I mentioned yesterday in the press release thread:
So here’s the question, the press release below mentions sediments. Place your bets now on whether the Tiljander sediment series remains inverted or not.
Peer review doesn’t seem to catch the problem of using inverted data. That’s a good question for science and the peer reviewers. I suggest those who have contact put the question to them, because the results will look different when the data is used properly. In case anyone doubts this. The inversion was confirmed by the principal researcher that gathered the data, Tiljander, who confirmed this in an email to Steve McIntyre. – Anthony
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Yet another Upside Down Mann out
Science published today yet-another-Mann-et-al-reconstruction:
Michael E. Mann, Zhihua Zhang, Scott Rutherford, Raymond S. Bradley, Malcolm K. Hughes, Drew Shindell, Caspar Ammann, Greg Faluvegi, and Fenbiao N: Global Signatures and Dynamical Origins of the Little Ice Age and Medieval Climate Anomaly, Science 326 (5957), 1256. [DOI: 10.1126/science.1177303].
Seems to me that Mann has re-discovered the Medieval Warm Period.
I had a quick look at the paper, SI, and the code. What seems to be done this time is that the proxy network of Mann et al (2008) is processed with a slightly modified screening of Mann et al (2008), and then the reconstruction is done with a slightly modified RegEM CFR of Mann et al (2007)! Now to answer the question that seems to be on everyone’s lips: yes, Tiljander series are still used as inverted. This can be seen from the positive screening correlation values reported in the file 1209proxynames.xls. In fact, going quickly through the screening code, it seemed to me that they have really “moved on” from the screening employed in Mann et al (2008): only “two-sided test” is used!
%------------------------------------------------------------------
%% below is for selecting full/screened/1856-1925 screened/1926-1995 screened proxy-network
%% replacing "abs(z(4,i))>=0.165"/"abs(z(5,i))>=0.513" in line 75/84 with the followings for your expected proxy-network
%% abs(z(4,i))>=0 / abs(z(5,i))>=0 (full proxy-network)
%% abs(z(4,i))>=0.162 / abs(z(5,i))>=0.496 (screening over 1850-1995)
%% abs(z(6,i))>=0.195 / abs(z(7,i))>=0.602 (screening over 1896-1995)
%--
This means that if a proxy has a strong inverted correlation to the (two-pick?) local temperature, it gets picked – no matter what the physical interpretation is! Since RegEM doesn’t care about the sign, it is now really so that the sign does not matter to them anymore. Anything goes!
I’m speechless.
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Science, schmience. There’s grants that need gettin’.
Anything goes is correct. Where is the credibility for Mann???
Surely it is extinct.
Well, at least we know one thing: Mann has an impeccable sense of comedy timing.
Well, which editors and reviewers have been more eager to be tricked than those of Science and Nature? Other than a few cutting comments they might have to endure in the Faculty Club, what’s to lose?
So if I understand you correctly, what they do is look for any proxy with a high correlation, whether it be positive or negative, and they put it into the reconstruction upside if it has a negative correlation, without feeling the need to explain why it’s negatively correlated physically. This is madness…plain and simple.
I don’t even know how you fight something like this when you can do the crappiest science imaginable and your reviewers don’t even care as long as you come to the “correct’ conclusion but if you do good science that proves them wrong in the slightest, you get ignored.
Mann doesn’t have to be honest – he can still claim to be a scientist, one that furthers ‘post-normal’ science, which according to Prof. Mike Hulme of UEA, and contributor to the IPCC, is what climate change and the IPCC process is all about now. This all comes from a concept by the radical, J.R. Ravetz.
Philosopher Jerome R. Ravetz introduced the concept of ‘post-normal’ science, which is not the good, old-fashioned science that seeks truth. While we are angry that scientists have been cooking the books, our outrage and response is according to ‘normal science’, which Ravetz and Hulme consider ‘obsolete’. Ravetz and this new breed of ‘scientists’ are on a different track – one with a lust for political control. Ravetz, drawing on neo-Marxism, showed them the way. He said:
” …the puzzle-solving approach of ‘normal science’ is obsolete. This is a drastic cultural change for science, which many scientists will find difficult to accept. But there is no turning back…For us, quality is a replacement for truth in our methodology. We argue that this is quite enough for doing science, and that truth is a category with symbolic importance, which itself is historically and culturally conditioned.”
Here’s what he says about climate models, and the deception necessary to produce them:
“…climate change models are a form of “seduction”…advocates of the models…recruit possible supporters, and then keep them on board when the inadequacy of the models becomes apparent. This is what is understood as “seduction”; but it should be observed that the process may well be directed even more to the modelers themselves, to maintain their own sense of worth in the face of disillusioning experience…but if they are not predictors, then what on earth are they? The models can be rescued only by being explained as having a metaphorical function, designed to teach us about ourselves and our perspectives under the guise of describing or predicting the future states of the planet…A general recognition of models as metaphors will not come easily. As metaphors, computer models are too subtle…for easy detection. And those who created them may well have been prevented…from being aware of their essential character.”
