Climategate: Not Fraud, But ‘Noble Cause Corruption’
Jones’ failing amounts to a version of Nixon’s crime: obstruction of science. His refusal to share data with researchers Warwick Hughes and Steve McIntyre can now be traced to what we suspected: poor record-keeping in a job that absolutely requires meticulous records. As a result, the principal evidence for global warming stands less certain and unaccountable. To be sure, the balance of the evidence still indicates that the world has warmed, but the amount of warming is now less certain, and the public will not support painful policies built on such a shabby edifice.
Jones also affirmed what many contrarians have argued. There are periods in the instrument record that show rates of warming statistically indistinguishable from what we witnessed between 1975 and 1998. And the most recent years, since 1995, have shown no statistically significant warming. While Jones and CRU have now set about the task of restoring trust by granting themselves a “do over,” other notable scientists such as Dr. Judith Curry are suggesting the path we outlined in our book: an independent open assessment aimed at rebuilding this vital data.
The other failing we noted, Jones’ subversion of the FOIA process, has now been substantiated by the Information Commissioner’s Office. At issue here was the process of spinning the story about the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. Jones now apparently agrees with critics of the “hockey stick” and has abandoned his “gut feeling” expressed in the emails. The magnitude and the distribution of the MWP is uncertain.
After Nixon’s interview with Frost, a substantial majority believed he was still covering up, and nearly three-quarters of viewers still believed he was guilty of obstruction of justice. The Jones interview explains in part why Jones was hiding data and obstructing FOIAs. A lack of diligence in record keeping and spinning a publication record to one’s advantage does not amount to fraud, but neither does Jones’ admission alone restore trust.
It’s time to free the data, free the code, and open the debate.
Jerome Revetz makes the case that all this unpleasantness was caused by the early opposition to the idea of AGW not all of it science based. As a result the advocates entrenched their positions against the criticisms and consequently became irrevocably wedded to their position.
Essentially he he saying that the initial blame for this fiasco lies with those who had the temerity to question the hypothesis.
All this shows is that the advocates were incredibly thinskinned and abandoned any conviction to the scientific method at the first whiff of grapeshot.
I’m sorry – that explanation doesn’t wash. The best way to advance the science is to be open and accountable. They engaged in a bunker mentality refusing admission to anyone who questioned their orthodoxy all the while insisting that the condition of the bunker was pristine.
When it was eventually breached the state of the bunker resembled one of those houses occupied by dozens of neglected pets. The stench of this will take years to dissipate.
Whenever politicians use the words “consensus” and “science” in the same sentence we now know what it means–science doesn’t support our position.
This is a pretty lame and “thread the needle” kind of article desperately looking for the good news in a sea of bad. Sorry you are wrong. This was a fraud and one that has cost taxpayers already billions of dollars. If there is a lesson here, it is about deceit, it is about lying, it is about greed, it is about arrogance and also it is about “liberalism”. So long as your “intentions” are good damm the trillions of dollars of tax, pain and suffering on the citizens, close the coal mines, triple our heating bills, drive the economy to it’s knees AND all for a lie. If this sounds like I am angry you are damm right I am. People should be marching with pitch forks on the world’s capitals and in front of every governmental body and NGO that backed this crap in a box “science”. So quit trying to soften us up with nonsence of “no fraud” good intentions. Give us a break!! The scoundrals like Jones need to go to jail.
Amortizer’s got it right. It was nothing to do with good intentions, unless one considers that conning people out of money is a “good” intention. It has everything to do with power and money, and lying and cheating to get it Ridiculing the skeptical, claiming the science is settled, peer pressure to suppress dissent (which should sound familiar to anyone familiar with dictatorships) and other insidious tactics were used to say, “You must agree or shut up”.
Bernie Madoff would love you, Mosher, and he would love Ravetz even more. And that comment about Nixon obstructing science? Try obstructing justice. Nixon paid for his crime in the sense of losing his power and job. “To be sure, the balance of the evidence still indicates that the world has warmed” – what evidence? and how do we know that is not faked? The real issue is whether or not CO2 is a significant cause of warming, and since, as Jones now admits, there were similar periods of warming in the past when when man-made CO2 emissions were about zero compared to today. As Jones also admitted, when they couldn’t explain their flawed data (misplaced, unplaced measuring devices, etc), to come up with a cause of warming, they made one up – man-made CO2. Where’s the proof that they were unable to disprove the null hypothesis, i.e., that MMGW does not cause global warming? And if you really believe that a long time scientist is incapable of keeping accurate records (he has staff, y’know), it’s no wonder you are apologizing for him. I do agree with your conclusion, but I agree with Dr. Curry more. They should start all over, and try scientific methodology, but who in their right mind will give them the money now?
I am not sure your conclusion fits the data. Let me help you out a bit…
This is a fact:
“There are periods in the instrument record that show rates of warming statistically indistinguishable from what we witnessed between 1975 and 1998.”
This is a fact:
“And the most recent years, since 1995, have shown no statistically significant warming.”
This is a completely unsupported opinion:
“To be sure, the balance of the evidence still indicates that the world has warmed, but the amount of warming is now less certain…”
Where is this “balance of the evidence” you state exists but do not disclose anywhere? In every one of these ‘Climategate’ articles I keep seeing the conclusion referenced in this way. First the writer destroys the entire premis of anthropogenic global warming; then the writer goes on to state that despite this the world has clearly warmed. Really? I think the two facts you stated make that conclusion extremely unlikely.
No sale. If you want to know why science debased itself follow the money.
The contrarians, as you call them, are in reality the climate realists. Climate realists didn’t cause Mann to wipe out 400 years of climate history in order to advance the improbable theory that our weather is controlled by a trace element comprising 0.04% of the earth’s atmosphere, of which 3% is man made.
This is a case of shooting the messenger. It’s warming. Well it has warmed but that’s because we are coming out of a little ice age.
Is the warming a problem? Will it continue? By how much? For how long? What’s causing it? Can we do anything about it?
We don’t know the answer to these questions. Until we do, the answer to the question below is obvious.
Should we spend trillions of dollars and destroy our economy fighting climate?
The link to the document on “noble cause corruption” was interesting. Those of us who have been in law enforcement know all about the urge to “get the perp at any cost”.
But what is missing here is the fact that the mindset of “the end justifies the means” is endemic in “progressive” circles, and has been since Day One. Put simply, progressives believe that any “cause” they believe in is, ipso facto, “noble”, and that anyone who opposes them, on whatever grounds, is not merely factually wrong but actively evil.
As a result, they invariably “pull out all the stops”, starting in a “win at any cost” mode, and never get out of it.
The AGW campaign echoes every other “holy crusade” that the “enlightened elite’” has engaged in for the last half-century. Whether it was “the population bomb”, “nuclear freeze”, “death with dignity”, “abortion rights”, “gun control”, or (fill in the blank), the modus operandi has always been the same;
We Are Right. Anyone Who Disagrees With Us Must Be Destroyed. Because We Are Leading The World To Utopia (Whether It Wants To Go There Or Not).
It isn’t just the AGW “believers” who behave like religious cultists. This behavior is endemic to the progressive mentality, largely I suspect because of the structure of the “progressive culture”, which is a combination of;
(1) A large group of pseudo-”sophisticated” but fundamentally immature people who, having (in adolescence) rejected everything else to prove their “independence”, are now desperately looking for something to believe in while still telling themselves that they are “smarter than everybody else”;
(2) a medium-sized group of fundamentally unpleasant people who want some “cause” that allows them to engage in prejudice against others while avoiding any guilt for doing so (see typical “progressive” attitudes toward gun owners, Israel, etc.); and
(3) A small group of power hungry and cynical “leaders” who seek to exploit (1) and (2) for their own gain, and are generally successful in doing so.
There is also;
(4) a small group of people who are simply delusional, i.e. so out of touch with reality that they can be relied upon to repeatedly make outrageous claims and draw bizarre conclusions from no noticeable facts, and/or to twist existing data to fit their delusions.
This lot is almost indistinguishable from UFO “contactees” or “abductees”, “Creationists”, and/or “conspiracy theorists”. While harmless by themselves (face it- nobody really cares if your weird Uncle Harold wears tinfoil under his ball cap because he believes he has to conceal his brainwaves from the Secret Masters of the Planet Neptune), they are invaluable to (3) because they are all too often the primary source of the “causes” they use to energize (1) and (2) and rally them to the next “crusade”.
In short, AGW is not an “aberration” of the “progressive” mindset; it is, rather, almost a textbook example of its normal operational mode, and methods.
(And before anyone asks my qualifications, I’m trained in Applied and Abnormal Psychology, along with being a test-tube jockey. And I’ve seen a lot more of this sort of behavior first-hand than I like to think about, not all of it in the political arena.)
clear ether
eon
“…was created by people within science who can be presumed to have been acting with the best of intentions.”
Um, no. At a very minimum is was created by “scientists” who were looking for funding. The best way to get funding is to declare a “crisis” the consequences of which are 30 years out.
p.s.
Hansen called for executives of oil companies to be put on trial for crimes against humanity. That’s pretty clearly not scientific behavior with the best of intentions.
Sorry, Steven. This is rather thin gruel for those who fueled the “science is settled” meme…and knew full well otherwise.
Not ONCE did they come forward when Al Gore and the jetstream footprint crowd fanned the flames of “you are an ignorant fool, a flat earther” if you don’t kneel at the altar of Global Warming.
Rather suddenly, there was the attempt to infuse into popular culture the phrase “Climate Change”…sans explanation.
The reason there was no explanation, seems to coincide neatly with the fact that there has been no evidence of warming consistent with the need for alarmism…since 1998.
To suggest that the scientists were all “little Sally Jumprope’s” who were merely intent on doing a “good job”, but were sent into “bunker mentality” and therefore were essentially “forced” to blockade any but “friendly” reporters and to stifle legitimate inquiry into their methodologies and results…a bit disingenuous for my tastes.
Sloppy record keeping and the failure to keep source information due to “a lack of space” may account for hiding the pea under one of the three shells. But the shell game had a number of passive and affirmative acts that have nothing to do with record keeping. They have to do with advancing a narrative that was not supported by science. And they knew it.
Armed with this knowledge, they blocked inquiry, they blockaded all but friendly reporters, they sat on their hands while a disinformation assault was performed on the public. That’s a trillion dollar long con.
And Phil Jones’ conscience needs to catch up with that reality. It’s not whether he believed in the conclusion, it’s whether he assisted in bastardizing the entire process.
Steve – I would beg to differ. “Hide the decline” is fraud, no matter how you cut it.
Be that as it may, what has to be established here is that there is warming, that it is beyond natural variation, that it is anthropogenic, and that it is harmful.
With regard to the question of whether there is warming, one would have to say that there probably has been, although recent re-analysis of raw data from Australia and NZ raises questions about just how much warming there has been.
Second – has the warming been beyond natural variation? Without solving the data problem of question 1, we cannot know that. But assuming there has been warming, it does not seem to be beyond natural variation. In that regard, I have read that when the glaciers melted in Switzerland, Roman mines were found there, meaning the glaciers had melted once before; similarly, comparison of recent (probably upward biased) warming anomalies suggest that the MWP was warmer – again indicating that current warming, such as it is, has not been beyond natural variation.
Finally – does human activity, and specifically CO2, have anything to do with the warming? Here again, human production of CO2 is relatively small, and because the relationship between CO2 and temperature change is logarithmic, the incremental effect is even smaller, given the amount of CO2 there already is.
