This is a really interesting email string form the CRU emails, via Steve McIntyre:
June 4, 2003 Briffa to Cook 1054748574
On June 4, 2003, Briffa, apparently acting as editor (presumably for Holocene), contacted his friend Ed Cook of Lamont-Doherty in the U.S. who was acting as a reviewer telling him that “confidentially” he needed a “hard and if required extensive case for rejecting”, in the process advising Cook of the identity and recommendation of the other reviewer. There are obviously many issues involved in the following as an editor instruction:From: Keith Briffa
To: Edward Cook
Subject: Re: Review- confidential REALLY URGENT
Date: Wed Jun 4 13:42:54 2003I am really sorry but I have to nag about that review – Confidentially I now need a hard and if required extensive case for rejecting – to support Dave Stahle’s and really as soon as you can. Please
KeithCook to Briffa, June 4, 2003
In a reply the same day, Cook told Briffa about a review for Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Sciences of a paper which, if not rejected, could “really do some damage”. Cook goes on to say that it is an “ugly” paper to review because it is “rather mathematical” and it “won’t be easy to dismiss out of hand as the math appears to be correct theoretically”. Here is the complete email:Hi Keith,
Okay, today. Promise! Now something to ask from you. Actually somewhat important too. I got a paper to review (submitted to the Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Sciences), written by a Korean guy and someone from Berkeley, that claims that the method of reconstruction that we use in dendroclimatology (reverse regression) is wrong, biased, lousy, horrible, etc. They use your Tornetrask recon as the main whipping boy. I have a file that you gave me in 1993 that comes from your 1992 paper. Below is part of that file. Is this the right one? Also, is it possible to resurrect the column headings? I would like to play with it in an effort to refute their claims. If published as is, this paper could really do some damage. It is also an ugly paper to review because it is rather mathematical, with a lot of Box-Jenkins stuff in it. It won’t be easy to dismiss out of hand as the math appears to be correct theoretically, but it suffers from the classic problem of pointing out theoretical deficiencies, without showing that their improved inverse regression method is actually better in a practical sense. So they do lots of monte carlo stuff that shows the superiority of their method and the deficiencies of our way of doing things, but NEVER actually show how their method would change the Tornetrask reconstruction from what you produced. Your assistance here is greatly appreciated. Otherwise, I will let Tornetrask sink into the melting permafrost of northern Sweden (just kidding of course).
Cheers,
Ed
A couple of observations
- For guys who supposedly represent the consensus science of tens of thousands of scientists, these guys sure have a bunker mentality
- I would love an explanation of how math can have theoretical deficiencies but be better in a practical sense. In the practical sense of … giving the answer one wants?
- The general whitewash answer to all the FOIA obstructionism is that these are scientists doing important work not to be bothered by nutcases trying to waste their time. But here is exactly the hypocrisy: The email author says that some third party’s study is deficient because he can’t demonstrate how his mathematical approach might change the answer the hockey team is getting. But no third party can do this because the hockey team won’t release the data needed for replication. This kind of data – to check the mathematical methodologies behind the hockey stick regressions – is exactly what Steve McIntyre et al have been trying to get. Ed Cook is explaining here, effectively, why release of this data is indeed important
- At the very same time these guys are saying to the world not to listen to critics because they are not peer-reviewed, they are working as hard as they can back-channel to keep their critics out of peer-reviewed literature they control.
- For years I have said that one problem with the hockey team is not just that the team is insular, but he reviewers of their work are the same guys doing the work. And now we see that these same guys are asked to review the critics of their work.
More for AGW shills and such to ignore:
http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO60033/IDO60033.2007.pdf
Sea levels not rising.
And so apparently sea levels aren’t rising and temperatures don’t seem to be increasing…. Interesting.
Eric,
I like the way they used wicked looking color for the skeptic’s view.
They give the CO2 lagging a great try, but fail.
Thanks,
Here’s a pretty good list of the sacred peer review journal articles supporting skepticism about AGW: http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html
Waldo,
If you’re still here, here’s a nice review of how our established experts, or the authority f-ed up the peer review process: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704398304574598230426037244.html
This is one of the main issues with the peer review process, it requires that those doing the reviewing act ethically. Just isn’t always going to happen. And in small fields, you only need a few people to overly support their biases before the peer reviewed journals themselves become biased. I’d bet most of the scientists here have run into a situations where they have done research that conflicts with the general line of thinking coming out of the top couple of labs in that field, only to find that their paper ends up being reviewed by the heads of those labs, where it then gets shot down. This is probably the biggest flaw in the peer review process. It tends to reward people that support the conventional wisdom and makes it difficult to publish papers debunking accepted thought. This means the “authorities” can often go unchallenged in the peer review process, thus making them look like more of an authority because they have 200 papers to your 20. Its our good old positive feedback loops that AGW advocates are so worried about.
Waldo, I thank you for your level of civility, and it is questionable that that same level of civility is always returned to you on this blog. Naturally, I understand the frustration of other posters, and I realize that the civility on this blog – particularly toward legitimate posters — is much better than typically found on pro-AGW sites, but nevertheless, I call upon all posters to engage in useful and uplifting dialogue.
