Thanks to Simon at Australian Climate Madness (ACM) the video of yesterday’s testimony by Dr. Phil Jones of UEA/CRU is now online via YouTube, making it viewable by millions worldwide. There are five parts, each of about 9 or 10 minutes. Jones is accompanied by the Vice Chancellor of the University of East Anglia, Prof. Edward Acton. Symon sums up the questioning: “They don’t exactly give PJ a tough ride, do they? To quote the former UK Labour Chancellor Denis Healey, it was like being savaged by a dead sheep…”. Fred Pearce of the Guardian commented that: “…the Commons committee tiptoed round embattled scientist and sidestepped crucial questions”.
Here’s a sampling of what British press has to say. Thanks to Dr. Benny Peiser and his CCNet Newsletter for the roundup.
MPs have quizzed the scientist at the centre of the “climategate” scandal, the first time he has been questioned in public since the row erupted. Professor Phil Jones used his appearance before the science committee to say that he had done nothing wrong. Earlier, critics told the MPs that the stolen e-mails, which appeared on the internet in November, raised questions about the integrity of climate science.
–BBC News, 1 March 2010
Prof Phil Jones, head of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, is accused of withholding raw data behind his research on global warming. In emails stolen from the university he asks one climate change sceptic: “Why should I give information to you when all you want to do is find something wrong with it?” In a grilling by MPs, Prof Jones admitted he had withheld data and sent some “pretty awful” emails. But he insisted it was “standard practice” to refuse certain information to other scientists.
–Louise Gray, The Daily Telegraph, 2 March 2010
Lord Lawson called for scientists to be more open about their methodologies. “The Freedom of Information Act should not have been brought into this,” former Chancellor Lord Lawson of Blaby, a longstanding critic of climate policy, told MPs. “Scientists of integrity reveal… all of their data and all their methods. They don’t need Freedom of Information Act requests to get this out of them.”
–BBC News, 1 March 2010
Also giving evidence alongside Lord Lawson was Dr Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. He said that sound science was based on “testability, replication, and verification”. Dr Peiser told the committee: “Of course, if you do not have the data sets or methods then you have to trust the word of a scientist. “You cannot even see if he has done these calculations directly on the basis of solid data, and this is the core of this problem – it is not about the overall science, it is about the process.”
–BBC News, 1 March 2010
The integrity of climate change research is in doubt after the disclosure of e-mails that attempt to suppress data, a leading scientific institute has said. The Institute of Physics said that e-mails sent by Professor Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, had broken “honourable scientific traditions” about disclosing raw data and methods and allowing them to be checked by critics.
–Ben Webster, The Times, 1 March 2010
The body representing 36,000 UK physicists has called for a wider enquiry into the Climategate affair, saying it raises issues of scientific corruption. The Institute of Physics doesn’t pull any punches in the submission, one of around 50 presented to the Commons Select Committee enquiry into the Climategate archive. The IOP says the enquiry should be broadened to examine possible “departure from objective scientific practice, for example, manipulation of the publication and peer review system or allowing pre-formed conclusions to override scientific objectivity.”
–Andrew Orlowski, The Register, 1 March 2010
The entire 3 hours is available here via Windows Media Player:
http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=5979&player=windowsmedia
Sorry, the MP’s don’t seem to have a Mac/Quicktime link.
Select segments about 9-10 minutes each are available below.
Part1
Part2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
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The most worrying part of the dialogue was when Jones said that no one from the AGW proponent scientist viewpoint asked him for any evidence to back his conclusions.
They just took his word for it -that’s “standard scientific practice”.
The worlds economy dislocated because his friends are too stupid or lazy to bother examining the data on which this pack of cards is built
2′ 16″ into Part 3, Professor Edward Acton interjects: “May I point out, chair, that this is a very small unit . There are three full-time members of academic staff within it and the manpower involved in exactly what has just been described is actually very considerable. May I also point out that it is not a National archive, it is not a library, it is research unit. It has no special duty to conserve; (…).”
Why on earth not? Are they so short of funding? Why is there no professional archivist in the unit? Why has Jones no personal assistant or secretary to arrange his desk after a day’s work? Acton’s statement unwittingly confirms what I have thought for some time now – that in spite of the trillions in the balance, the world’s climate data is in the hands of the rankest of amateurs.
I bought the Telegraph today wondering what they wopuld report on yesterday;s parliamentary proceedings – I;d seen the link here last night but wanted to see it on the page, so to speak. A very small report on an inside page, buried next to a huge and colourful ad. Report by a junior girl reporter who clearly had no idea what she was on about, giving the final word to the AGw side. Who would think this paper boasts Delingpole and Booker among its luminaries?
