Many readers have commented about their experiences at Real Climate with posts being deleted and being run over roughshod by hostile comments there. I was sent this YouTube link by a WUWT web affiliate, and as I was watching it, it occurred to me that the phrase “tightly controlled” really describes the Real Climate methodology.
Watch Helen Thomas at the end. For those of you who don’t know Helen Thomas, may I suggest reading up on her. She’s a fixture with the White House Press Corp and her statements to Robert Gibbs are simply stunning. Helen mentioned “openness and transparency”, from my view she could have just as easily been talking about Michael Mann and his famous “censored” FTP folder discovered by McIntyre.
Now if we can just get Andy Revkin to ask questions like Chip Reid and Helen Thomas, we might get somewhere.
Now every time I think of Chip Reid, I’ll think of Real Climate’s “tightly controlled” environment.
I should add that I’ve experienced the same thing at RC, valid questions I have posed have been wholesale deleted personally by Gavin Schmidt. I’ve kept a record and screencaps of such things, I would suggest that you all do the same.
Deleting rude comments or comments that are badly OT or inflaming is one thing, but when you start deleting valid scientific questions posed by people in your circle of interest, it doesn’t take long for all of those individually affected to start comparing notes.
RC seems to have a small following of the same people that make up a core group, but when you examine the web statistics, it seems obvious that such a strategy is failing their primary mission of reaching out to people:
My blue stats start in October of last year because that is when I started the full domain name. Prior to that they are in the olive green color plot. In both reach and traffic, WUWT grows and RC declines.
Here is the URL to see for yourself:
http://alexa.com/siteinfo/wattsupwiththat.com+realclimate.org+%20wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com
Of course, these are unadjusted numbers so any conclusion drawn from them may be premature. Best to wait for the adjusted data set.
UPDATE: Since there is some confusion in comments, I’m adding this. That first graph is a “top sites” graph, with sites like Google and iTunes and Amazon being at the very top. It shows where WUWT and RC exist in the “top sites” pecking order. WUWT is now somewhere around the top 30,000 web sites while RC has fallen below the top 100,000 mark. – Anthony
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Theo it was a post on an article in the Guardian entitled “89 months and counting”. If you go to guardian.co.uk comments and type the title you’ll get the article, it’s a post in the comments on that article.
@Theo Richel
It is a comment (by James Cameron) on the following post by Andrew Simms:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/jul/01/environment-economy-89-months
EcoChemist (20:52:45)
My week went by and I was called in to hear my fate…
Great story, I want to here whats next!
Some very interesting points have been made here, it is refreshing to see that your site gets quality visitors.
It’s remarkable to me that 1 in 20000 read WUWT on a good day… It’s a great achievement on the one hand, but also goes to show how few people have an interest in finding out what’s going on with climate. What do the other 19,999 know about the debate? Evidently enough to not worry about AGW since most polls put it at the bottom of the list (if it even shows up), but are these 19,999 willing to take action to stop cap & trade? I sure hope so…
I wonder if Chip Reid will bet reassigned for asking these questions?
Over the past three months, have had a running battle with the people at RC over using spectral analysis and signal conditioning methods for temperature analysis (1659-2008 series from England). Needless to say that that topic is now called
“off limits”. What they didn’t like was the analysis showed a decline at the end, following the global temp composite at climate4you. Considering the name calling, it must have struck a nerve. Their “statistics” expert said the analysis was “bungled”. “bungled” for following the procedures outlined by Blackman & Tukey in the “Measurement of Power Spectra” classic. Seems like they are in a “statistics rut”. The book “How to Lie with Statistics” is still being sold. I wonder why?
EcoChemist (20:52:45)
A chemist should know that the word is spelled “mercaptAn”; not “mercaptIn”.
Especially one who fancies himself a writer.
(Alarm bells went off when I read that)
And how is it that a QC lab doesn’t have the equipment to perform product assays?
