Deja vu all over again

Among the items in my basket of Christmas goodies to myself was Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway's book Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming.

I'm only 65 pages in, and I'll likely post more as I go, but I'd like to post this passage first:

"Seitz then summarily dismissed the models as bad science [...] having dismissed the . . . model as unscientific and casting doubt on the objectivity of its authors by linking them to liberal and environmental organizations, Seitz completed the picture for his readers by alleging ulterior motives. 'Political considerations subliminally skewed the model away from natural history . . .'

. . .He insisted that [it] was not science at all: it was left/liberal/environmental politics dressed up as computer code. 'No one who is familiar with the malleability of computer projections can be surprised at the result.'

. . .Finally, Seitz expanded his attack to encompass all science, and the scientific establishment itself . . . Seitz insisted that scientists had betrayed the public trust. Citizens regard 'the scientific profession as a bulwark of objectivity and credibility in an otherwise untrustworthy world," he noted, but they shouldn't.

. . . Seitz insisted that 'science bears little resemblance to its conventional portrait.' Instead, scientists are guided by such 'non-rational factors as rhetoric, propaganda, and personal prejudice.'

You would be forgiven for thinking that the above passage is referring to the late Frederick Seitz and his quixotic tirade against anthropogenic global warming. In fact, it's about Fred Seitz's cousin Russell Seitz, and his attack on the theory of nuclear winter that was being proposed by Carl Sagan and other prominent scientists during the late 1970s/early 1980s. The Wall Street Journal even gave Seitz a full 2400 words on its front page to attack science and scientists on the issue of nuclear winter.

It's a theme you'll see over and over again, and the central theme of Oreskes' book. Time after time, you'll see the same people, the same think-tanks, and the same tactics being employed in the manufactroversy over climate change. It started with the cigarette industry, it continued with SDI, nuclear winter, acid rain, and the ozone hole, and it's still going on today.

A brief history of CO2

Hat tip: Only in it for the gold.

Irony, thy name is Fox News

In this video from Fox & Friends, Tucker Carlson and the host discuss a study from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute that found that college doesn't do a very good job of imparting civic knowledge. The study also found that going to college makes students more "liberal" on the issues of gay marriage and abortion. Scandalous, I know.



Not only do they misrepresent one of the study's findings (going to college does not decrease your civic knowledge), they ignore the other key finding(s) of the study, which is that greater civic knowledge is a better predictor of belief in American ideals and institutions than attending college (also not an earth-shattering finding):

1. Earning a bachelor’s degree exerts an independent, statistically significant influence on a person’s views on five of the thirty-nine survey propositions, most involving a narrow range of polarizing social and cultural issues. If two people otherwise share the same background characteristics, as well as equal civic knowledge, the one who graduates from college will be more likely than the one who does not to:

• Favor same same-sex marriage; and
• Favor abortion on demand.

Similarly, a college graduate will be less likely than a non-college graduate to:

• Believe anyone can succeed in America with hard work and perseverance;
• Favor teacher-led prayer in public schools; and
• Believe the Bible is the Word of God.

2. Gaining civic knowledge influences a person’s views on four times as many propositions as college—twenty in all—that range across all of the six major survey themes. Civic knowledge also appears to produce a more independent frame of mind. For example, if two people otherwise share the same basic characteristics, the one who scores higher on the civic literacy exam will be more likely to agree that a person’s evaluation of a nation improves with his or her understanding of it; but also less likely to agree that legislators should subsidize a college in proportion to its students learning about America. Similarly, having more civic knowledge makes one more likely to agree that prosperity depends on entrepreneurs and free markets; but also less likely to agree that the free market brings about full employment.

3. Gaining civic knowledge—as opposed to merely graduating from college—increases a person’s belief in American ideals and free institutions. If two people otherwise share the same basic characteristics, the one with greater civic knowledge will be more likely to support:

• America’s ideals: He or she will be less likely to agree that America corrupts otherwise good people.
• America’s Founding documents: He or she will be less likely to agree that the Founding documents are obsolete.
• American free enterprise: He or she will be more likely to agree that prosperity depends on entrepreneurs and free markets, and less likely to agree that global capitalism produces few winners and many losers.
• The Ten Commandments: He or she will be less likely to agree that the Ten Commandments are irrelevant today.

