Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Judith Curry posted here on WUWT regarding rebuilding the lost trust we used to have in climate science and climate scientists. This is my response to her post, an expansion and revision of what I wrote in the comments on that thread.
First, be clear that I admire Judith Curry greatly. She is one of the very, very few mainstream climate scientists brave enough to enter into a public dialogue about these issues. I salute her for her willingness to put her views on public display, and for tackling this difficult issue.
As is often my wont in trying to understand a long and complex dissertation, I first made my own digest of what Judith said. To do so, I condensed each of her paragraphs into one or a few sentences. Here is that digest:
Digest of Judith Curry’s Post: On the Credibility of Climate Research, Part II: Towards Rebuilding Trust
1 I am trying an experiment by posting on various blogs
2 Losing the Public’s Trust
2.1 Climategate has broadened to become a crisis of trust in climate science in general.
2.2 Credibility is a combination of expertise and trust. Trust in the IPCC is faltering.
2.3 The scientists in the CRU emails blame their actions on “malicious interference”.
2.4 Institutions like the IPCC need to ask how they enabled this situation.
2.5 Core research values have been compromised by warring against the skeptics.
2.6 Climategate won’t go away until all this is resolved.
3 The Changing Nature of Skepticism about Global Warming
3.1 Skepticism has changed over time.
3.2 First it was a minor war between advocacy groups. Then, a “monolithic climate denial machine” was born. This was funded by the oil industry.
3.3 Because of the IPCC reports, funding for contrary views died up. It was replaced by climate auditors. The “climate change establishment” didn’t understand this and kept blaming the “denial machine”.
4 Climate Auditors and the Blogosphere.
4.1 Steve McIntyre’s auditing became popular and led to blogs like WUWT.
4.2 Auditors are independent, technically educated people mostly outside of academia. They mostly audit rather than write scientific papers.
4.3 The FOIA requests were motivated by people concerned about having the same people who created the dataset using the dataset in their models.
4.4 The mainstream climate researchers don’t like the auditors because Steve McIntyre is their arch-nemesis, so they tried to prevent auditors publishing in the journals. [gotta confess I couldn’t follow the logic in this paragraph]
4.5 The auditors succeeded in bringing the climate establishment to its knees because people trusted the auditors.
5 Towards Rebuilding Trust
5.1 Ralph Cicerone says that two aspects need attention, the general practice of science and the personal behaviours of scientists. Investigations are being conducted.
5.2 Climate science has not adapted to being high profile. How scientists engage with the public is inadequately discussed. The result is reflexive support for IPCC and its related policies.
5.3 The public and policy makers don’t understand the truth as presented by the IPCC. More efficient strategies can be devised by recognizing that we are dealing with two groups: educated people, and the general public. To rebuild trust scientists need to discuss uncertainty. [“truth as presented by the IPCC? say what?]
5.4 The blogosphere can be a powerful tool for increasing credibility of climate research. The climate researchers at realclimate were the pioneers in this. More scientists should participate in these debates.
5.5 No one believes that the science is settled. Scientists and others say that the science is settled. This is detrimental to public trust.
5.6 I hope this experiment will demonstrate how the blogosphere can rebuild trust.
Having made such a digest, my next step is to condense it into an “elevator speech”. This is a very short statement of the essential principles. My elevator speech of Judith’s post is this.
Climategate has destroyed the public trust in climate science. Initially skepticism was funded by big oil. Then a climate auditing movement sprang up. They were able to bring the climate establishment to its knees because people trusted them. Public and policy makers don’t understand the truth as presented by the IPCC. To rebuild trust, climate scientists need to better communicate their ideas to the public, particularly regarding uncertainty. The blogosphere can be valuable in this regard.
OK, now what’s wrong with Judith’s picture?
Can The Trust Be Rebuilt?
First, let me say that the problem is much bigger than Judith seems to think. Wiser men than I have weighed in on this question. In a speech at Clinton, Illinois, September 8, 1854, Abraham Lincoln said:
If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. You may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
So it will not be easy. The confidence is forfeit, that ship has sailed.
