Where did the myth about "98% of all scientists believe in anthropogenic global warming" come from?

Question

I've read believers quoting this over and over but there is nothing that backs up this statement. Is it a situation of "repeat it enough and they will believe"?

The only thing I have ever seen that shows any king of consensus are lists of scientists who don't believe in AGW. But believers just dismiss these as fabrications and debunked because they say so. Or, like other evidence of falsification of data, they say it's myth 19 or something of the sort.

Answer 1

Good answer Pegminer! That invitation only survey that asked nebulous leading questions:



"1. When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?" - 90% ans "Risen"



1800 is about when the Little Ice Age Ended. http://www.co2science.org/articles/V11/N5/C1.php

Not many would think that we are still in the Little Ice Age. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_across_the_Belts



"2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?" - 82% ans "Yes"



Just what is a "contributing factor"? I thought that it meant that ANY contribution counts: including body heat!



Note also that the survey was done online. Skeptics had the choice to:

1) Go along with the push poll. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_poll

2) Quit

3) Answer based on emotion instead of fact.



There should be no surprise that the poll came up with those high numbers, nor any that it got so misused as intended.



The whole idea of pushing a "consensus" on a scientific idea is antithetical to science in the first place. The whole episode demonstrates the religious nature of the science. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_consensus



Does the Royal Society publish positions on the atomic theory? They do on Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW): http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100041509/the-royal-society-too-little-too-late/

Might that be only because the issue really is controversial and political? http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100041708/the-bbc-official-voice-of-ecofascism/



Would it not be wiser to just look at the data yourself? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm



Data Used to Create the Hockey Stick:

Answer 2

Depends what you mean by "the population". I assume you mean people with access to TV, newspapers or other kinds of media, ie in the industrialized West. Most people in the world, which could reality be termed "the population" do not have access. Most of the 7 billion inhabitants of our world use either their own or their animals' muscle power, and locally gathered fuel for domestic reasons, cooking etc. Do you really think that some poor woman in East Africa who is watching her children starve gives one moments thought to climate change? General population of where? And why I wonder would a "climate scientist" , who incidentally cannot tell me when to put my washing out to dry, deny climate change? If he did he'd be out of a job. EDIT: This "Weather is not climate" idea is utterly ridiculous. Climate is just a load of "Weathers" put together. The point I'm making is that the British Met Office have the most powerful computer in the world, and can say without doubt in their heart that the "climate" (ie weather) will be so and so in 100 years time using this computer, but due to their incompetence have given up seasonal (ie 3/4 months) forecasting as they were always getting it wrong, thus becoming an embarrassment nationally and internationally, tet still presume to advise governments to waste taxpayer's money on CO2 reduction schemes, such as wind turbines which actually increase CO2 emissions. Weather is not climate, what pray is climate then, what nonsense. Forecast today for my region? Sun. Actual weather, pouring with rain, what bollox. PS, how many weathers make one climate?

Answer 3

Among the names of people who don't believe in AGW, you will not find one single climate researcher who has published in the past five years. Mostly these lists are old and do no reflect current beliefs given the observed changes and vast research over the past couple of years. More importantly the names on these lists are no climate experts.



Among climate experts, the fact of AGW is beyond consensus -- its is unanimous. There is not one single active published climate researcher who is not convinced of AGW. Those who deny AGW are outside of science with no exceptions.



Folks, we cannot wish the problem away. There is no scientific justification to deny AGW. None.

Answer 4

Deniers have a long history of ignoring real Information, why should this point be any different.

Pegminer answers the question and you will ignore that answer and Ben O's rather lame attempt is laughable, Eos is well known to anyone who has ever been a member of the Agu. It has been around for about 100 years.

Answer 5

It's not 98%, it's 97.4%, and it's not ALL scientists, it's active climate scientists. That was the result of one poll described here



http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf



Virtually any poll of active earth scientists will give a large majority believing in AGW.



EDIT for Ottawa Mike: Eos is a peer-reviewed publication of the American Geophysical Union, which goes out to all the members. I assume that this was peer-reviewed, although I can't say for certain. I'm not sure that AGU even has people well-qualified to review surveys, honestly, but I'm sure it went through some review. It's a poll, the science is what's important.



EDIT: Portland Joe, my answer was dead on and correct. You, on the other hand, are answering a completely different question--whether or not the survey in question accurately reflected the scientific viewpoint. Personally, I think most polls are worthless. I think the sample that the 97.4% number is based on is too small (less than 100) to even give an accuracy to 3 significant digits, but that's the way it's typically given. However, as my answer said, take any poll of earth scientists (preferably not those that only work in the petroleum industry) and you will find a substantial majority believe in AGW. If you really believe that ANY scientist answered yes to the second question because of human "body heat" you are seriously in need of a sense of perspective. The scientists in the survey are almost certainly reasonable people. You're trying to prove that you are not.



Skepticism is fine, denial of reality is not. The poll results are correct for what they are--a small sample of scientists working in the field. Trying to portray them as simply the product of vague questions is desperation.