But wait, there's more. Literally 30 seconds after Carlson expresses his outrage/disbelief that many students (18%) weren't able to name any of the freedoms that the First Amendment of the Constitution guarantees, and specifically says that the Constitution doesn't allow for the establishment of a national religion (the 2:00 mark in the video), the host says - and I'm not kidding - "If degrees are making students . . . less likely to support school prayer . . . how do you fix this?" (2:32)

Yes, how do you fix what isn't broken?

The most cogent argument for the existence of God yet

I interviewed the comedian Miranda Hart recently. She told me she believes in God but was nervous of being quoted on it.
"It's scary to say you're pro-God," she said. "Those clever atheists are terrifying."
"Oh, nonsense," I said. "Let them tell you it's stupid to believe in something you can't explain. Then ask them how an iPad works."

All hail Steve Jobs! We must thank the Insane Clown Posse for spawning this new generation of theologians. You can read the rest of this truly dizzying intellectual riposte on behalf of theists at the Grauniad - er, I mean Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/dec/05/victoria-coren-belief-in-god

Heart to Heart: Polar vs. Suunto

So this post is going to be a change of pace - a brief review/comparison of heart-rate monitors.

I'm not exactly a serious athlete, but my last personal training assessment puts me in the 85-90th percentile in terms of the general Australian public (this says more about the fitness level of the average Australian than my fitness level, really). Anyway, as a casual runner and frequent cycle commuter (and hardcore geek), I've long used all sorts of telemetry accessories such as a heart rate monitor (some other examples being the Nike+ accessory for my iPod, a GPS pod for my new HRM - more on this later, bike computer, etc.).

About ten years ago, I bought a Polar S410 for - if I recall correctly - about $200 on eBay. Although you can still find them on eBay for about $170 or so, this model has since been supplanted by the Polar RS400 (MSRP $USD269.95)

Polar S410

For its time, this was a pretty cutting-edge HRM. You could set up up to 30 different time-based or heart-rate based training intervals, and have it prompt you for each interval, and it would store up to 120 heart-rate samples for a workout, while storing up to five compressed (summary) workout files that would store average HR, duration, etc. Additionally, the SonicLink function allowed you to do bidirectional transfers between the watch and a computer so that you could look get a better look at your workout data, and setup workouts on your computer to transfer back to the watch. This technology basically used the same method as those wicked acoustic coupler modems from the '80s (remember those?) - by holding the watch up to your computer's microphone, data in the form of beeps and bloops gets picked up and decoded by the software. The watch also has a built-in microphone to allow the reverse process to occur. Pretty trick - when it works.

Alas, this proved to be not only the coolest feature, but also the Achilles' heel for this HRM. The SonicLink transfer process was extremely fussy: if the watch was too close to the microphone, it wouldn't work. If it was too far from the microphone, it wouldn't work. If the distance between the two varied too much during the transfer process, it wouldn't work. Nonetheless, I managed to figure out that holding the watch close to the mic from an audioconferencing headset worked pretty well - around a 1-in-2 to 1-in-3 success rate for transfers. When the data finally gets transferred, here's what it looks like in PC Coach Lite (the Polar-supplied software):

 

One of the really cool things about this is the sampling rate -  it stores 120 samples total, so if you're exercising for an hour or less, you're getting at least 2 samples per minute (once you exceed 120 samples, the watch automatically averages previous samples and then reduces the sampling rate). Of course, if you wanted to be really cutting-edge, you could have bought the S610, which has/had room for 16,000 samples.