The biggest problem with Judith’s proposal is her claim that the issue is that climate scientists have not understood how to present their ideas to the public. Judith, I respect you greatly, but you have grabbed the wrong end of the stick. The problem is not how climate scientists have publicly presented their scientific results. It is not a communication problem.
The problem is that 71.3% of what passes as peer reviewed climate science is simply junk science, as false as the percentage cited in this sentence. The lack of trust is not a problem of perception or communication. It is a problem of lack of substance. Results are routinely exaggerated. “Scientific papers” are larded with “may” and “might” and “could possibly”. Advocacy is a common thread in climate science papers. Codes are routinely concealed, data is not archived. A concerted effort is made to marginalize and censor opposing views.
And most disturbing, for years you and the other climate scientists have not said a word about this disgraceful situation. When Michael Mann had to be hauled in front of a congressional committee to force him to follow the simplest of scientific requirements, transparency, you guys were all wailing about how this was a huge insult to him.
An insult to Mann? Get real. Mann is an insult and an embarrassment to climate science, and you, Judith, didn’t say one word in public about that. Not that I’m singling you out. No one else stood up for climate science either. It turned my stomach to see the craven cowering of mainstream climate scientists at that time, bloviating about how it was such a terrible thing to do to poor Mikey. Now Mann has been “exonerated” by one of the most bogus whitewashes in academic history, and where is your outrage, Judith? Where are the climate scientists trying to clean up your messes?
The solution to that is not, as you suggest, to give scientists a wider voice, or educate them in how to present their garbage to a wider audience.
The solution is for you to stop trying to pass off garbage as science. The solution is for you establishment climate scientists to police your own back yard. When Climategate broke, there was widespread outrage … well, widespread everywhere except in the climate science establishment. Other than a few lone voices, the silence there was deafening. Now there is another whitewash investigation, and the silence only deepens.
And you wonder why we don’t trust you? Here’s a clue. Because a whole bunch of you are guilty of egregious and repeated scientific malfeasance, and the rest of you are complicit in the crime by your silence. Your response is to stick your fingers in your ears and cover your eyes.
And you still don’t seem to get it. You approvingly quote Ralph Cicerone about the importance of transparency … Cicerone?? That’s a sick joke.
You think people made the FOI (Freedom of Information) requests because they were concerned that the people who made the datasets were the same people using them in the models. As the person who made the first FOI request to CRU, I assure you that is not true. I made the request to CRU because I was disgusted with the response of mainstream climate scientists to Phil Jone’s reply to Warwick Hughes. When Warwick made a simple scientific request for data, Jones famously said:
Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?
When I heard that, I was astounded. But in addition to being astounded, I was naive. Looking back, I was incredibly naive. I was so naive that I actually thought, “Well, Phil’s gonna get his hand slapped hard by real scientists for that kind of anti-scientific statements”. Foolish me, I thought you guys were honest scientists who would be outraged by that.
So I waited for some mainstream climate scientist to speak out against that kind of scientific malfeasance … and waited … and waited. In fact, I’m still waiting. I registered my protest against this bastardisation of science by filing an FOI. When is one of you mainstream climate scientist going to speak out against this kind of malfeasance? It’s not too late to condemn what Jones said, he’s still in the news and pretending to be a scientist, when is one of you good folks going to take a principled stand?
But nobody wants to do that. Instead, you want to complain and explain how trust has been broken, and you want to figure out more effective communication strategies to repair the trust.
You want a more effective strategy? Here’s one. Ask every climate scientist to grow a pair and speak out in public about the abysmal practices of far, far too many mainstream climate scientists. Because the public is assuredly outraged, and you are all assuredly silent, sitting quietly in your taxpayer funded offices and saying nothing, not a word, schtumm … and you wonder why we don’t trust you?
