Climategate: Disdain for the Scientific Method
It has become a common defense of global warming alarmists against the Climategate scandal to argue that the emails, leaked from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU), show science working — perhaps at its best. Yet a judicious reading of the emails shows that nothing could be farther from the truth. The emails display a disturbing disdain for the scientific method itself.
Specifically, the emails indicate that some of the world’s most prominent climate scientists have abandoned the basic scientific principle of subjecting empirical evidence, and the treatment of that evidence, to external scrutiny, so that findings can be verified and — when necessary — abandoned or revised.
The scientific method relies on the observation of empirical evidence in order to arrive at new truths. While some scientific “truths” may be considered true as a practical matter once they have undergone extensive scrutiny, the questions they address can never be considered closed and must always remain open to challenge. This means that empirical evidence marshaled by scientists must be made available for critical appraisal and that skeptics must be allowed to engage in honest debate without being subject to intimidation or smear.
The released emails clearly show how the scientists at CRU sought to hide behind confidentiality agreements in order to avoid disclosing data and violated the law by seeking to delete emails subject to requests under the UK Freedom of Information Act.
The emails also show how these influential scientists attempted to shut out dissenting scientists by trying to force the editors of two journals, Climate Research and Geophysical Research Letters, to shut out the dissenters or resign. In one email, Michael Mann wrote to Phil Jones: “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!” So much for Phil Jones’s claim that “I’m a very apolitical person. … I let my science do the talking.”
Why are these scientists so frightened of the prospect of their work being subject to critical analysis?
Compare the obfuscation and arrogance from CRU to the openness and humility of Albert Einstein. After the publication of “Gravitation and the Principle of Relativity” in 1918, Einstein insisted that his theory would only be valid after empirical testing. Even after Frank Dyson’s 1919 analysis of photographs of a solar eclipse satisfied the requirements of two of his three tests, Einstein still refused to accept his own theory until the third “red shift” test was met. “If it were proved that this effect does not exist in nature, then the whole theory would have to be abandoned.”
What is astounding to me is that there has not been a huge outcry from hard scientists in every field against the Lysenko-style politics-motivated distorted and false science demonstrated by the AWG crowd. It is revealed in the leaked emails as blatant and calculated, and should be the object of rejection and contempt by every honest scientist, regardless of his political persuasion.
The hypocracy of the warmthers is breath-taking. Tonight one of their spokesmen, challenged on a Fox program, claimed that the emails were the falsification of mindless hackers, contrived to undermine the sacred peer-review processes cherished by these charlatans!
I must disagree with Ian Murray and Roger Abbott. It is not always advisable to share all available data. In cosmology astronomers are hindered by being in one fixed point in the universe, and hence only a limited set of measurements can be made. If every experiment utilized the existing data it would impossible to independently reproduce results. For that reason limiting data is actually scientifically advantageous.
The authors seem to forget that science is far more competitive than in Einstein’s time, and if he published today he would likely have a hundredfold more detractors. I doubt even Einstein would openly share his study prior to publishing, as that would be career suicide even for him in modern science. The hacking incident bolsters the scientist’s contention that their work is targeted by interest groups with private, anti-social agendas.
“I doubt even Einstein would openly share his study prior to publishing”
PRIOR to publishing. The problem with the CRU Crew (and their confreres) is that even after publishing, they continue to guard both the raw data, and the methodology of their unspecified ‘adjustments,’ like they were nuclear secrets.
There are three surface temperature datasets: CRU, GISS, and NOAA. How ‘independent’ they are is a question for another day; the key point for now is that the actual raw temperateure readings are secreted in the Holy of Holies, lest they sear profane eyes; the only data revealed to the laity by the High Priesthood has been massaged, homogenized, racked and waterboarded to create the ‘corrected’ data they release. That was rather the point of the FOIA requests.
Recent developments in Australia and New Zealand are illustrative: in both cases, comparisons of the raw station data (which are not locked away there) with the official Government figures reveals unexplained, unjustifiable ‘adjustments’ -let’s be real, fudging- to create ‘warming’ where the actual thermometers recorded none at all.
