Here’s something rather astonishing.
The Institute of Physics, has made a statement about climate science.
IOP issued a no holds barred statement on Climategate to the UK Parliamentary Committee. Here’s the key passages:
What are the implications of the disclosures for the integrity of scientific research?
1. The Institute is concerned that, unless the disclosed e-mails are proved to be forgeries or adaptations, worrying implications arise for the integrity of scientific research in this field and for the credibility of the scientific method as practised in this context.
2. The CRU e-mails as published on the internet provide prima facie evidence of determined and co-ordinated refusals to comply with honourable scientific traditions and freedom of information law. The principle that scientists should be willing to expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by others, which requires the open exchange of data, procedures and materials, is vital. The lack of compliance has been confirmed by the findings of the Information Commissioner. This extends well beyond the CRU itself – most of the e-mails were exchanged with researchers in a number of other international institutions who are also involved in the formulation of the IPCC’s conclusions on climate change.
3. It is important to recognise that there are two completely different categories of data set that are involved in the CRU e-mail exchanges:
· those compiled from direct instrumental measurements of land and ocean surface temperatures such as the CRU, GISS and NOAA data sets; and
· historic temperature reconstructions from measurements of ‘proxies’, for example, tree-rings.
4. The second category relating to proxy reconstructions are the basis for the conclusion that 20th century warming is unprecedented. Published reconstructions may represent only a part of the raw data available and may be sensitive to the choices made and the statistical techniques used. Different choices, omissions or statistical processes may lead to different conclusions. This possibility was evidently the reason behind some of the (rejected) requests for further information.
5. The e-mails reveal doubts as to the reliability of some of the reconstructions and raise questions as to the way in which they have been represented; for example, the apparent suppression, in graphics widely used by the IPCC, of proxy results for recent decades that do not agree with contemporary instrumental temperature measurements.
6. There is also reason for concern at the intolerance to challenge displayed in the e-mails. This impedes the process of scientific ’self correction’, which is vital to the integrity of the scientific process as a whole, and not just to the research itself. In that context, those CRU e-mails relating to the peer-review process suggest a need for a review of its adequacy and objectivity as practised in this field and its potential vulnerability to bias or manipulation.
7. Fundamentally, we consider it should be inappropriate for the verification of the integrity of the scientific process to depend on appeals to Freedom of Information legislation. Nevertheless, the right to such appeals has been shown to be necessary. The e-mails illustrate the possibility of networks of like-minded researchers effectively excluding newcomers. Requiring data to be electronically accessible to all, at the time of publication, would remove this possibility.
8. As a step towards restoring confidence in the scientific process and to provide greater transparency in future, the editorial boards of scientific journals should work towards setting down requirements for open electronic data archiving by authors, to coincide with publication. Expert input (from journal boards) would be needed to determine the category of data that would be archived. Much ‘raw’ data requires calibration and processing through interpretive codes at various levels.
9. Where the nature of the study precludes direct replication by experiment, as in the case of time-dependent field measurements, it is important that the requirements include access to all the original raw data and its provenance, together with the criteria used for, and effects of, any subsequent selections, omissions or adjustments. The details of any statistical procedures, necessary for the independent testing and replication, should also be included. In parallel, consideration should be given to the requirements for minimum disclosure in relation to computer modelling.
Are the terms of reference and scope of the Independent Review announced on 3 December 2009 by UEA adequate?
10. The scope of the UEA review is, not inappropriately, restricted to the allegations of scientific malpractice and evasion of the Freedom of Information Act at the CRU. However, most of the e-mails were exchanged with researchers in a number of other leading institutions involved in the formulation of the IPCC’s conclusions on climate change. In so far as those scientists were complicit in the alleged scientific malpractices, there is need for a wider inquiry into the integrity of the scientific process in this field.
11. The first of the review’s terms of reference is limited to: “…manipulation or suppression of data which is at odds with acceptable scientific practice…” The term ‘acceptable’ is not defined and might better be replaced with ‘objective’.
