Remember this post before the heady days of Climategate?
And then what happens? Another online poll that might go horribly wrong
And this one?
Data adjustments in the UK Science Museum “Prove It!” poll on climate
The raw data is available graphically, thank you David, at http://proveit.isgreat.org/
It appears that the London Science Museum got the message loud and clear, today we have this piece in the Times Online:
Public scepticism prompts Science Museum to rename climate exhibition
…
Professor Rapley declined to give his own views on climate change, saying that they were not relevant. However, in 2007 he said: “The more greenhouse gases we add, the warmer we’ll be. It’s not rocket science.”
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Oh but it is. Note the continued existence of NASA GISS, which would be but a footnote if they didn’t apply “rocket science” and some stagecraft to it back in 1988.
And it is a big abut face compared to when we last heard from Professor Rapley via this WUWT post:
Science Museum Prove It! poll now closed – surprising results
Today (1 December 2009) Professor Chris Rapley CBE, Director of the Science Museum and Professor of Climate Science at UCL said:
“More work needs to be done to convince people of the reality of human-induced climate change and of the urgency with which we must agree an international solution. Public organisations, like the Science Museum, have a responsibility to lay out the evidence and open up public discussion.”
======================
Read the complete story here at the Times: Public scepticism prompts Science Museum to rename climate exhibition
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To hear the latest refrain from those poor, poor, beseiged climate scientists, all they need to do is to better their communication skills.
Right.
Here’s a really shocking suggestion. Forget your communication skills and work on your science skills — start by going back to the drawing board and starting from square one.
Thanks to Climategate, all has been quiet on the Canadian front. I haven’t heard a media-supported alarmist peep from Suzuki in months.
Allen (21:26:36) : SHHHHH !!!! Don’t jinx it !!
I am loathe to believe we have heard the last from the Suzukies and Gores of the world. It is nice to see the pressure of having to maintain the AGW stance is being lifted off the average person. Brother, can you paradigm? Thought I’d bring out that little gem for old time sake.
Climategate was our Battle of Moscow. But there are undoubtedly Stalingrads and Kursks ahead. And those can go either way.
Obama will wait until summer to start with the climate again. It was remarkably stupid politics to get caught in a snowstorm in Copenhagen.
Look for hearings during hot days in Washington (if they have any this summer.)
It was not Anthony! It was my kids throwing snowballs at the exhibition signs for two months 😉
Congratulations, Anthony. I agree that WUWT was the key for the museum to get somewhat more realistic and human.
Robert E. Phelan (21:08:27) :
[REPLY – With all due respect, hacking the poll was a terrible thing, regardless of whether it was to “demonstrate absurdity”. It made us look bad, plain and simple. And winning means nothing unless it’s played straight. Nothing! Victories built on cheating are built on sand. As the hockey team is learning — the hard way. ~ Evan]
Evan, you know I am not praising the hacking. You and I are very much agreed on that. If your e-mail to the museum announcing the compromise was first, mine was no more than say, forty-third? Lihard did, however, come to a kind of repentance and found a more ethical way to demonstrate concern. Hopefully, it will be a lesson through life and passed on. I’d like to think that you and I were a road to Dasmascus moment for a bright and sincere soul.
[REPLY – Yes, of course. We are, that. I don’t know if my email was the first, though I did contact them. I do think we can win this one, but I also think we have to be very careful. Sometimes fighting fire with fire is less effective than fighting it with water. (I concede this goes against the grain and many disagree with me.) ~ Evan]
Steve Goddard (22:35:00) :
“Look for hearings during hot days in Washington (if they have any this summer.)”
Maybe Boxer or Jackson will faint for the cameras.
Anyone read The Economist’s “story” on AGW this week? What a bunch of back-filling a very weak and failing justification. And BTW, AGW is no longer a hypothesis, it is a ‘theory’. Garbage in, garbage out.
This is a very bad thing, and has the earmark of being a step within a larger plan.
The climate appears to be getting warmer; neither the Hudson not the Thames regularly freezes these days as they did in the 1700s. LIA recovery, natural variation, etc. doesn’t matter, it’s warmer now than it had been. Meanwhile every living thing affects the environment it lives in; elephant herds are known to denude large swaths of land. You can scarcely go to a beach and not find some evidence of humanity. Surely we must be able to have some effect on the air? We affect everything else.
The point is that there’s a vast difference between acknowledgement of what ought to be obvious and the screeching that cars or electricity is evil. It’s one thing to back off the screeching. It’s quite another to offer to go steady with the opposite side. Something is very wrong. Cheer not.