“The hacking incident bolsters the scientist’s contention that their work is targeted by interest groups with private, anti-social agendas.”
Hacking? Very bloody unlikely. This was almost certainly the work of a whistleblower on the inside. No hacker would have known exactly where the bodies were buried, and avoided the cruft that pollutes all servers. “Targeted by interest groups.” Well, perhaps by those with an interest in the integrity of science, and exposing frauds and charlatans. That is the opposite of “anti-social.”
Kochevnik,
While I agree with your point (the scientific community is far more competitive today), I think the problem is that we still call this stuff science.
Something being “true” or “empiric” does not make it scientific, it is transparency, reproducibility, a logical inferences that do so.
The problem with most areas of the “scientific literature” (especially medical sciences where I work) is we have conflated trade journals with scientific papers. If the raw data, study forms and details of the method are kept secret and the only way to reproduce the experiment is through industry funding, it is a trade study no different than Ford looking into what features customers prefer on their cars. It can only be considered scientific when everything is available (easy to do in today’s Internet age) and the study is designed such that others can replicate it.
Unfortunately, very little scientific research exists, so we much rely on trade literature instead.
kochevnik: According to you then there could be no peer review. According to you then the retesting data could not be accomplished therefore no independent review could be done. According to you then the reproduction of results is not necessary which means there is no way to verify the results of the original science.
According to you I could go out and “claim” results and you would have to necessarily believe me. Okay then, there is no such thing as AGW or man-made climate change. Now you have no way to refute me.
Ya know K, if this is your defense of this fraud called AGW then it is you who is breathtakingly dishonest.
People like ‘Kochevnik’ are just desperate to protect the Quasi Religion in which they have invested so much of their own credibility that they will say and claim anything no matter how ridiculous it is. ‘The Emperor has no clothes’ ‘Kochevnik’ and MANIPULATED data by TRICKS and HIDING THE DECLINE and DESTROYING DATA will haunt moonbats like you forever or until the loony left come up with another SCARE STORY to frighten the children with.
It’s not about the science of weather etc.
It’s all about the money
and the power grab we will be seeing shortly.
Stand back and open your bankaccount!!!….The climate police will arrive at a bank near you soon. Quit talking about the “science”of it..it’s not about science!!
okay, maybe that was wrong..it is about science.
The science of “pulling the wool over your eyes!!” They don’t care what you know or think, it’s about pooooowwweeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrr..
To 2. kochevnik
I agree with the overall ideas you posted expect that theirs a bit of different context. No cosmology astronomers are demanding trillions of dollars and near complete slavery to the government arguing that unless you build this massive shield in space XXX star is going to kill us….
When science is used to create public policy one must have a complete understanding and evidence to back it up… the larger the sums of money the more complete the understanding better be. Global warming cultists are demanding trillions of dollars and massive social changes… they had better have all they’re ducks in a row, on full display and that display better go on for miles.
Right now that got a handful of ducks in a tiny little pond and they can’t even get the ducks together in the same area of the pond let alone get them to line up.
Noooo….their only real “disdain” is for malicious numbnuts constantly hassling them with frivolous FOIA request and bogus claims of fraud. Imagine having a neighbor across the street who didn’t like you just because you were more successful and had a cooler, more interesting life than he, and that he would end up on the losing end of any casual debate about politics and science because you actually knew something about that stuff and he didn’t. So to get back at you, he starts calling the police to complain about noise and loitering anytime you had a party, calling the city inspector’s office whenever you did some sort of handyman repairs on your property, having friends deliberately park their cars to make it tricky for you pull out of your driveway, spreading nonsensical and malicious rumors about your lifestyle at the local cafes and shops, and so on. And then during a snowstorm, when you refuse to help him shovel his driveway (not that he’s ever helped you shovel yours), he gets bitter and angry, as well as making the charge that this proves what a terrible, bad person you are.
That basically parallels the relationship between climate scientists, you, and the GW deniers, your malicious, idiotic neighbor.
The AP very recently posted an analysis of the stolen emails that was fairly well balanced for a mainstream news piece. They did tsk-tsk Jones and others for not being helpful to their GW opponents: “One of the most disturbing elements suggests an effort to avoid sharing scientific data with critics skeptical of global warming.”
