I asked Dr. Judith Curry if I could repost her letter which she originally sent to Climate Progress, here at WUWT. Here was her response:
From: Curry, Judith A
Sent: Friday, November 27, 2009 2:10 PM
To: Anthony Watts – mobile
Subject: Re: request
Hi Anthony, by all means post it. I am trying to reach out to everyone, pls help in this effort. Judy
Dr. Curry gets props from the skeptical community because she had the courage to invite Steve McIntyre to give a presentation at Georgia Tech, for which she took criticism. Her letter is insightful and addresses troubling issues. We can all learn something from it. – Anthony
An open letter to graduate students and young scientists in fields related to climate research – By Dr. Judith A. Curry, Georgia Tech
Based upon feedback that I’ve received from graduate students at Georgia Tech, I suspect that you are confused, troubled, or worried by what you have been reading about ClimateGate and the contents of the hacked CRU emails. After spending considerable time reading the hacked emails and other posts in the blogosphere, I wrote an essay that calls for greater transparency in climate data and other methods used in climate research. The essay is posted over at climateaudit.org (you can read it at http://camirror.wordpress.com/ 2009/ 11/ 22/ curry-on-the-credibility-of-climate-research/ ).
What has been noticeably absent so far in the ClimateGate discussion is a public reaffirmation by climate researchers of our basic research values: the rigors of the scientific method (including reproducibility), research integrity and ethics, open minds, and critical thinking. Under no circumstances should we ever sacrifice any of these values; the CRU emails, however, appear to violate them.
My motivation for communicating on this issue in the blogosphere comes from emails that I received from Georgia Tech graduate students and alums. As a result of my post on climateaudit, I started receiving emails from graduate students from other universities. I post the content of one of the emails here, without reference to the student’s name or institution:
Hi Dr. Curry,
I am a young climate researcher (just received my master’s degree from xxx University) and have been very troubled by the emails that were released from CRU. I just want to applaud and support your response on climateaudit.org [95% of it 🙂 ]. Your statement represents exactly how I have felt as I slowly enter this community. The content of some of the emails literally made me stop and wonder if I should continue with my PhD applications for fall 2010, in this science. I was so troubled by how our fellow scientists within the climate community have been dealing with opposing voices (on both sides). I hope we can all learn from this and truly feel that we are going to need voices like yours to fix these problems in the coming months and years.
At the heart of this issue is how climate researchers deal with skeptics. I have served my time in the “trenches of the climate war” in the context of the debate on hurricanes and global warming. There is no question that there is a political noise machine in existence that feeds on research and statements from climate change skeptics. In grappling with this issue, I would argue that there are three strategies for dealing with skeptics:
1. Retreat into the ivory tower
2. Circle the wagons/point guns outward: ad hominem/appeal to motive attacks; appeal to authority; isolate the enemy through lack of access to data; peer review process
3. Take the “high ground:” engage the skeptics on our own terms (conferences, blogosphere); make data/methods available/transparent; clarify the uncertainties; openly declare our values
Most scientists retreat into the ivory tower. The CRU emails reflect elements of the circling of wagons strategy. For the past 3 years, I have been trying to figure out how to engage skeptics effectively in the context of #3, which I think is a method that can be effective in countering the arguments of skeptics, while at the same time being consistent with our core research values. Some of the things that I’ve tried in my quest to understand skeptics and more effectively counter misinformation include posting at skeptical blogs, such as climateaudit, and inviting prominent skeptics to give seminars at Georgia Tech. I have received significant heat from some colleagues for doing this (I’ve been told that I am legitimizing the skeptics and misleading my students), but I think we need to try things like this if we are to develop effective strategies for dealing with skeptics and if we are to teach students to think critically.
If climate science is to uphold core research values and be credible to public, we need to respond to any critique of data or methodology that emerges from analysis by other scientists. Ignoring skeptics coming from outside the field is inappropriate; Einstein did not start his research career at Princeton, but rather at a post office. I’m not implying that climate researchers need to keep defending against the same arguments over and over again. Scientists claim that they would never get any research done if they had to continuously respond to skeptics. The counter to that argument is to make all of your data, metadata, and code openly available. Doing this will minimize the time spent responding to skeptics; try it! If anyone identifies an actual error in your data or methodology, acknowledge it and fix the problem. Doing this would keep molehills from growing into mountains that involve congressional hearings, lawyers, etc.
