Okay, just one more post on polar-bear-gate… I promise…
Well, here’s how I spent a day with the flu:
Watts Up With That (WUWT) is one of the blogs cited as a ‘denier’ blog by Harvey et al.(Harvey et al 2017 asserts that contrarian weblogs predominantly cite Dr. Susan Crockford’s work when discussing polar bears. Crockford is not skeptical about global warming, but is decidedly skeptical of alarmed claims that polar bears are endangered due to loss of ice in the Arctic.)
Watts Up With That bills itself as the most widely viewed climate weblog and with roughly 338 million page views to date, I doubt if their claim can be disputed.
Up to September 15 2017 (the search date of Harvey et al), there were 85 posts with polar bear in the title. Examination shows that 83 of them were actually relevant to the search.
Of those 83 blog posts, 19 were either guest posts by or interviews of Dr. Susan Crockford, the target of Harvey et al 2017.
A gross count of citations of Crockford was not attempted–she self-cited repeatedly during her guest posts, much in the way Joe Romm does at Climate Progress, a typical citation being ‘for the rest of my article see here.’
However, on blog posts not authored by or featuring Dr. Crockford, a wide variety of sources were cited.
Included in those sources are repeated links to scientific papers by co-authors of Harvey et al: Armstrup papers were cited 6 times, for example, while Stirling papers were cited three times.
In total, I found 93 external citations to non-Crockford sources on WUWT for qualifying blog posts, from journals ranging from Science and Nature to peerJ.com.
The most frequent non-journal source cited was the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which was linked to 7 times. The second most frequent were the NSIDC and the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
It would have been possible to find many more external sources, but for two factors.
The first is the large number of dead links, which I chose not to include in my list. The second was the number of posts by Jim Steele, a skeptical scientist. He placed non-linked references to many academic publications at the bottom of his posts, and I chose not to include them as they were not clickable.
I submit that if Watts Up With That is representative of the universe of skeptical blogs Harvey et al covered that the results the report seems skewed.
I submit a naive reader wishing to explore both sides of the controversy about polar bears could do a lot worse than following the links presented in WUWT. Can you say the same for the non-contrarian blogs you investigated?
Here are external sources found discussing polar bears at Watts Up With That
At UNO, scientist Michael Mann calls for fast action on climate change
Polar Bears’ Path to Decline Runs Through Alaskan Village
http://nsidc.org/news/newsroom/2007_seaiceminimum/20071001_pressrelease.html
Biological response to climate change in the Arctic Ocean: the view from the past, Cronin and Cronin
IUCN / SSC Polar Bear Specialist Group
IUCN Red Book Assessment
Think Progress: The 5 Year Plan to Save the Polar Bears
US Fish and Wildlife Service, A Conservation Management Plan, Polar Bear Recovery Team
The Silver Ink, Polar Bears Might Go Extinct by 2025
US Fish and Wildlife Service, Fish and Wildlife Service Announce First Conservation Management Plan for Polar Bear
US Fish and Wildlif Service, Polar Bear Draft Conservation Plan
USGS Changing Arctic EcoSystems, Reducing CO2 Emissions Required to Improve Polar Bear Outlook
US Fish and Wildlife Service, Polar Bears: An Improved Framework for Harvest Management
IUCN SSC PBSG, Global Polar Bear Population Estimates
Norwegian Polar Institute: Polar Bears in Svalbard in Good Condition–So Far
IUCN SSC PBSG, Barents Sea
The Energetic Value of Land-Based Foods in Western Hudson Bay and Their Potential to Alleviate Energy Deficits of Starving Adult Male Polar Bears, PLOS One, Gormezzano and Rockwell
Can polar bears use terrestrial foods to offset loar ice-based hunting opportunities? Rode, et al, Frontiers in Ecology
Arctic marine mammal population status, sea ice habitat loss, and conservation recommendations for the 21st century, Laidre et al, Conservation Biology
http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2015/02/oregon_zoo_expert_polar_bears.html
IUCN SSC PBSG, Population Status Reviews
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141107-will-polar-bears-become-extinct
Government of Canada, Maps of sub-populations of polar bears and protected areas
First global review on the status, future of Arctic Marine Mammals, Dickey, Phys.Org
Polar bear population dynamics in the southern Beaufort Sea during a period of sea ice decline, Stirling, Armstrup et al, Ecological Applications
Fifth Annual Assessment Report, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
NBC: Polar Bears Like Passengers on the Titanic Because of Global Warming
Migration phenology and seasonal fidelity of an Arctic marine predator in relation to sea ice dynamics, Cherry et al, Journal of Animal Ecology
A Pliocene-Pleistocene stack of 57 globally distributed benthic δ18O records, Lisiecki and Ramo, Paleoceanography
Polar and brown bear genomes reveal ancient admixture and demographic footprints of past climate change, Miller et al, PNAS
Injecting Sulfate Particles Into Stratosphere Won’t Full Offset Climate Change, University of Washington, Journal of Climate
Polar Bears, Martha Stewart and Me, Gavin Schmidt, GISS/NASA
New insights on Arctic Quaternary climate variability from palaeo-records and numerical modelling, Jakobsson et al, Quaternary Science Reviews
Ice Free Arctic Ocean, an Early Holocene Analogue, Funder & Kjaer, American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, 2007
Consequences of long-distance swimming and travel over deep-water pack ice for a female polar bear during a year of extreme sea ice retreat, Armstrup, Durner et al, Polar Biology
Polar bear cubs may reduce chilling from icy water by sitting on mother’s back, Aars & Plumb, Polar Biology
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1545036/Polar-bears-thriving-as-the-Arctic-warms-up.html
Polar bear Ursus maritimus hearing measured with auditory evoked potentials, Nachtigall et al, Journal of Experimental Biology
Pacific Northwest Research Station, Polar Bears No Longer On Thin Ice
Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Can Reduce Sea-ice Loss and Increase Polar Bear Persistence, Armstrup et al, Nature
Polar Bears Survived The Ice Free Arctic, Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska
Beyond Polar Bears? Re-envisioning climate change, Manzo, Meteorological Applications
