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 Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row

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Heretic
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BigWhiteGuy

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Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Empty
PostSubject: Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row   Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Empty11/29/2009, 1:05 pm

We haven't seen too much discussion about ClimateGate here. Why not?
Quote :
Leading British scientists at the University of East Anglia, who were accused of manipulating climate change data - dubbed Climategate - have agreed to publish their figures in full.

The U-turn by the university follows a week of controversy after the emergence of hundreds of leaked emails, "stolen" by hackers and published online, triggered claims that the academics had massaged statistics.

In a statement welcomed by climate change sceptics, the university said it would make all the data accessible as soon as possible, once its Climatic Research Unit (CRU) had negotiated its release from a range of non-publication agreements.

The publication will be carried out in collaboration with the Met Office Hadley Centre. The full data, when disclosed, is certain to be scrutinised by both sides in the fierce debate.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6678469/Climategate-University-of-East-Anglia-U-turn-in-climate-change-row.html
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PostSubject: Re: Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row   Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Empty11/30/2009, 8:57 am

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PostSubject: Re: Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row   Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Empty11/30/2009, 1:39 pm

BigWhiteGuy wrote:
We haven't seen too much discussion about ClimateGate here. Why not?

Because I thought I'd educated people enough not to be fooled by such ridiculous nonsense, nonsense as easily identifiable and dismissible as any of Maddmaxx's 9/11 weekly revelations "proving the conspiracy". Apparently I was wrong. This whole thing is nothing more than a denialist PR stunt to distract the media from the latest batch of observable data that shows, clearly, we're still warming, and faster than anticipated. It's the factual reality noted in the final paragraph of the article:

Quote :
He added: "Our global temperature series tallies with those of other, completely independent, groups of scientists working for NASA and the National Climate Data Centre in the United States, among others. Even if you were to ignore our findings, theirs show the same results. The facts speak for themselves; there is no need for anyone to manipulate them."

So again, were this a conspiracy, it would have to involve the governments (including the Bush administration) in multiple countries and hundreds of independent scientific organizations across the globe, a litany of universities and science departments in a variety of scientific disciplines (physics, chemistry, geology, etc. The published research on AGW has not been limited to a single discipline) in addition to the administrative staff of each and every journal publishing the allegedly bogus research; it would dwarf the 9/11 Twoofers version of 9/11 by magnitudes. Anyone with an IQ over drooling idiot should recognize that possibility as completely and total horseshit.

The fact that AGW is supported by mountains of physical evidence renders any allegations of conspiracy moot. You may uncover a plot by your local television news to phony up a story for ratings about an out of control neighborhood fire using the latest in CGI, but if you're standing outside your house watching the FPD put out the very real flames, your house is still on f**king fire.

The whole incident is interesting, however. First, the basics via Reuters:

Quote :
ANALYSIS-Hacked climate e-mails awkward, not game changer

Revelation of a series of embarrassing e-mails by climate scientists provides fodder for critics, but experts believe the issue will not hurt the U.S. climate bill's chance for passage or efforts to forge a global climate change deal.

Already dubbed "Climategate," e-mails stolen from a British university are sparking outrage from climate change skeptics who say they show that the scientists were colluding on suppressing data on how humans affect climate change.

. . .

Patrick Michaels, one of the scientists derided in the e-mails for doubting global warming, said he thinks the documents will finally "open up the scientific debate."

"That's probably the good news," said Michaels, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

But others say the damage may be limited as the evidence is still overwhelming that a buildup of greenhouse gases is melting snow on mountain tops and shrinking global ice caps.

"The issue of scientists behaving badly does nothing to invalidate the science," said Kevin Book, an analyst at ClearView Energy Partners, LLC in Washington.

. . .

At U.N. climate talks set for next month in Copenhagen, the top producers of greenhouse gases are expected to reach political agreements on tackling climate change, but not agree on hard targets for taking action.

The e-mails may serve as good gossip in the halls at the meeting, but will not play a big role otherwise, experts said.

For one thing, the researchers involved were only a handful out of thousands across the world that have contributed to a vast convergence of data that shows the world has warmed.

"Whilst some of the e-mails show scientists to be all too human, nothing I have read makes me doubt the veracity of the peer review process or the general warming trend in the global temperature recorded," said Piers Forster, an environment professor at the University of Leeds.

So as is usually the case with "skeptics", it's all sound and fury, but signifying nothing.

Here's the CRU's statement. Just read it in full.

Via RealClimate:
Quote :
The CRU Hack

As many of you will be aware, a large number of emails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia webmail server were hacked recently (Despite some confusion generated by Anthony Watts, this has absolutely nothing to do with the Hadley Centre which is a completely separate institution). . . .

Nonetheless, these emails (a presumably careful selection of (possibly edited?) correspondence dating back to 1996 and as recently as Nov 12) are being widely circulated, and therefore require some comment. Some of them involve people here (and the archive includes the first RealClimate email we ever sent out to colleagues) and include discussions we’ve had with the CRU folk on topics related to the surface temperature record and some paleo-related issues, mainly to ensure that posting were accurate.