EDIT for Ben O.: This statement:



"The source of this claim is 'EOS'. If you try googling EOS, it's only noteworthy feature is that it is the source of the 98% claim."



is idiotic. If you don't even know what Eos is then you have no business answering any question in this category. You must know nothing about earth science.



EDIT for Bob: It wasn't a "warmer" that claimed 98%, it was a denier--the person that asked the question. Also, I don't think it is "warmers" that are bad with numbers or facts, when I've seen these numbers quoted the "warmers" would give links to the original survey, so anyone could check it. Even though the number of active climate scientists was a relatively small sample, the total number of respondents was not small, and still over 80% believed in AGW.



As a final note, quoting large quantities of text without citation and without quotation marks is plagiarism.

Answer 6

"Where did the myth about "98% of all scientists believe in anthropogenic global warming" come from?"



I find this question to be funny. If you're not sure where it came from and are asking a question, why would you simultaneously conclude it's a "myth"? Wouldn't you want to read answers first? The thought process of global warming deniers is that of religious fanatics.



Pegminer covers the specific survey. You can also read the position statements of every major scientific organization.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change



Portland Joe is unfortunately confusing opinion found in media and political blogs with qualified scientific opinion.

Answer 7

An invitation to participate in a survey was sent to 10,257 Earth scientists. The database was built from Keane and Martinez [2007], which lists all geosciences faculty at reporting academic institutions, along with researchers at state geologic surveys associated with local universities, and researchers at U.S. federal research facilities (e.g., U.S. Geological Survey, NASA, and NOAA (U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) facilities; U.S. Department

of Energy national laboratories; and so forth).

They asked 2 questions:

1. When compared with pre-1800s levels,do you think that mean global temperatures

have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?

2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing

mean global temperatures?

3146 individuals completing the survey, the participant response rate for the

survey was 30.7%. This is a typical response rate for Web-based surveys

Of the survey participants, 90% were from U.S. institutions and 6% were from Canadian institutions;

the remaining 4% were from institutions in 21 other nations. More than 90%

of participants had Ph.D.s, and 7% had master’s degrees. With survey participants asked to select a single category, the most common areas of expertise reported were geochemistry (15.5%), geophysics (12%),and oceanography (10.5%). General geology, hydrology/hydrogeology, and paleontology each accounted for 5–7% of the total respondents. Approximately 5% of the respondents were climate scientists, and 8.5% of the respondents indicated that more than 50% of their peer-reviewed publications in the past 5 years have been on the subject of climate change.

Results show that overall, 90% of participants answered “risen” to question 1

and 82% answered yes to question 2. In general, as the level of active research

and specialization in climate science increases, so does agreement with the two

primary questions. In our survey, the most specialized and knowledgeable

respondents (with regard to climate change) are those who listed climate science

as their area of expertise and who also have published more than 50% of

their recent peer-reviewed papers on the subject of climate change (79 individuals

in total). Of these specialists, 96.2% (76 of 79) answered “risen” to question 1

and 97.4% (75 of 77) answered yes to question 2.

The two areas of expertise in the survey with the smallest percentage of participants

answering yes to question 2 were economic geology with 47% (48 of 103)

and meteorology with 64% (23 of 36).



So basically they surveyed 10,257 and out of that 76 of 79 climate scientist said yes.

So you really have to cherry pick a survey that is stacked to start with to come up with 98%. Even that is a lie because real math makes it 97.4% and with normal rounding that would have been 97%. So the warmers even have to lie about the results of a cherry picked survey. No wonder no one trust anything warmers say.

Answer 8

It comes from people with strong belief in AGW. What's interesting is that these people also say the polls can show anything you want when a poll of the public comes out that their interest in global warming is sharply declining.



Pegminer though has the main link (i.e. the one that believers drool over): http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf I'm not sure if that's peer-reviewed or scientific or whatever, it's just a poll. However, look at the main question: "2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?"



What does "significant" mean in that question? Or "contributing factor"? Depending on what that means, I might answer yes to that question.



All in all, it appears that a "consensus" is strongly desired end result for believers, you know the ones that always pound the pulpit about "science, science, science....".

Answer 9

Way too much right wing radio, bro. There's no 'belief' involved. The data speaks for itself. Either you accept the millions of bits of data gathered and published in peer reviewed journals over the last many decades... data scientifically collected by thousands of scientists from hundreds of countries or... you never read the data, you didn't understand the data or had some political agenda not really related to science. The science is dead on and the laws of heat and atmospheric physics have never been refuted. No 'belief' needed or wanted.

Answer 10

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Same thing regarding Al Gore's bogus liberal claim that Man walked on the Moon. The consensus among scientists is that Man did NOT walk on the Moon, but CBS hired a member of the Black Panthers named Walter Cronkite to claim otherwise. CBS sure was not Fair and Balanced!

Answer 11

It's a claim that cannot be backed up by any objective means. No article published in any reputable journal makes this claim.



The source of this claim is 'EOS'. If you try googling EOS, it's only noteworthy feature is that it is the source of the 98% claim.

Answer 12

A poll of credible scientists?

Answer 13

Yes it's a myth. A truer statement would have been

''100% of scientists paid to study climate change agree it's a big problem which needs more study''

Answer 14

Score:

pegminer 1

you 0