I would hardly call Spencer’s new posting a “response”. He is simply throwing out a new argument without either acknowledging the old argument that he made nor any critique of it. And, frankly, I don’t think this new argument is going to stand up to scrutiny much better than the old one did! [Does he seriously believe that each 1 deg change in temperature will result in a change in the rate of CO2 increase or decrease by 1.7 ppm/yr?!? If that were the case, the paleoclimate record would show these gargantuan changes in CO2 as temperatures moved around!]

And, you seem to be excusing Spencer’s behavior by arguing that the scientists like Hansen and Mann and so forth who have been vilified by the skeptic community don’t behave well either. However, even if that were really the case, does it excuse Spencer not trying to set a much better example by coming clean on whether his previous argument was incorrect or not?

REPLY: “Excusing Spencer’s behavior?” You’ve gone off the rails on that comment. If you have problems with “Spencer’s behavior”, take it up with him. Use his email as he offered. I have better things to do than moderate complaints over “how” Dr. Spencer responded. He responded, you just don’t like the response. Thread closed, I’m done with this argument. – Anthony

It’s simple – Hansen and Mann are not posting on your blog. If they were to, then it would be reasonable to expect them to respond. I would not expect Spencer to respond to comments had he not posted here in a public forum. If he doesn’t wish to respond then that is, of course, up to him, but it remains true that he has posted publicly inviting discussion and has not responded to this.

I’m quite likely to email Dr Spencer, so thanks for the offer, but I’ll cover that. I would have raised with him some other errors that used to be on his site (for example, the mislabelling of graphs on the ‘Temperature of the last 2,000 years page’), but he appears to have updated that.

I’m not aware of Hansen or Mann generally speculating on blogs about hypotheses untested in the scientific literature. It seems to me that Spencer is keen to do this. Given that appears to be his chosen medium, it does not seem unreasonable to me to look for a ‘review process’ in the same context. Nobody is going to publish a paper in Nature refuting something Dr Spencer has said on a blog. Either it’s addressed in a context such as this or it is not addressed at all. Equivalently, scientists are free to publish any criticisms of Hansen’s or Mann’s work in the context where they have invited dialogue.

REPLY: Ah, but Mann has posted on RC, and Steve McIntyre has made challenges there that have gone unanswered. Hansen has posted on his personal webpage, and Steve M. has made challenges to claims there, also unanswered. These two scientists can’t even bring themselves to say McIntyre’s name when asked by members of the public in Q&A forums and interviews. Mann is so stubborn on this issue, that he can’t even bring himself to fix obviously wrong latitude-longitude data on locations in his own SI that McIntyre has pointed out. Please don’t try to raise the defense that they are unaware of the work McIntyre has done, or that it somehow doesn’t matter because it is not published, because if they are truly good scientists, and an error is pointed out, they should respond to it. Mann’s case is particularly bad, because the error is so simple, so elementary, and has gone on since MBH 98 that it has become the running joke of the climate forums.

I remain unimpressed with your complaint, Spencer responded within 24 hours, in the same type of medium as the challenge was made. If “Tamino” was not a phantom, and did not sprinkle his challenge with snark, I could well imagine Dr. Spencer may have made a direct reference. IMHO such bad behavior should not be rewarded with official recognition. As I said before, basic courtesy applies. For you to claim that Spencer’s choice of medium for the response is unsatisfactory because it isn’t a peer review process is totally bollocks.

Besides, there is much to be gained from posting an essay on a blog, the wide variety of disciplines of the people reading it, and the level of scrutiny is often higher and most certainly faster than some journal peer reviews, which can take months. Blog publishing provides a good way to get fast feedback, spot problems, and correct them early on before such work would be sent to a journal. – Anthony

REPLY: Well as I mentioned yesterday, when challenged by a phantom, such as Tamino, who criticizes from the safety behind a veil of anonymity, he could choose not to respond at all. I think his response today, ignoring such anonymity, speaks to the issue well. Besides, he says that if anyone can find anything wrong with it, email him and he’ll post a correction. Seems like a response to me.

I note Dr. James Hansen does not respond even to named people doing quality work out in the open, such as Steve McIntyre, who makes all his source code and methods public, and has the courage to put his name to his work. Neither does Dr. Michael Mann respond to McIntyre. Why is that? I note you are not complaining about their lack of responses to valid issues on replication, data quality, and errors. In light of that, I’ll repeat my assertion that your complaint about the way Dr. Spencer responded within 24 hours seems rather petty.

Dr. Spencer has a standing offer of correction, which is far more than Hansen or Mann has ever done. I suggest you take him up on it, and if you find an error with Dr. Spencer’s essay, challenge him on it!

I’ll even offer to forward your email if you can’t find it on his website. – Anthony

Except, of course, he doesn’t respond.