Since emails are normally intended to be private, people writing them are, shall we say, somewhat freer in expressing themselves than they would in a public statement. For instance, we are sure it comes as no shock to know that many scientists do not hold Steve McIntyre in high regard. Nor that a large group of them thought that the Soon and Baliunas (2003), Douglass et al (2008) or McClean et al (2009) papers were not very good (to say the least) and should not have been published. These sentiments have been made abundantly clear in the literature (though possibly less bluntly).

More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’, no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords. The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though.

Instead, there is a peek into how scientists actually interact and the conflicts show that the community is a far cry from the monolith that is sometimes imagined. People working constructively to improve joint publications; scientists who are friendly and agree on many of the big picture issues, disagreeing at times about details and engaging in ‘robust’ discussions; Scientists expressing frustration at the misrepresentation of their work in politicized arenas and complaining when media reports get it wrong; Scientists resenting the time they have to take out of their research to deal with over-hyped nonsense. None of this should be shocking.a

. . .

No doubt, instances of cherry-picked and poorly-worded “gotcha” phrases will be pulled out of context. One example is worth mentioning quickly. Phil Jones in discussing the presentation of temperature reconstructions stated that “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.” The paper in question is the Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998) Nature paper on the original multiproxy temperature reconstruction, and the ‘trick’ is just to plot the instrumental records along with reconstruction so that the context of the recent warming is clear. Scientists often use the term “trick” to refer to a “a good way to deal with a problem”, rather than something that is “secret”, and so there is nothing problematic in this at all. As for the ‘decline’, it is well known that Keith Briffa’s maximum latewood tree ring density proxy diverges from the temperature records after 1960 (this is more commonly known as the “divergence problem”–see e.g. the recent discussion in this paper) and has been discussed in the literature since Briffa et al in Nature in 1998 (Nature, 391, 678-682). Those authors have always recommend not using the post 1960 part of their reconstruction, and so while ‘hiding’ is probably a poor choice of words (since it is ‘hidden’ in plain sight), not using the data in the plot is completely appropriate, as is further research to understand why this happens.

The timing of this particular episode is probably not coincidental. But if cherry-picked out-of-context phrases from stolen personal emails is the only response to the weight of the scientific evidence for the human influence on climate change, then there probably isn’t much to it.

More on the actual content can also be found at RealClimate here.

Climate Progress makes the same obvious point I did:

Quote :
Whatever smoke the anti-scientific disinformers are able to blow into people’s faces over this bunch of emails dating back over a decade, it doesn’t change the basic facts about human-caused warming:

Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Fig.A2.lrg

Skeptics would do better acting like real scientists (publishing factually based alternative theories to AGW in the required journals) rather than resorting to criminal behavior and trying to manufacture a phony conspiracy. Why do they always act like creationists and 9/11 Twoofers, opting instead for phone PR stunts, blog posts, and documentaries instead of actually publishing research? Can any skeptic answer that?

Climate Progress has more on the actual content here.

Continuing with more links:
Quote :
Science historian reacts to hacked climate e-mails

Spencer Weart: My most interesting conversations were with historians who have been studying the history of the tobacco companies that did their best, and quite successfully for many years, to cover up the fact that smoking kills people by the million. Some interesting parallels, but...

Andrew Freedman: What effects do you think this will have on public perceptions of climate science and climate scientists?

SW: I don't expect this to have much impact on public perceptions of climate and climate scientists. Opinions have become so fixed that it would take serious evidence to shift a significant number of people. Since the late 1980s, just about every year and sometimes almost every month, a group of people (mostly the same ones) have exclaimed, "Now in these latest (whatever) we finally have proof that there is no need to worry about climate change!" There is a segment of the public that has believed every new claim. The rest will continue to doubt such claims in the absence of truly solid proof.

AF: What do you think this story reveals about the conduct of climate science?

SW: Back around 2000 leading climate scientists talked to each other mostly about their science--debating one another's data and analysis and negotiating travel, collaboration and other administration--and a little bit about policy. As time passed they have had to spend more and more of their time answering criticism of the scientific results already established, criticism mostly based on ignorance, fallacious reasoning, and even deliberately deceptive claims. Still more recently they have had to spend far too much of their time defending their personal reputations against ignorant or slanderous attacks.
The theft and use of the emails does reveal something interesting about the social context. It's a symptom of something entirely new in the history of science: Aside from crackpots who complain that a conspiracy is suppressing their personal discoveries, we've never before seen a set of people accuse an entire community of scientists of deliberate deception and other professional malfeasance.

Even the tobacco companies never tried to slander legitimate cancer researchers. In blogs, talk radio and other new media, we are told that the warnings about future global warming issued by the national science academies, scientific societies, and governments of all the leading nations are not only mistaken, but based on a hoax, indeed a conspiracy that must involve thousands of respected researchers. Extraordinary and, frankly, weird. Climate scientists are naturally upset, exasperated, and sometimes goaded into intemperate responses... but that was already easy to see in their blogs and other writings.

AF: For a science historian such as yourself, how valuable are these emails? And what is your impression of them thus far?

SW: There would be a lot to learn if the owner of these emails (I suppose the University) would release them for analysis; for example, you could run up statistics on the types of interchanges and the structure of networks of discussion among researchers. Of course no scholar can make use of stolen material, and in particular one cannot legally or ethically quote a private message without the explicit permission of the writer.

