The BBC is very keen to tell us in detail why Lord Oxburgh and his panel of cronies have exonerated in a rushed report the University of East Anglia climate change fabricators. Their reasons for the whitewash – which can be paraphrased as the need to perpetuate the lies – are trumpeted loudly, while the sceptic community gets, as usual, only a nodding mention, 74 words out of 760. Here, for the record and for starters, are some of the concerns of “sceptics” that the BBC has chosen not to tell us. They are from Steve McIntyre, of Climate Audit, the man who for almost a decade has been painstakingly revealing the tricks and lies of those who have been so rapidly absolved:
The Oxburgh report ” is a flimsy and embarrassing 5-pages.
They did not interview me (nor, to my knowledge, any other CRU critics or targets). The committee was announced on March 22 and their “report” is dated April 12 – three weeks end to end – less time than even the Parliamentary Committee. They took no evidence. Their list of references is 11 CRU papers, five on tree rings, six on CRUTEM. Notably missing from the “sample” are their 1000-year reconstructions: Jones et al 1998, Mann and Jones 2003, Jones and Mann 2004, etc.)
They did not discuss specifically discuss or report on any of the incidents of arbitrary adjustment (“bodging”), cherry picking and deletion of adverse data, mentioned in my submissions to the Science and Technology Committee and the Muir Russell Committee.
Update: Richard North, as perceptive as usual, has very useful commentary on the Oxburgh findings; he skillfully underlines what the BBC should have said if it had been serious about properly analysing the findings, rather than rushing to a whitewash defence of climate change science. Particularly damning is Oxburgh’s observation about the failure of the CRU cronies to use statisticians, which suggests that in the most fundamental sense, Phil Jones et al were out of their depth. And let’s spell out what that means: the temperatures that the UN replied upon for the AR4 report were arrived at without adequate statistical analysis, even though what was involved was a series of stastical projections. It beggars belief. Steve McIntyre, of course, has been saying this all along – but now Oxburgh has concurred, albeit with qualifications. The house of cards looks more and more precarious, especially if you also read this.
Does anyone really expect the BBC to practice proper journalism these days?
“Proper journalism” in this case would be to say “Wow, just 5 pages in the entire report ? What on earth is going on here?”
“Key point – the report says that everything seems to be based on nil statistical expertise. So what does that mean, exactly ? Whatever it means – it is obviously a very important rider to the report, we ought to mention it.”
“What about the sceptics – have they commented on Oxburgh yet ? What are they saying? – ie, just trawl 2 or 3 key websites and the comments are already posted. So weave those comments into a BALANCED report.
……………..
NONE of this has been done by the BBC team. Yet it takes a matter of minutes to find some of this stuff :
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/14/oxburgs-5-page-climategate-book-report-gets-a-failing-grade/#more-18476
…………………..
This is an endemic problem of BBC “journalism”. For UK political issues – all they really focus on is what the Guardian says. For US news – WaPo and NYT. Utterly blinkered – and we are forced to pay for it.
I’d sack the lot of them for failing to do good journalism.
Well they paid handsomely for a whitewash and they certainly got a whitewash, the flimsy sparse few pages cost a few Ks and thousands of pounds but the state feels it is safe.
Just another cover up among many cover ups, just another lie among many lies.
The aims and objectives of the state is to proect the aims and objectives of the state, the truth means nothing when placed by the needs of the state.
The state having conducted a cover up can now move quickly to enact its plans regardless of the truth and regardless of reality, the planet could be entering an ice age and the aims of the state to control the energy matrix would stay the same.
Actual reality is of no concern to the state now, the ‘science’ was bought with our money to provide a cover to hide the real purpose behind the AGW fraud and it can be summed up with three simple words, words that have driven the base instincts and desires of people throughout the ages.
MONEY AND POWER!
These are the keys to everything that is happening now, the desire to control, the desire to rule, the desire to reign supreme over their fellows and peers.