12. The second of the review’s terms of reference should extend beyond reviewing the CRU’s policies and practices to whether these have been breached by individuals, particularly in respect of other kinds of departure from objective scientific practice, for example, manipulation of the publication and peer review system or allowing pre-formed conclusions to override scientific objectivity.
How independent are the other two international data sets?
13. Published data sets are compiled from a range of sources and are subject to processing and adjustments of various kinds. Differences in judgements and methodologies used in such processing may result in different final data sets even if they are based on the same raw data. Apart from any communality of sources, account must be taken of differences in processing between the published data sets and any data sets on which they draw.
Clearly a sleeping giant has awakened.
Andrew Bolt muses:
This submission in effect warns that this recent warming may not be unprecedented, after all, and those that claim it is may have been blinded by bias or simply fiddled their results and suppressed dissent.
I’ll repeat: Climategate reveals the greatest scientific scandal of our lifetime.
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I have no objections to the IOP submission. The policy implications from climate science require it to be held to the very highest standards. We should expect full disclosure, whether from CRU or Climate Audit.
Back in the day, University of Texas, Arlington.
Dr. Niedderman and others, you got it right or you got out.
Some Junion year classes were the cull ones, you had to take them and pass them. Looks like the do gooders did away with the cull classes and some culls got PHD’s and wanted things to warm up to their “opinions”.
I submit that the ugly sister to Post Normal Science is the Progressive Political Movement–call it Post-Normal Politics if you will. The two are based on the same slippery slope of reasoning, and have ultimately the same goals. PNS and PNP go hand-in-hand, one feeding upon the other, at the cost of civilized humanity if they continue unchallenged.
Bravo for the IOP. Now I need to write letters to a few geological societies I know.
“Doug in Dunedin (13:47:00) :
FTM (13:08:56) :
I was wondering about all the people in the educational “pipeline” when this story first came out in November. Imagine having put the time, effort and finance into a PhD in Climatology only to have your “science” turn out to be a proven hoax.”
Imagine having put all the time, effort and finance into named career without noticing how flakey the whole evidence is, how tortured the data is, how badly the programs are written. Imagine having spend all this time in institutions where bosses denounce and silence critical voices. Now imagine what kind of person puts up with all this, an honest person, do you think so? Is it not so that the last honest person has long left that sinking ship? I know i would jump ship as soon as i get any old job offer somewhere else if i were in such an institution. And long before the excrement hits the rotating device.
Carl Sagan: “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
The claim was that the Scientific method was corrupted. “Pal Review” as claimed by Wegman. “Refusal to release data and methods” as claimed by just about everyone else.
For years, many institutions and individuals refused to believe it, because of they required evidence akin to a smoking gun.
It seems that the Institute of Physics has now found its “extraordinary evidence”.
No matter what the inquiry says – things are not going to be the same again.
Certainly not for Climate Science, and probably not for anyone else.
I am struck by the similarity between Marxism and AGW:
1. They both make a considerable amount of sense when reading the theory.
2. They both fail miserably in reality.
3. Their proponants resort to forged data to prove their theories work despite the observed results.
4. The weight of the forged data cannot prevent the utter failure and collapse in reality.
Despite which:
The next generation reads the theory, and considers that it makes sense.
Doug in Dunedin (13:47:00) :
Yes and its even worse because even the children in primary education have had this stuff dunned into them almost from the cradle. I can’t begin to imagine the long tem effects of this. It is criminal.
Doug
When children don’t smoke, don’t eat fast food, and have regular bowel movement because of things they were told at school, then I will worry that propaganda works on school children.