Finally, just suppose AGW can be established. Then, it has to be shown to be harmful, or that the benefit of reducing CO2 emissions outweighs the cost of doing so. Everything I have read from an economic viewpoint suggests the opposite: that warming (and hence AGW) is beneficial and not harmful. By implication, any attempt to reduce CO2 will end up being pure cost with no benefit.
Amortiser is right on the money. Anything that Ravetz’s writings adds to scientific method is excess that should be shaved away with Occam’s Razor. What we know is that, when asked perfectly reasonable questions about his work, questions based on scientific method, Phil Jones became deviant. Now, that deviance can be described in many different ways, but what he deviated from is scientific method. To take the discussion to a different place, as Ravetz wants to do, is to introduce elements that add nothing to our understanding of what it is that Jones’ lied about. Now, if Ravetz wants to do a psychology of Jones or, worse, a social psychology of Jones, that is fine but it changes nothing at the fundamental level of scientific method.
Climate scientists may think themselves noble but they lambasted their critics while profiting personally and professionally from their fraud. There is nothing noble about that. They should be made an example of.
I agree with amortiser completely: science is either open and accountable (at least once the results are published, so one gets appropriate credit for the hypothesis and demonstration of it), or it isn’t science at all.
The motives of critics of an hypothesis are irrelevant; their arguments are what’s relevant. If the criticism is accurate, the hypothesis must be restated to take the criticism into account (if possible), new data must be found that settles the matter, or the hypothesis abandoned. Anything else isn’t science.
What is particularly galling about the “noble cause corruption” argument is that those who are being defended by its use were not only quite thoroughly corrupted by it (so, too, were the “noble” Bolsheviks) but they wanted us to fundamentally alter our economies and our individual lives on the basis of their “noble” lie.
No, it does not wash. They need to be driven relentlessly from their academic, governmental, and quasi-governmental or NGO positions into the Siberia of exposed frauds. The cost to the world of having taken the action suggested by the global warming claque would have made the combination of the South Sea Bubble, Tulip Mania, Enron, and Bernie Madoff seem like spare change.
So, let’s cut to the chase here. Because the scientists were corrupted by fame, power, money and influence thus abandoning all ethics that made them scientists in the first place, we should say “Ah, that’s alright, your gut was telling you that you were right, so let’s have a do over.”?
At some point you have to kick this in the ditch and start completely over. Jones claims that he had the data that proved his theories but must have left it in the pocket of his other pants? How can he have the ONLY data out there? Where did he get it? Was he the only one to receive it? Come on… let’s get out of this rut and think outside the box.
They lied, people were hurt because of it, somebody goes to jail as a reminder that crime doesn’t pay and we get NEW people to revisit the data.
They lied. Period.
The fraud of eliminating the Medieval Warming Period by these “scientists” has been pretty well documented. This graph underlines how difficult a fraud assignment they had, and why ultimately it failed….
http://www.c3headlines.com/2010/01/extreme-cool-warm.html
“Let’s hope others besides Phil Jones abandon their “gut feeling” and start behaving like scientists again.”
That assumes they ever were scientists in the first place.
The two of iron metal with book inside worked by a wealther for me at Ikoyi-ile Osun state and Awada Anmbra state,which the told me, while sealing it with
electrode rod burns that the book inside the iron metal will burn which i thought it was while working it but as i lied to to them after sealing it that i will open ,so what they meant was if i want to open it that the electrode which will pierce the metal iron box containing a book will born later. i found out if i wnat to open it i will use chisel and hammer to open, but i will never lay my hand on the meatl work again because i dropped inside a lake at Ikoyi-ile near gbogon at Osun state and the otherat River Niger by a different work men.
Steve, with all due respect, a distinction without a difference. I frankly don’t care if one is motivated by ‘good intentions’. The road to hell, you know…
If your point is that this is more easily explained by hubris than greed, I’ll agree with you.
Interestingly, the leaker is also motivated by the best of intentions (yeah, I know, Bil Oil, which is why I don’t think Curry is quite as sane as you do).
And so, the preacher caught screwing one of his flock is supposed to just do better in the future, instead of being fired?
Folks, this is as bad as it gets in science. This is fraud.
Most people in the field of Cimatology are not hard science people ,they were Geography majors. Check out their science background!
Steve,
I accept that Jones and others didn’t start out to be bad guys,but that step by step, they became less and less objective, finally morphing into an unscientific propaganda machine, as a result of a variety of influences, many of which were beyond the control of the scientists thenselves.
There are others however that saw AGW as a means to an end. For some it was about power and was an excuse to take control, for others it was an opportunity to make money. These people had little concern whether AGW was an actual threat or not, it was a tremendous oportunity. Jones and others facilitated these efforts and ignored a moral duty to society and science in general.
It was a huge professional lapse.
This was pure politics from the beginning, starting with Hansen’s 1988 Congressional testimony that CO2 was going to cause unmitigated disaster. As Lindzen has said, they knew the answer before they did the research. Hansen, Jones, Mann and all the rest of the crew are politicians with PhDs and nothing more. Every time someone looks into their work in detail, it’s wrong. They certainly perpetrated a fraud by calling themselves scientists.
No! Mosher may feel compelled to play Mr. Niceguy by mouthing apologetic platitudes but his statement is simply more progressive “fairness”. Commentators above nail it–this was the most grievous intellectual deception and dishonesty in decades. Such behavior should have consequences. Prosecute both them and their despicable political enablers.
“Settled science,” my backside:
“The entire superstructure of climate alarmism rests on data that are doubtful and possibly fraudulent. The Science and Public Policy Institute has evaluated surface temperature records and found, among other things that 1) instrumental data from the pre-satellite era are virtually useless; 2) fewer than 25 percent of the 6,000 temperature stations that once existed are still operative; 3) comprehensive ocean data have been available only since 2003 and have shown no warming; and 4) higher-altitude, higher-latitude, and rural stations were the most likely to be lost, leading to a further serious overstatement of warming.
As John Hinderaker of the Power Line blog has reported, the U.N. IPCC report itself does not even accurately represent the views of the scientists who signed it. Key sections expressing caveats and acknowledging countervailing evidence were altered after the purported authors had put their names to it.
It isn’t the snow outside that has discredited global warming. It’s the chill the warmists have imposed on scientific inquiry. They are acting as enforcers of orthodoxy, not seekers of truth.”
Just like Islam, eh?
Mr. Mosher is guilty of what I have labeled “Friedman’s fallacy” based on Milton Friedman’s assumption that socialists are basically well-meaning individuals with the best intentions who either go astray or get displaced by ruthless power seekers.
The global warming mafia has never been truth seekers but seekers of power, be it in the university/scientific community or in the political arena. In the end Phil Jones, James Hanson, Michael Mann, et. al., are merely attempting to be the next Lysenko.
Paul:
The reason that one can be a skeptic about AGW and still say that temperatures have risen over the past century is that we recognize that the planet is recovering from the Little Ice Age that ended the Medieval Warming period. This is only an inconsistency if you deny that the earth cools and warms over a long cycle. Global temperatures are still 1-2 degrees C below what they were in 1000 AD. AGW fits well into the Socialist psychology of stasis. ASW supporters assume that the “normal” temperature of the earth is something that is constant at some level achieved in the pre-industrial age and that man has disturbed this equilibrium by the use of fossil fuels. I have always suspected that Socialists want to reset the clock to 1848 so the dialectic can work itself out the way it supposed to.
Steve, your Ravetz reference is apropos although I disagree with his ‘theory’ of post-normal science. Abnormal, corrupt, science is my take on the situation based on blogs referenced, the emails and, finally, Dr. Phil Jones’ recent comments. One key point that Ravetz makes that I agree with: In the face of uncertainty, how do societies make decisions?
Dishonesty, from many quarters, regarding the clear uncertainties is one of the elements of the corruption and trust needs to be repaired. Transparency in science and in governance including (publicly funded or regulated) studies and agency-managed data and tools has to become a priority and not a mere ‘sound bite’ word used to imply it already exists. Transparency (and honesty) leads to trust and can help repair the trust so that people can make informed decisions.
tdiinva @ #27 – spot-on, especially your comment to Paul.
Dear sir
When idealology is allowed to corrupt the scientific method, one is committing fraud.
1 the NOAA (GHCN)has manipulated temperature by causing a shift in temperature stations in a southernly direction and in a lower altitude direction. Thus, they are creating an artificial warming trend. In addition, the now empty grids in the north on their global map must be given virtual values by the use of interpolation; mostly using data from warmer climates now in the south.
Example, when 6,000 stations where used (1960-1980)worldwide, Canada was represented by 600 stations; 100 in their Arctic region. When the GHCN decreased the total number of stations by 75%, Canada should have been represented by 150, 25 in the Arctic, if they wanted to maintain proper proportions. However, Canada is now represented by only 35 stations, only 1 in the Arctic. The northern portion of Canada (above 55 degrees north) has just 3 sites, the southern half has 32. Added to this is that they have chosen sites in the south that have stong positive heat biases; coastal regions, urban areas, airports and water waste treatment facilities. The southern stations are then used for their interpolations, thus, smearing warmer temperatures into the north. Too cinch this gross distortion, they calculated their grid baseline by using all 6,000 stations. This manipulated data set acts as the starting point for the NOAA-NCDC, NACA-GISS and CRU-MET-Hadley compilations.
Do you think this is unintentional, that they somehow miss the fact that the areas of their globe that are substantially warming are exactly those regions where they applied interpolations instead of direct measurements. The Moscow based Institute of Economical Analysis calculated the temperature of Russia by using the original stations used before 1990, which are still in operation, and got a value for Russia’s temperature that is 0.64 degrees Celsius cooler than the value produced by CRU. This value is equal to the claimed unpredented warming that is supposed to be happening today.
Their is so much lost data and computer codes (intentional?), that it is nearly impossible to reconstruct the surface temperature compilation records of the NCDC, GISS and CRU. Their is enough known about the machinations employed in this work to create great doubt in the veracity of these compilations.
2. When the scientists realized that the water temperature tracting system was grossly inadequate and highly inaccurate, they created at great expense, effort and thought, the Argo system of temperature and heat content detection. I can not emphasis enough that Argo is the first continuous and proper method of determining the heat content (along with salinity) of the whole ocean system (except the Artic) down to a depth of 2,000 M. When Argo showed that the oceans have been cooling since 2003, NOAA went back to the old method. Fraud, if you don’t like the answer, ignore it.
3. M. Mann “hockey stick” paleo climatic work eliminating the warmer Medieval Warm Period was fraud on 3 levels. (1) Truncate data that would have invalidated the tree-ring methodology (proxy) for determining historical temperatures. (2) Totally misusing statistics to magnify the 20th century temperature trend by a factor of 200 relative to the temperature trends before 1900. (3) Cherry picking: censored data from the medieval time that would have produced warming in their graph; used computer interpolations to replace this data. Use data to produce the blade portion, that the author of the original paper stated clearly that the in tree growth could not have been due to temperature; a neighboring temperature station showed a decline in temperature in theis region. The original suthor suggested that the increase growth might be due CO2 increases. Mann used this data as if it represented temperature change.
3. Creat the illusion that climate models can predict climate 50 years from now. Thus, failing to inform the public that they could not explain why there has been no warming in the last 12-15 years, a warming that all their models predicted based on continuing CO2 concentaration increases. Climate science is in its infancy with little fully understood. Modelers construct their models by applying gross oversimplifications of the necessary math and physics, by making unsubstantiated assumptions that are little more than biased guesses and using poorly defined parameters as fudge factors.