A perfect example is you saying in your post:
Such debate is alive and well in the blogosphere, but few mainstream climate researchers participate in the blogospheric debate. The climate researchers at realclimate.org were the pioneers in this …
For you to say this without also expressing outrage at realclimate’s ruthless censorship of every opposing scientific view is more of the same conspiracy of silence. Debate is not “alive and well” at realclimate as you say, that’s a crock. Realclimate continues to have an undeserved reputation that it is a scientific blog because you and other mainstream climate scientists are unwilling to bust them for their contemptuous flouting of scientific norms. When you stay silent about blatant censorship like that, Judith, people will not trust you, nor should they. You have shown by your actions that you are perfectly OK with realclimate censoring opposing scientific views. What kind of message does that send?
The key to restoring trust has nothing to do with communication. Steve McIntyre doesn’t inspire trust because he is a good communicator. He inspires trust because he follows the age-old practices of science — transparency and openness and freewheeling scientific discussion and honest reporting of results.
And until mainstream climate science follows his lead, I’ll let you in on a very dark, ugly secret — I don’t want trust in climate science to be restored. I don’t want you learning better ways to propagandize for shoddy science. I don’t want you to figure out how to inspire trust by camouflaging your unethical practices in new and innovative ways. I don’t want scientists learning to use clever words and communication tricks to get people to think that the wound is healed until it actually is healed. I don’t want you to learn to use the blogosphere to spread your pernicious unsupported unscientific alarmism.
You think this is a problem of image, that climate science has a bad image. It is nothing of the sort. It is a problem of scientific malfeasance, and of complicity by silence with that malfeasance. The public, it turns out, has a much better bullsh*t detector than the mainstream climate scientists do … or at least we’re willing to say so in public, while y’all cower in your cubbyholes with your heads down and never, never, never say a bad word about some other climate scientist’s bogus claims and wrong actions.
You want trust? Do good science, and publicly insist that other climate scientists do good science as well. It’s that simple. Do good science, and publicly call out the Manns and the Joneses and the Thompsons and the rest of the charlatans that you are currently protecting. Call out the journals that don’t follow their own policies on data archiving. Speak up for honest science. Archive your data. Insist on transparency. Publish your codes.
Once that is done, the rest will fall in line. And until then, I’m overjoyed that people don’t trust you. I see the lack of trust in mainstream climate science as a huge triumph for real science. Fix it by doing good science and by cleaning up your own backyard. Anything else is a coverup.
Judith, again, my congratulations on being willing to post your ideas in public. You are a rara avis, and I respect you greatly for it.
w.
PS – In your post you talk about a “monolithic climate denial machine”?? Puhleease, Judith, you’re talking to us individual folks who were there on the ground individually fighting the battle. Save that conspiracy theory for people who weren’t there, those who don’t know how it went down.
This is another huge problem for mainstream climate scientists and mainstream media alike. You still think the problem is that we opposed your ideas and exposed your errors. You still see the climate scientists as the victims, even now in 2010 when the CRU emails have shown that’s nonsense. Every time one of your self-appointed spokes-fools says something like “Oh, boo hoo, the poor CRU folks were forced to circle their wagons by the eeevil climate auditors”, you just get laughed at harder and harder. The CRU emails showed they were circling the FOI wagons two years before the first FOI request, so why haven’t you noticed?
The first step out of this is to stop trying to blame Steve and Anthony and me and all the rest of us for your stupidity and your dishonesty and your scientific malfeasance. [Edited by public demand to clarify that the “your stupidity” etc. refers to mainstream climate scientists as a group and not to Judith individually.] You will never recover a scrap of trust until you admit that you are the source of your problems, all we did was point them out. You individually, and you as a group, created this mess. The first step to redemption is to take responsibility. You’ve been suckered by people like Stephen Schneider, who said:
To capture the public imagination, we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one might have. Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective, and being honest. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.