Until then…
Indur M. Goklany (13:03:53) wrote:
“The fundamental issue here is how and why was this possible? Is this an inevitable consequence of big science that needs large infusions of dollars, which must almost certainly have to come from the government? Was it enabled by the fact that the institutions — as well as the researchers that depend on them — need these dollars to survive? And since the moneys are coming from public funds, there is a constant need to show that the problems that they are working on are critical to humanity (so that moneys continue to flow “here” and not “elsewhere”? Does this inevitably lead to hyperbole, and a little cutting of corners?”
An emphatic YES! Of course! Absolutely!
Now…what are we going to do about it? Is there a solution?
[Oliver, I’ve told you several times that your attempts to hijack threads with your solar theories, that have nothing to do with the thread, are unwelcome.
You’ve been warned gently, firmly, and strongly. Yet you’ve ignored those warnings here again trying to push your solar theories on a thread about a policy decision.
You are banned for this continued behavior. You are now permanently unwelcome here, all further comments from you will be deleted wholesale. – Anthony]
Vincent writes:
“I’m sure they reached their conclusions before Willis Eschenbach posted his essay on Thursday, but it’s as if they anticipated his thoughts. Great minds are converging on the one undeniable truth – scientific method has not been followed.”
I am a great admirer of Willis Eschenbach, as I have said many times. However, there was nothing to anticipate in this case. The IOP statement appeals to the absolute fundamentals of scientific method. The benighted Climategaters are, as I type, arguing that replicating research cannot possibly mean reproducing it; rather, to them, it must mean doing a parallel study on the same phenomena. They are arguing that those who appeal to scientific method are “Deniers.” The truth of the matter is that the Climategaters were practicing Mann’s “ideopathic statistics” as an art form and they cannot believe that the world has the insolence to call them on it. You can check me out by going to realclimate.com and comments 300 and later on Santer’s essay. Many of us have been arguing that the Climategaters have violated scientific method for years, but it takes an organization with the clout of the IOP to get the attention of everyone.
Jim Clarke (15:48:23) :
Indur M. Goklany (13:03:53)
And since the moneys are coming from public funds, there is a constant need to show that the problems that they are working on are critical to humanity (so that moneys continue to flow “here” and not “elsewhere”? Does this inevitably lead to hyperbole, and a little cutting of corners?”
Now…what are we going to do about it? Is there a solution?>>
There is no solution because the problem is cyclic and repeats itself. The most visible public issue gets the attention of the politicians who provide research funding. I knew a researcher studying polar bear habitat and how it affects population distribution. If he put the words “affects of global warming on” the title of his submission, it had a better chance of getting funded, though it did not change what he was researching. When AIDS was the hot topic, an immunology study that included the words “potential treatment for AIDS” was more likely to get funded though the study was no different. History will repeat itself, and if you want the public perception and politics out of the funding, you have to figure out how to move the research to the private sector.
The tart little saying: “A rose is a rose, is a rose..” helps describe the problem science has with ClimateGate and all that has (and possibly will) follow. To the average occupant of the World “A science is a science, is a science.” and “A scientist is a scientist, is a scientist.” Thankfully, the IOP is at least making an effort to draw a line and make a distinction, finally. For the sake of Science and Scientists everywhere and everywhen, I hope it’s NOT too late.
Linda (09:13:38) :
Now MSM, are you listening??
THAT is a very good question. Because with each publication that ignores such a large, recognized institution’s scathing statement, we find journalistic collusion. To pretend this is not a huge blow to UEA and the entire global warming campaign demonstrates meditated ignorance at an astonishing scale.
A scheme set up to tax the air we breathe has een declared a scientific fraud by an august body of eminent scientists. Networks, the NYTimes, NPR, AP, UPI, Reuters, etc. are going to attempt to ignore this? At the peril of their very existence! There will be no more network news or newspapers or wire services if they attempt to suppress this corruption.
Good people in media… What side are you on? Truth, or corrupt idealism??
The epitaph is for AGW, portions of government, and the MainStream Media. “Ignore the truth and perish.”
