By John A
A shout-out for a review of Andrew Montford’s “The Hockey Stick Illusion” by Matt Ridley in Prospect Magazine.
Andrew Montford’s The Hockey Stick Illusion is one of the best science books in years. It exposes in delicious detail, datum by datum, how a great scientific mistake of immense political weight was perpetrated, defended and camouflaged by a scientific establishment that should now be red with shame. It is a book about principal components, data mining and confidence intervals—subjects that have never before been made thrilling. It is the biography of a graph.
I can remember when I first paid attention to the “hockey stick” graph at a conference in Cambridge. The temperature line trundled along with little change for centuries, then shot through the roof in the 20th century, like the blade of an ice-hockey stick. I had become somewhat of a sceptic about the science of climate change, but here was emphatic proof that the world was much warmer today; and warming much faster than at any time in a thousand years. I resolved to shed my doubts. I assumed that since it had been published in Nature—the Canterbury Cathedral of scientific literature—it was true.
I was not the only one who was impressed. The graph appeared six times in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s third report in 2001. It was on display as a backdrop at the press conference to launch that report. James Lovelock pinned it to his wall. Al Gore used it in his film (though describing it as something else and with the Y axis upside down). Its author shot to scientific stardom. “It is hard to overestimate how influential this study has been,” said the BBC. The hockey stick is to global warming what St Paul was to Christianity.
The rest of the review is here.
Most tasty quote (my emphasis):
Well, it happens. People make mistakes in science. Corrections get made. That’s how it works, is it not? Few papers get such scrutiny as this had. But that is an even more worrying thought: how much dodgy science is being published without the benefit of an audit by Mcintyre’s ilk? As a long-time champion of science, I find the reaction of the scientific establishment more shocking than anything. The reaction was not even a shrug: it was shut-eyed denial.
Wren,
Give it up. You loose all credibility with your defense of the debunked, Mann Hockey stick.
Your link is broken just like the stick.
Wren (20:07:24) :
You misrepresented what the NAS said about the hockey stick.
I don’t have reason to trust you.
Wren (20:07:24) :
Posters interested in the controversy over Mann’s temperature reconstruction,”the hockey-stick curve,” may want to read Richard L. Smith’s
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How about if you read McIntyre’s blog about it. And read the book that this post is about.
You may need to read the NAS report more closely also.
Wren (14:37:14) :
Was the James Hansen no-air-conditioning-on-the-hottest-day-of-the-summer testimony a partisan set up?
Wren (20:07:24) :
MBH apologists like Wren have been trying to debunk Prof Wegman’s methods, without success, ever since Wegman made his seminal report to Congress. This is yet another failed attempt to falsify Wegman. That is how the scientific method works: what is left standing after repeated attempts at falsification is accepted as science.
Wren says: “Wegman’s response was ‘the fact that the answer may have been correct does not justify the use of an incorrect method in the first place.’ or ‘Method Wrong + Answer Correct = Bad Science.'”
Wrong. It is good science. Refusing to accept the conclusions that result from the proper application of Prof Wegman’s statistical methodology is bad science.
As Wren admits, “J. Michael Wallace of the
University of Washington presented the broader findings of a NRC panel that acknowledged the statistical issues raised by Wegman…”
In other words, Prof Wegman’s statistical methods were correct. But the conclusions that flowed from Wegman’s methods were not what some folks wanted to hear.
Michael Mann’s Hokey Stick chart has been debunked seven ways from Sunday. It is pseudo-science; science fiction. And like it or not, Michael Mann is a conniving Elmer Gantry, a con artist feeding at the trough of public grant money.
The fact that Mann hides out from any honest debate says it all.
Kermit (17:28:58) :
I was just curious why that one post was not challenged.
That sort of post has been replied to ad nauseam for years. Sometimes people don’t feel like answering the trolls.
Wren (20:28:09) :
Mann is so lucky. He misused a statistical method and got the answer right anyway.
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Funny, no one says he got it right…..
‘Even less confidence can be placed in the original conclusions by Mann et al. (1999) that “the 1990s are likely the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, in at least a millennium”….’
But if you want to believe he did, that’s up to you.
Smokey (20:53:03) :
Wren (20:07:24) :
MBH apologists like Wren have been trying to debunk Prof Wegman’s methods, without success, ever since Wegman made his seminal report to Congress. This is yet another failed attempt to falsify Wegman. That is how the scientific method works: what is left standing after repeated attempts at falsification is accepted as science.
Wren says: “Wegman’s response was ‘the fact that the answer may have been correct does not justify the use of an incorrect method in the first place.’ or ‘Method Wrong + Answer Correct = Bad Science.’”
Wrong. It is good science. Refusing to accept the conclusions that result from the proper application of Prof Wegman’s statistical methodology is bad science……
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Sorry for breaking in right here, but
“Method Wrong + Answer Correct = Bad Science”
was Wegman’s point, not mine. You “Wrong. It is good science.” is a disagreement with Wegman.
Charles Higley (11:09:15) :
Let’s not forget that the origins of this phenomenon are financial and political plans by Maurice Strong and the Club of Rome who made it public years ago that they needed a crisis around which to cause the birth of a new world order and power structure.
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That’s 100% right, and they can’t lose. All they need to do is slow CO2 down a little and Presto, AGW averted by the world working together. So what if it re-distributes the World’s wealth until we all have the same income world wide — namely a $1.49 each!
“Wren (20:20:31) :
[…]
[DirkH] That’s why the choice of the method is important and needs to be done with a lot of care. Usually a researcher will want to avoid a false positive.
