Disturbing review of the Cook et al. (2013) 97% paper

[LouisvilleDem]

12. Thank you

I appreciate the fact that you took the time to read the material from the link.

I would disagree with your assessment that the paper on cooking stoves was properly categorized as being about climate change. Personally I think the paper on cooking stoves is best viewed as a paper on cooking stoves, not climate change. However, I can understand why you may feel differently. The most compelling criticisms that Duarte makes of the paper however, do not concern whether or not certain papers that were included in the study should have been or not.

Two people can obviously disagree about whether or not a paper on cooking stoves should be included, especially given that the selection criteria does not explicitly define what is meant by a paper being 'about' climate change. However, what is impossible to dispute is that the methodology explicitly defined by the Cook paper was not followed. Specifically:

1) The methodology says that papers were selected that contained the phrases "global warming" and "global climate change". However, a paper by skeptic Roy Spencer entitled "How serious is the global warming threat?" was excluded from the ratings. Also excluded from the survey were every single paper written after 1997 by Richard Lindzen.

2) The methodology says that papers on "Social science, education, research about people's views on climate in the papers" would be excluded as 'Not Climate Related'. They were not, and Duate lists several examples.

3) The methodology says that "Each abstract was categorized by two independent, anonymized raters." They were not, as the discovery of a forum used by the raters contains numerous posts showing how they discussed papers amongst themselves, performed google searches to determine the names of the authors, and made plans on how they would market the results of the paper, even before those results were known.

I understand that you don't have sufficient time to review all of the criticisms made by Duarte. I certainly don't have time to review everything either, which is why I didn't respond to your post for several days. However, I think it is unfair to dismiss the entire piece after looking at only one paper Duarte believed was improperly included. He lists a total of 19 papers that he believes were included improperly, and notes that none of the 50 papers Lindzen wrote after 1997 were included.

You asked me why I didn't do as much checking as you did before posting. Since you only looked at one paper of the 25 mentioned, I would ask you the same. Moreover, when one considers that improper inclusions was only one of numerous other criticisms Duarte made, it certainly looks as if you didn't read more than the first four paragraphs of a piece that is dozens of paragraphs long. Given this, I'd say that it is clear that I have spent quite a bit more time researching the piece than you.

If you really want to convince me though, perhaps you could explain how a paper by one of the world's best known skeptical climate scientists (Richard Lindzen) entitled "Do deep ocean temperature records verify models?" gets excluded while a paper entitled "Space technologies for the building sector" by a German aerospace engineer gets included. Take your time, because I know you are busy.

Thanks again for taking the time to read the material at the link.