At any rate (no pun intended), eventually I tired of this game with the microphone, and bought a shiny new Suunto T4:

 

OK, so the great thing about Suunto is that they have a whole line of essentially universal accessories, which they call pods. There's a bike Pod, a cadence Pod, a GPS Pod, a PC Pod and a foot pod,  all of which will work wirelessly with most Suunto watches - except for the basic ones, as far as I know. I bought my T4 as a package with the GPS pod from theClymb.com at some ridiculous discount (if you want an invite, let me know and I'll hook you up :)). The GPS Pod allows the watch to monitor and store your actual speed. Unfortunately, the Finnish engineers must have been stoned out of their minds (or spent too much time in the sauna) when they designed this thing, because - get this - the GPS doesn't store position data. If there's anything more frivolous than designing a GPS device that doesn't even tell you your position, well - I'm sure it exists, but I ain't gonna buy it. This is somewhat akin to buying an iPhone for use as a pocket watch.

Luckily, however, someone even geekier than I has figured out how to hack the Suunto GPS so that it's actually useful as, you know, a GPS. I haven't actually done this yet, but it's now on my list of things-to-do.

So that gripe out of the way, how does the T4 do as a heart-rate monitor? For the most part, great! The display is big and easy to read, and having the bezel display bpms in graphical format is great for quick reference. Their "training effect" zones seem like a useful shortcut for judging workout intensity, and actually seem to have some physiological research behind them. You can also display past training logs in bar graph format on the watch itself, which is neat. Downloading data from the watch to the free supplied software (Training Manager Lite) is a snap (once you buy the PC Pod, that is). It's all wireless and takes just seconds.

But there's a downside. The logging on the T4 sucks:

That's all you get in the way of information from a 1-hour workout. Or any workout, for that matter. Your average heart rate and your peak heart rate (and, since I have the bike pod, your average speed and total distance). It doesn't store any heartrate samples. You can't tell when you were going uphill or downhill, when you were moving or when you were stopped, how long it took you to recover after an interval . . . pretty much useless, at least for a telemetry geek like me.

No, if you actually want to store beat-by-beat data, you have to step up to the Suunto T6 - which starts at $260. I managed to find one on eBay for somewhat less than that - I just don't have my hands on it yet. When it arrives, I'll report back.

Decoding the Family First platform

The Australian federal election is only a few days away, and that means that the public is being deluged with television and radio commercials, signs, billboards, and pamphlets in the mailbox. One that caught my eye recently was from the Family First Party - which, like many closet theocratic organizations, chooses to obscure their actual purpose with a meaningless platitude of a name (see also Family Research Council).

Let's decode their platform points:

“Family comes first”

Our starting point is that families come first. Families should be at the centre of our Australian way of life, not government bureaucracies. With the rising cost of living putting more and  more pressure on families they need more income to function properly and make ends meet.

Translation: Cut taxes.

“Who cares for Carers?”

Families care for the elderly, disabled, mentally unwell, unemployed, single parents and others who have fallen on hard times. Finances should be diverted from government bureaucracies to families.

Translation: Cut welfare.

“A home of your own”

We want to make sure you can own your home by the time you retire. Family First is committed to keeping the Great Australian Dream alive.

Translation: Screw the homeless.

“Choice in schooling”

A strong foundational education is critical in helping children achieve their potential and form values that will serve them for the whole of their lives. Parents increasingly choose to send their children to schools that reflect
the values that are important to them.

At Family First we are committed to choice in education. Accordingly, we support the introduction of educational vouchers allowing parents to spend the vouchers at whichever school they see fit.

We believe that both public and private schools must be adequately resourced to enable the delivery of high quality education and to ensure that the right of parents to choose is respected and supported.

Translation: teach creationism.

EMPLOYMENT - “Jobs, jobs, jobs”

People of all ages and abilities should have the opportunity to earn an income. We are committed
to removing the barriers to entry to getting a job or working more hours.

Translation: OK, I'm stumped on this one. Unless they're talking about child labour?

“Small Business”

Small businesses are family businesses. Family First is committed to getting the government off your back and out of your pocket.

Translation: Cut taxes, again.

Marriage is special”

Marriage is exclusively between a man and a woman. Family First is committed to promoting policies that support marriage and hold families together. 