What I fear is happening is that this will be used as evidence for governments to turn the spin machine up to 11 and/or as the excuse to bypass the common man entirely so as to implement policy changes that will make what’s been proposed to date look like a Sunday stroll.
(And just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they’re NOT out to get me.)
If climate science isn’t “rocket science” then why the heavy involvement of the National Aeronautics and Space administration and the Jet Propulsion :Laboratory? Apparently, he meant that it wasn’t rocket science in that it is unfalsifiable, unverifiable and fundamentally unscientific.
“The museum is abandoning its previous practice of trying to persuade visitors of the dangers of global warming. It is instead adopting a neutral position, acknowledging that there are legitimate doubts about the impact of man-made emissions on the climate.”
They lie.
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/antenna/wineCO2/
“CO2 emissions from human activities are the main reason the Earth’s climate is warming. Many governments are now trying to reduce CO2 emissions by burning less fossil fuel. “
I took part in the Poll and at the comment form asked for the museum to tell me where the evidence for AGW was to be found. I specifically asked them not to refer me to the IPCC reports as the evidence was not to be found there.
Of course the response from Rapley included lnks to the IPCC reports and the standard argument from ignorance “these records show that the temperature change recorded can only be explained when human greenhouse gas emissions are taken into account”. The response did not address all my comments.
I communicated further with them, but received no subsequent response.
My conclusion was that they were just repeating the usual story that they get from some official “response briefing” and are incapable of going beyond that.
======================
Quote of the year!
I got an email from 10 Downing street yesterday (no, I’m not that important, merely a mass email to the e-petition demanding a proper enquiry into the CRU issue). That shows that the UK politicians still heartily think climate science demonstrates global warming.
Time will tell, I guess……….
I.e., “rocket science” (understanding complex feedbacks on the earth’s thermostat) is needed to understand the climate, as Willis explained here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/27/the-unbearable-complexity-of-climate-2/
Rhys,
I got one of those as well.
I think it took a lot of guts for the London Science Museum administrators to change it’s approach to climate science and to publicly announce it.
Can you imagine the flak they will get from the AWG drones? Also I suspect they will be much frowned upon by their political masters and I hope this in no way harms future funding for the museum.
Now if we could just get The Royal Society, National Academy of Science to actually be about science and not kindergarden propaganda, we can say real progress has been made.
I read this last night in the Times from over here (UK) and saw it at this site this morning. It looks like I will be making a donation next time at the Science Museum! Any victory over post-normal science (or post-science science) must be a good thing (Dark Ages are no fun unless you can afford the carbon credits), thinking also about the irony of the Wik. definition…
Because of this, advocates of post-normal science suggest that there must be an “extended peer community” consisting of all those affected by an issue who are prepared to enter into dialogue on it. They bring their “extended facts”, that will include local knowledge and materials not originally intended for publication such as leaked official information. There is a political case for this extension of the franchise of science; but Funtowicz and Ravetz also argue that this extension is necessary for assuring the quality of the process and of the product.
Looks like the post-normalist commisars took it for granted that that the kulak extended peer community would just tow the party line. Little did they know the e-p-c would include the likes of w-u-w-t. I wonder if this has been edited since Climategate (“such as leaked official information”!).
pat (23:23:08) : “Anyone read The Economist’s “story” on AGW this week?”
Yes, Pat, I read it. I very rarely buy it since cancelling my subscription in protest at their support for another “good idea” – the plan to invade Iraq.
Dunno if they ever printed a retraction along the lines of “well, it seemed like a good idea at the time”. But here they are again…
The wonderful FOI Act helped. Here is my last response from the Museum:
25 January 2010
Dear Mr Post
Thank you for your email dated 14 January 2010, which was addressed to my
colleague, Victoria Carroll, requesting an internal review of the response
(dated 14 January 2010) to your request (dated 15 December 2009) which was
made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“Act”).
I am the Corporate Information and Enquiries Manager for NMSI and I have
carried out a thorough review of this matter (“Review”) in accordance with
the guidance set out in part IV Secretary of State for Constitutional
Affairs’ Code of Practice on the discharge of public authorities’
functions under Part I of the Act (“Code of Practice”).
I am sorry that you are dissatisfied with the response which was provided
to you and I trust that this email will provide you with the appropriate
information to bring this matter to a close. Wherever possible we
endeavour to provide full and frank replies to requests for information
under the Act and recognise the importance of doing so in order to comply
with our obligations and to provide full access to our collection and
collection information to its owners, the public.
