Talk:Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature

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Contested deletion[edit]

This page should not be speedy deleted as an unambiguous copyright infringement, because I intend to immediately rectify the infringed material--Raidiohead55 (talk) 20:36, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

RE: Contested Deletion[edit]

All offending material has now been removed and/or amended. My apologies - I copied too much from the original source. Raidiohead55 (talk) 20:46, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This article is still rubbish. Why hasn't it been deleted yet? --Hg6996 (talk) 20:09, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Neutrality in question[edit]

This article is not much more than a collection of criticism. It also just refers to one study from John Cook and not to the scientific literature. It doesn't fulfill neither the neutral view nor the minimum standard of quality. This is pure rubbis and cannot stay like that. --Hg6996 (talk) 15:20, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, this is a painful article in terms of neutrality.. The paper has typically been positively received and subsequent papers have argued it may underestimate the consensus. I wonder whether it's notable. FemkeMilene (talk) 16:05, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
calling GW a hypothesis is a major pseudoscience flag. FemkeMilene (talk) 16:06, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. I propose to delete it. The content of the article has nothing to do with it's title. And the content itself is not worth to be kept citing well known individuals from the climate change denialists community. How could this have stayed here for so long?

--Hg6996 (talk) 19:39, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, the title was changed by someone else, post-publication. The title of this article refers to the John Cook study, because it is the same as Cook’s paper - that is why this article doesn’t cover the wider scientific literature. In regards to neutrality, I propose it would be more conducive for you to amend the page, instead of whining on my personal talk page. However, during my research, I was merely presented with a multitude of criticisms of the study, hence why I have included them. Raidiohead55 (talk) 21:06, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

So you are saying that you wrote a article about an extremely influencial and highly regarded paper almost solely based on biased criticism and without covering the scientific opinion on it? That alone would be sufficient for a deletion, which I also support. Just mentioning the sparse criticism and leaving out the by far dominating praise is a red flag and is against everything the Wikipedia stands for. Amending the article wouldn't solve the huge bias, just deletion does, as I don't see how someone can fix an article that has been completely biased from the beginning. Really, if all you found was just criticism, where have you been searching? Since publication, the study has been a constant target from the organized climate change denial machine, and tons of rebukes in the media and the scientific literature. I really don't see how you could have possibly missed all the praise and all the rectifications of the denial talking points. In short, your article is nearly the opposite of the established scientific opinion on that study, and that is a massive problem. Amending would solve that, it would - at best - lead to a balance-as-bias-article, which presents two equal two equal sides. However, as multiple researcher have been demonstrated that would still be a massively biased article, because a description which gives equal time or equal space to two very disproportionate sides (here: much praise, few criticism) is still favoring the outlier while diminishing the established scientific opinion. False balance is not neutrality, its rather the opposite of neutrality. Andol (talk) 22:30, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I just checked some sources and now I am shocked. The main source for this piece was "Popular Technology", a climate denial blog. Then there was climate denialist Nicola Scafetta, who is affiliated with a bunch of climate denial organizations. And lastly, James Taylor of the infamous denial organization Heartland Institute. Are you kidding us? You're talking about neutrality, but you based almost your whole article on climate denial activists and their anti-scientific propaganda. I deleted those paragraphs, because they are against every good practice in Wikipedia (or reality), but that's still unfathomable. And even when you cited (social) scientists, your leaving out that their criticism has been rebuked or at least been strongly criticised. That just cannot happen. It's not plausible. That article was meant to transport climate denial talking points, and just climate denial talking points. And that must not be. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a propaganda website. Andol (talk) 23:00, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Fully agree. The article doesn't cover what the title suggests, it cites poor sources, consists only of criticism and targets basically only one paper from one individual which is John Cook. The highly ranked paper itself was cited by multible honorable individuals, among them former US president Obama and the AAAS. I don't see an alternative to deletion. And it is quiet shocking for me that something like this achieved to stay here that long. --Hg6996 (talk) 04:15, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have started by providing supporting research, I genuinely cannot find the praise you say there is surrounding this paper so feel free to add it yourself. Raidiohead55 (talk) 09:56, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In regards to ‘rebukes’ surrounding other scientists I have cited (only one being a social scientist) I was unable to find any of these. Please, if you are aware of these rebuttals, link them here as I will include them. In relation to websites such as ‘Popular Technology’ I was not aware of their reputation, and fully support the deletion of this website from the article. Raidiohead55 (talk) 11:35, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Before Cook, there were already quiet af few publications which came to the conclusion that the consensus exists even before Cook published his work. Here some examples:
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/306/5702/1686.full
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2009EO030002
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.abstract
And there is the Statement of the AAAS, which is the publicer of the scientific journal science:
https://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/s3fs-public/aaas_climate_statement1.pdf
Here:
https://whatweknow.aaas.org/about-the-initiative/
They find exactly the same 97% as Cook does. How can the heaviest body in science be so wrong as described in this article here?
Beyond that the content of Scientific consensus on climate change is not leaving any doubt that there is a consensus. Therefore it makes no sense to cite only contrarians here giving the impression that there is not conensus. But I fear I don't have time to rectify this article. On the other hand it cannot stay like this. --Hg6996 (talk) 15:17, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I also just added the award granted by the editors of ERL. --Hg6996 (talk) 18:55, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent, despite our bumpy start, this article is coming along nicely. Thanks everyone! Raidiohead55 (talk) 19:08, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for keeping this mostly focused on content. Not always a given considering the contentiousness. Next time, feel free to come to WP:WikiProject Climate change for expertise in dealing with these types of sources, which can be tricky. FemkeMilene (talk) 19:11, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I actually never planned to invest so much time on this article. But as the authors of the paper almost fell off the chair when they read the previous version in wikipedia, I felt obliged to put it in the right light. --Hg6996 (talk) 19:31, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Methodology section is lacking an important mention of the „internal replication“ done to verify the abstract ratings. This was done by collecting email-addresses of as many authors that could be identified and by asking them to rate their full paper(s). This 2nd part of the paper found a consensus of 97.2% - so two different methods lead to basically the same result. You can find more details on Skeptical Science here https://skepticalscience.com/tcp.php?t=faq#check (or directly in the paper obviously). Full disclosure: I‘m a co-author of Cook et al. 2013 - so I won‘t edit the page itself, but would still like to provide hopefully helpful pointers on this talks page. BaerbelW (talk) 19:47, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ideally, we use independent sources, which I don't think Skeptical Science qualifies as. I do agree that if this article is kept at its deletion discussion, that should be clarified. This part of the methodology is mentioned on Surveys of scientists' views on climate change. FemkeMilene (talk) 19:53, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Right now, the Methodology section only mentions one half of what we did and described in the paper. I just think that both parts should be mentioned, even if briefly. This could be taken directly from the paper the article is about, couldn‘t it? The paper is open access and comes with a CC BY 3.0 Attribution license, so snippets from it can be copied over without infringing copyright (I think)? As an aside: for more information and a fair description of the paper, Logic of Science‘s article „Yes, there‘s a strong consensus on global warming“ at https://thelogicofscience.com/2015/09/08/yes-there-is-a-strong-consensus-on-climate-change/ is a good read (not as an official reference as it‘s „just a blog post“ but as a good backgrounder). —BaerbelW (talk) 20:15, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Copied it over from the main article. FemkeMilene (talk) 20:24, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No longer a case for deletion[edit]

