Dr. Curry is a lightning rod, but she does have the courage to speak her mind: Via Tom Nelson
[Q] Yes, you’ve certainly been raked over pretty good by certain sites like Real Climate and Climate Progress.
[Curry] Oh yes. Those guys are directly involved in Climategate so that’s not a huge surprise. (note: Joe Romm, of Climate Progress, was not directly involved in Climategate as his private e-mails were not published. Gavin Schmidt, of RealClimate, points out that he was the victim of a crime and not guilty of anything.)
[Q] Do you think those kinds of sites are helpful in trying to build public confidence in climate scientists?
[A] That’s a tough one. Real Climate, I think they’ve damaged their brand. They started out doing something that people liked, but they’ve been too partisan in a scientific way. Their moderation hasn’t been good. There was a lot of rudeness toward me on one thread that was actually encouraged by the moderators. I don’t think that has served them well.
…
[Curry] We really don’t understand the potential or impact the blogosphere is having. I think it’s big and growing. The sites that are growing in popularity are Watts Up With That, which really have huge traffic. I think there’s a real interest in the subject…With the IPCC, and the expectation that scientists hew to the party line, it was getting pretty evangelical. When I speak up about maybe there’s more uncertainty, some people regard that as heresy. That’s not a good thing for either science or policy. We’ve got to lose that.
======================================
Speaking of RealClimate, I note there is still no response at RC to the McShane and Wyler paper which I find odd, since RC for was setup for the express purpose of defending the hockey stick in the first place.
UPDATE: After a week of being “preoccupied” Real Climate finally breaks radio silence here. It appears to be a prelude to a dismissal with a “wave of the hand”.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Dr. Curry writes:
“When I speak up about maybe there’s more uncertainty, some people regard that as heresy. That’s not a good thing for either science or policy. We’ve got to lose that.”
The lady is a master of understatement.
Why is Gavin permitted to run RC on the taxpayer dime?
latitude writes:
“One the other hand, she’s caught between a rock and a hard place trying to be honest and open, and then dictated to by the university and grants.”
She’s at Georgia Tech. Or, as the locals and the alums call it, Tech. It is not like UEA. Tech will not take dollars for the sake of dollars. It has no need to take dollars for the sake of dollars. Dr. Curry is not under pressure from Tech to get grants for climate research or for anything else.
Theo Goodwin says:
August 20, 2010 at 8:14 pm
How do you know Curry isn’t under pressure to bring in grant dollars. Here’s the list of endowments for U.S. universities: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universities_in_the_United_States_by_endowment
I don’t see GT on there anywhere. So, if they’re under pressure at Princeton, Harvard & Yale to get grants, I think it will be more so at GT.
What grants does she currently have? I think I asked this previously and nobody knew.
Agree with her or not, Dr. Curry has my respect and that of many others. She receives that respect because she has earned it and just continues to do so. What the earth sciences in general and climate related sciences specifically need most, are more like her.
Yup Anti-science. Political science and the other sciency nonsense. OT does anyone personally know a political scientist? Just to get this straight, if we do not accept appeals to authority, with no supporting evidence, data or blindly accept the new religion, we are the anti-science guys? Fair enough, in Canada we have Bill Nye the science guy on CBC, an english major with a long record of mangling science for the masses and the public school system does not teach the basic scientific method anymore. Our politicians proclaim the evils of CO2 and our subsidised media missunderstand scientific matters in a manner resembling deliberate lying. Yes if that is science, then I must be anti that. Never did like incompetent fools, lying weasels or propaganda in any form. Anti science. Knuckleheads are desparate. JRR
Well if Judith says so, it must be true. Obviously.
I think it is important to note that on the recent paper written by Dr. Curry (others have touched on this), that she does say specifically she wanted to test a period in which the southern oceans warmed…and in order to do that you have to cherry-pick the data in order to study a warming period. It would make no sense to write a paper about warming oceans over a period where the oceans did not warm.
Maybe I am misunderstanding the paper, but that is my take on the situation. And no, I did not read the paper, just the abstract. I just suggest everyone make sure to look at both sides of the issue before issueing judgement.
I prefer to leave the judgement calls and ad-hom attacks to the folks at RC.
“Yes, you’ve certainly been raked over pretty good by certain sites like Real Climate and Climate Progress.
Oh yes. Those guys are directly involved in Climategate so that’s not a huge surprise. (note: Joe Romm, of Climate Progress, was not directly involved in Climategate as his private e-mails were not published. Gavin Schmidt, of RealClimate, points out that he was the victim of a crime and not guilty of anything.)”
Well mercy me. Poor little Gavin. The victim of a crime. BooooooHoooooo.
And not guilty of anything.
Really?
Not hubris? Not incompetence? Not arrogance? Not hypocrisy? Not taking taxpayers’ money to peddle snake oil? Not dashing the hope of the world’s poor?