Ecological dynamics across the Arctic associated with recent climate change, Post et al, Science
https://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0503/p13s01-wogi.html?page=1
Federal Polar Bear Research Critically Flawed, Forecasting Expert Asserts, Science Daily
Polar bear attacks on humans: Implications of a changing climate, Wilder et al, Wildlife Society Bulletin
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-ship-gives-up-after-6-day-battle-with-ice-passengers-fly-home-1.4077691
http://www.thewesternstar.com/news/local/ice-conditions-in-strait-of-belle-isle-may-send-icebergs-down-western-newfoundland-coast-67408/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/ice-compensation-fisherman-twillingate-1.4076069
https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/n-l-seeks-ei-extensions-due-to-pack-ice-1.667701
Demographic, ecological and physiological responses of ringed seals to an abrupt decline in sea ice availability, Ferguson et al, PeerJ.com
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2016/05/23/love-in-the-time-of-climate-change-grizzlies-and-polar-bears-are-now-mating/?utm_term=.a7bc0520ca3e
http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/stories/article/65674exotic_bear_harvested_in_nunavut_was_a_blonde_grizzly/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/grizzly-polar-bear-hybrid-arviat-nunavut-1.3586738
The Hybrid Origin of “Modern” Humans, Ackerman et al, Evolutionary Biology
IUCN Red List, Supplementary material for ursus maritimus
https://www.canadiangeographic.ca/article/truth-about-polar-bears
IIUCN SSC PBSG, Western Hudson Bay
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/160223-polar-bears-arctic-cannibals-animals-science/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1318173/Lucy-ODonnell-photos-polar-bear-jumping-drifting-Arctic-ice.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34123834
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/polar-bears-threatened-species-or-political-pawn-1.2753645
https://arcticportal.org/library/news/1566-circumpolar-action-plan-now-available
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/full.html
Polar Bears and Seals in the Eastern Beaufort Sea and Amundsen Gulf:
A Synthesis of Population Trends and Ecological Relationships over Three Decades, Sterling, Arctic
Ringed Seals and Sea Ice in Canada’s Western Arctic: Harvest-Based Monitoring 1992-2011, Harwood et al, Arctic
Temporal variations in Hudson Bay ringed seal (Phoca hispida) life-history parameters in relation to environment, Stirling, Chambellant et al, Journal of Mammalogy
Variation in the response of an Arctic top predator experiencing habitat loss: feeding and reproductive ecology of two polar bear populations, Rode et al, Global Change Biology
Increased Land Use by Chukchi Sea Polar Bears in Relation to Changing Sea Ice Conditions, Rode et al, PLOS One
Estimating the Energetic Contribution of Polar Bear (Ursus maritimus) Summer Diets to the Total Energy Budget,Dyck & Kebreab
Holocene fluctuations in Arctic sea-ice cover: dinocyst-based reconstructions for the eastern Chukchi Sea, McKay et al, Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences
Natural variability of Arctic sea ice over the Holocene, Fisher et al
Long-term Trends in the Population Ecology of Polar Bears in Western Hudson Bay in Relation to Climate Change, Sterling et al, Arctic
Revisiting Western Hudson Bay: Using aerial surveys to update polar bear abundance in a sentinel population, Stapleton et al, Biological Conservation
IIUCN SSC PBSG, Summary of polar bear status 2017
Survival and breeding of polar bears in the southern Beaufort Sea in relation to sea ice, Sterling, Armstrup et al, Journal of Animal Ecology
Polar Bears and Seals in the Eastern Beaufort Sea and Amundsen Gulf: A Synthesis of Population Trends and Ecological Relationships over Three Decades, Stirling, Armstrup et al, Arctic
Unusual Predation Attempts of Polar Bears on Ringed Seals in the Southern Beaufort Sea: Possible Significance of Changing Spring Ice Conditions
Polar bear population dynamics in the southern Beaufort Sea duringa period of sea ice decline, Armstrup et al, Ecological Society of America
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/scientist-settles-legal-case-over-study-polar-bear-drownings-2D11691760
https://www.npr.org/2013/02/02/170779528/the-inconvenient-truth-about-polar-bears?ft=1&f=1025
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/healthy-polar-bear-count-confounds-doomsayers/article2392523/
https://www.npr.org/2011/08/10/139276565/polar-bear-scientist-faces-new-questions
Potential effects of diminished sea ice on open-water swimming, mortality, and distribution of polar bears during fall in the Alaskan Beaufort Sea, Monnett et al, 16th Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8700000/8700472.stm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5664069/Polar-bear-expert-barred-by-global-warmists.html
Climate Scepticism 
Tom, you are well on your way to becoming a polar bear scholar. You just need to speculate a little and you’ll be a expert, according to the Kendall rule.
The thing with your list of refs is that it means nothing unless you check that each paper says what the author referencing it claims. As I pointed out with Crockford’s paper, she makes a false claim about a paper she refers to. When she then won’t admit the error, despite several opportunities, you force me to drop the issue with your editor’s scissors, rather than look for yourself. So I don’t believe those refs you list are true and you have form in not caring about false refs.
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Go ahead, Len. Point out the mistakes. The references are on this page.
But don’t you think that was actually the responsibility of Harvey 2017? Instead of saying that Watts Up With That only cited Crockford?
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Len Martinez says: “The thing with your list of refs is that it means nothing unless you check that each paper says what the author referencing it claims”
Whereupon you also must check so as to know whether Tom is accurately reporting on all those papers.
Then I will check to see whether you have accurately judged Tom’s judgement of Harvey’s judgment of those papers.
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But remember that the thesis advanced by Harvey et al 17 is not that WUWT used references incorrectly. They state that WUWT overwhelmingly links to Crockford and ignores what they somewhat laughingly consider the approved canon of polar bear research.
