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 can tell you for sure that James Hansen is now on recrd as doubting AGW.
A phony name for a phony crisis.
I’ve been counted out, and entered a lengthy tome on the reasons that AGW is flawed. I don’t suppose they’ll read it though – they’ve already planned their day after tomorrow exhibition, so I don’t expect to see rational thought intruding.
Reading through their literature on climate change is like reading a school boy’s essay, so obvious are the flaws, appeals to authority and plain fawning over climate model specifications. As has already been posted here, these people make the oft repeated error of imagining that a successful hindcast implies predictive skill. In a different age they would be labelled “one born every day” suckers, but in todays Alice in Wonderland world, the nonsense the peddle is never questioned.
I wont be surprised if they themselves start voting in to counteract the outs.
Or maybe just falsify the numbers given to the gov’t. I dont trust them.
Is it my ageing eyesight, or have the just hidden the ‘count me out block’ while still showing ‘count me in’ as white on grey? Thereby a cursory glance would miss the count me out panel.
Time: 19:40 UK.
michel (10:01:38) :
But I think you’d be hard put to find anyone seriously worried about what the Government will think of him if he expresses skepticism about AGW.
There speaks someone who is happy that millions of people who have never even been charged with a crime have their DNA data stored on a government database, despite a court ruling that it is illegal.
There speaks someone who is happy about the government’s plans that everyone should have to pay around £100 for a biometric ID card with over 50 pieces of information about them stored on the associated database, with over 1 million government employees having access to it.
There speaks someone who is happy that anyone who wishes to have any contact with children will have to prove that they are no a paedophile, with data stored on a database, with over 1 million government employees having access to it, that data including totally unfounded, anonymous accusations.
There speaks someone who is happy that the government plans that every child born in the UK will have all information relating to him/her entered onto yet another government database, with over 1 million government employees having access to it.
There speaks someone who is happy that the government plans that every “client” of the National Health Service has every part of his/her medical history entered onto a government database, with over 1 million government employees having access to it.
In short, the speaks a man whose mantra appears to be “If you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide”.
I apologise for this rant but Michel is hopelessly naive if he believes that the current UK government is a benign group of people who have our interests at heart. THEY DON’T. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, “The government is the problem, not the solution”
I have voted in this poll, in the “Count me Out” box of course. I have absolutely no fear of the Government gathering the personal information of their dissenting citizens to use against me.
They’ll lose it, just like they have lost the personal data of millions of their citizens already.
I’ve been reading this blog for a while now and really appreciate the climate sanity here. So thank you Watts for this site.
As what goes for the poll on that uk site, anyone wanna bet the out wotes are up by 1000 after a few minutes?
-Lihard
If you want to change people’s opinions, first you have to know what that opinion is.
For example, suppose that you think that closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay is a horrible idea. You can be targeted with a message that says: “The detention center is a cause of friction with our allies and by relocating it; the bad publicity will be put behind us”.
That’s a lot more reasonable than saying we are going to just let them go. (In the past, many released inmates returnrd to terrorism and killing Americans.)
That’s what those surveys are for: If you tell them why you disagree, they can target you with specific propaganda to get you to change your mind.
I don’t know if that’s what they are going to do with it, but that is a technique used to target small groups of voters with common concerns. The power of the computer and digital printing has made it possible.
Regards,
Steamboat Jack
At 20:00hrs on 23/10/2009 the score stands at 349 IN, 485 OUT.
Somebody is roboposting “OUTS”
the 769th person counted out.
And I thank you.
A big jump – 349 In, 1388 out.
Either someone has kicked in a ‘bot, or, I predict the SM will claim this, and take the votes down….
Huge spike now.
349 counted in so far 1496 counted out so far
I have a feeling someone wrote some script as there’s no captcha in place.
Unfortunately, such an idiotic poll DESERVES to be “roboposted”.
My submission in the comments:
“First, the climate, and Earth’s temperature – as far as it can be ascertained – has always varied.
Second, the probably provable warming from 1977 to 1998 is well within natural variation. See the MWP.
Third, the land based surface stations which purport to show continued warming have been shown to be hopelessly contaminated by poor siting, urban heat island effects, and other drawbacks. Worse, the methods of collating and processing data, even the data themselves have been hidden from view. Where they have, finally, been exposed they have been shown to be seriously flawed. CF the recent Yamal expose.
Fourth, the most reliable measurement of temperature we have, the satellite record, shows a cessation of warming in 1998, and a slight colling since.
Fifth (and for the moment finally) the attribution of what warming we have seen to atmospheric carbon dioxide, a trace gas amounting to fewer than 400 parts per million, is completely implausible. In fact the record shows that for reasons which are clear to anyone who understands the solubility of air in water, CO2 follows temperature, it does not lead temperature.”
The Director of the Science Museum is Chris Rapley, former Director of the £40 million a year budget, British Antarctic Survey. His last few years at BAS were occupied with proclaiming that the West Antarctic Ice Shelf was an awakening giant.
Antarctic glaciers thinning fast
BAS press release No: 03/2005 02 Feb 2005
The contribution that rapid thinning of the Antarctic ice sheet is making to global sea-level rise is a cause for concern according to Director of British Antarctic Survey, (BAS), Professor Chris Rapley. Speaking this week at a conference hosted by the Met Office in Exeter he summarised the latest understanding from one of the frozen continent’s most remote and inhospitable corners.