Order through obedience, harmony through obedience,peace through obedience,power through obedience. The politics of the autocratic theocracy. If the opportunity exists for power seekers to sieze control they will take it, democracy is not a right it is a hard won gift taken from those who will never up their power without a fight.
There are many people who despise democracy, these people will stop at nothing to take our freedoms away, no crime is too heinous, no trick to grubby for those with the desire for power over the destiny of others.
Cassandra, if you don’t mind me saying I think that quite often your posts go beyond ‘Biased BBC’ and that in effect you treat this forum as your blog and the forum’s readers as a ready-made readership for ‘your blog’.
Probably the politer thing to be would be to start your own blog and drive readership towards it, rather than piggybacking on this blogger’s hard work and save your contributions on this blog to commenting on the matter at hand.
It began its review after e-mails from CRU scientists were published online.
Yes, several months after. Blatant misrepresentation to bolster the report’s credibility.
He explained: “We read 11 key [CRU] publications spreading back over 20 years and a large number of others. We then spent 15 person days interviewing the scientists at UEA.
“I don’t know what more we could have done and we came to a unanimous conclusion.”
Er, how about reading the emails? For example, the ones where Phil Jones gives instructions to delete. They could also have talked to people who claim their papers were blocked by CRU-associated reviewers, and the publications involved. Asking the foxes what happened to all those hens isn’t the best way to get the whole picture.
The recommendation that the CRU should have consulted statisticians is one positive note, anyway.
The criticism that CRU based all their work on statistical manipulations – but never consulted experienced statisticians – seems to me to blow the whole CRU record apart !
And why didn’t this absolute joke of an “enquiry” look into Harry’s file which showed beyond any doubt whatsoever that CRU’s programming of their data, all the adjustments and “bodges” were a total mess.
There is abundant evidence that the whole Hockey Stick argument is an illusion, a fallacy – or rather, a falsity. But nowhere does the “enquiry” address this – which is surely the heart of the matter.
The Commons Committee “enquiry” was shallow and ignorant. But this Royal Society “enquiry” is a far more serious whitewash. A blot on the good name of British science.
‘The criticism that CRU based all their work on statistical manipulations – but never consulted experienced statisticians’
Following a fine tradition mostly recently embodied by the Digital Economy debate/bill/law.
Where, I understand, the Chairman didn’t know his ISP from his elbow.
And precious little, save the party line, ‘reported’ by our ‘PRasNews’ objective national broadcaster and its unique use of funding.
“We spent 15 person-days interviewing”.
So, say, 3 or 4 of them TOGETHER spend a day interviewing, say, Phil Jones.
And they also spend a day interviewing Briffa.
A few hours each “day”. On such momentous issues.
That adds up to 6 or 8 “person days”. Half the total.
Similar interviews with, say, Mike Hilme at UEA.
Great. Real depth of enquiry.
No need to take evidence either written or oral from the key palyers who claim with evidence that the CRU stuff is riddled with errors and false conclusions.
No wonder their report runs to all of 5 pages.
……………….
Meanwhile remember all that stuff about the IPCC report – on which all the UN nonsense and the Brown/Milliband follies are based – being utterly peer-reviewed, absolutely the last word – the reason “the science is settled”
A few active citizens take a slide rule to the IPCC report. Failing grades for most of the chapters of the report.
Those citizens did a damn sight more thorough review than the Royal Society “enquiry”.
…………..
Of course the BBC fails to report that the CRU failed to use proper statistical expertise in ANY of its work over 20 years. There is a lame comment that maybe the CRU did not know how important its work would become. Total bollox. The CRU knew full well that its work was central to core parts of the IPCC reprots – where Phil Jones was a lead author. They kew damn well the importance of what the IPCC was trying to foist on the entire world economy.
Here’s the link to the demolition job on peer-reviewing for the IPCC| report :
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/14/ipcc-ar4-also-gets-a-failing-grade-on-21-chapters/#more-18479
You’ve gotta love the BBC’s science and technology page.