But then the AP sort of demonstrated why the reluctance:
When former London financial trader Douglas J. Keenan combed through the data used in a 1990 research paper Jones had co-authored, Keenan claimed to have found evidence of fakery by Jones’ co-author. Keenan threatened to have the FBI arrest University at Albany scientist Wei-Chyung Wang for fraud. (A university investigation later cleared him of any wrongdoing.)
“I do now wish I’d never sent them the data after their FOIA request!” Jones wrote in June 2007.
By the way, that’s the same Douglas J. Keenan who posted this PJM article. And that “peer reviewed paper” of his that he refers to was published in this thing.
Another telling excerpt from the AP article (within context, of course) is this:
In another case after initially balking on releasing data to a skeptic because it was already public, Lawrence Livermore National Lab scientist Ben Santer wrote that he then opted to release everything the skeptic wanted — and more. Santer said in a telephone interview that he and others are inundated by frivolous requests from skeptics that are designed to “tie-up government-funded scientists.”
Boy, don’t you hate people like that?
The authors seem to forget that science is far more competitive than in Einstein’s time, and if he published today he would likely have a hundredfold more detractors. I doubt even Einstein would openly share his study prior to publishing, as that would be career suicide even for him in modern science. The hacking incident bolsters the scientist’s contention that their work is targeted by interest groups with private, anti-social agendas.
Kochevnik, you’re erecting a straw man. No one is asking for the climate data to be shared before publication. They’re asking for the data to be shared after publication, in order for the published results to be replicated.
BC, your argument would be a little stronger if you didn’t mention the Wang paper, since Tom Wigley agreed with Keenan.
Rather amusingly the meme seems to be that the emails are “over ten years old” despite the fact that the last one is a month ago. Cool to see the socialists repeating a lie to make it seem to be the truth. The bashing of sceptics, including “Moonbat” Monbiot calling us no better than David Irving style Holocaust deniers. Shows just how terribly desperate the
anti-capitalist scumglobal warming zealots are getting these days.Best to ignore trolls like BC. They are just paid shills for multi-millionaire eco-industrialist Albert Gore. None of them have any training in anything they write about. Neither does Albert Gore.
Climategate further illustrates that a lot of education can make you pretty stupid. Not only are scientists no different than the general population, that is a percentage are corrupt, they are stupid enough to document their deceit by e-mail. Further, scientists with ‘save-the-planet’ biases are just as blind to their own leanings as is any villified Christian. But the media only hates God, America and capitalism. The media protects the Fabian leftists. Shame on ABC, NBC, CBS and CBS. You are cowards.
AGW has got to be true, because the scientists say so. The weather report last night said cold, partly cloudy, 0% chance of rain. It is presently cold and they are correct. It is cloudy and no blue sky presently so they are partly correct. It is snowing and we have about 4 inches on the ground so they are right again, no rain. See how that works? I just wonder, if they can’t get tomorrow’s weather right, how do they know what will happen 10, 20 or even 100 years from now?
kochevnik, who’s side are you on, anyway? Why do you support the globalists you say you so despise? That’s what this is about- one world government and eugenics. We’d be better off on the battlefield than under a eugenics regime, because on the battlefield at least you have a chance. For sheeple, going to war is like being in the midst of wolves, but living under a eugenics regime is like being led to the slaughterhouse.
libertballs: Fabians and eugenicists and profiteers (that only care about $$$$) OWN MSM… what do you expect. Sooner or later the ‘journalists’ are going to give up on the cover up because they face facts and evidence, which is not conjecture. They also face a pissed off public that grows everyday; people have had enough, but when they find the ‘enough’ was planned and orchestrated for profit via FEAR… well… even little suzy Q might be able to be convinced that the polar bear would have still lost his ice, while you lose your pocketbook.
At some point in time, there must be a formidable legal action taken to bring news media back to a neutral position, so this sort of thing does not happen in the future.