That being said, I am becoming more concerned about your view of experts. One has to smile when you said in your reply to me “Yes I do [give excessive amount of deference to experts].” But moving beyond such word picking, I do not believe that you have a grasp on what is meant by mistakes. First of all, it is not a good sign of the status of climate discussion in MSM or elsewhere when you say that you “do not know about the examples.” These are not little innocent mistakes that make no difference. There are not “multitudes of other work” that independently support the hockey stick. The lead author of the hockey stick is Professor Mann from Penn State; he and his colleagues form what is called “The Team” in Climate Science. They have produced most of the studies that support the hockey stick conclusion, and they overwhelmingly rely on a couple of controversial proxies that drive the conclusion. (Have you heard of Yamal trees, bristlecones and inverted proxies? If not, please read up on them.) The vast majority of multi-century proxy studies (and I mean over 90% of them) contradict the hockey stick, and yet the hockey-stick mentality is key to people’s opinions on climate change.
Please do not listen to me because I am an “expert who passes peer review.” Rather listen to me because I present reliable data and solid analysis. Actually, I did publish – before AGW became highly politicized. In fact then, I accepted the AGW premise. (After all, CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and in laboratory conditions, doubling CO2 from pre-industrial levels will have approximately a one degree impact on temperature. I still accept those components of the AGW premise, but now I question whether the feedback /amplification is strongly positive or whether GCMs produce reliable results or whether an ideal level of CO2 existed back in the 1700s.) Several years ago, I was invited to join others in publishing another paper. There were aspects of the paper about which I had qualms, but my colleagues astutely pointed out that those aspects needed to be in there in order to get future funding. I bowed out, explaining that my sense of integrity did not allow me to go forward on such a motive. Of course, my colleagues proceeded to publish the paper . . . and get the funding. (The love of funding is the source of all sorts of dysfunctions in the scientific process.)
Waldo, I fear that you may lack a handle on what the peer-review process has become in the climate change industry. Although dozens of skeptical studies have been published, there are a few journals that do not accept skeptical studies, and when one is submitted, the editorial board sends it to analysts whose work is being question – hence, it never passes peer review.
To further our discussion on experts, I hope we both would agree that we should not rely on the expert Bob Jones when he tells us to drink the Kool Aid. Also, we both would agree that we would comply with the expert doctor when he tells us to put a splint on a broken arm. Now, in the middle of those extremes, reasonable people can disagree, and I encourage you to be more questioning of experts. I told my doctor there was no need to send me or X-rays of my healed bones to an orthopedic specialist. I could tell and my doctor could tell that the bones were healed, and we did not have to spend the money on more confirmation. Would you follow the Russian expert scientists supporting Lysenkoism? Would you follow the experts in the Catholic church condemning Galileo? Would you question the actions of Mike Nifong’s experts in 2007? In 1999, I questioned the recommendations of IT experts pushing for more drastic actions in the Y2K scare, and I saved my organization hundreds of thousands of dollars — if not millions — plus embarrassment.
Time for me to quit writing! (I warn my students at the start of each semester that I love to talk! And I can keep going! That reminds me: I give my undergraduate students challenges to find what is wrong with the scientific analysis behind some of the more famous climate change studies. Amazing that they can find the errors when the peer-review process cannot!)
One question in conclusion: What do you mean when you ask “Why is Piekle not on these boards?” Are you asking why he doesn’t post on these blogs? He has his own blog, and logically he cannot post on many other blogs.
An Inquirer,
Thank you for the wonderfully concise summary of some of the limits and perils of technocracy (and deference to perceived expertise in general)!
That an academician would sacrifice funding to intellectual integrity is reassurance to my flickering faith in the sustainable productivity of our Academic institutions.
Thanks for that, too!
Woof. Nice Inquirer! I am actually somewhat amazed at a thorough and thoughtful response. Almost always these boards devolve into adolescent insults and cliches (and usually I give as good as I get but decided to tone it back here), which is what has started to happen. But an actual discussion!? Oh joy!
There is a lot there and I’m actually on the job, so let me just answer the “Why is Pielke not on these boards?” question with my own little amount of pontification –
I simply always have to wonder why so much mental energy is expended on cross-posting and then defending blogger-statements when you have a genuine scientist with impeccable credentials out there that posits some very credible but complex arguments? Why aren’t Pielke articles all over this board?
Which leads me to another observation (which will probably spark another round of “climate science is a religion” comments from people who obviously have a very dogmatic relationship to the subject) –
I’ve been looking at Wally’s 7:51a.m. posting of “peer-reviewed” anti-AGW literature.
Now, I’ve numerously (and pointlessly, as it turns out) stated that I do not believe in AGW – there’s clearly science and scientists out there who offer counter-theories – but as I go down Wally’s list I repeatedly see “Energy and the Environment” (coal industry publication), “Iron & Steel Industry,” a number of “submitted” papers, a great number of papers that are now over a decade old, and a number of journals that do not seem to have a web presence. As a test run, I put a random title into Academic Search Premier and came up with no citation for this particular journal in question. It is entirely possible that I need to search more and in other databases, but it also gives me pause…
Why, An Inquirer, do you suppose that certain people are so uncritical of their sources? Most of the people here seize on any NASA error or actively seek incriminating statements as absolute proof or will deride expert opinion because money might be involved…but will happily cite an article in E & E. Why are these people so incredibly unidimensional in their criticism?