Meanwhile all the AGW blogs carry on in their usual manner, trashing WUWT and CA and ALL their contributors as ‘non-scientists’. And the MSM mostly still gives them the benefit of the doubt. Move along there, nothing to see…
We may think here that a new day is dawionign, but outside the sceptic blogs there is still a mountian to climb. We have to keep reaching out and spreading the word, sending links, etc etc, No replyh form my email to Prince Charles’s office, following his vist to Norwich a few weeks ago, btw.
I pray this Committee has time to report; but the Election is not ‘possibly’ in May – it HAS to be held by the first week of May at the latest. That’s when the present Govt’s mandate expires
Apologies for more than usual typos, arthritis
And a mac keyboard, therefore [almost] bald – I’m tired of replacing them!
I have no pity for Jones. Now he is treated with kid gloves because of his mental state; but yet when he was the fulcrum of the global warming chase of heretics, he did not speak up or bat an eyelid; he provided the lies the eco-opportuniists required for their attempt at domination.
Now he pleads weakness and sorryness. Sorry, no sorry allowed; you knew what you were doing – riding the gravy train. You knew you were being light and easy with the facts, providing what was required by the mob of hysterics your paymasters and dinner party guests, although deep down you knew it was a scam.
@ur momisugly coalsoffire (09:14:49) :
“Forget about Jones. Why isn’t the Inquiry questioning Harry?”
The real elephant in the room. Wouldn’t that be sweet?
The “fortune” program on my home system came up with this piece of doggerel today:
But scientists, who ought to know
Assure us that it must be so.
Oh, let us never, never doubt
What nobody is sure about.
— Hilaire Belloc
Professor Jones, “most scientists do not want to see the raw data, they want to see the derived product.”
Do you suppose he is talking about all of his chosen collaborators? The thousands of papers confirming AGW are only based on the derived products from a handfull of papers?
Well I think this can be said musically.
In the words of the general.
“Lookin like a fool with your pants on the ground.”
Tenuc (08:35:31) :
Jones is in a dire predicament and looks like a broken man.
The Sydney Morning Herald today quotes the Times that “the committee had been asked not to press him too closely because he was close to a nervous breakdown”.
Who did the asking ? was the person medically qualified ?
no problem with Mike’s Nature trick?
Ya, I mean how could there be a problem with splicing different data sets together to produce a graph? That would be ‘standard practice’, I take it, in Phil Jones’ world.
JonesII (07:07:52) :
♪♪♪ We and Mr. Jones
we got a thing going on…
we both know that it´s wrong
But it´s too much strong to let it go now…
We gotto be extra careful
that we don´t build our hopes up too high…♪♪♪
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Nice.
I have just watched the whole 3 hours of the select committee hearing at http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=5979 (I had to use IE installed plugins etcetera but Firefox would not play). I appreciate the placing about a third of it on YouTube. I would like to get copy of the entire video, does anyone know how to do that?
What struck me was that Jones did seem to have an idea of the scale and effect his pronouncements could have. He said his methods and data were not a requirement of the peer review process. I am not a scientist so I guess that is why this mystifies me, how can you do a review without it? Surely it not just a matter of Phil says it is okay so I will read it and if it fits the paradigm just tick it of as done? Please is that how science is done?
OOPS It should have been.
What struck me was that Jones did NOT seem to have an idea of the scale and effect his pronouncements could have.
Well, I hope that’s not “it”. A few of these guys appear to have done their homework but I’m a bit perturbed that they seem over-obsessed with asking Dr. Jones for his opinion — as if it carried a lot of weight — about the propriety and nature of his statements and actions. He was given a great amount of space to spin statements, diminish their importance or minimize their context … “just a couple of papers I thought weren’t very good”, that sort of thing.
There is clear, as has been said, “prima facae evidence” of corruption of the scientific process and lack of transparency, but as a scientist I agree that many of the things Jones et al are being charged with in these matters can be spun in various ways. He is doing a pretty good job of spinning, and being given an enormous leeway to do so.
In the process, a very important series of issues is being washed under the bridge, which I regard as less susceptible to dissemblance and spin. These center around (i) the politicization of science and (ii) the construction of narratives and presentations of science, with much deliberation (as documented in the emails) to the end of communicating a skewed perception of both the 20th century evolution of temperature and the historical climate record.
(i) and (ii) are inextricably linked. While it was possible to make charges about (i) without the climategate documents, it is the documentation of (ii) and the explicit thought processes showing motivation in the emails that show how thoroughly these gentlemen’s agenda was bent toward political purposes. These issues loom, in my mind, even higher than that of the damaging of the mechanism or reputation of “science” or the scientific process.
