After I published this story:
NCDC’s Dr. Thomas Peterson: “It’s a knife fight”
I wrote to Dr. Peterson to advise him that he had WUWT available to him for rebuttal should he wish. Here is his response verbatim. – Anthony
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In response to your kind offer, I have typed up the three relevant pages
of the notes I spoke from at that meeting, which I would appreciate you
adding to your forum. I had three lessons that I personally took from
Climategate. Here are my notes verbatim for lessons 2 and 3, which are
the relevant ones to this discussion. You can agree or disagree with the
points I made, but let’s at least start with exactly what I said.
Regards,
Tom Peterson
Lesson 2: If the fight isn’t fair, then don’t fight – and maybe don’t
fight even if it is fair
Only a small percentage of Phil Jones’ emails on that server were released
-The subset that was released was not random
–So it didn’t give a fair representation
-Releasing additional selected emails would make the fight fairer
–But not civil
There is a lot of incivility and ad hominem attacks out there
-We can’t control that
But we can control how we respond . . . or not respond
-Perhaps don’t even fight if the fight is fair
-Fights are never fun
–Even if you win them
The unfortunate downside is that some pseudoscientific nonsense can go
unchallenged.
Lesson 3: Collaborate with communicators
An aside from a Congressman after a hearing:
-You’re in a knife fight and need to fight back.
A science communicator:
-All scientists need to have their own blogs.
A good summary of similar issue though on a different topic by Michael
D. Gershon, M.D. (1999)
-“The experiments I conducted to this point gave me a feeling of
confidence that my work could withstand anyone’s scrutiny, which I
assumed (foolishly, it turned out) would be both logical and reasonable.”
Collaborate with communicators, 2
A scientist’s response to both knives and illogic tends to be more science
-Sound, rigorous, peer-reviewed science
-What we do best
-And in the end it will win the day
–Just ask Galileo
But unlike heliocentrism, we cannot afford to wait a century for views
on climate change to catch up to climate science
So partnering with communicators can help bridge the gap
-From nerdy scientists like myself to regular people.
Stupid investigators always look for only the good stuff and discard the chads … And the good stuff is very damning. What more do we need.
Only a small percentage of Phil Jones’ emails on that server were released
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No one needs to see all of the emails, just the ones mentioning where the murder weapon was hidden.
A crime was committed, by anyone’s standards.
Just because the “rest of the emails” might show that the murderer loved his dog…..
Kudos to Watts for the invitation, and to Peterson for his response.
While they may have their disagreements, it’s refreshing to see that they can still engage in civil discourse.
Its not a knife fight IMO. Its a fight for the truth, and as a regular person, I know the powers that be don’t want the truth to be known (Orwellian 1984 style). Show me the raw, unadjusted, data (Ok, forget the UK UEA CRU, the Aus BoM and NZ’s NIWA because the cat ate it), code, processes etc etc etc…
The unfortunate downside is that some pseudoscientific nonsense can go
unchallenged.
There is pseudoscience on both sides and I think in today’s interconnected world nothing goes unchallenged — right or wrong.
MikeEE
Saying “we cannot afford to wait a century for views on climate change to catch up to climate science” is like saying ” we cannot afford to wait a century for views on accounting change to catch up with Enron”.
Intriguing he should mention Galileo who showed that the academics and ‘consensus’ of his day were wrong.
Odd how it sounds like an insurance salesman’s seminar.
“A scientist’s response to both knives and illogic tends to be more science
-Sound, rigorous, peer-reviewed science”
Would be nice.
However, didn’t the climategate mails show how peer-review became corrupted by some cheerleading climate scientists?
Aren’t the sceptics on the knife side, facing guns, when
– peers are pre-selected,
– editors pressed,
– FOIA requests turned down?
Can’t help, but the “us humble innocent scientists” picture has some flaws.
It’s back to a basic misunderstanding of science by the climate alarmists and scientists.
They think that the deniers have to prove their case. They don’t. The alarmists are proposing a theory, not the deniers. It’s asymmetrical.
Deniers just have to keep pointing out where the theory and the predictions in particular do not fit the facts. Falsification.
The complexity with climate science is that the alarmist are working in a probability based world rather than true or false. It’s a question of what is the probability they are right.
That question is tested by prediction against reality, not by back testing. Back testing also works for a curve fit.
On the basis of prediction, they have failed dismally, The theory is wrong.
Tom Peterson: ‘But unlike heliocentrism, we cannot afford to wait a century for views
on climate change to catch up to climate science’
Around a thousand years ago the vikings were growing crops in Greenland.
This has not been possible for the past seven hundred years or so (including recent decades), due to the fact that the temperature in Viking times was warmer than now.
Tom, when is ‘Climate Science’ going to catch up with the historical record?