If you would expect me to be critical of AGW statements (which is perfectly fair), why not be critical of anti-AGW statements also?
Waldo,
I expected more from you:
“as I go down Wally’s list I repeatedly see “Energy and the Environment” (coal industry publication), “Iron & Steel Industry,” a number of “submitted” papers, a great number of papers that are now over a decade old, and a number of journals that do not seem to have a web presence.”
Regardless of how old the paper is (and really a decade? that’s too old?) or where it came from, that doesn’t mean its a bad source, presents incorrect data or unsupported conclusion. Each argument stands on its own and should be evaluated independent of the journal it was published in. Didn’t we just get through pointing out how the peer review process can be flawed, and was especially flawed in climate research. Maybe these papers are showing up in lesser journals because they got snubbed out of a few more high visible journals thanks to the likes of Mann, et al.?
Also, in side the list you’ll see papers from Nature, Nature Geosciences, Science, Climate Research (yes even that one). I’m by no means saying every paper in there is without flaws, but to discredit the entire list based on some subset coming from what you believe to be suspicious sources is just ridiculous.
“Why, An Inquirer, do you suppose that certain people are so uncritical of their sources?”
Some people, who? When? Where? Talk about being critical. This is a non-starter.
“Most of the people here seize on any NASA error or actively seek incriminating statements as absolute proof or will deride expert opinion because money might be involved…but will happily cite an article in E & E.”
In case you missed it, this is blog for AGW skeptic arguments, so that’s what its going to be about. And if I have good reason to deride expert opinion, I will. Just making the blanket statement that we do this because money is involved is a huge straw man. We have evidence for manipulating the peer review system, they lost their raw data (which in itself is enough to totally ignore any work based on that data), with what data we do have its been shown that either you can get the same result with randomized raw data, or no one can replicate the result. The argument against several of these “experts” go far beyond “because money might be involved.” To state such a thing right before you claim, “why are these people so incredibly unidimensional in their criticism?” Is terribly hypocritical, as you’re obviously not paying attention to the criticisms being levied in the first place, nor are you being critical, as you proudly defer to any expert you deem worthy based on unknown criteria and apperently regardless of the argument by those people.
“If you would expect me to be critical of AGW statements (which is perfectly fair), why not be critical of anti-AGW statements also?”
I won’t speak for all people here, but I try my best to be equally critical of everything I read. You seem to be all bent out of shape because E&E appears in that list of papers fairly frequently. Well take them out if you like (not that I’d actually do this, but just for argument sake). There are some 147 other journals sited (look at the bottom of the link for a complete list) and roughly 350 articles from papers not out of that journal. So, what exactly is your point. Where exactly am I not being critical. Point to something specific, otherwise this is just rhetorical ping-pong, as you like to put it.
Waldo,
I see you are willing to defer to authority on matters that you do not feel fully capable of judging for yourself. Michael Tobis (Only in it for the Gold)and Ben Hale (Cruel Mistress) also promoted this same idea.
I have always wondered how one can make the choice of who is/is not an expert, if one feels unable to judge any/enough of the work themselves.
If you have the time I would appreciate your perpective on how one can sensibly and reasonably choose which authority to defer to (and/or which to ignore).
Regards
Hmmm…wasn’t sure I understood all of that, Wally, but okay…
**”Regardless of how old the paper is (and really a decade? that’s too old?)”
Weeeeelll…if you are talking about Beowulf scholarship, no. But science moves so fast that is actually quite old for scientific paper, wouldn’t you say? This is what I was taught, in any event, and this is why citation styles such as APA always contain the year (2009) so that reviewers and readers can be sure that the science is up-to-date.
**”where it came from, that doesn’t mean its a bad source,”
This I’m going to have to disagree with you on. Yes, absolutely, the source does matter. The coal industry has an iron in the fire as does the steel industry. It should be fairly self-apparent why the source should matter. And again I find this acceptance of industry papers rather hypocritical on a forum that has roundly condemned CRU scientists for being, essentially, self interested.
**”to discredit the entire list based on some subset coming from what you believe to be suspicious sources is just ridiculous.”
Weeeeeell…I did not do such a thing. Sometimes I think there is some deliberate obtuseness on this point, or perhaps I don’t explain well, but…
The problem is that a list like the one above simply lists “500 peer-reviewed papers” without regard to the source, many of which should raise red-flags. It is disingenuous.
**”Well take them out if you like”
Yes, take them out. Quality and not quantity. That is the point.
Waldo,
One of the annoying trollish things you indulge in is to pretend that you are some sort of Margaret Mead, with faux disinterest in what the restless natives are doing.
Using strawmen, as you do in abundance, and then sniffing out a ‘see? I told ya so’ snippy remark only makes you more trollish and does nothing to move communication forward.
