Saturday, May 04, 2013

When Eli Was a Little Bunny


When Eli was a little bunny and taking Psych I, the most annoying thing was that the lecturer demanded that the students be subjects for the department's research.  Eli is going to get even.

John Cook has set up a survey of peer reviewed climate research.  He and his cheerful helpers have built a database of 12,000 papers published between 1991 and 2011 matching the topic "global warming" or "global climate change" from the Web of Science.  He (well, Eli) is looking for volunteers (Eli asked John to take attendance so that he may send gifts, Cracker Jack quality, but John swore that it was all confidential) to look at 10 randomly abstracts and rank them.

The URL is

http://survey.gci.uq.edu.au/survey.php?c=II7WP4R4VRU7

The choices are
  1. Explicit Endorsement with Quantification: abstract explicitly states that humans are causing more than half of global warming.
  2. Explicit Endorsement without Quantification: abstract explicitly states humans are causing global warming or refers to anthropogenic global warming/climate change as a given fact.
  3. Implicit Endorsement: abstract implies humans are causing global warming. E.g., research assumes greenhouse gases cause warming without explicitly stating humans are the cause.
  4. Neutral: abstract doesn't address or mention issue of what's causing global warming.
  5. Implicit Rejection: abstract implies humans have had a minimal impact on global warming without saying so explicitly. E.g., proposing a natural mechanism is the main cause of global warming.
  6. Explicit Rejection without Quantification: abstract explicitly minimizes or rejects that humans are causing global warming.
  7. Explicit Rejection with Quantification: abstract explicitly states that humans are causing less than half of global warming.
Participants may get bored, need some popcorn, hear an invitation to dance or whatever and discontinue the survey at any point and results are only recorded if the survey is completed. It's all confidential.   The usual human subjects stuff 
The analysis is being conducted by the University of Queensland in collaboration with contributing authors of the website Skeptical Science. The research project is headed by John Cook, research fellow in climate communication for the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland.

This study adheres to the Guidelines of the ethical review process of The University of Queensland. Whilst you are free to discuss your participation in this study with project staff (contactable on +61 7 3365 3553 or j.cook3@uq.edu.au), if you would like to speak to an officer of the University not involved in the study, you may contact the Ethics Officer on +61 7 3365 3924.

If you have any questions about the survey or encounter any technical problems, you can contact me at j.cook3@uq.edu.au
Of course, if you want giggles, where else than Willard Tony's, where, after reading that Stephan Lewandowsky was moving from the U of Western Australia to Bristol to take up theChair in Cognitive Psychology in the School of Experimental Psychology, Tony concluded that he was fleeing the prolix McIntyre's voluminous whines only to be told by Richard Tol, that the Chair is a prestigious appointment with a ton of gongs.  However, after Richard killed the triumph Godwinning assumed new heights with, of all bunnies, Richard Courtney admitting the obvious
Jim South London:
re your post at April 29, 2013 at 2:32 am .
Yes, the ultra-right does oppose AGW because that opposition fits their agenda.
Indeed, if you review the files of WUWT you can find more examples of it in their posts which e.g. claim H1tler was “left wing”!
 while trying to save the bathwater
But
those nutters are not relevant to the real debate about AGW except that – as you say – those nutters enable people such as Lewandowsky to assert ‘guilt by association’ upon all climate realists.


Whatever:)

8 comments:

bill said...

I understand Willard Tony only provided a link to the SkS page for the survey, perhaps reducing the chances for it yielding any results more in the way of Prof Lewandowsky's line?

I would imagine that the survey might lead to an agony of indecision in such circles, as the poor - ahem - 'skeptic' subject nervously tries to spot the trap! Flies on walls or laptops etc. ...

It's going to be tough to argue 'all interpretations are equal' against the authors' own positions - that's the really clever bit.

And, yeah, that post about Lewandowsky's move to Bristol was both graceless and undignified.

Rich Puchalsky said...

I don't understand -- do they want more or less experts only (i.e. students in relevant fields) or just anyone to take the survey?

EliRabett said...

Anyone who reads Rabett Run is an expert and can sign the OISM petition or help with the survey. Since John opened this to all, Eli assumes he means it.

badger badger badger said...

Is there going to be some duplication to prevent well poisoning?

Anonymous said...

Another famous Lewandowski (this one called Robert, from Poland) scored 4 goals for Borussia Dortmund in their European Champions League semi-final against Real Madrid.

It is our Lewandowski 4 Deniers 0 as well?

Toby

EliRabett said...

Yeah, but he missed a penalty against Bayern last week

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZfHNzPTiL4

THE CLIMATE WARS said...

Speaking of little rabbits of small brain, her is the header of Heartland Institute Senior Advisor Norman Rogers, author of an article just out in the microcephalic American Thinker entiled :

" Is Roy Spencer the world's most important scientist ?

THE CLIMATE WARS said...

And herewith the header that disappeared from the above

"Norman Rogers
Author, Founder of Rabbitt Semiconductor

Norman Rogers is a senior policy advisor to The Heartland Institute, speaking and sometimes writing on the topic of global warming."