[geeks] Global Warming causes...

[Shannon Hendrix]

On Dec 2, 2007, at 12:45 AM, wa2egp at att.net wrote:

>>> Well, do what Al Gore said/did.  Look at articles published in  
>>> scientific
>>> journals and see how many are about global warming happening and  
>>> how many
>>> are not.  That might be a decent indication of a consensus.
>>
>> That would be the seldom-taught "Statistical/Scientific method", as  
>> opposed to
>> the previously-taught "scientific method" - right?
>
> It's a heck of a lot better than someone making a blanket statement  
> citing no
> evidence.

Not really.

Both would be inaccurate.

> I'm not even sure that too many people know that the "scientific
> method" is.  It's not that list of steps that most people are taught  
> in school.
> It's more.  There is a lot of feedback from other scientists in the  
> process.

That's one of the steps you are taught unless your school sucked.

> The claim that Gore was addressing was there was no consensus, so he  
> compared
> peer-reviewed articles and popular media articles during the same  
> time period.
> Maybe he picked his time period, I don't know, but there were no  
> peer-reviewed
> articles saying there was no global warming

Yes, there were and their still are.

Also, that doesn't address the idea of what is causing it if it is  
happening.  The correct answer is that we do not know.

Ice ages have been preceeded by global warming, and long hot periods  
have been preceeded by cold.

We know very little about either.

> but the popular media had, IIRC,
> about one third of the articles saying that there was none or it  
> wasn't from
> human activity.

...and now it says the opposite, and it is no more accurate now than  
it was then.

> Why were there no articles in scientific journals?

There were, there are, and their likely will be for some time.

Also, don't be too gung ho on peer review.

In the early 1900s peer reviewed articles said it was impossible to  
break the sound barrier, and they provided very good models and  
theories on why.





-- 
Shannon Hendrix
shannon at widomaker.com