So with this reaffirmation of core climate research values, I encourage you to discuss the ideas and issues raised here with your fellow students and professors. Your professors may disagree with me; there are likely to be many perspectives on this. I hope that others will share their wisdom and provide ideas and guidance for dealing with these issues. Spend some time perusing the blogosphere (both skeptical and pro AGW blogs) to get a sense of the political issues surrounding our field. A better understanding of the enormous policy implications of our field should imbue in all of us a greater responsibility for upholding the highest standards of research ethics. Hone your communications skills; we all need to communicate more effectively. Publish your data as supplementary material or post on a public website. And keep your mind open and sharpen your critical thinking skills. My very best wishes to you in your studies, research, and professional development. I look forward to engaging with you in a dialogue on this topic.
Judith Curry
Chair, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Georgia Institute of Technology
References:
My past public statements on climate change can be found at my website http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/climate/policy.htm
My paper on “Mixing politics and science in testing the hypothesis that greenhouse warming is a causing an increase in global hurricane intensity” can be found at
http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/currydoc/Curry_BAMS87.pdf
My presentation on the integrity of climate research can be found at
http://www.pacinst.org/ topics/ integrity_of_science/ AGU_IntegrityofScience_Curry.pdf
Well, it seems that Dr. Curry has realized a political aspect to climate science, she has missed and failed to compensate for the religious aspect. Even for those who are not subject to a bias due to faith in a particular theory, like
CAGW, there is the more general faith of scientism. This is faith in the scientific method that is justified by reason.
Being involved in physics in my little world, the only colleagues that I know who believe in CAGW are those who have not looked at the issue themselves but rather accept the vast peer reviewed literature as a validation of the scientific method being properly applied and this unreasoning faith in this scientism that it must be right.
In the long run, the scientific method advances our understanding. On the short term, it offers nothing but a level playing field for the battle of ideas to take place. There are no guarantees that a preferred idea is more correct than other competing ideas or has any validity in reality.
Dr. Curry does seem to express her faith both in this scientism and in CAGW in her letter, while discussing the problems of politics and, to her credit, the abandonment of the scientific method by many of her colleagues. I expect to see more interesting things from her as the realization dawns that this CAGW cult has been violating the sanctity of scientism’s belief in the data.
UN Scientists turn on each other:
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/4100/UN-scientists-turn-on-each-other-UN-Scientist-Declares-Climategate-colleagues-Mann-Jones-and-Rahmstorf-should-be-barred-from-the-IPCC-process–They-are-not-credible-any-more
SABR Matt and others have raised a good point about Dr. Curry’s response, i.e, that she thinks in terms of “dealing with the skeptics” as though they are a unified group with some axe to grind. Still, she invited McIntyre to speak, and I trust her ability to recognize meritorious critiques as opposed to ideological attacks. I think she deserves praise for her letter, especially now. She correctly diagnoses the sociological problem of the the AGW supporters.
When massively disruptive, intrusive, and expensive government policies rest on science, and the best science can offer is a ‘consensus,’ then skepticism is not merely inevitable … it is absolutely essential!
When scientists resist and demonize and marginalize such skepticism, it’s not the motives of the skeptics that beg to be called into question.
********************
Jeremy (07:23:23) :
@ur momisugly Barry R. (23:43:39) :
“(c) Get the science down to a level people can understand and that they can easily see is devoid of manipulation.”
This, unfortunately, is not possible in many aspects of the science but particularly the modeling end of it. The average person isn’t going to be able to sort through computer code and determine what was done, much less the honesty behind what was done. The same goes with the use of statistics to turn multiple proxies into a single chart. At the level of integration of science fields we’re using now, it really isn’t possible to make the science this easy to understand.
If you were talking about physics, chemistry, or biology, then possibly. Climate science is all of those with a healthy does of mathematics thrown in.
***************
There have already been examples where people have gotten code and were able to understand it and point out flaws. Even code as complex as climate model code should be released if for no other reason than openness. All it takes is some eyeballs attached to a few good minds.
