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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Judith here comes your friends “to persuade an increasingly sceptical public”
“Climate scientists must do more to work out how exceptionally cold winters or a dip in world temperatures fit their theories of global warming, if they are to persuade an increasingly sceptical public. ”
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/et-cetera/Scientists-examine-causes-for-lull-in-warming/articleshow/5616841.cms
“Climate science” is a contrived fraud to get funding. There is no evidence of an urgent need to spend hundreds of millions studying a problem that exists only in the minds of people like James Hansen, head of “climate change” at NASA, who declared in 1981 for god’s sake that climate warming was a crisis. The fact is that “proxy data” like ice cores, tree rings and ocean bottom sediments and inadequate error filled historic thermometer temperatures cannot prove any global warming over a period that could be said to have any meaning. The contrived unproven “forcings” and “tipping points” are not science they are made up reasons for more funding. Given the major problems facing the world the money being spent on “climate science” and the AGW conjecture is immoral.
UzUrBrn: Regret to advise that Crichton is unavailable. He is deceased.
OT but interesting confrontation between Inhoff and Lisa Jackson:
“At a hearing Tuesday by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget, ranking Republican James Inhofe told EPA head Lisa Jackson that man-induced climate change was a “hoax” concocted by ideologically motivated researchers who “cooked the science.”
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=522120
Looks like they’re going to be calling Al Gore back to confront him, too. Wow, that should be interesting.
I wonder if Dr. Curry would like to participate, perhaps as an expert witness?
Thanks to both Willis and Judith.
Willis, you have articulated what I would have liked to have said. I am a civil engineer with far too many yeaars of experience in hydroelectric project development, so I live and die by climate.
I have worked with many of the best geologists in the world. I have to say that I don’t know any working geologist who affords any credibility to CAGW.
Judith, did you really think that your use of the “d” word would not arouse anger, resentment or hostility?
If this is what you thought, you are far stupider than I took you for.
Jack
old construction worker (12:49:59) “We have the high moral ground on this issue”
That is precisly the point. The people behind this ideology or whatsoever you may call it, think that they are doing it for the sake of humanity, they think that through these means they have already achieved a more equalized society, since they began their revolution, back in the days of the french revolution which achieved their main goal of wiping out monarchies and turning to secular forms of state/governments, and science to the agnostic “illustrated” level. Now, using the service of the same institutions they used in the past, promote the new socialist revolution, now intended to rule over the whole world. Cheers with Kool-Aid!
Sean Peake (09:41:05) :
It’s remarkable that apparently a handful of “trustworthy” scientists can corrupt a whole field of science by deliberately poisoning the well from which all others draw.
Indeed. What does this tell us about the analytical powers of thousands of “climate scientists??” Did these people really want to know the truth, or were they taking a free ride on a gravy train?
Artifice in = Artifice out.
We are probably reaching a point at which warmists fully acknowledge their part in the marked failing of the last twenty years. From there we can move to amends. I think from the tone following Willis, real, sincere, material amends would be welcome here. But it’s going to cost something.
Willis Eschenbach (09:19:11) : wrote:
“Read what I wrote. I asked for two simple things — for honest science, and for climate scientists to police their own back yard. All that stuff about red chinese confessions is your own fevered imagination.
Is my writing really that hard to understand?”
No.
These are the passages that caught my eye:
“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?
——
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.
——
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.
———-
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.
———–
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
——-
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.”
To me, this sounds like a call for ritual self-humiliation, though the tone of your piece is of barely contained anger and that mayn’t have been your intent.
The bottom line is that there’s a reality with which everyone outraged by the way climate science has been hijacked by the mentality of a shyster advocate will have to come to terms, the expiation which many feel is due will not happen. There will be no trials, no scientist will be cross-examined into a cocked hat and break down admitting his crime and no scientist will be led away from court in chains.
Probably the best that can happen is that the majority of climate scientist can be drawn into process where they acknowledge departures from best practice in the past, red flag a few papers, agree best scientific practice for the future and cooperate in representing the science in an, objectively agreed, fair manner.
Achieving a fair and accurate portrayal of the science is of primary importance for me and I would consider that a satisfactory result.
The alternative, if no opportunity for a dignified novation is offered, is that they brazen it out, Michael Mann style, and stick two fingers up at the lot of us and laugh with glee as the less temperate burn up in their own indignation.
Anger is cathartic, but it’s not constructive.
DirkH (13:04:52)
I think we could have a very interesting conversation about this sometime. As someone who works for a very large publicly traded multinational (not oil or coal TYVM) I have very some very strong opinions about the effect of shareholders and boards on organizations.
Personally I think it really boils down to failure of leadership (Executives and Boards in particular), and TBH I don’t believe there’s any better way to go about it, but let me just say that the decisions made by boards and execs at the behest of stock market analysts are not always in the best interests of the shareholders.
ISO Therm,
Why rely on reasoning to predict behavior when we can use data to show if the premise is worth exploring?
IOW, show that past increases in CO2 lead temperature increases.
