The WUWT rebuttal piece “Judith I love ya but you’re way wrong” written by Willis Eschenbach has made it all the way to the NYT. There’s also an interesting quote from Gavin Schmidt.
“Climate scientists are paid to do climate science,” said Gavin A. Schmidt, a senior climatologist with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies. “Their job is not persuading the public.”
From the RealClimate About page, first sentence:
“RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists.”
Note to Gavin: We’ll all be missing your daily work on RealClimate now. What’s the end date? 😉
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Excerpts of: Scientists Taking Steps to Defend Work on Climate
By JOHN M. BRODER
WASHINGTON — For months, climate scientists have taken a vicious beating in the media and on the Internet, accused of hiding data, covering up errors and suppressing alternate views. Their response until now has been largely to assert the legitimacy of the vast body of climate science and to mock their critics as cranks and know-nothings.
But the volume of criticism and the depth of doubt have only grown, and many scientists now realize they are facing a crisis of public confidence and have to fight back. Tentatively and grudgingly, they are beginning to engage their critics, admit mistakes, open up their data and reshape the way they conduct their work.
The unauthorized release last fall of hundreds of e-mail messages from a major climate research center in England, and more recent revelations of a handful of errors in a supposedly authoritative United Nations report on climate change, have created what a number of top scientists say is a major breach of faith in their research. They say the uproar threatens to undermine decades of work and has badly damaged public trust in the scientific enterprise.
The e-mail episode, called “climategate” by critics, revealed arrogance and what one top climate researcher called “tribalism” among some scientists. The correspondence appears to show efforts to limit publication of contrary opinion and to evade Freedom of Information Act requests. The content of the messages opened some well-known scientists to charges of concealing temperature data from rival researchers and manipulating results to conform to precooked conclusions.
“I have obviously written some very awful e-mails,” Phil Jones, the British climate scientist at the center of the controversy, confessed to a special committee of Parliament on Monday.
…
Climate scientists have been shaken by the criticism and are beginning to look for ways to recover their reputation. They are learning a little humility and trying to make sure they avoid crossing a line into policy advocacy.
“It’s clear that the climate science community was just not prepared for the scale and ferocity of the attacks and they simply have not responded swiftly and appropriately,” said Peter C. Frumhoff, an ecologist and chief scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “We need to acknowledge the errors and help turn attention from what’s happening in the blogosphere to what’s happening in the atmosphere.”
A number of institutions are beginning efforts to improve the quality of their science and to make their work more transparent. The official British climate agency is undertaking a complete review of its temperature data and will make its records and analysis fully public for the first time, allowing outside scrutiny of methods and conclusions. The United Nations panel on climate change will accept external oversight of its research practices, also for the first time.
Two universities are investigating the work of top climate scientists to determine whether they have violated academic standards and undermined faith in science. The National Academy of Sciences is preparing to publish a nontechnical paper outlining what is known — and not known — about changes to the global climate. And a vigorous debate is under way among climate scientists on how to make their work more transparent and regain public confidence.
Some critics think these are merely cosmetic efforts that do not address the real problem, however.
“I’ll let you in on a very dark, ugly secret — I don’t want trust in climate science to be restored,” Willis Eschenbach, an engineer and climate contrarian who posts frequently on climate skeptic blogs, wrote in response to one climate scientist’s proposal to share more research. “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.”
“The solution,” he concluded, “is for you to stop trying to pass off garbage as science.”
…….
read the rest at Scientists Taking Steps to Defend Work on Climate in the New York Times
Enron had jail time meeted out to execs who did not grand stakeholders:
Intangible right to honest services.
Gavin is equally crooked.
1 He blogs instead of working
2 His paycheck is from NASA GISS and while blogging he illegally denies granting FOIA requests.
3 His group hides data. That is a sign of dishonesty
4 Gavin participates in modifying data by using software to make the temps appear to increase.
Herman L where the heck have you been living in a hole?
“Good science,” he said, “is the best revenge.” – Gavin Schmidt
Good luck on that Gavin.
Talk is cheap gavin and like your 6th grade math teacher always said ( show your work)
Since there are “two unrelated events” in the headline, the comma should be changed to a semicolon. MODS!!
Some of us are also knitters, ala Mme. Dufarge.