Here’s an experiment that Dr. Curry can easily perform: Have one of your graduate students post a comment with a mild, scientifically sound, courteously worded minor criticism of a scientific paper supporting some aspect of global warming on either RealClimate or ClimateProgress without identifying him or her self as one of your students. See if the comments gets past moderation. See how the person is treated by the ‘regulars’ on the site if it does get past moderation. Consider the fact that for many if not most people a failure to allow open debate on an issue is equivalent to an admission that your ideas won’t stand up to that kind of debate. Any mild skeptic who posts something and has it moderated out almost automatically becomes a more committed skeptic.
According to at least two people I know who have tried, Climate Progress is deleting without comment any skeptical comments that refer in any kind of detail to the data processing aspects of the Phil Jones situation. That’s happening even on the comment thread to your open letter calling for a more open dialogue. Kind of ironic, don’t you think?
Firstly I think is good when scientsts start to at least see that the issue exists, although from the tone of the letter above, it is obvous there are many deeply ingrained ‘beliefs’ preventing progress. So thank you Dr. Curry for being brave enough to post your thoughts here and on Climate Audit.
These limiting ‘beliefs’ need to be exposed before any real change can happen to how science is conducted. Unless ths can be achieved then there wll be little chance of improvng our understanding about how our climate works. Many examples of these obstructions to progress exsit in the CRU/GISS/IPCC Climategate dossier, but I will limit my demonstration of just one of those limiting beliefs to those found in Dr. Curry’s letter – scepticsm is bad for science.
Scientsts must never forget that being a sceptic is vital if you still want to do real sciience. Without sceptcism, no new truths wll be found and no theories will be falsfed. Instead science will divert further and further from the realty of what is observed. It wll become more and more useless and irrelevent as it tries to prop up the crumbling facade by more and more outrageous constructs designed to protect it from falsification.
There are examples of this happening in many fields, for example dark matter in astronomy and hockey stick graphs in climatology. Facts are the only thing of importance in science and it is essential that the peer review process is conducted by independent sceptics to ensure that the publc get truth.
Cold hard facts are the life-blood of science, belief has no part to play.
Dr. Curry,
Maybe we need to stop the labeling. “Skeptic” and “denier” and “The Team” are now impeding the cleaning up of the practice of climate science research. Nobody with an interest in understanding the processes should be relegated to an enemies list. Neither should their credentials or lack of them be a badge of honor or dishonor. We’re in a new age of research where everybody can contribute. They should be encouraged to do so because in a free system the best work will rise to the top. No more hiding of data and methods. Let’s spend our research money on getting the best data and take advantage of a cloud of reviewers (peers in terms of intellect and interest rather than science club membership) to learn from it.
Thank you Miss Curry; I promise to play nice with the skeptics from now on and even let them use my toys. And I also promise to be nice when I completely ignore them.
Just a sidenote about the chap above who mentioned cold fusion research. F+P’s results were actually replicated by many others, which is why research, if low-key, is still ongoing. The only problem is that conventional physics can’t explain it. Trouble is, if we’d always listened to conventional physics we wouldn’t have progressed in science or engineering at all. Thus F+P were unjustly treated by an overly-skeptical scientific community. Hence skepticism can go too far and also retreat into dogma.
Bear in mind too that the previous consensus position among scientists was that excess CO2 didn’t appear to affect the planet. I can easily imagine an alternative scenario where scientists were initially given money by a pro-coal government to investigate manmade CO2 and it was sufficient for them to stop when they discovered that manmade CO2 was only 2% of the natural flux. That didn’t happen of course; the original Hadley research being from a government looking to greenwash nuclear power, so they overstated spurious correlations into facts, turned circular reasoning into an art form and massaged the data until it fit the hypothesis. When more money arrived it became totally self-feeding. Of course someone who has spent their working life teaching a dogma, and whose job depends on it, won’t be too inclined to relook at the assumptions it’s all based on.
That we are continually told to trust the scientists on either side of the divide is quite ridiculous because most folk have an inner agenda – even if they don’t realize it. Some of the anti green tech or pro nuclear stuff I’ve read on this site has also amounted to unscientific disinformation.
Does a climate scientist lose his credibility when he refers to a successful campaign to oust a skeptical editor as “plugging the leak”?
CRU scientist Tom Wigley wrote that he intended to get Saiers removed from the editorial board of Geophysical Research Letters. After he succeeded in this effort, he wrote: “The GRL leak may have been plugged up now w/new editorial leadership there.”
