UPDATE 3/12/12 – a new study presents very strong evidence for the comet theory, see here
Bishop Hill alerts us to this news item in Miller-McCune, a policy and research website. It seems the scientific claims can’t be replicated by others…but wait for the kicker.
OK, having read that primer, it looks like a slam dunk for falsification, right?
Yet, the scientists who described the alleged impact in a hallowed U.S. scientific journal refuse to consider the critics’ evidence — insisting they are correct, even though no one can replicate their work: the hallmark of credibility in the scientific world.
…
“We are under a lot of duress,” said Kennett. “It has been quite painful.” So much so, that team members call their critics’ work “biased,” “nonsense” and “screwed up.”
…
“It is very peculiar,” Holliday said. “They propose an idea, a study contradicts it, then they criticize the scientists or the work.”
Hmm, where have we seen this sort of behavior before? Man o’ mann, I wish I could remember where contradictory peer reviewed scientific replication was dismissed as “biased,” “nonsense” and “screwed up.”.
But it reminds me of what might go on in scientific circles above Monks restaurant:
The news item in Miller-McCune is highly recommended reading
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Anthony you missed the real kicker which is in the comments section to the article:
Being a wordy fellow the good Dr. Stieg needed a second comment to complete his statement:
Just keep saying it- until we believe it….
You hope…
“Not a lie, if you believe it”.
This reminds me…
Now I’ll give you something to believe. I’m just one hundred and one, five months and a day.’
‘I can’t believe that!’ said Alice.
‘Can’t you?’ the Queen said in a pitying tone. ‘Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.’
Alice laughed. ‘There’s no use trying,’ she said ‘one can’t believe impossible things.’
‘I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast”.
(5. Wool and Water, Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll)
An open and Clovis case if you ask me.
The truly sad thing is, the incompetence in science is so widespread that you can’t trust the academics on either side of this debate. They all assume too much (that is in fact wrong), so points and counterpoints are just so much rank speculation.
I always like to to a Google time line for some of the subject you bring up even though one must “consider the source”. so I did a Google timeline for Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes: and I attempt to post the link . .
http://www.google.com/search?q=Cycle+of+Cosmic+Catastrophes&hl=en&sa=X&tbs=tl:1,tl_num:80&prmd=ivns&ei=TMnSTaeVO8mgtgeazbiUCg&ved=0CGoQywEoBA&biw=1004&bih=594
I actually, would say (postulate) that if a big asteroid ever hit earth it . . . . would have gone “in” where the Dead Sea is and come out where the Yellow Stone is . . . like a giant gun shot wound . . . but, that would simply be a guess with no real evidence to prove it except my wondering mind about things like this . . . . hoping of course it would make a logical possiblity . . . .
Long, long, long ago . . . no one would ever have thought (or believed) a rock could burn . . . but we now know it is called coal . . .
The alarmists do have their heads on a swivel, don’t they:
I’d say everyone who likes to see good science should be appalled at this, not just CAGW skeptics. Of course, maybe the alarmists just see it as “business as usual.”
An interesting quote from the article: “Kennett seems fixated on the Younger Dryas, Broecker added, “He won’t listen to anyone. It’s almost like a religion to him.””
Like a religion…hmmmm.
Also interesting:
““It does feed distrust in science,” says Wallace Broecker, a geochemist at Columbia University and an international dean of climate research. “Those who don’t believe in human-produced global warming grab onto it.””
Does that mean that only GW skeptics distrust dishonest science? Thanks for the compliment!
“Man o’ mann, I wish I could remember where contradictory peer reviewed scientific replication was dismissed as “biased,” “nonsense” and “screwed up.”.
But Anthony, your peer-reviewed scientific replication surfacestations work didn’t contradict the extant instrumental temperature records, it affirmed them!
I really don’t think you need to worry about it being the subject of accusations from the consensus such as “biased,” “nonsense” and “screwed up.” If anything, many think its publication demonstrates remarkable integrity since this affirmative replication completely undermines what you have always contended it would show. Well played, sir, well played! Bravo.
> The news item in Miller-McCune is highly recommended reading
Indeed ! Did you see the comment by Eric Steig (or someone using that name):
I think I converted the HTML errors into something close to what Steig intended, they were badly messed up by human and silicon hands.
The story and substories are amazing – on many levels.
Queen:”I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast”.