But addressing your favorite strawman, that skeptics are in it fer unworthy reasons, and the venues they can get published in proves they are unworthy, is addressed rather well in the e-mails of those AGW promoters who themselves talk about how they set out to halt the publications of skeptics.
Rather circular on your part, Waldo.
Speaking of quantity publications, since there is a network that has been documented that reviews each other papers, and they are on the AGW prmotion side of the argument, it seems that the reasonable take would be to review those papers (apparently a large stack) and toss out the ones with conflicted reviews.
I believe that history will show that COP15 is the first large casualty of climategate.
Perhaps it is time for less snark and denial from the AGW community regarding the questions raised by cliamtegate and the review of the data coming from it, and to actually follow the implications?
Waldo,
This posting will not contain any substance — I just wanted to get a quick note out in response to hunter’s posting. Please do not be put off by the tone of hunter’s comment. Although some of hunter’s concepts have merit, his message might easily get lost in his tone. While I urge him to be more civil, there is some room for understanding: he has been repeatedly and viciously attacked by a “troll” — with even a element of identity theft. Therefore, that might be a reason he is overly quick to pounce on others.
Waldo = Micheal Mann, can someone check his IP, and see if it is coming from his university?
Waldo
“Weeeeelll…if you are talking about Beowulf scholarship, no. But science moves so fast that is actually quite old for scientific paper, wouldn’t you say? This is what I was taught, in any event, and this is why citation styles such as APA always contain the year (2009) so that reviewers and readers can be sure that the science is up-to-date.”
I no longer beleive in math, gravity, nor e=mc^2, my god those papers are like hundreds, hundreds and decades old, I think I will go out and jump to the moon, that by my non math calculations and lack of gravity means that I can jump there instantaneously!!
Thanks Waldo, my life will never be the same again, now that I know that anything over 10 years old in science is automatically wrong.
“in response to hunter’s posting”
I kind of quit reading Hunter’s posts. A lot of posts, honestly.
“Waldo = Micheal Mann, can someone check his IP, and see if it is coming from his university?”
You are joking, right? Bawahahahahahaha! You will probably find several IPs since I post from several different places. One is, in fact, a university but nothing nearly so prestigious as Penn St. U and the other is my home. Trust me, your loyal troll is no one quite so infamous as that.
But now I leave you in peace to have some fun. Inquiry, we shall chat again tomorrow, no? Ta-ta.
From this quote:
“written by a Korean guy and someone from Berkeley, that claims that the method of reconstruction that we use in dendroclimatology (reverse regression) is wrong, biased, lousy, horrible, etc.” Obviously, their paper was showing that the tree ring proxies were statistically crap.
As to “but it suffers from the classic problem of pointing out theoretical deficiencies, without showing that their improved inverse regression method is actually better in a practical sense.” The authors of the rejected papers obvously could NOT apply their methods to tree rings to get better results in a “practical” sense because there is NO way to get non-crap results from tree rings. That argument was in effect saying,
“Okay, you say my method of making predictions from crystal balls is worthless. Your criticism of my method cannot be taken seriously unless you are able to make better predictions using crystal balls than I can.”
@Waldo:
You seem to show no interest in discussing actual science, your position is that only scientists can do that, and as far as I understand your only argument is that in the question of AGW the opinion of experts is predominantly on the pro-AGW side. It seems to me that it has been shown in this thread that there are many experts who reject the concept of catastrophic AGW (1). It has been pointed out that science is not done by consensus, it only takes one guy to disprove a theory (2). It has also been pointed out that there is evidence of the pro-AGW folks silencing their opponents for years, thus there is reason even for those inclined to judge science on relatively tangential factors such as the number of articles pro- or contra- a particular concept to put these factors aside at least in this case (3).
What exactly are you arguing? Did I not understand your position (if so, I apologize and I stand ready to hear what you have to say)? Which of the (1), (2), (3) above do you disagree with?
Commenters at CS,
This “Waldo” critter – the best thing is to ignore the loon completely.
If you attempt to engage with it, the loon will just fill up the thread with pompous, boring screeds of rubbish.
As at Dec 19, 3:09am there were 67 comments of which 20 had been sprayed by the loon – see where there 5 one after the other – is that a gang bang?
Possibly Lord Monckton had this loon in mind when he coined the term “bedwetter”.
JoNova has a nice little detail on her blog comments page. One can vote a posting up or down… after so many downs, the posting is hidden.
Something like that would shorten this particular round by quite a bit.
A later version of the paper has now been run down. Still not published but given at a high-profile NBER time-series conference. Here is the link.
http://nber-nsf09.ucdavis.edu/program/papers/auffhammer.pdf
Looks like a solid paper that proves (mathematically) that the inverse regression method used in many reconstructions of temperature “provides biased estimates of the reconstructed climate series and underestimates the true variability of historical climate”. Bias is being used in its technical statistical sense as a property of estimators, not as a term of abuse. I can’t see any good reason for suppressing this finding other than damage limitation. The form of analysis is a commonplace in econometrics which devotes reams of space to properties of estimators. Of course the current version may be an improvement of the 2003 version, but the finding is important and should have made it to the published literature by now.
And I predicted that Waldo, when confronted with tough questions, would just fade away.
