either join the discussion or don't, but I suggest better WP:ETIQUETTE and not attempting to WP:HARASS me. —Doug Bell 21:01, 8 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Harassment comes in different guises. I keep seeing your OR/SYN in my watchlist, and I take my free time to read it.  Since you've got no secondary source to support your WP:OR - which incidentally conflicts with my own WP:OR - please go find a secondary source for us to discuss or stop the repeated redundant WP:OR repetition that is sucking my free time.  If you think that request violates WP:ARBCC then please take it up at my talk page or the usual drama boards. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:50, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm trying to discuss changes to the article. It's your choice to read the discussion or not. Apparently you have nothing to offer, which is fine.—Doug Bell 23:00, 8 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Propose an implementable edit and then let's talk. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:12, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

OK, I edited the article in a manner that I think is a better representation of the study. I think it addresses the concerns expressed here regarding my original edit.—Doug Bell 01:17, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Why in God's name did they let William Connolley back on this thing? No one trusts Wikipedia on this issue anymore because of all the blatant abuse. Sad. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:D:3700:FCA8:BDCC:ECFE:EF43:5C01 (talk) 03:33, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Bray and von Storch 2008 results need to be corrected in the graphic
Our graphic shows 94% "Significant human impact" & 6% little or none.

This would be B&vS Question 21, "How convinced are you that most of recent or near future climate change is, or will be, a result of anthropogenic causes?" Answers: 34.6% very much convinced (7), 48.9% being convinced to a large extent (5–6), 15.1% to a small extent (2–4), and 1.35% not convinced at all (1). See our article for cite.

So our graphic should report:
 * 84% "Significant human impact"
 * 16%  Little or none

I think this was a transcription error, as the 94%/6% was the results from their Question #20. --Pete Tillman (talk) 15:57, 2 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I replied above in section "Graphic".Peter Gulutzan (talk) 18:22, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Additions to Anderegg et al 2010 section
I added some new material and details to this short section, mostly based on a news article in Science from about the time the paper came out. I thought our previous writeup was surprisingly skimpy, perhaps because this good secondary RS article was overlooked. The previous version relied exclusively on primary sources.

So I was surprised when another editor reverted, commenting "I don't see the need for all this extra detail. This was four years ago; no new material. Rv to consensus version."

Here is my revised version, for discussion. I've tweaked the last sentence of the first paragraph from the reverted version. --Pete Tillman (talk) 21:58, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

A 2010 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (PNAS) reviewed publication and citation data for 1,372 climate researchers, and selected from them the 908 scientists who had published  20 or more papers on climate science for further study. Anderegg et al. then sorted the scientists into two groups: those convinced by the evidence (CE)  of anthropogenic climate change (ACC), and those unconvinced by the evidence (UE), based on online lists of those who had signed  statements supporting or opposing the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that the planet is warming and that humans are mostly responsible. Anderegg et al. defined a scientist's "expertise" as determined by his or her number of climate publications, which they computed using Google Scholar searches.

Anderegg et al. drew the following two conclusions:

(i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC (Anthropogenic Climate Change) outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers.

The methodology of the Anderegg et al. study was challenged in PNAS by Lawrence Bodenstein for "treat[ing] publication metrics as a surrogate for expertise". He would expect the much larger side of the climate change controversy to excel in certain publication metrics as they "continue to cite each other's work in an upward spiral of self-affirmation". Anderegg et al. replied that Bodenstein "raises many speculative points without offering data" and that his comment "misunderstands our study's framing and stands in direct contrast to two prominent conclusions in the paper.

Another criticism of the Anderegg et al. study was that dividing the researchers into just two groups, "unconvinced" and "convinced," doesn't capture the nuances of scientific views. This "reinforces the pathological politicization of climate science," Roger Pielke Jr. wrote. John Christy, a prominent "unconvinced" climate scientist, said he was being "black‑listed." Co-author Prall replied that "It would be helpful to have lukewarm [as] a third category."


 * I assume you've seen the recent discussion on this same section of the article? —Doug Bell 02:37, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, thanks. Pete Tillman (talk) 19:08, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Misrepresentation of source
I am surprised that User:Tillman took the discussion above to represent a consensus that his additions were required and largely re-added them again. I won't risk being accused of edit warring by removing them again, but I will not allow the cited source to be misrepresented. This source says: "Finally, does peer review affect a scientist's ability to contribute to the field? John Christy of University of Alabama, Huntsville, another of the prominent "unconvinced" scientists analyzed in the study, blames the disparity between the two groups on "the tight interdependency between funding, reviewers, popularity. ... We are being "black‑listed," as best I can tell, by our colleagues.""