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Sure, but if I am so intent on nit-picking I miss the forrest for the trees, that ain’t good. ”
Avoiding a false positive is nit picking for you? That’s a funny statement. Maybe that little horicontal line in front of some numbers like “-1” is also a nit for you, or the little dot in 3.14 just a speck of dirt? I give up Wren, it’s no use trying to talk to you. I hope you never have to use numbers for anything in your life.
Amino Acids in Meteorites (21:01:04) :
Wren (20:28:09) :
Mann is so lucky. He misused a statistical method and got the answer right anyway.
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Funny, no one says he got it right…..
‘Even less confidence can be placed in the original conclusions by Mann et al. (1999) that “the 1990s are likely the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, in at least a millennium”….’
But if you want to believe he did, that’s up to you.
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The very source you quote said Mann got it right.
“The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes both additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and pronounced changes in a variety of local proxy indicators, such as melting on ice caps and the retreat of glaciers around the world, which in many cases appear to be unprecedented during at least the last 2,000 years.”
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11676&page=3
Are McIntyre or Wegman saying they can prove the hockey stick is wrong?
Seriously deluded Wren. No one thinks Mann got it right. You’ve badly misinterpreted Wegman. Now, go see Ian Jolliffe, the world’s expert at decentered PCA demolish Tamino’s last defense of Mann.
I know you still believe in the Hockey Stick. You do so as a matter of faith, though. Son, you’ve been lied to.
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Maybe we should ask this, Wren. Why do you think Mann got the right answer?
Leave aside for the moment your misinterpretation of Wegman’s statement about ‘Wrong method plus right answer equals bad science’. We’ve shown how you misinterpreted that. Surely that’s not the only reason you believe Mann got the right answer.
Is it because you believe subsequent studies have shown a hockey stick? Have you investigated what I claimed in my comment at 19:39:14, that bogus series corrupt the subsequent hockey stick studies, too?
So c’mon, put up or shut up. Why do you think Mann got the right answer?
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I’m trying to decide, Wren, if you are bad or just a useful idiot. C’mon, batter, batter, batter. Swing.
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I wonder if this is one of the talking points off the iphone app. Don’t use that Wren, it’ll rot your brain.
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DirkH @ur momisugly 17:00:37
I’m tending to find the big boys and girls of the alarmist camp huddling together at alarmist blogs grousing to each other about the unfairness of it all. There are frequent laments of ‘Exxon’ heard. It’s getting kind of sad.
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Check out Atmoz where they gather to stick pins in their Revkin effigy.
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Wren @ur momisugly 21:57:31
So you base your belief on subsequent studies, which I’ve shown are corrupted, and vague evidence of warming. Heck, we all know it’s warmed. What you haven’t shown is that present warming is unprecedented, which is Mann’s claim. C’mon, you’ve got to do better than that.
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And you are still sticking to your misinterpretation of Wegman’s remark? You say it yourself quoting Wegman: ‘The fact that the answer may have been correct’. That’s Wegman with a hypothetical. I’m beginning to believe your problem is not an iphone app, but reading comprehension.
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Wren, from your 21:57:31: “additional large-scale temperature reconstructions”. OK we’ve dispensed with that one. Incidentally, a large scale temperature reconstruction without any of the corrupting series, and with a prominent Medieval Warm Period, is Loehle and McCulloch’s, which uses no tree-ring series at all.
Also from your comment “and pronounced changes in a variety of local proxy indicators, such as melting on icecaps and the retreat of glaciers around the world, which in many cases appear to be unprecedented during at least the last 2000 years”. This is the vague warming I talked about in the last comment.
The glaciers can’t tell us much about what happened in the last 2000 years, nor can the melting(are they?) icecaps. Some of the glaciers do show evidence that they were shorter within the last 2000 years. Some of the glaciers aren’t even retreating, and for the icecaps, I defy you to say what they’ve been doing for the last 2000 years. We don’t even know what Arctic Ice did last century.
So this evidence you have does not substantiate that present warming is unprecedented in the last millenium, which is what the Hockey Stick claims.
Have you any other proof of the Hockey Stick? What you’ve shown so far is inadequate.
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This could give hockey a bad name. Could we just call it the Mann Shtick.
I have a bird feeder in my back yard. One of my regular visitors is a wren. Wrens belong on birdfeeders not blogs.
From Bishop Hill blog:
[BH adds: This is the UK edition. We are up for a decision from one of the big US publishers shortly]
Brace yourself, your Grace. Stuff is going to happen.
Perhaps I’m being simplistic but isn’t the hockey stick hypothesis subject to independent proof/disproof.
If, as snow lines raise and ice cover recedes, the perma-frost exposed will either contain or not contain vegetable matter remains that carbon date to 1000 to 1400 AD or they don’t. Likewise archeological evidence of agricultural activity.
If these things are found then any method that suggests that this period was colder than now must be discarded. It might be because its methodology is flawed, a category error was made in selecting the evidence, or because the experimental test was poorly executed, but discarded it would have to be. Same way the hypothesis that radiation frequency from a heat source could increase continously with temperature had to be abandoned during the ultra-violet catastrophy.
@ur momisugly Will S. (10:16:15) : Since global temperatures have been rising since 2009(even to the point that Roy Spencer readjusted his formula yet again to reduce the rise we saw in the last couple of months),
Since 2009? Seriously? Are you admitting, then, that it was cooling before that?
If it’s been warming since 2009, then why are our local temps about 10 degrees below normal since January?
IIRC, Spencer explained clearly why he reformulated. At least he documented it, which is more than Mann would do with his short-centered PCA.