Cya,
Well, my brothers and sisters, just checking back in. Inquiry, I too wax far too verbosely. Sorry. But –
** “Please do not listen to me because I am an ‘expert who passes peer review.’ Rather listen to me because I present reliable data and solid analysis.”***
I guess this is the crux of my problem: I am an admitted layman. I do not know the science. So I am forced to make a choice about who to place my trust in. I would not question that you are who you claim to be, but why, Dr. Inquirer, should you have more reliable data and solid analysis than Mann or, say, Hansen? There is certainly proxy *“controversy”*…but I don’t think that equates to the burden of disproof. The term “controversy” indicates an argument which is underway, a public dispute. The jury is still out, in other words. It is a sad day when “controversy” alone rules our psyches.
And I hate to point this out, but (while I have no doubt that you have impressive credentials of your own) Mann and Hansen are also quite impressive and, were they to log on, would undoubtedly defend their methodology and tree-ring proxies etc. Also, this information is broadly available. Thus I am left wondering why massive governmental agencies, world governments, universities, and even (if CNN poles are to be believed) the majority of climate scientists are quite convinced of AGW. As a layperson who finds most of the controversy in the blogosphere and only with a few select but believable scientists, why should I still not believe the IPCC or NOAA or NASA or the EPA?
In your above examples (DNA in Duke Lacrosse case etc) you seem to be making the argument that the layperson population is capable of pointing out the deficiencies or errors of the scientific community. Very good. I can’t imagine who would have argued that anyway. But is that really what is going on here on “Climate Skeptic”? Or are people uncritically accepting anything that contradicts AGW out of a sense of frustration or conservative ideology or religious affiliation or any number of personal beliefs? Does this blog and ones like it actually damage the credibility of the anti-AGW camps as Hansen’s political activities have damaged his own reputation? This is actually the question I am interested in.
** “I bowed out, explaining that my sense of integrity did not allow me to go forward on such a motive. Of course, my colleagues proceeded to publish the paper . . . and get the funding. (The love of funding is the source of all sorts of dysfunctions in the scientific process.)”**
Bravo. I applaud your integrity. But your colleagues did get funding and publication. I’m sorry to ask this, since I don’t know the specifics, but are you sure your colleagues weren’t correct?
** “Waldo, I fear that you may lack a handle on what the peer-review process has become in the climate change industry.” **
Now…this seems a little hyperbolic to me. And again, the place where I hear the most dire accusations about peer-review is in the blogosphere which usually champions science that is not, in fact, peer reviewed. So please forgive me (this is nothing personal, as I’m sure you realize) but I am not entirely willing to believe that the entire peer-review process is quite so tarnished as yet. Peer-review is still the standard for science worldwide, even if it is not perfect, as nothing that is human ever is.
** “[I]n the middle of those extremes, reasonable people can disagree, and I encourage you to be more questioning of experts.”**
But see, this is where the whole conversation derails. The good people on this board and others like it are not “questioning the experts” – this is wholesale denial, vitriol, vindictiveness, and even on occasion fury directed toward the AGW community. I see nothing wrong with “questioning the experts” as long as one has a certain amount of insight…but I would ask that you be honest about what goes on here.
** “I told my doctor there was no need to send me or X-rays of my healed bones to an orthopedic specialist. I could tell and my doctor could tell that the bones were healed, and we did not have to spend the money on more confirmation.” ***
But see, this is the whole point. Had there been a question you would have sent the X-rays to an orthopedic expert, no? You would not have sent them to an OBGYN or a cardiovascular surgeon or a neurosurgeon – and you would be right to point out that any of these other specialists would certainly have spotted an egregious error and would be more qualified than, say, me or you to issue a diagnosis – but there was never a question that you would defer to an expert opinion. Plus, I might point out, you did not go to a psychologist or economist or climatologist when you were injured, you went to an M.D. Expert opinion matters.
And yes, sometimes experts are wrong (Y2K was pretty funny at the time) but why aren’t we questioning the geologists because the Oregon earthquake has yet to appear? As an undergraduate I was told (by an expert) that around 500 years or so (I may have my timeline off a little), a massive earthquake rocks the Pacific Northwest because of the subduction of the Juan de Fuca plate beneath the continental lithosphere. He, the expert, could demonstrate through the geologic record that a massive geological event occurs on a regular geologic time table and the fault line runs right beneath downtown Portland, Oregon! Clearly this is disaster waiting to happen. Now this was fifteen years ago and clearly no massive .5 earthquake has hit. Should we begin to doubt the peer-review in geology? What about astrophysics? I have never seen a sunspot myself, nor am I convinced that solar radiation fluxes. Where’s the proof? In journals? Do we stop using pharmaceuticals because drug companies sometimes have to recall their products?
Why are we so quick to doubt an entire particular scientific discipline simply because there have been errors and even some duplicity across decades of work?
Why are you people so angry?
Wow, you guys are just being trolled. Holy crap.
The point of developing trusting in a certain specialty is that the competence in that specialty can be regularly monitored or evaluated. Trust can therefore be place or withdrawn by observation. Payment to these specialists has an observable benefit or a certain level of risk mitigation.