The addition to the article gave the impression that the Anderegg paper was 'blacklisting' Christy personally by the way it classified his work in their published results: "Another criticism of the Anderegg et al. study was that dividing the researchers into just two groups, "unconvinced" and "convinced," doesn't capture the nuances of scientific views. This "reinforces the pathological politicization of climate science," Roger Pielke Jr. wrote. John Christy, a prominent "unconvinced" climate scientist, said he was being "black‑listed." Co-author Prall replied that "It would be helpful to have lukewarm [as] a third category."" I have removed the relevant sentence. --Nigelj (talk) 16:44, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Point is, that a suggested link to IPCC consensus has been erased as well. Actually, that should be revereted. The fact that such Surveys of scientists' views have no real life impact - as e.g. compared to acid rain or the ozone case is of importance, as well the quoted papers have done their own asumptions with regard to the reaction of the scientific community e.g. on climategate. Serten II (talk) 00:03, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Agree with removal. That's not what the surveys have been about so it shouldn't be there. Dmcq (talk) 00:50, 17 December 2014 (UTC)


 * What have been the surveys actually been about? The secondary source I added put them into context - and surveys are something social science people have a say ;) If no further source based comment is along, the linking is to be reinstalled. Serten II (talk) 01:03, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Length of critics section about Cook et al 2013
I just read this section and was surprised how much room the critics to the study is given. Source No. 26 is coautored by Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley taking almost half room of the whole paragraph. From all I know about Monckton, this is a professional liar, not a scientist. I personally would refuse to coautor ANY paper with him. After that section comes source No. 27 where the "hard core" of climate change denialists (these are denialists, not skeptics) are listed, I would say these are just about all which can be found among the 3% who do not agree with the scientific consensus. A balanced section would emphasice more on the consensus and not on the handful dissenting scientists. I consider this whole section not to be worded in a neutral way. Hg6996 (talk) 18:28, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

sent here for rv of edit
Sorry forgot to put in edit summary--CN removed, citation added. also I have another citation and update to that. I don't understand if there is a prob, but I'm going to undo-fix-up-add and if there is a problem can you please let me know here? TY2601:C:6783:8416:BD19:9DFE:2A64:FBE3 (talk) 14:49, 18 February 2015 (UTC) ooops got confused with two articles sorry I was on the wrong page while trying to check an edit.

Rv uncited and unnecessary detail
I have just reverted three edits from two different IP addresses. A large amount of hard-to-read text in the form of lists, dates and figures had been added to the Anderegg (2010) section. The new material was highly detailed, but uncited. The new material included spelling mistakes (e.g. where instead of were etc). The edits were self-contradictory - one claimed that that the sample were 'selected based on authorship of IPCC assessment reports', while another listed several places, other than IPCC authorship lists, from where at least 472 were supposed to have been found. The tenor of the edits seemed to be to make some implication of doubt or suspicion about the methodology of Anderegg et al, without actually saying what it was, or providing a good WP:RS reliable source that has analysed the methodology and come to any such conclusion. --Nigelj (talk) 18:09, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't want to keep reverting this IP editor, and I don't know why they won't come here and discuss these edits, but I don't know why they seem to be misrepresenting the source (now we have one) to make it all sound like a big IPCC conspiracy or self-fulfilling prophecy. The cited source says the CE list was compiled from "IPCC AR4 Working Group I Contributors (coordinating lead authors, lead authors, and contributing authors; 619 names listed), 2007 Bali Declaration (212 signers listed), Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS) 2006 statement (120 names listed), CMOS 2008 statement (130 names listed), and 37 signers of open letter protesting The Great Global Warming Swindle film errors," and this gets summarised as "The convinced group was based on IPCC AR4 working group 1 contributors, and online lists of those who had signed statements supporting the IPCC AR4 finding." I know that the IPCC are the arbiter for the 'mainstream view', and that we are going to quote Anderegg just below this saying "97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC (Anthropogenic Climate Change) outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change," but the emphasis seems wrong. How can signing an 'open letter protesting The Great Global Warming Swindle film errors' be summarised as signing a 'statement supporting the IPCC'? I can see what they're trying to do, but it grates with me when sources are misrepresented. --Nigelj (talk) 21:17, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Having essentially no contribs except for this edit war, maybe they just don't know about BRD. I put a link to this thread on their talk page. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:22, 7 March 2015 (UTC)


 * --From IP address-- Nigel, nice of you to be concerned. All the information from the edits is in the Anderegg et at paper, or its supplementary information. Yes, if you need references to every line its Anderegg et al 2010, I though once was enough, as that is the subject of the paragraph. Sorry you feel the content of Anderegg et al sounds to you like an IPCC conspiracy, or self- fulfilling prophecy. Just read Anderegg et al if you need affirmation as to its content. Feel free to do spelling, and grammar corrections if your good at it. Thanks 70.59.20.118 (talk) 21:52, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * --From IP address-- Nigel, I tried to list the full list of how the groups where classified, but you removed that due to being unnecessary detail, so I'm confused as to your objection to it being summarized. Yes, you did find a contradiction in the papers conclusion, but that is the conclusion the paper makes,judge it as you will. Maybe a better solution is to further edit the original text to align more with the papers quote of, "based on authorship of scientific assessment reports and membership on multisignatory statements about ACC". thanks70.59.20.118 (talk) 22:06, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * If you have a reliable source, per WP:RS, that makes this point then let's see the URL. On the other hand, if this is your personal conclusion. then trying to make it by innuendo - by mentioning 'IPCC' five times in the one paragraph where it was only previously necessary to mention it once - then that fails WP:OR IMHO. However, I will leave it for now for others to comment, and if they agree with me, to revert. --Nigelj (talk) 22:41, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * --From IP address--Nigel the current content is fine with me, no need to revert. I do agree that the first sentence could be better. It could be edited to remove a reference to the IPCC, and more accurately quote the paper by changing the selection criteria to how it was stated in the paper, "based on authorship of scientific assessment reports and membership on multisignatory statements about ACC". If you would like me to further edit it along those lines, let me know. I think mention of the IPCC contributors selection is warranted since they are nearly 1/2 of the scientists selected, hard to summarize the paper in one paragraph without mentioning the IPCC. 70.59.20.118 (talk) 23:37, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * So what if a lot of authors of the scientific literature that IPCC reviews and compiles also happened to be authors for the IPCC? Who else would the UNFCC have compile the scientific literature?  Cookie bakers? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:10, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The issue is simple, and is forbidden explicitly by WP:OR: "Similarly, do not combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source." Find a WP:RS that makes this point, or we revert. --Nigelj (talk) 11:30, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
 * --from IP address-- Nigelj, I don't know what your talking about. Could you be more specific, and I would be glad to edit. The original text includes the text I believe your complaining about. It is certainly similar to Anderegg et al. If you have issue with it, you should also have issue with the text under the graphics posted in the article. I will have time later tonight and will propose a final edit by me. If you have a constructive alternative in the text please propose it. The original text was not even close to Anderegg et al, so I would expect you to have the same issue if you revert. Thanks 70.59.12.94 (talk) 18:17, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
 * --from IP address--Nigelj, I think I have addressed your concerns. This proposed text reduces references to the IPCC. It is more inline with Anderegg et al. It does not imply that the signatory statements where related to the IPCC findings. The conclusions are the actual results, from the results section. I hope it has better grammar, and spelling. Thanks let me know if you like it.