The headline currently reads “Sun activity link to cold winters” (surely that should be INactivity) – but just below it says “no sun link to climate change”. Considering that the main “proof” of global warming cited by the bbc revolves almost entirely around temperatures I find these two stories rather at odds with each other.
Can we expect any potentially forthcoming drought related stories to carry the sub-headline that there is “no sun link to climate change”? I very much doubt it.
re: Oxburgh
But given the hundreds of billions of Euros/pounds/dollars involved each year, in taxes, and Carbon trading, did anyone seriously expect a different answer?
There is no alternative but to vote out the LibLabCon. Then and only then, will sense prevail. Or else look forward to artificially hiked petrol, gas and electricity prices, regardless of their cost of production. And the more money swilling around in the hands of politicians and the unaccountable EU, the more will be the corruption- it is a law of nature.
I can just see the shyster financial wheeler dealers, the mafia, crooks of all sorts, corrupt politicians exercising patronage, and possibly even drug dealers, getting on this most easy and rewarding money making racket .
Election headline?:
‘Greenies (and BBC) decide to campaign against volcanic eruptions in Iceland.’
Radio 4 this morning was waffling on and on and on about the Icelandic volcano and the flights that had to be delayed because of threats to plane engines.
Is there anything in all the UEA rubbish about NATURAL contributors to climate change? Would our state fabricator par excellence bother to report on sun spots, orbit changes, earth axis variations, etc.? Don’t confuse them with real science!
Is there anything in all the UEA rubbish about NATURAL contributors to climate change?
Not really, as there is no money to be made out of a volcanic eruption. But AGW/ACC – there is trillions locked up in CO2. The best way to <b>leverage</b> money out of our pockets.
Steve McIntyre’s field of expertise is minerals and mining so it is unclear why he should be an authorative or credible source on climate change. As far as I’m aware the only peer-reviewed scientific paper he has published on the matter was in a social science journal and in it he mixed up degrees and radians thus invalidating the results.
McIntyre in his paper sought to show that measured climate change was caused by GDP growth in support of the discredited urban heat island effect theory that warming was an artifact of weather stations situated in towns and cities. There are a number of seemingly insurmountable problems with this theory. First of all, the urban heat island effect has been known for a very long time and it is quantifiable and thus can be controlled for because it seen in still weather but is rapidly dissapated by the wind. Therefore one can compare windy and still days to see what the urban heat island effect is. Secondly, warming has been strongest in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere – regions that have little urbanisation (there are few cities north of the Arctic Circle, the largest Murmansk with only around 300 000 people). If the UHI effect was really to blame then one would expect to find its strongest effects in the mid and low lattitudes where urbanisation was greatest. Thirdly, the UHI effect would have a hard time explaining sea surface and satelite temperatures. (As a slight aside this is a common problem with contrarian objections in my opinion: they focus narrowly on one particular issue or finding but fail to account for the fact that science has multiple independent lines of evidence).
Anyway, back to McIntyre. McIntyre claimed to find that half of the warming could be explained by economic activity such as the UHI effect. When his method was examined it was discovered that he had used a computer programme that was expecting the variable cosine of latitude in radians but he had inputted the data in degrees. Given that there are about 57 degrees in one radian one can easily see how this would completely ruin the restults. Once his method was used correctly with radians not degrees the economic activity signal evaporated and the results were similar to the mainstream ones.
Another important statistical error was found in his assumption that all weather stations were in different countries when in fact they were not, which meant the statistical analysis became faulty as he was trying to prove that warming was related to GDP by country.
“Steve McIntyre’s field of expertise is minerals and mining…”
And the Head of the IPCC is a train builder.
McIntyre is a statistician. None of the CRU clowns are statisticians…nor did they look to engage statisticians to assist with their work.