Pretty sure my list proves them wrong, regardless of how they are utilized on WUWT. FWIW, I didn’t see any signs that they were using them wrong, but that’s not the issue at hand.
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If Trump cannot trust NASA employees to report accurately about Polar Bears on this planet, he may mistrust their maths on other subjects and planets.
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And somehow the information in those 83 posts was turned into a short sequence of zeros and ones.
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Tom.
“the thesis advanced by Harvey et al 17 is not that WUWT used references incorrectly. They state that WUWT overwhelmingly links to Crockford and ignores what they somewhat laughingly consider the approved canon of polar bear research.”
But what Harvey et al. ignores is that Susan Crockford meticulously quotes from the “approved canon of polar bear research” and exhorts her readers to read it (making an offer to provide copies of papers difficult to obtain). She provides an entree into that canon- an entree obviously used by many and probably to the fury of polar bear “experts”.
As far as I have read (first two years of her posts), Susan steers clear well clear of any attribution of increasing summer ice melting, and acknowledges and documents this phenomenon, although you would hardly know this from reading Harvey et al. The main dispute between her and the mainstream of polar bearology is that she believes thick spring ice events control bear populations rather than decreasing summer sea ice. Her blog is a defence of her position and a criticism of the mainstream claims that climate change is putting polar bears in peril. This is why she is so dangerous to those who wish to maintain the polar bear as a climate change victim.
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Bears repeating…
‘But remember that the thesis advanced by Harvey et al 17 is not that WUWT
used references incorrectly. They state that WUWT overwhelmingly links to
Crockford and ignores what they somewhat laughingly consider the approved
canon of polar bear research.
Pretty sure my list proves them wrong, regardless of how they are utilized on
WUWT. FWIW, I didn’t see any signs that they were using them wrong, but that’s
not the issue at hand.’
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Beth. I cannot bear bear bear jokes.
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How can it be? Surely Len can’t be missing the point yet again!
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Len Martinez, can you confirm whether blog approval of Gergis 2016 was split along the same lines as highlighted by Harvey et al? The Consensus blogs seemed to rate Gergis 2016 very highly, and the paper has not been withdrawn or retracted,
The subjects were not the same, but the inconsistencies follow Climate Science’s familiar pattern, with Peer Approval.
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Len’s expertise can often be misjudged. He is a wonder to be withheld.
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Tom. The picture heading you use reminds me of what ranchers used to call sheep – prairie maggots. Polar bears must be ice maggots.
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Tom, “FWIW, I didn’t see any signs that they were using them wrong, …”
A silly thing to say, though I don’t suppose you know why.
Alan, “…Susan Crockford meticulously quotes from the “approved canon of polar bear research” …”
Again, silly. Neither of you has followed a single quote or claim back to an original paper, so you really have no idea whether her claims faithfully represent what the papers say or are meticulous copies or whether they are just out of context quote mining. And you really don’t care. For articles at WUWT, I’d say the balance of probability is on the latter.
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Len Martinez “And you really don’t care.”
News flash — it isn’t binary. My care level seems to be around 0.3 although it fluctuates a bit. The only place I’ve seen a polar bear is at Sea World in San Diego.
In other words, there’s no particular reason for me to dig up original papers on polar bears. I have no way of knowing who is telling the truth but it is easy to see who is talking about polar bears and who else is talking about people who are talking about polar bears (a meta-discussion). We are having a meta-meta-discussion about polar bears which means it isn’t about polar bears at all, but about fellow commenters on commenters on polar bears.
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Len. You speak not from what you know. Firstly I have indeed followed many references obtained from Polar Bear Science back to their origins not to check their veracity but out of interest. Secondly, Susan commonly uses quotations – sometimes amounting to several paragraphs. You are not suggesting these are fabricated are you?
The problem for those you support is that Susan commonly uses the words uttered by “experts” against them and it is that which urks them (and you) so much.
I strongly recommend you read some of Polar Bear Science. It’s unlike many blogs in that speculation or opinion is immediately identifiable for what it is, and criticism of others is documented in detail. If she comes back to this site I strongly suggest you keep quiet; you’ll get whampt. But if you do engage, we’ll all sit back and enjoy the fun: I’ll get the popcorn!
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Len, quit trying to change the subject. Harvey and his 13 co-authors state that WUWT overwhelmingly links to Crockford. I have shown that this is not the case.
Next squirrel, please.
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There are three things highlighted in the post and the comments that illustrate the Polar Bear smear paper as being a rich resource towards understanding the worst of climate alarmism.
First is from Alan Kendall @ 28 Dec 17 at 9:35 am
This is spot on about Susan Crockford, and, in my opinion, what proper academics should be aiming at. To assess an area where widely different perspectives are possible, I was taught that it is necessary to read and evaluate the original documents. Climate alarmists in general, and this paper in particular, evaluate in relation collective opinion as opposed to more objective criteria. In the paper, “science” is about support for a partly fictional consensus, “denial” is seeking to undermine that fiction. On polar bears this is clearly stated in relation to the two groups of blogs.
A key element is to frame statements in terms of polar extremes.
Second, is the extremely selective use of the data (or selective analysis methods) to enable the desired conclusion to be reached. Tom Fuller has clearly pointed out in the article and restated in the comments with respect to WUWT, the following.
The same can be said for the original MBH 98 Hockey-Stick graph; other temperature reconstructions, Lewandowsky et al “Moon Hoax” paper; and smoothing out the pause in warming in Risbey, Lewandowsky et al 2014 “Well-estimated global surface warming in climate projections selected for ENSO phase”.
Third, is to frame the argument in terms of polar extremes. Richard S J Tol @ 28 Dec 17 at 7:13 am
Not only one many issues is there a vast number of intermediate positions possible (the middle ground), there are other dimensions. One is the strength of evidential support for a particular perspective. There could be little or no persuasive evidence. Another is whether there is support for alternative perspectives. For instance, although sea ice data is lacking for the early twentieth-century warming, average temperature data is available for the Arctic. NASA Gistemp (despite its clear biases) has estimates for 64N-90N.