4. The total corruption of the peer review process. Alarmist were abled to get friends to review their papers instead of a unknown, independent expert. Their work relied heavy on the use of statistics, math and computer computations, yet scientific experts in these field never reviewed their work. Full disclosure, that is required in proper science, to provide the true vetting of the science, was avoided at all cost. Phil Jones (leaked emails) states that he rather destroy this information rather than releasing it under the British Freedom of Information act. We have since found out that much is missing; did he destroy it? In contrast, these cowboys demanded, and usually got, the right to review all papers in their field which they used to veto opposing viewpoints.
How can you not see the outright fraud. The claimed of unprecedented warming is only occuring in their computers: doctored temperature compilations and fraudulent paleo climate constructions. Trenbarth own statements, in private, that they are nowhere near to understanding energy flow, makes their public statements on their capablity to model climate a lie. These three pillars of the IPCC physica science are now fast crumbling. There is no way that this edifice of climate change could have been constructed without the full knowledge and consent of the core scientists and the leadership of the IPCC.
Peter Bartner
Fraud for a noble cause is still fraud. And personally I don’t find destroying humanity for the Earth a noble cause.
Whether merely deluded or conciously dishonest, is irrelevant. The people who falsified evidence to support the AGW theory contributed knowingly to the use of agricultural products as substitutes for traditional fossil fuels, thereby causing an increase in the price of food. This definitely caused hardship and perhaps caused death among the poorer people of the world. Their crime was a genuine crime against humanity, even disregarding the broader consequence of their enabling the movement towards global statist government and any damage which they would have caused to the world’s economy. They they should be tried for crimes against humanity for that alone. Nuremburg established that government endorsement of a crime against humanity does not render that crime to be legal. All of their victims, individually are entitled to recompense. Also, any taxpayer who has contributed to their funding has been defrauded and should also be recompensed. Punitive damages can also be sought, since no-one should be able to benefit in any way from a crime.
As I recall, Hitler suffered from a “bunker mentality.” He did everyone a favor and didn’t show up for his “war crime” trial. It looks like the independent university investigations of these episodes that violated scientific standards and practices is going to be undertaken by some of the same “scientists” on a mission for the eco-gods. Looks like a whitewash to me, no racialism intended. It’s amazing how the facts can be elucidated in front of a federal grand jury without the right to have your attorney present.
No, it’s fraud* – from the On-line Dictionary:
Fraud: A deception deliberately practiced in order to secure unfair or unlawful gain.
* And he should feel grateful not to be charged with homicide; this guy belongs in the Rachel Carson Memorial Environmentalist-wacko-caused Human Holocaust Hall of Fame.
tommy gunn has it right!
I would throw these global warming fraudsters in prison if it were within my power
I could care less about their tender hippie psyches and motivations for fraud
So much time and effort had been wasted. So much money blown on useless bureaucrats and grant driven phony scientists. Our economy is already suffering from denial of permits to coal burning plants due the great CO2 pollution mirage and our oil&gas no-drilling mentality
God help us and throw them in jail for a period of mediation and moral re-assessment
Hi Calvin,
I’ll start by responding to my friends and work my way around the list in due course. Perhaps I’ll catch some of the other points as well. You wrote
“Steve, with all due respect, a distinction without a difference. I frankly don’t care if one is motivated by ‘good intentions’. The road to hell, you know…If your point is that this is more easily explained by hubris than greed, I’ll agree with you.”
The notion of noble cause corruption was brought to my attention by none other than Steve McIntyre. That’s not an appeal to authority, but just an attribution as you know that sort of thing matters to me. First and foremost I’ve tried to explain the WHY of the matter. I think from reading the mails it’s clear the scientists thought they were engaged in a noble cause. Nobody here has denied it or can deny that on the evidence of the mails. They believed they are involved in a noble cause. We are trying to read intentions and motives and I think this is important to understand. When reading through the mails I dont find people saying “lets change the data for money and power and fame” When you read through Mann’s mails its clear that he feels embattled as does Jones and Briffa. Are these perceptions valid? I don’t care, it doesnt matter to the point I am making. Do they have other motivations, secondary motivations? Don’t we all? So yes there probably is a bit of fame seeking, and ass covering ( save the reputation). But if somebody wants to argue for other motivations they should cite some evidence. This is an argument about what the mails show. Few people have read them all. I’m more than happy to entertain an argument that this was fraud. I just dont see it. The closest thing to that I see is in the hide the decline. The opportunity for fraud in this case lay with Briffa in 1998( or 2000). Briffa truncated the data and then discussed the truncation. He missed the opportunity for fraud. What people have done with his data afterwards ( jones for example) is highly misleading and malpractice. I know that seems like a fine point to people.
Historically the fight was joined very early by two interest groups: activists and corporate interests. I don’t make a judgement about that just an observation. As you know Calvin I am an observationalist. In any case I observe that the scientists believe they are motivated in large part by this noble cause. For me that explains the behavior. It’s the simplest explanation for the fans of occams razor. Its the explanation that is supported by the only facts one has.The mails. You dont have access to the internal mental states of Jones and Mann. At best you have a proxy, their words. Better, you have their private words between each other. Now, certainly people can scream and rant that these men had other internal states. They can say these men were socialists or power hungry or fame seeking. blah blah blah . Those theories lack any substantive data support in the text. these arguments don’t impress me very much because they show that they havent even considered the mails. Since my goal was to read the mails and explain what I read, I like a theory that actually is supported by facts.
As you well know I am familiar as anyone with the entire record
of scientific misconduct in this affair. All of Mann’s work, Briffa’s work and Jones. Let’s take Mann. As I list
the Mann errors we have the following: the misplacement of a precipitation proxy that was corrected, the mis use of decentered PCA, the inclusion of chronologies from strip bark trees, the inversion of a finnish sediment series– the tiljander series. and the trick in nature, appending a temperature series to a ring index series.
As all of the experts at Climate audit agree, these are examples of pretty shabby science. I beat that drum pretty hard as well around the blogosphere. Mann also has a reputation for not sharing data ( residuals for example) and until recently not sharing code. That’s the behavior. You have a guy who is not trained in statistics making some bonehead errors. They are pointed out and he fights back with a disproportionate response. Also in the case of Mann you have a guy who cant keep paperwork clear. For this you have to look at his exchanges with Steve Mc. Don’t forget Mann left his code in the open on an FTP by mistake. Can I make a case for fraud?
Not on the evidence. It might well be fraud. But on the evidence I think I can make a case for bad science and sloppy science and willful disregard for the truth. I can go through Jones and Briffa as well and essentially
argue the same thing. But lets just list the arguments below.
1. Mann is wrong and he committed fraud. He willfully and with full knowledge created temperature reconstrucutions that he knew to be wrong. and he covered up data and code to prevent the disclosure of this wrong doing.
2. Mann is wrong and he committed mal practice. He commmitted errors, initially he didnt know any better. he refused to listen. refused to admit his mistakes. he had a willful disregard for the truth
3. Mann is right and the people who attack him are getting money from big oil.
Now you can substitute Jones or Briffa in any one of these and get the same feel for the case I am making.
I think number 1 overcharges the case ON THE EVIDENCE. I find it particularly odd that people like me who care a lot about the accuracy of records try to make a case of fraud out of this. It’s enough to note that Mann is wrong which both 1 & 2 argue. On the evidence here is what I think. I know that if I have a jury of undecided people I can convince them of #2. I’m not too concerned about people who BELIEVED #1 prior to the mails.
I’m not concerned about convincing them of #2. And what about people who believed in #3 before the mails?
Do you think I can convince them of #1? hardly. I can convince them that the practices have been twisted.
In fact I have convinced some. That opens their mind to look at the “facts” of the science again.
Good to see you here Calvin.
JimChip!
Good to see you here. As with Calvin I’ll try to address my known friends first and work my way around to the arguments that make the most sense. You wrote:
“Steve, your Ravetz reference is apropos although I disagree with his ‘theory’ of post-normal science. Abnormal, corrupt, science is my take on the situation based on blogs referenced, the emails and, finally, Dr. Phil Jones’ recent comments. One key point that Ravetz makes that I agree with: In the face of uncertainty, how do societies make decisions?”
Yes, perhaps because of word count limitations I was not clear on this. Ravetz serves one purpose for me. he allows me to place the behavior I see in a philosophical context. His description of what constitutes post normal science is clear: facts are uncertain, values are in conflict; decisions need to be made. For me that’s just a description with no normative import. What he and I agree upon is that the ethics and practices eroded as a result. My prescription is a return to normal science: open and transparent. I also like his idea of extended peer review. It’s an internet world. But do I agree with everything he says? no. We act in the face of uncertainty all the time. My point would be that we need to preserve the values of science. Openness and transparency. In the current state the clash of values has led the scientists to act in ways that are anti science. That can be corrected and some ( judith Curry) on the other side of the debate are recognizing this. If we can agree on that then progress can be made.
“Dishonesty, from many quarters, regarding the clear uncertainties is one of the elements of the corruption and trust needs to be repaired. Transparency in science and in governance including (publicly funded or regulated) studies and agency-managed data and tools has to become a priority and not a mere ’sound bite’ word used to imply it already exists. Transparency (and honesty) leads to trust and can help repair the trust so that people can make informed decisions.”
Yes. So I ask myself how can I convince people who believe in CAGW that transparency is a good thing? It’s easy to convince the undecided. People who dont understand the science at least understand the importance of open science. Share the data and the code. Open debate. Well, how to convince the religious zealots that openness is a good thing? Screaming fraud when it’s not supported on the evidence doesnt work. 2 years of trying should convince folks of that. Perhaps they are unconvinceable. Perhaps not. Monbiot was disturbed by the mails. My point is this. If you focus on making a case that is supported by the evidence, you have a shot at changing things. the mails dont change “the science” the science can only be changed by other science. To make that happen first the science must be open and transparent.
Stephen:
Members of the Cheka, the SS and Red Guards truly believed they were serving a noble cause. That is why I refer to Friedman’s stated position about socialists a fallacy. Most 20th Century atrocities were commited to serve a noble cause.
Does not matter in the least. The end result must be prison time for those involved.
amortiser,
I don’t think we are that far apart. You wrote:
“Essentially he he saying that the initial blame for this fiasco lies with those who had the temerity to question the hypothesis.”
I’m not so interested in “blame” which is a normative term. It’s clear on the historical evidence that the early
proponents were activists with an agenda. Its clear on the evidence that the early opponents were also advocates. I don’t care so much about blame as blame doesnt go to the truth of the science. What matters to me is how this situation shaped the science over time and changed the behavior of scientists. For example, In my book I detail how Jones goes from a scientist who actually SHARED data with Mcintyre in 2002 ( yes) to a scientist who refused to share that same data 3 years later. I care about these facts and this change in behavior.
What changed between 2002 and 2005? Historically how does jones get corrupted? Do you know the precise chronology? it’s important to understand the man and why he did what he did.
More later, I’ll address each of your points but I have to run to lunch.
it’ll be a couple hours.
No Mr. Mosher you are wrong. These “researchers” clearly knew they were committing fraud. They were not just “wrong” – they knew they were “hiding” critical data. Fraud that they knew was being used to take my money, fraud that was going to take some of my liberties, fraud that would result in the misdirection of billions of dollars and cause worldwide hardship and deaths (because the money for clean water and vaccines was wasted on addressing the fraud). They deserve to be charged and punished appropriately for the fraud just as any person committing an investment fraud would be.