Guys. Don’t you know that IOP is a front for the Independent Oil Producers.;-)
I agree with Andrew Bolt that Climategate represents the greatest scientific scandal of our lifetime, but scandals tend to involve either sex or money and I suspect the amount of (taxpayer) money poured into ‘climate science’ had to corrupt the process. Barring the Manhattan project and the space race I don’t think any other scientific issue has soaked up a similar volume of taxpayer dollars. Since the previous endeavours had to work they had to be legitimate. Climate science, however, tends to be based on sheer speculation. A scandal was inevitable. Cross your fingers it starts to unravel.
Roger Knights: “Things are developing as I foresaw. Here’s what I wrote at the time, during Weeks 1 & 2 of Climategate, in exchanges with Brendan_H (primarily).”
Roger, you seem to have copy and pasted some quotes from an earlier exchange. You make many claims, but I think my original comment here stands:
“Titillation is one thing, conspiracy another. To get a Watergate situation, you need actual scientific wrongdoing, strong evidence of fraud and collusion, and to date there’s been none of that, nor any reason to suspect any more such evidence in future.”
To which you reply: “The Team stands accused of that and more.” Well, yes, the “Team” has been accused of many things, but the term I used was “strong evidence”. For some people, the evidence to date is sufficent to start erecting the gibbets and cracking open the champagne.
Others, not so much. There are many claims from all parts of the spectrum on all sorts of matters involving the behaviour and practices of climate scientists. So let us maintain our sceptic credentials and withhold judgement until the evidence has been thoroughly examined by an independent source.
And if scientific fraud is uncovered, I’ll join you to watch them swing.
While the IOP is speaking of scientific principles that must be upheld I would still be cautious in how one interprets the IOP’s comments. It could all be a set up for a white wash. Seeming though, it is one baby step in the right direction.
pwl
http://PathsToKnowledge.NET
Z (15:31:58) :
“When children don’t smoke, don’t eat fast food, and have regular bowel movement because of things they were told at school, then I will worry that propaganda works on school children.
Until then” …
Ha! Maybe you have a point – the kids instinctively sense BS!! – and ignore all the advice given by teachers – by god you are a cynic!
Doug
I have never been prouder to be a physicist!
This is all fine, but what I’m finding is contamination and bias everywhere you look. Why can’t people tell you they’ve used a series of different instruments over a period of time and prior to that proxy data for things like TSI? Instead we get manipulated compilations. I’m sorry but the only people listening to this kind of information can handle the full data set with no constructions! Like what’s with the way the GISS temp ‘data set’ is put together?
Anyway it seems the use of methods that prevent or frustrate scrutiny are becoming common practice and I’m still not sure if its poor mentoring, training or there are individuals trying to force the story one way or the other.
As a point. Can anybody tell me where to find real empirical ‘radiative effect’ data for CO2 as a trace gas? What I mean is you have one container with air with 0.04% CO2 and another with 0.1% CO2 and characteristic heat absorption properties of it are taken? All I get is condescending simpleton junk that is derived from data that is invalid once extrapolating the properties to the desired state, model derived data, ad hoc backwards assumed to exist data … I am very frustrated with this. Every AGW site says real empirical data exists showing this phenomena but where is it? All I find is either vague references that nobody was able to find a significant effect by experiment or that ‘of course’ this has been proven. I can’t even find anything ‘real’ supporting the mild radiative effect that some skeptics grudgingly assign to CO2. Thanks.
len;
What I mean is you have one container with air with 0.04% CO2 and another with 0.1% CO2 and characteristic heat absorption properties of it are taken>>
If only it were that simple. The emission spectrum of earth changes with temperature. The absorption spectrum of CO2 overlaps with H2O and a few other things. So as temps fluctuate, characteristics of CO2 relative to emission spectrum change, Then you need to consider the re-mission spectrum of the CO2 which is based on the temperature it is at. Emission spectrum for CO2 at +20 C is in the absortion spectrum of CO2, But emission spectrum for CO2 at 3000 meters is at a different wavelengths since it is at -15 or colder. So there is a way to answer your question and even test it. But its a bit complicated.