To Charlie Martin:
You and the others should be advised that I tend to click on links and read what’s on the other side of them. Wigley referred to some “statements” that were never described. However a little further down, you get this somewhat more telling exchange:
****
>
> In touch with Wei-Chyung Wang. Just agreed with him
> that I will send a brief response to Peiser. The allegation by Keenan
> has
> gone to SUNY. Keenan’s about to be told by SUNY that submitting this has
> violated a confidentiality agreement he entered into with SUNY when he
> sent the complaint. WCW has nothing to worry about, but it still
> unsettling!
> All related to a paper in Nature from 1990! Keenan ought to look at the
> temperature data (which he has) rather than going on and on about
> site moves.
>
> See the end of this email and the response about E&E and the 3
> reviewers.
> Amazing! We all knew the journal was awful.
>
> On something completely different – just agreed to review another
> crappy
> paper by Chappell/Agnew on Sahel Rainfall. Chappell is out of a job –
> and still
> he tries to write papers saying the Sahel drought might not have
> happened!
>
> Both are just time wasters – but necessary to do unfortunately.
>
> Weekend away with the family now – back Monday!
>
> Cheers
> Phil
****
Note that comment about Keenan’s hubbub (apparently in 2007) was in regards to a 1990 paper and apparently involving a minor issue at that. This is a common right wing tactic — go back and look at everything and anything someone you don’t like has done, said or written, and if you find anything “useful,” even if you have to give it an extra spin or twist, do your darndest to make it into the biggest BFD you can.
And to klrtz1: You wish.
kocevnik -
I must disagree with Ian Murray and Roger Abbott. It is not always advisable to share all available data. In cosmology astronomers are hindered by being in one fixed point in the universe, and hence only a limited set of measurements can be made. If every experiment utilized the existing data it would impossible to independently reproduce results.
What an example of missing the point of independent examination.
If there’s only a ‘limited set of measurements’ available, independent analysts must have them available in order to confirm, or contest, the conclusions (not the bloody measurements) drawn by the guys who made the ‘limited set of measurements’. Failure to share those measurements is a violation of the scientific method, useful only to the measurers in preventing independent analysis of their data.
Check out the Copenhagen Document leaks, this knowledge may save your life! Do what you can with your Government Reps in your country to have these infringements on your life eliminated! You will literally be fighting for your and your family’s existence, Click the videos below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAqqAnUxACY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94KH-WMZuw0
Request that PM Harper DOES NOT sign the Copenhagen Treaty, thereby causing Canadians to lose their Sovereignty and Freedom, email the PM at: pm@pm.gc.ca
Sign the petition to protest the Inaccurate Science measurements that are being used to base the Copenhagen Treaty off of: http://www.gopetition.com/online/32485.html
20@Insufficiently Sensitive
>Failure to share those measurements is a violation of the scientific
>method, useful only to the measurers in preventing independent analysis of
>their data.
There will be no “scientific method” if scientists all use the same data. Work on those reading skills.
16. myth buster:
>kochevnik, who’s side are you on, anyway? Why do you support the
>globalists you say you so despise?
Well this article is a backdoor slap on the back for the gross polluters of 19th century brown industry. Just follow the money. I agree that the green movement is being taken up by the globalists, if only from an investment standpoint. Globalists will naturally exploit anything to their advantage, with an eye to profit not benefit.
In the narrow view of science, however, it is the brown industries attacking the scientific method now that it rubs against their agenda.
@22 kochevnik
“There will be no “scientific method” if scientists all use the same data. Work on those reading skills.”
Wait wait, isn’t that EXACTLY what the CRU did? They all used the same mysterious original data and “adapted” it for their work did they not?
23. It’s not even about profit for the globalists; the scientists are in it for the money, but the globalists aren’t. They have all the money they could ever want; it’s about power for them. They want to control humanity. They can’t tolerate dissenting opinions, or things they can’t control. They want to be worshiped as gods; what they fear is a population willing and able to resist. A population that worships Jesus and will not bow their knees to the false gods. The environmental movement is all about killing and sterilizing people, which means it is the same hell spawn as the Holocaust; it’s just not as far developed yet. When their plans come to fruition, Hitler will look like a schoolyard bully in comparison.