Plugging a leak generally refers to keeping a secret.
To the graduate students and young scientists in fields related to climate research .. welcome to the ranks of the NCAA player who didn’t use drugs but some of his teammates did, the honest Wall Street broker, and the non-pedophile priest.
You probably did absolutely nothing to be put into the position you maybe in now, but the actions of others in your field of endeavour have affected your future. The best you can hope for is to be “put on probation” while you retrieve your “good name.”
You probably also know by now, that the science is never settled. The only folks who believe that are fools, idiots and politicians. The old adage that those who lay down with dogs, get up with fleas applies to those politicians as well. Climate Science has been used, this time on an international level. Your “good name” was used.
To Barry R.
At ClimateProgress, I asked Dr. Curry what her thoughts were about the following comment Kennenth Trenberth made in an October, 2009 email to Michael Mann. Unfortunately, the post got deleted.
Kenneth Trenberth: The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong.
Serendipitous is the simultaneous publication of Dr, Curry’s letter by Andy Revkin at the New York Times’ Dot Earth site. But most main stream media has kept their fingers in their ears. As if by self-delusion they can wish away the millions (billions) who are discussing ClimateGate around the world.
Part of the arrogance exhibited by CRU and commented on by Dr. Curry is in the refusal to face up to certain discomfiting facts. Until the NY Times and Washington Post, TV networks and other mainstream media accept the leaked documents confirming dangerous unethical behavior by key representatives of climate science – there will be little resolution. Or progress.
Like any addict in denial, until you admit you have a problem, you have no chance for recovery. Waiting for the enlightened response.
I believe that we need to see this for the patronising rubbish that it really is matching that produced by Monbiot, it has no positive connotations whatsoever and I’m amazed that it’s given space here. Judith believes that this is a temporary hiccup that will be solved by spouting a few platitudes and then back to normal but it isn’t. What we are seeing is the falsification of AGW and the surrounding scientific fraud and what is required is humility and apology after the hubris and ignorance that has proceded this. It isn’t about how they can deal with us ridiculous skeptiks but how we can unwind from their untenable positions with any degree of credibility intact.
@ur momisugly Judith Curry (05:13:45) :
—> “I wish the skeptical technical blogs had taken on the papers presented at the Heartland Conference. Peter Webster engaged extensively with one of the authors of a paper at Heartland Conference, and pointed out in detail the flaws in the analysis. The scientist pretty much agreed with Peter, but then continues to present the same arguments. Peter Webster asked Steve McIntyre to do this, but Steve declined saying he wanted to focus on the higher impact papers in the peer reviewed literature. Fair enough, but the stuff at the Heartland Conference feeds the political noise machine.”
This is another problem I have with your approach, Dr Curry. You seem to want to claim victimhood from the political noise machine while stating honest intentions of openness.
—->This is the pot calling the kettle black, while holding the very charcoal that made it so.
It seems that the political noise machine was doing just fine until it started to turn against you, and suddenly you’ve had this epiphany of a need for openness in climate science. While realizing and expressing your epiphany to trained scientists who have been skeptical of your arguments, you claim you are being victimized by propaganda spouted from the skeptical side that now isn’t correctly policing itself.
I might listen to you if it weren’t so amusing. Science is supposed to withstand tests like this with no problem, and the scientists who are honest should reap the benefits of being honest, even after years/decades of challenges. If you and your colleagues are so below reproach as to demand that those with questions police everyone else with questions before we present our own questions about what the truth really is about our climate… then I truly fear for science in general, but particularly climate science. You guys seem wholly geared towards supporting an agenda that you cannot see that questioning science is what science is all about.
Addendum…
Dr Curry, you said this:
“The public needs some help in differentiating some of the garbage that is out there from serious skepticism.”
No, Wrong. As scientists we shouldn’t give two spits what amount the public understands. Influencing public opinion is the realm of politics, NOT SCIENCE. What we should be concerned with is honesty. You are intermingling politics and science in this one sentence, and you seem to fail to realize that.
Evan, did you use USHCN v2 or the original data set ?
USHCN-1. (And since there is no gridding, the “station-average” results might be lower than the final results.)
USHCN-2, as you say, yields an even greater upwards adjustment.
Gold Stars for the insightful comments here.
