NOTE: in conjunction with this essay, may I suggest that readers also visit Climate Audit and read Steve McIntyre’s careful evisceration of the “copygate issue”. – Anthony
Guest post by Thomas Fuller
The double handful of climate hysteria weblogs have tailed off in both output and popularity since the events of Climategate and Copenhagen. The Joe Romms, Michael Tobises, Tim Lamberts, the Desmog Blogs, Deep Climates and William Connellys of the world have been largely reduced to recycling whining points and venting splenetically against the sad fact that the world is turning away from their point of view.
This is an extremely positive happenstance for those of us Lukewarmers who believe that climate change does need to be addressed, as the alarmists continually turn people into skeptics with their outrageous and unscientific claims and their rigid insistence on conformity to the religious truth. It probably doesn’t bother many skeptics, either.
But just when you thought it was safe to go into the water, the useful idiots of climate change have been reinforced by one-shot attacks on specific skeptics.
The mudslinging trio of Mashey, Angliss and Prall have taken the same game plan and used it to orchestrate pseudo-scientific attacks on figures from the anti-hysteria League of Sanity.
Prall managed to corral the late Stephen Schneider into putting his name on a ludicrously poor explication of how skeptics don’t have as many publications as those siding with James Hansen. The paper is, to be charitable, not destined for posterity, being full of the shoddiest work on data collection, analysis and presentation–so bad that Spencer Weart, author of The History of Global Warming, dismissed it as unpublishable on the day it was released.
Angliss went after Andrew Montford, author of The Hockey Stick Illusion, seeking to convince the world not to read the book because he could mathematically prove that the Climategate emails were not a statistically significant percentage of the emails on CRU’s servers. And I’m not making that up. He took his own advice, sadly, not bothering to read Montford’s book or the Climategate emails, and his work shows the lack of scholarship.
And we’ve all read recently about Mashey’s attack on Edward Wegman, accusing him of plagiarism in a 250 page document that is straight out of the movie Conspiracy Theory, with color-coded themes and memes, and an outrageous accusation that Steve McIntyre was recruited, trained and funded by the George Marshall Institute–something I hope Mashey can back up.
It’s very much as if these lone cowboys decided that the hysteria blogs needed some support.
Something like a citizen scientist, as though they wanted to become the new anti-McIntyre, the anti-Montford, the anti-Wegman, by pulling down the false idols.
Sadly, they didn’t do what McIntyre did. They didn’t do what Montford did. They didn’t do what Wegman did.
They didn’t start with the data. Mashey started with his conspiracy theory, detailed in another document titled (and I’m not making this up), “Crescendo to Climategate Cacophony’. He had the theory sewn up, so he didn’t need any data.
Angliss rejected the data, refusing to read the book he criticized or the emails that prompted the book.
Prall got the data all wrong, misspelling names, not counting publications correctly, searching only in English, using Google Scholar instead of an academic database.
But, although they tried to make their work look sciency, it is not and never was intended to be science.
They are malicious attacks on those they oppose, taking up the cudgel for the deflating weblogs they used to comment on, trying to rekindle the flame that Climategate and Copenhagen extinguished.
They failed.
Thomas Fuller http://www.redbubble.com/people/hfuller
Thomas Fuller href=”http://www.redbubble.com/people/hfuller
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“Lawrie Ayres says:
October 13, 2010 at 3:07 am ”
It is still spring (Only just), but cool indeed on the East cost of Aus. I am told by “natives” that the October/November switch is when one feels an Aussie summer is on its way. So far, east cost of Aus, quite cool, still humid tho.
“This is an extremely positive happenstance for those of us Lukewarmers who believe that climate change does need to be addressed………………
But just when you thought it was safe to go into the water, the useful idiots of climate change have been reinforced by one-shot attacks on specific skeptics.”
========================================================
Tom, at this point, regardless of how you consider yourself, it will be deemed that you are firmly in the skeptic camp.
BTW, nice post.
Dear Mr. Fuller –
The more I read the more I am growing to like you, sir.
As we say in Ireland, “You are a gentleman and a scholar and a fine judge of vintage CO2”.