The temperature data seems to clearly indicate that all of the decline in Arctic sea ice from 1979 is unlikely to be attributed to AGW. From the 1880s to 1940 there was a similar magnitude of Arctic warming as from 1979 t0 2010 with cooling in between. Yet the rate of increase in GHG levels was greater from greater in 1975-2010 than 1945-1975, which was in turn greater than the period decades before.
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Tom, Thanks for doing the leg work here. I note that the best that the authors can muster in response is a obfuscating philosopher calling you the Groundskeeper. It is both hilarious and pathetic at the same time.
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Tom, try https://encrypted.google.com/search?nomo=1&hl=en-EC&q=polarbearscience.com+site:wattsupwiththat.com/
There’s about 9600 matches vs your 83. Maybe many are not relevant but at first sight that is quite a margin.
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go get ’em, Len!
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Tom,
Crockford deserves to be defended, the bad science and intellectual hyhypocrisy used to justify attacking her deserves to be spot lighted.
The faux sciece article should be withdrawn and the publisher apologize.
You should not apologize for demonstrating just how bad Mann et al’s execrable article is.
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Len, when caught by his wife in bed with another woman, will blame his wife for believing her lying eyes.
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Tom.
“go get ’em, Len!”
reminds me of a mutt being thrown a stick.
Encouragement or Diversion?
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That sounds about right. A group who think a paper is about polar bears if it contains the words “polar bears”, who think that because experts often speculate, someone who speculates is therefore an expert, who don’t understand context or who redefine words to suit them; for such people 9600 is probably not significantly different from 83.
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Len Martinez That sounds about right. A group who think a paper is about polar bears if it contains the words “polar bears”
The Paper was published in BioScience. Did you spot any biology or science?
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Ah, Lenny–are you trying to get out of actually looking at the references? Why am I not surprised.
Even the dullest among us can see the difference between a blog post having polar bear in the title and an academic publication having it. Can’t you?
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Len recommends: Tom, try https://encrypted.google.com/search?nomo=1&hl=en-EC&q=polarbearscience.com+site:wattsupwiththat.com/
About 3,810 results
Len gets 9600. That’s amazing but not entirely surprising. Google knows your interests, physical location and other details and evidently adjusts the search results accordingly.
Change “site” to “inurl” and it changes the number dramatically.
inurl:wattsupwiththat.com polarbearscience.com About 331 results
Wazzup? Well, Len might have the better search parameter. Seems that “site” causes a search to a site, “inurl” causes search to URL’s (only?) rather than page contents. I suspect this means many instances of a “hit” on one page will count as one URL, but many hits on that one page.
As we are probably more interested in how many PAGES talk about polar bears, rather than how often in all pages combined we use the words polar and bear, the “inurl” is probably the better search term, but if you wanted to know how often “polar bear” is mentioned then “site:” is better, even if 2000 of those instances are on the same page.
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inurl would be a silly choice unless you are looking for somethingin the URL. Seeing as the domain polarbearscience.com is unlikely to appear in a WUWT URL even if the page links to Crockford’s site, I’d have to assume that you don’t know what either a URL is or what the inurl search operator does.
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Len, straining at gnats, argues “I’d have to assume that you don’t know what either a URL is or what the inurl search operator does.”
Search on: inurl:wattsupwiththat.com polarbearscience.com
The first result is https://wattsupwiththat.com/category/bad-science/
As you can see, “polarbearscience.com” does not appear in the URL.
So how does it work?
“If you include [inurl:] in your query, Google will restrict the results to documents containing that word in the url. For instance, [inurl:google search] will return documents that mention the word “google” in their url, and mention the word “search” anywhere in the document (url or no). Note there can be no space between the “inurl:” and the following word.”
Or in other words, all documents that have “wattsupwiththat.com” in the URL are searched for “polarbearscience.com” (anywhere IN the document) which is exactly what I meant to accomplish.
https://sites.google.com/site/resourcesandsearchstrategies/google/advanced-searching-in-google
So what about site:
“If you include [site:] in your query, Google will restrict the results to those websites in the given domain. For instance, [help site:www.google.com] will find pages about help within http://www.google.com. [help site:com] will find pages about help within .com urls. Note there can be no space between the “site:” and the domain. ”
This seems similar, might even seem identical, but “site” looks only at the domain part where “URL” looks not only at the domain part but the URI (the rest of the path, right down to a page).
site:wattsupwiththat.com polarbearscience.com
About 3,790 results
inurl:wattsupwiththat.com polarbearscience.com
About 620 results
The implication is that the “site” wattsupwiththat.com includes a large number, over 3000, mentions of “polarbearscience.com” but NOT “wattsupwiththat.com” in the URL! How is that even possible?
Another search option is to look at inbound links, how many links exist TO polarbearscience.com (and where are they found)? But that’s a topic for a diffrerent day.
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Len Martinez “for such people 9600 is probably not significantly different from 83.”
And there you have it, folks; the problem of merely spewing forth numbers.
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Martinez, when did you stop beating your wife?
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9 out of 7 Climate Scientists get Peer Approval for their maths with an overwhelming Consensus of unprecedented deja vue, every time.
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Okay, the joke is on me: I didn’t understand inurl. And I don’t know why the two methods give such different results. Or…
As it happens, there’s a link in the blogroll to Crockford’s blog, so there will be a link on every page served. As there’s no links to the main polar bear groups, I’d say that is ample evidence of bias, whether there are some links to papers or not.
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Len: Admission of error on inurl – appreciated. Attempt to provide goalpost-changing evidence of WUWT bias from its blogroll on the back of your error – tawdry, typical time-wasting. Newly pooped, half-baked mud flung at Watts isn’t what this thread is for. It’s to examine whether a paper that passed peer review and was published in Bioscience made a totally erroneous claim:
You have not shown Tom is wrong about this. You haven’t even remotely shown it.