More here: http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/climate-change-and-the-death-of-science
Is there any way to tell what would happen to the analysis if the Tiljander proxy was used correctly?
Thx. Cheers.
To all of those AGW scientists out there:
When you have to fake your data, when you have to censor your critics, and when you have to lie in order to prove your theory, you aren’t practicing science, you are perpetuating a fraud.
Mann has published it before the emails leak showing Kaufman privately having second thoughts on Tiljander, and before Kaufman corrigendum on Tiljander (publishing delays). Not sure all his co-authors would let him wreck the train by including Tiljander, had they known it’s upside down in time.
Isn’t the Tiljander series even more problematic? Besides being used upside down, the series was considered by the original authors to not be valid for temperatures as it neared present times because of bridge construction, etc. ?
REPLY: Yes that’s correct. So much sediment was stirred up that the last years were considered useless. – Anthony
“quality is a replacement for truth”
That is a…words fail me…an *amazing* sentiment. Rather like the “new math” and other post-modern educational experiments, his suggestion of “post-normal” science is incredibly harmful – allowing virtually any sort of abuse that can be dreamt up and subjectively justified.
Obviously, MM didn’t know that the inversion of the data was known, nor did he know that the scientist who logged the data verified that it was used in inverted fashion, either that, or he has the arrogance to believe that by rediscovering the “Medieval Climate Anomaly [sic]”, he can deflect all criticism away from previous dross.
Amazing.
I never thought that my lifetime interest in weather and climate would place me in the midst of 21st Century ideological warfare.
Does Science and Nature have the same publisher as the National Enquirer, just asking? I maybe belittling the National Enquirer.
“I’m speechless.” Anthone
Yes, but are you surprised?
REPLY: Actually, that was Jean S, who wrote the post, but I share the sentiment. – Anthony
So…in these computer games the player always loses! ☺
Whilst I do not endorse inverting the series, it’s a fact that if series correlate, the sign is unimportant. You just assign a negative coefficient. But I do not trust Mann to do objective science, he has too much invested in it.
REPLY: the issue is that Mann has known about this for some time, and had plenty of opportunity to correct this in the paper beforehand. – Anthony
So if ice thickness is used as a proxy, an increase in ice is a measure of increased global warming. If cloudiness is used as a proxy, the more cloudy it is the more warming has occurred.
Thank you, Jean S for your work. How much harder would it be to write a comment to Science on your findings?
ScientistforTruth: and yet they hide behind the peer-review process, which is, of course, “normal science.” I’m not familiar with Ravetz, but it sounds like simply more deconstructionist claptrap. He’s describing and trying to legitimize the kind of science that allows for Mann’s trick and “hide the decline.” In this view, Science isn’t science, it’s literary metaphor manipulated for affect.
So what exactly happened here? I’m guessing Mann’s paper was already in the pipeline (to generate the maximum amount of pre-Copenhagen hysteria) when Climategate exploded. At that point, it’s either withdraw the paper, which would be seen as an obvious reaction to having the data and methods publicly exposed, or muddle on and hope the damage control by MSM and high-level friends in government was effective enough to keep things they way they’ve always been.
The timing on this is precious!!
We knew of the two branches of Science: Pure and Applied Sciences. We will now need to add a new branch the “Anything Goes Science” or “Twaddle Science”… any other names come to mind?
The MWP is now the MCA.
Still deniers, and more names to add to the Wegman Report Fig. 5.2 matrix.
CRU Leaked Documents.
[snip]
REPLY: “Sophistry in politics” aka “Politicians cost lives” No and hell no to any new comments from you. You proceeded to post bomb multiple threads here multiple times even after I told you the content you were pushing on your website was not welcome.
Hell you are doing it right now, multiple posts under difference names.
Coming back later and saying “we have not seen eye to eye” while at the same time engaging in post bombing time insults my intelligence and the intelligence of readers here when what was called for was an apology.
Bugger off!
– Anthony
When someone is hallucinating or delusional about certain fixations, like hockey sticks, I thought the general pracitce is to get that person medical help.
Mann, as an employee of a progressive highly reputable institution with great HR benefits, should really take advantage of modern medical assistance ASAP.
Ray,
I think you are confusing the magic that is at the basis of Mann’s work with science.
This sentence I wrote above was rushed: “In this view, Science isn’t science, it’s literary metaphor manipulated for affect.”
Here’s what I actually meant:
“In this view, science isn’t science as a quest for truth, it’s fiction in which you can deploy all the attendant literary devices like metaphor and hyperbole to enhance the narrative.”
It has no doubt never occurred to Mr. Ravetz that post-normal in this case is actually abnormal.