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”.
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Judith is introducing an improvisational element to a long running play.
The other actors are confused, but she hopes it will be justified by drawing in additional viewers. Publicity is all good and the act was getting stale.
As she has only begun to develop the character, its function in service of the plot is yet unclear.
To the others on stage, it appears as ‘stage hogging’.
The crowd finds it interesting, though.
Bill Tuttle says:
August 21, 2010 at 10:12 am
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.
A lecture hall for theology and the number of angels on a pin head.
Margaret says:
August 20, 2010 at 3:33 pm
This statement from the original article puzzles me: Since that time progressive climate sites have begun to increasingly attack Curry. Why on earth are these sites called “progressive”? Can anyone explain to me the meaning of the word in American english — as it doesn’t make sense in that sentence in New Zealand english..
In the U.S. we have been saddled with New Speak. The term “progressive” is used to denote someone (or some group) who want to regress to failed leftist programs. In some cases it is used for garden variety socialism, while in extreme examples it refers to an attempt to return to the failed tenets of Marx-Engels communism. The good thing about New Speak is you can almost always determine the meaning by simply substituting the opposite. Therefore “progressive” becomes “regressive”.
Yes please, and I’d like to remember those who were perhaps so bloodied that they still stay away from WUWT, but might have important material that WUWT might like to promote. I’m thinking of Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas; Tom Segalstad; Tim Ball; Zbigniew Jaworowski; there’s got to be many more.
Unfortunately, mud sticks, and I believe the alarmism has, even in honest scientists like Judith Curry, created an impression of AGW that is erroneous. I see an unbelievable and shameful failure of Academia here, in allowing the practice of Scientific Method, and the quality of science practiced, to degrade so much in the realm of Climate Science.
Lucy Skywalker,
One can learn from the past, to correct the future. I think that is happening in the blog venues.
Smile Lucy. : ) I have just started my Saturday night chill out. Take care.
John
I believe Dr. Curry sees WUWT as the largest possible world stage to argue her point of view. Real science will stand up to any examination. And she has gained a great deal of stature because of it. Who knows, maybe others of her field will join us here. We all may learn more then we expect. pg
Ben U. says:
August 20, 2010 at 4:11 pm
(Regarding Margaret says:
August 20, 2010 at 3:33 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.
As, esp in USA, is the term “liberal.” They almost NEVER are!
Aaron Stonebeat says:
August 20, 2010 at 7:28 pm
http://climateprogress.org/
(Honestly I did not know. Also, as a European, I thought Obama would be an improvement after Bush)
Yup, he and $700million (where did that come from?) fooled a lot of people, not only in Europe but in US as well (and perhaps they should have known better) so don’t be too hard on yourself.
David Jones says:
August 22, 2010 at 1:48 am
‘Ben U. says:
August 20, 2010 at 4:11 pm
(Regarding Margaret says:
August 20, 2010 at 3:33 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.
As, esp in USA, is the term “liberal.” They almost NEVER are!’
In the USA, the term “liberal” means liberal with other people’s money as in “distribute the wealth”.
Margaret says:
August 20, 2010 at 3:33 pm
“Why on earth are these sites called “progressive”?
Can anyone explain to me the meaning of the word in American english — as it doesn’t make sense in that sentence in New Zealand english..”
This comes from the way American political factions have evolved away from their old roots in the British parliamentary scrum of a few centuries ago. In some cases, due to blatant party hijacking by radical left agendas.
The Progressive Party in the US originated as an offshoot of the 19th century Republican party under Teddy Roosevelt (his “Bull Moose Party”) that sought to reform industry with the FDA, and other federal regulatory agencies covering labor, public sanitation, etc. which merged with the Protestant centered nationalist/socialist movement that arose in the late 19th century out of the works of the Bellamys as well as the temperance and eugenics movements.
In New York State, due to its odd election laws that allowed candidates to be endorsed by multiple parties, the Democrat and Republican parties had some curious monkeys on their backs in the form of the Liberal and Conservative Parties (actual parties in their own right like they are in Britain) which acted to steer the politics of each party in their own respective directions by being big enough that major party candidates sought their nominations as well in order to establish their bona fides as true major party loyalists and not just allies of convenience (for instance, nobody really believes that Michael Bloomberg, republican mayor of New York City, is actually a republican, he changed parties before the election so he could buy the inheritance of Giuliani).
Despite Progressivism originating with the Republican Party, it is today positioned distinctly to the left of Democrats on both social and economic issues, it is essentially a trojan horse for hardcore socialists who want to avoid the Scarlet Letter of actual Socialist Party membership (just as Congressman Bernie Sanders is a “Democrat” he originally was elected Mayor of Burlington, VT on the Socialist ticket), seeking to attract moderate to liberal Republicans of middle class rural origins with populist and Rockwellian New Deal rhetoric (backing “Growth Control” measures to deal with limiting sprawl, for instance, as well as being heavily anti-nuke, pro-organic anything) that harken to a mythos of getting back to the land, living a simpler life in that mythical never-was small town/rural utopian dream.
Simply put, their idea of “progress” doesn’t involve advancing technology, expanding economic growth, rising standards of living, or increasing consumption by making resources cost less and more available. To you and me, that seems like “regress”, but while these folks roots are commonly held to be in the humanist movement of the 19th century, in fact, they abandoned humanism for gaiaism and today generally advocate policies that require vast reductions in the human population of the planet, if not it’s outright extinction for crimes against nature.
mikelorrey says:
August 22, 2010 at 12:20 pm
Some quick corrections: Bloomberg first switched from Democrat to Republican mainly because of the now-traditional unwinnability of the Democratic mayoral primary by any but half-competent party hacks politically dependent sometimes on extreme elements. Later Bloomberg, while mayor, quit the Republicans and became an independent. Bernie Sanders ran as an independent, not as a Democrat, and won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and then likewise in the U.S. Senate. He openly describes himself as a “socialist” and a “democratic socialist.” He’s not formally a member of a political party. He caucuses with the Democrats.
*whew*–So that settles THAT!
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/08/18/notes081810.DTL
“”” John F. Hultquist says:
August 20, 2010 at 6:26 pm
George E. Smith says:
August 20, 2010 at 1:28 pm
“I need to get some sort of understanding of just how EOFs are used;”
I’m not sure how you mean this but an explanation (somewhat related) is shown here:
http://www.ess.uci.edu/~yu/class/ess210b/lecture.5.EOF.all.pdf
Some understanding of matrix algebra and correlation is needed.
There may be a less algebraic explanation available that some would enjoy reading. Suggestions, anyone? “””
John,
Thanks for that link. At a quick glance, all of the elements of the process were at one time within my grasp; but it has been 50 years since I touched much of that in daily use; so I am rusty as all getout.
So it would take me some heavy book slogging to get back up to speed to where I understood that.
I’m quite comfortable with the synthesis of “fields” from common defined mathematical functions; although in my real world experience; all the specific functions I have used in such analysis or synthesis could be counted on the fingers of my two hands.
But if I understand this EOF concept; it sounds like the functions used to construct some arbitrary field are themselves quite arbitrary; well in the sense of being empirical, rather than having formal mathematical expressions for them.
As to the accuracy of such representations as far as conserving the information content, such as is of interest in sampled data systems; it is not clear to me that one can defeat the requirements of sampled data theory, and get by with less information, without losing accuracy or fidelity to the original continuous function.
But thanks for the link; it gives me something to start with.
mikelorrey says:
August 22, 2010 at 12:20 pm
To give a full account of it, you really have to bring in Wilson, Hegel, Bismarkian welfare state and the German School of Education.