Whether McIntyre worked in mining is neither here nor there.
Mailman
Why then did Nature and all the other relevant journals reject McIntyre’s paper, if it was so insightful?
The only explanations I’ve heard are a) the paper was faulty or b) all these scientific publications (without exception) are engaged in a conspiracy. Some find the latter their prefered explanation, but I don’t.
As for the IPCC it is not commonly understood that the IPCC has three completely distinct working groups. The first deals with the physical element of climate science. The second deals with the likely impacts on humans and nature. The third deals with mitigations, including economists, engineers etc.
Naturally it is organised this way because a climate scientist is not going to be qualified to deal with the economics or vice versa; a climate scientist is not qualified to determine the likely impacts etc.
There are definitely problems with Pachauri and his alleged conflicts of interests but I don’t think one can object to him not being a climate scientist himself as he is not involved directly in the research. Rather he chairs a body that consists of climate scientists, social scientists, economists, ecologists, engineers etc. Having been the vice chancellor of a university would seem to me to qualify him for this – a vice chancellor of course is not an expert in all the departments of his university and he cannot be.
Now if Pachauri himself was to come up with a climate change paper and have it rejected by Nature, then I’d be concerned.
I don’t know any scientists who take ” Nature” seriously as a journal. It is the Daily Mirror of scientific journals.
This is the problem with trying to have “balance” on the issue. It is a false balance because one cannot legitimately balance the output of eminent peer-reviewed scientific journals with non peer-reviewed opinion pieces and people like McIntyre.
It would be essentially no different from “balancing” NASA’s opinion with that of the Flat Earth Society, thereby grossly devaluing NASA’s opinion and inflating that if the latter’s.
Nevertheless it does still leave the problem of how to cover the fact that a significant part of the general population, if not the scientific community, do not believe that human activity is warming the Earth.
The only parallel I can think of is that in some places significant numbers of people believe in a Young Earth ie that the Earth was created within the last six thousand years and therefore reject the mainstream theories of geology, the fossil record etc.
Unfortunately, the BBC and the rest of the Warmists equate skepticisim about AGW/ACC with a belief in a flat or Young Earth. So they feel there’s no need to provide balance on that score.
So McIntyre cannot make valid inputs and claims but Al Gore,Pachauri and lord Stern can? In your world only your opponents are allowed errors and these few minor errors bar them from serious consideration?
A geologist is not qualified but an economist and a railway engineer and a failed politician are qualified?
I am happy to see a balanced argument but the smearing of a man who has done so much incredible work bringing about nothing less than a new media revolution letting people see the actual weakness of the AGW theory so called consensus is more than a little desperate and does not become you, non of us are immune from making errors its how we deal we them and how we admit them and how we progress is the most important thing.
Visit the ‘climate audit’ site and the wonderful ‘watts up with that’ site and read the articles and see how popular these sites are and the vibrant debates, compare that with the AGW sites dull and repetitive dog whistle articles light on evidence and heavy on consensus politics.
Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre have done what many thought impossible, despite threats and insults and dirty tricks they have brought the evidence of sloppy methods,bad practice,dodgy tricks,dirty tricks to light much of which would still be hidden if it were not for their hard work.
BTW your six thousand yr old earth analogy could suit the AGW believers perfectly, a blind faith whose followers cannot modify their faith to match reality.
I leave you with a graph demolishing the infamous hockey stick, this particular fraud would have never been exposed if not for the dogged and tireless work of the sceptics.
The trouble with your “demolition” is that the reliable scientific sources don’t regard it as “demolished”. Nature, one of the most prestigious scientific journals, explicitly rejected it, as have all other journals it has been submitted to. You can chose your sources as you wish, but I know which one I’d chose if ask to pick between Nature and McIntyre’s website.
I could also come up with a graph or paper published myself on the internet claiming to “demolish” this or that generally-accepted scientific theory. I wouldn’t expect it to be regarded as reliable, just as that graph isn’t.