Historians do often work with collections of letters that have been donated to archives. Typically we spend countless hours trying to understand the context; scholarly reputations have been ruined by interpretations that turned out to be mistaken. The risk of misinterpretation is far greater with emails, written so much more casually than letters. Our society is having difficulty dealing with this new form of communication. Look at last week's verdict on the Bear Sterns hedge fund managers who were accused of misleading investors. The prosecutrs based their case on a few seemingly incriminating sentences drawn from a mass of emails. When the jury saw the whole set of emails, they quickly found that there was no crime, just ordinary business chatter. From what I've seen, I expect that will be the verdict on the climate scientists' emails.

Quote :
Stolen emails, climate change, and the practice of science

. . . based on what people are saying about the emails (I refuse to read them or to link to sites which list the emails in their entirety), there's no smoking gun, nor are there powder burns or any other evidence that a gun ever existed. What we see is that scientists can be jerks, can be parochial, can respond badly to criticism, can circle their wagons against outsiders (especially cranks and dilettantes desperate to prove that the entire enterprise of climate science should be tossed out the window). In short, the emails prove that scientists are human. Anyone who didn't know that should look at some of Newton's correspondence, or should check out Chris Mooney's excellent Storm World – which book I previously wrote "deserves special praise for capturing the dynamic of scientific debate, humanizing the scientific process and inviting the public in to see how things work in a field they care about desperately."

Among those who need to spend less time idealizing science is CBS News's Declan McCullagh, who writes: "The irony of this situation is that most of us expect science to be conducted in the open, without unpublished secret data, hidden agendas, and computer programs of dubious reliability." First, that's not really irony, and second, anyone who has worked in academia knows that the software often sucks (as does commercial software, but scientific software is often highly customized), there are copious personal agendas, and lots of unpublished data waiting to be analyzed. Publishing data isn't easy, and casting databases open to the world runs the risk of letting your research get scooped. Lots of journalists, including science journalists, don't seem to get this, which is worrisome. Few deniers get this either, which is not surprising at all, though it continues to disappoint.

In all honesty, there isn't that much more to be said about the substance of the emails. On their face and in their proper context, they demonstrate that there's no active conspiracy to promote global warming as a plot by Jews liberals to control the world economy. They demonstrate that these scientists are not a monolithic group, but have internal disagreements which they resolve using data. The evidence that the planet is getting hotter is unchanged, and the evidence that the change is mostly due to human activity is equally unchanged. So what's the big deal?

Greenfyre's general take is here, with more specifics here and here. He also points out how hilariously vapid the "skeptic" response has been... all cries of conspiracy but no actual specifics:

Quote :
One of the many holes in the Denier narrative is that they take it as a given that the climate science is false and that all that was left to do was to find the culprit. Their language is completely framed in terms of that assumption, hence the histrionics that the alleged “smoking gun” of the CRU emails seals the case.

Quite understandably the climate rationalist response has been to point out that the “gun” isn’t a “gun”, and it’s not smoking. Clearly Jones got hot under the collar at times, and different people were pretty steamed up about certain other people, but no smoking gun. That may be clear to us, but it’s not satisfying to the general public.

I suggest that we have change our response to “smoking gun? who cares? show us the “body!” Of course there is no “body”, or even “bullet holes” anywhere … ie no evidence that anything actually happened.

We need to switch from seeming to be defending the supposed culprit to demanding actual evidence of a crime, any crime. We need to be asking:

  • “Which studies were compromised, how? be specific. Cite papers and data sets. What is the evidence? where is it? what work is affected? how? show me the evidence that says so.

  • This supposed scandal involves perhaps a half dozen people, how does it affect the work of the 3,000+ others who’s work makes up climate science?

  • How does it affect the work that was done before the alleged culprits graduated from univeristy? the work from before they were born?

  • Of the 30,000(ish) studies that make up climate science, which ones are undone? where is the evidence? be specific … show us exactly how and why?” etc


because of course another hole in the Denier frame is thier certainty that the CRU hack topples climate science. Naturally they are taking advantage of the bobbhead credulity and the public naivete, which does work, but it also makes them vulnerable to it being challenged on it.

  • “You are certain it topples climate science? how? where? which studies? what evidence? You don’t know? then how are you certain?

  • Please run through a list of the studies you believe are affected? Hockey stick? what’s that? please refer to specific papers and studies.You don’t know? then how can you be certain?

  • Ahhh, Soandso 2004? so just how is it compromised? what part of the work? I thought you were certain?”


We need to hammer that and keep hammering it. Push hard, and not only the Deniers, but the media drones who brainlessly echo the Denier memes. Not hysterically or in anger, but with relentless defiant decency and certitude. Make it clear that they do not understand the science, and in fact have no idea what they think the emails actually mean.

We have to be the ones asking questions and demanding answers!

This whole debacle actually exposed the unethical behavior of "skeptics" rather than the "Teh Conspirators".

Quote :
Sure enough, with just a few minutes of searching the e-mails, I found references to ethical breaches in cooking of data, and a discussion about how to talk about the data and the issue in public.