Willis Eschenbach (12:18:37):
Thanks for the response and sorry for the misunderstanding. I erroneously mistook Broder’s quote from you as being part of an interview that he had done with you. Upon a more careful read, I see that he was only selectively quoting from your substantially more developed piece at WUWT. I don’t think that Broder gave full justice to the concept you more fully laid out in your comment (12:06:30) above.
I suggested that possibility in my comment (11:05:04).
I concur with you that climate science needs to regain the public trust through good scientific practice. We differ on some of the specifics (and tone) of how to go about that. Of course, as my opinion is not worth much, maybe any agreement with you means that we are both wrong. :^)
-Chip
Herman L (12:36:15) :
Climate science is too complex a discipline to operate by the “one paper” approach.
Well then, what rules does Climate Science operate by, Herman? I think you need to dissuade a number of people that, at its essence, Climate Science is no more than a massive Propaganda Operation – where the means, thought control, are also its ends, thought control – especially since Climate Science also appears to specifically deny the value of the Scientific Method, which is instead avoided by Climate Scientists much as a Vampire would Holy Water.
James Taranto, Best of the Web in the Wall Street Journal On-line at
online.wsj.com/article/best_of_the_web_today.html
He often runs a small item “I Blame Glogal Warming” I left that in for laughs, also:
“Climate Chutzpah
The New York Times reports that climate “scientists” are “facing a crisis of public confidence.” Wow, stop the presses! “Tentatively and grudgingly,” the Times reports, “they are beginning to engage their critics, admit mistakes, open up their data and reshape the way they conduct their work.”
This paragraph sums up the paper’s skewed view of the subject:
The battle is asymmetric, in the sense that scientists feel compelled to support their findings with careful observation and replicable analysis, while their critics are free to make sweeping statements condemning their work as fraudulent.
Yet the very first paragraph of the Times story contradicts this: “[Climate ‘scientists’] response until now has been largely to assert the legitimacy of the vast body of climate science and to mock their critics as cranks and know-nothings.”
The “crisis of public confidence” is precisely the result of the failure of the climate “scientists” to behave like actual scientists. If they had supported their “findings” with careful observation and replicable analysis rather than making sweeping statements condemning their critics, their authority, to which the Times still tries to appeal, would not have been shattered.
The Times complaint about the unfairness of supposed scientists having to live up to scientific standards, it reminds us of the old joke about the definition of chutzpah: when a guy murders his parents and blames global warming.
We Blame Global Warming
“Fat Rats Skew Research Results”–headline, Nature.com, Feb. 2″
Herman L (12:36:15) :
“But since you ask, here are reference links to the five thousand:”
You really are the archtypical AGW’er, arent you, Herman!
Now, one paper. Lets start with one paper, where measurements from the real world support the “AGW Theory”.
Forget all the IPCC modelling, please.
Smokey (12:59:52) :
“More CO2 is good, since we’ll never see it double from here. There isn’t enough fossil fuel in the world to cause that”.
That’s quite a big statement. As a relative newcomer to most of the science here, I’d sincerely appreciate a link that supports it. Do you have one?
The battle is asymmetric, in the sense that scientists feel compelled to support their findings with careful observation and replicable analysis, while their critics are free to make sweeping statements condemning their work as fraudulent.
Thus if there was no battle, the scientists would not feel compelled to support their findings with careful observation and replicable analysis? They would feel free to use other-than-careful observation and non-replicable analysis, perhaps even not worry about supporting their findings at all?
We are beyond Post Normal Science. This is Post Rational Science.
John Holdren to the NYT: “We have to do a better job of explaining that there is always more to learn, always uncertainties to be addressed,” said John P. Holdren, an environmental scientist and the White House science adviser. “But we also need to remind people that the occasions where a large consensus is overturned by a scientific HERETIC are very, very rare.”
Stick around, Mr. John Holdren; you are about to experience history. But your description of “heretic” is correct–as one who has committed heresy. In this case, the heresy committed is against the orthodox religion of anthropogenic global warming, with all its alarmism and false fixes. BTW, if your orthodoxy is based on previously established opinion of scholars that includes such actors as Jones, Mann, and Hansen to supply the canon of AGW theory, you might want to reconsider your own beliefs.
Now, would you care to address that homogenization algorithm I’ve been asking for? I recommend that it be done immediately so we can move forward with real science. And it would be the best job of explaining that I can think of.
Willis’ essay has inspired a cartoon, check it out at http://www.cartoonsbyjosh.com/
Maybe climate science will improve when research isn’t connected with a two-way umbilical cord to politics and desired policy changes to “transform” the world.