These certain climate scientists have specialized in declaring the end of the world to be imminent but make predictions about 10-45 years. It sounds impressive but it isn’t a competency that can be easily monitored or evaluated. Payment being proposed, carbon cap and trade, isn’t tied to any easily observed benefit or risk mitigation except as measured by the climate models.
Because of the long lag time in observation of climate change, climate science follows a different paradigm. The science is crap until it’s been able to withstand at least 30 years of test and review.
TanGeng:
“The science is crap until it’s been able to withstand at least 30 years of test and review.”
Let’s refine that a bit: The science is crap until it’s been able to withstand at least 30 years of fair and objective test and review. 30 years of a stacked deck is meaningless.
“Wow, you guys are just being trolled. Holy crap.”
The thing about wrasslin’ a pig – you get real diry; and, sooner or later, you figure out that the pig’s just havin’ fun.
..’Peer-review is still the standard for science worldwide…’
Waldo, it may well be for academic scientists. I doubt that it is equally true for scientists in the business or military spheres. For those I think replicability is more important.
And may I ask again how one can make the choice of who is/is not an expert or authority, if one feels unable to judge any/enough of the work themselves.
“Why are we so quick to doubt an entire particular scientific discipline simply because there have been errors and even some duplicity across decades of work?”
According to your logic, we should not have democracies. As informed citizens, individuals could never be an expert on all issues the government regulates and taxes. This would leave one to have democracies where even the uninitiated can vote with imperfect information.
I’m a lay person as well. From my perspective, people generally will not be able to argue the fine points of one statistical technique over another. You are correct that they have no expertise. What they are equally qualified for ( and perhaps more so since they don’t live in a Ivory Tower seperated from us unwashed masses), is to identify scammers and charlatans.
It doesn’t help the AGW crowd to have ads with falling polar bears, plans for massive co2 reduction schemes while ignoring cheaper solutions or people telling them they are idiots and should listen to their betters. All of these things will only drive people away from your argument as they are the tools of political manipulation and not reason. People see right through that.
TanGeng,
Good point. A relatively polite troll, but troll none the less.
Waldo is either ignoring the answers or is declining to answer them.
Tony Hansen,
You are correct: peer review is not the gold standard. Replicability is.
Another good indicator of the validity of an idea is how the people who are attracted to it behave.
Look at who got cheered at COP15, and look at who was making the violence and riots in Copenhagen.
Look at how AGW true believers treat people who disagree at their blogs vs. how even trolls are treated at, say, here.
Tony –
** “And may I ask again how one can make the choice of who is/is not an expert or authority, if one feels unable to judge any/enough of the work themselves.”
The same way that one picks a doctor, a lawyer, an accountant, or an auto mechanic. Unless you are all four you must choose at least one of these professions without real insight. So, one looks at credentials, degrees, certifications, associations, etc. In the case of climate science, I am not so paranoid about my government that, when I see that someone is a government scientist, I immediately distrust them. I would say the same thing about scientists in world organizations. I think I’ve answered this many times but I guess this is a long thread.
And, Tony, you do realize that “business or military spheres” rely heavily on “academic scientists” to do their work for them, don’t you? You do realize that companies like Firestone or Eli Lilly spend billions on university researchers and that MIT does a great deal of military design, just to name a few, right?
Joe, I have no idea how you got to your democracies statement, but I might suggest this is a classic straw man argument. As are the implications of “ivory tower” comments.
Hunter, what questions did you want me to answer? I must have missed them.
And who is this “troll” everyone keeps talking about?
A very interesting article at American Thinker
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/a_climatology_conspiracy.html
Waldo,
At this point I’m growing more inclined give up on you. If you’re unable to understand the flaws in picking an authority by awards, or committees, after all that only going to hurt you not me. You bring up picking an auto mechanic for example. How many times have you been burned by an auto mechanic, because you relied on some measure of authority instead of doing a little homework and being willing to get your hands dirty? Like most things our cars actually aren’t that complicated, and smart people given a little time can come to understand them. Or they can at least come to the point where they can do a better job picking a mechanic based on some credential, by talking to them and judging their knowledge on the matter. Which is the issue here. You’re inclinded to just pick from a list of MIT, Harvard, Oxford grads with long CVs. Those of us that are closer to this science than you appear to be and are willing to to the homework are going to take it to the next level and actually evaluate the work done and conclusions drawn from it. So, by all means, do it your way. But do so knowing that the more informed and critical individuals are going to do it their way, and they will be better off in every aspect of life because of there willingness to study up and get critical.
I’d also like to point out you dodged Tony’s question. How many doctors of any given specialty are in your area? Or auto mechs? How do you distiguish between them given equivalent pedigrees? If one doctor from Harvard tell your pregnant wife drinking a glass of wine a week is no big deal and another from UCSF says don’t drink at all, who do you believe? More over, how do you even trust the pedigrees? Do you just assume that UCSF or Stanford is better than UC Davis because some other credential told you so? Its a house of cards with one credential built on another. As my PI has always told me, you get awards for winning awards… So, the trick is winning that first award.