4@Noah
I don’t know about the CRU or the alleged death grip on their data. The urgency is unique in general science. Usually issues persist for decades or centuries. In the case of global warming we are asked to make changes in legal structures, extra-national binding treaties which reduce national sovereignty, and impose precedents for worldwide taxes. I don’t think science works well under tight deadlines. Asking science to yield a reliable answer without new data will make bad science.
Nice note the data was stored on a Siberian server. Lots of smart people with a libertarian bent out there.
I think the problem lies less with the science, although admittedly there are always disputes, and more with the sudden urgency with a problem that has been around in one form or another for billions of years. The sudden urgency of a topic that has little impact on any particular lifespan is dubious, given the same people would happily instigate WWIII over much narrower issues. If I were to plan a extra-national regulatory body, this murky issue would make a nice precedent. After all, nobody can go back in time to collect more data. The same problem exists in evolution, where vast conclusions are made from very limited evidence.
The most disturbing thing to come out of Copenhagen is work that the World Bank will be enacting taxes upon the poorer countries. This is the same loansharking outfit that has kept many small nations in poverty for almost a century.
Disdain??????????????????????
Sure the “hard” scientists (and that would include any moral being) ought to be more outraged; but that doesn’t address the larger issue. It hides it. Climategate exposes the largest THEFT in history. It’s been a forty + year long conspiracy by a cabal of thieves – politicians, gov’t agencies, bureaucrtats, NGOs, VCs, CEOs of alternative-energy cos (bio, solar, wind), regulators, agitators and paid-to-be-ammoral lawyers, to name a few. Charlatans. They were all aware of the scam.
Tens of thousands of co-conspirators acting in-concert to defraud the US public. Magicians’ union gone bad. Looks like just “firing” and ostracizing them is insufficient and immoral treatment, given what their actions have cost US over the last 40 years; eg, diverting these billions based on “climate change” has caused starvation across the world, which qualifies as genocide.
If what you naturally breath out is “ruled” a pollutant, it can only be the precedent for mandating that fewer of US breath out. This should terrify everyone but kapo-wannabes.
Mr. Murray and Mr. Abbott – You are exactly right. These so-called scientists are nothing more than fraudsters and charlatans. It occurred to me, as I read through some of the earlier comments, that they may be closet Malthusian who think that there are too many people making too much money who have to be reined in. Malthus was smart enough to realize that the way individuals end up is an individual choice; these fraudsters and charlatans are not.
Also, as you point out, they are hardly scientists. Science comprises testable hypotheses subject to disproof. When a testable hypothesis cannot disproven after repeated testing, it accepted as valid. Moreover, the testable hypothesis must be able to be replicated by others so they can test it, just to make sure an error was not made by the one who tested it originally. Obviously, a “skeptic” would be the one re-testing the hypothesis. To denigrate the skeptic, as when they are called deniers (or worse — when they are said to be comparable to Holocaust deniers) is to show contempt for the scientific method, and that has been the mantra of these so-called scientists ever since they began their crusade to impose their Malthusian views on us.
I will conclude by observing that Viscount Lord Monckton has shown that all four primary temperature data set are contaminated. (Climategate: Caught Green Handed!, SPPI Original Paper, November 30, 2009.) In that regard, bohemond @ #3 mentioned the differences between “official” [contaminated] temperature data for New Zealand and Australia and the unprocessed data. I don’t know about Australia, but Lord Monckton’s paper has the comparison for New Zealand and the difference is breathtaking. Thus, until we get uncontaminated temperature data, climatology as a science is dead in the water.
hey bc, you never responded, so I’ll re-post:
bc, you evidently didn’t read the atlasshrugs post. The character assasination piece you supplied the link for didn’t address the topic, which is no surprise. “Kill the messenger!”, right? She didn’t wtite the piece, bc. You’d know that if you read the article! Nor would you have supplied the link for MPI.
MPI is a well-renowned and prestigious institution, yes. But, since you evidently didn’t look too closely at that one either, please do so. You’ll find that the information they used (and they actually linked to wikipedia, the home page, not the relevant data sets which I found after five minutes!) for the 1000 yr temps were supplied by folks like Mann and other group-thinkers mentioned in the CRU e-mails. Further, the data for the last part of the graph (in black) was supplied directly by the CRU @ East Anglia!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Referring back to the wattsupwiththat post (where she found it!),
you probably shouldn’t have used MPI as your evidence. Not only was it based on data that’s proven to be falsified, but it’s one (yeah, one) guy! try these German scientists, all 130+ of ‘em!