Al Gore et al aren’t scientists. They don’t claim to be, or to have made new findings, much less highly controversial ones, they simply try to explain (sometimes incorrectly) the findings of other reliable scientific sources to the general public (together with their own personal errors, biases, political gloss etc). Therefore Gore is in no way analogous with McIntyre.
Nature is far from an impartial player when it comes to climate science. They are just as at fault as Mann et al for the crap that passes for climate science today.
Mailman
Well if you’re going to reject Nature (and all the other scientific journals) as not impartial, then you’re really not left with any generally accepted reliable scientific sources. It also places you in contradiction with the conventional position of other sources that are themselves regarded as reliable, such as encyclopedias, textbooks etc which accept Nature et al as reliable. That’s dangerously close to the definition of crackpot.
The trouble with that is of course that then science in any meaningful sense is discarded. One is left to chose any theory that takes ones fancy with evidence taken from any source that you like, reliable or not.
Another problem with it is that “the journals are biased” can be used to dismiss any scientific theory. I could object to conventional Western medicine in favour of “alternative” medicine by saying “the medical journals are all biased”. I could dismiss evolution by saying “the journals are all biased”; I could reject plate tectonics by claiming the geology journals had deliberately and unfairly excluded all other explanations. Any explanation that can be used to explain everything really explains nothing scientifically.
Ed,
I have posted above that “Nature ” is not a respected journal. You are clearly not a scientist !
Lord Oxbury’s report is an isolated bit of whitewash on the eco-apocalypse theory. The BBC is the permanent day to day whitewash.
Both whitewashes are funded by the government and their staff are appointed by the government.
The piper calls the tune. Its as simple as that, as eco-apocalyptics often tell us about any utterance on energy use by anyone in the pay of with the oil industry – even if it is only getting free whiskey glasses with their four gallons of petrol.
Ed
I won’t bother to fisk your comments. Suffice it to quote this response from McIntyre himself at http://climateaudit.org/2006/06/28/nas-panel-excerpts-1-pcs/ in which he notes that the NAS panel investigating found in favour of M+M and against the “professionals” – Mann and others – who support(ed) the “hockey stick” with dubious data and analysis. BTW, as you will be able to read, the radian-degree confusion had been McKitrick’s in a previous paper of his and had nothing to do with McIntyre.
But, like your friends at the BBC, you’re not really interested are you? As the “disinterested” observer that you are, you’d rather smear McIntyre – and, by implication, the rest of us sceptics – than admit that your idols might have feet of clay.
“Is there anything in all the UEA rubbish about NATURAL contributors to climate change?”
Actually, contrary to the misconception that has fervently gripped the popular imagination that AGW has been wholy or entirely proved on the basis of past climate reconstructions (the [in]famous “hockey stick” etc), the real evidence hinges on comparing modern temperatures with natural heating or cooling influences.
Simply put, if there are natural influences (and no-one suggests there aren’t) they should be detectable and measurable. The amount of energy reaching us from the sun can be measured and tracked over time. The orbit of the Earth can be determined etc. If something natural is powerful enough to heat the world’s climate, it would have a hard time hiding.
Now, the real evidence for AGW is not that the late 20th Century to the present is anomalously warm compared with the last thousand or two thousand years etc (cue squabbling over hockey sticks and tree rings etc).
It is that it is anomalously warm compared with how we would expect it to be given only the natural influences. Ie temperatures are at historic global highs while the measured natural effects, such as the output of the sun etc, are historically rather low and should be producing cooling if they were all that were controlling things.
It’s this difference between what we would expect if only natural factors were at play and what is actually measured that is really important in my opinion and why the popular focus on past climate reconstructions, Medieval Warm Periods, Little Ice Ages and hockey sticks misses the crux of the matter. Perhaps it is because solar activity and the Earth’s orbit etc is rather dry and uninteresting while Viking Greenland, tree rings and dramatic-looking graphs grip the popular imagination more readily that this has happened.