(More bells)
Steve,
To be fair “mercaptin” is a fairly common misspelling but I share your notice that it would be odd for someone who claims such perfection in writing. And I have worked in places without proper QC abilities before. But often you will find it doesn’t have to do with QC abilities so much as it has to do with industrial corruption. Generally you would see a labor union involved. The workers are doing something to either reduce their workload or damage their employer (in order to give a competitor who gives a better union contract more business). So the line employees in the QC department are instructed to look away because it would be a shame if anything happened to their new car or new house or if they were to lose their job. Not sure how much that goes on these days but it was pretty common not so long ago.
Great example of a how-not-to-inform policy.
I remember Helen Thomas from her appearance in the video from Stephen Colberts White House Correspondents Dinner thing.
If you havent seen it, here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=8E181BDAEE8B275B&search_query=colbert+correspondents+dinner
Steve Moore,
Typos aren’t impossible and they were long pieces, I’d give the spelling error a wave.
While sending out your active assays isn’t the best way of getting rapid test results, there are labs that cut equipment and supply costs by doing exactly that. Look up CRO or contract research organizations and you’ll find many labs offering to develop and conduct all your tests for you.
Mike
crosspatch,
There are enough things in the story so far to make me wonder.
A QC department is supposed to make sure that what goes out the door meets specification, after all, and since the writer mentions Sodium Nitrite, I’m left assuming that this is a facility under FDA purview — which would mean fairly strict reporting requirements.
And, Hell, it ain’t that difficult to do a simple chemical assay. We learned to do them in high school. Granted, in the mid-60’s Camas High School had an excellent chemistry department. We could even go in after school and do our own experiments (A lot of Nitrogen Tri-Iodide and Mercury Fulminate ended up being produced, but then, we were young and stupid. I still have all my fingers).
Oh, well, let’s see where Part Three takes us. Even with the glitches, it’s entertaining.
On-Topic:
THANK GOD FOR HELEN THOMAS!
Mike86 (09:27:29) :
“Typos aren’t impossible…”
True enough.
But there’s a lot of real estate between the “A” and the “I” on a keyboard. Maybe the writer is like me: sometimes my right and left hands go their own ways…
“While sending out your active assays isn’t the best way of getting rapid test results, there are labs that cut equipment and supply costs by doing exactly that. ”
Again, true enough.
But, why would you need a trained chemist then? Unless it’s just to satisfy a regulation — which might explain the wage scale…
As I said above, let’s see where the story goes.
It may turn out I’ve been hasty.
[snip rude ad hom against Helen Thomas]
Steve Moore:
Also, we don’t know in what period of time this happened. Things were much different in the 1950’s and 1960’s than they are today. If this happened several decades ago, the standards in place (or lack of them) might not be comparable to what we consider “standard” procedures today.
I did find that obscure a little while ago when I head Obama or the press secretary calling reporters names for their “question”. So, now I understand the process better with this video. As Helen Thomas put it, it is controlling the press.
From her reaction and that of others in the press gallery, I don’t think that little charade will go on for much longer.
“From her reaction and that of others in the press gallery” …
I think Gibbs got a taste of that the other day when the press openly laughed at his statements concerning tax reductions in the daily briefing. When pressed on Obama’s pledge that no family making less than $250K would pay a single dollar in increased taxes and asked if that pledge was still in effect, he wouldn’t answer the question and replied with “we will let the process work its way through”. The second time he repeated that non-answer, the press laughed at him.
I have a BS in Chemistry and worked in the chemical industry for 15 years. I held a variety of jobs, but that being said the pickin’s for a BS Chem. degree are not stellar in the US. If Eco worked for a small blending company, it is common to use physical properties, wet chemistry, or a minimum-necessary number of analytical machines. Those machines are expensive and a small company tries to find other ways to QC product. The pay isn’t great and it is very difficult to move between industrial specialties. If a plastics company is looking for a QC, tech service, or product development chemist, that company will want a chemist with experience in that particular field; not one with experience in pesticides for example. They do not want to train someone in the arcana of that specialty. If you do get hired without the experience they want, you get entry level salary. I get a good laugh when politicians say they want to start some program or another to get more science or engineering graduates. IT’S THE PAY, STUPID!! I was a QC lab manager when a training position opened up in IT. I took a small hit to salary and was making way more than the chemist job inside a a couple of years. Chemical jobs were being moved overseas where the cheap raw materials are in the 80s and 90s. (IT came later.)
