evilled

Hello, how do you respond to criticisms of your paper? Notably the points about sample size and methodology raised over on the wattsupwiththat website by Anthony Watts? http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/05/13/more-pear-shaped-trouble-for-john-cooks-97-consensus/ http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/29/a-psychologists-scathing-review-of-john-cooks-97-consensus-nonsensus-paper/

Thank you for the list of reading material. I am working my way through it now. I try to look at both sides of issues and was a bit skeptical of a 97% consensus on something that has so many variables in play. Having read arguments and counterarguments for physics papers it can sometimes be hard to get people to agree on a simple thing like lunch, let alone a complex scientific subject. BTW, I don't deny climate change occurs. I do find it somewhat hard to accept that mankind has a major impact on it compared the numerous other natural sources of greenhouse gasses and the effects of solar output. Thus I try to read the papers from all sides.

Thank you for your reply. One of the other folks commenting provided some links to the rebuttals and I am reading through them. I try to keep an open mind about everything and keep track of scientific progress outside of my particular fields of study.

No site is without bias, that is part of the problem with modern scientific debate. Sensationalist news stories tend to blow little things way out of proportion and focus on non-essential parts of papers further muddying the waters. I remembered reading the wattsupwiththat commentary at some point in the past and figured this was a prime opportunity to ask the creator of the study for his response to the critics.