That worked fine for a while, but as Lincoln pointed out, it caught up with you. You want trust? Disavow Schneider, and STOP WITH THE SCARY SCENARIOS. At this point, you have blamed everything from acne to world bankruptcy on eeevil global warming. And you have blamed everything from auditors to the claimed stupidity of the common man for your own failures. STOP IT! We don’t care about your pathetic justifications, all you are doing is becoming the butt of jokes around the planet. You seem to have forgotten the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf. Read it. Think about it. Nobody cares about your hysteria any more. You are in a pit of your own making, and you are refusing to stop digging … take responsibility.
Because we don’t want scientists who are advocates. We’re not interested in scientists who don’t mention their doubts. We’re sick of your inane “simplified dramatic statements”. We laugh when you cry wolf with your scary scenarios. Call us crazy, but we want scientists who are honest, not scientists who balance honesty and effectiveness. You want trust? Get honest, kick out the scoundrels, and for goodness sakes, get a clue about humility.
Because the truth is, climate science is one of the newest sciences. The truth is, we know little about the climate, we’ve only been studying it intensely for a couple decades. The truth is, we can’t project the climate of the next decade, much less that of the next century. The truth is, we have no general theory of climate. The truth is, we don’t know if an average temperature rise of a couple degrees will be a net benefit or a net loss. The truth is, all of us are human, and our knowledge of the climate is in its infancy. And I don’t appreciate being lectured by infants. I don’t appreciate being told that I should be put in the dock in a Nuremberg style trial for disagreeing with infants. You want to restore trust? Come down off your pedestals, forsake your ivory towers, and admit your limitations.
And through all of this, be aware that you have a long, long, long climb back up to where we will trust you. As Lincoln warned, you have forfeited the confidence of your fellow citizens, and you will be damn lucky if you ever get it back.
[Update: please see Dr. Curry’s gracious response below, at Judith Curry (04:34:45)]
[Update 2: Dr. Curry’s second response is here, and my reply is here]
[Update 3: Dr. Curry steps up and delivers the goods. My reply.]
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I must add that I agree thoroughly with what Willis has said.
I cannot agree that Judith should be given some slack or credit for having stepped off her pedestal.
This article was not an act of contrition nor an admission of wrong doing or false science.
As Willis pointed out, it isn’t about how to package the AGW myth but about presenting the truth.
It is evident that she believes (belief beingthe operative word) in AGW.
This is, in her words an experiment, an attempt to try and tackle the problem of non-blief through the blogs.
In other wordss, she is trying to make a start on deconstucting the sceptics.
She desreves no credit for that at all.
This is a typical reaction we can see elsewhere… they don’t believe us, lets see if we can find a way to make them believe or to take out the leading non-belivers.
With some it is an attamep to recover some credibility without actually crossing over the fence.
Some points already made by others is that wwhile the medical profession has a oath and an ethics committee (for what good it does), general science has niether.
I believe scientists should never be advocates and should always try to report in objective and non-emotive manner.
It is not the business of scientists to be advocates.
In policy making scenarios, they must more than ever be seeen as impartial unemotional accurate honest and trustworthy.
Policy is decided by politicians who are informed by scientists.
Whether the science is right or wrong, as a scientist, they should allow the politicians to make policy. Politicinas are, in theory, accountable to an electorate which niether the scientists nor the IPCC is.
When they take on an advocay role they usurp the democtartic process.
If they say “these are the facts and the world will end tommorow.” the people have the right to say “Bring it on.” It is not for the scientists to say “No, you must do this.” no matter how much, as indivisuals and not scientists, they may wish to say so.
Informing policy makers they should be saying:
“These are the observations.”
“This is what we think they mean.”
“These are all the possible consequences we have been able to identify.”
“Here are all of the things you can do and what might happen if you do it.”
Then the politicians can make policy.
Doctoring the data, using emotive language (Obama’s advisor wants to rename “Climate Change” as “Climate disruption” because he doesn’t think the current name emotive enough) isn’t acceptable. It means that a small elite group of people think their knowledge gives them the right to dictate the lives of millions. Their role is to inform thosee millions and accept their c ollective will.
