Re: Al Those Great Scientists Here

"William Asher" <gcnp58@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:Xns9A976A88BD82AFkldeltaC@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Tom Kunich wrote:
>
>> <bjw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>> news:d1a87038-4d69-4314-bef5-48169780e97e@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> ..
>>>
>>>  Most people agree there was
>>> a Medieval Warm Period, they just don't agree that it
>>> means what "co2science.org" wants it to mean.
>>
>> Well, Benny, good old CO2Science is so bad that some of your buddies
>> attacked it and tried to erase all of the data. Too bad for people
>> like you that actual records and papers prove you wrong most of the
>> time.
>>
>> But it's all right with me if you want to pretend to be knowledgeable
>> about something you know nothing about.
>>
>>
>
> Here's how typical climate skeptics stack up against real climate
> physicists in terms of their h-indeces:
>
> The question, if you calculate the h-index for a group of well-known, 
> well-
> funded, and well-fed from the look of them climate skeptics and 
> compared
> that to the h-index for a group of similar climate scientists, would 
> there
> be any significant difference?  (Sidebar:  the h-index is one measure 
> of a
> scientist's productivity over his/her career and tracks the impact 
> their
> publications have in terms of citations.  There is a wikipedia entry 
> on the
> h-index, googling h-index will turn it up.  It is also discussed on 
> the ISI
> website.)  So, I took the staff of WorldClimateRe****t.com (Michaels,
> Balling, Davies, Knappenberger (all well-known skeptics)) and compared
> their h-indeces to the staff of RealClimate.org (Schmidt, Mann, 
> Ammann,
> Archer, Benestad, BRadley, Connolley, Rahmstorf, Steig, 
> deGaridel-Thoron
> (maybe not so well-known climate physicists and chemists)).  One issue 
> with
> this approach is that the h-index for a scientist will rise over time.
> This puts younger scientists at a disadvantage to older scientists so 
> I
> also computed the average h-index for each divided by the years since 
> Ph.D.
> (the result being the average rise in h-index over time (ISI claims 
> for
> physicists that a value of 1 for this ratio signifies normal 
> scientific
> productivity (the ratio is higher for biomedical sciences, somewhat 
> lower
> for other sciences, but 1 is a good ballpark number)).  Here are the
> results (all h-indeces compiled using ISI's Web of Science):
>
> WorldClimateRe****t (Skeptics)
> Name....................h-index....PhD Yr...........h-index/(yrs since 
> PhD)
> P.J.Michaels.............11........1979..............0.38
> R.C.Balling Jr...........19........1979..............0.66
> P.C.Knappenberger.........9........1992..............0.56
> R.E.Davies...............13........1979..............0.65
>
> Average...................13.........................0.56
>
>
> RealClimate.org (Climate scientists)
> Name..............h-index.........PhD 
> Yr..............h-index/yrssincePhD
> Schmidt............18.............1996..............1.5
> Mann...............29.............1998..............2.9
> Ammann.............17.............2002..............2.8
> Archer.............24.............1990..............1.3
> Benestad...........8..............1997..............0.73
> Bradley............31.............1974..............0.91
> Connolley..........14.............1996..............1.2
> deGaridel-Thoron...5..............2002..............0.83
> Rahmstorf..........22.............1990..............1.2
> Steig..............24.............1995..............1.85
>
> Average............18...............................1.53
>
>
> So it's a landslide to RealClimate.org in terms of scientific 
> productivity.
> Their average h-index normalized over their careers is a factor of 
> three
> greater than the skeptics.  This is why the skeptics are simply 
> getting
> savaged scientifically.  They just aren't good scientists, they're 
> just
> media whores who do just enough science to maintain credibility.
>

Hmm, to generalize that logic; would it be appropriate to always side 
with the so-called heavy hitters? Not to dispute the fact that the 
majority of heavy hitters side with realclimate but ..............well, 
explain your sampling technique again.

Phil H