Yeah. Really not guilty. Just like he’s not responsible nor accountable.
But one day he will be.
Re Real Climate silence, DSOTM etc
‘Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I’d something more to say’
I note that Gavin Schmidt at RC was born and educated in England. Pink Floyd got it right nearly forty years ago.
(To my shame, both GS and John Houghton are Old Members of my Oxford College..sorry guys)
I gave up trying to get a comment through moderation at realclimate back in 2008. Got knocked back every time. The fact that realclimate is run more like a gulag than an open rational inquiry revealing. In fact, realclimate is probably the third worst PR disaster for the CAGW meme right behind Climategate and Mann’s fake hockey stick.
The Team is not only opaquely authoritarian and collectivist, they are also utterly incompetent. Oh, and they also have no sense of humor.
I think Judith is right to describe it as damaging a brand.
I went straight to RC when I first started to make a positive effort to find out more about this particular catastrophe theory.
I got fed up with the rhetoric an started to look more at CA and then later WUWT. If I could be quite honest about it, I was extremely suspicious of CA and WUWT at first – almost like a feeling of disloyalty to what I then believed to be the more credible science at RC.
Now I only very occasionally go to the acrimonious echo chamber at RC. If I do visit, I cannot stay too long before it just gets on my nerves.
I am a regular visitor to WUWT, CA and the bishop because I like the mix of views and the discussion keeps to better standards of behaviour. I have learned a lot. I don’t think for one minute that all of the arguments are correct amongst posts and posters and I don’t feel put off if I feel the urge to chip-in if I feel I can contribute from my own background (engineering, control, and signal processing).
Similarly, I like the fact that Judith and other well known names visit this site and are prepared to discuss their ideas.
Ben U. : August 20, 2010 at 4:11 pm
“Progressive” is just another euphemism for the political left. As a political label it’s been lurking around for a while, but seems more popular lately.
Yup. It was wandering around in the darkness, cold, lonely, and afraid, until Georgy Malenkov started using it to describe Stalin’s attributes during a lull between purges — and suddenly, it was cool to be a “progressive.”
Sheer coincidence, no doubt…
“Progressive” politics was started during Teddy Roosevelt’s Republican administration. The term was later hijacked by the ultra-liberal far Left, who liked the term.
I think of modern day “progressives” as old-timey political regressives, interested in fascist-style control of media outlets to control the masses.
For them, the internet sucks.
RC’s brand is damaged. The reason RC was originally set up is meaningless. For a long time, RC was considered by many to be a good source for getting facts about climate science, with real climate scientists explaining those facts. But as climategate evolved and the hockey stick fractured, RC was more and more forced to sensor comments, limit discussion, and generally show itself to not be a good source for getting unbiased facts about climate science.
Plus, there is one thing that almost all internet users can agree upon, censorship is bad. But one-sided censorship? A huge, HUGE no-no. Its indefensible. So the idea that RC was a good source for getting climates facts is over. And that is how there brand is damaged.
When I first started reading about climate a couple years ago, I thought it must be telling that no one seemed to be able to rebut, in anyway, the explanations provided at RC. The authors would write an entry, and any negative comments were shown to be either irresponsible or based upon some misunderstanding of the basic science. It wasn’t until started looking at some other sites that I realized the degree to which RC was being moderated. And for me, like most people, 1) that was a real turn-off, and 2) it made me wonder what it was RC was afraid of?
One last comment about RC. It appears that RC is open about its connections to the Environmental Defense Fund and Fenton Communications. RC provides that info right on their site. So its not like pointing this info out is uncovering a secret they were trying to keep hidden. I don’t know when that info was put up, as I only now checked their site. But at least as of recently, RC is not trying to hide its roots.
On the subject of Real Climhate, I would like to point out that public relations and truth rarely mix. I am not suggesting that they necessarily lie, but there are many techniques to change the focus of an argument, question the credentials of participants etc.
A recent example is the emphasis Obama placed on “British” part of “British Petroleum”, despite the fact that this is no longer their name, to shift any blame offshore and away from the US, notwithstanding US participation in both BP and the local operating company, and presumably US regulation covering operations in the Gulf.
There is generally an incestuous relationship between PR companies and the press (although, sadly for the PR companies, the press cannot be relied upon for consistency). The Gulf spill is relevant here too, as some commentators have claimed that press reporting was responsible for more damage to the local economy, through scaremongering, than the spill itself.
For clarity, my background is in technical marketing not climate science.
Finally, can I add my thanks to Dr Curry for entering a dialogue with those showing healthy scepticism – the agnostics rather than the atheists. I hope I speak for many here in saying that all we are asking for is clarity in scientific pronouncements so that the layman and scientist alike can make informed judgements rather than taking things on faith.