The paper involved is this one:

Quote :
David H. Douglass, John R. Christy, Benjamin D. Pearsona and S. Fred Singer, “A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions,” INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLIMATOLOGY, Int. J. Climatol. (2007). Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/joc.1651

. . .

One of the e-mails is quite explicit:

Quote :
I think the scientific fraud committed by Douglass needs to be exposed. His co-authors may be innocent bystanders, but I doubt it.

Fraud? Right there in front of everyone? In the climate debate?

In the end, the scientists in the discussion determined not to hold a press conference to announce a finding of fraud, but instead to hunker down and work on publishing datasets that would contradict the alleged fraudulent paper, and establish their case with data instead of invective and press conferences.

They even declined to rush to inform the public of the fraud after a lengthy series of attempts to duplicate the results with well-known, accurate methods on accepted data.

Anthony Watts and others may be justified in asking that the scientists who wrote this fraudulent paper should be summarily dismissed, and in questioning why other scientists dallied in exposing the fraud.

But there is this to consider: The paper in question is a paper critical of warming hypotheses, and it was co-authored by at least a couple of the most strident critics of Al Gore, James Hansen, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The smoking gun was used to shoot down a hasty effort to brand climate-change critics as unprofessional and wrong. The smoking gun was used to enforce the hard ethical rules of science: Don’t speak until your data allow a fair conclusion.

The smoking gun e-mails show correct and careful behavior by the scientists who contributed to the IPCC report, but unethical behavior by the critics whose backers, we might assume, stole the e-mails in the first place, and published them without understanding the depth of moral character demonstrated by most scientists in the conduct of their professions.

. . .

Now you know the rest of the story. Fred Singer is a leading denialist, one of the organizers of the political campaign to blunt the publication and discussion of evidence of global warming and what to do about it. The Douglass, et al. paper under discussion was a key component of the denialists’ campaign in 2007. The purloined e-mails point to unethical behaviors by the scientists on the anti-warming side, the so-called “skeptics.”

So I'm glad the CRU opted for full disclosure. Since it's not a massive international conspiracy, I assumed they would. But this got me thinking... How about a little "we showed you ours, now you show me yours"?

Quote :
The Deniersphere being alive with delight over the emails stolen from the UK Hadley Centre, my colleague Kevin Grandia has wondered aloud (see next post) about what a similar sampling of emails might look like if they were sourced from one of the most aggressive and least (climate) credible think tanks - the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Why stop there?

As a stunning amount of email traffic on this issue currently seems to be coming from uberDenier Marc Morano, why doesn't the former aide to Okalahoma Senator and Republican Denier-in-Chief James Inhofe volunteer to share his correspondence?

Kevin suggested a six-month supply from CEI. I reckon the last six days from Morano might significantly advance the question of who's credible on this issue. It might even show who hacked Hadley.

C'mon Markey. Show us what you got.

If yours is a reasonable assault on the scientists named in the CRU hacked emails, you should have no reservations about submitting to as quick second reading.

Now that would be worth reading.

And lastly, if you do actually find all this substance starved conspiracy nonsense convincing, then behold... for Newtongate will blow your f**king mind!!:

Quote :
If you own any shares in companies that produce reflecting telescopes, use differential and integral calculus, or rely on the laws of motion, I should start dumping them NOW. The conspiracy behind the calculus myth has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed after volumes of Newton’s private correspondence were compiled and published.

When you read some of these letters, you realise just why Newton and his collaborators might have preferred to keep them confidential. This scandal could well be the biggest in Renaissance science. These alleged letters – supposedly exchanged by some of the most prominent scientists behind really hard math lessons – suggest:

Conspiracy, collusion in covering up the truth, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more.

But perhaps the most damaging revelations are those concerning the way these math nerd scientists may variously have manipulated or suppressed evidence to support their cause.

Here are a few tasters. They suggest dubious practices such as:

Conspiring to avoid public scrutiny

Quote :
There is nothing which I desire to avoid in matters of philosophy more then contentions, nor any kind of contention more then one in print: & therefore I gladly embrace your proposal of a private correspondence. What’s done before many witnesses is seldom without some further concern then that for truth: but what passes between friends in private usually deserve ye name of consultation rather then contest, & so I hope it will prove between you & me.

Newton to Hooke, 5 February 1676

Insulting dissenting scientists and equating them with holocaust deniers

Quote :
[Hooks Considerations] consist in ascribing an hypothesis to me which is not mine; in asserting an hypothesis which as to ye principal parts of it is not against me; in granting the greatest part of my discourse if explicated by that hypothesis; & in denying some things the truth of which would have appeared by an experimental examination.

Newton to Oldenburg, 11 June 1672

Manipulation of evidence

Quote :
I wrote to you on Tuesday that the last leafe of the papers you sent me should be altered because it refers to a manuscript in my private custody & not yet upon record.

Newton to Keill, May 15 1674

Knowingly publishing scientific fraud

Quote :
You need not give yourself the trouble of examining all the calculations of the Scholium. Such errors as do not depend upon wrong reasoning can be of no great consequence & may be corrected by the reader.