Sincerely, etc…
Mr. Fuller, your statement above;
“This is an extremely positive happenstance for those of us Lukewarmers who believe that climate change does need to be addressed, as the alarmists continually turn people into skeptics with their outrageous and unscientific claims and their rigid insistence on conformity to the religious truth. It probably doesn’t bother many skeptics, either.”
Do I take that to mean that both alarmists & sceptics detract from The One True Cause? The use of “us Lukewarmers”; is there a secret handshake or something? The statement “It probably doesn’t bother many skeptics, either.” Why; because they are to be considered as closed minded, as lost souls?
I can only come to the conclusion that you are a True Believer, self appointed or otherwise, in the position of priest. You reject the position of both the zealot & the agnostic and work as missionary at WUWT for the greater kingdom that is yet to be realised here on Earth and which the meek shall inherit.
I could, of course, have misinterpreted your words & if so, apologise: I too don’t like my personal understanding of a subject to place me in a category which can be lampooned and marginalised.
Scott Mandia,
You can’t be serious. If you are going to regurgitate other people’s talking points, shouldn’t you cite them? Give us a break.
jose says:
October 13, 2010 at 12:00 am
“… The obvious plagiarism (which Steve M. doesn’t deny, by the way) is evidence of poor researching and writing skills, ….”
Uhmm, I suppose you can come away from Steve M’s statements with only he “doesn’t deny”, but I think you missed the entire point of Steve Mc’s position.
I posted this at Dr Mashey’s site DeploringClimate:-
Well all I can say is your work maintains the standard of the Teams work and should be consigned to a cylindrical object with a lid.
Climate gate revealed all we knew about junkett science and it is now clear that we are winning and you are whining.
Dr Mashey its over, we won you lost, so I suggest you and your people seek help and obtain advice in respect of your superman complexes. The planet does not need saving it is the poor souls who have swallowed the alarmist nonsense who need saving and we need to save ourselves from the freeloaders on the green gravy train.
Your mates at UNRealclimate are well unreal ie fakes.
Alright then, what’s the defining point where you go from luke warmer to sceptic?
Disbelief in CAGW?
Disbelief in AGW?
Disbelief in GHG?
Disbelief in the degree to which CO2 impacts GW?
Disbelief in IPCC?
Disbelief in acronyms?
I believe there is some AGW, and that CO2 has some (minor) effect; so am I a skeptic, lukewarmer or out of the paradigm totally?
Okay, so those mentioned in Tom’s article formed their own conclusions then made the data fit those conclusions or did shoddy research for information already available, and that surprises us how?
Not surprising that the supporters of the AGW by CO2 consensus are of late putting up an accelerating aggressive series of counter attacks on the independent (a.k.a. skeptic) scientists. Question: Is it because they know they have little chance now of prevailig by using their tired old processes of the MSM and their less-than-open science venue? I think they know they have lost seriously fatal momentum and support.
The leadership of the AGW by CO2 consensus are in retreat with the fool soldiers fighting a rear guard guerrilla action. What we see with the attack on Wegman is the foot soldier guerrilla action. It is not an organized counter offensive planned by the leadership.
The best strategy for the independent scientists and intellects is to already be where the AGW leadership is retreating to and be prepared for a stand. Exchanges with these guerrilla foot soldiers is OK, however, watch the leaders very carefully for signs of an organized AGW by CO2 counter offensive.
My Observation: The AGW by CO2 leadership have only one place to retreat to, the IPCC. We should focus all our energy on what the IPCC is doing wrt to IAC report and with the AR5. That is where I am going start focusing . . . .
John
Mr. Mandia–what stan said.
Stan>
‘Prof’ Mandia is a high-school teacher from Buffalo. Evidently he’s been learning about trolling from his students.
Ah, we’re getting back to name calling, eh? Warmers, lukewarmers, denialists, skeptics, etc. etc.
Since when is it acceptable for science to be subjective? I defer to Hal Lewis:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/08/hal-lewis-my-resignation-from-the-american-physical-society/
Call me a REALIST! (or a scientist). I want real information–the TRUTH! Don’t give my hype, jive, spin or scuff. Just the facts, please (and if I have to say “real facts” I’m going to do it, even though that is obviously (or should obviously be) redundant!)