There’s another independent line of evidence for an atmospheric rather than solar explanation of warming. If the warming was caused by increased solar output one would expect the warming to be more pronounced during the day when the sun is shining than at night. This is not what is observed. Rather there has been a greater increase at night, which fits with an explanation of an enhanced greenhouse effect blocking escape of heat back into space.
Finally and following on from the last, if this enhanced greenhouse effect is in operation it should be measurable. And lo and behold it is – satelite measurements have measured a decline in heat loss from the upper atmosphere as one would expect if the Earth is trapping more heat rather than receiving more energy from the sun.
So, in short the natural factors have been looked at and far from being neglected in fact form the most compelling evidence for AGW!
Umbongo,
Your argument is an ad hominem one and lacks logical soundness. I am no “friend” of the BBC – in fact I find it generally biased and left wing and there are few things I tend to agree with it on (see my posts on other topics on this site). However, your argument is ad hominem because a) you lump me together with the BBC, b) you assume that because the BBC is objectionable it must be wrong on climate change.
This is the equivalent of the old example of the logical fallacy that goes Hitler was an evil man, Hitler believed that smoking is harmful, therefore smoking is not harmful.
You are right that I have confused McIntyre with another Mc. I have not “smeared” McIntyre (given that this was a mistake), merely pointed out his limitations as a reliable source. It remains that he is a mining expert not a climate expert, not published in peer-reviewed scientific publications, which is the usual “gold standard” for a scientific source.
You would do better to focus on the science rather than attempting to attribute ulterior motives (please note I have not invoked sinister motives for skeptics, the “fossil fuel lobby” etc and assumed arguments are in good faith etc).
As for “idols” with “feet of clay” that is not how science works. If you seek absolute certainty then religion or mathematics is where to look, not science. Science always allows room for the possibility that it may be wrong for example the statement that the climate’s warming has a 95% likelyhood of being due to anthropogenic rather than natural causes. In fact if a statement or theory doesn’t allow the possibility that it may be proved wrong, it cannot be scientific (eg the statement “God exists” may be true and it may not, but it is not scientific because it cannot be disproved).
Finally, as the real heart of the dispute is political and economic, rather than scientific I shall lay out my opinion that climate change can most efficiently be tackled through market mechanisms rather than socialism in any form, as laid out by Paul Krugman in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/magazine/11Economy-t.html?pagewanted=1)
It would seem that the issue of sulfur dioxide emissions causing acid rain in the 1980s can be used as a good (if smaller scale) precident; sulfur dioxide emissions were cut cheaper than even the most optimistic estimates when sulfur dioxide was subject to cap and trade because sulfur dioxide emitters were given a powerful incentive to employ new technologies etc.
I see no reason why the innovative and productive forces of the market should tiumph everywhere else but fail when it comes to cutting carbon dioxide production.
I shall lay out my opinion that climate change can most efficiently be tackled through market mechanisms …
Talk about a logical fallacy!
I look forward to your market mechanism for cooling the Sun; and stopping earthquakes.
And please, quoting that crypto-Marxist buffoon Krugman. Get outta here.
OK “anthropogenic climate change” then, if you like playing with words and want to deliberately mix up “climate change” meaning natural long term climate change and “climate change” meaning a shorthand for anthropogenic climate change. I’ve already laid out why the evidence doesn’t point to current warming being caused by increases in energy from the sun.
I’m not sure what earthquakes have to do with all this.
Perhaps it would be more instructive if you could argue why Krugman is wrong, eg perhaps why you think sulfur dioxide wasn’t cut as cheaply as he makes out rather than simply dismiss him, which doesn’t really tell us anything.
Ed
You seem to sneer at McIntyre as a mere engineer. He has spent a lifewtime auditing data – checking for fallacies, weaknesses, inaccuracies. He seems a damn sight more experienced with the handling and analysis of statistics than the CRU crowd.