Translation: Doesn't really need one, but obviously: no same-sex marriage.

“Life is precious”

Family First believes life is precious and is committed to healing, caring for and saving lives wherever possible - particularly the dignity and value of older people.

Translation: ban abortion.

"Drugs destroy lives"

Widespread illicit drug use is fuelling a plague of crime, violence and mental illness. Family First is committed to drug education, effective recovery programs and strong measures to punish those who trade in these toxic, life destroying substances.

Translation: Lock up potsmokers and throw away the key.

More context on Curry

In my previous post, I summarized the apparent meltdown of Judith Curry. In this post, I'll provide some more "historical" context by summarizing some relevant posts from Keith Kloor's Collide-a-scape.

Our story (for this post, anyway) begins over on Climate Audit on June 12, where Judith posted this comment (emphasis mine):

Michael Tobis has spend a lot of time here, he seems genuinely interested in what an “armistice” might look like. In order to understand the issues with the CRU emails, the broader hockey stick affair, and other issues of concern to the climateauditors, it takes alot of work to wade through all that stuff. It is much easier just to accept the spin from RC. I have slogged through this stuff sufficiently thoroughly on my owned to be convinced that there are some serious issues. Trying to figure all this out by wading through past CA posts is very difficult. I have found Montford’s book “The Hockey Stick Illusion” to be enormously helpful in this regard. Willis is sorting through “Only in it for the Gold,” which is good, but some sort of guide will help, it is very difficult to get the flavor and identify the most significant posts by cruising though past blog posts
As far as I can tell, Michael Tobis’ efforts here reflect an honest interest to bridge. Efforts on both sides to point to key posts and make arguments again (even though you’ve made them before somewhere else) is necessary for a productive dialogue
I guess all this makes me a “tone troll”, but from my perspective this has been a very interesting discussion with possibly some productive outcomes

Our story picks up at Collide-a-scape (again, emphasis added):

Steven, whether or not Montfort or McIntyre is “correct” in some sort of ultimate time will tell sense, I am not judging that.  I am saying that they put forth powerful arguments that are being dismissed.  Montford’s book is a serious one and an important contribution to the history of climate science, and it is receiving very good reviews.  It is being ignored by the climate establishment, see for example Gavin Schmidt’s comment at RC when i mentioned this book on the Comments on the Second CRU Inquiry Reports thread.   Has ANYONE supporting the IPCC and the consensus view read this?  If not, I would appreciate your not dismissing the book because of some ancillary statement about McIntyre or Montford that has no relevance to the substance of this book.  If you don’t want to read the book, McIntyre’s motives are very clearly stated in his recent Hearland Conference presentation.   McKittrick’s motives might be slightly more political, but attempts to identify any economic incentives from oil companies or whatever have failed (i can’t find the post on this at the moment.)

Steven Sullivan then asks (quoting Curry):

“Montford’s book is a serious one and an important contribution to the history of climate science, and it is receiving very good reviews.”

From whom?

Judith's response (egads, the Discovery Institute!?):

Re the “Hockey Stick Illusion,” here are some blogospheric reviews, not from identified “skeptics (as far as i can tell):
Seth’s Blog
Klimazweibel
NC Media Watch
Facts Plus Logic
Discovery News
Note also the reviews at Amazon.  The Amazon reviews pay tribute to how interesting and well written this is
 
So why hasn’t this been reviewed by any of the mainstream IPCC consensus types?

 Deltoid's Tim Lambert chimes in:

Judith says: “here are some blogospheric reviews, not from identified “skeptics (as far as i can tell):”  Except for the one at Klimazwiebel (where the author explicitly states that he is not writing a review) all of the reviewers (including Matt Ridley) are easily identified as skeptics.
As far as know, you are the only person not in the CA camp who has positive things to say about it.  I’m prepared to look at it on your recommendation, but don’t expect anything soon.
I’m surprised that you are unfamiliar with The Discovery Institute — I would take an endorsement from them as a sign that something is wrong with the book.