Now I challenge anybody to call a Realist a close-minded person. Doing so would be a blatant lie.
If one equates the AGW show to a big rodeo I can see some nice analogies. Mann was the star bull rider who was found to be cheating. Now you have the rodeo clowns Mashey, Angliss and Prall (with additional help from Scott Mandia and Jose) frantically waving their arms and trying to get the bull (the public) to look the other way and ignore the facts. It’s really, really funny when you see it from this perspective.
What these clowns need to do is look up in the stands. They’re empty guys. Your feeble attempts to cover up the fraud is useless. Take a hint and go hide somewhere before you become part of the scraps left when the bull discovers the cheating was intentional and decides to gore everyone connected.
Tom, if you’re so upset that I maligned your book unfairly, then why did you make the same error three different times since Friday?
Steven – you make a number of claims that I’ve answered previously, but I’ll address them here again shortly.
Scott Mandia says:
October 13, 2010 at 4:02 am
As a writer, I am very surprised that you are defending Wegman. To those of us in the academic community, plagiarism represents laziness, incompetence, and dishonesty.
Tut tut, Scott, but shouldn’t Mann’s methods not be self-fulfilling in respect to creating his beloved Hockey Sticks [even from statistical noise] and at least be able to recreate his study’s own calibration period in trying to [wrongly] “teleconnect” with Global Mean Temperature [by way of no known physical principles] using the tree ring borings [from the manifestly inappropriate deformed wild stripbark bristlecones] which Mann did not even obtain himself or bother to update, etc.?
That is, Scott, when will your finely tuned academic sensibilities notice and react to the fact that ipcc Climate Science in toto is not real science, but instead only a massive Propaganda Op? Or is its “creative writing” right up your alley as being the kind of thing you rever as the epitome of the Academic Community’s Thinking and thus the key to an ~”audaciously distorted reality’s higher truths”?
simpleseekeraftertruth says:
October 13, 2010 at 5:42 am
Djozar says:
October 13, 2010 at 6:56 am
RockyRoad says:
October 13, 2010 at 7:52 am
———————
simpleseekeraftertruth & Djozar & RockyRoad,
I have foresworn the use of the “L——-ers” word, I use middle-of-the-roaders instead.
They stand in the middle of the road on AGW by CO2. Big juggernauts fly by on both sides of them headed either for ideological environmentalism (with associated unelected world gov’t) or headed toward a complete reformation/renaissance in climate science.
Does that bring up a mental image of deer in the headlights? Chuckle, chuckle.
They have positioned themselves to be irrelevant to the major issues at hand. It is their convenient position to maneuver easily to issues of the moment.
John
From this month’s Atlantic
Published research is most often wrong
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/8269
There are many interesting aspects to this paper. Here is one selection from the article that summarizes some of the research findings. Peer review as a way to exclude opposing views. Published research is biased to favour the views that the researcher and the community desire.
The link to the controversies in climate science is clear.
From the article
@ur momisugly Latimer Elder; your comments have the ring of truth. The group accusing Wegman of plagiarism make as much sense and seem to have attained a similar level of intellectual capacity as the fourteen-year-old bullies it was once my job to divert toward more useful activities as they taunted the much brighter kids in high-school yards. Mr Mandia’s statement is a classic playground bullies’s taunt and is utterly without wit or merit.
Brian,
You claim I said the corruption was wide spread among climate scientists.
I most certainly did not. You went looking for a story. The story was that the mails where being taken out of context and that people like me were making unsubstantiated charges.
I clearly laid out in my mail to you and the book the charges we made were limited to the team and limited in number. Not widespread. That didnt fit your story line so you lied. Plain and simple.
Here are the people and charges. Not widespread.
1. Mann fostered a bunker mentality. That’s evident in the mails and confirmed by Jones.
2. That bunker mentality was instrumental in Jones changing his policy of data sharing.
3. Jones asked mann to delete mails related to AR4. This was related to Hollands FOIA request.
4. Briffa and Wahl had correspondence [sought by holland] outside the process of the AR4.
5. As a result, the treatment of Steve McIntyre’s paper was not fair and objective since the comments Wahl supplied Briffa happened after the last review period.
