Like the Apollo astronauts who have walked on the moon and the NASA staff that discount the severity of the global warming alarm (Dr. Stephan Lewandowsky, please take note of this for your moon landing conspiracy theories), another prominent aerospace figure comes out with what he thinks about the pal review system and the claims made in journals:
“I was shocked to find that there were actually climate scientists who wouldn’t share the raw data, but would only share their conclusions in summary graphs that were used to prove their various theories about planet warming. In fact I began to smell something really bad, and the worse that smell got, the deeper I looked.”
That quote is from Burt Rutan, an engineer whom not only has achieved great things, but who is also an avid reader of WUWT.
You can read the entire article at Larry Bell’s Forbes column:
You go Burt!
When Burt talks, pilots and airplane owners like me, listen.
Haven’t read your climate stuff yet Burt, but I will.
Still working those long weeks in my own business and pick up what I can, when I can, regarding climate, here at WUWT.
PS: There are some really cool lakes down here in Oregon on theWest side of the Three Sisters area you should target when your sea plane is done.
Best,
Ron Richey
You may also want to go to http://rps3.com/Pages/Burt_Rutan_on_Climate_Change.htm.
PLEASE ……. Go to Rutan’s web site and check out his research page ……. it is a wealth of wonderful information ….OPEN to all to look at !!! …….. THANKYOU Mr Rutan
But Bert Rutan is an engineer, familiar with the real world and how things actually work. He’s a real professional. He’s not one of those academics working away behind closed doors with their toys and models.
Burt Rutan was always one of my hero’s as a kid. I always wanted to build one of his ultralight canard designs. Maybe one day I will. Thanks for being a lifelong inspiration!
I’m starting to wonder if the good Dr. Stephan Lewandowsky wants out of the climate debate alarmism cult. Clearly he knows about the former NASA employee letter, and all that have taken a more reasonable and objective look on the climate issue over the last few years. Combined with his redicilous websurvey paper, I see it as a scream for help. I also had the same thoughts on the whole Glieck tradegy. Surely, incompetence alone doesn’t allow for this.
Rutan is an inquisitive and reasonable man with an engineering background. I am not surprised that he see through all this like all other reasonable men.
Exactly my story too.
The way Svensmark was treated by IPCC-Followers really got me started. They nearly pushed him out of his life: just read about what effects the “scientific response” to his hypothesis were.
gruel
Excellent Article – a good read – good to hear that a review of the data by someone of ability is so popular from google searches. Confirms that the Alarmist spin is no longer the only game in town.
To accomplish something hard, like Burt Rutan, you must be able to distinguish between reality and mindless twaddle.
It’s good to read that someone agrees with my suspicions.
Burt is such a treasure! But I am not surprised: You can’t safely lift a man off the ground and bring him back if you don’t possess the ability to smell rotten ideas. And we know Burt had his senses tested real hard.
More and more adults realize that the children have been playing in the kitchen without supervision too long.
aquix says:
September 12, 2012 at 9:01 am
It might appear as incompetent to you but have we heard from any social scientist about that? I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a rather normal paper in those circles.
What I can’t figure out is how Burt can filter out the enviro-geekery of one of his close associates in aerospace: Sir Richard Branson. That’d take some doing listening to the faux-elitist environmentalism espoused by the Bigfoot of carbon, without b*tch-slapping some common sense into him.
I have to admire him for that alone.
Yeah, Rutan’s name is one I’ve come to respect greatly over the years, and I’ll always pause to see what he’s saying. He’s an engineers’ version of Feynman – thorough and careful.
I’ll also second Julian Braggins’ recommendation on Tips ‘n’ Notes of http://burtrutan.com/burtrutan/downloads/EngrCritiqueCAGW-v4o3.pdf – a proper engineer’s dismissal of nonscience. If I found Burt Rutan shredding something I believed in, I’d give that belief a very thorough examination before continuing to believe.
If only he could get through to his partner Richard Branson.
Checked into Rutan’s background. Very interesting. Seems he’s skeptical over a lot of things and wanted to do a lot of research in them rather than listen to others. Just like me. I liked the fact that he also looked into the building of Pyramids because he didn’t think the conventional theory was good enough. I wonder if he had read Chris Dunn’s books over it? Very detailed and it was based on engineering point of view as well. Must read books!
But, but… he’s not a climate scientist! /sarc
I love the signature sound of an approaching Long Easy – there’s obviously an owner of one near my home since on weekends the distinctive sound announces its arrival. My two sons will never forget the name Rutan since I always let them know that the canard design is on its way over us. It is oh so refreshing knowing that a brilliant aerospace engineer also applies the same level of industrious inquiry to climate science as he does his creations. And Burt’s results speak for themselves.
The comments on the Forbes interview were telling. The AGW trolls are everywhere. Especially liked the one stating Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” was well researched and validated. And of course the “your no climate scientist” remarks were also in some comments.
jayhd says:
The comments on the Forbes interview were telling…
About what I noticed. Funny, the reliance on ‘consensus’ rather than facts – helping to make is point for him.
I recall my surprise when Voyager was able to fly around the world nonstop in 1986. I had thought for reasons of scale, that this feat would have required an extremely large aircraft (to carry enough fuel) flying at great altitude. (thinner air) the previous record was held by a B52, something like 12,000 miles, less than half the distance Voyager. Anyway, I thought it was cool that a low drag design powered by a relatively simple horizontally opposed piston engine (I think the second engine was unused for most of the flight), flying at modest altitude 10 to 12,000 ft was the design that blew away the previous record. Very cool! Ingenious design!
Anyway, Mr Rutan’s views on global warming are also cool.
Clearly Mr Rutan’s not understood that facts , data and reality have a secondary role in climate ‘science’, primary is models ,adherence to dogma and the ‘truth to power ‘ spoken by its prophets.
Like many once he starts to look at it as a religion not a science he will understand how it actual works .
…Since I’m very accustomed to analyzing a lot of data, about three or four years ago many alarmist claims by some climate scientists caught my attention. Since this is such an important topic, I began to look into it firsthand.
Although I have no climate science credentials, I do have considerable expertise in processing and presenting data…
Well, I am also an engineer approximately same age as Burt, and like model flying as he does 🙂 We have also the same skeptical view on climate science in common. My blog devoted to Rutan early last year: http://agbjarn.blog.is/blog/agbjarn/entry/1130066/
Ágúst