REPLY: Thanks Peter, for visiting and weighing it with a quality comment. – Anthony
Judith Curry – respect!
The science will die if ‘one side’ fails to enter into dialogue about it’s work and possible consequences. This will mean adjusting models to fit new findings.
It is of concern to see how some blogs have responded to your comments; this only adds weight to the notion that they have gone ‘beyond’ science. The everyday world now has realised something is very badly wrong in the world of ‘climate science’ and with the IPCC. (Certainly amongst the people I know and work with in England, many of them previously being uncritically accepting of the IPCC position, now feel that they’ve been fooled and are increasingly dismissing the issue all together.)
Trust will only be rebuilt slowly but dialogue may permit a move on all sides to begin to find some common and agreed ground.
Usually black and white polarised issues turn into some shade of grey in the end.
You appear like an ambassador and could begin to occupy that middle position. ….what about starting a blog of your own?
RC/Gavin’s take on Curry, tagged as : • climate tripe • generic stupidity
Balls in Curry ? – Yes
Balls in Gavin ? – No
It would be more appropriate to label it:
” RC has damaged their [& others] brain(s)”.
Brgds from Sweden
//ThomasJ
Jo Abbess writes in a post today in reference to Judith that:
“I reckon, though, people should give her a break for a while to let her compose herself, and get over the shock of the Anthony Watts “tribe” eating her heart out with steak knives after she published a proper piece of Science.”
http://www.joabbess.com/2010/08/21/lets-read-the-ipcc-1/
Funny, because while Jo is hand waving about eating hearts out, WUWT has progressed to extending Judith an invitation for Thai Curry and thanking her for her thoughts, determination and engagement. While only Judith knows how she feels about her experiences at WUWT, I suspect that she will be back for many more, and we will do everything we can to make sure she feels welcome.
I happily pile on to comments by Dan Murphy, Dennis Nikols and others about Judith Curry.
Lest we forget, however, she is standing on the shoulders of those scientists (studying climate science) before her who were bloodied when going into the open blogosphere venues. Let’s take a moment to remember them.
John
Aaron Stonebeat says:
August 20, 2010 at 7:28 pm
“… There [CP] I found this statement: “Last week, the anti-science crowd were touting …”
“… This really struck me. All my life I have been trying to put myself under the rigours of scientific thinking; to put aside prejudice and to give up previous convictions. …
”… But here we are, I and you; ‘we’. The anti-science crowd. Our world of wonder and doubt apparently has been hijacked by those who pretend to know.”
Well stated. You must remember who CP is. As “progressives,” they are advised by the likes of Saul Alinsky in “Rules for Radicals”: Ridicule your enemies, it throws them off-balance. I prefer the message of a sign I saw the other day: “Forgive your enemies. It messes with their minds.”
I admire Judith Curry. It’s really easy sitting here making comments about climate scientists – even if I wanted to, I’m never going to meet them. But to be an academic in a field pretty much sewn up by the climategate gang and then to speak openly in criticism of the (once) major players … that takes guts.
But that is what makes great leaders … they don’t follow the crowd down some blind alley way, they speak out and by doing so convince the crowd to follow them!
http://www.leary.ru/download/leary/Timothy%20Leary%20-%20Start%20Your%20Own%20Religion.pdf
people who thought he was a guru believed him so he pimped them – but he had plenty of friends who were not so silly and they played the game with him. if they’d tried, they could have expressed themselves with a trilogy that we’d listen to on audio book, but they were performance artists primarily.
he had the police of texas in terror of him
it was a joke to do that, too- he would laugh about how with a few words he could yank the right chain to motivate them to terror
all he had to do was write a paragraph in (the same book) about how to mix lsd with dmso so you could spray it on…lol
it was half deliberate and half opportunistic – it was for the performance, like madonna, or carl sagan or al gore or lady gaga or the pope or the politician
[b]it is perhaps worth understanding that the baby boomers grew up in a generation when it was a hobby everybody practiced – to make up your own religion.
thus, those in the whitehouse now- they not only know what they are doing and how to do it but they have rehearsed it all their lives.[/b]
they eat, sleep and breath ‘performance art’ and use it to mask colossal theft.
to motivate incredible stupidity and separate the fools from their money
they had the same ‘revelations’ about historical conspiracies and religions that you have had- when they were your age. they chose a career in it.
they compete for popular fear franchises – whoever is clever enough to think up a good one is admired and they jump on the bandwagon
yah. they saw thru it all too. they just learned to use the tricks to BE it rather than get rid of it.
they became ‘the system’ they hated and saw thru.
they prey on their own species. it’s self evidently a path to extinction. just might take more than one generation.
Jordan: August 21, 2010 at 1:50 am
Similarly, I like the fact that Judith and other well known names visit this site and are prepared to discuss their ideas.
RC is a lecture hall — WUWT is a town hall.