Is the 97% claim fallacious?

Activists, politicians and advocates who are passionate about global warming often use the claim that “97% of scientists” support their views to end debates. A typical example is a tweet from President Obama in May of 2014: “Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous.”

Leaving aside the quality of this claim as a statement of fact, isn’t this a logical fallacy when used as a counter-argument? Below, I offer an example of a typical exchange I’ve had with global warming advocates. (As with all such examples, I should point out in advance that it is a bit of a straw man.) I then make my case for why the argument is a fallacy and of what type. Please let me know what you think of my assessment as an expert in logical fallacies.

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ME: I’m skeptical of the claims I keep hearing from environmental activists about global warming. I mean, how can we possibly know what the temperature will be in 100 years with technology changing so rapidly? And if it takes satellites, ocean monitors and other sophisticated technology to get accurate global temperature readings today, how can we possibly know what the correct global temperature was 100 years ago? Also, if there’s warming, how do we know it isn’t primarily natural variation? We’ve had many warm periods and cold periods in earth’s history.

ADVOCATE: All you need to know is that 97% of scientists agree that global warming is real, caused by humans and will be catastrophic. Denying that truth is no different than denying the Holocaust.

ME: Ouch. I’m of Jewish heritage and had relatives who died in the Holocaust. I guess I’ll shut up now.

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Besides the appeal to emotion/abusive analogy, which I obviously added for effect, I submit that the Advocate in my scenario has committed a variant of two known fallacies: the argumentum ad numerum and argumentum ad verecundiam. Overall, his statement is a fallacy because he has not articulated a response to any of my questions. Rather, he has sidestepped the questions and attempted to end the debate with an appeal to the large number of scientists who agree with his view (ad numerum). By using scientists, he has also made an appeal to authority, which is supposed to shame me, a layman, into silence (ad verecundiam).

Finally, and this is a bit more tenuous, he has cited a statistic that may – in and of itself – contain an ad verecundiam. I understand that the appeal to authority may also be defined as an appeal to false authority, which works like this: I use the opinion of experts to shut down an argument against my position, but I fail to mention that a significant portion of my experts don’t specialize in the field about which the statement is made.

In this case, I have read that many of the scientists who comprise the “97% percent” have no expertise in the impact of greenhouse gases on global temperature – i.e. the expertise required to make the statement attributed to them – with any degree of authority. They only do research in their specific field (e.g. ice flows, cloud formations) and simply responded to an opinion survey or signed a petition from an activist group.

Please note: I make no claim that what I have read is the truth. I only ask that you assume it is true for the sake of this discussion.

Let me know what you think of all of this.

<<Besides the appeal to emotion/abusive analogy, which I obviously added for effect, I submit that the Advocate in my scenario has committed a variant of two known fallacies: the argumentum ad numerum and argumentum ad verecundiam.>>

I would disagree with this. Ad numerum applies to the majority of "people" believing something, I read this to mean the lay people, non experts, false authorities etc.

Ad Vercundiam applies to false authority, scientists are legitimate authorities here.

<<Leaving aside the quality of this claim as a statement of fact, isn’t this a logical fallacy when used as a counter-argument?>>

I wouldn't charge any fallacy when someone uses the 97% line, its simply a claim, you can question whether you believe it or not but on its own I don't see it constituting a fallacy.

I wouldn't characterize what he did as side stepping, perhaps he is acknowledging that he is not a scientist and deferring to them. He snuck in an appeal to shame with the Holocaust analogy.

You might have challenged him with faulty analogy, the holocaust being accepted by virtually everyone, ie 100 % as having happened whereas scientific opinion isn't 100 % unanimous but this could be seen as splitting hairs, ie 97 % is virtually 100%.

Leaving aside the quality of this claim as a statement of fact, isn’t this a logical fallacy when used as a counter-argument?

No. Referring to overwhelming scientific consensus or expert opinion is not in the least bit an unreasonable counter argument or argument. Virtually everyone agrees with this except when they have strong religious or political ideologies that conflict with this level of agreement. For example, if three neurologists told person A they had a brain tumor, and person B asked, "Why do you believe you have a brain tumor?" it wound not be fallacious for person A to respond "Because three neurologists told me that I did." Likewise, accepting the fact of evolution is not fallacious based on 97% of all earth scientists on the planet. We don't expect every person to go digging for fossils or study DNA. Nor we expect (or want) laymen thinking that their Google search is more likely to get them to the "truth" than the overwhelming consensus derived from tens of thousands of scientists from around the globe, working independently, with 7+ years of specialized education in a particular field and often a lifetime of lab and field work in the area. Logical fallacies are about errors with reasoning. When referring to issues where meta analyses have been done on thousands of independent studies such as evolution, climate change, GMO safety, age of the universe, vaccine safety and others, where overwhelming scientific consensus has been reached (often defined as 80% or more agreement among experts in related fields), it is NOT unreasonable to accept these conclusions provisionally.