Slight tangent as Judy fawns over the book again (emphasis added):

So if you want to understand the ruckus, you need to understand all this, this book does a masterful job of explaining this whole issue in terms of the technical issues and the process violations in a very readable and compelling way. It will help you understand where McIntyre et al. are coming from and what their concerns are.
As I’ve said before, I don’t take everything in this book at face value, but I have not spotted any inaccuracies.  If this book is incorrect, it should be rebutted. Hasn’t happened so far, just snarky ad homs and irrelevant comments over at realclimate.

Note, the closest thing to a rebut is RC’s “Dummies Guide to the Hockey Stick Guide Controversy“written in 1995.  Montford’s account is far better argued and more compelling than the Dummies Guide.
So I am laying down the gauntlet, this really needs to discussed and rebutted by the paleo researchers and the IPCC defenders.
Tim Lambert, thank you for your intention to read this.

Still plugging the book:

Re what climate books to read, it all depends on what you have already read, what your perspective is, your interests, and your knowledge base.  With regards to my recommendation to read the “Hockey Stick Illusion,”  it is particularly relevant in terms of understanding the “ruckus” from the perspective of the “new skeptics,” i.e. citizen scientists engaged in the social computing movement.  I think it is particularly important for scientists and others supporting the IPCC consensus to read this book, to understand the source and nature of the “ruckus” and to challenge their beliefs and precepts about this whole debate.  For a newcomer to this whole issue, it is a good roadmap to this particular debate (i.e. hockeystick) but this is a very narrow slice of the overall climate science pie.
 
So how do people decide what to read?  Well, in the blogosphere, challenge yourself by reading a diversity blogs.  I understand the reluctance to fork out $$ to actually buy a book, let alone take the time to read it.  The Hockey Stick Illusion is pretty inexpensive.  For a “taste”, see Montford’s earlier essay on Caspar and the Jesus paper.

 Dhoghaza bringing us back on topic:

Judith Curry, do you even *look* at the sources you cite as “not being identified skeptics as far as you can tell”?

NC Media Watch

Five minutes at this guy’s site and I learn that he thinks climate science is a fraud, that NASA “makes up” climate data:

“Shock new evidence of a NASA scientist faking a fundamental greenhouse gas equation shames beleaguered space administration in new global warming fraud scandal.
Caught in the heat are NASA’s Dr. Judith Curry …”
Given that you believe this non-skeptic source to be objective and non-biased, I assume that you agree that you’ve been caught up in this scandal?

Judy falls back on a familiar tactic here - backpedaling:

Please don’t get sidetracked by the sites i listed for reviews of Montford’s book.  I have never heard of any of these other than Klimazweibel, and cited them since the authors of the reviews weren’t known skeptics (at least that I recognized).
 
Attack the source, attack the person, great reasoning strategy.

Dhoghaza calls her on it:

Judith Curry:

“Attack the source, attack the person, great reasoning strategy.”

You argue that favorable reviews by these people are evidence that Bishop Hill’s book is worth reading.
Rejecting a dominionist, creationist organization as being a credible source of information on scientific issues is perfectly reasonable.  Do you go to Answers in Genesis to learn about biology?
Likewise, NC Media Watch, beyond being authored by a skeptic, is authored by someone who believes all of climate science is fraudulent.  Including your work, apparently.  You really take a favorable review by this person as being evidence that Bishop Hill’s book is worth reading?
Sorry.  I have higher standards.

“Please don’t get sidetracked by the sites i listed for reviews of Montford’s book.  I have never heard of any of these other than Klimazweibel, and cited them since the authors of the reviews weren’t known skeptics (at least that I recognized).”

Now you’re suggesting that if you *had* recognized them as being skeptic sites (I’d use stronger words for the DI and NC Media Watch), that you would *not* have listed them.
Yet, you didn’t bother to spend the few moments in Google that would’ve been required to educate yourself in that regard.
Why?