Newton to Cotes June 15 1710

Suppression of evidence

Quote :
Mr. Raphson has printed off four or five sheets of his History of Fluxions, but being shew’d Sr. Is. Newton (who, it seems, would rather have them write against him, than have a piece done in that manner in his favour), he got a Stop put to it, for some time at least.

Jones to Cotes, 17 September 1711

Abusing the peer review system

Quote :
…only the Germans and French have in a violent manner attack’d the Philosophy of Sr. Is. Newton, and seem resolved to stand by Cartes; Mr. Keil, as a person concerned, has undertaken to answer and defend some things, as Dr. Friend, and Dr. Mead, does (in their way) the rest: I would have sent you ye whole controversy, was not I sure that you know, those only are most capable of objecting against his writings, that least understand them; however, in a little time, you’ll see some of these in ye Philos. Transact.

Jones to Cotes, October 25 1711

Insulting their critics

Quote :
The controversy concerning Sr. Isaac’s Philosophy is a piece of news that I had not heard of unless Muys’s late book be meant. I think that Philosophy needs no defence, especially when tis attack’t by Cartesians. One Mr Green a Fellow of Clare Hall in our University seems to have nearly the same design with those German & French objectors whom you mention. His book is now in our press & is almost finished. I am told he will add an appendix in which he undertakes also to square the circle. I need not recommend his performance any further to you.

Cotes to Jones, November 11 1711

Gravity does not extend so far from Earth that it can be the force holding the moon to its orbit; school students are increasingly reluctant to practice differential equations, that will only lead to the practice of more oppressive forms of higher math; the tide is turning against over-regulation, like Newton’s “laws” of motion and Universal Gravitation. The so called ‘Cartesian’, ‘skeptical’ view is now also the majority view.

Unfortunately we’ve a long way to go before the public mood (and scientific truth) is reflected by our policy makers. There are too many vested interests in classical mechanics, with far too much to lose either in terms of reputation or money, for this to end without a bitter fight.
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Heretic

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PostSubject: Re: Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row   Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Empty11/30/2009, 2:11 pm

Impact of CRU Hacking on the American Meteorological Society Statement on Climate Change

Quote :
AMS Headquarters has received several inquiries asking if the material made public following the hacking of e-mails and other files from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia has any impact on the AMS Statement on Climate Change, which was approved by the AMS Council in 2007 and represents the official position of the Society.

The AMS Statement on Climate Change continues to represent the position of the AMS. It was developed following a rigorous procedure that included drafting and review by experts in the field, comments by the membership, and careful review by the AMS Council prior to approval as a statement of the Society. The statement is based on a robust body of research reported in the peer-reviewed literature. As with any scientific assessment, it is likely to become outdated as the body of scientific knowledge continues to grow, and the current statement is scheduled to expire in February 2012 if it is not replaced by a new statement prior to that.

The beauty of science is that it depends on independent verification and replication as part of the process of confirming research results. This process, which is tied intrinsically to the procedures leading to publication of research results in the peer-reviewed literature, allows the scientific community to confirm some results while rejecting others. It also, in a sense, lessens the impact of any one set of research results, especially as the body of research on any topic grows. The AMS plays an important role in the scientific process through its peer-reviewed publications, as well as through its many other activities, such as scientific conferences. The Society strives to maintain integrity in the editorial process for all its publications.

For climate change research, the body of research in the literature is very large and the dependence on any one set of research results to the comprehensive understanding of the climate system is very, very small. Even if some of the charges of improper behavior in this particular case turn out to be true — which is not yet clearly the case — the impact on the science of climate change would be very limited.

The AMS encourages ethical behavior in all aspects of science and has established a record of affirming the value of scientists presenting their research results “objectively, professionally, and without sensationalizing or politicizing the associated impacts” (see AMS Statement on the Freedom of Scientific Expression).

Keith L. Seitter, CCM
Executive Director
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BigWhiteGuy

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Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Empty
PostSubject: Re: Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row   Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Empty11/30/2009, 6:46 pm

A 2004 review of all papers published in refereed journals between 1993 and 2003 on 'climate change' found:

The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change.
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Heretic

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PostSubject: Re: Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row   Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Empty11/30/2009, 9:25 pm

Yup. Just like evolution or any other currently prevailing theory. It's what makes this "debate" so silly.
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PostSubject: Re: Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row   Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Empty12/1/2009, 12:43 pm

Tim Lambert at Deltoid analyzes one of the denialists "smoking gun emails" here. Unsurprisingly, it's the usual paranoid ranting that doesn't amount to anything, assuming the "skeptic" in question isn't just flat out lying from the start.

Michael Tobis sums up why this is a total non-issue for me:
Quote :
One of the issues with how the UEA emails are perceived is whether the reader understands the context of the dubious pseudoscience and constant harassment the field faces. If you understand that, the emails are understandable and mostly excusable. If you don't, if you think that normal science is being stymied, then you come away with a very different impression.