“A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them. ” — John C. Maxwell
Regrettably, based on Dr. Curry’s post, one must conclude that the AGW community is none of the above.
Bravo, Willis.
Willis:
“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.”
I think you are imprecise here willis. Dr. Curry was not silent back in 2007 and supported our cause for free access to data and code. She did so on a thread at RC.. the 1934 thread see the comments. we need to be as accurate in our characterizations of peoples behavior as we expect them to be in their characterizations of the science.
Digest, condense:
Dr Curry is nice, but wrong.
Mr Eschenbach is not nice, but right.
____________________________________
On the politicization of science:
A steadily increasing share [of research] is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government. … [T]he free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity.
[Eisenhower’s 1961 Farewell Address.]
[A pity it was not his inaugural address.]
——————————–
On the scientification of politics:
Politician (to the audience): “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”
(Aside, to an aide:) “That is why we have democracy. You only need to fool a small majority of those you permit to vote once every four years.”
(The aide, chuckling:) “I get it. Then we call it the consensus of the nation and declare the issue is settled.”
____________________________________
If
Science = scientia = knowledge
Knowledge implies truth
Then
How much knowledge / truth is there in ClimateScience (TM) ?
———————————
Remember Socrates?
“I know how little I know.”
Very nice post Willis. This is about the fourth in a row that has really blown me away. I might have to blog on it later. THX!
Dr. Curry,
From your earlier essay, I got from your tone that you STILL have an almost dogmatic belief that “your” side is correct. Even in the face of, in my opinion, well reasoned arguments and actual measurements.
The AGW crowd has this belief that those on the side of “mostly natural climate change” are some stereotypical bumpkin without any real scientific training and therefore feel justified in dismissing our comments and arguments.
bobdenton (14:00:07)
People keep telling me this, but I see no evidence of this in the real world. The American colonists got angry, righteously pissed off, about the way the King was treating them … not constructive?
I wish more climate scientists would get angry about how their field has been compromised, and as a result would stand up and say something about it. I would see that as very constructive.
In my view anger, like anything else, can be both constructive and destructive. However, what is rarely constructive in my experience is for me to pretend to be something that I’m not. Fact is, I’m angry. For me to pretend not to be angry would not only not be constructive, it would be deceptive.
“NickB. (14:07:46) :
[…]
Personally I think it really boils down to failure of leadership (Executives and Boards in particular), and TBH I don’t believe there’s any better way to go about it, but let me just say that the decisions made by boards and execs at the behest of stock market analysts are not always in the best interests of the shareholders.”
So you’re already differentiating there… I don’t think we’re that much apart. Yes, short term decisions to pump up a shares’s price are often harmful to business. While i like a quick buck just as much as the next person i sleep much better when i know that i own a sound business.
“Judith Curry (04:34:45) :
[…]
I am angry as a scientist, since I may have been using unnecessarily inaccurate surface temperature data in my research. Ecologists, chemical engineers, etc. who have made career decisions in directing their research toward climate change impacts or mitigation have been trusting the system to work.”
Now that really explains something. All these researchers trusting their input data, happily sitting in their ivory towers, proving that earth is in for a hard time from 9 to 5, feeling satisfied that they help to avert desaster. Suddenly finding out that the input data was garbage. All those merry proofs for nought.
Here’s a hint from a programmer: Never trust data that comes from outside your system. The assumption that it’s correct benign data might hold, or it might not. Run integrity checks. Get a second source. Be cautious. Ever wondered why GISTEMP changes the past with each release? Smells foul, doesn’t it? Keep copies of each version if that’s your input.
Especially, it might have helped if all you scientists had watched out for contrarian papers.
Failed to do all that? Too bad, so sad.
Ah, I so like Heilein,
Pacer (13:29:54) : “Every poster here should at least recognize Dr. Curry’s attempt at dialogue as more then reasonably brave.”
I’d rather not go down that line Pacer. What does it tell tell us about the condition of institutionalised climatology? What does it say about the ability to look objectively at the issues and evidence?
There are other practitioners who post here, and we don’t recognise their bravery for engaging with this community.
“I trust that those who post disagreement with her article and her past assertions re: climate will remain respectful in their comments regarding Dr. Curry.”
I believe the posts here have been respectful to Dr Curry. I’m confident that she’ll be capable of separating personal attack from harsh criticism of lack of standards in climatology research, and criticism of her views.
Anyway, we can leave it to Judith to judge the extent to which such criticisms may or may not apply to her professional conduct. Willis and others do a perfectly good job of leaving Judith and other practitioners in no doubt about their views on what is expected of professional conduct, and what has been evident for many years now.
I see no grounds for mitigation on fear/bravery. Such excuses are not generally available to other professions where there are significant public interest concerns.
And a final thought for you Pacer. Judith does not come here for dialogue about the evidence of AGW catastrophe. She is trying to get back some respectability back for the AGW orthodoxy, and to get some of this back into academia. Her time would be better spent quietly doing some proper research.