 * In a 2010 paper of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (PNAS) 1,372 climate researchers where selected based on being IPCC AR4 Working Group I Contributors, and lists of signatories to climate related statements. Anderegg et al. then sorted the scientists into two groups: those convinced by the evidence (CE) of anthropogenic climate change (ACC), and those unconvinced by the evidence (UE). The convinced group was composed from IPCC AR4 working group 1 contributors, and online lists of signed statements. The unconvinced list was composed from online lists of signed statements. Names appearing on both lists where removed, resulting in 903 names on the convinced list, and 472 unconvinced.[17] With the remaining scientists a Google scholar search was conducted for "climate", and citations counted on their top four cited papers. From those results Scientists who had authored or coauthored 20 or more papers where selected for further study. Anderegg et al. then used those search results to rank the remaining 908 scientist's. "Expertise" was ranked by his or her number of publications with the term "climate". "Prominence" was ranked by the number of citations of their top four cited papers.
 * Anderegg et al. drew the following conclusions:
 * The UE group comprises only 2% of the top 50 climate researchers as ranked by expertise (number of climate publications), 3% of researchers of the top 100, and 2.5% of the top 200, excluding researchers present in both groups. And that CE researchers’ top papers were cited an average of 172 times, compared with 105 times for UE researchers.  97.124.185.144 (talk) 03:39, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Ok, I'll work on that post, but I'll worded it better70.59.45.142 (talk) 03:50, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

WP:OR "to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source"
The conclusions of a scientific paper are what you find either in the abstract, or in a section at the end called 'conclusions'. You cannot pick a couple of obscure lines from the 'results and discussion' section (full of abbreviations that are defined elsewhere in the paper, but not there) and replace the blockquote with that. I know what is going on here, even though your wall-of-text statements above don't actually explain it. You think you have found a flaw in Anderegg's methodology. You think that if you were just allowed the air-time (and we stalled you by talking about 'unnecessary detail' above), you could prove it. And then everyone who read this section of this article would see your point, that Anderegg's methodology is faulty, and so dismiss their conclusions. But you must not do that. That is called WP:OR original research, and you must not do it as it is against one of the central policies of Wikipedia. If there is a flaw in Anderegg's methodology, this must be found by other independent scientists, and published in a peer reviewed journal as was the original paper. If the consensus of the scientific community, after such a criticism is published, is that the paper was indeed flawed, then we would report that fact, citing the criticism and the reception it received. None of this has happened, and you must not continue to try to use Wikipedia as your publishing arm to try to make it happen. Write out your criticism as clearly as you can, and send it to PNAS. If they publish it, come back and give us the URL so that we can quote it here. Nothing else will do. --Nigelj (talk) 16:58, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Nigel- What you reverted to is WP:OR, its conclusion is not in Anderegg et al. They have altered the words of the Abstract to say something different than what was studied. The Results section is his articles conclusion, there is no separate conclusion section. The results I posted are the actual words used in his results. And are the results of the two main points he actually studied. Nothing is obsure in Anderegg, it is very short. You keep mentioning some kind of conspiracy, yet you are not wanting the actual words of the article to be on this site, that undermines the credibility of Wiki. Edits to maintain a perceived bias, in that anything you feel undermines its credibility, you delete may be a violation of Wiki pricipals. While I use Anderegg's actual words, no mix, and match from around the paper, went directly to the relevant words. Just to make the Wiki reflect the actual work done by Anderegg. I know people can go to Anderegg et al to read what it actually says, they should not find something different here. Funny you wait until after "I posted the proposed text to complain. While I try to improve this site, you could help instead of revert/delete. Thanks 75.166.210.42 (talk) 19:21, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
 * You're right. Two words - "surveyed here" - in the published abstract were missing in our quote. I have added them, although I don't see how their absence made it "say something different than what was studied." As I said above, if you have a problem with the abstract as published, this is not the forum to discuss it - PNAS is. I have not mentioned any conspiracy, and I will thank you not to insert words into my mouth. If you think that the Wikipedia policy on WP:OR is politically motivated, there is a talk page there to discuss your concerns. If you are implying they my editing is politically motivated then I have to remind you of WP:NPA and ask you to be more civil. --Nigelj (talk) 20:00, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
 * NiegelJ while the paper is hardly a survey, that is what the abstract says they set out to show, not the actual results. I am not implying anything, you keep mentioning IPCC conspiracy, and implying fault in Anderegg. So I'm civil, it is towards why you object to the actual words of Anderegg. So then do you have issue with the rest of my proposed text? 75.166.210.42 (talk) 20:10, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
 * -Niegelj on further thought I believe your reverting to "stall" the process, and removal of content that in your opinion takes from the "credibility" of Anderegg may be a violation of WP:EP. My edits have been direct, sincere, and consistent with Anderegg. I don't understand your objections as they appear to not be related to my edits. No where did my edits mention errors, IPCC conspiracy, or flaws in methodology, and no original content was posted. Nor did I pull parts from different places to come to a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source. If you have no objection to the rest of my edit, besides the conclusions I will post that. Let me know. Thanks75.166.210.42 (talk) 05:06, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