Virtuous corruption has very little role here. Climate change is not the first orchestrated environmental crisis. It is just the first with a highly functioning internet. Imagine where climate change would be now without the internet for information— well it would be like acid rain.
Acid rain was the template for climate change- name the crisis after something naturally occurring (you couldn’t say there was no acid rain because rain can’t be anything but acid) use a model, use NGOs to spin alarmist fears, use the media and smear and ostracize any scientist who dared to say otherwise. Most importantly the government sponsored report on acid rain (NAPAP) said the claims were overblown. Despite or because of the finding EPA prevented the report’s release until Congress passed the legislation and Congress showed no interest in requesting it to do otherwise. Science was clearly not part of the decision process and this was made abundantly clear to every scientist.
Some excellent people had their careers destroyed for doing proper science in acid rain and questioning the paradigm (look up a 60 Minutes story on Ed Krug and EPAs smear tactics). Acid rain taught scientists to shut up or get run over. And no-one protected those run over by the acid rain machine. The internet however renews my hope for a future emerging environmental science.
Science has no “noble causes”, honest scientists have no “noble causes” in science there are only cold rational facts that produce consistent results repeatedly. Frauds invent causes and crises in pursuit of grant money. Control freak leftists endorse false causes in pursuit of power over all of our lives. Failed ex-politicians in search of wealth and notoriety by inventing the need for a carbon credits scheme endorse these causes. After these frauds are exposed they proclaim their nobility as if this excused their nefarious actions. Now we are supposed to buy the preposterous notion that the evil capitalist energy companies forced these so called scientists to become liars and thieves by defending their lively hoods not to mention the millions who depend on their products. Energy producers are supposed to have a dog in this fight from jump, government sponsored or university scientists are not. I’ll bet the energy company’s data is still available. It is astounding that anyone would suggest that any of people involved in this fraud should be allowed to work in any government, educational or scientific institution let alone trusted again is preposterous. After these “scientists” get out of jail they should not even be trusted to collect urine samples at a “doc in the box”.
It is fraud,… period.
If the “evidence” is of unknown origin and suspect quality, what does it matter how the numbers trend? they’re PDOOMAs, and unworthy of respect.
What the East Anglia CRU, its NASA counterpart, and other agencies promoting the global-warming thesis have been doing simply isn’t science. It isn’t dispositive of any conclusion. More, now that we know how badly the “data” have been treated, I insist that it doesn’t even “indicate” anything.
Given all that, it’s unclear what we can do at this date, but we are obliged as a matter of intellectual honesty to admit that we must start from scratch, without prejudice or preformed conclusions.
Steven:
Your charitable instincts and inclination towards evidence-based reasoning and tolerance are ill-suited for the CAGW arena.
This was not a case of political lines emrging after scientific findings but the reverse. The case for catastrophic risk was not unfounded when Hansen made his over-the-top speech in 1988 and when Gore subsequently produced his rather sophomoric book. The science has been done in response to the political interest and with funding that accrues directly from that politically-driven interest
All climate science in the last 20 years has been done in a self-consciously political atmosphere in which one partisan side (IPCC insiders at al) were in a position to marginalize, silence and even defund heretics. That ANY quality work was done is especially admirable. That there was a Michael Mann was inevitable.
At the beginning, non-idealistic elements within political and academic classes recognized the potential political and economic power shift that could accrue from fostering a public belief in (a) massively destructive (b) imminent and (c) certain danger from CO2. The notion that opposition to that power grab caused a corruption of some pre-existing idealistic movement is a mischaracterization of the origins of CAGW. And the subsequent attachment of Baby Boomer Issue Narcissism to CAGW should not be regarded as idealism either.
There is nothing noble about selling out to the globalist network and promoting their agenda of making the funding of the U.N. independent of the caprices of a few big nations. If the global warming agenda succeeds, the U.N. will TAX nations and companies DIRECTLY.
Now imagine an independent U.N. body with it’s own independently funded military (possibly with U.N. bases in every country) policing any nation that doesn’t bow to the globalists …
That is what these AGW fraudsters were knowingly or unknowingly abetting. Good riddance!!
40 Steven Mosher writes:
“What matters to me is how this situation shaped the science over time and changed the behavior of scientists.”
Yes, Steven, you are another victim of the stench that remains in academia after Kuhn published his book Scientific Revolutions in the early Sixties. Kuhn mounted some interesting challenges to traditional philosophy of science. All of them failed, except in the fields of art history, feminist studies, and girls gone wild.
Look at what you said above. “Shaped the science?” Soon you will be asking “What shaped the scientists?” Your hypotheses are causal hypotheses. That means that you posit a kind of mental or sociological determinism. That was Kuhn’s big mistake too. Phil Jones and crew were not determined by any causes to do anything. They saw that their evidence was BS and they chose to be crooks for the bucks and maybe the glory or they chose to be munchkin communists seeking world domination through restrictions on carbon. Their choices were always totally free. They were not caused to do anything or think anything. Consequently, they are totally responsible. Notice I said responsible not guilty. See, you do not have to talk about guilt or even blame to talk about responsibility. Phil Jones should choose responsibility and say “I lost the data so I hereby withdraw all the articles that refer to that data.” To this day, he is free to chose responsibility and self-respect.
Steve – Read Chris Horner’s part 2 today on PJM. Hansen et al. at NASA clearly fudged the numbers, as did Jones et al. at CRU. What was the noble cause? To save humankind from itself? To bow down to Gaia? Ultimately, had they not been found out, we could be facing a multi-trillion dollar cost of CO2 reduction. Marx had a noble cause and how many tens of millions died because of it? What these charlatans (or fraudsters) wanted to do would have been very close to what the Marxists ultimately did.
The liberal mind operates entirely in the realm of feelings, and the only desirable attribute to a liberal is compassion. So, proving them wrong doesn’t bother them, as long as their intentions were good.
Rush pointed this out, and I have found it a pretty good model for understanding liberal behavior.
There was never anyhing noble about any of thier intentions they were protecting or enhancing reputations and access to grants or government funding they did not do this for “the cause” they did this for money and fame. They are frauds, theives and liars. What ever the human body’s basic chemicals are worth is the sum total of their value.
Mr Mosher
The hapless actions of Jones, Mann, Briffa et al remind me of the psychology professor lecturing on the power of suggestion. His students played a trick on him, paying rapt attention when he moved to one side of his lectern, and fidgeting, picking their noses, yawning etc when he moved to the other. He wound up delivering his lecture almost from the corridor.
The aspect of this debacle that is most depressing is that it is not the first of its kind, though it is the most consequential. Contrary to your interpretation, AGW is the latest in a long line of disaster scenarios whose origin is always in a left wing millenarian catastrophism that tries to achieve by other means what cannot be achieved politically.
These ‘alarms’ are opposed quite properly by the right because it knows more about the spoilt and decadent left than the left knows itself. Nobody can be waiting with scientific counter-proofs ready for each new crackbrained idea that could possibly be launched. People have lives to live. But such conspiracies, for that is what they are, must be held at bay until they implode. We knew AGW would implode, not because we could disprove the hypothesis, or because we knew the data was unreliable, but because it SMELT of liberal bullshit.
The right has its own forms of alarmism, its true. I happen to think they are less pernicious by an order of magnitude than what we are dealing with here. But the point is, these are fundamentally political and cultural events, and not scientific at all. I agree that Jones and Mann etc are pawns in that politics, but they are also pawns that made a lot of money and kudos by playing fast and loose. For that they must be held to account. For the likes of Gore and Pachauri who have been the orchestrators, ignominy and ridicule should be their lot if they cannot actually be sued for some of the millions they have made out of the business.
But what we can do about the legions of gullible lefties who lead on such false prophets, I do not know. Sometimes I wish they might actually get what they wish for. Of course, one day, they might be right…
I am sorry but I will not give these guys the benefit of the doubt about some “noble intentions”. These are the same people who called anyone skeptical of their “science” all kinds of vulgar names and always disparaged their intentions. There is nothing noble about these “scientists”. They deserve only to be pariahs and shunned.
Somehow I’m reminded of the movie “A Simple Plan”, in which things increasingly go off the rails. Perhaps once CRU et al began to get some notice, Jones couldn’t bring himself to own up to his sloppy record keeping, and things just snowballed while he dug himself deeper into his hole.
Steve, you are obviously a fair-minded man, but real harm has befallen people because of these shenanigans. Any jiggered research funded by tax dollars should be pursued. Mann, Jones & fellow perps should have to make restitution, and they should also do hard time.
An awful thought just hit me: Is your apparent nonchalance because these crappy practices are the norm in academia?
Continuing with amortiser, others will have to wait till I have time to respond.
“Essentially he he saying that the initial blame for this fiasco lies with those who had the temerity to question the hypothesis.
All this shows is that the advocates were incredibly thinskinned and abandoned any conviction to the scientific method at the first whiff of grapeshot.”
The diagnosis of being “thin skinned” may apply in a few cases. I prefer not to talk in vague terms and choose to speak specifically about the cases where their is evidence. WRT Mann one can support a case of being thin skinned. Also with Santer. Jones and Briffa present a different case. First Briffa. Prior to the publication of MM03
( you should acquaint yourself with the record) Briffa and Osborn were planning a criticism of Mann’s publications, much along the same lines as McIntyre’s criticism. The mails show this. In fact throughout the whole episode Briffa and other’s ( notably Wigley) express doubt over mann’s results. However, under pressure from Mann, Briffa and Osborn go through a change. Similarly with Jones. In 2002 Jone’s is aware of the confidentiality agreements governing the data and leans toward sharing the data. he believes it should be shared but is concerned about fallout. And he does share a version of the data in 2002. By 2005, specifically feb 21 2005, this has changed. and he starts to refuse data and begins down a path of obstruction. The feb 21 date is crucial and the mail sent to him on the 21st by Briffa points to an explanation of why Jones finally hardened his heart. I guess I can put it this way. Sweeping generalizations about “scientists” are less interesting to me than an
accurate account of who said what when. Some were thinned skinned. Some ( say wigley and Rind ) remained skeptical of those within the circle called “the team.” When I am pointing out behavior that I think falls short of a standard I believe the right approach is to be as accurate as possible.
Continuing:
“I’m sorry – that explanation doesn’t wash. The best way to advance the science is to be open and accountable. They engaged in a bunker mentality refusing admission to anyone who questioned their orthodoxy all the while insisting that the condition of the bunker was pristine.”
Perhaps I can express it a bit more clearly. Yes, the best way to adavnce science is with openness. See my last sentence in the article. Read what I have written since 2007. Openness and transparency is important. The point I am making is this. The mails support a reading of the situation as they perceived it. As I read the mails it was clear to me that they believed they were under attack. I don’t judge that. I just describe it. This is what they believed, rightly or wrongly. This is how they described the situation to themselves. It actually developed over time with Mann leading the way. To some extent you can see them evolve to adopt his perspective. Prior to 2003 the principle strategy was laid out by Overpeck. That strategy was to argue as follows ” you can ignore what skeptics say because they are not published in peer reviewed journals.” That was the argument. You can see them develop this position by reading the mails. Then it happened. The publication of the Soon paper in a peer reviewed journal. At this point the tactics change. First one scientist notes that this was a danger with the Overpeck approach. Then Mann suggests that the way to fix this problem is to work the journals from the inside. They start to become leary of certain editors and certain journals. The bunker has been inflitrated and they start to worry about who is on their side and who is not. Now, my point is merely to DOCUMENT this behavior. To show this behavior develop over time. I dont justify this behavior or condone it. I document it.
