Okay, I don't know if I did this right but we'll see.  I just wrote up an article and put it under one of the rebuttal headings.  Maybe someone can help me get this where it's supposed to be, that's if everyone likes the article.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/arg_list.php?Action=Preview&r=339 (moved to blog post here.)

Give it a read.  It's pretty fun, I think you'll like it. 

I did a similar calculation with the Oregon Petition a while back.

A couple of suggestions.  First, it's worth explicitly stating that we're assuming every name on the Oregon Petition has a science degree.  You may recall the previous version had a Spice Girl, fictional MASH characters, and so on.  Simply put, they don't actually check the credentials of the names on the list, so by accepting the 31,000 figure, we're giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Second, it's important to specify that the Poptech list purports to contain examples of AGW "alarm".  Very few of the papers on the list actually dispute anthropogenic warming.  What they dispute is that hurricanes have gotten stronger as a result of AGW, for example.

It's also worth noting that approximately 20% of the Poptech list is comprised of Energy & Environment (not peer-reviewed) papers.  And of course there are a bunch of papers that just plain don't belong on the list, and so on.  Again you can give them the benefit of the doubt and keep the 850, but it's worth explicitly noting that you're being generous by including these non-peer-reviewed papers and other problems with the list.

Generally, we're going with a academic, dispassionate tone in the rebuttals. I know, it's boring, remove all the personality!

But this would make a great blog post - you have used the Author Admin to add blog posts, right?

John...  That's fine.  I didn't really know where to post it.  I don't think I've used the Author Admin before.  I'll check that out.

Dana...  Yeah, I didn't want to muddy the water.  Even accepting the absurd terms of each of their exercises adding a denominator makes their numbers profoundly insignificant.  I just wanted to make that clean, simple argument in a fun and engaging way.

The whole thing just popped into my head today when that guy Ed, on NTZ, threw the "800 peer-reviewed papers" at me. 

Okay, I reposted this as a blog post.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/meet-the-denominator.html

Also added Dana's link to Greenfrye's thorough dismantling of PopTech.

Damn Rob that Ed guy - he claims to have a physics background, but if that's true, he's got to be the worst damn physicist I've ever come across.  Though he looks old - maybe he got a physics degree decades ago, didn't do anything with it, and has forgotten everything he learned.  Or maybe his political biases overwhelm his scientific thought processes.  Whatever the case may be, he says some really stupid shit that should never come out of the mouth of a guy with a physics background.

Your article still says about Poptech: "That leaves our friend with 0.1% of peer reviewed papers challenge anthropogenic climate change."

Again I think it's important to be precise here.  Even Poptech doesn't claim his list is of papers challenging AGW, so you could be accused of creating a strawman here.  The papers are supposed to be examples disputing AGW alarm.  I think it's an important distinction.

Good point, Dana.  Will fix that.

I'm sure PopTech will stop in and bless us with his glowing personality.  I want to give him as few angles as possible. 

Fixed.  Adjusted the numbers.

And my earlier comment was utterly wrong about the PhD's.  I guess I hadn't had enough coffee yet this morning.  There are about 18 million PhD's in the US.  That means they have the signatures of 0.05% of the PhD's in the US.  (Based on their lax standards.)

This is very good.

Frankly, I'm surprised how small the percentages are. I'm a member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and I would guess that a majority of the 31,000 membership of that organization are skeptics. (There were enough of us to force the AAPG in 2007 to drop its official denialist stance, though; the AAPG was the last major scientific society to do that.) 

I wonder how many people with science degrees are evolution skeptics? I have met a few engineers and even one or two geologists in Canada who believe that the Earth is 6000 years old. I would guess that the US proportion would be even higher.

Poptech and the other minions of denialdom will hate this...

...so naturally I like it.

Nice job!

I think he's almost done.  I went back and checked, last time I poked him (Kung-Fu climate) he drove the comments to 286 posts.  Now we're over 600 for Denominator.  I can sense he's tiring.  Kind of a like a fighter in the 12th round of a title fight.

I think this one hurt him.