ISO Therm, while your questions and the ensuing discussion are interesting, this is not the thread for them. I directed you to two other threads here and here that address these issues directly, there are hundreds more on the web.
So I’d request that you take your questions to a thread which is relevant to your subject.
w.
Well stated, Willis! Judith Curry has made a half-step on the road to recovery by acknowledging that she has a problem. The first full step won’t be complete until she correctly identifies what that problem is.
We can help her out but we can’t do it for her. Here’s a start. The failure to create a message sufficiently folksy to fool the “uneducated” masses is NOT the problem.
We spend billions of dollars every year on researches and yet not one red cent is going to find a cure for smug.
OceanTwo
Although I agree with a lot of Willis’s sentiments I think he has overstepped the mark in a few places here. Although he is right that mainstream climate scientists should have spoken out against the distortion of science, remarks such as “the rest of you are complicit in the crime by your silence” and “your stupidity and your dishonesty and your scientific malfeasance” are over the top and not fair.
To be a professional does not only mean you are skilled at something, which is the everyday use of the word. It also means that you have accepted the ethical obligation of placing the truth and the welfare of those affected by your work ahead of your own interests – income, prestige, ego etc.
Most, but not all, professions are self-regulating through personal interaction and through the peak organisations of the profession – think the General medical Council in the UK.
Particularly in those professionas that do not have peak organisations it is incumbent on each member to control the others – because in becoming a member of the profession you accepted the obligation I mentioned.
It doesn’t matter if most people would find to difficult or distressing to criticise (or out) a fellow member. If difficulty or distress prevents you, then you have not complied with your obligation and should leave the profession.
Only when the public knows that a profession genuinely self-disciplines will it trust the professsion.
Peer-review of publications is a formal part of that system. The warmists have corrupted it. Not only do they corrupt it, they then point to the results of their own corrupt practices as evidence that the profession is engaged in its proper self-disciplinary processes.
re: TomFP
An uttery superb, insightful expression, almost word for word, of the reasons why reasonably educated non-scientists like myself are skeptical regarding AGW Bravo!
Thank you Tom
Ron Furner
I made the mistake of reading your post 1st but then read Dr. Curry’s
Here’s what I posted for her yet I sincerely feel relates to you rebuttal.
Thanks for posting Dr. Curry,
I’m about as close to “John Q. Public” as you’re likely to find and the issue[s] for me are fairly obvious.
You are not taking your audience seriously when we seek information related to climate models and are instructed that its simply too complicated to explain and to present online.
We seek hard facts to support the wild claims of the IPCC reports and find an unending stream of internet posts from Scientists pointing out the obvious flaws in the logic.
As we search, we encounter contradictory studies from the UN’s own research groups saying the opposite of the IPCC conclusions.
And, we are constantly bombarded with comments from lame duck politicians and unqualified business characters claiming we should shell out to stave off or hide from a pending worldwide disaster.
The reports, the facts, and the exaggerated claims do nothing but support a complete lack of credibility for Climate Science and convince us that you have been “bought”.
Can Trust Be Rebuilt?
I really hope so, these wild claims are influencing our children and encouraging them to dismiss Scientific pursuits and amazing Institutions like NASA and NOAA.
If the claims have any validity, why didn’t you approach the definition and resolution of the situation in an open worldwide way?
Why is the data locked up when it should have been evaluated in the most efficient way via nearly every University in the world and tested under a shared model?
Willis, for what its worth, I think your comments are insightful but there was nothing in them that resolves the situation and in this regard Good for Dr. Curry to at least propose the idea.
Without resolution is there a Science we can trust?
One can see how this mess might have happened : my interpretation is :
It was unfortunate that the heads of CRU, NOAA and GISS were committed believers in AGW rather than people who simply wanted to measure temperatures as accurately as possible.
To begin with there was no problem – temperatures were increasing. Then things started going wrong. As they were ‘right’ about AGW there was no harm in fudging the data a little bit to keep up the momentum and not allow any doubts to arise, after all it would only be temporary and the figures would come right again.
They didn’t! It was necessary to massage the data more and more to keep the idea of AGW alive. They became increasingly paranoid about being found out, and aggressive to anyone who wanted to check the data or publish papers not supporting AGW. They wanted to keep AGW going until the ‘anomalies’ went away.
They found they could get away with it. The media became their perfect mouth piece, politicians believed their every word, critics were like ants to be crushed at will – they were unassailable, god-like. Their arrogance grew. Science was no longer necessary, opinion could replace science as long as it was called science.
Then Climategate happened, and suddenly to some of the public they started to look like small, naked false gods. People started listening to the critics, and thinking for themselves. The media started looking at the science, and found it wasn’t science at all.
Although it may take a while to die, AGW is effectively dead. If so much effort and research could not produce a robust science, then more of the same is unlikely to. Also, reality is catching up with it, and the solar driven climate model seems to be the best fit to the real world. [not that that is much consolation if we are heading for a Dalton minimum]