Jim Clarke (15:48:23) :
RESPONSE: I am not sure I have a sure-fire fix, because even institutions, like individuals, are corruptible. Perhaps, at best, we are doomed to cycles — a phase of corruption, followed by a clean-up, followed by (one hopes) slow decay, and back again (if we are lucky). One hopes that the corruption phases are short and not too costly for humanity.
I am sure that when it started, the Church, for instance, was a ray of sunshine. But over centuries it got corrupted, living high of its tithes and donations, selling indulgences, monopolizing knowledge, and suppressing inconvenient truths, even as it did some good no doubt. It was in this phase for centuries also. It’s not clear that it has quite recovered. And when we look around the world we see many places where corruption is endemic — how come they never get cleaned up?
One way to help out is to have competition and a free market in ideas, knowledge and science. This way there would be fewer shenanigans. But who would ensure such a free market, who would fund and not –sooner or later — want to call the tune?
Perhaps there should be a limit to the size of grants, or for every grant there should be equivalent funds given to someone else to “disprove” or counter the researcher’s findings, until some figure out how to collude.
A critical problem is how would it be decided (and by whom) how much funds to give and to whom. It is virtually impossible to expect that people competing for funds will not resort to hyperbole; a few may even resort to questionable tactics, etc.
Scientists and science institutions already know what ought to be done — insist on adherence to the scientific method; full sharing of all data, codes, methodologies for quick and easy replicability if it is publicly funded or if it is to be used for public policy; replication before use in developing public policies; “disbarment” if these norms are flouted.
They should also acknowledge that peer review is fine to determine whether someone gets tenure, but not sufficient for making multi-million or multi-trillion dollar decisions. Also they should recognize that an “assessment” for policy purposes requires a CRITICAL evaluation of the papers consulted and should go beyond a cut-and-paste job. This means critiquing everything: the assumptions (implicit and explicit), the methods used, the data collected, the statistics calculated; evaluating whether the results make sense; etc. Certainly, I would not use any model, no matter, how trivial unless it has been validated using “out-of-sample” data. I suspect that many researchers consider these to be “janitorial” duties so don’t put there energies into them.
While on that topic, grants should reserve a share for “janitorial” duties, so no one can say they didn’t have funds/personnel to have them performed.
davidmhoffer,
If only it were that simple.
Thanks. That is what I thought.
The reply I should have made to that was this: “To get to a Watergate situation – i.e., a long-running house-of-cards public “scandal” — one does not need strong evidence of major wrongdoing. The necessary ingredients are:
1. Intriguing evidence of scandalous or improper behavior by
2. An infuriating accusee (powerful vain, pompous, high-handed (“Let them drink Perrier”)) whom the public and the media, or a major segment of it, can come to see as a villain deserving of a comeuppance,
3. Disaffected or disillusioned dominoes who are prepared to distance themselves from #2 once they sense that he’s vulnerable (blood in the water) or has betrayed them,
4. Potential embarrassments or worse that a fishing expedition might uncover (fuel to keep the fire going and keep the public entertained),
5. An official investigation that has the power to take sworn testimony, reduce wiggle room, and encourage wobbly dominoes to fall. (For instance, the former student, quoted above, who wrote to the UK Parliamentary Inquiry, “From my experience as a former postgraduate student of the UEA, I have documentary evidence that the UEA as an institution and it’s agents have often indulged in falsifications, distortions, and misrepresentations.”)