Upon reviewing all of the correspondence relating to your enquiry I feel
that, whilst we have not deliberately attempted to withhold any
information from you, we have not fully responded to some of the questions
contained in your email of 15 December 2009. Accordingly, please find
below our revised responses:
1. Can you please explain the nature of the database synchronisation
issue which occurred on Thursday 12 November when approximately
1500 votes were added to the ‘in’ vote?
The count for Prove It collected data from several different
databases, reflecting web counts and counts from several different
terminals in the Prove It gallery. Due to a technical error, caused
by a database configuration setting mistakenly being moved onto the
live webserver as part of wider content publishing, this count was
briefly configured to harvest data from a test database rather than
the correct databases. In fixing this error we had to resynchronise
the master count to all of the correct databases to reflect the
total overall number of votes cast.
2. Is there any connection between the approximately 1500 votes
added to the ‘in’ vote on 12 November and the 1474 subtracted from the
‘in’ vote after poll closure on 1 December?
As it is not possible to trace each individual “count me in” or “count
me out” vote through the resynchronisation process we are unable to
provide you with a conclusive answer to this question without
speculating. We do feel, however, that in making these adjustments we
endeavoured to accurately reflect the votes cast in the face of
technical difficulties in order to ensure that the public were not
mislead as to the outcome.
3. Does the Museum accept that the running ‘in’ vote score was
falsely inflated from 12 November until poll closure?
We accept that there were periods of time when the running totals of
both the `in’ and `out’ votes were inflated by the inclusion of
duplicate votes. However, this was not through any attempt on the
part of the Science Museum to misrepresent the votes cast. Once the
poll was closed the database was thoroughly scrutinised and all
duplicate votes were identified. These were removed from the final
totals in order to more fairly represent the voting. You will note
that both before and after the duplicates were removed there were a
greater number of votes cast in the `out’ category.
4. Can you please tell me what steps the Museum is taking to
re-establish its reputation for competence in these matters?
We accept that errors occurred in the technical management of the
vote collection in respect of the Prove It poll, however, we do
feel that, in this matter, we acted competently and with the desire
to ensure that the opinions that were expressed were represented
fairly, and to ensure that the public were not mislead by quickly
identifying technical issues and working to correct them at the
earliest available opportunity. The Prove It poll, like all web
polls, could not represent a statistically representative sample of
public opinion, as all web audiences are to a degree
self-selecting. As with all of our exhibitions, we have taken on
board the difficulties which we faced with this exhibition in the
gathering of votes as part of the Prove It poll and will learn from
these experiences in future exhibitions in order to ensure a high
standard for our visitors. In addition, the Science Museum is
committed to continuing to engage the public with the science of
climate change. For this reason we are planning a major new climate
change gallery to launch later this year. There will also be an
associated website, outreach activities and events delivered over a
three year programme.
I trust that my Review has been acceptable to you and that this
information will be useful to you in completing your research.
Kind regards
Emma Yates
Corporate Information and Enquiries Manager
NMSI
Thanks to Ric Werme for his running poll count. For information FOI requests may be submitted to any public body in the UK using the Whatdotheyknow website at:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/
Here are the original answers to my questions to the Science Museum about the Prove It poll submitted via Whatdotheyknow:
Carroll Victoria
11 December 2009
Dear Mr Post
Thank you for your enquiries. Below are answers to the questions raised in
your emails of 23.11.09 and 03.12.09.
In response to your email of 23.11.09:
· When the Museum decided to run the poll?
The Science Museum decided to develop an exhibit and website about the UN
Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in July 2009. The aims of the
project were to raise awareness of the Copenhagen conference, to enable
visitors to explore the evidence for climate change and the significance
of Copenhagen; and to provide a platform for visitors to express their
views.
During the development of the project it was agreed that one component of
the experience would be an opportunity for visitors to decide what they
felt Copenhagen should deliver and then express their views to the UK
government ahead of the Conference. The final format of this component –
which invited visitors to be `counted in’ or `counted out’ to the
statement: “I’ve seen the evidence. And I want the government to prove
they’re serious about climate change by negotiating a strong, effective,
fair deal at Copenhagen,” was agreed 6th October 2009.
· Who was responsible for providing the `evidence’?
All of the content for PROVE IT! was researched and written by the Science
Museum’s Exhibitions team, in consultation with experts from Oxford
University, the Met Office’s Hadley Centre, London School of Economics,
Overseas Development Institute, National Oceanography Centre, Open
University, Imperial College and University of York.
· When it was that it was realised that the pollsters had failed
to implement the email confirmation security measure?