“When it was eventually breached the state of the bunker resembled one of those houses occupied by dozens of neglected pets. The stench of this will take years to dissipate.”
Well that’s a bit of a hyperbole. Again, I prefer to stick to the case in front of me. There surely is a lot to be corrected in the bunker. But lets be specific about which bunkers. I know that some people would like to sweep their hands across the whole scene and declare one verdict that fits all. That’s good theater. It’s a nice sound bite. Further, I don’t know that it will take years to dissipate, it might take centuries. I see no reason to speculate on the amount of time. I see no evidence to shore up such a speculation. I see no benefit to such a speculation. I do think if we focus on the precise complaints, that we are more likely to get changes. I believe this because I have seen some changes WRT openness and transparency by making specific complaints about specific cases.
What would we gain if we had total understanding of Al Gore’s psychology? His psychology and all the sociological forces acting on him? What would we gain? I say nothing. What would we gain if he came clean and took responsibility for his misdeeds? I say we would gain a new man. We would watch him carefully, of course.
Howiem.
Hi, glad you took the time to comment. Let me address you briefly. You wrote
“Amortizer’s got it right. It was nothing to do with good intentions, unless one considers that conning people out of money is a “good” intention. It has everything to do with power and money, and lying and cheating to get it Ridiculing the skeptical, claiming the science is settled, peer pressure to suppress dissent (which should sound familiar to anyone familiar with dictatorships) and other insidious tactics were used to say, “You must agree or shut up”.
Bernie Madoff would love you, Mosher, and he would love Ravetz even more. And that comment about Nixon obstructing science? Try obstructing justice.”
When talk about “good intentions” I am talking about how they perceived what they were doing. They perceived they were on a mission to save the planet. Rightly or wrongly that is how they expressed themselves. These
“good intentions” dont justify in a moral way what they did. But it does explain how they could sleep at night.
That is the sum of my point. Let me put it another way. If the mails said, “look Phil, we can make a ton of money like Al Gore just by faking this bit of data” then I would say the mails made a different case. the mails, the actual words, dont make that case. They make a case for a bunch of people who ( wrongly or rightly) believed they were engaged in a noble cause. That belief “allowed” them to engage in bad behavior. Look, the mails dont support a case of them doing this as a prank. They dont support a case of them doing it explicitly for money or for fame. The mails dont support a case of them doing it because they are evil. The mails support the case I made. Jones’s interview? he agrees with me. If one wants to make a case for power and money being the Cause of the bad action, then I would need to see the facts. Money clearly plays a role, in shaping the science, but in terms of Jones motivation I don’t see any evidence of greed. I see him being concerned about his reputation. I see him drawn into a science that has been politicized. Again, hand waving about how particular men felt or what motivated them is a easy arm chair thing to do. Actually reading what they wrote and tracking it over time is not easy. No US journalist has done it and neither have many people who make blanket statements about
“the scientists”
WRT the tactics. All of those tactics you listed are detailed in the book. What I try to do is give you a richer historical context for it. To be clear, I’m not defending this tactics. I’m showing you what caused them, how they developed, and the specific cases. Finally WRT Nixon. That’s an analogy. I think you missed it.
NOT Fraud?
Over at NRO Online, an admission by former Sen. Timothy Wirth (D. CO), that back in the summer of 1988 he had the air-conditioning turned off in the Senate hearing room during testimony, and had even deliberately scheduled the hearings for one of the hottest days that summer.
“Well-intended” and “noble” on his part, or just plain mendacity?
Mr Mosher if you are not aware that obtuseness is not a virtue we are. They knew they were lying from the beginning they slept well by counting dollars.
noble cause corruption, eh?
what an interesting new way of framing the old insanity plea.
remember your Voltaire, Steve- until there are some real consequences pour encourage les autres it will continue to be a party with taxpayer as pinata.
Steven Mosher writes:
“Then it happened. The publication of the Soon paper in a peer reviewed journal. At this point the tactics change. First one scientist notes that this was a danger with the Overpeck approach. Then Mann suggests that the way to fix this problem is to work the journals from the inside.”
Well, Steven, as you continue to write and I continue to read, I can see that you have an interesting book that tells an interesting story. However, I see no reason in that interesting story to attempt a change in the traditional standards of scientific method or to make an addition to them. You just really want to be totally fair to the participants’ self-perceptions. Fine. Do it.
RE #5 Paul,
Thanks for your response. Let me see if I can illuminate a few items which were hard to cover in limited space.
It’s good that you ask questions, that’s how I got started in 2007. Basically by download what information was available and doing some of my own statistical analysis. With that let me turn to your questions and expand a bit
You wrote:
“This is a fact:
“There are periods in the instrument record that show rates of warming statistically indistinguishable from what we witnessed between 1975 and 1998.””
While I didnt go into it in the article there is a fundamental problem even with this “fact” To put it precisely
IF we take the record at face value, then the record shows this. IF. Now, the problem with the record is that
it is unaccountable. By that I mean that there are some records where the provenance of the records is questionable. One could remove these records and recalculated the answer. So, on the assumption that the
record is accurate the above is a “fact.”
You continue:
“This is a fact:
“And the most recent years, since 1995, have shown no statistically significant warming.””
See my answer above.
You continue:
“This is a completely unsupported opinion:
“To be sure, the balance of the evidence still indicates that the world has warmed, but the amount of warming is now less certain…”
Where is this “balance of the evidence” you state exists but do not disclose anywhere? In every one of these ‘Climategate’ articles I keep seeing the conclusion referenced in this way. First the writer destroys the entire premis of anthropogenic global warming; then the writer goes on to state that despite this the world has clearly warmed. Really? I think the two facts you stated make that conclusion extremely unlikely.”
One way to understand this is to select a starting period. I’ll choose the LIA. or little Ice age: for ease of description lets just say 1400 to 1600 or so. From that period to today it has warmed. Logically if we call
the average temperature during this period X, then three possibilities exist.
A. the period today is Colder than it was.
B. the period today is the same temperature as it was then
C. the period today is warmer.
The balance of evidence, sea level, the instrument record, glacial records, movement in species and treelines,
various proxies of temperature, all indicate a warming. I know of no sceptic, no literature, no data that supports
A or B. So, the balance of evidence is that it has warmed. If it was X back then it is X+Y now. and Y is a positive
integer.
The debate happens when we ask these two questions:
1. HOW MUCH warmer
2. Why is it warmer
On the question of “how much” the biggest issue on the table is the instrument record. People who believe in Global warming accept the instrument record at face value. Jones is responsible for just a portion of that record.
He is responsible for the LAND portion of the record. The land is 1/3 of the globe more or less. SST ( ocean temps) is calculated by other groups. In any case, the issue at hand is how well Jones kept the land record. The most reputable Skeptic on this matter, Ross McKittrick ( co author with Steve Mcintyre) has argued that 50% of the warming that Jones records is actually due to contamination, what is know as UHI. Simple math ( 50% of 1.3) puts a rough limit on the debate. So basically you have this. The people who believe in global warming would argue something like “it’s 1C warmer today than in the LIA” whereas a skeptic like McKittrick might argue that it is only .7C warmer. Note these numbers are for illustration only. The point is no skeptic argues that it is cooler now than it was in the LIA.
That brings us to point B. WHY is it warmer. On this point there is much disagreement. First lets start with the AGW types. A= anthropogenic. their argument is that the world is warmer and man is guilty. At the other extreme are people who argue that it is warmer, but the cause is not man. In between you have shades of argument with people attributing a variety of causes and weights.
As you noted it seems like everybody starts by destroying the premise of AGW and then claiming that it has gotten warmer. That’s easy to explain once you understand the above. The balance of the evidence shows a warming ( not a cooling) since the LIA. People disagree about TWO issues: how much and why. I hope that clarifies it for you. If not just let me know and I’ll try to point you to some self study things.
Re 6: Terry
Hi terry, thanks for your comments. First glad you agree on the issue of it having warmed since the LIA.
I’ll just respond to one point in your comment. You wrote:
“No sale. If you want to know why science debased itself follow the money.”
I try not to speak in generalities. First and foremost because I am in the process of making a submission to the committee that is investigating Jones and CRU. So, I limit my discussion to Jones and the other scientists mentioned in the mails. As I read through the mails I surely did look to find evidence of money playing a role.
I didn’t see much. What I did see was money shaping the questions that were asked. had I seen evidence of money changing hands to buy science I would have reported it. If you can find evidence of money playing a role, then please put together a submission for the inquiry at UEA. My point is this. If I want to be critical of scientists for being sloppy or bad record keepers then I better ground that criticism in fact. I better not be sloppy in accusing them of being sloppy. If I were accuse them of making stuff up without evidence, I better have evidence. Now to be sure other people in the debate have monetary interests. Those are separate matters.
#7 eon:
“The link to the document on “noble cause corruption” was interesting. Those of us who have been in law enforcement know all about the urge to “get the perp at any cost”.”
Yes, the explanation was a good analogy for me. And one could also talk about the whole “blue line” mentality as well. Also, the difficulty people find in stepping outside the blue line to criticize their own.
“But what is missing here is the fact that the mindset of “the end justifies the means” is endemic in “progressive” circles, and has been since Day One. Put simply, progressives believe that any “cause” they believe in is, ipso facto, “noble”, and that anyone who opposes them, on whatever grounds, is not merely factually wrong but actively evil.”
I don’t make this argument explicitly but it surely fits. I’m not sure what it ADDS, but it fits. Like so:
A. The scientists engaged in corrupt behaviors because they believed their cause was noble and they believed the end justifies the means.
B. The scientists engaged in corrupt behaviors because they believed their cause was noble and they believed the end justifies the means. And that’s just what progressives do.
Not sure what that adds to the case. Also, I know some progressives who find this behavior objectionable.
Again, I’m not sure what a generality adds to the bottom line of the debate. For me it’s a wheel that doesnt turn.
I dont need to know their politics to know that they believed the end justifies the means.
RE 11: jack
Thanks for your comment jack. I’m going to have to make this the last one of the evening since I have to work on the submission to the UEA commission ( yes its a whitewash but the case needs to be made as accurately as possible)
You wrote:
“11. Jack in Silver Spring:
Steve – I would beg to differ. “Hide the decline” is fraud, no matter how you cut it.”
Actually it depends on which version of “hide the decline” you are talking about and more specifically it depends on how you construe the action of grafting a temperature series onto a tree ring series. It’s a very detailed matter in each of the cases. There are three cases that I know of and each is different. Let’s just take the
case in the mails for example which refers to a 1999 WMO graphic. The mails make clear that they were trying to
manage the presentation of uncertainty and not complicate a graphic. Misleading. In the last case the action was taken in chapter 6 of AR4. The “hiding” of the decline was discussed in 264 words in the text. That is, the graphic was truncated and a 40 year hamming filter ( as I recall, sorry feel free to correct this detail) was applied to the smooth. On my view these 264 words dont go far enough to explain the method that was applied to the data. It was misleading. It created a picture of more certainty than there was. Does it rise to the level of fraud? Not sure I can make such a case. Again, I am trying to make a case that will actually stick with a hostile audience.