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Richard (Happy holidays, Richard!), I think he’s actually starting to get it.
I’m getting the impression that they gundecked the data collection. Not the first time–hey, they already knew the answer so who actually cares about data hygiene?
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Well I never, climate change science can be unhygienic. Is Cliscep an antiseptic?
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Climate Science Peer Approval is the best that money can buy. Mann has staked his reputation on it.
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“Harvey and his 13 co-authors state that WUWT overwhelmingly links to Crockford…”
Well if that is all you want, it’s easy: H17 doesn’t seem to say that. It says Crockford is the primary source for such blogs. Tom say she has 19 articles at WUWT and there is a permanent link to her blog (but none to other relevant sources) on every page. Tom found the next most linked site had 7 links (not articles) and no permanent link. So Crockford is clearly the primary source, until you redefine primary as you are wont to do.
That Tom can trawl up a few dozen external links, many of which don’t mention bears, doesn’t change the fact that Crockford is the go-to talking head on bears for WUWT.
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Oh, Lenny, being linked to on a blogroll is not quiiiiite the same thing as being referenced in a specific blog post on a specific topic. At least not in the real world.
And don’t go changing the goalposts on us all. From the abstract of Harvey et al 2017:
“Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) have become a “poster species” for AGW, making them a target of those denying AGW evidence. Here, focusing on Arctic sea ice and polar bears, we show that blogs that deny or downplay AGW disregard the overwhelming scientific evidence of Arctic sea-ice loss and polar bear vulnerability. ”
I have shown that this is false. Using WUWT as an example, I show that Dr. Crockford was invited to write numerous guest posts where quite naturally she referred to previous posts of her own on her own weblog. However, far from ignoring or shunning other academic publications, and far from shutting out the consensus views she and other writers were contesting, they did a very good job of referring to the science and scientists they contest.
So Lenny, for the avoidance of doubt:
Although I don’t claim to have searched WUWT (and other sites I looked at) exhaustively, I found a good sample of blog posts on the subject by using the site’s search engine and examining blog posts with ‘polar bear’ in the title. Because Harvey et al have yet to release more pertinent data about their study, I cannot examine all their claims. I can, however, see if the skeptic weblogs they examined ‘ignore scientific evidence of Arctic sea-ice loss and polar bear vulnerability.’ I find that at WUWT they do not.
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I posted this on Bart Verheggen’s weblog (https://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2017/12/22/how-blogs-convey-and-distort-scientific-information-about-polar-bears-and-arctic-sea-ice/#comment-39844) and it might be relevant here:
Sigh… so sample selection fatally undermines yet another AGW propaganda effort. They chose skeptic blogs and consensus blogs and found therefore that none were in the middle. I could have pointed them to several… It is clear that the universe of publications examined was prejudicial and as the other Thomas indicates, the conclusions of the paper could have been written just based on viewing the identities of the blogs examined.
From the abstract of Harvey et al 2017: “Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) have become a “poster species” for AGW, making them a target of those denying AGW evidence. Here, focusing on Arctic sea ice and polar bears, we show that blogs that deny or downplay AGW disregard the overwhelming scientific evidence of Arctic sea-ice loss and polar bear vulnerability. ”
I have shown this to be not true at all for two of the skeptic blogs included in the study, and only partially true for a third. Far from disregarding what the paper incorrectly labels ‘the overwhelming evidence of Arctic sea-ice loss and polar bear vulnerability,’ opposing weblogs liberally, almost rigorously, cite the science they dispute.
When the evidence provided by the data does not support the conclusions of the paper, what are we to do?
Indeed, the central premise is in fact flawed. Skeptic blogs, from my limited examination, do not at all appear to be disputing, denying or downplaying evidence of Arctic sea-ice loss. What they dispute is the ‘evidence’ of polar bear vulnerability. By joining the two statements together, the authors (wittingly or no) engage in a familiar game where disagreement on one aspect of science (e.g., sensitivity of the atmosphere to a doubling of concentrations of CO2) is forced into a false disagreement with the fundamentals of climate science (e.g., the existence of a greenhouse effect). Thus was the game of Climateball created, (long before you coined the term, willard), and thus was trust in consensus science undermined for transient political advantage.
The skeptic blog posts I examined do not in fact deny ‘evidence of Arctic sea-ice loss.’ Dr. Crockford’s arguments, cited by skeptic blogs, are rather ‘Okay, the sea-ice loss has occurred. But polar bears seem to be thriving. Will the consensus view of polar bear vulnerability adapt to reality?’
That question has yet to be answered, and it provides the opportunity for consensus scientists to learn from mistakes of the past. Dr. Crockford is providing you that opportunity.
Learn.
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Tom, you’ve created your own myth:
“thomaswfuller2 says:
28 Dec 17 at 5:30 am
But remember that the thesis advanced by Harvey et al 17 is not that WUWT used references incorrectly. They state that WUWT overwhelmingly links to Crockford and ignores what they somewhat laughingly consider the approved canon of polar bear research.”
Alan Kendall quotes it (28 Dec 17 at 9:35 am) and beththeserf quotes it (28 Dec 17 at 10:07 am),
You repeat it:
“thomaswfuller2 says:
28 Dec 17 at 7:56 pm
Len, quit trying to change the subject. Harvey and his 13 co-authors state that WUWT overwhelmingly links to Crockford. I have shown that this is not the case.
Next squirrel, please.”
manicbeancounter quotes it (28 Dec 17 at 11:48 pm) and Richard Drake quotes it (30 Dec 17 at 5:02 am).
And now when I point out that H17 did not say that little Tommy does an about turn and accuses me: “And don’t go changing the goalposts on us all. “
My guess was that your quote from above (that “WUWT overwhelmingly links to Crockford”) was an ill judged off the cuff response corresponding to what you had internalized from reading H17 as opposed to what it actually said, but by failing to admit error you’re quickly turning it into an outright lie.