The email validation measure was implemented, but when moved into the live
environment suffered a conflict with our wider email security systems. We
got the first indications of this on Thursday 22nd October but its full
implications only became apparent on Monday 26th. As a result of this we
removed a number of duplicate votes from both the “count me in” and “count
me out” totals from our database retrospectively.
· Why on 12 November 2009, between 10.00 and 12.00 UTC,
approximately 1500 votes were deducted from the `out’ score?
· Why on 12 November 2009 between 14.00 and 16.00 UTC,
approximately 1500 votes were added to the `in’ vote and approximately
2000 votes were added to the `out’ vote?
A database synchronisation issue occurred on Thursday 12 November. This
was spotted by the Science Museum’s web team and the problem was rectified
on the same day.
· What instructions were given to Museum staff regarding the
poll?
No instructions specifically regarding the poll were given to Museum
staff. As for all new exhibitions, a briefing sheet was issued to
customer-facing staff. The sections relating to the poll read as follows:
“The action stations on gallery invite visitors to decide whether or not
they would like to support the statement: “I want the government to prove
they’re serious about climate change by negotiating a strong, effective,
fair deal at Copenhagen”. We will pass on the results of the poll to the
government before the conference. The aim of the poll is to encourage
visitors to reflect on the content and decide where they stand, and to
enable them to make their view count.
The web site offers users the opportunity to participate in this poll, to
explore the content in depth, and also to send messages to friends and
family via email, Twitter and Facebook about climate change.”
· What information the Museum circulated to schools and other
educational institutions about the poll?
PROVE IT! was included twice in the e-newsletter which the Museum sends to
schools on a monthly basis.
10 October text
“Explore the evidence that human activity is behind climate change and
share your views. This small new exhibition is suitable for secondary and
post-16 students.”
II November text
“Visit PROVE IT! our exciting new exhibition and website, to find out more
about climate change. Why it’s happening. Why time is running out. What
the world is planning to do about it. ”
· When the Museum intends to complete the poll?
The poll closed on the morning of 1 December 2009
· What use the Museum intends to make of the poll?
The results were announced to the Department of Energy and Climate Change
on 1 December 2009.
· How much the poll has cost?
It is not possible to say exactly how much the poll component of PROVE IT!
cost, since it was developed as an integral part of a larger website and
exhibition. The following is therefore an estimate:
Total spend on website: £10,000 (including staff time)
Components of website included:
· Poll
· Deep content, including evidence for climate change and
information about Copenhagen
· Make your own message to send by email, Twitter, Facebook
· About prove it, including send a comment
Estimated spend on poll component of website: £3000 (including staff
time)
Total spend on new media development on gallery: £15,000
This included:
· New interactive interface for deep content station projections
· Voting stations, with additional `find out more’ and `comment’
sections
Estimated spend on development of voting station software: £5000
This does not include the hardware (computers and screens) since they were
bought for use in a future exhibition.
Total estimated spend on poll: £8000.
In answer to your further questions submitted 03.12.09:
· The precise time and date that the poll closed?
Tuesday 1 December at approximately 10.45.
· The `in’ and `out’ counts at that moment on the website?
The in and out counts which were displayed on the public site were noted
at approximate time of closure (10.45am) as 7532 in, 8989 out. These
figures included both web votes and gallery votes. Once the poll was
closed the database was scrutinised and some duplicate votes were
identified. These were removed from the totals.
· The `in’ and `out’ counts at that moment from the exhibition?
The in and out counts from the exhibition were included in the above
totals.
· The precise adjustments that were made to the website scores
after the closure of the poll?
· The reason for the adjustments?
· The precise adjustments that were made to the exhibition scores
after the closure of the poll?
· The reason for the adjustments?
Once the poll was closed the database was scrutinised and some duplicate
votes were identified. These were removed from the totals. The final
results once further duplicates had been removed from the database were:
Gallery
Counted in = 3408
Counted out = 626
Web
Counted in = 2650
Counted out = 7612
Total
Counted in = 6058
Counted out = 8238
· To whom, if anyone, the Museum submitted the final scores and
what was the response or were the responses?
The results were forwarded to the Department of Energy and Climate Change
(DECC). No comment on the results was received. For a response to the
results I suggest you contact DECC directly.
Kind regards
Dr Vicky Carroll
Copenhagen Project Leader
Science Museum
Exhibition Road
London SW7 2DD
I’m no scientist, but as a person I have a feel for “propaganda”.
For years they have acted like people who were hiding something.
Now they are acting like people who are trying to hide that they ever hid anything.
[snippity snippity topic too inflammatory, and you know why. ~ ctm]