You Continue:
“Be that as it may, what has to be established here is that there is warming, that it is beyond natural variation, that it is anthropogenic, and that it is harmful.”
Yes. We agree on that. There has been warming, how much? I dunno for sure. What I do know is that the records appear to be a mess of sorts. As for what has to be established, I don’t even go there yet. In my mind
before you even progress to a debate about causes, you first have to get the observation record sorted out.
is it beyond natural variation? I dunno. Why dont I know? Simple, the existing data and methods have not been checked. is it harmful? We are not even to that question yet.
You Continue:
“With regard to the question of whether there is warming, one would have to say that there probably has been, although recent re-analysis of raw data from Australia and NZ raises questions about just how much warming there has been.”
We agree. The question on the table is HOW MUCH. That question wont be accurately answered without access to the raw data and the code. Full stop. Now, Does anybody want to bet that once this is done that 1979-2009
will be colder than 1850 to 1880? WRT auz and NZ. Yep, I watch that work.
“Second – has the warming been beyond natural variation? Without solving the data problem of question 1, we cannot know that. But assuming there has been warming, it does not seem to be beyond natural variation. In that regard, I have read that when the glaciers melted in Switzerland, Roman mines were found there, meaning the glaciers had melted once before; similarly, comparison of recent (probably upward biased) warming anomalies suggest that the MWP was warmer – again indicating that current warming, such as it is, has not been beyond natural variation.”
there are three issues at play.
1. The height of the MWP. Like Mcintyre I would say this is not know with any certainty.
2. The spatial extent. Not known
3. The rate. Not known.
4. the importance of the MWP in the argument. uncertain.
“Finally – does human activity, and specifically CO2, have anything to do with the warming? Here again, human production of CO2 is relatively small, and because the relationship between CO2 and temperature change is logarithmic, the incremental effect is even smaller, given the amount of CO2 there already is.”
Yes the effect is log. The major issue is feedbacks. But again, these arguments are not even on the table for me. They are not on the table for me because Jones has nothing to do with this aspect of the science. The mails say precious little about radiative physics and about estimations of climate sensitivities. If I tried to make a case against 3C per doubling from the mails I think I would have problems since the mails say nothing about this.
Surely you can understand this.
“Finally, just suppose AGW can be established. Then, it has to be shown to be harmful, or that the benefit of reducing CO2 emissions outweighs the cost of doing so. Everything I have read from an economic viewpoint suggests the opposite: that warming (and hence AGW) is beneficial and not harmful. By implication, any attempt to reduce CO2 will end up being pure cost with no benefit.”
Again, this issue is not covered in the mails. I’m not disposed to discuss issues that are not covered in the mails in a book about the mails. I’m not disposed to discuss economic issues when Jones interview does not discuss them. The mails disclose a team a scientists who generally speaking work on two issues: the instrument record and the paleo record. The book covers these two aspects from a perspective of what was actually said. Not what somebody said they said, but what they actually wrote. Similarly jones had an interview and answered a Q&A.
I discuss that and only that. There isnt space or time to discuss the entire case. Just what are the new facts in front of us now that we didnt have before this.
1. we suspected a bunker mentality: jones confirmed it.
2. We suspected he kept poor records: he and others confirmed it.
Steven, not to be self-absorbed…but, I don’t believe my point is taken up and while I respect greatly many of the others here, who comment frequently and I know their fine work, my point is a different one I believe.
These scientists and their “clubby” atmosphere not only “allowed” for a “bunker mentality” within the inner circle, it encouraged an atmosphere outside the circle to inflate the narrative and enflame the faux rage against Western civilization.
They didn’t merely allow themselves to be used in this fashion, they affirmatively fueled the pyre upon which honesty, integrity, fidelity were cremated.
This issue was not merely “politicized” it was poisoned with an intent to strip dollars from Western pocketbooks and purses. These scientists knew it, they knew that the narrative was not only based upon bad interpretations of their work…it was based on work they knew was flawed to begin with.
Moreover, when the inquiry began into the bad work, they blockaded that inquiry. And worse, when inquiry was made into the bad interpretation of their work…they sat on their hands and allowed the fraud to expand.
That makes them, in the latter, accessories after the fact. In the former, active participants in a conspiracy to defraud the public.
Re 56 Theo.
“What would we gain if we had total understanding of Al Gore’s psychology? His psychology and all the sociological forces acting on him? What would we gain? I say nothing. What would we gain if he came clean and took responsibility for his misdeeds? I say we would gain a new man. We would watch him carefully, of course.”
A couple points. One of the things we gain is prevention. You will have to wait a bit to see what some of us have been talking about in particular. I would draw an example from people who work on the police force. Go ahead and read up on noble cause corruption and you’ll see that in some cases when others are taken down by noble cause corruption people who follow in their footsteps learn a lesson. Second, I would hope that Jones is not allowed to keep his position as advisor to NOAA. This is a little known fact that we raise in the book. His role? he is a advisor on their standing board of Data archives and access. Perhaps people here could take some time to write to their congressman and senators and request that Jones be relieved of this duty. It would appear to me that if you read the mails and find the occassions where he struggled keeping track of things and you read the interview and see what is said there, that you could argue that he should not have this position. In a nutshell, if people just yell fraud I doubt that anything will change. If however you make a measured case based on evidence from people’s own mouths, you might win some victories.
Re #30.
peter bartner:
Peter, At this stage I will address #1 in your comment by suggesting that you visit EM Smiths site. EM is a friend of mine of course and I had the pleasure of having dinner with him, anthony watts, Willis eschenbach and a couple other fellows a couple months ago. At that time Em was just starting to look into the problem. If you read his threads you will see comments from me and Nick Stokes, Carrick I believe and others relative to the calculation of spatial averages and the impact of various methodologies. As one of the first guys to go through GISSTEMP code back in 2007 I can tell you that it is not very easy to understand. EM has made great strides in getting the code up and working. In order to test the effect of losing thermometers since 1990 or so, I suggested a test to EM, and If you read the thread you will see that he already tried this test but the code failed as it was fragile or brittle WRT station removal. let me characterize it this way. It’s not clear that the removal will have a large effect. On one view the anomaly method should be robust WRT station removal. However, its not entirely clear that GISS method is that robust. I believe JeffId may also be preparing to do a similar test. let’s just put it this way. the removal of stations looks as though it will cause a problem. that is a hypothesis. To test it some code needs to be run and numbers collected. So waving our arms about ” there’s a problem” is really about 2 years old. the question is HOW BIG. people keep losing sight of this. You’ll find a similar issue with surfacestations.org
Thsi project is near and dear to my heart. We recognize that there is a problem with siting. heck we knew that back in 2007. But HOW BAD is it. .1C? .2C? .2345C. Anyways, back in 2007 I did some very preliminary looks at the data. Now Anthony has a paper or two under review with peilke sr. I’m looking FWD to it
WRT your points 2,3,4
For number 2, please see climate audit. you can find me there, I’m a regular, just ask. In some cases you are confusing the various players and what they did. When I am in doubt about an exact detail about Mann’s work or Briffa or Wilson, I can always find a good answer there. So I would suggest that offer up those opinions on CA and we can discuss it there.
For #3 please visit rankexploits, lucia’s blog. Lucia’s blog specializes in some of the more technical aspects of testing GCMs against observation data sets. Its a blg frequented by skeptics and believers in AGW. Steve MC posts there occassionally, jeffId, Dr. Curry. the discussions can get quite technical so some knowledge of advanced stats and physics is required.
For #4. Please see Climateaudit. The cases where we found “violations” of peer review are listed there. Steve has labelled them under names like “climategatekeeping” between the ones we documented in the book and the ones that steve documented on his blog I think we got them all. If you have any other exact cases with documentary evidence please bring them up. We are writing a submission and need all the help we can get.
Congratulations, all. Best blog discussion I have read.
Nothing noble about it. The Marxists are still with us. They have just changed there color. The have become like watermelons – green on the outside, red on the inside.
Nothing nobel about it. The Marxists are still with us. They have just changed their color. Like a watermelon, green on the outside, red on the inside.
Mr Mosher: based on your response to #11 in your comment #65 may look forward to the argument that it depends on what the definition of is is?
#64 Steven Mosher;
As to what it “adds”, in police work we have a saying; “when you’re stuck in an investigation, think ‘motive’.”
The reason that “progressives” behave in this matter, and do so consistently, is from all indications a belief in their own innate superiority; a pretension that they are smarter, better educated, “on a higher moral plane”, and just inherently “nicer” than everyone else. This self-perception results in;
1. A tendency to conclude that anything they want to do is “right”- simply because they want to do it.
2. An equally strong inclination to view any opposition, or even lack of support, on the part of others as evidence, not of a legitimate difference of opinion, but as evidence of at best stupidity and at worst evil intent.
As a result, progressives automatically regard their “causes” as noble, because they believe so deeply in their own innate nobility that it is they which ennoble the cause. Yes, this is a form of reflexive argument.
They also believe that since opposition to them can only spring from stupidity or evil, they are justified in “doing whatever it takes” to win. In essence, they regard any disagreement between their worldview and the rest of the world as justification for declaring “the moral equivalent of war” on the opposition. And of course, the only “rule” in war is to win.
As to how they choose their causes, it stems from a seemingly unassailable belief in the principle that our society, and civilization, is inherently wrong, and evil, by nature. Their definition of “evil” is “different from us”- this allows them to apply that word in many ways they see as useful, which would seem illegitimate to a logician. (“I don’t like beans; George likes beans; therefore, George is evil.” Uhh, no.)
Their proof of this theory usually takes the form of a variant of “If this (country, etc.) were being run properly, we, and only we, would be in charge, and everyone else would be obeying us, without any opposition.” Thus, a “worthy cause”, by progressive standards, is one that is both empowering to them, and in the end likely to cause massive changes in society, up to and including its destruction. After all, Utopia can only exist if all that came before it is done away with; the “status quo”, by definition, is always “wrong”.
And for Utopia to exist, they, the “perfect ones”, must both plan it, and run it.
This goes back to their self-perception as “superior”; the fact that the rest of society may not agree with them is seen, not as an indication of an erroneous precept on their part, but simply as more evidence of their true greatness; “Look, the Great Unwashed are even stupider than we thought! We need to teach them a lesson!”
And the crusade continues.
When their plans fail (usually due to a misperception of reality brought on by their misperception of themselves), progressives seem incapable of admitting error. To them, their failures are always somebody else’s fault. The plan was underfunded; people didn’t try hard enough; people didn’t “believe” hard enough; they didn’t have the “right” people; they were sabotaged by all those never-to-be-sufficiently d***ed “reactionaries”, who are of course all-powerful.
So they have to try harder- and be more ruthless- the next time. (Insert appropriate quote from Einstein and/or Santayana here; you know which ones apply, I’m sure.)
It is the same “logic” seen in the ranks of UFO “believers” when they fail to prove their premise (whether it be Nordic Space Brothers come to save us all or Little Grey Guys come to plant things in our brains). As Martin Kottmayer says, it is the “logic” of madness.
This is such a persistent and repeating pattern in progressive “movements” that I believe we may be justified as defining it as characteristic of the phenomena. Just as theories about the “government cover-up of UFO reality” is characteristic of UFO “believer” methodology. (And there is significant cross-fertilization, at that; Google “Donald M. Ware” and/or “Jim Marrs” sometime.)
I envy you for having met progressives who find this behavior pattern offensive. To date, I have not been so fortunate.