Before I get to the other questions, let's be clear on something. "Environmental Activists" and the scientific consensus on climate change is NOT the same thing. Many activists grossly distort the truth and facts because of their ideology and passion. In case you already don't know this, here is the official statement

"Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver."

reference:

So let's keep this in mind when activists say things and spew "facts." What they say might be true, might not be, or might be exaggerations.

ADVOCATE: All you need to know is that 97% of scientists agree that global warming is real, caused by humans and will be catastrophic.

Perhaps avoiding the issue. The advocate probably did not have answers to those questions, and rather than say "good questions... NASA answers these is great detail at..." they avoided answering them.

ADVOCATE: Denying that truth is no different than denying the Holocaust.

Weak analogy. I would argue that there are more differences than similarities with the two. However, denying climate change is very much like denying evolution.

In this case, I have read that many of the scientists who comprise the “97% percent” have no expertise in the impact of greenhouse gases on global temperature

Assuming this is true? What does "many" mean? Are we talking 90%? 50%? 20% or 1%? Misinformation campaigns thrive on ambiguity to raise doubts and challenge authority. This is why reason requires statistical thinking and not emotional thinking. Let's pretend that 50% of the scientists and organizations have no clue about the impact of greenhouse gasses on global temperature. Let's do some math based on an estimated 5000 climatologists globally who weighed in on climate change:

5000 climatologists total
2500 experts in greenhouse gasses on global temp
50% experts say no effect (therefore, don't make up consensus)
1250 nay, 3750 yea (75% agreement)

but we have a 97% agreement, so let's see if we can get closer...

10% experts say no effect (therefore, don't make up consensus)
250 nay, 4750 yea (95% agreement)

So even if 50% of all climatologists have no clue what they are talking about when it comes to greenhouse gasses and their effect on global temperature, we still have an overwhelming consensus (90% of those who do know what they are talking about).

The bottom line of all this is, we still don't have a "false authority." At best we have a less authoritative figure than what is made out to be.

Argumentum ad verecundiam is the best description of the fallacy, as I see it, even without the "97%" part. The equivalent fallacy is "experts agree", and what makes it fallacious, is that your lack of agreement means you lack the expertise to disagree. It does not mean there are no such experts or even that they are false experts.

Argumentum ad populam (and even appeal to emotion) is added by the "97%", and we see it readily by considering the phrase "50.01% of all climate scientists..." IMO, if that were their basis, they would stay with "experts agree". Not nearly the power of "almost everyone else".

My verecundiam comment is also supported by the fact that the claim is often reworded, improperly, and even defended using more verecundiam language (or [il]logic). The original claim was that 97% of "climate scientists", somehow a special kind of scientist, agree, and has been reworded as Jordan Pine quotes into 97% of scientists. This is simply not true, but the quote is widely repeated. Moreover, when the 33,000 scientists who signed a petition opposing the AGW argument (or its politics or its consequential implications... or for whatever reason) were examined by AGW supporters, the major criticism leveled was that most of the 33,000 were not climate scientists. "Whose ox is gored?" comes to mind.

The most persistent aggregate of fallacies I see presented here are committed by the original questioner and claimant. In many ways, the original thesis is only tangentially relevant to climate denialism or climate science but rather deceptively and distractingly shifted towards personal incredulity, confirmation bias and ultimately ad hominem attacks on the 97% consensus of scientists who confirm that man-made climate change is a scientific reality.

Fair enough, it may or may not be a worthy discussion, but as Jordan freely admits it is a strawman. Unfortunately, as Dr. Bo alludes it is more and more a common trope of the alt-Right and those with either radical political views (left and right) or fundamentalist religious bias. Jordan claims he's never heard this before. Well, that definitely is an example of you don't know what you don't know. (Dunning-Kruger)

Moreover, there seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding about science as a methodology. It is, in fact, two-fold, and both share an equal posture in gathering evidence. Science is equally if not even more focused on falsification as it is in confirmation. The argument against the credentials of 97% is a red herring. While reasonable as an issue, it deals very little with the actual science of climate change. It simply means there is a consensus among the general community of professional scientists. Richard Dawkins makes this case in several of his books and often drives home the point that scientific consensus from the general community of scientists is a rather dubious proposition even among scientists because as many as 10-30% of them are either religiously-biased or uncredentialed in various fields of expertise. He advises we first turn to the various national academies of scientists such as the American, or, Royal Academy of Science and other international trusts for a more expert analysis and opinion.

The overall point is to forget about the messenger bring us the evidence pro or con. In this case, the evidence for climate change is both compelling and deeply alarming.