Update on Peiser

An update pertaining to my article on Benny Peiser's analysis of climate science. He had claimed he found 34 abstracts in the scientific mainstream that did not accept the consensus position that humans are causing rapid climate changes.

He is a frequent commenter on a science policy blog run by Roger Pielke Jr., Prometheus, that I sometimes try to keep up with. I challenged him directly about one particular abstract in the comments section of one post a couple of weeks ago and he made the following admission:

I accept that it was a mistake to include the abstract you mentioned (and some other rather ambiguous ones) in my critique of the Oreskes essay. It certainly deflected attention from my main criticism, i.e. that her claim of a unanimous consensus on AGW (as opposed to a majority consensus) is tenuous.

I suppose this is to his credit, but I would think he is obligated to go to a little more effort in correcting the false impression his "finding" created (at least among those already inclined this way). Also, despite the disintegration of this evidence, he still holds the same conclusion. There are certainly many other problems, see my article cited above, as well as the other "rather ambiguous" abstracts.

I wonder how many times this discredited (and now disavowed) bit of shoddy research will continue to be cited?