(Sorry for the length of this post, but there are no simple explanations for this sort of behavior.)
clear ether
eon
It can best be understood by one simple observation: Global warming is the religion of the left. Everything follows from that.
Sorry guys #68 is me, hit enter too soon
#12
“12. Theo Goodwin:
Amortiser is right on the money. Anything that Ravetz’s writings adds to scientific method is excess that should be shaved away with Occam’s Razor. What we know is that, when asked perfectly reasonable questions about his work, questions based on scientific method, Phil Jones became deviant. Now, that deviance can be described in many different ways, but what he deviated from is scientific method. To take the discussion to a different place, as Ravetz wants to do, is to introduce elements that add nothing to our understanding of what it is that Jones’ lied about. Now, if Ravetz wants to do a psychology of Jones or, worse, a social psychology of Jones, that is fine but it changes nothing at the fundamental level of scientific method.”
Perhaps I can explain a bit more what ravetz does for me. I am not speaking about or advocating adding anything to the Scientific method. The point from my perspective is to merely OBSERVE what the method is under various conditions. Do you want to know what the scientific method is? observe scientists practicing the thing they call science. What you will find is a variety of behavior. Does it all conform to an ideal theory? Hardly. So, first we start with our observation of how the scientists acted. Now of course the more excitable folks in the crowd will run out of the lab screaming fraud. The more careful students will observe, catalogue, document what they see. When they are done with that they will propose an explanation. It will be grounded in observation not in pre conception.
One of the flaws we have seen in climate science is confirmation bias. When we are looking at what they did it’s important to avoid the same flaw. you do that in my mind by being detailed and accurate and by looking at various ways of explaining the data.
On some views the climate scientists rushed to judgement and convicted mankind. I don’t see following their example as a laudable thing
#13: Steve:
“Climate scientists may think themselves noble but they lambasted their critics while profiting personally and professionally from their fraud. There is nothing noble about that. They should be made an example of.”
Please read more carefully. Noble CAUSE corruption happens when you have a group of individuals who believes their CAUSE is noble. That’s the first element. A gang of thieves for example would may not self identify as members of a NOBLE cause. They would self identify as “bad asses.” When they do self identify as members of a noble cause, then its robin hood and his merry gang. So the question for me was how to they self identify.
That may not matter to other people. After all robin hood was still a thief. But I set out to understand the context of the mails figuring this out helps me understand them. Why do they play around with the rules of FOIA? I mean when you watch what they actually do, it is rather interesting how they twist and turn the rules. Especially with the IPCC rules. At one point in the mails I think they actually use the word “plausible deniability”
So they beleive their CAUSE is noble. The cause? save the planet from C02. And as a consequence of that they feel like breaking rules here and there is no problem. Jones is probably the most interesting case to watch.
As I noted above he is slowly dragged into the polarized world of michael mann.
“14. CatoRenasci:
I agree with amortiser completely: science is either open and accountable (at least once the results are published, so one gets appropriate credit for the hypothesis and demonstration of it), or it isn’t science at all.”
Perhaps it would be instructive for you to read through to the last sentence in the article. Starting in 2007 SteveMc, and a few of his readers ( notably me) pushed publically to get NASA to release its code. In 2009 A group of us at climateaudit sent FOIAs to CRU. Me included of course. You can see me pushing for openness and transparency for a long long time. I’m surprised you don’t understand that this is my position. That tells me you either don’t read the major skeptical blogs or don’t read them very well. Oh well, its enough to point to my last sentence here.
“The motives of critics of an hypothesis are irrelevant; their arguments are what’s relevant. If the criticism is accurate, the hypothesis must be restated to take the criticism into account (if possible), new data must be found that settles the matter, or the hypothesis abandoned. Anything else isn’t science.”
This is true. This is a point I make in the book. The motives are irrelevant to the truth of the science. But I’m not doing a science review. If I were I would say that the mails change nothing in “the science” They are mails. they are not data or methods. They are mails. What they document is behavior. The behavior they document shows me this:
1. they believed they were engaged in a noble cause ( I dont judge this)
2. They believed they were under attack from an organized threat ( a misperception which I document)
3. They engaged in a variety of behaviors which demonstrate and erosion of scietific ethics and practice.
a. poor record keeping
b. misleading presentations of results
c. violation of FOIA rules
d. Violation of IPCC process
e. Questionable statistical practices
f. Corruption of the publication process
None of these behaviors is EXCUSEABLE. Still, we want to understand how it happened. If a policeman frames a drug dealer, we want to know why.
A. he kid was killed by drugs
B. he takes drugs himself and is getting back at the dealer.
C. The drug dealer slept with his wife.
None of those explanations makes the officer any less guilty, but understanding the causes can aid with prevention and detection of other offenses.
You continue:
“What is particularly galling about the “noble cause corruption” argument is that those who are being defended by its use were not only quite thoroughly corrupted by it (so, too, were the “noble” Bolsheviks) but they wanted us to fundamentally alter our economies and our individual lives on the basis of their “noble” lie.”
I’m not defending Jones. I suspect you don’t read much in the skeptical community. That’s to be forgiven.
Mr Mosher;
perhaps you might consider analyzing the Cgate letters in terms of the Janis ‘groupthink’ criteria.
Your deep awareness of the various threads seems to place you in an ideal situation to identify the various symptoms, in context…
Book #2?
RR
To make groupthink testable, Irving Janis devised eight symptoms indicative of groupthink (1977).
1. Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking.
2. Rationalizing warnings that might challenge the group’s assumptions.
3. Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions.
4. Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, biased, spiteful, disfigured, impotent, or stupid.
5. Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of “disloyalty”.
6. Self censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.
7. Illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement.
8. Mind guards — self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information.
Groupthink, resulting from the symptoms listed above, results in defective decision making. That is, consensus-driven decisions are the result of the following practices of groupthinking…snip
61. Theo Goodwin:
“Well, Steven, as you continue to write and I continue to read, I can see that you have an interesting book that tells an interesting story. However, I see no reason in that interesting story to attempt a change in the traditional standards of scientific method or to make an addition to them. You just really want to be totally fair to the participants’ self-perceptions. Fine. Do it.”
Thank you Theo. I’m not suggesting a change to the “scientific method.” Although I do find it curious that many people claim to understand that method but have no real understanding of the philosophical issues. We will leave that for another day. Suffice it to say I have been fairly consistent in calling for a return to normal science since I entered this debate back in 2007. having people lecture me that I should hold the views that I in fact do hold is a bit odd. That’s to be expected. My sense in writing about Jones was that I should read as much as I could before I opened my mouth. That way I didnt say anything stupid about him based on my laziness. So, rather than just scream “jones didnt share data” ( well I knew that since I FOIAed him) I decided it would be a good thing to examine the whole record. You’ll find a better story that way. facts have a way of making theories boring. Here was the irony I wanted to avoid. I didnt want to show a lack of care for detail when I criticize Jones for that. I suggest that to all people. Before you post something in haste and just go for the sound bite, DAFS. Understand who you are talking about.
# 66. cfbleachers:
“Steven, not to be self-absorbed…but, I don’t believe my point is taken up and while I respect greatly many of the others here, who comment frequently and I know their fine work, my point is a different one I believe.
These scientists and their “clubby” atmosphere not only “allowed” for a “bunker mentality” within the inner circle, it encouraged an atmosphere outside the circle to inflate the narrative and enflame the faux rage against Western civilization.”
That is the story for the second volume as soon as I finish the job I put myself to. Now of course since this is an army of davids you can help. will you? You task would be to read through all the mails and various blogs and collect EVIDENCE for this assertion. That way I can make a CASE based on the evidence. We have a start on the political aspects of the story ( grounded in the mails of course).
So.. you write ” it encouraged an atmosphere.. to inflate the narrative” That’s one of the consequences of tribalism. For example, the press takes a science “finding” and inflates it. the scientist sits back and says nothing. Well its interesting. In 2004 or so the scientists are drawn into PR ( the start of real climate)
to “correct the errors” and get the message out. So they play a PR role. However, when the story is inflated, they withdraw from the PR role. Do you know why they do this? does it matter? how can we prevent it
And please if anybody want to explain this by saying:
Because that is what socialists do! I already know that.
“They didn’t merely allow themselves to be used in this fashion, they affirmatively fueled the pyre upon which honesty, integrity, fidelity were cremated.”
There might be a couple mails that back this up. Go find them.
“This issue was not merely “politicized” it was poisoned with an intent to strip dollars from Western pocketbooks and purses. These scientists knew it, they knew that the narrative was not only based upon bad interpretations of their work…it was based on work they knew was flawed to begin with.”
If you can find the mails that support this level of KNOWLEDGE and intent please point to them. However, understand that you make negative points for criticizing a scientist for making up data, and not producing evidence, and exagerating the case for harm, while you engage in the same kind of behavior. I trust that people are starting to get the Irony here. We have all criticized jones for jumping to conclusions, for not considering all the data, for stretching the truth, for refusing to supply data.. I’ve done it publicaly with my own name. And when I do that I try to practice MORE RIGOR than the man I am critcicizing. That way I’m not a hypocrit.
It’s ironic then that people make a load of blanket statements unsupported by citations when they criticize my position.
“Moreover, when the inquiry began into the bad work, they blockaded that inquiry. And worse, when inquiry was made into the bad interpretation of their work…they sat on their hands and allowed the fraud to expand.”
Can you please be specific. I’m sorry but I have to be as critical of bad blog arguments as I am of Bad science.
I don’t care what side of a debate you are on. Substance in an argument helps.
“That makes them, in the latter, accessories after the fact. In the former, active participants in a conspiracy to defraud the public.”
I’ll refer you to some of the legal types looking at this. Perhaps you can cite the specific laws you think were violated and there are guys who will look into it. Remember some of these guys are in the UK and some in the US, so when you accuse somebody of a crime its important to cite a name and where they live.
Mr. Mosher #77: so morally relative rationalization, delusions of being heroic or psychopathic self identity mean their motives are pure? Are those of us commenting here part of an unwitting focus group where you’re testing some sort of affirmative defense?
As near as I can determine your position seems to be that the nefarious nature of the motives of these so called scientists cannot be proven beyond “a reasonable doubt”. This is not even good enough for mitigating circumstances at sentencing. That they knew that conspiring to and in their actions lying for the purpose of fraud knowing that this would result in material gain for them and their fabricated cause, would result in convictions in a court of law. We who write here are trying them in one of many “courts of public opinion” albeit only one of many. I believe the verdicts are in, as to sentence hang’em and hang’em high.
Mosher knows what he’s talking about.
Since I got interested in AGW a few months ago, I’ve been running across his commentary. Where? The skeptical blogs he’s already named. His remarks are almost always sensible and data-based.
He demonstrates in his answers that he knows his stuff. No author ever takes this much time and effort in answering vitriolic critics. But Mosher’s doing it in this thread.
I wonder why. Do you?
Just about every non-Mosher commenter is expressing his/her rage and-or his/her favored theory. OK, fine. Mosher keeps saying, “here’s my evidence, what’s yours? Here’s my evidence-based reasoning, what’s yours?”
Why not ratchet the discussion up a notch, and hold it on his terms?
Thanks, Steve, for both the article and your patient explanation of your perspective to the several commenters and questioners. I’ve questioned the validity of the AGW/CO2 crisis since it popped up in the ’80s. To me, the science was suspect from the start.
As to motive, I think it hangs mostly on academic ego and aspirations, founded on a false belief in the weak AGW/CO2 hypothesis.