We should probably look for truly reliable sources, as defined by Wikipedia, that discuss Anderegg. (See WP:SECONDARY.) For example, here is sciencedaily's coverage NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 05:45, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
 * My proposed edit only went into slightly more detail. Nothing was used outside of Anderegg. So I'm not sure why this conversation is happening. Does anyone object to the proposed edit previously posted, besides the NiegelJ's objection to the conclusions. That way we can talk towards any specific issues. Thanks. 75.166.221.23 (talk) 19:42, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Ok, no objections, or additional suggestions, so I'll soon continue with the proposed edit.97.124.167.21 (talk) 03:44, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Wot no PBL?
I've just looked for http://www.pbl.nl/sites/default/files/cms/publicaties/pbl-2015-climate-science-survey-questions-and-responses_01731.pdf and don't find it here William M. Connolley (talk) 19:36, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

"Most" vs. "Significant"
There's been some recent editing conflict (not yet rising to the level of warring) about whether the studies show that "most" global warming is anthroprogenic or merely that the anthroprogenic aspect is "signficant." Without reciting it all again here, I refer you to my comment in the "Graphic" and "Revised Graphic" sections here on the Talk page. I think it's a stretch even to say that the cited studies, in their entirety, find the anthroprogenic contribution to be "signficiant." It's certainly not true to say the cited studies found "most" global warming to be so. I think should either address the studies individually, or go with the least common denominator of their conclusions (i.e., that global warming has some anthroprogenic contribution). For example, in STATS/Harris study, "A slight majority (52%) believe this warming was human-induced..." The 84% figure used in the graphic is for the opinion that, “human-induced greenhouse warming is now occurring" (http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/19/climategate-copenhagen-science-opinions-contributors-s-robert-lichter.html) Saying it's occurring, and saying that it's signficant, aren't the same thing.  John2510 (talk) 21:23, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
 * And I have removed your change as that is exactly what they have found. Dmcq (talk) 08:57, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Have reverted myself. It is very difficult to phrase a question that would not cause a misunderstanding about the huge base effect that makes the world as warm as it is anyway. Dmcq (talk) 09:08, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Why are we back displaying the wrong wording? The largest survey of scientists' views on climate change currently is the IPCC AR5. Its 'Summary for Policymakers' says "The evidence for human influence on the climate system has grown since the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together". This article is not here to describe the diagram in its lede (which has been severely tampered with IMHO), nor is it here to describe the Cook study. It covers the topic stated in its title and at the moment begins with a serious misrepresentation of the science, representing neither the consensus neither here on WP, nor that in the greater scientific community. --Nigelj (talk) 10:04, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with that, but I didn't see how to phrase it cleanly in a way that is logically correct given that the recent extra warming is only a small fraction of the total amount that the earth is warmed up anyway by greenhouse gases. The IPCC does a good job by saying 'It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together' but unfortunately the survey questions have not been so good at saying what they are about. Dmcq (talk) 13:45, 24 May 2015 (UTC)


 * That may well be what that one survey has found, and that can be included in the appropriate section, but the article (not just the diagram) discusses nine separate surveys, broken down as separate sections. As far as I can tell, the vast majority of them do not even address the question of whether "most" global warming is anthroprogenic. They only address whether human activity is contributing.  A few go a step further to say it is "significant" (or words to that effect).  It's a huge jump from there to say "most."  There is nothing in the wording that constitutes a misrepresentation of the science, but the wording others have advocated is certainly a misrepresentation of the cited sources.  As I've said, if anyone feels the cited sources say "most" warming is anthroprogenic then let's discuss that.  It's not appropriate to work the article to fit editors' interpretations of the science, in conflict with the sources.  We can't rewrite what the survey questions "meant" to ask and how the scientists would have responded to "properly" phrased questions.  John2510 (talk) 13:50, 24 May 2015 (UTC)