And you now say:
“However, far from ignoring or shunning other academic publications, and far from shutting out the consensus views she and other writers were contesting, they did a very good job of referring to the science and scientists they contest.”
According to your quote from H17 the accusation is that blogs “disregard the overwhelming scientific evidence of Arctic sea-ice loss and polar bear vulnerability”. If that is the complaint (and I say “if”, because you’ll probably change your tune again in due course) then it is clearly a misrepresentation again, as it is quite possible to disregard the evidence without ignoring or or shunning papers or shutting out a view. All you need do, and of course I don’t need to teach any climate science “skeptic” to do this, is to quote a paper, scientist or body in the context of shitting on it. Just because you link to it doesn’t absolve you from the shitting. You and your fellow “skeptics” will demonstrate this by reading what I have written (not ignoring, shunning or shutting it out) and disregarding it for all the usual reasons.
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Len Martinez writes “You and your fellow skeptics will demonstrate this by reading what I have written (not ignoring, shunning or shutting it out) and disregarding it for all the usual reasons.”
While I’m mildly curious about those usual reasons, I haven’t disregarded your claim which I think is that pro-AGW websites are easily distinguished from skeptical-of-AGW websites. I doubt anyone disagrees. But it is interesting from time to time to strain at gnats just to see how far you can go with it; how subtle of a nuance, how fine a point we can argue.
William Briggs had an interesting guest writer, who among other things introduced a topic I have long wondered about, the schism between Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. It appears to have started eons ago from an argument about whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from God alone, or from God and the Son (not mentioned is that it might not be proceeding from either but is self existing). Anyway, this “gnat” turned into nearly a battleground with armed troops and east won’t meet west until one of these parties is “wrong”.
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Uh, Lenny, I used quotation marks for a reason. Here I use them again:
“Here, focusing on Arctic sea ice and polar bears, we show that blogs that deny or downplay AGW disregard the overwhelming scientific evidence of Arctic sea-ice loss and polar bear vulnerability.”
This is not true. They accept Arctic sea-ice loss. They challenge the consensus to explain why polar bears are doing well despite the loss of sea ice.
“Prominent among blogs giving Crockford’s blog disproportionate attention are WUWT and CD, suggesting that her blog reaches a large audience.”
This is not true. WUWT links liberally and consistently to the academic publications that skeptics and Crockford challenge.
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Tommy, you are as slippery as a butchers prick. Apart from now lying about what H17 says (see above), you have now shunted into an crowded siding your fake suggestion that H17 says Crockford etc are “ignoring or shunning other academic publications, and far from shutting out the consensus views” and trailed out another loser, namely that the “and” in “disregard the overwhelming scientific evidence of Arctic sea-ice loss and polar bear vulnerability” doesn’t exist and that “vulnerable” doesn’t refer to future danger.
“This [WUWT giving Crockford’s blog disproportionate attention] is not true. WUWT links liberally and consistently to the academic publications that skeptics and Crockford challenge.”
Crockford is WUWT’s primary source. That much is clear and uncontested by anyone here. Crockford is not, however, someone who has published or researched on the subject of polar bears, whereas others have. Using such a person as a primary source is clearly disproportionate to her relevance or experience.
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Tom, I’m nominating you for enrolment in Cliscep’s Hall of Honour for your efforts on this thread. (Didn’t know we had a Hall of Honour? I just decided we did. Might have something to do with the UK’s New Year’s Honours list that has just been announced by the Palace. Spelling has to follow her Majesty, sorry.)
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Thanks, Richard! When’s the election? Hmm, I guess I was mistaken about Lenny’s ‘getting it.’ He clearly doesn’t.
I think I’ll start calling it Lying Eyes Neuropathy, or LEN for short. As in ‘Who ya gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?’
Sorry Len, I think most of us will stick with our vision and let you alas, babble on.
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I doubt WUWT has a primary source. Its topic is largely, but not entirely, weather and climate with little interest in polar bears. Now it may be that with regard to the intersection of polar bears and AGW it leans toward Susan Crockford as a source. I’m not sure why this bit of obvious is worth this much discussion but I find it oddly interesting.
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Len, do you believe that Polar Bears are threatened with extinction due to loss of arctic sea ice, caused by antropogenic Global Warming? That is the message that Consensus scientists and blogs seem to promote, despite the lack of evidence
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Well we weren’t really discussing whether Crockford is WUWT’s primary school on polar bears, as it is quite obviously true. We were discussing Tommy’s fabrications of what H17 said. Now it has descended into mutual backslapping between Tommy and Dicky, so that’s the end of it I guess.
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It’s “Thomas Fuller, our elder and better,” to you chum. Well, maybe not elder. The average age of the song-and-dance troupe laughingly called Len is I concede hard to estimate. And nowhere did I detect Tom slapping my back, nor would I deserve that. I was commending him for defining what this thread is about, so clearly, and sticking to it. All we know for sure is that we weren’t really discussing whatever you asserted, at any moment, we were discussing. Your nonsense defiles anything of substance here. Unlike some I don’t find that funny nor do I pretend to find it funny. I would not be averse to a radical change of moderation policy towards you and your ilk in the new year.
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I agree that name calling is childish, but I’ve been “Lenny” for some time courtesy of Thomas W Fuller the 2nd and his chums, so what’s good for the goose is good for the gander; it’s Tommy and Dicky for now.
As for congratulations for building a straw man and then being consistent in tearing at it, that behaviour is of course at the core of “skepticism”, so yes Tommy, well done indeed.
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Richard, I personally think we need a Lenny around here to remind us of the nature of our opposition.
Recall that Len (if you don’t like Lenny, Lenny, say so and I’ll go back to either Len or Mr. Martinez–unlike you gang of nasties, if someone thinks a label is insulting, I’ll switch out of politeness. I know several people named Leonard and they all ended up as Lenny) started his comments on this thread by insisting “The thing with your list of refs is that it means nothing unless you check that each paper says what the author referencing it claims.”