When new advances in research aren’t accepted or rejected based upon whether they prove or disprove one’s current positions.
And when presentation of facts and requests for data aren’t met with questions of what “camp” somebody’s in, or what jobs they’ve held.
brent (13:02:26)
Nice link – appreciated!
From Willis to Chip:
“For the NYT to quote him approvingly is understandable. For you to do so is unconscionable.”
Willis, your diction is surgical and appreciated.
Hey, Gavin! Joe!
The Sierra Club is hiring. Too bad you won’t accept any posts from me.
http://www.sierraclub.org/careers/jobs-index.aspx
Also see here. They are pondering why membership is down.
Wheeler, Phil
http://www.sierraclub.org/bod/2010election/candidateforum/question10.aspx
Re: Membership decline: It has been said that “it’s the economy”. Perhaps this is too facile. We need to collect data to find out why our membership is decreasing. Are or have we acted to alienate long standing members?
I’ve re-read both Judith Curry’s “experiment” in blog-relations:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/24/on-the-credibility-of-climate-research-part-ii-towards-rebuilding-trust/
and Willis Eschenbach’s to-the-woodshed-with-ye response:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/25/judith-i-love-ya-but-youre-way-wrong/
I think Mr. Eschenbach has overlooked Dr. Curry’s soft
advocacy for a slight but unsettlingly distinctive shift from
the failed and flailing “it’s-science-by-consensus” ideology
to a more obtuse “it’s science-by-opinion-polls” paradigm.
The original appoach to get out “the message” or “the truth
as seen [sold] by the IPCC” involved brow-beating, berating
the perceived oppostion and pure bombast. The old AGW
advocacy crowd doesn’t want to give up on the framework
they’ve erected.
Dr. Curry’s softer and gentler direction seems to be one
that sends AGWers (current climate science advocates)
and reseachers off to cheerleading camp with a bit of
group therapy and sensitivity training tossed in. Then the
rejuvinated kindly old guard can do more research and
sell the new and improved product line to politicians and
citizens alike.
Mr. Eschenbach is right in pointing out that it’s the selling
of one scientific viewpoint over all others that’s had a
corrupting effect on the scientist who does both the research
and the selling. In order to have a message to sell, the
underlaying science has been corrupted to comport with
message selling.
Chip Knappenberger (13:33:17)
Thank you for your reply, Chip, which was more gentlemanly than I likely deserved. And kudos for coming back to defend and explain your posting.
One point, not minor. I don’t think your opinion is “not worth much”. I think that particular opinion of yours was not worth much. Big difference.
Holdren uses the word ‘heretic’ to describe people who have questions on global warming. Ah yes, I remember now, he’s in politics. That explains it.
{Stacey (08:06:47) :
“The solution,” he concluded, “is for you to stop trying to pass off garbage as science.”
Willis, Harsh but Fair}
Hi Stacey – I disagree. It was not harsh – it was fair.
the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which compiles the climate research of hundreds of scientists around
No mention of the politicians who formulate the policies and public statments of the IPCC. Only talk of hundres of scientists. And no mention that among those so called ‘hundreds’ are scientists who don’t agree with the global warming scenarios described by those politicians.
I would like to see an intelligent explanation from the climate ‘science’ crowd how such a fundamental error as averaging an instensive variable like tempature, as M & E have pointed out, can possibly lead to any meaningful result. Until they get the fundamentals right, no progress is possible.
Bravo to Willis for pushing for real science against junk.
Hal (08:09:06) :
“Good science,” he said, “is the best revenge.”
………………………………………………………………………….
His last sentence will hopefully come true, but not in the way he wishes.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
It had become clear to me when I began to look in to ‘global warming’ for myself a few years ago that Gavin Schmidt is an advocate for political ‘global warming’ and not for the real science. What was revealed in ClimateGate emails about him only confirmed to me what I already saw in him.
So I agree with you. Science is not important to him. The real science will ruin him, and the website he watches over, RealClimate.
Gavin Schmidt is only trying to persuade the public that science is important to him.
Willis,
Slightly OT – I’m fascinated by your CV! A life of adventure indeed!
And congratulations on the (IMO way too short) quote in the NYT. Seems Gavin agrees with you. Looks like the 2 sides of this scientific puzzle are finally agreeing on some things. Now all they need to do is release all their data and workings…
I suppose NYT had to bat for the team by letting Gavin say that good science is the best revenge. But at least we now know he agrees with us.