“In searching for a common enemy against whom we can unite, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like, would fit the bill. In their totality and in their interactions these phenomena do constitute a common threat which must be confronted by everyone together. But in designating these dangers as the enemy, we fall into the trap which we have already warned readers about, namely mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention in natural processes, and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviors that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.”
‘The First Global Revolution, a report by the council of the Club of Rome’
Page 86
http://www.scribd.com/doc/2297152/Alexander-King-Bertrand-Schneider-The-First-Global-Revolution-Club-of-Rome-1993-Edition
This epic battle with RC is reminding me…
I collected the emails that went back and forth between Martin Durkin (of the film Global Warming Swindle) and the horrible Bob Ward. Don’t assume I’m correct, have a look and check, but I consider that Ward’s abuse of power in his position is as bad as, or worse than, that of Connolley at Wikipedia.
Ok guys, sorry I haven’t finished my story.
First off, I should address Steve. Steve, I have ALWAYS been under the impression that mercaptin was spelled as such, however you are 100% correct that it’s spelled mercaptAn. Isn’t science great where you can say you are mistaken? It’s unfortunate that you MUST be an intruder and a farce for any faults which we all, being human, have. I never claimed to be a genius chemist in the first place. 🙂 retrospective edit following: Steve exemplifies one of the things that I find troubling in this climate debate. People are often so eager to prove their intellectual superiority and call someone out for a fault that they neglect to recognize that everyone is human and mistakes can and will be made. Not allowing our peers to have justifiably made a mistake puts them in such a defensive position when we are so aggressive makes them “stick to their guns” so solidly as to become counterproductive to the scientific process simply because of the normal desire to defend oneself over what I will term “intellectual violence”. Perhaps we can all become more compassionate to the errors of humans and when pointing out those errors allow the person to easily say “I didn’t realize that and I was wrong” without denigrating them.
Second of all, this was a small company where we did most analysis using colorimetry. Nitrite and molybdate were most common. We honestly didn’t have the capabilities there to measure everything. We did have a partner who we supplied who would do independent analysis for us when we needed. So I hope that clears things up. 🙂
So I was called in to come to a 4:00 meeting with my boss. Obviously being called in at 4 was not a good sign, but I showed up in appropriate attire. Of course when I got there, all of my things were packed up in a box and a person from the company HR department was there. I was then bullied by her to get me to sign an agreement never to discuss or disclose any information that I knew from working there. I was told how they were suing someone currently and that it was in my best interests to sign. I simply said I wasn’t going to sign anything and was going to have my lawyer (having a mother who worked at a law office for 15 years was nice, because who can afford a lawyer on such a bad salary) read it. My boss, the man who I felt had great integrity spoke up for me and said in front of the HR lady that it was probably a good decision and to let it go. There isn’t much more to say about the proceedings after this. I got my pay and my vacation pay for the year and went about getting home.
This was an extremely troubling event in my life. I had done all the right things. I exceeded expectations. Every single formula of mine worked out perfectly in both the lab setting and in production. I reduced the number of out of spec batches from 3-4 per week down to 1 every few months. I had never botched a production batch correction (my first solo correction was our most expensive batch ever made, but not because I had to correct it). I had saved us multiple times from sending bad product out and I had found corruption and document falsification. And I was rewarded with… getting fired.
Gentlemen and ladies, I am not a unique person. I’m not a genius. I’m good at my job and probably pretty smart by most standards, but I don’t know everything. Again, I’m not a unique person at all. The more I talked to folks, the less unique I found that I was. People, like myself, being put in this situation is not an uncommon thing in the world. As a scientist, you are asked to look the other way in spite of the honest data. You are asked to make the data/results match what the outcome is SUPPOSED to be. There is only scientific integrity at the personal level. This is a FACT that we must deal with in the world of science.
I even feel that Gavin Schmidt is a tragic figure in all of this. The man is married and has a child. He is trying to provide the best life he can for his family and hopefully build enough personal wealth to provide for future generations. I think this is something we can all agree that we would like to do in our lifetimes. He has been put in such an extreme position by very powerful people. Consider this: What are his choices? He can either come out and do an honest analysis of the global warming debate and refute most everything he has claimed before. This would result in the obvious assertion that he was being fraudulent for monetary gain and he would be humiliated and his life would be all but over. He would be subject to insult, due to his position in this great debate, by most everyone in the world and this surely wouldn’t escape those who he actually values in his life.