 * A pretty simple question could have asked: "Do you believe that most of the global warming that has occurred since 1951 was caused by human activity." Instead, they went for things like "contributing" or "significant."  A more useful survey would first determine whether the subjects have an opinion, and then choose from a list of estimated ranges.  Again, that's not what our sources did.  Since it's clear the sources don't support the "most" argument, I'm hoping no one now suggests paring out the sources because they don't support a pre-conceived conclusion.  John2510 (talk) 14:08, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Adequately representing the cited sources
There has been back and forth edits over our wording for the way Andregg et al compiled their database of papers for analysis. The more recent edit summaries referred to details in the "SI", Supporting Information, published by the authors to the paper. For ease of reference, here is the relevant text from the SI: "We compiled these CE ["Convinced by the Evidence"] researchers comprehensively (i.e., all names listed) from the following lists: IPCC AR4 Working Group I Contributors (coordinating lead authors, lead authors, and contributing authors; 619 names listed), 2007 Bali Declaration (212 signers listed), Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS) 2006 statement (120 names listed), CMOS 2008 statement (130 names listed), and 37 signers of open letter protesting The Great Global Warming Swindle film errors. After removing duplicate names across these lists, we had a total of 903 names. We define UE researchers as those who have signed reputable statements strongly dissenting from the views of the IPCC. We compiled UE ["Unconvinced by the Evidence"] names comprehensively from the following 12 lists: [...list of lists redacted here for clarity...] After removing duplicate names across these lists, we had a total of 472 names."

- http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2010/06/07/1003187107.DCSupplemental/pnas.201003187SI.pdf#nameddest=STXT

Presently we have summarised this as "They where selected based on being IPCC AR4 Working Group I Contributors, and from online lists of those who had signed statements supporting or opposing the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)."

- https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Surveys_of_scientists%27_views_on_climate_change&oldid=666336705

It seems to me that we simultaneously give too much detail here, and not enough. First, when we summarise individual published papers, in order to avoid cherry picking or promoting a conclusion that the authors never intended, we usually summarise material from the papers' 'Abstract' and 'Conclusions' sections. Here, and soon after when we currently go into the way they searched Google Scholar, we are digging not only into details found in the 'Methods and Materials' section that was published in tiny print at the end, but deeper into the separate 'Supporting information' that was published in a separate PDF. Why are we delving among these details for material for our brief summary of their findings? I, like any reader can only imagine that it is because there is some doubt, or some question, about the validity of these details of statistical practice. But without a cited source questioning these details, that is WP:OR and strictly forbidden. Secondly, if we are to highlight these methodological details for some obscure reason in our summary, then I feel that we should also include statements like that "all names listed" were added before removing duplicates, and that UE researchers were defined as "those who have signed reputable statements strongly dissenting from the views of the IPCC," rather than our much weaker wording.

There are two choices, either we can debate the details of the Anderegg et al methodology, selection and statistical processes, how we are going to summarise them, and go way off into WP:OR unless there is a WP:RS for doing so, or we can remove all this detail and use a wording much closer to the long-term consensus wording for this part of the article. My vote is clearly for the latter, due to the lack of any cited critical sources to guide our nitpicking. Rather than presenting others with a vague suggestion for article wording, I shall go ahead now and WP:BOLDly edit the article to produce something that I think is closer to a crisp summary of the main findings of the paper as a starting point. --Nigelj (talk) 12:17, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Your edits makes many statements that are not supported by the paper. Not sure why what actually is stated in the paper keeps getting deleted. The IPCC grouped as believers, where contributors, not just the authors. The paper looked only at the "climate" search results not the scientists full body of work. Your edits state otherwise. There seems to be reluctance to allow reference to that 1/3 of the "scientists" who where selected from the IPPC work group. They produced the document the paper is seeking consensus with, and deeming them in agreement just from being involved. So that is a significant fact. I'm not even sure why we pretend these surveys are science. One is based on a non peer reviewed student thesis, that we cannot even link to by Wiki policy. Several have authors that are activists, with activist web sites. Most are not even scientists. We should just put a warning section at the top that the real content of these papers continues to be deleted, and the papers where mostly from activists, and non scientists. I recommend reverting back to an prior edit. 71.215.79.213 (talk) 02:07, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

--There is not a Conclusions section. The SI is referenced in the first section as to how the scientists where selected. Its hard to say what the study was without mention of the SI. 70.59.13.166 (talk) 00:13, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * (1) Please create a username, rather than making so many contentious edits from variable IP addresses within the same range. (2) Please try to observe policies about consensus, edit warring and reliable sources. Thank you. --Nigelj (talk) 10:30, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I see that the 70.xxx IP address-hopper is still edit warring and ignoring consensus. Still on the same argument since early March. I find it hard to believe that all you have to do to avoid policy and Arb rulings is to log out and edit by anonymous IP address. --Nigelj (talk) 20:55, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I do not hide behind dynamic IP, I respond when I see a response. My edits are not contentious, on point, and are direct from the paper. Deleting them is more of a violation of policy. My reverts, and edits are to try, and please criticism. They would not be needed without the unwarranted deletions. When I used the talk page to create consensus no response, just deletions.70.59.42.153 (talk) 00:02, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
 * When you have been arguing the same point since March, and people no longer respond to the same old statements, that does not mean there is no disagreement, it's just weariness. When half a dozen long-time editors and admins revert all your additions to articles, that is beyond 'contentious', it means there is consensus against the changes you want to make. --Nigelj (talk) 13:23, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Others have restored my edits,the consensus is not as you claim. Not sure why a couple, have objection to the content of the paper. 97.122.171.245 (talk) 16:19, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Revisions to John Cook et al., 2013 section
The substantial change was to remove an odd sentence replying to a criticism that's not in our article, and replace it with a summary of Richard Tol's criticisms, along with the reply to Tol by Cook et al.