Since I've been entrenched in this phony debate for years thanks to some particularly dense and science deprived conservatives, I'm acutely aware of the former. So my initial thought on reading this story when it broke was, "can hacked emails alter the IR absorption lines of CO2? No? Foiled again by physics. Next please."
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PostSubject: Re: Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row   Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Empty12/1/2009, 5:03 pm

And of course, we get the usual hypocrisy from the conservative media:

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BigWhiteGuy

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PostSubject: Re: Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row   Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Empty12/3/2009, 6:57 am

Quote :
Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of 'Anthropogenic Global Warming'

If you own any shares in alternative energy companies I should start dumping them NOW. The conspiracy behind the Anthropogenic Global Warming myth (aka AGW; aka ManBearPig) has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed after a hacker broke into the computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (aka CRU) and released 61 megabytes of confidential files onto the internet. (Hat tip: Watts Up With That)

When you read some of those files – including 1079 emails and 72 documents – you realise just why the boffins at CRU might have preferred to keep them confidential. As Andrew Bolt puts it, this scandal could well be “the greatest in modern science”
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/
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Heretic

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PostSubject: Re: Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row   Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Empty12/3/2009, 12:20 pm

A blog post from a known skeptic (the same denialist hack that gave Plimer's error-riden book glowing reviews) claims AGW been disproven. How... original. Rolling Eyes

Uninterestingly enough, neither you nor Delingpole answered any of the questions outlined above:

Quote :
  • Which studies were compromised, how? be specific. Cite papers and data sets. What is the evidence? where is it? what work is affected? how? show me the evidence that says so.

  • This supposed scandal involves perhaps a half dozen people, how does it affect the work of the 3,000+ others who’s work makes up climate science?

  • How does it affect the work that was done before the alleged culprits graduated from univeristy? the work from before they were born?

  • Of the 30,000(ish) studies that make up climate science, which ones are undone? where is the evidence? be specific … show us exactly how and why?

  • You are certain it topples climate science? how? where? which studies? what evidence? You don’t know? then how are you certain?

  • Please run through a list of the studies you believe are affected? Hockey stick? what’s that? please refer to specific papers and studies.You don’t know? then how can you be certain?

  • Ahhh, Soandso 2004? so just how is it compromised? what part of the work? I thought you were certain?

Opting instead for the mindless pontification.

So I guess we'll just have to wait for all that pesky physical evidence of warming to reverse itself, or at the very least, the Pentagon reverses its stance. Until then, continue being irrelevant.
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BigWhiteGuy

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PostSubject: Re: Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row   Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Empty12/4/2009, 8:11 am

AGW is a lie, and the scientific (and political) community has proven that it is. Why can't you realize this?
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Artie60438




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PostSubject: Re: Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row   Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Empty12/4/2009, 9:27 am

BigWhiteGuy wrote:
AGW is a lie, and the scientific (and political) community has proven that it is. Why can't you realize this?

Maybe because you keep refusing to answer Heretic's questions. Your tactics might work on Fox News or other mediums that could care less about actual facts,but not here.
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Heretic

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PostSubject: Re: Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row   Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Empty12/4/2009, 12:17 pm

BigWhiteGuy wrote:
AGW is a lie, and the scientific (and political) community has proven that it is. Why can't you realize this?

As thoroughly exposed as Newtongate. I suppose the Pentagon's reversal on both issues is forthcoming.

Hold your breath.

lol!
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PostSubject: Re: Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row   Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Empty12/4/2009, 5:56 pm

Copernicus was a skeptic too. He was jailed by the powers-that-be of the time because he wouldn't retract his heresey.
Hubble was also a skeptic.
More breakthroughs in our basic understanding of the universe have come from skeptics than from a consensus.

Havent read the articles, just making an observation.
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Heretic

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PostSubject: Re: Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row   Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Empty12/4/2009, 8:18 pm

Unfortunately for "skeptics", Galileo and Copernicus were right, actually having evidence to back up their theories. They were opposed by religious authority, not the scientific community, and their conclusions eventually reached consensus several hundred years ago.

It's a small but important distinction for your observations.

And besides, skepticism in the face of contradictory evidence becomes denialism, which is something else entirely.
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BigWhiteGuy

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PostSubject: Re: Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row   Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Empty12/5/2009, 9:46 am

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Heretic

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PostSubject: Re: Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row   Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Empty12/5/2009, 10:44 am

Heretic wrote:
Quote :
  • Which studies were compromised, how? be specific. Cite papers and data sets. What is the evidence? where is it? what work is affected? how? show me the evidence that says so.

  • This supposed scandal involves perhaps a half dozen people, how does it affect the work of the 3,000+ others who’s work makes up climate science?

  • How does it affect the work that was done before the alleged culprits graduated from univeristy? the work from before they were born?

  • Of the 30,000(ish) studies that make up climate science, which ones are undone? where is the evidence? be specific … show us exactly how and why?

  • You are certain it topples climate science? how? where? which studies? what evidence? You don’t know? then how are you certain?

  • Please run through a list of the studies you believe are affected? Hockey stick? what’s that? please refer to specific papers and studies.You don’t know? then how can you be certain?

  • Ahhh, Soandso 2004? so just how is it compromised? what part of the work? I thought you were certain?

. . .