Still in retreat:

dghoza, I am not interested in engaging with your “gotcha” attempts that are completely peripheral to any arguments of importance or relevance to what I guess is 99% of the people perusing this thread.

 Dhoghaza:

“Attack the source, attack the person, great reasoning strategy.”

You’re sloppy.  That’s not an attack, it’s a fact.
For instance, not long ago, you put forward Watts Up With That as being a credible source, for instance, and when it was pointed out to you that the site posts ridiculous misinformation (CO2 snow in antarctica, greenhouse effect doesn’t operate on Venus, etc), your excuse was that you hadn’t actually bothered to familiarize yourself with the site.
When asked to iterate those scientific points of interest brought forth at the Heartland Institute, you trotted out a list of stuff that’s mostly been debunked, after admitting that you’re not familiar with the details of much of the science being challenged.
Likewise the proxy stuff.  You say it makes your eyes glaze over, yet surely … surely … something important is being said by the denialist side and certainly their conclusions aren’t being accepted because of … “tribalism”.
And now this bit where you cite a source that accuses you of fraud!
Is it unreasonable for people to expect more of you?

“I am not interested in engaging with your “gotcha” attempts that are completely peripheral to any arguments of importance or relevance to what I guess is 99% of the people perusing this thread.”

Then what was your reason for posting those sites?  You were perfectly happy to have us “sidetracked” by them before it was pointed out to you that, um, perhaps they weren’t as unbiased as you wanted to believe.
And what is McIntyre and Climate Audit of not the crowning glory of “gotcha” attempts to discredit mainstream science?  You appear to adore their “gotchaisms”.

Alas, Curry is now on a new tack (sort of):

The Miskolczi paper is an interesting case.  There is very much to criticize in this paper, but he does make a few good points, particularly with regards to neglect of the virial theorem. Since it was published in a Hungarian journal with a minimal impact factor, mainstream scientists don’t want to bother with writing a formal reply to that journal.
There is some discussion (rather shallow, really) of this paper over atRabbett Run.  Hopefully somebody in the blogosphere will tackle this (e.g. Eli or scienceofdoom).
Note rebutting this is a much bigger job than replying to allegations made by Montford, which somebody could do in an afternoon if they were so inclined.

And, we're back:

Phil Clarke, re Montford’s book, I am primarily suggesting that people who want to understand the “ruckus” should actually read this book which provides the perspective of the skeptics.  The well argued allegations in this book, which are serious, should be refuted by the mainstream climate community involved in this research and the IPCC if they are in fact incorrect.  And if they are correct, there are serious problems with climate research and with the IPCC. As to whether someone just entering the fray and trying to understand the whole thing should actually purchase and read this book, well such a person will have to decide whether or not to read this based on what they have seen/heard about the book.  It would be counterproductive (not to mention very time consuming) for me to try to summarize all the allegations and evidence provided by Montford.  I hope that someone in the climate blogosphere will take this on, sounds like Tim Lambert actually intends to read it.  That fact that NO ONE from the mainstream climate community is commenting on this (other than a few people over at Klimazweibel) is telling, in my opinion; much of what Montford has written will not be easily refuted.

 So Montford's book - which, if we are to believe Dr. Curry - is so important that it demands attention from serious scientists, is simultaneously "not easily refuted" and rebuttable "in an afternoon"? It's too time-consuming for her to even summarize it - yet she later does exactly that in the Real Climate comments?

Next, after insisting that "it's the argument that counts" (not the source of funding), Curry then goes on to . . . attack the source of funding of climate scientists?

Tim 203:  Personal motives or the source of funding don’t particularly matter, its the argument that counts.  Stating your biases and source of funding, and providing documentation and data, should be sufficient to eliminate motive from consideration of the argument (the person examining the argument can reproduce or otherwise check the argument and dismiss any explicitly value laden statements).   The medical research field (with heavy funding from big pharma) has such guidelines in place.

Re government funding, libertarians often quote Eisenhower’s farewell address in 1961:
“Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. 
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded. 
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite. 
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system – ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society. ”
Their concern is basically about a technochratic elite being increasingly granted priest-like powers over the laity.