That’s about it. With every other mail and every other incident we didnt draw any wild conclusions. we pointed to various interpretations.
I made two mistakes, both of which I corrected. One mistake regarding a briffa chart, the other a Jones mail, where it turned out he was joking.
Scott Mandia says:
October 13, 2010 at 4:02 am (Edit)
Thomas Fuller,
The Wegman Report shows many examples of plagiarism that Mashey has clearly highlighted. As a writer, I am very surprised that you are defending Wegman. To those of us in the academic community, plagiarism represents laziness, incompetence, and dishonesty. It appears that you do not respect that viewpoint.
Any document that has been plagiarized cannot be taken seriously nor any person who defends such document.
Scott: then see the examples of Bradley copying and several others. over at CA
Anthony,
To my subjective eye, it looks like WUWT is getting increasing numbers from the middle-of-the-roader blogs of late. Also, ditto more visits from the more purist AGW by CO2 supporter blogs of late. Are they failing to attract commenters in their native venues?
If so, then congratulations to you Anthony.
I haven’t thanked you in a while for this wonderful place. Thanks.
John
Steven, I’ve put excerpts of what you said in italics.
I think I’ve been pretty clear that the breakdown was local and confined as opposed to “widespread” as I wrote.
In our email exchange, you said that the berakdown applied to Jones, Briffa, Osborn, Overpeck, Wahl, Ammonn, and Mann. Given that I don’t know exactly who you identify as being part of “The Team” and who you do not, this seems reasonably “widespread” to me. However, you also claimed that “[n]one of the investigations has looked at the substantive issues in play” and “the investigations investigated only those thing that they knew were not a problem,” statements that implicate any scientist involved in the investigations who support the above-mentioned scientists. At the time, the three investigations that had been completed were the PSU inquiry, the HoC investigation, and the Oxburgh review. Between those three, we would need to add the PSU inquiry panelists, Gerald North, Donald Kennedy, Nicolas Barnes, David Jones, Peter Sinclair, Peter Cox, Hans von Storch, Myles R Allen, and the entire membership of the Oxburgh inquiry to the list of people implicated in ethical issues. And for good measure, let’s add in the climate scientists I interviewed that contradicted your accounting of what happened, like Tom Wigley, Martin Vermeer, Gavin Schmidt, and Mike Hulme. This appears to meet the definition of “widespread” as I understand it.
If we added the additional names from the PSU investigation and the ICCER who disagreed publicly with your interpretation of events, the list of names would implicate an even larger, and thus more “widespread,” group.
So, to make my point. All I had what the mails to go by. Which you argue is not enough context.
Let’s not misrepresent what my post says. My post says that, under most circumstances, emails fail to have the necessary context to understand what really happened. Remember that I agreed with you that the FOI issue was serious, and that the emails very likely contained enough context for this one issue. I specifically said so in the post. However, you went beyond that in our email exchange, as I also showed in the post. You claimed that Overpeck informed Briffa of the IPCC rules and that Briffa broke the rules – I asked Overpeck, and he said you got that wrong, a fact that was independently confirmed in the ICCER final report.
They I tell him, yes. Specific cases against specific guys. But Brian cant make hash out of that, so he lies.
Quite the contrary, actually. I make the case that you are simultaneously claiming specific cases against specific scientists, but also that you’re implying that the problems are widespread, for the reasons mentioned above. I’m arguing that you are being inconsistent and self-contradictory, and I point out multiple examples of self-contradiction in the post as well as in my detailed criticism (the original post that Anthony corrected – see the link to S&R at “Mashey Potatoes Part 1”) of your comments. There is a difference.
Ultimately I’m not criticizing your book, I’m criticizing the arguments you (and others) presented in our email exchange regarding sufficient context. I’m criticizing the fact that you didn’t even bother to contact Overpeck and ask him to explain the email you misinterpreted. I’m criticizing the fact that, near as I could tell from asking the principles involved, you didn’t contact ANY of the scientists you criticized in order to get their side of the story. I’m criticizing you for failing to do your journalistic due diligence.