The summary of the Science & Education article by David Legates  et al. is still pretty confusing, though I fixed a couple of things. --Pete Tillman (talk) 00:27, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Explanations of Critcisms
The recent edit warring surrounds explanations of criticisms of some studies. Instead of arguing the merits of that material, folks seem to want to continue edit warring, arguing over who started the edit warring and whether people should edit with IP addresses. It seems to me that the explanations offered by the material in question furthers the reader's understanding of the criticisms. As such, there's no rationale for omitting them. They are in no sense "soap boxing" - no more than the bases for conclusions to the contrary are "soap boxing." Readers should be provided the reasoning behind various conclusions so that they can make up their own minds. WP should be an edicational tool, not a source for doctrine - even on "settled" issues.John2510 (talk) 19:03, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Contrary views represented or typified ?
I'm wondering how would or should contrary views be presented here. I see general press of 2013 saying that Peer-reviewed survey finds majority of scientists skeptical of global warming crisis (Forbes) on the survey already discussed [] Science or Science Fiction paper. That article also mentioned two articles about American Meteorological Society as meteorologists reject and skepticism.

Out of these I'm wondering how or if the article should clarify or separate the contrary views. Specifically
 * (a) contrary views on points,
 * (b) differences by career field (if there is a climatologist vs meteorologist and geologist), and
 * (c) difference by nationality (if it is United States compared to European and to World).

It does not seem as simple as separation of sections for contrary studies would be simple, since that doesn't allow for three-fold yes/no/neutral bins and does not allow for happening+anthropocentric / happening+natural subdivisions. And it doesn't seem as detailed or clear that would allow showing multiple points by a tabular display like [], so it seems best to do baby steps of asking: are there studies of these items or higher level analysis available ??? Markbassett (talk) 14:58, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Having looked at all that the message I get is that it would be nice if people looked at what the surveys say rather than some headline a newspaperman at Forbes makes up. Dmcq (talk) 15:44, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Yep I just looked at the contributions of that person to Forbes, and by the way Forbes say the views are those correspondents own and he seems to specialize in this sort of misstatement
 * Updated NASA Data: Global Warming Not Causing Any Polar Ice Retreat
 * Record Cold And Snow Destroy Global Warming Claims
 * Top 10 Global Warming Lies That May Shock You
 * Media Go Into Panic On How To Spin Record Cold
 * and one putting a positive spin on global warming but still not based on anything sensible
 * Wheat Production Sets New Records Thanks To Global Warming
 * He seems also to have a line in how oil is good but wind power is bad and puts up prices. Dmcq (talk) 15:53, 5 August 2015 (UTC)


 * [User:Dmcq|Dcmq] OK, so in addition to him, are there other commentaries on the surveys and contrary views ? Markbassett (talk) 14:59, 6 August 2015 (UTC)


 * If there is a reasonable survey of scientists that comes to a contrarian view then yes of course this article should include it. However self selected surveys of people who disagree do not count. Dmcq (talk) 23:00, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Who is being surveyed?
The article begins: "Several surveys have been conducted of the opinions of scientists on anthropogenic climate change" which implies that scientists in general are being surveyed. However, the body of the article seems to indicate that it is only climate scientists who are being surveyed. Can this be clarified please? Biscuittin (talk) 01:41, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * The surveys are mostly of climate scientists but many are not. The criteria differ between surveys. In some cases, e.g. the American Meteorological Society, many of the members are enthusiasts rather than scientists with a degree. Dmcq (talk) 22:46, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * While these are indeed all relevant factors for AMS surveys, the AMS takes them into account by asking each responder not only what is their highest degree (which would suffice for your concern about "enthusiasts") but also whether they consider themselves expert in the subject. I take it you would only pay attention to climate experts with Ph.D.'s.  I don't actually know how that would change the results of the most recent (January 2016) AMS survey but it should be possible to find out.   Vaughan Pratt (talk) 06:42, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Adding Verheggen et al 2014
There is another survey that certainly fits this topic which I'd say should be added: Scientists' views on attribution of global warming Verheggen et al. 2014 http://pubs.acs.org/doi/ipdf/10.1021/es501998e

I could just add this myself, but want to take account of COI policies. I will refrain from editing content specific to my own work on Anderegg 2010 - (I am happy to answer questions about it in the talk page if needed).

While this new paper cites my website as well as Anderegg (and other studies listed here) I think I could write an objective summary of it if nobody else steps up, but if another editor could add this it would spare me the editing policy uncertainty. -- Jim Prall Birdbrainscan (talk) 17:10, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Switch order of studies
Can we order the list by newest to oldest instead of oldest to newest? This will allow the more current studies to be viewed first. --Jamjam678 (talk) 13:17, 8 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Unless Wikipedia has an established convention of listing studies in chronological order, I strongly agree with this. If that's the case, and if there are no objections, and if no one else has already done it by April 3, I will do it myself then.
 * While I'm at it, is anyone planning to describe the just-released AMS survey for January 2016? If not I can write up its results too.  Vaughan Pratt (talk) 06:12, 26 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Newest to oldest was how it was originally ordered before it was split off from the scientific opinion article. I supported it but I was argued against and just gave up. Perhaps they've gone away so good luck with it. Dmcq (talk) 12:04, 26 March 2016 (UTC)