Normally I wouldn’t allow myself to read such a letter. It just drips with moral superiority. Stuff milder than this makes me flee to WUWT every day just for a dose of intellectual dignity and perspective.
The letter actually made me feel humiliated, moreso even than the FOI emails did.
Open contempt I’m used to from reading RC. Veiled contempt makes me feel small.
Is there anything that embarrasses those in power?
Like after having had an intimate, personal doctor visit, one overhears the doctor dictating for the transcriptionist, using unflattering descriptions.
I’m actually embarrassed by the whole AGW belief system. Like being caught buying a lurid tabloid by someone you know.
The whole thing, to me, boils down to the fact that we won’t ever be able to measure the effects of any steps we take to try change the climate. We can barely measure the current temps. We certainly can’t seem to add them up or average them in any useful way. We know nothing about the sun. We know next to nothing about the earth’s many complex systems. Just because we can take pictures of it from space and map the ocean floors, make a video we can watch on TV we think we know it.. Arrogant of me to use the term “we” isn’t it?
Really, you mean people BELIEVE this? Blush! The death of common sense.
The state of climate science is still in “The Blind Men and the Elephant” stage, in my mind.
Sort Of Dunno Nothin’ – Peter Denahy
One of the things she said is that they should not have to answer the same question or accusation over and over again… That is correct but I have not seen them answer a skeptical thought in a way that makes me say okay that has been resolved. Rather they dismiss what skptics are saying out of hand, ignore it, or simply state that one of their community have published a paper, based on information that is not accessibility by the way, about the issue and then claim how dumb we are for not simply accepting their conclusions. So basically if we believe them we give into a huge number of fallacies that would actually prove that we did not have a brain in our heads to begin with.
Look engaging us means taking what we say seriously and then doing the old fashioned, okay lets try to replicate it. Giving us ‘adjusted’ temperatures and then calling us stupid for questioning how you arrived at that dataset does not help us feel like you care. Actually it is REALLY condescending.
I don’t know I think that the press and the scientists are simply sticking to the same old play book. Ignore the skeptics and pull in the cash. I think that they think we are going somewhere.
Judith,
With all due respect, core climate research values have been revealed. I suggest the best thing sincere climatologists can do is drop the global warming hysteria, go out for lunch, apologize to everyone, raise a familly and wait another two hundred years of satellite measurements.
Ms. Curry
Can you explain this statement?
“We won the war — the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, and climate and energy legislation is near the top of the U.S. agenda,” Dr. Curry said. “Why keep fighting all these silly battles and putting ourselves in this position?”
Are you now just playing CYA?
source : http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/science/earth/28hack.html?_r=1
If this statement is truly yours, then you need to step aside. It proves that you failed to fully evaluate both sides of one of the most significant scientific debates of our time. One wonders what else could you be so wrong about?
The above quote is nothing short of irresponsible.
I apologize in advance if that is not your quote.
harpo (22:19:45) :
Paltridge wrote in an April 6, 2007 op-ed entitled “Global Warming – Not Really a Done Deal?”
[“They have been so successful with their message of greenhouse doom that, should one of them prove tomorrow that it is nonsense, the discovery would have to be suppressed for the sake of the overall reputation of science,”]
———-
This is a serious observation and I think that is exactly what is happening now and will continue to happen for sometime. So much money, credibility, reputations have been invested in this gamble that even if AGW is proved false by falling temperatures over the next 20 years they will simply say (as they have already done) “the underlying warming has been masked by the cooling trend.” 10 years of flat temps plus 20 years of cooler temps = 30 years which is the accepted definition of climate I think so at that point no more “it’s just weather.”
This would be funny if lives and so much money were not at stake.
“There is no question that there is a political noise machine in existence that feeds on research and statements from climate change skeptics.”
By this statement, she is implying, imo, that the political noise machine exists on one side only. I have trouble reconciling this kind of statement with someone who is truly thoughtful and unbiased.
Roger Knights – rebuttal list.
I was in Staples yesterday and spied a pack of t-shirt transfers that you can run through an inkjet printer. Could I ask that a rebuttal list be of a size and shape that could easily be printed on a t-shirt? We could all then buy some cheap, white Ts from Walmart or equivalent, spend a couple of bucks on printer ink and solve the perennial Christmas gift problem. Especially for those few WUWT fans with Warmist friends.