For future note Waldo, the use of “bawhahaha” only reveals your true maturity.
Allan, while Waldo claimed previously to have earned a PhD, not in climate science, but PhD none the less, I would assert that he/she in fact does NOT garnish said ac-credibility. Why? Because I do NOT myself garner such academic credentials and yet I recognized “Monte Carlo” immediately for what, as you state and cite, it really is.
Sorry Waldo, you lost credibility with me.
Waldo, can you tell me the age of the Hockey Stick?
Waldo, you and the entire global warming community have completely lost sight of the point.
It is not necessary for the skeptic community to prove anything.
The Global Warming community is the group proposing a radical alteration of all of Humanity’s economics, and the expenditure of potentially trillions of dollars of effort- and those trillions of dollars represent billions of work-days by Human beings. Entire human Lifetimes worth of labor output would be consumed in the policies they advocate. If the Global Warming community is wrong, this represents a catastrophic waste of human effort on a scale not seen since the second world war. Ergo, 100% of the burden of proof falls on them. Contrarian views must therefore be examined thoroughly and competently.
Going back to the original subject, it is therefore more logical to give consideration to the idea that the email’s intent was to squash a challenge to the AGW hypothesis, than it is to handwave it away.
I saw a lot of rhetoric in here, mainly, of course, in defense of the scientists involved in the emails. Simple fact, they were were trying to refute a critique of their papers by a mathematical treatment sound enough to cause them concern. The fear was that their paper could be discredited. No doubt, that does happen all the time in other areas of science and is not, in and of itself, that dastardly, though it certainly smacks of unprofessionalism and some “bunker mentality.” The primary difference here, though, is that these papers they wish to defend are being used to justify the abolishment of capitalism and the restructuring of the world to a global communism. It really is high-stakes poker. And that’s what makes this particular exchange of emails powerful and important. If it were merely an email confab on the relevance of the EPR event in Quantum Mechanics, no one except me and a few people with degrees would give a hoot. But we are talking about trillions of dollars riding on these “climate” papers.
What i’m trying to get at with the democracy analogy is that one does not have to have perfect information to have a view point nor is it necessarily irrational. People who vote have imperfect information. They vote based on broad political boundaries and general ‘feel’ for the the candidate. They certainly do not vote based upon a nuanced understanding of law, regulation or economics let alone all three.
When the public, ie. me and 99.999% of the population read and see the political arguments trotted out as fact, you will lose us.
I have a finance back ground and I have a very healthy skepticism of anyone who makes bold statements of modeled projections. One doesn’t need to know how the models were programmed to understand the power of compounding. The AGW crowd is taking a multivariate statistical relationship and forcasting for a 100 years. That is truly unbelievable. When they say they have a 90% confidence, it shows that they either don’t know how to use statistics or have politicized the science. Their confidence assumes that they know ALL factors and can model them ALL correctly. If they are off by even the smallest amount, all of their calculations will generate ever increasing errors(compounding).
I look at all that proxy data, and see an analyst taking individual stock returns and at one specific point, using only data for a user defined time period, say aha see there, they all have a beta of one. Now if I project this out 100 years then they should all have the same terminal value.
Except in this case, only we have to trust only a handful of people for that market data. Not only that but there is reason to believe that they cherry picked which data to use.
-And that cherry picked data has been ‘massaged’ to value added data.
-And some people who are familiar with this field are unable to reconstruct the data that were given to begin with.
-And some people who want to report the goings on in the climate field are told that if they continue not reporting in a AGW friendly way, they’ll get the big Cut Off.
Can you see how Joe Public might have some skepticism about the claims made by IPCC and AGW proponents? I don’t have a clue what goes into the models. What I do know is that if walks like shady business, talks like shady business then it’s probably shady business.
Squidly, the initial hockey stick is ten years old and covers the last millennium. The initial stick is almost ready for the fifth grade but rather old in terms of science. It has, however, been updated as of September 2008 – so it is relatively new science covering a 1,300 year graph. Mann et al understand the importance of keeping the science current and I suspect there will be a newer and better-than-ever hockey stick in the near future. Nice try, though.
And, my squid-friend, there are those that say there is a *proven* connection between CO2 and the environment. My question is always why we disbelieve these qualified people?
And yes, mea culpa, monte carlo is a type of math. Interesting to know. The meaning of the email is still exactly the same though.
And Joe, do you also doubt cancer research?
Swami
“Entire human Lifetimes worth of labor output would be consumed in the policies they advocate.”
How exactly?
And I must disagree – the skeptic community has a lot to prove and is trying its best to do so, even if that includes deception.
“And Joe, do you also doubt cancer research?”
If the researcher behaved like how climate researchers have behaved, no.
If they had a hypothesis, tested on lab animals then tested on humans with a double blind study, then yes.
Not, if they had a hypothesis based on a correlation that indicates the cause and effect is the other way around, and controlled disbursement of/massaged/cherry picked/bully other researchers into accepting their data.
Medical research has a great deal of humility. There are plenty of examples of where drugs tested well in double blind testing and were later removed due to unforseen problems.
If I had cancer and every standard treatment failed, the doctor may suggest joining a clinical trial. He would instruct me on the dangers and let me choose whether to join with full due diligence.