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/2282/Consensus-Takes-Another-Hit-More-than-60-German-Scientists-Dissent-Over-Global-Warming-Claims-Call-Climate-Fears-Pseudo-Religion-Urge-Chancellor-to-reconsider-views
C’Mon, bc! If you’re interested in real answers, stop parroting the party line! Have you, in all seriousness, actually read the disections of the CRU e-mails? If you’re truly that hard-left, then you should do a better job of researching your arguments as you must know by now that most here are reading them and shooting them down. It took me about thirty minutes. The time stamp reflects the time I took to feed and bathe my kids. Point being, your stuff’s weak! I know others here bad-mouth you pretty regularly and have no hope for you, but I would like to know what you (YOU) think of the CRU e-mails, not the party line.
Try this link. I just found it. Frankly, it made my head hurt, but it’s another explanation of the falsification of the data.
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2009/12/fables-of-the-reconstruction.html
over
p.s. I read the AP article this morning. They had five journalists read and re-read the e-mails… Wow! Now that’s due diligence! How about actual science-types that would actually know something about what they’re reading?
Check out the Copenhagen Document leaks, this knowledge may save your life! Do what you can with your Government Reps in your country to have these infringements on your life eliminated! You will literally be fighting for your and your family’s existence, Click the videos below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAqqAnUxACY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94KH-WMZuw0
Request that PM Harper DOES NOT sign the Copenhagen Treaty, thereby causing Canadians to lose their Sovereignty and Freedom, email the PM at: pm@pm.gc.ca
Sign the petition to protest the Inaccurate Science measurements that are being used to base the Copenhagen Treaty off of: http://www.gopetition.com/online/32485.html
Check out what Government is doing behind your back at: : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VebOTc-7shU
Well, it seems Mr. Ehrlich ( another of Obama’s Eugenicist Science Czars who works with John Holdren ) will have his way with humanity if the Copenhagen Treaty will have success. There is your global system, with a globally enforceable mandate- at first to impose carbon taxes upon humanity- later on to do what the eugenicists have always called and planned for: the orderly extermination of at least 80 percent of the global population.
Writer: Btok
Now an oxymoron – Climate Scientist.
“If it were proved that this effect does not exist in nature, then the whole theory would have to be abandoned.”
Just like there are currently very few statesmen (and women) about these days, there are very few scientists in the mold of Albert Einstein & some of his contemporaries.
I doubt even Einstein would openly share his study prior to publishing, as that would be career suicide even for him in modern science.
I don’t think Albert E (“A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be”) was motivated by such a modern day, self-serving notion as “career suicide”.
klrtz1, do not fall into the same falacies as Mr. Gore. We have to hold the higher moral, philisophical, scientific, AND LOGICAL ground to win against the warmist’s large head-start in the public mind. If you want to show a conspiracy, limit the conspiracists to only those to which you have evidence. Many, many people fall into the “not evil, just wrong” category and are firmly convinced of warming by the faux-evidence that they have been presented (ie: Moonbiot, who is thoroughly convinced of warming, called for Phill Jone’s resignation when the e-mails were released. He still is a firm believer in GW, but he was angry at the sort of chickanry used by the CRU). Going to “everyone against me is a conspiracist” makes you no better than Gore.
The problem, Mr. BC, is that the “jerks” that you refer to were right. The data was being fraudulently manipulated, and since the British public had paid for the data to be made, they had every right to know what it was. Your analogy is flawed. A more appropriate one would be if your city’s Mayor released an expense report where 80% of the budget was marked “miscellaneous” and refusing to give an explanation or details. You have every right to know and every reason to suspect something is fishy.
Do you notice that the warmers want to share the wealth for all sorts of reasons yet they seem very stingy with the data, models and even the pages of their journals with those who want to see the truth for themselves before handing over the world’s treasure?