UPDATE: At first I was concerned about this poll and the language involved. Now from comments I’m seeing a number of people whom aren’t worried and see an opportunity to voice their opinion. I’ll leave it up to the reader to decide if they wish to participate. – Anthony
Wow, just wow. Who would think we’d see this sort of language and lack of sound judgment from a science museum? In the Now playing at a museum near you, the “Day After Tomorrow Map” thread, something interesting was discovered.
Once you click the “count me out” button, you enter a netherworld of governmental lists. The London Science Museum might want to think about redoing this web feature. The images are below, here’s the link.
Okay…now look what happens when you click “COUNT ME OUT”. Yellow highlighter mine.
Not only is this insulting and threatening to the reader, it virtually ensures that all responses logged by the London Science Museum are “COUNT ME IN” if you originally chose to vote otherwise.
Future presentation of results to the government: “The results show overwhelmingly that people agree with us. Hardly anyone chose COUNT ME OUT.
Even with the caveat the list*, how many people would trust it? I wouldn’t. I doubt many people even get to the caveat. The main statement is just too worrisome.
Perhaps the “COUNT ME OUT” respondents get a visit from these chaps? 😉
To be fair, respondents get a similar message if they choose to be counted in.
However, one wonders how many people will respond at all once they see that language.
The Science Museum really ought to pull this feature or redo language in it in my opinion.
h/t to alert WUWT reader coddbotherer
UPDATE: 10/24 @11:30PM
It appears some robovoting hit this poll. Robert Phelan’s letter pretty well sums up my thinking on this issue.
Sirs:
By now you must be aware that your on-line Prove It poll was seriously compromised. I voted “count-me-out” once under my own name, but after the individual who corrupted your poll revealed himself, I tested your polling system with two consecutive “count-me-in” votes, which were both apparently accepted.
Leaving aside my distaste for your support of politicized, Lysenko-style “science”, as both a social scientist and computer systems consultant I respect data and am appalled by the shoddy manner in which your organization collected it. A few suggestions:
1. State clearly the purpose of your poll and exactly which data will be used for that purpose.
2. You stated that you would pass the results to the government:
a. if the results had fairly resulted in a “count-me-out” majority, would those results have been passed on?
b. it would be helpful top explain what you would do with the comments you requested from the “count-me-outs”;
c. since the results were to be passed, presumably, to the UK government, foreigners such as myself should have been excluded from the voting. Checking the IP location of voters should be easy.
3. No one, either inside the UK or outside received the follow up e-mail. The explanation provided about ensuring one vote per person, frankly, makes no sense.
4. Maintaining a confidential list of voter names, e-mail addresses and IP’s to verify non-duplication would be easy. Making the voting a two-step process, where the voter had to respond to a follow-on e-mail would be even more secure.
5. Maintaining a list of non-acceptable names for screening: Joseph Stalin, Lenin, Mao Tse-tung and Mickey Mouse all claimed to have voted no, as did Keith Briffa, Michael Mann, Gavin Schmidt and James Hansen.
7. Create a display page where interested persons can view the names who have voted. Given the politicized nature of the topic, a unified alphabetical list would be appropriate.
8. Test the security of your poll before putting it on-line. Find a good hacker and pay him only if he succeeds in breaking into your system.
If you people can’t even run an on-line poll, why should anyone consider your opinions on climate? If this poll was so important that you needed two ministers of HMG to introduce it, why didn’t you get it done right?
I intend my suggestions to be helpful; if you find them so then I would be glad to be of further assistance. I am bitterly opposed to the position you have taken on “AGW” but I would not allow that to interfere with my professionalism.
Oh, one last suggestion. Don’t even try to salvage the results of this poll. Wipe them, make the changes I’ve suggested and start again.
Robert E. Phelan
Adjunct Instructor of Sociology
Business Systems and Automation Consultant
A commenter on our site, “lihard” has seemingly confessed to adding a thousand votes via a script. There was a period of about 15 minutes where the count jumped about 1000 votes. It appears “lihard” was at fault as he pre-announced it here in comments. Of course there was little anyone could do about it. I speak for myself and the moderation staff in saying we strongly object and are offended by his ballot stuffing and want to make clear that it is not condoned in any way. Whether or not the poll was put together with apparently no security in place does not justify any kind of dishonest activity.
However, since that burst (if indeed he, lihard, did one) the vote count has steadily risen, I believe those to be valid. If the Science Museum has any logs, they should be able to filter those ~1000 in question out. I hope they do.
I don’t condone ballot stuffing in any form. Unfortunately it can happen when polls like this one don’t appear to have the most basic simplistic security. The interesting thing here is that if anybody wanting to stuff the poll, no matter what side of the argument they are on, could easily have done so. No special skills are needed to boost the counter…just keep clicking the submit button. Any kid can do it.
