How come people believe in non-peer reviewed Global Warming Articles?

Just A review of what peer review is and is not.

Peer review is not now and never has been scientific. Independent testing by the scientific method is valid, as is double blind testing. None of the concepts used to promote AGW will pass even the simplest scientific method review, which is why the number of believers is shrinking and getting more vocal in their alarmisim. Peer review is a legal term used in reviewing legal decisions to assure they have referenced legal terms correctly. Peer review does not check math or if the data is used correctly.

And peer review absolutely does not go independently back to source data and redo all tests and calculations from scratch using different methods than the original tester used. Scientific method requires the proving if another working with no knowledge of the original persons results and methods can achieve similar results. Why is the number of vocal skeptics growing so fast, they have independently attempted to validate the AGW concept using true scientific method and found it could not be done using the original data sets that had not been leveled by Hansen.

Peer review is for use in law offices in reviewing legal decisions.

Scientific method is how research concepts can reach Hypotheses level or even theory level. Double blind is preferred over normal on serious questions.

No part of the AGW concept has ever passed review to even be accepted as a possibly valid Hypothesis.

It is a combination of both fact and politics. To put in perspective, GW 10% Politics 90%(just a guess). Politicians will use any excuse, seize on any opportunity and waste no crisis if a chance to tax and spend is in the offering. Tainted data compared with actual available data suggests that there may be something to it, but not enough to determine if it is a natural cycle or not. Excessive legislation and control at this point is a waste of time and effort until we know what is really happening. The weather patterns lately suggest that it was a cycle which has turned. The warmest year was in 1998 with a cooling trend since. These are the same people who predicted in the late 70's that an ice age would occur by 1993, so their claims are suspect already. With the new advances in technology, the emissions of CO2 are due to be reduced by improvements in the fuels we are using.

Peer review has only been a norm for the last fifty years. Before that, publication or otherwise was decided on the opinions of the journal editor. In particular Einstein's 1905 papers in Annalen der Physik and Watson & Crick's publication of the structure of DNA were not peer-reviewed.

One should also consider the opinions of Richard Smith, a former editor of the British Medical Journal who said:

"Peer review is a rather arbitrary black box.... It’s very slow, expensive, a considerable lottery, completely hopeless at detecting errors and fraud, and there’s evidence of bias."

The answer is pretty simple and shown clearly in the first three answers the first two are well known for simply making up facts and the third

"I don't believe any peer reviewed or non peer reviewed article on anything."

This statement is interesting given he claims to be a geologist, as a core science modern geology is based on peer review literature.

You could not become a geologist today without reading, understanding and accepting a large amount of peer reviewed work.

Obviously little thought went into that comment.

Given that they have nothing that can counter peer reviewed science the only option left is to try and attack it.

You also are a liar, in your next post you said this

I am a social science major and geology minor

Yet in this post you are a Environmental Geography Major.

Why should we take anything else you say seriously?

I think being skeptical is healthy.

I am a scientist and I know that even scientists can sometimes be wrong. But I also know that people who are not scientists are far more often wrong (at least as regards scientific matters).

I've read somewhere there are still people who believe that the Earth is flat. Maybe they're right! Have you gone around the earth yourself to check it out?

I don't think people come to Yahoo answers seeking peer reviewed papers on the subject, they are more likely just beginning to take an interest in the topic.

Most people lack the training of a climatologist, but will be interested to learn basic facts, for example that water vapor is about 95% of the greenhouse gases, by volume, and absorbs a wider spectrum of infrared than CO2 (which accounts for why deserts cool off rapidly at night - the dry air). Or that even though CO2 is 380 parts per million of the atmosphere ( 2 feet worth per mile), that is enough to absorb CO2's few spectra thoroughly.

People are able to identify bogus claims and phony marketing, without being an expert, by examining the arguments, and proposed solutions to see if they make any sense. Just saying "shut up and hand over your wallet, just in case" is not going to work well.

The purpose of communicating is to communicate, not to brag about your superiority and silence questioners.

For those interested in learning, here's a couple of links:

- video

http://www.moviesfoundonline.com/great_global_warm...

- example of impact of cap&trade,

http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssIndustryMateria...

- information about global warming

http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2007/09/table-of-co...

Because the vast majority of Americans get their "news" from 15 second sound bites on TV. And, the ones that take the time to review the different arguments, realize that there is no consensus regarding the issues you speak of, and write so eloquently about.

No, we have been led down the path of doom and destruction too many times to believe the "experts". While you may well be right, I'm just not buying it.

They are scared ****less and if they deny any problem then they won't have to face it.

Because people outside the scientific community don't understand what peer-review is (for example, see some of the other answers to this question). Most also don't understand that a scientific theory is not the samething as a layman's theory. They also don't understand the science behind global warming and don't want to believe that humans are causing it.

What it boils down to is fear of change, and a natural reaction to fear is denial. So people deny that the scientific evidence exists or that the theory is reliable. Basically they're looking for reasons not to believe that humans are causing global warming.

Fear breeds denial, which breeds desperate tactics to maintain that denial. One of these tactics is to treat some blog written by some random right-wing journalist as more reliable than peer-reviewed scientific research.

I don't believe any peer reviewed or non peer reviewed article on anything. You would be wise not to believe things. Belief is better left for religions. Science is about theory. If someone suggests something outrageous, such as humans, particularly Americans, are causing catastrophic warming, it is only wise to be skeptical, especially if these charges are coming primarily from blame America first leftists.