REPLY: The man responded with a new post within 24 hours. Next day service does not impress you? That seems petty. – Anthony

See:

Increasing Atmospheric CO2: Manmade…or Natural?
January 21st, 2009 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/

I note with amazement how little time it has taken for you to expose the paucity of your comments on the ‘courtesy’ of this site. I am now posting under my legal name in response to Anthony Watts’ preference, yet you seek to sneer at me for doing so. I have not engaged in “game playing with multiple screen names”. that is a totally false and scurrilous accusation, and I will judge your comments on Hansen in the light of that. You express the opinion of someone who promulgates falsehoods about others.

I note that you continue to have nothing to say about the science in question. Your modus operandi seems to consist entirely of seeking to smear, regardless of the truth.

Anthony Watts,

If you happen to read this, I seek your advice. You can check the history of my posting here and know that my account of it is true. I have changed to posting under my legal name, in response to your comments, but the outcome of that is that I am now subject to scurrilous insinuations from one of your regular posters. If that’s the way things work on this site then I can learn that lesson and spend my time better in other ways. At the moment, I am feeling that it was a mistake to respond to your suggestion, since it seems to allow ‘Smokey’ to promulgate false character attacks. The entire approach here is to substitute discussion of the science with ad hominem attacks as a diversion. I would hope that you would not wish that to be the character of your discussion threads.

REPLY: I suggest that BOTH of you just move on to other topics. I don’t have time to be a referee in personal disputes between people at odds on this blog. – Anthony

…I refer you to the frequency of comments on this site insinuating that Hansen, Mann, etc. are fraudsters. I have not noted you calling anyone to account over that. Such comments are not just disparaging, of course, they are libelous.

As the lawyers say, “Truth is a defense.”

IMHO, Hansen is either engaging in fraud, or he is incompetent. I also believe that the reason he avoids taking legal action against any of the many other people here and elsewhere who have said the same thing is because of the discovery process, in which his house of cards would come crashing down in a very public way. Even the New York Times would be forced to cover the story, if Hansen decided to sue his detractors.

In a legal deposition Hansen would be forced to answer questions under oath; questions that he has gone to great lengths to avoid, even calling those who disagree with him “court jesters,” as he scurried away from any debate.

Many of his associates would also be deposed, and a martinet like Hansen has surely stepped on a lot of toes. The truth would emerge, and the truth would not be favorable to James Hanson or NASA, or the UN/IPCC, or the new U.S. President.

Also, it seems to me there is a difference between someone who guest posts on this site, and a public figure who rejects any opportunity to do the same, but only takes pot shots from the sidelines. Questioning someone’s integrity who writes a guest column is a different situation than questioning the ethics of a public figure. And as I recall, you had some choice words for Viscount Monckton, whose posts have appeared here.

Finally, you asked if I have “anything to say about the science.” Um, Steven, or Simon, or whatever your current appellation is, I invite you to comb through the threads here and re-read the numerous comments I’ve made regarding the subject of the Best Science site. I should point out that I only responded when you gratuitously mentioned my name here, in an effort to deflect from questions about your use of multiple names. Where’s the ‘science’ in your comment above?

When I first became aware of the issue of screen names here, I emailed the site owner and explained the reason I would like to use the name I’ve been using. We discussed different possibilities, and at that time I provided full and complete personal information [my true name, address, and phone number], and a summary of my temperature/humidity related work experience with my employer of 30 years prior to my retirement.

Maybe if you had been similarly forthcomingr, instead of game playing with multiple screen names, you wouldn’t have been called to account. But your explanations coming after the fact look lame.

blue,

Thanks for re-reading my post. As you can see, it wasn’t directed at you, since you don’t use multiple names.

OK folks, anyone can have the last word, this subject is exhausted for me. I’m moving on to see how La Niña is doing.

Cheers.

Thank you for your response to 16:02:46 above. In respect of this, I entirely agree with you:

Some people whom have made repeated attempts to change identities for the purpose of covertly causing discord have been banned.

I wholly agree that we must take personal responsibility for what we say on the internet.

FWIW, I entirely agree. As I explained above, for a few posts I mistakenly mangled my posting names on a computer that was not mine. I am now posting under my legal name, since Mr Watts has effectively challenged me to do so. You are not, which is fine by me.

As for your remarks about disparaging comments, I refer you to the frequency of comments on this site insinuating that Hansen, Mann, etc. are fraudsters. I have not noted you calling anyone to account over that. Such comments are not just disparaging, of course, they are libelous. Anthony Watts has snipped a comment of mine above since he thought it questioned Dr Spencer’s integrity. I don’t think it did, but I can hardly quote myself to make that point. Let me put it another way, now that Anthony Watts has informed Dr Spencer of this matter raised here I look forward to Dr Spencer’s commenting on it.

As for what makes a good or bad science blog, I would suggest that a determination to examine the science would be a part of it. So, let’s examine the science here. The problem with Dr Spencer’s analysis seems clear. I hope he will comment, but in advance of that, do you have anything to say about the science?

I motion to drop this side track on identity and come back to the math.