His demolition of the Hockey Stick fallacy has been vindicated fully. In essence – you can feed the phone book into the Mann/Jones “model” and you still get the hockey-stick graph.
The burden of proof is on the CRU, Mann and the others who effectively contolled the “science” on which IPCC based its extreme forecasts and calls for deeply damaging economic policies.
As the CRU stuff remains unrepeatable – they have lost data, forgotten exactly how their programming was constructed, will not specify exactly what is in their data sets etc – this unrepeatablity means unverifyability. In other words – NOT scientific.
I do not “sneer” at McIntyre as a “mere engineer” – there is nothing inherently inferior about an engineer – simply that a) climate and natural sciences are not his field and b) his findings have not been published in peer-reviewed scientific publications.
Being published in relevant peer-reviewed journals is the standard test for a reliable scientific source.
I, and hope no-one in a position of responsibility, would take the opinion of a climate scientist over an engineer when building a bridge. One wouldn’t consult a brain surgeon, no matter how eminent, on nuclear physics etc.
As for demolishing the “hockey stick”, the scientific literature appears to disagree with you and him. In addition, even if one were to “demolish” the original “hockey stick” one is still left with another 10 or so North Hemisphere temperature reconstructions that broadly agree with each other.
Finally, and perhaps more importantly as I’ve posted above, the evidence for AGW doesn’t rest wholy or even mainly on the “hockey stick” or other past temperature reconstructions, but on modern temperatures being higher than one would expect from purely natural phenomena.
Ed
Before you patronise us all by trying to teach us how to formulate an argument, just 2 points concerning my previous comment:
1. My first paragraph refuted your “mistaken” smear of McIntyre by demonstrating that your argument was fallacious and not by asserting that you were wrong because you are a credulous idiot: ie it was not an example of an ad hominem argument. On the contrary, your attempted smear of McIntyre is a prime example of ad hominem. You seek to deny sceptics balanced airtime not because their arguments lack weight but because – according to you – McIntyre and other sceptics are akin to flat earthers or those who believe the earth was created in 4004 BC.
2. My second paragraph was merely a deduction from your re-hash of the assertions of AGW fans. Not unreasonably, I deduced that you are not interested in anything which tends to undermine the AGW case: much like the BBC in other words.
You assume bad faith in my confusion of McIntyre and McKitrick and Michaels when I am not and do not claim to be an expert on the personalities involved.
I have not attempted to smear McIntyre, but to question his reliability as a scientific source. No-one has responded to the issue here which is my distinction between peer-reviewed scientific findings (which contradict McIntyre) and non-peer-reviewed ones such as McIntyre’s (for example his paper was rejected by Nature – surely one of the most, if not the most presitguous scientific journals in the world and subsequently rejected by others).
Pointing out that he isn’t published in scientific journals is not an ad hominem argument, that McIntyre is objectionable, has an ulterior motive etc, it’s a guage of his reliability and the quality of his findings.
No one person can possibly understand all the issues involved in modern science. Neither can we independently gather our own data – we can’t send up our own satelites or maintain our own weather station networks or measure the sun etc. So we have to rely on other sources. That is why we have to chose our sources wisely, because not all are equal in reliability (the findings made by Mrs Trellis in her back garden in Rhyl aren’t of the same reliability as those of a team published in Nature), and the conventional way of doing that is by insisting on peer-reviewed research in an appropriate publication. This is also of course the standard way of compiling textbooks, encyclopaedias etc so it is a very mainstream method.
If you cannot find such reliable sources for your argument and have to rely on less reliable sources, then you should not be surprised that your argument is regarded as weaker.
You should not make assumptions that I am not interested in evidence that undermines the AGW case without evidence. On the contrary, I would be very interested in such evidence if it came from a reliable scientific source. However, as it is I will take evidence from a scientific journal over a non-peer reviewed website any day. I don’t believe that is controversial.