If I were criticizing “Climategate – the CRUtape Letters,” I would have specifically said so. If you read the various debunkings I’ve written at S&R, you’ll find that I’m not exactly shy or coy about debunking bad arguments or poorly written papers. That said, I must admit that I’m curious about how well the book stands up now that the CRU investigations have gone 0-5 against you.
I think I’ve finally figured out why alarmists are they way they are! This thread illustrates their problem quite well! First, I’d like to congratulate Anthony for being able to carry on two separate issues in a single thread. Perfect!
The problem alarmists obviously have is that they can’t contextualize nor do they possess proper reading comprehension skills.
The reading comprehension skill deficiency is illuminated by Steve Mosher’s post.
Steve Mosher writes, “I dont think I can be any clearer. NOT widespread. Focused on the team. A few specific incidents .”
Brian writes, “Mosher also said that we know enough context to prove that there was a widespread breakdown in scientific ethics among climate researchers.”
Holy Moly!!! And the alarmist camp is worried about improper attribution!?!?!?! How about a willful public mischaracterization of statements?
Steve Mosher, because yours is from a commercial enterprise, I believe you can show intent to do harm. But I’m not a lawyer.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Now, let’s look at the Wegman report. The Wegman report isn’t a commercial enterprise. In other words, the author’s aren’t seeking monetary gain from this piece of writing. Neither are they mischaracterizing Bradley’s writings, so, there is clearly no intent to harm. Context!!
Ok, so that’s not enough for some of our more fervent people that wish the rules be explicitly followed. So, what, specifically, has Wegman done that was so wrong?
Just so we can play along at home, if you don’t have a copy of the report, you can go here to make sure what is being stated is truthful and properly contextualized and characterized. http://archives.energycommerce.house.gov/reparchives/108/home/07142006_Wegman_Report.pdf
Recall, Wegman was asked to do a report for the Committee on Energy and Commerce regarding MBH98, MBH99, MM03, MM05a, MM05b as well as the related implications in the assessment. These are politicians who are asking for clarity on import climate papers. Obviously, these politicians will need some background on most of the information that would be presented by Wegman. In a section of Wegman’s report, labeled background the authors write, “A cross section of a temperate forest tree shows variation of lighter and darker bands that are usually continuous around the circumference of the tree. These
bands are the so-called tree rings and are due to seasonal effects. Each tree ring is
composed of large thin-walled cells called early wood and smaller more densely packed thick walled cells called late wood. The average width of a tree ring is a function of many variables including the tree species, tree age, stored carbohydrates in the tree, nutrients in the soil, and climatic factors including sunlight, precipitation, temperature, wind speed, humidity, and even carbon dioxide availability in the atmosphere. Obviously there are many confounding factors so the problem is to extract the temperature signal and to distinguish the temperature signal from the noise caused by the many confounding factors.
For anyone to have even the most base of understanding of dendrochronology, this information is necessary, even if I’m pretty sure our politicians lack the capacity of understanding the entry. I think most of us will agree this passage, while not important to the findings in the report, should have been included in the report. Now, I don’t have a copy of Bradley’s textbook, from which he claims plagiarism, but from all accounts, it seems the Wegman’s entry and Bradley’s very closely resemble each other, that is stipulated.
Here’s where the fun starts, first, let’s define plagiarism. A quick stop at dictionary.com shows us, plagiarism as “the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work.” to make sure this is the generally accepted definition, scroll down the page and one will see the Encyclopedia Britannica definition as “plagiarism—-the act of taking the writings of another person and passing them off as one’s own. The fraudulence is closely related to forgery and piracy-practices generally in violation of copyright laws. ”
Now, we should note, in both definitions, one has to represent the swiped thoughts as their own. and the representation of them as one’s own original work. and and passing them off as one’s own.