It wasn’t until the real subject under discussion was force-fed to him that he found another reason to not like the paper, us, the idea that anyone would still disagree with him after he had pronounced on a subject, etc.
He’s sure to oppose us on anything–time of day, presence/absence of sunshine, etc. We need Mr. Martinez for two reasons:
1. To remind us that there are people out there who will oppose everything we say because we don’t acknowledge that the Consensus on climate change is holy writ
2. To remind us that they are not very coherent in their thinking (well, at least in their writing)
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A trolloid like Len is a valuable resource that should be cherished. At his best he reveals the weaker side of our arguments which enables us to strengthen them. At his worst, he can be safely ignored. Some here also gain pleasure from provoking him. A troll for all reasons!
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None of you get it. The facts about WUWT and Crockford are immaterial. Intellectual giants such as Lew and Jeffie the Thick have asserted it on the basis of invented evidence. Therefore Len can continue to believe this consensus that cannot be defined. Let’s all go and hug a tree
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Golf: “Len, do you believe that Polar Bears are threatened with extinction due to loss of arctic sea ice, caused by antropogenic Global Warming?”
Polar Bears rely on the sea ice and snow habitat for their hunting and breeding. So as their habitat degrades, I’d expect to start to see Polar Bears failing to breed and/or young bears failing gain enough weight in spring and summer to survive winter. I obviously don’t know whether that happens when sea ice disappears (to the point where bears cannot hunt) consistently for 2 months a year or 3 or 4 months or whether it happens only when spring ice disappears too early, but at some point along that line it seems inevitable. At that point the species is functionally extinct, even if some adults are able to survive. AGW is causing climate to move in that direction.
Tom, I’m sorry to have mistaken your use of the diminutive for name-calling when it is now clear that you were just trying to make me feel the warmth (or is it lukewarmth?) of friendship. I of course had the same cordial feelings in mind when I called you and Richard, Tommy and Dicky.
I have no particular desire to disagree with you in an automatic fashion. In fact some of your sentences are really quite fine or at least adequate. Although your first sentence in this blog post is probably unlikely to be strictly true, it serves its purpose. The second is a fact, and I really congratulate you for that. Well done! The third is perhaps untrue; I don’t remember finding the word predominantly when I scanned H17, though I’d have to actually read it to be sure. The fourth might be true, though I’ve found that many people who occupy the skeptic cesspit and at the same time claim to believe in AGW turn out to be much more equivocal in conversation. All in all not a glowing review of your first paragraph, so a default position of being skeptical of what you write seems perhaps justified.
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Hmm.. If I may paraphrase, ‘I think you’re lying but I’d have to read the paper to find out’ is not quite what I’d call a strong position statement.
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Well you converted what was probably an error into a lie up-thread by declining to concede what was clearly false (your claim that H17 says denier blogs overwhelmingly refer to Crockford). So what’s another one?
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See, again with the words within those funny little marks around them… those marks mean they are copied directly without change… from Harvey et al 2017… now pay attention, Len:
“Here, focusing on Arctic sea ice and polar bears, we show that blogs that deny or downplay AGW disregard the overwhelming scientific evidence of Arctic sea-ice loss and polar bear vulnerability.
The next three dots indicate that the quote continues from a later place in the same article.
…”Approximately 80% of the denier blogs cited here referred to one particular denier blog, Polar Bear Science, by Susan Crockford, as their primary source of discussion and debate on the status of polar bears.”
Let’s see if you can figure this one out, now:
…” Prominent among blogs giving Crockford’s blog disproportionate attention are WUWT and CD, suggesting that her blog reaches a large audience.”
So, let’s go through this again, Len. I have read the paper that you have not read. I am copying and pasting the exact words of the paper here, which I indicate by using what we laughingly refer to as quotation marks. I skipped around a bit to find the relevant sentences, so I used what we lovingly call a three-dot elipsis to indicate they were not consecutive sentences.
However, since you sadly consider me to be dishonest, I can only urge you to investigate the matter yourself.
If you copy and paste the following line into the white space at the top of your computer, which we disgustingly malign with the title ‘address bar,’ your black boxy thingy, which we hilariously joke amongst ourselves, calling it a computer, will magically transport you to a digital representation of Harvey et al 2017 and… you… can… see… it… with… your… own… eyes!!!
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/bix133/4644513
What a magical world we live in! Happy 2018!
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Tom, Leeny baby will be insufferable now. Look forward to quotation marks everywhere and our words taken out of context and thrown back in our faces. And as for three-dot elipsis… words fail me. You will have much to atone for Thomas W Fuller, or whatever your name is. Dark days lie ahead and much suffering will ensue.
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“Prominent among blogs giving Crockford’s blog disproportionate attention are WUWT and CD, suggesting that her blog reaches a large audience.”
The Streisand-effect in full force: after publication of Harvey2017 the visits to Crockford’s blog skyrocketed.
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Happy 2018 to all.
Tom, we’ve been through this before, but let’s do it again briefly:
In your quote from H17, the word “overwhelming” applies to the scientific evidence not to anything related to Crockford, WUWT or other sites.
The word “primary” does not mean overwhelming or predominant.
The word “disproportionate” means that blogs give Crockford and her opinions more attention than they deserve. It, like “primary”, does not mean that they give overwhelming or predominant emphasis to her opinions.
I call you dishonest because, after twice writing
“Harvey and his 13 co-authors state that WUWT overwhelmingly links to Crockford.”
(my bold) and having it echoed approvingly by four others, you still fail to acknowledge that H17 did not state anything of the kind. The other four are equally mendacious although perhaps less culpable.
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Len is calling Tom “mendacious”, lol
Even as he deceptively parses what Tom says.
No wonder he also got off so much over the gang assault on Dr. Crockford.
The New Year is off to a great start already.