Perhaps the Science Museum didn’t think of security for cyberspace like they do for their exhibits. The internet is a harsh place and prone to such things. The lack of due diligence for security is as troubling as the language they used which originally caught my attention.
The polls we do here at WUWT don’t suffer from these problems, as they have anti-ballot stuffing security built in courtesy of WordPress. I hope that the Science Museum will upgrade their poll security if they choose to continue with it. Also for the record, you’ll find me logged once in poll, shortly after posting this story on 11/23 approximately 9:30-10AM PST, with my full name and email address given. If anyone from the Science Museum (or the UK government) wishes to contact me, they can use that email address. – Anthony
I told them that their institution had just become a propaganda arm of the government; that there is no man-made global warming; that the CO2 hyopthesis is broken.
I expect they are going to receive a lot more traffic than anticipated 🙂
If you poke around the “proof” documents, you come across some pretty interesting stuff. Here is their explanation of climate modeling:
How do scientists predict future climate?
Complex computer models can predict how greenhouse gas emissions will affect the climate in the future. Based on well-understood physical laws, they recreate the interactions between many processes that affect the climate. This allows scientists to simulate changes in elements of the climate such as rainfall, humidity, the rate of glacier melt and many others.
Models split the world into millions of points on a 3D map, and divide time into thousands of intervals for each century. The state of the climate is calculated at a particular place from one point in time to the next. This builds up a detailed picture of the future climate around the world.
Before making predictions, the computer models are used to simulate the past. This shows how accurately they can recreate the processes that determine the climate. If these simulations of the past accurately match what really happened, scientists can be confident about the models’ predictions of the future. Models can forecast the climate for hundreds of years to come.
Calculating a century of climate change on some of the world’s fastest supercomputers can take months. Scientists run lots of models together to get a range of predictions.
—
The amusing points:
(1) Climate models are based on “well understood physical laws”!? Really? That would surprise most fluid dynamicists (and others) … I guess we don’t need any of those nasty “parametrizations” and unphysical numerical artifices – you know, mass fixers, shapiro filters, empirical precipitation models, ice models, vegitation models…
(2) “If these simulations of the past accurately match what really happened, scientists can be confident about the models’ predictions of the future. Models can forecast the climate for hundreds of years to come.”
I just don’t know what to say here – this is so ignorant of how numerical processes work. You cannot say you can predict the future just because you can hindcast, which is really all GCMs can do with any accuracy…
(3) “Calculating a century of climate change on some of the world’s fastest supercomputers can take months. Scientists run lots of models together to get a range of predictions.”
Translated to you and I, this should read “We need millions of your tax dollars to run these huge computer models that produce poor results, so please let us tax you more to pay for some new computers!”
—
So there you have it, part of the “proof” for AGW! It’s enough to make anyone a true believer!!
Well, I had some fun with my comment re. the soon not-to-be government.
I’m anticipating that the real-time results of the poll may be pulled soon.
I am among unknown number of people in the US who received unsolicited emails from the Obama White House. They had my correct name and email address and I received several political and propaganda messages, some supposedly from the president himself.
If an individual or business sends unsolicited emails like that, it’s a federal felony, punishable by fines and/or imprisonment. I am not aware of any exemption for the government, presidential aides or politicians.
What are the applicable laws in the U.K?
I see the statement that they won’t pass on your email address. But does this mean you are automatically enrolled in their mailing list?
341 counted in so far 383 counted out so far
I’m with you on this one, Mr. Watts.
I don’t generally walk around with a tinfoil beanie on, but “give us your name and we’ll pass it on to the government” is spookie.
I wish I’d thought of give Joe Romm’s name & address… that would have had me chuckling to myself all afternoon.
ipcc-sec@wmo.int
too naughty
The Science Museum. Ahh, I spent many a happy hour in my last visit in February, wandering amongst the exhibits of marvellous advances in technology; Harrison’s chronometers (no relation), primitive TV systems, steam pumping engines, cars, ships, planes, rockets and the IMO slightly confusing DNA display. Then I ended up on the top floor, which was mostly set aside for refurbishment.
One thing that was operating was a computer game, where the object was to prevent a tornado from destroying your city by zapping it with your raygun, which would deflect and eventually dissipate it. However the other players in the game were also zapping away, which deflected the tornado in different directions, often back at the city you were trying to defend. Once our cities were battered to destruction the game was over and we were treated to a homily about the dangers of tampering with nature. What actually stuck in my mind was the game’s designer told us 1) Tornadoes ALWAYS do damage to a city when they touch down. 2) Every time a tornado dissipates, it respawns moving faster and is more powerful. 3) Eventually tornadoes will wipe out every city on the planet, regardless of whether we attempt to do anything about it.