Willis, you could be so much more effective if you could just learn to express yourself. (<:
A rather balanced piece on Reuters AlertNet, far different from what we’ve come to expect:
ANALYSIS-Scientists examine causes for lull in warming
Not perfect, but better than MSM normal, and coming from AlertNet to boot. Is this progress?
Interesting highlights. Note the nuances, and the absolute clunkers:
I love the last one. Unpick? Does that mean un-isolate the “anthropogenic” part of global warming, if they can legitimately find it, so they can ignore it and just have their global carbon schemes to control ALL warming?
(Sorry if anyone can’t guess I’m a sceptic playing trying to put the global warming case, because only by open debate can we ensure our arguments are valid)
DavidMHoffer: “True. But when ANYTHING absorbs energy and becomes warmer than the things around it, it causes energy to be moved around, not just by radiance, but by conductance, convection, evaporation and so on. The spectrum that re-emmission occurs at is different from the spectrum that the earth emitts. and so on. The explanation isn’t wrong, its incomplete.”
David: superb response and it’s checkmate a lot quicker than I thought. OK, I’m a little rusty with the arguments of a global warmer – but well done!
From memory if you hadn’t played such a clincher the normal next move is the “it’s been warmer in the last decade than its ever been before”.
To which I normal play: “but it’s currently cooling”.
The response is then “but the trend this century is up” … the ice sheets are melting, the glaciers disappearing, sea level rising.
To which I play: “you always get to the top of the hill before it goes down”. There’s also the Antartic icesheet response, and questionning how the sea levels are measured.
Then at some point as they realise they have lost, they call to the precautionary principle. To which there is the Lord Monckton response of DDT and being a scientist means being precautionary.
“The best proxy we have is from tree rings, and whilst a range of reconstructions have been produced, they typically do suggest that the change in the 20th century was unprecendented.”
Isotherm that is crazy, that is as silly as saying that the best proxy we have for rainfall over the past 100 years is tree rings, the tree rings are dependent on every variable thing of the tree’s environment that influenced tree’s growth, the true interpretation of the tree rings demonstrates that there is as much variability of the tree rings as variability of the weather, in other words chaotic, there is [by definition] no means of extracting unique dependency of single variable influence from data demonstrated to be chaotic
Isotherm you must know by now that anyone can trash your suggestions in ten seconds or less, why are you trolling?
If your real question is, “why not be a watermelon, I think its a good idea?” then no one here or anywhere else can answer that for you, the answer has to come from you not us
John Sutherland –
When Are you going to
When Is you going to
You figure it out.
Maybe it should just be, “When will you”
Bingo. Climate science, like academia and public sector work, had suddenly become lucrative and respected, but without objective value or merit.
It is our duty to call out a lack of value when we see it, to bring truth and rationality back to science and debate. To bring fiscal restraint back to an out of control, entitlement mindset. To stop hysteria. To shut up Al Gore, who even despite all that has transpired, was just this week out lying and blabbering and setting Judith and any purportedly real scientists back another light year.
Willis is right. Judith Curry has no idea how long the road ahead lies.
More snow, more ice….end of
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=02&fd=24&fy=2006&sm=02&sd=24&sy=2010
Willis Eschenbach
Willis, I have a prima facia evidence of the “decline” in “true science”, which ANyONE can do in minutes. Simply go to the American Meteorological Society website. Put in Atmospheric Radiation in the search engine. You will find papers dating back to the ’30’s.
I have about 100 of them downloaded.
Look at the “tone”, the conclusions, the motivations, and it is painfully “transparent” the shift that occurs from about the mid ’80’s onward.
Just about the time that the 60’s “radicals” came of age to start publishing. Objectivity starts being thrown to the side. The language in the technical papers becomes LOADED. Continuous reference to “Greenhouse gasses” (a complete Oxy Moron, and pointed out in many ’50’s,’ 60’s, up to ’70’s Meteorology texts as being untrue..unconnected and not a sensible term, AKA Dr. Robert Wood’s 1909 experiment with two solar collector boxes…one covered with glass, one with rock salt…they equilibrate to the same temperatures in the same solar exposure. Proper term to use – Atmospheric effect), continuous BOWING to “Global Warming” (I.e., a study of the connection of ??? to XXXX which in turn contributes to AGW..)