I’m also interested that no-one else has really touched on the scientific evidence – either against the evidence I’ve presented or in favour of their own particular position.
The Young Earth analogy isn’t especially good – the evidence against it is much stronger and more long-standing than the evidence for AGW. But it is I believe the closest analogy I can think of, of an issue where a large or significant part of the population is fundamentally in disagreement with the scientific mainstream. Perhaps “alternative” medicine would be another.
But the leaked emails showed that the Jones/Mann et al set deliberately set out to PREVENT publication of articles in journals by sceptics such as McIntryre. Dishonest science, as well as bad science.
But is there any evidence that this was in some way improper and conspiratorial as has been suggested, not because they believed that the paper was seriously faulty?
If a scientific journal publishes a seriously flawed paper (and it has happened) it can have a seriously damaging effect on the the journal’s credibility and prestige.
I find it highly unlikely that Jones, Mann et al managed to supress McIntyre’s paper completely worldwide (with the notable exception of a social science journal).
There are a limited number of journals that were covering climate “science”, and Mann, Jones et al locked them in, got one of the editors sacked nafter he let dissent creep in.
Here’s an ad hominem argument.
Judgingt by the TV clips I have seen of them, I regard Mann and Jones as slippery, untrustworthy. And the record of their work at IPCC shows ruthless disregard, deliberate smothering of criticism or even moderation.
McIntyre comes across as a “geezer”, entirely methodical and reasonable. His riposte to the Royal Society was better written than the vapid RS report itself. And it is ridiculous that the critics of the Jones/Mann/Trenbirth et al cabal were totally ignored by the RS review.
Do us a favour and run your replies through the “Condensed Readers Digest” tool before you post.
Stringing a thousand random words together does not mean you get to win the debate.
Mailman
Funny that Nature is discussed here. Phil Jones blocked by “peer review” publication of Steve McIntryre’s work at Nature.
Re-reading McIntryre’s evidenceto the Muir Russell enquiry shows in summary the dreadful behaviour of the CRU over the years. Cherry-picking evidence to exaggerate current warming and “delete” the Medieval Warm Period”, failure to use proper statistical expertise, “bodging” (their word) time series of annual figures, blocking of proper peer review, failure to keep proper records of raw data and programming methods – all revealed by the CRU leaks which would never have happened without CRU’s refusal to allow access to data and methods for normal “scientific method” tests of reproducability.
You can pile whitewash upon whitewash, (Pelion upon Ossa ?) – the public won’t be bamboozled any more by these charlatans.
And it is exceedingly odd that the latest whitewash, conducted in secret without inviting evidence, took a “representative sample” of CRU papers to examine – yet somehow that sample included all the papers that McIntyre had never sought to challenge – but excluded totally papers that McIntryre had challenged.
http://climateaudit.org/2010/04/15/a-fair-sample/
Here is McIntrye’s evidence to the Muir Russell enquiry :
Click to access mcintyre-scitech.pdf
Sums up totally the Warmist conspiracy.
The panel didn’t find that climate change is a worldwide conspiracy, perpectuated in order to keep us all in chains. Therefore its a whitewash.
‘”We cannot help remarking that it is very surprising that research in an area that depends so heavily on statistical methods has not been carried out in close collaboration with professional statisticians,” the panel remarked in its conclusions. ‘
‘Critics said that the e-mail exchanges revealed an attempt by the researchers involved to manipulate data’
‘The chair has been challenged over his other interests. Lord Oxburgh is currently president of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association and chairman of wind energy firm Falck Renewables. ‘
‘Climate sceptics have argued that CRU’s statistical methods were inadequate. ‘
I wonder if you read the BBC article at all? Read on for more criticims of the report. How do you explain the BBC reporting this? Afterall, there’s nothing to see here right?
Oh, and are you suggesting Professor David Hand, president of the Royal Statistical Society is also in on it?