 * I would like to begin to contribute to change the order as you suggested in January 2016 Vaughan Pratt . I could start by placing the last and now most recent reviews at the beginning and I will continue until they are all in reverse chronological order with the oldest reviews at the end of the article. I propose to move it section by section leaving paragraphs in their current order. Any questions, comments, concerns? Dmcq, Jamjam678? Is there any of the other editors who have worked extensively on this page who would want to know? If these moves are inappropriate I will not be uncomfortable with a revert. Oceanflynn (talk) 13:44, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Newest to oldest clearly makes more sense. People who start reading at the top, then lose interest somewhere in between should get the most current ones, not the out-of-dates. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:16, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, go for it, Dmcq. Sorry I dropped the ball there, forgot all about it.  :(  Vaughan Pratt (talk) 06:19, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks Oceanflynn. Yes I do think it looks better. Dmcq (talk) 22:56, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Farnsworth and Lichter, 2011 and STATS, 2007 appear to be the same study?
It appears that the Farnsworth and Lichter 2011 paper is actually just a review of the STATS 2007 study. It seems misleading to list them both as separate items, perhaps they should be combined into one section? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.37.244.76 (talk) 19:24, 22 August 2013 (UTC)


 * As far as i can tell the anon is right. The F&L(2011) is an indepth analysis of the STATS data - to verify (which was a bit tough), one needs to go down and check the collection date of the data that F&L analyses - and it is the same period in time, done by the same bureau and the number of valid respondents closely match as well. Can someone else check? --Kim D. Petersen 23:58, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Verheggen Description
This study is located here: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/ipdf/10.1021/es501998e

The authors approached 6550 people, from a pool they had selected, and sent them a survey (p.8964). 1868 surveys were returned (Id.).

Of those successfully surveyed, "just under half of all respondents" agreed with dominant anthropogenic causation for recent global warming(p.8966).

Apparently not happy with the results of their survey, the authors then selected and chose a subset, and found that 90% of those with "more than 10 self-declared, climate-related, peer-reviewed publications" agreed with the premise. (Id.). There's no indication that this subset was part of the original methodology, which suggests they altered their methodology to achieve specific results.

Regardless of their motives or methods, it seems appropriate to acknowledge that "just under half of all respondents" agreed with the thesis. It's even mentioned in the abstract.

My original proposed edit was:

"They found that 90% of those surveyed with more than 10 peer-reviewed papers related to climate (just under half of survey respondents) agreed that human production of greenhouse gases was the main cause of global warming."

Dmcq has has added, "They found that, consistent with other research, the level of agreement on anthropogenic causation correlated with expertise -"

He's adding a conclusion and synthesis here, that authorship correlates with expertise. I've left in the 90% information and the description. Dmcq's added characterizations are, at best, editor dog-piling with characterizations. Let the reader draw his own conclusions. He doesn't need to be repeatedly spoon-fed characterizations and conclusions.

My proposal for a fairer summary is: "They found that just under half of survey respondents agreed that human production of greenhouse gases was the main cause of global warming. However, 90% of those surveyed with more than 10 peer-reviewed papers related to climate agreed with the premise - correlating agreement with peer-reviewed authorship." John2510 (talk) 17:46, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

John2510 (talk) 22:02, 19 January 2017 (UTC)== What the abstract for the Verheggen et al., 2014 study said ==

Direct quote from the abstract:


 * Consistent with other research, we found that, as the level of expertise in climate science grew, so too did the level of agreement on anthropogenic causation. 90% of respondents with more than 10 climate-related peer-reviewed publications (about half of all respondents), explicitly agreed with anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs) being the dominant driver of recent global warming.

That is one sentence. I will revert back to what I wrote which is


 * They found that, consistent with other research, the level of agreement on anthropogenic causation correlated with expertise - 90% of those surveyed with more than 10 peer-reviewed papers related to climate (just under half of survey respondents) explicitly agreed that human production of greenhouse gases was the main cause of global warming.

I believe that is a fair restatement and that


 * They found that just under half of survey respondents agreed that human production of greenhouse gases was the main cause of global warming. However, 90% of those surveyed with more than 10 peer-reviewed papers related to climate agreed with the premise - correlating agreement with peer-reviewed authorship.