It is very obvious there is a “paradigm” which is controlling the so called “scientists”, and it isn’t objective science. It is advocacy.
I reminded of the “speed of the deer fly” problem. Someone made a mistake of putting into the Encyclopedia Britanica years ago, that it was one of the fastest moving insects, at about 150 feet per SECOND. It was supposed to be per MINUTE. That error propagated and was cited for YEARS blindly until finally someone stood up and said, “That’s almost 120 Miles Per Hour, and that is patent nonsense, this is a mistake.” (There are some articles on this available.) It is an excellent example of what happens when “science” is discarded and “belief” sets in.
I go to my Church to practice my “beliefs”. (Faith, hope, love…against which there is no law…) However, when I read my technical papers, I practice having my “brain on”, and everything is viewed through a “critical” lens.
Max
Judith Curry – “So by staking this middle position, i pretty much am getting tomatoes thrown at me from both sides, but I am hoping to provoke both sides to think about productive ways of moving forward in getting climate science back on track.”
Here is the problem, as I see it, Judith.. take it as you will.
Climate Audit, and WUWT ARE the middle ground. McIntyre, Watts, and many others have always declared themselves “Agnostics” on this subject. All they have cared about was the science. It doesn’t get more middle ground than that.
Taking a middle ground between Climateaudit and Realclimate still puts you on the wrong side of the line. Come join us at the middle ground and accept that the crux of our argument — that the study of climate science has long since been subjugated to the advocacy of climate policy — has been correct all along.
Old habits die hard, but there are a few climate scientists that have been on the wrong side that I still think can be productive in the process of rebuilding the discipline. Mann, Jones, Hanson and Schmidt are too far gone to be salvageable at this point. But there has always been a good deal of respect for you on this side of the debate because you do step up and tell it like you see it.. and the CRU emails do show a precious few who, if not open about it, did try to steer the lunacy back toward sanity.. albeit unsuccessfully.
Everything must start from scratch. All assumptions must be reset. Unfortunately the advocacy-as-science movement has catastrophically poisoned the well, and there are too many citizens paying millions in carbon credits, and news agencies like the BBC now heavily invested in a green movement built on a house of cards that you will find great resistance once you are here in the middle ground.
But you know what? Welcome to our world, Judith. Welcome to our world.
Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!
[snip]
Luis, (02:34:33)
When I read contributions like yours (and there are others that are roughly related to it in various threads) my immediate reaction is to suggest that you sit in front of your computer, download some climate time series from a source that you regard as being reliable, and analyse them very carefully for yourself. You may find this difficult if you have never previously used statistical methods to examine real world data. I have no idea at all of your scientific background. However, it is useful to consider working in an industrial context, where the penalties (or if you like, “comeuppance”) for making mistakes of commission or omission are financially costly /at a personal level/.
If your prior experience of crucial data analysis is in academia you may have been isolated from pressures of this sort, but let me assure you that they are very real to people (such as Steve McIntyre) whose position depends or depended on getting things right. If you read Climate Audit you will see what diligent analysis is all about.
Scientific work that “informs” political agendas on a global scale must surely be subject to the greatest possible scrutiny, including provisions for such things as strict liability for proven errors. The latter may sound harsh and indeed it is not intended as more than a suggestion, but one must keep in mind the consequences of self-centred analyses on global affairs. Intended publications that are less than transparently honest should, I think, be eschewed by editors, whatever the opinions of reviewers, who may well be closely associated with the authors’ viewpoint. We have recently learned that the term “independent reviewer” may be an oxymoron in the context of climate science.
I have yet to learn of a case of authors of a discredited or erroneous paper in an academic journal who have incurred this sort of discipline. Correct me if I’m wrong about this. I would be interested in specific examples if you have any.
Robin.