Suggesting that this article should be deleted is now absurd. The only cited sources are reputable academics and peer reviewed literature in regards to criticisms of the study.

The article now features supporting research and praise of the study (viz. President Obama’s endorsement). Raidiohead55 (talk) 13:06, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You're allowed to remove the tag, as the WP:proposed deletion is for uncontroversial deletions. The WP:AfD process allows for more elaborate discussions. I'm not yet convinced this should be a separate article, and there is more work needed to make it neutral. FemkeMilene (talk) 14:52, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Suggested alternative for reference 11[edit]

Currently, the sentence "Furthermore Sceptical Science dedicated a website to the criticism and its rebuttal." references the advanced version of one specific rebuttal published on Skeptical Science as reference #11. This isn't really a "website" (just one page of it) and it also wasn't created as a reaction to the criticism but has been around since the paper was published in May 2013 (see archive page). Instead of linking to this specific rebuttal, how about linking to the actual page created for the paper when it was published? It comes with various tabs (Home, My Ratings, Rate Abstracts, FAQ, Visualization and Search) to dig deeper. Oh, and "Skeptical Science" is spelled with a "k" instead of a "c". --BaerbelW (talk) 13:10, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The deletion discussion about this page seems to be in agreement that this article is better merged into Surveys of scientists' views on climate change, where this type of detail is probably unwarranted.
Sorry, hadn't seen the updates on that particular page (these "side-discussions" are difficult to keep on the radar for a Wikipedia-newbie like me!). But I agree, that a stand-alone page about our paper isn't really needed given the other places where it's already mentioned and referenced. --BaerbelW (talk) 07:43, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
On a side note, I wish that the Skeptical science website was slightly more professional. For something to be considered a reliable source, we typically want evidence of editorial oversight, which I can't find on SS. I'm now classifying it as a blog.. FemkeMilene (talk) 16:15, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the feedback. I'd like to discuss this further, esp. as I'd also like to suggest some updates to the page about Skeptical Science - where would be a good place for that? --BaerbelW (talk) 07:43, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
To discuss updates on the Skeptical Science article, you can post on its talk page. I've watchlisted it, so if time allows I may be able to follow up. For discussions about using SkS as a source there are multiple venues, but a friendly one is my talk page or yours. FemkeMilene (talk) 15:59, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Merger[edit]

I've done quite a drastical merger, not perserving any of the information as most of it was already in the target. I think the criticism is undue for the target article. Furthermore, it was most likely a copyright violation, as the entirety of the source was quoted in the first instance. Tol has quite the minority position, so I don't really think his view has due weight in the target article. FemkeMilene (talk) 16:14, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! I think that was the right thing to do and support the explanation. Andol (talk) 14:50, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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