97% of Climate Science Papers Agree Global Warming Is Man-made
An anonymous reader writes "A meta-study published yesterday looked at over 12,000 peer-reviewed papers on climate science that appeared in journals between 1991 and 2011. The papers were evaluated and categorized by how they implicitly or explicitly endorsed humans as a contributing cause of global warming. The meta-study found that an overwhelming 97.1% of the papers that took a stance endorsed human-cause global warming. They also asked the 1,200 of the scientists involved in the research to self-evaluate their own studies, with nearly identical results. In the interest of transparency, the meta-study results were published in an open access journal, and the researchers set up a website so that anybody can check their results. From the article: '... a memo from communications strategist Frank Luntz leaked in 2002 advised Republicans, "Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate." This campaign has been successful. A 2012 poll from U.S. Pew Research Center found less than half of Americans thought scientists agreed humans were causing global warming. The media has assisted in this public misconception, with most climate stories "balanced" with a "skeptic" perspective. However, this results in making the 2–3% seem like 50%. In trying to achieve "balance," the media has actually created a very unbalanced perception of reality. As a result, people believe scientists are still split about what's causing global warming, and therefore there is not nearly enough public support or motivation to solve the problem.'"
*Hiding* in semantics? Contradiction of your understanding of something by means of explicit definition and clarification is *hiding*?
97% of all published science bolsters a specific theory. How exactly are you missing the fact that this makes it the best and strongest proof?
From the very fact that it doesn't. It just means that 97% of papers are making the same assumption, and 3% are not.
It's either:
1. It's settled
2. There's an overwhelming majority wanting it to be settled a certain way and only publishing papers making that assumption.
#1 is only done through absolute proof that the assumption (that it is man-made) is accurate; otherwise it's #2. And there is by no means absolute proof that the assumption is accurate.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)