Thanks Willis, for a great articulation. This gives voice to so much, reiterated above and in Dr. Curry’s post. I would like to believe she has integrity and honest skepticism. If she does, then she has a wealth of input. Only the future will reveal where she really stands by what she does. Talk or communication is not the issue. The CAWG camp has had all the funding and ‘peer review’ bent to their favor, and the deeper one looks, the closer its basis approaches zero. The only one now on the verge of taking the only appropriate action is Mr. Watts. The basis of all the hysteria is the temperature records, and the mangling that data set has been through. This data set has to be rectified or lacking that ability, tossed out, and begun anew from 1979. There exists no basis for throwing the wrench of CAGW into the global economy with the tenuous data that we have.
Dr. Curry, “technical blogs”? Is the “”d” word” technical terminology?
I suggest if you are serious about restoring the science, you are going to have to take a leadership role and lead by the example for science you wish to be ambassador of. Stumbling over words such as this is not going to doing anything except incite further “discussions”.
I may have my issues with RC, but in the essay II you mention climateprogress, which I have serious issues with (as you may feel similar since they do not find your advocacy to be true to “the faith”).
Again, feel free to set the records straight, speak out against these things you find detestable as a scientist, maybe then others will listen.
Methinks this comment by Judith should get elevated to the top of the heap so that the trolls see how she viewed Willis’ post and that the skeptics see that she is indeed “listening.”
Robinson. “This doesn’t make any sense to me at all. The institutions exist to study the very problem they promote. No problem, no money, no institution.”
I think that Dr Curry was trying to suggest that we should support those who endevour to investigate the subject because they are for the most part conviction (no pun) scientists and they are trying their best. You could argue that all institutions are in it for the money, and should they ever solve the problem they are tasked with then they would not exist. That would be true of the police as much as climate “scientists”.
From her perspective, knowing these people she sees people are not motivated by money but by their love of the subject and such accusations as “they are in it for the money” won’t gell with the reality of her own experience of people she thinks could get a lot more money in other areas (I think that’s true in the US — certainly UK scientists aren’t well paid)
Ref – Judith Curry (04:34:45) :
“Willis, thanks… I am listening… a few misinterpretations of the words i used… First, i did not use or intend to use the “d” word in a pejorative way… I would have thought the community here would have appreciated that point; i guess not… second… re the communication paragraph, it should have said the “truth” as IPCC sees it… third… realclimate, i… stated that they should participate in open debate… name has not been mentioned over there since climategate broke, they are reading what i write in the blogosphere but wish i would stop… With regards to “trust”… the real thing based on the scientific method, transparency etc… I am angry as a scientist, since I may have been using unnecessarily inaccurate surface temperature data in my research… i’m pretty much am getting tomatoes thrown at me from both sides… I am hoping to provoke both sides to think about productive ways of moving forward in getting climate science back on track…”
_______________________
Doctor Curry – you are on the right track. I’m sure that you have gained (and regained) many admirers and supporters as a result of putting yourself out in harm’s way like this. I aplaud your courage and determination. If you were not already aware of it, comments here often contain a bit of adrenolin. For my money, you came, you saw, you conquered; please return often.
Thanks, Willis. From this day forward, I’m going to carry a copy of your excellent dissertation with me wherever I go! Best Wishes, Bob.
IsoTherm (06:50:50) :
Let me give you an analogy. Your core body temp is about 98.6degF. Put on thermal underwear (analogous to added CO2 “heat trapping”). Does you body temp go up? No, other processes cause your body temp to stay stable. Is the same true of the earth’s body temp? No one knows but the converse is also true the more likely situation is that the feedbacks will cause the climate to remain stable.
Perhaps you should have mde this disclaimer sooner. We’ve suddenly got a lot of newcommers here who perhaps haven’t seen some of your other posts.
“Science” itself will suffer, and maybe it should.
