This reminded me of something I saw on the Planet Green channel (directv). I am sorry as I can’t remember the story for exactly but it is one of the weekly presentations that (supposedly) talks about the happennings around the world relevant to the global warming scene. It goes along as all these programs do showing people and their proof for the warming conspiracy and then a scientist (I am sorry as I wasn’t paing a great deal of attention on the specifics so I can’t say who this person was) says “now this isn’t my opinion, this is concrete information obtained from computer modelling” etc. etc.. My point being that computer modelling was being treated as proof when everyone should know that this is a tool not a scientific measurment (and it is a tool that can easily be manipulated to show a conclusion you want it to show). This is television and I should know that the average person isn’t exactly computer or scientifically literate but I think this shows why some of the hysteria is succeeding.

Michel asks “We know the studies are junk. Why are smart people writing them, and equally smart people defending them?”

I spent three and a half decades in the field of education in Canada. I saw many “educational bandwagons” come and go. They usually started in California, and then enthusiastically moved north-east. These bandwagons were certainly not as important as AGW since they were never accepted world-wide (North American and Western European students were the main victims), governments never considered destroying their countrys’ economies to join the bandwagon, and finally (and very importantly), it took less than a decade to show that the latest bandwagon had just as little merit as the previous one. Nevertheless, the principle of smart people doing junk research, and other smart people defending and promoting it was the same, and so I can answer the question very simply – SELF INTEREST!!

To be one of those who starts a successful bandwagon, or at least jumps on the bandwagon early in the game is to be one whose career takes a giant leap upward. Conversely, to be openly skeptical of a bandwagon that is widely supported is to be one whose career is likely to take a giant drop downward. Had anyone heard of Michael Mann before he came up with his bogus hockey stick graph? What is his professional status now? Richard Lindzen was one of the most respected and admired profs at MIT and in the academic world. Has his refusal to join the bandwagon helped or hurt his professional status? If you’ve answered these two questions, I say QED!!

Michel’s other question with reference to these studies (“Do they know they are junk? If not, why not?”) is an interesting one, and the answer is less clear. I often asked myself a similar question. (“Don’t these educators know that this latest educational bandwagon is just the latest BS to pass by?”) My personal view is that the answer varies from individual to individual. I think there are some climate scientists who just aren’t bright enough to be doing serious hard-core science. Now admittedly, Steve McIntyre is exceptionally smart, but consider the fact that even though the Team members persistently deny him access to their methods and refuse to make public their raw data, he (in a very short time) finds important mistakes in studies that they have spent years on. What does that say about their competence? I think that there are other scientists who are smart enough to know that these studies are seriously faulty, but are more than willing to overlook these faults. One reason for this behaviour is the aforementioned self interest, but another is “religion”. Many people (scientists included) have a need to believe in something. For most of these people, organized religion fills this need. However, scientists are generally less religious (in the conventional sense) than most people. For many climate scientists, AGW has become a religion. For them, it is truly a noble cause, and as with many noble causes, they believe that the end justifies the means. Thus, they see overlooking “inconvenient shortcomings” in these studies as being equivalent to a good parent telling a young child a “white lie” in order to keep that child safe. The problem, of course, is that the analogy is false. The parent is relatively “all knowing” compared to the small child, and when the child is old enough to make good decisions on his/her own, the good parent will tell the child the truth. Neither of these conditions apply to the climate scientists telling “white lies” to the general public.

Historians will look back on this and just shake their heads.
The fraud is blatant and easily documented, yet it just rolls on.
But these abused proxy studies do prove one important aspect of AGW:
AGW is not dependent in any way on facts or evidence.
When the true believers realize they are in a corner, they simply try to dissemble and claim that since the greenhouse effect is true, AGW must be true.

I was never that good at statistics at school. I always seemed to have a mental block.

And yet I easily understand your arguments agsint their methods.

How come I understand the limitations but the experts do not?

Hi, I think you are an intelligent author. But you want to try all the proxies in your paper.