Professor Rapley said,“Satellite measurements tell us that a significant part of the West Antarctic ice sheet in this area is thinning fast enough to make a significant contribution to sea level rise, but for the present, our understanding of the reason for this change is little better than hypothesis.
The last IPCC report characterised Antarctica as a slumbering giant in terms of climate change. I would say that this is now an awakened giant. There is real cause for concern.”
He made big headlines especially in the UK Independent: “The head of the British Antarctic Survey, Professor Chris Rapley, disclosed that the vast West Antarctic ice sheet, previously thought to be stable, may be beginning to disintegrate, which would cause a sea-level rise around the world of more than 16ft”
Strangely he didn’t seem to know what research his own scientists were doing; this very next press release came out just 3 weeks after his statements at Blair’s Exeter scare fest on Dangerous Climate Change.
Antarctic ice shelf retreats happened before:
No: 4/2005 23 Feb 2005
The retreat of Antarctic ice shelves is not new according to research published this week (24 Feb) in the journal Geology by scientists from Universities of Durham, Edinburgh and British Antarctic Survey (BAS).
A study of George VI Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula is the first to show that this currently ‘healthy’ ice shelf experienced an extensive retreat about 9500 years ago, more than anything seen in recent years. The retreat coincided with a shift in ocean currents that occurred after a long period of warmth. Whilst rising air temperatures are believed to be the primary cause of recent dramatic disintegration of ice shelves like Larsen B, the new study suggests that the ocean may play a more significant role in destroying them than previously thought.
The University of Durham’s, Dr Mike Bentley, one of the leaders of the project said,‘We know that rising air temperatures can break up ice shelves but there has been a suspicion for some time that the role of the ocean may have been underestimated. This is some of the first evidence that a shift in ocean currents can actually destroy ice shelves. In this case it’s possible that a preceding warm period may have primed the ice shelf to disintegrate when the ocean currents shifted.’
Of course, that didn’t make the papers.
Sent to WHO in the government is the real question.
At 20:15 on 23/10/2009 it’s now 349 IN and 1508 OUT!!!
349 in, 1518 out. Will they work out why the change?
I think Global Warming is causing a rise in the “Count Me Out” levels.
Think it was yesterday I mentioned first that I had not only voted Count me OUT but also left a comment.
The 2 things I remember quoting were Harold Dennys account of drifting within 300Nmls of the North pole in 1938 on Dec 12th & later getting frozen in on the 18rh. Also the fact that the breaker was free again in mid Feb 1939, also reported by Denny.
I also quoted Soden & Held “Quantifying Climate Feedbacks using Radiative Kernels”, which effectively says models are bollocks.
What I, (half jokingly), said here on WUWT, was, something to the effect that I was expecting a call from the climate police as I did not hide my identity nor use a proxy server.
Personally, I couldn’t give a stuff what they think or do!
DaveE.
I just got counted “out” and left the following suggestion for exhibits:
I’d like to see an exhibit about scientific theories that have been proved wrong, which is what I expect from catastrophic anthropogenic global warming theory. It will fit nicely with Eugenics, Lamarkian adaptation, and the Piltdown Man.
I detect a slight paranoia amongst some posters and a failure of the funny bone. This is what it says in small print after threatening to shop us to the government:
* We won’t pass on your name or e-mail address. We’ll just use it to send you a confirmation email, and make sure that we only count people once.
I voted OUT and left this comment:
“Temperatures are no longer rising but CO2 is; the sun has gone quiet permitting more galactic cosmic radiation to affect the planet; many different scientists are now turning their attention to CLOUDS as providing NEGATIVE feedback to the tiny amount of warming due to extra CO2 in the atmosphere (rather than the runaway amplification promoted by the catastrophists); Antarctic sea ice extent is now the greatest on record; Arctic ice seems to be recovering from its recent summer lows; the sea level is NOT rising more than its millenial trend and the oceans’ temperatures are NOT warming rather “oscillating” as normal; Atlantic hurricanes this year have been very few in comparison with years in the first half of the 20th Century; islands and areas claimed to be suffering inundation because of sea-level rises are in fact SUBSIDING due to plate tectonic activity and ice-age rebound; the concept of “global” temperature is a nonsense because of inadequate recording over time and space and because of the impact of urban heat islands – the majority of measuring stations used by the IPCC are located at airports; so-called “consensus” scientists are unwilling to reveal their data and methods to other researchers who wish to investigate their claims; the Mediaeval Warm Period was warmer than today and the Little Ice Age cooler; and lastly, trees ARE NOT to be confused with thermometers!”
If someone is actually soliciting your opinion it seems churlish not to respond in good faith, especially when it is an organisation like the Science Museum which is a well-loved British institution.
Toodle-oo!
I’m ashamed. I went to their site yesterday(?) – from “tips and notes” – and voted “out”, but allowed myself to be intimidated into backing out. Emboldened by the reminder that the jack-booted thought police will probably come to the wrong house, I just went back and voted. Left ’em a message that I didn’t see any “evidence”. Thanks, guys! (quite a difference in poll numbers since yesterday!!! They must wonder Watts up?)
Best,
Frank
I’m out. 349-1540