In “Computer Science” I’ve seen a lot of careful hard working researchers either quit or be ejected from the world of academia, and a lot of smoke and mirror magicians climb on up the ladder. I remember one really good guy who was about to lose a tenure battle explain to me “you see, you can’t do really original research and produce more than one or two papers a year — the only alternative is to fake it and I don’t want to do that.” The system is inherently corrupt. The people who make the wildest claims will get the funding and the people who grant the funding will declare the results “successful” because if they didn’t they would look stupid.
In “climate science” there are a whole caste of people who will have to find other jobs with some embarassing entries on there resumes if it turns out carbon emissions don’t actually need to be mitigated. Don’t expect them to be friendly and rational towards “deniers.”
The question is: how do you reform the system to prevent corruption?
btw: a quiet joke among “computer scientists” is: anything that has to call itself a “science” isn’t one. Political science, climate science, behavioral science, computer science…
John Hewit,
“If they see “rants” like Willis’s and then look at RC they will not know what to believe”
The problem is, the rant is in the eye of the beholder. I mean, one mans rant is another mans passionate plea.
To me, Willis has written one of the most convincing and passionate essays I have read in recent years. Why? Because it is driven by deeply held sincere beliefs, and from the righteous indignation over the abuse of a cherished principal. It sweeps aside lofty rhetoric and high philosophical discourse in favour of simple yet graphic language.
Look at some of the greatest speeches in history, and they all have these elements – simple prose, graphic representation and passionate delivery. When we read such speeches people say things like “the writer has found his voice.” And so it is here. If it was edited down it could stand as one of the grreatest speeches so far in this, admittedly short, century.
Willis has found his voice.
“Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”
~Phil Jones to Warwick Hughes.
Put me on notice that the “consensus” on man made climate change was so much compost. That statement converted me from believer to skeptic.
As a new skeptic I had to read what was available and be convinced. As a skeptic who tries environmental cases for a living which require the review of technical matters, the examination of the engineering or scientific literature the task did not appear daunting. I have come to understand “experts” and their “opinions” and how to review them with a skeptical eye.
Review of the science made me a denier as to man made.
Thank you M&M, Anthony Watts, Richard Lindzen, John Christy, Steve Mosher, Lord Monckton, Ian Plimer, et al., for your help.
Thank you Michael Mann et al, Phil Jones et al, IPCC and the rest of the hockey team for your help. I read your stuff as well.
Thank you Vaclav Klaus, Michael Crichton, Bjorn Lomborg, Willis Eschenbach, and to all that have contributed to this website and climateaudit.org, et al for your help.
If you don’t share your computer code, or your unadjusted raw data, or split samples of cores you are running a con, not doing science. If your friends don’t share computer code, or unadjusted raw data, or split samples of cores they are running a con and not doing science and you should call them on it.
Bernie Madoff ran a con; he did not share his computer code, or participate in or allow due diligence by his investors. If investors asked for due diligence it was denied. Skeptical investors then refused to invest. Those who trusted invested. Madoff sold on the “trust me I know what I’m doing” platform. Some will always buy from the “trust me” sellers. Did McIntyre say: if global warming were a security you would not buy it for lack of disclosure? Or was that Phil Jones?
If man made climate change science needs a “trust me” platform, it is not science. Each scientist should be able to follow Lord Monkton’s lead and provide proof to all. Ian Plimer does that very well in his book.
Thank you to whoever released those e-mails and computer code.
Thank you to the parties that have filed petitions for rehearing on the EPA’s endangerment finding, and thank you in advance for carrying on that fight to the court of appeals as I suspect the EPA will deny rehearing.
Brilliant post. The sceptic manifesto.
Excellent comments
What we are up against In relation to “To Big to Fail” and getting the truth into MSM.
1) Wall St. is a signifigant contributor to the campagn funds of the candidates and members of both parties in the congress and the senate. (not to mention the President)
2} What is the exposure of Goldman Sachs to the immediate failure of the Carbon Trading Market not to mention the possible future $Trillions?? loss of future profits. (or the losses of politions, public figures, private investors, pension funds etc. already invested in the market)