Modeller thinks fraud is normal


But climate modelling is itself a fraud. It pretends to a skill it does not have. Excerpt below from an interview with an alleged scientist who says of the leaked CRU emails: "All scientists know that this kind of language and kidding goes on verbally all the time". It is "kidding" to hide your data? By this guy's definition I am not one of his "all scientists". I have had 200+ papers published in the academic journals of social science but I have never heard that "kind of language and kidding" from colleagues.

But he also believes in tree rings as an index of temperature so he is just a fool, a conventional fool but a fool nonetheless. Vision-impared Freddy knows that SEVERAL factors impact tree-rings. But that is not the funny bit. He does NOT believe in tree-ring data after about 1960, because it indicates a temperature decline! So after 1960, thermometer data only is used. His own findings show that tree-rings disagree with thermometers but he still uses them as an index of temperature! He is more than a fool. He is another one of the frauds -- a white-haired fraud but a fraud nonetheless


Now, on to Professor North, a physicist who specializes in investigating the causes of climate change through the use of various types of computer models, among other techniques. He is especially well-qualified to comment on this controversy because of his role in investigating the work of one of the key players in the e-mail flap, Michael Mann of Penn State University.

Andrew Freedman: What are your thoughts on the significance of this scandal, both in terms of what it may mean scientifically and for public perceptions of climate science?
Gerald North: Scientifically, it means little. All scientists know that this kind of language and kidding goes on verbally all the time. Some of us forget that email has the potential to become public at any time. The public perception is another matter. There may be some people who do not know any scientist personally and think they are lily pure, dedicated (do-gooder) nerds. These private comments might lead to less confidence in science. It is a shame, since our country is so scientifically illiterate and is easily swayed by perceptions that have little to do with scientific method and culture. They have very little influence on my opinion.

AF: Do these hacked e-mails make you question the "consensus" on climate change at all, or to a greater extent perhaps than you did before?
GN: I accept the IPCC [U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] procedure of assessment. It is not perfect, but it is probably the best we can do in learning the state of the science at an instant in time. It employs people who work actively in the field. Sometimes they are assessing their own work - egos clash. They are drawn together in workshops; then they separate to write the chapters of the report. There is a huge amount of anonymous refereeing of the reports. Monitors check that every complaint is at least discussed (in writing but not necessarily in the final report). There is a tendency to make the report reflect the mainstream view and de-emphasize some things that contradict it.

This is the way science works. People follow an established paradigm. They stay with it until it becomes uninteresting or stagnant. A paradigm can fall by an internal inconsistency that cannot be reconciled, or it may face an insurmountable contradiction with observed data. This latter does not happen overnight. Usually, with long standing paradigms, the data or its interpretation turn out to be wrong.

Climategate [the nickname of the email controversy] is not even close to causing active researchers to abandon the anthropogenic [manmade] global warming hypothesis. This hypothesis (Anthropogenic GW) fits in the climate science paradigm that 1) Data can be collected and assembled in ways that are sensible. 2) These data can be used to test and or recalibrate climate simulation models. 3) These same models can be used to predict future and past climates. It is understood that this is a complicated goal to reach with any precision. The models are not yet perfect, but there is no reason to think the approach is wrong.

Was data manipulated? I do not think so. In the NAS 2006 Report on Reconstruction of Surface Temperatures for the last 2000 Years (I was Chairman of that committee, and it took a different approach to assessment: a panel of experts who are not directly involved in the controversy - note the difference from the IPCC approach), we constructed our own hockey stick curve. We put the tree ring record on the graph and stuck the instrument record on for the last 50 years in exactly the way [Phil] Jones in his [leaked] email referred to as a "trick".

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Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

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