Long ago, I was taught: “Be very careful what you believe. It will limit what you can learn.”
Jones, Mann, Briffa, et al, seem to have got caught up in a mutually-confirmed fantasy (a scientific cult?) and used their education, contacts and resources to blindly pursue their beliefs, ignoring a forest of irrelevant facts.
“22. Pedrosito:
Most people in the field of Cimatology are not hard science people ,they were Geography majors. Check out their science background!”
I’ll make al point about this to illustrate my position. It does little good, in fact you earn negative quatloos, when you engage in the same kind of unsubstantiated claims that I am accusing the scientists of.
For grins we will start with the major players in the mails: Find the GEOGRAPHY majors?
Briffa Phd. Dendroclimatology
Jones PHd, climatology or environmental sciences
Osborn. Phd, Environmental sciences
Hulme: 1985 PhD in Applied Climatology, University of Wales, Swansea
Thesis title: “Secular climatic and hydrological change in central Sudan”
Wigley: Phd Mathematical Physics.
Santer Phd, Physics I believe. he’s a Mcarthur winner
Mann: Phd in geology and geological physics, ba in math
Schmidt: Phd applied mathematics
Wahl. Wahl is an interesting cat:
2002 PhD in Conservation Biology and Quaternary Paleoecology, University of Minnesota
1998 M.Div. (Divinity), Church Divinity School of the Pacific–Episcopal
1982 M.A. (Economics), San Diego State University
1977 B.A. (Economics), San Diego State University
Overpeck: Phd Geosciences
Amman. Phd Geosciences
And hansen he’s not in the mails, but lets see about him
Hansen: Phd Physics
The appeal to pedigree is a weak appeal that we see some climate scientists and their friends engage in.
It helps to be specific. It helps to be right. It does not help to claim that MOST are GEOGRAPHY majors.
Unless of course one wants to back that claim up. My spot check of the important players in the mails found NO GEOGRAPHY students.
Steve Mosher …
Steve, reading your article and your responses, I have the distinct impression that your position is that all conclusions about the actions and motives of these people must be backed up by the hacked emails else such conclusions are invalid. We can use no other evidence or common sense assumptions.
For example in #66 cfbleachers states:
“This issue was not merely “politicized” it was poisoned with an intent to strip dollars from Western pocketbooks and purses. These scientists knew it, they knew that the narrative was not only based upon bad interpretations of their work…it was based on work they knew was flawed to begin with.”
You respond in #81 with:
“If you can find the mails that support this level of KNOWLEDGE and intent please point to them. However, understand that you make negative points for criticizing a scientist for making up data, and not producing evidence, and exagerating the case for harm, while you engage in the same kind of behavior.”
Your position, sir, defies common sense.
Are these climate scientists adults or not ? Are they highly educated or not ? Do they read newspapers or watch the news ? Are they aware of Copenhagen and other summits ? Are they aware of the the various laws proposed to deal with GW and the enormous costs associated with same ? When they choose to misinform other scientists and the public, when they choose to attack their peers, when they choose to hide conflicting data, when they apply for and accept funding after deliberately skewing the data, are these freewill choices or not?
You seem to be saying, sir, that we must have a CONFESSION from these people before we can convict them of ‘ignoble intent’. Not so. We must have sufficient evidence, even sufficient circumstantial evidence.
If I was on the jury and ‘ignoble intent’ had to be proved, despite your sly defense, sir, GUILTY AS CHARGED!!
We are not children.
Mosh, thanks as always for a thought-provoking article.
However, I find Ravetz’s comments to be an egregious case of “blaming the victim”. He claims that the “early opposition” forced the AGW crowd to “adopt a simple, forcefully argued position”. Say what? This is knee-high malodorous bovine excrement. It is exactly like Jones et al. blaming the FOI requests, including mine, for the CRU “circle the wagons” mentality. In fact, the CRU emails clearly show that they were circling the wagons years before I filed the first FOI request.
Stephen Schneider famously said:
That’s the problem, not people who disagree with AGW claims. Ravetz’s statement is self-serving nonsense. In fact, Schneider is a big fan of Ravetz’s. The “simple, forcefully argued position” is a result of people adopting Ravetz’s ideas, and has been a feature of the AGW mantra since James Hansen’s 1988 Senate testimony. I don’t want scientists to offer up “scary scenarios”, that’s Ravetz at his finest. I don’t want scientists who make “little mention of any doubts”, I want them to list and detail every doubt that they have.
Ravetz argues that we need “post normal science” to allow politicians to deal with uncertainty. Ummm, Jerry … politicians have been dealing quite well with scientific uncertainty for hundreds of years.
I find Ravetz’s ideas not to be a solution, but to be a main cause of the decline of climate science into power driven malfeasance. I am astounded that you would quote his ideas without posting some kind of huge “Unfit For Human Consumption” bio-hazard sticker on them. They are pernicious and dangerous, and they have led to a very ugly erosion in scientific ethics. As a committed Marxist, Ravetz’s use-by date was the date the Berlin Wall fell …
See more on Ravetz’s perfidy at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/09/climategate-plausibility-and-the-blogosphere-in-the-post-normal-age
I almost couldnt believe that I heard this on NPR Talk of the Nation Scienc Friday, today.
Check it out! The gaul of these people to claim that AGW skeptics are anti science neanderthals.
Communicating Science In A Post-Newspaper Era
http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=5
Almost unbelievable attacks on Global Warming skeptics as violent anti science neanderthals on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, Science Friday, today. With the obligatory attack on the Tea Partiers.
ommunicating Science In A Post-Newspaper Era
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123892162
This reminds me of “Noble Cause” liquidations of the Communist variety…as opposed to mass murder.
in other words, he lied, and then tried to cover it up.
Mr Mosher, How DARE you ask people on this site to substantiate their, er, creative assertions. How much fun would THAT be?
Having read many of the emails in question, I also heard that these guys believed in what they were doing. Yes, with some of them, there was a damaging underlying assumption that the truth was already somehow “known” and it was their job to substantiate it, protect it, and stonewall the critics. And yes, that does cast doubt on the reliability of their result, because I can not trust their fudging but so many of the names and accusations slung at them here are hot, but not bright. Shocking, eh?
I simply wonder since we can’t stop or make rain , snow or not snow ,storm or not storm or even change the Temps 1 degree….. speed up or slow down the seasons of the year.. Make day into night …….. why would we think mankind has the power to control Nature its self that has been changing on its own Trillions of times since Time began … with or without man on Earth .
If you go up One mile in the atmosphere . Man kind is only a small dot the size of a pen head .
Just wondering since my only knowledge is common sense not myths or well contrived lies .
Steven Mosher:
I bought & read your [and Tom Fuller's] book. So I’m not speaking from malice. Here’s some well meaning advice:
You had best listen to the large majority of commenters here. Fence-sitting by enabling the fraud committed by the climategate reprobates will result in your being jettisoned by both sides. Neither side will trust you.
Take a stand!!
Either it’s OK for government-paid, grant lavished, co-opted scientists to completely fabricate the temperature record [as the Harry_read_me.txt exposes], to show invented global warming data sets, or it’s WRONG.
Stop being so wishy-washy! The climate alarmist crowd has gamed the system to their advantage, and by excusing their behavior you are enabling them. Stop it!
People greatly respect someone who takes a moral stand. Reagan won because of that. He politically destroyed the wishy-washy Carter.
NEVER try to play both sides. Don’t enable fraud. Take a stand! WE are being scammed into the biggest tax increase in human history by these odious vermin. Call a spade a spade. When you do, people will follow you.
But if you play both sides against the middle, you’ll end up being just another Newt Gingrich, a has-been…. who coulda been a contender – but instead, he tried to play both sides. Now he’s an irrelevant loser who bailed because some Democrats and newspapers criticized a book he wrote. After he resigned, plenty of ‘Rats wrote books, and no doubt they privately laughed at Newt’s caving. I notice that none of them ever resigned over a book.
America is predominately conservative. That simply means that Americans want to follow the original Constitution. But Leftists have bought the CRU scientists, and Michael Mann, and plenty of others, with money and status. You know about these shenanigans. So speak out about them – don’t try to be the mediator. That never works. Ask Newt, the has-been… who coulda been a contender.
Global warming became an big issue because the government (tax dollars) funding these so called scientist and their studies. It they didn’t create global warming into an alarming possiblity they would not be funded with large tax grants. Anytime people get free money from the government you get fraud. I say close down all grants, not just global warming grants, because the government could use the money to paid debt and get us out of this financial crisis this nation is in.
79. RuhRoh:
Mr Mosher;
perhaps you might consider analyzing the Cgate letters in terms of the Janis ‘groupthink’ criteria.
Your deep awareness of the various threads seems to place you in an ideal situation to identify the various symptoms, in context…
Book #2?
RR
Thanks RR. I didnt process the mails using a groupthink hypothesis. I didnt process them with a noble cause corruption hypothesis. I read them and I tried to construct chronologies. Who did what. PRECISELY. Layering this set of observations with a pet theory ( a theory that was BOUND to be confirmed) seemed like a wheel that didnt turn. However, in a phone conversation with McIntyre, he suggested the noble cause metaphor. In any case Lets look at your suggestion:
To make groupthink testable, Irving Janis devised eight symptoms indicative of groupthink (1977).
1. Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking.
I don’t see illusions of invulnerability. I see FEAR. especially when it comes to McIntyre.
2. Rationalizing warnings that might challenge the group’s assumptions.
I see a bit of this in a mail from Overpeck to Briffa WRT warnings from Rind.
3. Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions.
Yes, in a couple mails they talk about the cause.
4. Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, biased, spiteful, disfigured, impotent, or stupid.
Yes.
5. Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of “disloyalty”.
No direct examples of this. Mann does complain that others need to help him. However,
there are also examples of Mann accusing editors of being on the other side.
6. Self censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.
Briffa and osborn perhaps, But you also see frank talk about the uncertainties
7. Illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement.
Not so much, more a “we have to stick together” attitude
8. Mind guards — self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information.
Ya. Mann
groupthink works OK, The reason I like Noble cause corruption is that it involves a certain attitude
toward rule breaking.
Last comment.
My guiding principle in putting this thing together was this. I could not accuse “scientists” of being sloppy with data, if I was going to be sloppy with facts about their misdeeds. I could not accuse them of exaggerating claims of certainty and engage in overcharging the case. I believe they unfairly judged my friend’s motives, steve mcintyre.
I wanted to make certain that I treated them more fairly than they treated him. They questioned his motives without evidence. They attributed motives to him without evidence. I will not engage in the same thing. Steve Mc is precise in his criticisms of their science. I think we need to be as precise in our criticism of their behavior.
The fraud here is by Mr. Mosher. The year 1995 was cherry picked (as Lubos Motl has admitted) by deniers as the earliest year for which the warming trend does not meet the 95% confidence level that is conventionally (but not accurately mathematically) required in order to ascribe statistical significance — and there is always some such earliest year, for any trend. But as Jones said and people like Mosher ignore, it just barely didn’t make it — the confidence level is over 92%. And If one goes back to 1994, the trend is statistically significant — over 95% confidence. And if one looks at the ocean temperatures rather than surface temperatures — most of the heat trapped by the greenhouse effect goes into the oceans — one must make the period much shorter than 15 years to get to the point where the data is too noisy to reach 95% confidence of the trend. That’s reality, something that almost everyone commenting here is out of touch with.