6. A media frenzy (which has started, barely, in the UK & India).
But I didn’t claim that there was strong evidence they were guilty, I merely disputed your contention that Climategate had no legs and wouldn’t develop into a Watergate situation. For that, an accusation, plus some evidence, plus reason to believe there’s more more that can be shaken loose, is sufficient. You made the following assertions:
1. “what we have seen is probably the leaker’s best shot ….” So far you’re right, but that doesn’t mean much. Eventually all the internal documents from CRU, which are now in the hands of the authorities, will be examined for evidence of dodginess, and it’s very unlikely that no such evidence will be found. Even if what turns up in non-explosive in itself, it could lead to additional inquiries and searches of the e-mail back-ups at other institutions. The Wang / Jones China UHI data “loss” and cover-up has extremely explosive potential.
There are others involved with the IPCC and/or CRU who will eventually be interviewed or come forward on their own. The official inquiry has lots of rocks to turn over. Especially after the upcoming elections in the US & UK.
2. “It’s also doubtful that many other whistle-blowers are waiting in the wings.” What about Harry? We haven’t heard his testimony yet. Or that of the former UAE student quoted above. And we have heard from a few indirect whistleblowers. Georg Kaser came out after Climategate. He had been slighted by the high-handed tactics of the IPCC/Team. Another who had been slighted by that bunch was VK Raina of India’s Geological Survey, whose official report ChooChoo scornfully dismissed, calling it voodoo science. Whistle-blower Cogley (plus Pearce, eventually) then got on the case and exposed Glaciergate. If participants are invited to testify under oath, lots more could be forthcoming.
3. “In the current situation, no such conspiracy and cover-up has been alleged [sure it has] or shown, nor even any compelling evidence of wrongdoing.” I should have granted your point that this affair is not like Watergate because it doesn’t involve a large, complex, and long-running conscious conspiracy run by one man that would unravel bit by bit, week by week on TV to a national audience, with the conspirators having to fall back to more and more preposterous and indefensible positions. It’s more like a lot of little semi-conscious dodgy doings that collectively add up to scientific misbehavior.
Still, that lack of parallelism in the crime doesn’t mean that a long-running Watergate-type pursuit-of-the-accused can’t develop. Look at the current situation with Toyota. Because it behaved high-handedly, improperly, and focused on defeating and marginalizing its accusers by any means necessary, and because there was some evidence of a possible coverup of additional embarrassing facts, it supplied the ingredients a Watergate-style witch-hunt. (Remember, I didn’t claim that the Team would lose in the end, like Nixon, only that the scandal about Climategate wasn’t a nine-day wonder, but “had legs” and would blow up into a major affair.)
(FYI, here’s an article on the background of Toyota’s cover-stories: “Toyota Recalls Traced Back to Cost Cuts, Growth That `Hijacked’ Quality”:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aF0aX8t0Q6lk&pos=12 )
I don’t believe fraud was involved, just misbehavior. The accusees got caught up in a fad, wanted to think well of themselves, lacked the common sense to see how “iffy” major links in their chain were, employed sharp elbows, etc., etc. I.e., what the Team has done is far from Nixonian, as I said back in November. Thus, their behavior would be a tempest in a teapot if the stakes were low. What makes their misdemeanor so culpable is what’s at stake — the world economy. Sentries are shot for sleeping on their post because the stakes are so high, not because sleeping is a crime.
Not that I think they should be severely punished, despite the harm they’d have imposed but for Climategate. The real culprits are the supposedly objective outsiders who should have kept their heads, responded to allegations of misbehavior, and kept things from getting so far out of hand — the media, the editorial gatekeepers, official scientific society poobahs, and funding bodies.
Well this Institute of Physics looks like an outfit that I should join.
I presently belonga AAAS; which is a political science organisation (apparently); but at least I get to watch their shenanigans, and also to the Optical Society of America, which is a part of the AIP; or may be it is the APS; anyway OSA was one of the original “founding chapters”; and we are a bit to geeky to get invloved in politics.
But IOP sounds like a bunch that I could respect; since we seem to have similar goals as to science; like watching the chips fall wherever they may.
With 36,000 members, I wonder how many GES’s they already have ?