Next, to establish if Wegman’s report rises to the level of plagiarism, it must be determined if Wegman was trying to pass that background information as his own. We should, at this point, simply close the book, look at the complainants, and start pointing and laughing at them. For people that aren’t aware, Ed Wegman is a statistician. He plays with numbers. To my knowledge, he’s never tried to pass himself off as a dendrochronologist nor a climatologist. Still, I’m aware this won’t suffice for some people as proof Wegman did not plagiarize Bradley. So, let’s look at intent, because sometimes stuff happens, maybe Wegman intended to slight Bradley and take credit for the mentioned passage.
As McIntyre notes at CA(see link at top of thread), in the background section, the Wegman report mentions Bradley 6 times. OK, we see, obviously, Wegman’s didn’t pass off the background entry as his work, further, we see frequent mention of Bradley in the background section. More, Wegman specifically references Bradley’s textbook from which Bradley is making the plagiarism accusation. Again, it is point and laugh time. Copied from the Bibliography section of the Wegman paper——
Bradley, R. S. (1999) Paleoclimatology: Reconstructing Climates of the Quarternary, 2nd Edition, San Diego: Academic Press.
Bradley, R. S. and Eddy, J. A. (1991) “Records of past global changes,” in Global
Changes of the Past (R. S. Bradley, ed.) Boulder: University Corporation for
Atmospheric Research, 5-9. Bradley, R. S. and Jones, P. D. (1993) “‘Little Ice Age’ summer temperature variations: Their nature and relevance to recent global warming trends,” Holocene, 3, 367-376
Bradley, Raymond S., Hughes, M. K., and Diaz, H. F. (2003) “Climate change: Climate in medieval time,” Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1090372, 404-405.
Bradley, R. S., Briffa, K. R., Cole, J. E., Hughes, M. K., and Osborn, T. J. (2003)
“The climate of the last millennium,” in Paleoclimate, Global Change and the Future
(Eds. K. D. Alverson, R. S. Bradley and Thomas F. Pedersen), 105-141, New York:
Springer-Verlag
Clearly, plainly, obviously, Wegman didn’t try to pass off the entry as his own work. Clearly, plainly, obviously, neither did he fail cite Bradley in some attempt to slight Bradley. Should there be an little number by the words and a corresponding footnote? Probably, so what? Remember, while this paper was done by academics, this was a report for Congress. This was not an academic piece of work to be graded by some English professor nor was it a commercial enterprise.
Now for the real fun! Even though it is clear Wegman has not plagiarized Bradley. What happens if Bradley is forced to play by the same standards he wishes to impose on Wegman?
We were encouraged to read an entry at CA. And I did. Here’s what I found,
Steve McIntyre writes, Some language in Bradley 1999 was lifted almost directly from predecessor language, such as the following language from Lamarche 1975 (New Scientist), which is almost identical to corresponding language in Bradley 1999:
“The earlywood is made up of large, thin-walled tracheid cells and the latewood, of smaller, thicker-walled cells.”
(For more examples of the same use in other literature, please go to http://climateaudit.org/2010/10/12/copygate/ )
Ouch!!! You mean Bradley participates in the same practices he’s accusing Wegman? Yes, so too does much of the climate alarmist world. And everybody else for that matter.
What we’ve seen here, isn’t plagiarism, nor is the offender Wegman. What we see here is a blatant, intentional misrepresentation of people’s works, specifically intended to defame the authors of the works, or it could be, as I asserted earlier, alarmists have very poor reading comprehension skills and they can’t contextualize very well. But, it is an either/or situation. They have demonstrated it can’t be neither.
dl says:
October 13, 2010 at 8:43 am
From this month’s Atlantic
Published research is most often wrong
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/8269
Yes, this also highlights one of the very important but totally unscientific tenets of Climate Science, that peer review by a few peers resulting in the publication of a paper thereby warrants that the paper’s conclusions are the “given truth”.
No, in being “the farthest thing from the truth” in the case of what real peer review does and claims, this Climate Science tenet is a grotesque lie. The real peer review starts, or at worst necessarily continues, after the paper is published, at least where the “materials and methods” which actually comprise the foundations of the paper’s “science” can be obtained by any interested party. But if they are not pretty easily accessable, the value of the paper is correspondingly reduced, even to zero, a fact which has once again been proven in the case of key Climate Science once the “materials and methods” have been painstakingly wrested from the grips of Climate Science!