So I guess we'll just have to wait for all that pesky physical evidence of warming to reverse itself, or at the very least, the Pentagon reverses its stance. Until then, continue being irrelevant.
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Heretic

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PostSubject: Re: Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row   Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Empty12/5/2009, 10:51 am

The Galileo Gambit

Quote :
So, again, what's the point of alties or other pseudoscientists invoking Galileo or any of the hideously incorrect prognostications listed above? Again, obviously, this technique seeks to denigrate the experts who reject the altie's claims as not knowing what they're talking about or as close-minded, unable to have the vision that they do. It also deceptively tries to associate the quack, crank, pseudoscientist, or pseudohistorian with the theories and findings of great visionaries that went against conventional wisdom and were thus rejected by the experts of the day--and then later shown to be correct. It's a transparent ploy, about which Michael Shermer once said, "Heresy does not equal correctness."

Some call it the Galileo gambit (although in actuality Galileo is probably a bad example for pseudoscientists to use, given that he was persecuted by the Church, and not by his fellow scientists). History is indeed full of tales of the lone scientist working in spite of his peers and flying in the face of the doctrines of the day in his or her field of study. No doubt there are still a fair number of such scientists today. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending upon your point of view), the vast majority of them turn out to be utterly wrong. They disappear into the mists of history, leaving not even a footnote in the grand history of science.

. . .

For every Galileo, Ignaz Semmelweis, Nicolaus Copernicus, Charles Darwin, Louis Pasteur, etc., whose scientific ideas were either ignored, rejected, or vigorously attacked by the scientific community of his time and then later accepted, there are untold numbers of others whose ideas were either ignored or rejected initially and then were never accepted--and never will be accepted. Why? Because they were wrong! The reason the ideas of Galileo, Semmelweis, Copernicus, Darwin, Pasteur, et al, were ultimately accepted as correct by the scientific community is because they turned out to be correct! Their observations and ideas stood up to repeated observation and scientific experimentation by many scientists in many places over many years. The weight of data supporting their ideas was so overwhelming that eventually even the biggest skeptics could no longer stand. That's the way science works. It may be messy, and it may take longer, occasionally even decades or even longer, than we in the business might like to admit, but eventually in science the truth wins out. In fact, the best way for a scientist to become famous and successful in his or her field is to come up with evidence that strongly challenges established theories and concepts and then weave that evidence into a new theory. Albert Einstein didn't end up in the history books by simply reconfirming and recapitulating Newton's Laws. Semmelweis and Pasteur didn't wind up in the history books by confirming the concept that disease was caused by an "imbalance of humours" (although Semmelweis probably did hurt himself by refusing to publish his results for many years; his data was so compelling it remains puzzling why he did not do so). I daresay that none of the Nobel Prize winners won that prestigious award by demonstrating something that the scientific establishment already believed. No! They won it by discovering something new and important!

Unfortunately, to most lay people who don't have a strong background in science, the scientific method, or the history of science, such trickery can sound convincing on the surface. For example, you have a quack like Hulda Clark claiming she has a cure for cancer and AIDS and then claiming that the scientific establishment can't accept it. Add a dash of paranoia about big medicine and big pharma "suppressing" her "cure," and it's a potent brew of deception. This ploy is particularly appealing to Americans, because our whole national psyche has in its core a tendency to root for the outsider, the underdog. Alties, pseudoscientists, and cranks tap into that deep-seated sympathy we tend to have for the persecuted outsider and use it to their advantage. It's the same with creationists, who use every well-deserved debunking they get as evidence that they are a "threat" to the established scientific order. The only way to combat such deceptive comparisons is to point out again and again Shermer's dictum that "heresy does not equal correctness" and try to keep the discussion on the hard evidence.

This was originally written in response to the alt med crowd citing Galileo, but it works here for AGW "skepticism" since all bullsh!t denialism follows the same format.
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PostSubject: Re: Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row   Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Empty12/5/2009, 2:27 pm

Heretic wrote:
Unfortunately for "skeptics", Galileo and Copernicus were right, actually having evidence to back up their theories. They were opposed by religious authority, not the scientific community, and their conclusions eventually reached consensus several hundred years ago.

It's a small but important distinction for your observations.

And besides, skepticism in the face of contradictory evidence becomes denialism, which is something else entirely.

Actually I mentioned Hubble, not Galileo. Hubble was in the 50s and 60s.
If you look into the history of astronomy it is filled with "skeptics" that fought against the consensous and turned out to be right. Heck, meteor craters on the earth were controversial until the '70s.
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Heretic

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PostSubject: Re: Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row   Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Empty12/5/2009, 3:48 pm

Bill B wrote:
Actually I mentioned Hubble, not Galileo.