On the other hand, he can continue on the path he is now going down. If one were to play the odds, he is most likely kind to his wife and child and values their opinions of him much more than anyone else in the world. By the time he would die, he would be remembered by those he cared about for just about everything else other than his career. I know that I won’t remember my father for what a great man he was in terms of his job, but I will remember him for my personal relationship with him. He can go on being a “true believer” and even if he were wrong, who can say a bad thing about someone who honestly believed, even if it were a charade that was unproveable, that they were doing the right thing?
So I ask you all this: What venue are we giving Gavin Schmidt, Michael Mann, and even Al Gore to come clean? We are as much to blame because these people are like cornered rats. We, in the community, offer little to no option of admitting fault. We like to act like we are seekers of truth, but in the end we come off as arrogant intellectuals trying to “one up” each other quite often. I’m sure many will take issue with this statement by arguing that “pride has nothing to do with facts” or some such thing. However, at the end of the day we all care about how others look at us and don’t want to suffer humiliation.
How can we, instead of constantly attacking, offer those people who are surely smart enough to see the facts before them the appropriate outlet to rectify past mistakes without humiliation?
This may very well be more important to the whole realm of science than one single issue over man made climate change.
p.s. Anthony, this may have all been hard to follow being broken up over a few nights. Feel free to post together and editorialize if you wish.
EdoChemist:
“People, like myself, being put in this situation is not an uncommon thing in the world.”
We’re on the same page here. In my case it started when a certain program administrator sent around a memo instructing us to back date a document to make it appear we were in compliance with federal requirements. (She obviously did not realize the implications of this or she would never have put it in writing and sent it to several hundred teachers.) I wrote the State Dept of Education asking what my personal liability would be if I back-dated this document. Made one big mistake–left the district heading on the supporting document. SDE never gave me the courtesy of an answer, but they did send my name back to the district. The folks downtown were forced to circulate a new memo instructing us to ignore the first one. But things have been glacial down there ever since.
So I am principally concerned with Mr. Carlin. EPA leadership is determined to control the flow of information internally, as well as externally. It is clear that Carlin is already on the receiving end of retaliation. If ever there were a case for congressional oversight, this is it. Hey, where is Helen Thomas when we need her? : > )
Re: EcoChemist
“I can see a teachable moment coming…please proceed. – Anthony”
Indeed, this is a lesson to think about. We seem to take great pleasure in finding fault, not with the facts, but with the person whose arguments we think we’ve destroyed. We give the True Believers no wriggle room to escape the corner they’ve worked themselves into. Seeing no escape, even the most docile an individual will lash out.
I imagine there are many otherwise good researchers who are trapped, required to support a so-called scientific position with which the facts don’t jibe. How can we shift our rhetoric so that the data we find, and the conclusions we reach leave these people an opportunity to come over to the light without losing face?
Having said all that, it is my opinion that there are those beyond the pale, but let’s not paint with too broad a brush.
I, too, have been placed in compromising positions in industry. This may be why I’m the cynic I am. While I don’t expect all businesses to be poorly run with bad ethics, I’m not surprised when it happens. Likewise, I am not surprised when government-run, “science-based” agencies are not ethically run because of the political factor. But I expect more out of people who claim to be true scientists, doing pure research. I expect science, of all things human, to be about finding the truth and that requires integrity, honesty, and ethical behavior. It makes me mad when supposed scientists lie or misrepresent the fact in any way.
I even feel that Gavin Schmidt is a tragic figure in all of this. The man is married and has a child. He is trying to provide the best life he can for his family and hopefully build enough personal wealth to provide for future generations.
I’m not sure I’ll feel too sorry for him. He should have made a bucketload of money by now. Do you think he spares a thought for the UK miners who lost their jobs in the 1980’s when Thatcher, the architect of AGW, closed down the coal mines? Do the AGW elite worry about all the jobs that will be lost through cap and trade should that be passed?
No – I won’t feel sorry for GS and his cronies at all.