I recall a blog piece by McIntyre back in November that brought this into focus quite well (I don’t have a link on hand). In it he discusses Gavin Schmidt et al’s spin on what the “decline” is REALLY about. Steve pointed out that they really didn’t want to go there … and proceeded to take the spun version and meticulously document where it leads by citations from the emails and the public record. As Steve pointed out, the “hiding of the decline” in and of itself is not particularly egregious, it is the motive and point of wanting to do so that opens up a can of worms. Hiding this decline in late 20th century tree ring data was not really about the 20th century at all — it was about hiding the MWP and LIA. The tree ring time series were critical in doing so, and the entire line of reasoning leading to the need to “hide the decline” because it cast these very series in a bad light is laid bare in all its glory in the emails and McIntyres expert analysis.
Let’s hear from Jones why it is so important to prop up this series and the few others they’ve managed to cobble together to support this narrative when the bulk of holocene data clearly supports MWP/LIA.
I’d love to see the inquiry go there and just ask watt’s up, er, with that!
Did anyone catch Julia Slingos comment starting at about 2:52:00 saying that the uncertainties are an order of magnitude higher for satellites records than they are for the surface records. Is this correct?
I thought I had read that the satellite records were the more reliable / accurate data source but, of course, have a shorter time series (only since 1979).
I understand the Met office is more implicated in the land based data. Is this just some more “my work must be right” narcissism?
Can anyone knowledgeably comment here?
Keith Minto (19:27:14) :
He did indeed look on the worn side. The guy sitting next to Phil was quite a show in himself. I can see what the supply side of the granting process is going to look like given all the bobbing and weaving going on.
Several of the questioners were anything but pleased at the answers they were getting.
Did anybody else notice that in the first segment Dr. Jones told the enquiry that all his basic data was available in the GHCN, but in the second he claimed the confidentiality prevented the release?
These two statements are mutually contradictory.
Jones is timid. How could he be doubted?
😉
dkkraft (21:21:34) :…
“Did anyone catch Julia Slingos comment starting at about 2:52:00 saying that the uncertainties are an order of magnitude higher for satellites records than they are for the surface records.”
Good catch. I woud be curious to hear her explanation of this, and if it is true then the case for CAGW is hopeless to affirm.
Jones and Big Ears were given a slap across the mush with a wet lettuce leaf.
The last part of the video where the three wise monkeys appeared wasnt much better.
Slingo was let off the hook, and not questioned about some serious comments she made ie
1. Nominating the number of peope who made editorial suggestions in Chapter 1 & 6 as though that justiifed everything..and no follow up questions as to how many suggestions were taken up (very few in fact ) etc etc.Mclean should have a lot to say about this misrepresentation by her.
2.Saying that Met offices models were run twice day as part of their weather predictions, and by inference saying that for climate models going out 50-100 years they would be accurate..because their twice day runs would/should have eliminated many of the code errors that may still be around…and no follow on questions from the inquirers. Just how weak is that.
3.Watson saying the climate science is rock solid because they cant explain the increase without including induced co2 CC on top of natural,etc etc
4. The certainly didnt make good use of McIntyres submission to question the CRU’s unacceptable behaviour.
The Chairman said in his opening address that the inquiry wasnt about the science so why was Watson/Slingo etc allowed to get away with formal statements as to the validity of the science that are very debateable.
The Vice Chancellor was particularly unimpressive .. with those huge ears flapping about I thought he was going to take off.
Not impressed and not holding my breath.
I so wish that the press would stop using the term “stolen” in relation to the e-mails. The information which they contained should, legally, have been earlier released in response to FOI requests. This is the Humpty Dumpty use of language in my view. How can information that should legally have been released into the public domain, be stolen by a member of the public?
As for the questioning of Jones, “he insisted it was “standard practice” to refuse certain information to other scientists.” This cries out for the response, “Please give me an example from outside climatology”. The answer might have been more revealing than the rest of the session.
Neil Hampshire (06:42:43) :
When will Micheal Mann be subject to a similar interview from US politicians?
After the November elections.
“Dr Peiser told the committee: “Of course, if you do not have the data sets or methods then you have to trust the word of a scientist. “You cannot even see if he has done these calculations directly on the basis of solid data, and this is the core of this problem – it is not about the overall science, it is about the process.””
Not about the overall science (there’s a science of the overall? Dungaree Experiments? Who knew) … but about the process?
And why, Dr Peiser, is the PROCESS important?
Because unless you can review and analyse/test/falsify the process, you dont know that there WAS any science done.
And, if you dont have the datasets (i.e. if the “scientist” wont give them to you) THEN you “have to trust” him?
That is obscene.
If he wont hand over the data and his treatment of it, then he IS NOT A SCIENTIST!
Aaaargggghhh!
And these people are going to set the world to rights?
God help us!
Aaaargggghhh!
And these people are going to set the world to rights?
God help us!
An they will, whether we like it or not, because they are absolutely convinced of the righteousness of their progressive ideology and how this ideology has benefited the world, how it has supposedly improved the rights and general welfare of the people of the whole world, since they appeared in the scene, during the “illumination and positive” and secularizing era, back in the 18th.century.