Saw that on my second read. I saw "Copernicus was a skeptic" and stopped since I immediately recognized the argument, which is sometimes called the Galileo Gambit. It's used often enough by the alt med crowd, creationists, 9/11 Twoofers, and most other denialists and it's the same argument regardless of the credible scientist cited (my above link listed several though not Hubble) though it doesn't help their case any. Like Shermer said, "Heresy does not equal correctness." Hubble, Galileo, Copernicus... they all actually had evidence to back up their theories, which is why they're consensus now. I've laid out the evidence for AGW which goes back as far as the 1950's, but as BWG has clearly demonstrated, "skeptics" are still unwilling or unable to lay out theirs. The only "evidence" they have are endless shouts of:

Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Its_a_conspiracy
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BigWhiteGuy

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PostSubject: Re: Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row   Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Empty12/6/2009, 9:08 am

Heretic wrote:
I've laid out the evidence for AGW which goes back as far as the 1950's, but as BWG has clearly demonstrated, "skeptics" are still unwilling or unable to lay out theirs.
WOW, all the way back to the 1950"s! You do realize that Lake Michigan extended all the way to where Lansing-Dyer Road now exists over 10,000 years ago!
And I didn't say AWG was a conspiracy. I said it was a LIE, perpetrated by scientists and politicians that want to keep their jobs and make a lot of money.
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PostSubject: Re: Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row   Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Empty12/6/2009, 9:15 am

BigWhiteGuy wrote:
Heretic wrote:
I've laid out the evidence for AGW which goes back as far as the 1950's, but as BWG has clearly demonstrated, "skeptics" are still unwilling or unable to lay out theirs.
WOW, all the way back to the 1950"s! You do realize that Lake Michigan extended all the way to where Lansing-Dyer Road now exists over 10,000 years ago!
And I didn't say AWG was a conspiracy. I said it was a LIE, perpetrated by scientists and politicians that want to keep their jobs and make a lot of money.

You got that right ! Now, instead of "the sky is falling, the sky is falling", it is "the scam is falling, the scam is falling". Twisted Evil

The liars have been BUSTED !!! Twisted Evil
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Heretic

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PostSubject: Re: Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row   Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Empty12/6/2009, 1:02 pm

BigWhiteGuy wrote:
WOW, all the way back to the 1950"s!

Sorry... I meant the 1850's. It only became a "controversial" theory in the last decade thanks to a easily identifiable and fully funded PR campaign as the result of proposed solutions hurting corporate profits, a campaign that's easily shopped to obtuse political or religious ideologues like yourself and Tiger.

BigWhiteGuy wrote:
And I didn't say AWG was a conspiracy. I said it was a LIE, perpetrated by scientists and politicians that want to keep their jobs and make a lot of money.

Good try to save yourself the embarrassment, but that's what these conspiracies are. They're "lies" that happened to be endorsed by the entire scientific community, supported by hundreds of peer reviewed journals, thousands upon thousands of articles, etc. They're all for jobs and money: Biologists can't find work if they don't subscribe to evilution, AIDS is nothing but a scam for Big Pharma, vaccines are just another scam for Big Pharma for money and to give your kids autism, 9/11 was necessary to invade Iraq for oil, etc. It's all the same unoriginal nonsense.

So I'd ask either of you to yet again explain how these emails invalidate the theory, or at least contradict the physical evidence we have of it, but we know neither of you will answer. Whether that's because your incapable of such critical thought or unwilling doesn't really matter.

But keep at it. You two look good in your tinfoil hats. Wink
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Heretic

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PostSubject: Re: Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row   Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Empty12/6/2009, 8:37 pm

Some videos on the intellectual dishonesty and laziness of those who believe these emails are evidence of conspiracy:





Here's Nature's take on it:

Quote :
The e-mail archives stolen last month from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (UEA), UK, have been greeted by the climate-change-denialist fringe as a propaganda windfall (see page 551). To these denialists, the scientists' scathing remarks about certain controversial palaeoclimate reconstructions qualify as the proverbial 'smoking gun': proof that mainstream climate researchers have systematically conspired to suppress evidence contradicting their doctrine that humans are warming the globe.

This paranoid interpretation would be laughable were it not for the fact that obstructionist politicians in the US Senate will probably use it next year as an excuse to stiffen their opposition to the country's much needed climate bill. Nothing in the e-mails undermines the scientific case that global warming is real — or that human activities are almost certainly the cause. That case is supported by multiple, robust lines of evidence, including several that are completely independent of the climate reconstructions debated in the e-mails.

An important point that "skeptics" are continuing to ignore.
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BigWhiteGuy

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PostSubject: Re: Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row   Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row Empty12/7/2009, 8:06 am

Heretic wrote:
Good try to save yourself the embarrassment, but that's what these conspiracies are. They're "lies" that happened to be endorsed by the entire scientific community, supported by hundreds of peer reviewed journals, thousands upon thousands of articles, etc. They're all for jobs and money: Biologists can't find work if they don't subscribe to evilution, AIDS is nothing but a scam for Big Pharma, vaccines are just another scam for Big Pharma for money and to give your kids autism, 9/11 was necessary to invade Iraq for oil, etc. It's all the same unoriginal nonsense.

So I'd ask either of you to yet again explain how these emails invalidate the theory, or at least contradict the physical evidence we have of it, but we know neither of you will answer. Whether that's because your incapable of such critical thought or unwilling doesn't really matter.

But keep at it. You two look good in your tinfoil hats. Wink
Hmmm, typical response when painted in a corner, insults. But, you just stick to your guns, and justify the records that date all the way back to the 1880's. People kept records then by watching a mercury thermometer outside the window. Accurate data wasn't kept until the 1980"s. So the AGW folks manipulate the numbers to suit themselves. And you call me a skeptic?
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