I left the top floor and went back to wandering about the steam engines, which are at least based firmly on reality. I know, because I used to have a toy one.
My name now logged with the government. 🙂
Can all the readers at least become “openly realist” and vote to be “counted out”?
Or are you chicken? 🙂 I have included myself to “Count me out” just now. It would be good to convince Matt Drudge and flood the bastards with a few million of “Count me out” people.
341, 393. Can we call it “The Watts Effect”?
ok so now many more people in the survey are “opting out.” Will the science museum still send it to the government?
My guess is this:
1. The museum will say the data was “tampered with” and throw the poll out.
2. The poll will magically have many many more opt in vote just before the poll closes.
and of course the emails of those who opt in at the last minute will be never shown.
Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not voting any poll that wants my E-mail address. Very bad things can happen when you give it out indiscriminately:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bender%27s_big_score
346 “Counted In So Far”
404 “Counted Out So Far”
Including me.
It will be interesting to see their response if these ratios hold.
They don’t need your name or address to filter: They have your IP address. When you hit send they can tracert or ping you back to origin. They don’t even have to go that far, as soon as the route goes to a major node outside the UK (in Viriginia in the US), it’s exit the loop.
* 346 counted in so far
* 404 counted out so far
stretching the lead! I’m surprised they post these poll “results” – when will the modelers take over?
We are watching the end of an era. Interesting times indeed.
The vote is actually pretty close; sounds like the voters understand science better than the folks at the museum…
Ummm… the site is pretty clear, and it makes sense, and there’s no reason to doubt it. They say that they ask for the name and e-mail only to be sure that people are only counted once, and to send a confirmation, and that all they’ll send to the government are the final numbers.
I mean, come on. What would the government actually do with this info? Track you down and put a sniper team on the roof of an adjacent building, to eliminate your potential opposition to the global plan of evil scientists to make a marginal living by hyping climate change which they know to be a crock but it’s so easy to fool people that simply didn’t pay attention in science classes in high school? Revenge of the nerds? Spare me.
Talk about bizarre paranoia.
I love the way we do science now in the UK!
Route leaves the UK site to this one:
193.63.111.143
OrgName: RIPE Network Coordination Centre
OrgID: RIPE
Address: P.O. Box 10096
City: Amsterdam
StateProv:
PostalCode: 1001EB
Country: NL
ReferralServer: whois://whois.ripe.net:43
NetRange: 193.0.0.0 – 193.255.255.255
CIDR: 193.0.0.0/8
NetName: RIPE-CBLK
NetHandle: NET-193-0-0-0-1
Parent:
NetType: Allocated to RIPE NCC
NameServer: NS-PRI.RIPE.NET
NameServer: NS3.NIC.FR
NameServer: SUNIC.SUNET.SE
NameServer: SNS-PB.ISC.ORG
NameServer: SEC1.APNIC.NET
NameServer: SEC3.APNIC.NET
NameServer: TINNIE.ARIN.NET
Comment: These addresses have been further assigned to users in
Comment: the RIPE NCC region. Contact information can be found in
Comment: the RIPE database at http://www.ripe.net/whois
RegDate: 1992-08-12
Updated: 2009-03-25
ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2009-10-22 20:00
Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN’s WHOIS database.
So, if you know who RIPE works for….
Yesterday I noted on my blog that if you voted Out – they thanked you by saying “…thanks for being part of PROVE IT! By adding your voice, you’re supporting a strong, effective, fair deal at Copenhagen.”
I note today they have dropped the second sentence…
“Perhaps the “COUNT ME OUT” respondents get a visit from these chaps?”
Experience says junk mail
This is their “What effects are already being felt”:
Earth’s rising temperature is causing knock-on effects. Rainfall patterns are changing. After three centuries of stability, sea level is now rising. Ice in the Arctic is melting further back year on year. Extreme weather, such as droughts and hurricanes, is becoming more common or more intense. The changing weather patterns are causing plants to flower earlier in the year and species to migrate as the climate in their habitats changes.
Wow, talk about getting it wrong big time!
I counted myself out, and gave them something to think about when they read it on Monday morning. Bunch of tossers, as we say over here in England. I note with great amusement that there are far more counted OUT than IN! Ha, ha.
While..OT..Remember the warm “south pacific sea”?…see it now:
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif
Cold west, cold east, cold middle. Cheers Hansen boy!
Yes, I am afraid subtle hints at intimidation are standard operating procedure now. However this will backfire. On Monday I will ensure this link is emailed to as many deniers as myself. Mostly oilfield, mostly geologists and engineers and all hard nosed.
Word will get out, from this site and others and count me out at first become an embarrasment and then probably be suspended.
I counted out at 424.
Shame they dont have a readers comments page.
Welcome to our brave new world.