Motion fails for lack of a second. See, the site owner has a legitimate concern with posters who disparage him, his site, and those who voluntarily contribute articles. Using multiple aliases to make it appear that their position has more support than it does, and to question the site owner’s integrity, and to attack other posters from the safe vantage point of a fake, untraceable and anonymous name are legitimate concerns.

We are in the site owner’s house, and common courtesy dictates that we conform to his wishes. There are literally millions of other blogs out there, where people can say and do just about anything they want. The winner of this year’s best legal blog has numerous posters who routinely brag about all the different aliases they use. But they’re lawyers, so I expect some of them to be manipulators.

Maybe the other finalists would have done better if they didn’t tolerate name calling, and if they didn’t arbitrarily censor comments they didn’t agree with, and if they didn’t act like juveniles by removing all the vowels from posts that disagree with the AGW party line. Most people are turned off by that kind of intolerance.

It doesn’t seem to me that you fall under any of these categories. I can only speak for myself, but it doesn’t appear that comments about multiple posting names were being addressed to you.

One of the best features of this site is the honesty and courtesy of the commenters. IMHO, that went a long way toward making WUWT the winner of Best Science blog. Maybe the other finalists would have done better if they didn’t tolerate name calling, and if they didn’t arbitrarily censor comments they didn’t agree with, and if they didn’t act like juveniles by removing all the vowels from posts that disagreed with the AGW party line. Most people are turned off by that kind of intolerance. Note that last year’s best science blog winner also demands courtesy, and welcomes different points of view, rather than censoring them.

My apologies for rambling a little, but it’s 3 a.m. here and insomnia strikes again. Anyway, probably less than a half dozen people will see this year-old thread, so like you I’m just venting a little. I think if other posters were as polite as you, there wouldn’t be a problem. But some folks take advantage of the internet’s anonymity to say things they wouldn’t otherwise say if their identities were known.

@Smokey: Dr. Spencer may or may not “refute Tamino”, but that post you link to does not address the line of reasoning expressed in this post here. Here Dr. Spencer posited, that the equality of the two slopes is strong evidence, that the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations is not man made. Tamino has shown – and I have demonstrated it here – that the equality of the two slopes is not, repeat not, a characteristic of the data sets. So this single argument of Dr. Spencer fails. Nothing more, nothing less.

To all: I simply do value my anonymity. I have chosen ONE alias – and made it obvious it is an alias – to use on this site and Tamino’s, Rabett’s, RC, you name it. If it was “blue”, it was me. I have done and will do all my posts under that moniker. I have been polite, made no accusations, refrained from second guessing motives of others and have not misbehaved in any way I am aware of. I let facts speak for themselves, anything I have commented on was verifiable with minimum effort. I’m not connected to the field of climate research, so I simply fail to see, how attaching my real life name adds anything to my argument. I don’t have anything to hide, but my name does not add anything to this debate.

I motion to drop this side track on identity and come back to the math.

P.S.: Mr. Watts, I had not realized how important it is to you, to know the real life name of posters. I still value my anonymity online, but I don’t have a problem with revealing my name to you, as long as you keep my personal informations confidential. If you want to know my name, drop me an e-mail, you’ve got my address from my posts.

Dr. Spencer refutes Tamino: click. Old thread, but interesting.

Also [since I'm mentioned above], let me point out two things:

First, I am certainly not immune from Anthony’s criticism. When he sees something wrong he lets people know, no matter who they are.

Second, a big problem [as I see it] is someone posting under multiple names. That is deceptive. I do all my posts under the name I use here [I won't go into the reason for the name I use, but I've explained it privately]. I don’t post comments under various names. I don’t argue with myself under various assumed names, and I don’t use other names to make it appear that my position is shared by others.

I can’t speak for Anthony, but from my point of view, using multiple names for posting comments seems devious.

And for the record, Anthony has had my full [real] name, address and telephone number for a long time now. Those with fake and alternate names could avoid some of the criticism by providing the same information. What have you got to hide?

You state above that “AFAIK Steven Goddard is a true name.” I accept without question that, AFAYK, that is the case. However, I do not know that it is the case, and I do not know that you know it either.

There can be reasons not to post under one’s legal name which are entirely unrelated to the debate in question. For example, imagine a teacher. let’s say, whose name might be googled by students. I will post under my legal name in future, but I continue to wonder why your challenges are directed only against those with whom you disagree.

Of course, what would be of much more interest is further discussion of the issue in question, in respect of this thread.

REPLY: I think it premature to assume that I disagree with you on this issue. If Dr. Spencer agrees to post a followup, we may very well find ourselves in agreement. Remember, this post is a year old. And what you don’t know is all of the previous issues like this I’ve dealt with. Some people who regularly frequent here have decided that using their real name is a good thing (after I made a post on the issue that covered everyone) and do so now when they post here. Some people whom have made repeated attempts to change identities for the purpose of covertly causing discord have been banned. I just don’t have time nor patience for those sorts of shenanigans. I do feel it is important to be open and honest in this debate, using real names is a courtesy of the most basic kind in civil debate, especially when one person challenges another on their work. – Anthony