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Len can’t read properly nor count. Tom’s first sentence concerns his health and Len seemingly questions it. The period at the end of et al. does not end a sentence, and so on and on. Len’s paragraph cannot be interpreted – Len’s references to Tom’s sentences do not match up with the actual sentences; its nonsensical. Did the members of the LenBorg not communicate with each other property?
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The longer this goes on, the more I realise that if I want reliable information about Polar Bears, I should read Crockford and the Blogs that quote her.
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Len Martinez writes: “The word ‘disproportionate’ means that blogs give Crockford and her opinions more attention than they deserve.”
How is this proportion to be determined, and by whom?
While waiting on your answer I shall continue to decide such things for myself.
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“How is this proportion to be determined, and by whom? “
By the authors, any way they want that is justifiable.
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Authors are indeed entitled to set the boundaries of the subsets they explore. However, good science depends on the reader being able to clearly understand those boundaries and how they are formed.
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Len Martinez ” … any way they want that is justifiable”
Len, it needs to be justifiable as science. Harvey et al 2017 fails on this point.
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Saying that blogs give Crockford disproportionate attention is justifiable; she has no academic record of work on polar bears and that is how academics judge things. You may not like that, but it is justifiable in the context. I know you don’t do context though, so that will be tricky for you.
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Actually, Lenny, it is not justifiable if you don’t define both proportionate and disproportionate. It is not justifiable if you class Dr. Crockford as a ‘denier’ without evidence. As that would involve showing she is wrong about her central thesis–that despite the very real decline of Arctic sea ice, polar bears are not at present suffering–and the various international bodies charged with monitoring the health of the species say the same thing as Dr. Crockford, linking to her weblog seems like a good thing.
So: What level of linking to Dr. Crockford is proportionate, Lenny? As Harvey et al fail to give a number or even an idea, it’s up to you.
Despite her lack of experience in the Arctic, she is clearly able to exploit her 30 years of experience in zoology to find the heart of the matter. That may frustrate academics, but after she’s dead they’ll be able to admit it. You may not like it, but Dr. Crockford seems far more correct than her critics.
As for how academics judge things, the authors of this paper include a cartoonist, a shrink who had to retract his signature paper, a zoologist with exactly the same degree from the same university as Dr. Crockford and an aerosol scientist with no training in social network analysis or zoology.
If that’s the way academics do it, shame on them.
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Len Martinez writes “Saying that blogs give Crockford disproportionate attention is justifiable”
That’s just another way of not answering my reasonable request. Who justifies disproportionate? Obviously you do for you and I do for me; but I am guessing at your own power of decision which might be overestimated. There may well be a booklet called “Proportionate Attention Scaling Factors in the Information Age.” You plug factors into a calculator and out pops how many page views you are authorized per month, more than that is disproportionate!
“she has no academic record of work on polar bears and that is how academics judge things”
That’s better. Fairly obvious of course. Academics have quite a lot of ritual. I attended my daughter’s college graduation and noticed that all the professors and deans and things had various kinds of robes and collars and other things; made me think of catholic church vestments.
“You may not like that”
I seldom like or dislike anything. I simply find it interesting how humanity’s need for religion has adapted to the new one called “Science” with its prophets, deacons, acolytes, apologists.
“but it is justifiable in the context.”
This is WUWT. Different context! In the cloistered halls of ivy league colleges of course the context is different; Susan isn’t invited to that club and neither am I.
So y’all got your 97 percent consensus, no doubt working hard on that 3 percent, meanwhile the public is nowhere near 97 percent in agreement on just about anything. I’m not sure that Americans would achieve 97 percent consensus on the roundness of Earth.
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Oops. forgot which blog I was posting to. Oh well. Still different context.
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Len Martinez writes [re: “How is this proportion to be determined, and by whom?“]
By the authors, any way they want that is justifiable.
Very well written. Not judged by you but by the authors. Of course, each author may have a different sense of proportion but that is the purpose of Groupthink: Reduce variation.
Perhaps you have some insight into how the authors decide proportion.
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Len: she has no academic record of work on polar bears and that is how academics judge things
And that Len is a slanderous statement and worse of it all you know that it is.
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One of the comments in Climate Audit deserves mention
“m not questioning the statistical analysis, the jitter of the PCA and the like presented in this post. The paper is junk. There are many ways to identify a poorly designed and implemented analysis and I confess my statistical skills are less than others, but in much the same way Justice Stewart replied about pornography that “I know it when I see it” my ah-ha moment when it was pointed out the Harvey SI list of blog sites supporting AGW included the York Blog. So what is the York blog? It is the site for the York Daily Record a local newspaper in Pennsylvania. And what is the connection of the community of York, PA with polar bears? Well, it turns out that the local youth hockey team are called the York Polar Bears.
So 14 authors diligently analyzing the PCA of arctic ice and polar bears think the Yorkblog.com is relevant. And this is peer-reviewed science.”
Think on that for a while. 14 so called scientists couldn’t even identify that their “denier” blog was really about an ice hockey team. With that quality of intellectual rigor, let alone peer review, is it any wonder they can’t communicate their message. It also sets a really low bar for Dr Crockford to beat.
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Chrism56, perhaps the 14 scientists thought that Global Warming would prevent Ice Hockey being played, and the end of Hockey Stick science.
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Chrism56: As I pointed out at climate audit, the H17 bloglist is incomplete: the url should be http://www.yorkblog.com/hot , which is a community blog by Keith Peterman. Yet another error in H17.
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“she has no academic record of work on polar bears”
YOU ARE A LIAR, AND A VERY UNPLEASANT ONE AT THAT, MARTINEZ.
One day you will certainly overstep the mark, and hopefully you will pay very dearly indeed for it, you utterly abhorrent, misogynistic little moron.
To whoever currently is responsible for moderating this blog, presumably you are aware that you are legally responsible if you knowingly permit the publishing of slanderous material from any source?
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“Well, it turns out that the local youth hockey team are called the York Polar Bears.”
That was the funniest thing I’ve seen all day!
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