AGW researchers though seem to want to claim “The Science is Settled” and there is “Consensus”. There is a saying to the effect that if you only have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. I get the sense that the AGW crowd sees every problem as man made co2 and are unable/unwilling to ponder other causes.
@Waldo:
“Hunter, what questions did you want me to answer? I must have missed them.”
Yes, you missed a couple. See my previous post with several very specific questions. Do you have anything else to discuss other than your willingness to blindly submit your position on AGW to whoever you currently consider an authority? If that’s all you have, you’ve been heard and your mission is complete.
To clarify, I am not the same person as ‘hunter’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mxmo9DskYE
Tell a friend about this travesty…Sickening.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTGLpqFGyYM
That our newest troll, Waldo, persists in dismissing evidence of AGW promotional corruption and deception, while blindly asserting that deception is used by skeptics, is sort of indicative of why, no matter how nice and well behaved, a troll is still a troll.
Waldo’s repetitive question, ‘why should we disbelieve those who claim to be authorities?’ Is as disengenuous, since he ignores the answers and evidence.
Waldo,
I wish you a Merry Christmas, and hope Santa brings you a new personality that includes integrity, this time.
cya,
Anon: sorry, there are a great many ripostes and with yours I thought I’d answered these in various responses, but I will yet again state my very simple case in direct response to your questions on Dec. 19:
*****”It seems to me that it has been shown in this thread that there are many experts who reject the concept of catastrophic AGW (1).”
Yup, there are a few – and I actually helped and posted a couple of names earlier. If you are referring to this blog and others like it, or the list of “500 peer reviewed papers,” look again. Few to no experts and what appears to be a fair amount of deception.
*****”It has been pointed out that science is not done by consensus, it only takes one guy to disprove a theory (2).”
It has also been pointed out that there are a great many scientists who look at the information and come to the same conclusion. I tend to go with the great many scientists. I suspect “consensus” is a dirty word for the anti-AGW camp because they do not have it. Interestingly, the first thing these boards usually do is point out that “that there are many experts” who have their own little consensus. Do you also doubt the scientific consensus that smoking is bad for you?
And who is this “one guy” who has proved AGW a fraud?
*****”It has also been pointed out that there is evidence of the pro-AGW folks silencing their opponents for years, thus there is reason even for those inclined to judge science on relatively tangential factors such as the number of articles pro- or contra- a particular concept to put these factors aside at least in this case (3).”
Again, I think I have answered this, but this has been a long thread. If the “evidence” you cite is the CRU emails, I cannot figure out what the big deal is. In fact, I think there is no big deal but a lot of hype from the anti-AGW blogosphere.
Well Joe, we might just agree to disagree on the double blind nature of climate science and the “humility” of the medical community, much less the moral high ground of the pharmaceutical industry (that’s actually extremely funny, Joe – are you really going to argue that?)
But this:
***** “AGW researchers though seem to want to claim ‘The Science is Settled’ and there is ‘Consensus’.”
First of all, no one said “The Science is Settled.” That is a successful deception of the anti-AGW camp. Look it up. And whenever I go to places like NASA or IPCC, they talk about science. Only places like these seem obsessed with the “Consensus” which they do not, in fact, possess.
I got a question: do you folks think you look at this “debate” as an ‘Us-vs.-Them’ proposition? Do you need to have enemies in this discussion? Or is it necessary to demonize people like Mann and Hansen to get your point across?
“I wish you a Merry Christmas, and hope Santa brings you a new personality that includes integrity, this time.”
Thanks hunter, and Merry Christmas to you too. Actually, I got integrity several years in a row – so much so that I’ve got some to give away. I will re-gift some of it to you and yours.
“Or is it necessary to demonize people like Mann and Hansen to get your point across?”
And you were just complaining about hyperbole? I’m not sure how much “demonizing” is going on here, but people are being critical of the lack of ethical science coming out of CRU and Penn State. To say we are demonizing them is quite the exageration. No one is talking about these people beating their wives/children, killing cats, or eating babies. So, you should ask yourself that question you possed to others, do you have to rely on hyperbole to make an argument?
Well Wally, we are now in the “oh yeah! well…” stage of the game (and sure, I’ll take my fair share of the blame for that). But I might point to this rather mild statement where the author admits he/she does not understand the basic concepts involved but…
“I don’t have a clue what goes into the models. What I do know is that if walks like shady business, talks like shady business then it’s probably shady business.”
“Shady business” may not equate to eating babies (which is hyperbole, by the way), but neither does it give any doubt about the characters involved. To “demonize” is simply to make evil or to suggest culpability. No, it is not too strong a word,particularly since this is a rather restrained blog and yet the posters here have frequently and variously maintained Mann et al are deceiving the public for “trillions” (?) of dollars, getting rich off their scheme, unwilling to let dissenting voices speak, destroying whole industries etc. No use denying that. This is demonizing and propagandist. For instance, how does one “walk like shady business”? What does that even mean? It is deliberately vague so that the author can simply assert that AGW is “shady business” without having to really understand it.
Is this conversation about Us vs. Them?