completely misstates it. Dmcq (talk)
 * In what respect does that misstate it? John2510 (talk) 18:56, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I am sorry you are unable to see why it is a misstatement. How about you first of all explain why what I said was "Undid revision 760698089 by Dmcq (talk) Synthesis. It already said how the 90% was derived. You're adding a conclusion. Let the reader draw conclusions" first? Are you saying what I said did not say the same as the authors or is what you said a criticism of how the authors summarized their paper? Dmcq (talk) 20:57, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Reviewing this, your verison is more accurate, more concise and better English. It can be expanded if anyone cares to but it beats either of the other two as a starting point for such expansion. Guy (Help!) 10:44, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. I frankly didn't realize you had pulled that from the abstract. However, it appears to be synthesis on their part rather than yours. How about the following:
 * "They found that just under half of survey respondents agreed that human production of greenhouse gases was the main cause of global warming. However, 90% of those surveyed with more than 10 peer-reviewed papers related to climate agreed. The authors concluded that the level of agreement on anthropogenic causation correlated with expertise, which they found to be consistent with other research."
 * I believe that accurately describes their findings. They chose their sample, and it would be disingenuous to bury the results underneath a contrived, conclusion-driven, subset. John2510 (talk) 22:02, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
 * And I believe you are trying to undermine the strength of the scientific consensus, and obscure the actual point, which is that the more an author knows about the subject, the more likely they are to agree with the consensus. Guy (Help!) 22:28, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
 * The goal of the article, I believe, is to explore the consensus - not to support or undermine a preconceived notion of it. I'm not interested in obscuring or supporting the "point" of these authors, but rather to note for the reader the findings of the study that may be educational to the reader in understanding the study and what it says about consensus. Frankly, I think it's pretty apparent that the authors didn't like the findings, using the sample set they themselves chose, and supplemented it with metrics that they found more palatable. I'm fine with sticking with the findings and letting the reader draw his own conclusions. John2510 (talk) 03:44, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
 * In the survey the lowest level of explicit agreement as opposed to no opinion given or disagreement was 80% which was amongst those writing less three or less papers. There is no way that one can get to less than 50% agreement overall. If you had spent half as much time trying to actually understand what was written instead of trying to push your own thoughts you'd realize that. Dmcq (talk) 23:41, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm not attempting to push my own thoughts, or alter any consensus. The study plainly says that that the respondents to the survey who agreed with athropogenic causation for recent global warming, "... amounts to just under half of all respondents."  http://pubs.acs.org/doi/ipdf/10.1021/es501998e  p.8966. Qualifying further analysis is fine, but it should be in the context of those findings. Rather than attacking my motive or good faith, it would probably be more constructive to focus upon the study, what the responses indicate, and a fair representation of those responses.  John2510 (talk) 03:25, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
 * The half there refers to the proportion of those in the survey with 10 or more papers in the area. There is no indication that those with fewer publications had only a small amount of explicit agreement and as I pointed out and you can check from the paper they also had a high level of explicit agreement but less than those with 10 or more publications. Dmcq (talk) 11:46, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I am beginning to think that John2510 might need to be excluded from this area. Guy (Help!) 11:52, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Saying things like " Frankly, I think it's pretty apparent that the authors didn't like the findings, using the sample set they themselves chose, and supplemented it with metrics that they found more palatable" and then trying to restate what the authors say certainly amounts to WP:OR and pushing their own point of view as far as I'm concerned. I don't believe their contributions constitute reasonable grounds for such a topic ban yet though. Going on and on pushing one's own opinions can eventually lead to that sort of things though. Dmcq (talk) 12:09, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I recognise the username from previous discussions. It has gone on for a while. Meanwhile, back at the source, figure 1 says everything you need to know. Guy (Help!) 12:17, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Wow. My previous involvement led to an agreed change in a chart that blatantly misstated the findings of several articles. I've engaged in good faith editing and discussion here. If you want to seek a topic ban based on that, have at it. It would certainly be an ironic attempt to silence dissent. John2510 (talk) 15:57, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Personally I'd prefer to be accused of bad faith in this sort of situation than any other alternative I can think of. Dmcq (talk) 10:30, 21 January 2017 (UTC)


 * A scientist knows that you need specialist knowledge of a subject to have a reliable opinion on that subject. Therefore, if a survey looks at the opinions of experts on the subject and of other people who are experts on something else, its findings on the experts' opinions are by far the most interesting thing - to a scientist. That differs from the way things are done in politics, where everybody counts the same.
 * You mainly edit articles on American politics. Climate change is the only scientific subject I found you contributed to in a significant way in the last seven years. I guess you see it as a political subject. Well, it isn't. It only has political consequences. And what counts here is the way scientists think. The talk about a topic ban only reflects the problems that arise when you try to force your own implicit cultural assumptions ("one man, one vote") on a totally different culture that has very good reasons for the way they think and have little patience for beginners who don't know they are beginners. See Dunning-Kruger effect. It would be wise to back off. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:23, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

The Bray and von Storch 5th International Survey of Climate Scientists 2015/2016
The newest survey should be added.

I won't write an analysis, but my reading of it is that the consensus among climate scientists is that our climate models are not reliable but they DO overwhelmingly believe in anthropogenic climate change. However, the 97% number that is often bandied about is not backed up by this most recent survey. Approximately 12.656% of climate scientists are ambivalent or do not believe anthropogenic causes for climate change to be significant (see page 11). Is there someone who is more qualified to analyze surveys available to interpret it? KaseetaKen (talk) 23:19, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

"100%"???
In the lead paragraph "A 2019 study found scientific consensus to be at 100%" What on earth would EVER lead anyone in science to find any sort of acceptance that 100% of scientists are in agreement on a hotly contested issue such as climate change. Regardless of the fact that someone actually published this nonsense, it is mind numbingly ignorant to include this within Wikipedia, and actually makes the scientific consensus even more laughable than stating it is at 97%. To state anything is "100%" in science is extremely dangerous, and it is why "100%" is rarely ever put out there with respect to human opinion, it automatically invites skepticism, and rightfully should. There are still scientists that argue the flat earth theories, this isn't to state that they are correct in any way, but it goes to show that, if the earth being round isn't 100% accepted, how can anyone with a straight face say that climate change is??? What such a statement does is goes to show just what lengths certain people will go to, to ensure that dissenting opinions aren't just weakened before presentation, they will be entirely denied without even allowing them to be presented at all.

And this is what you call "science". Kind of the opposite of science really. RTShadow (talk) 21:22, 11 June 2021 (UTC)


 * I cannot find any living scientists in the Modern flat Earth beliefs article Chidgk1 (talk) 17:24, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Merger proposal
It has been proposed to merge this article to Scientific consensus on climate change. The discussion was started here. The discussion could continue below if needed. EMsmile (talk) 11:35, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Merge Yes it seems unlikely there will be loads more surveys. Chidgk1 (talk) 17:18, 29 October 2023 (UTC)