Douglas Adams: “If you’ve done six impossible things today, why not round it out with breakfast at Milliways: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe”.
The curious(er and curiouser) thing comparing guys like Steig with H2G2 is that Adams took care to make his ludicrous ideas plausible – but these guys can’t seem to help making plausible ideas ludicrous.
Hey Laurie! Sorry to pick nits…
“Long, long, long ago . . . no one would ever have thought (or believed) a rock could burn . . . but we now know it is called coal . . .”
Coal is not a rock and it is not a mineral, it is organic. I know Wiki will call it a rock, but consider the source. In geologic terms, a rock is a aggregate of minerals.
I remember listening to Arthur Meyerhoff explain why continental drift was impossible. Immanuel Velikovsky was a crank, but he noticed important things that others ignored.
“Stones do not fall from the sky.”
Let science work its way without personalities getting involved.
In Greenland ice cores, 10-Be levels rise again during the Younger Dryas to almost the same concentrations as during the Ice Age and then fall to current low levels when the Younger Dryas ended. So how did cosmic rays know about the Younger Dryas? Just coincidence?
boballab says:
May 17, 2011 at 11:54 am
Anthony you missed the real kicker which is in the comments section to the article:
Eric Steig 2 days ago
Having been the victim of attacks on my character, as a consequence of publishing something that appears to go against the grain (though in my case it has turned out to be correct: O’Donnellgate),……..
===================================================
lol, oh my, reality is so hard for some people to deal with.
Hey Gator! “Sorry to pick nits…”
“Long, long, long ago there were no such things as minerals, just earth, fire, air, and water . . . I think that how that goes. . . .
Didn’t the Clovis ‘disappear’ before ‘the comet’ which then began the Younger Dryas?
There is a concrete takeaway from this, and it is quite important. To come to a reasonable conclusion based on observations of a reasonable methodology, and then to be (apparently) refuted in a later study is NOT malfeasance. It’s science.
Everything on top of that, advocacy, personal attack, public dismemberment.. That’s malfeasance.
even though no one can replicate their work: the hallmark of credibility in the scientific world.’ expect it would seem climate science where saying trust me on this, seems to be enough.
Are you a liar?
How many planets are there?
If you say eight, you are hip to the new consensus.
If you say nine, you are either uninformed or love Disney characters more than scientific orthodoxy.
But what did you say 20 years ago? You probably said nine. Does that make you a liar?
Interesting topic. But one thing has always bothered me about this whole ‘Clovis disappearance’ concept.
They link the disappearance of the Clovis people with the disappearance of the “mammoths they fed on” as written here. That is the first problem. Mammoths were only ONE of their prey. (And mammoths survived on places like Wrangell Island
much later UNTIL human hunters got there.)
But ‘Clovis people’ are identified by their giant spearpoints. So whether those people actually disappeared or they just changed to different spearpoints (for increasingly smaller prey after the megafauna were mostly gone) is another whole question.
No doubt this was a period of great ecological change, driven by both climate and human activity. Much too complex for a simple ‘Lone Comet’ theory.
I started reading the article to try and find what the evidence was that hadn’t been replicated. The author didn’t get around to that tidbit until well over halfway through the article. I barely made it that far. I haven’t seen so much invective and so little science since the last time I read a post at Real Climate.
Mods : I did attempt to post this in Tips and Notes (honest) but it appears to be full.
Experimental evidence appears to support the mechanism for Svensmark’s GCR theory…..
http://science.au.dk/en/news-and-events/news-article/artikel/forskere-fra-au-og-dtu-viser-at-partikler-fra-rummet-skaber-skydaekke/
Hoser says:
May 17, 2011 at 1:39 pm
So how did cosmic rays know about the Younger Dryas? Just coincidence?
Isn’t it so that in colder times less snow is falling, increasing the relative amount of 10Be in the ice?
Interesting that Eric Steig pops up as a commenter, claiming to have also been a victim of character assassination for publishing something going “against the grain”, and offering support for the comet theory.
The parallels are just too obvious – the intransigence in the face of overwhelming refutation, the claim to victimhood, the re writing of history. But for Steig to claim he was publishing something “that appears to go against the grain” is just silly. The whole reason he got the attention he did, and so obviously craved, was that his work went very much WITH the grain, adding yet another continent to the global warming cause.