There is an extra layer of concern however for something like the IPCC assessment report, which involves generating an overall integrative narrative and using expert opinion to assess confidence levels for the various conclusions.
The Penn lawyer Jason Johnson recently wrote:
“To use legal terms, is the work by the IPCC and establishment story lead scientists a legal brief – intended to persuade – or a legal memo – intended to objectively assess both sides?”
 
The deeply imbued belief by nearly all climate scientists participating in the IPCC assessment report seems to be reflected by Michael Tobis’ statement in #174 “. . .my insistence (along with most people who understand the situation) that the only reasonable target for net carbon emissions is zero and that vigorous pursuit of that goal is long overdue. . .”
How can a large group of scientists having such an insistence about policy be writing a legal memo and not a legal brief?  Whether they are consciously doing so or not?

Curry's next comments repeat some of the same errors that she later posted on Real Climate (I've bolded the important bit):

Tim, with regards to the North NRC Report, the supported at least of two of MM’s main points:  the PCA issue, and the bristlecone issue.  That is pretty hard to deny?  Both sides have spun the report to suit their agendas (RP Jr certaintly doesn’t have a dog in this fight, so his reaction was probably unbiased if not completely accurate).  I recall discussing the findings with a young paleoclimatologist right after the North Report was released, the paleoclimatologist thought the report was a “big blow.”  That was also an honest reaction. Since then, much spin.  But the end result of the North Report is that MM’s PCA and bristlecone critiques stand, and the 4th assessment report drew back substantially from the 3rd assessment report in its conclusions and confidence levels.

So the “vindication” seems to be of the following nature:  MM doesn’t really “matter”, the last half of the 20th century is likely the warmest in 400 years.   So exactly how does this vindicate MBH98,99, which said something very different, and “reject” MM, which pointed out errors that were fatal flaws to the analysis as far as i can tell?  Yes recent papers have improved the analysis (e.g. Wahl/Amman, Mann et al. 2008), but there are still issues, and these papers were not included in the North Report.

I bought the “consensus” vindication at the time, similar to RP Jr., but I no longer buy this interpretation.

 [...]

Tim, the point is that when there are two credible arguments with opposite conclusions, then the science is highly uncertain, at the forefront of science, and confidence statements regarding one side of the argument at the “likely” or “very likely” level are inappropriate.

If you pay close attention to McIntyre’s arguments, the hockey stick has not been independently replicated, free of the centered PCA and the suspect tree ring proxies.  This is why Montford’s book is so useful, it helps sort through the arcane arguments McIntyre has been making, which are not well organized on his site.

But wait, there's more!

Robert #256, you ask a very interesting and important question, IMO.  When skeptical groups come up with lists of 17,000 (or whatever names) of scientists, many with Ph.D.s that do not believe in global warming, I used to feel justified in ignoring this “because they aren’t climate scientists,” and after all, nearly all (important) climate scientists agree with the consensus.  I no longer feel justified in ignoring this, and can recognize my former self-righteous tribalism for what it was.


“Elite” outsiders (academics from other fields) have much to contribute to the field of climate science and its assessment.  Not just from the perspective of the technical aspects (given the complexity and multi-disciplinary aspects of the field), but also from the “process” angles and the more philosophy of science angles.  Particularly with regards to the process angles, the social psychology of conducting something like an IPCC assessment needs investigating, we need help here not just from the social scientists but also from the lawyers.  How we run peer review and make our data available, acknowledge conflicts of interests, etc.  should be evaluated and assessed against the standards of other fields.  One of the reasons our field is losing respect from elite scientists in other fields is the postnormalism aspect of our field, where so many climate scientists find it impossible to separate the policy implications from the science.  Etc. Etc.  So I for one am listening, and would like to see more formal involvement of “elite outsiders” in the process, I think this recommendation is being made by a number of different people to the IPCC IAC.

Yes, that's right: Curry just invoked the OISM petition.