Tom Peterson’s comments would be fair enough if this was some arcane dispute about the presence of black holes at the heart of the Milky Way. The trouble is it’s not. The climate science community has come up with a hypothesis relating to the earth’s ever changing climate which if true would have profound implications for every person on this planet and their descendants for many generations. It is the biggest ‘game changer’ ever proposed by the scientific community and although there is good evidence to support their position there is good evidence and argument that does not. In such circumstances climate scientists cannot rely on authority especially given the many hundreds of individuals – as evidenced by WUWT and other sites – who whilst not contributors to the relevant peer review journals are scientifically trained and whose experience in understanding, supervising a managing research in the sciences is extensive and hard won. Their point of view, and indeed of any concerned citizen, must be respected and their questions answered with integrity and clarity. If they want access to data bases, or better justification of science whose implications are so serious then climate scientists have a civil duty to engage and argue their case. It’s as simple as that.
When it comes to AGW, there are two types of people on that side. Stupid people that believe anything and everything someone with a Phd on the end of their name says, and the ones with an agenda that has nothing to do with true scientific procedure or saving the planet. Thankfully, the public is finally waking up to the BS the likes of Dr. Peterson are, and have been shoveling.
….. but Copernican heliocentrism lasted barely 200 years before it was overturned by the observations of William Herschel.
The AGW hypothesis will eventually itself be overturned by observation and reasoned arguement. That is the way of science.
The greatest threat to science is not skepticism but the establishment of dogma. Galileo would have certainly understood the nature of that threat.
But unlike heliocentrism, we cannot afford to wait a century for views
on climate change to catch up to climate science
This presupposes that catastrophic climate change is strongly supported by the science at this point. I can’t see that it is.
The unfortunate part of this whole mess is the partial use of some science to totally miss guide the world into believing the end is near.
It can get a lot hotter before we die off and gators take over. As long as gators are held to the south, we have plenty of room in which to migrate as mammals.
Thus, there was still room for more global warming. What’s the fuss?
A populated world of fish, man, and mammals are always suffering. We just have more media outlets and more population that 10,000 years ago at the end of the ice age.
Paul
I’m always so glad when we get a chance to see the failure of logic exercised by alarmist climate scientists. When someone demonstrates that they cannot connect the dots in a logical fashion when the subject is one which is readily understood by ordinary people, it places into question their ability to connect the dots in a logical fashion with regard to the science about which they present themselves as experts.
This argument about the e-mails being only a small subset is beyond stupid. That Peterson thinks it provides a defense for Jones and company says a lot about Peterson.
Peterson, a NOAA employee, says:
Sure. Except that Peterson is a Climategate correspondent who willingly used the slanderous term “ClimateFraudit” in email correspondence with Phil Jones here:
One’s publications should stand on their own – clear, concise, unambiguous. If for some reason, a publication is not (limitations of the journal, bad editing etc.) a supplement must be published (on-line is best) to clarify.
There is no need to respond to each and every comment, attack, rant and bombast. If clarification is necessary, it should be clear, concise and unambiguous and should not be written and published in haste or anger. Failing to respond to valid, reasonable and responsible comments, criticism and questions is unwise.
You don’t need to respond on a critic’s turf. An on-line location that you control (website, blog) is best.
Don’t say or put in writing anything you wouldn’t want published on the front page of your hometown newspaper or the New York Times.
Communication is hard. You must either spend time and do it right or don’t do it at all. If your institution has a good communications/PR/marketing group, use them.
I would respectfully submit that either Dr. Peterson is :
A. Unaware of popular culture.
or
B. Subliminaly aware, but did not connect consciencely the knife fight comment with the Buch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid film of the ’70’s. I.e., “In a knife fight there ARE NO RULES!”.
But then again, this is like parsing “deniers”, which may or may not be worth our time.
It’s interesting to note, “denier” also has that place in terms of people “denying the faith”, and this cuts many ways as it has been used by many “faith based” groups over the years. (Deny the Emperors, the Popes, the Prophet, etc.)
Some might therefore take being called a denier as a badge of honor!
Again wondrous is it not that the high priests and doyens of AGW suddenly find it necessary to reply to a humble blog and one that so many of them along with the great and the good have repeatedly attacked with ad hominen s well as claims of junk science.
And note how open debate is characterised as a fight and the still utterly defensive position of do not get into fights: which is code for do not debate. I wonder why not?
Truly the ground is shifting and very fast too.
Kindest Regards
Funny how often the phrase, “ad hominem attacks” gets rolled out when someone’s stance is critisized for its lack of factuality and veracity…
Dr Peterson,
Thank you for taking time to post.
You bemoan “pseudoscience”. I bemoan “pseuodologic”.
How can the sea level rise be decelerating while man-made CO2 is ever rising?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/17/sea-level-may-drop-in-2010/
How do GCM account for this La Nina pattern – a pattern highly likely to lead to cooler weather?
http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2010/12/unusual-sea-surface-temperature-anomaly/
What is there to be overly concerned (or concerned at all) about slightly higher global temperatures? Wouldn’t an ice age or even a “little ice age” be far worse?
Do you really believe we are jeopardizing our very existence by generating a tiny fraction of CO2?
Science? Where’s your logic?
Thank you, Dr. Peterson, for allowing us to see the context in which the remark was made.
Professor Bob Ryan says:
January 17, 2011 at 8:35 am
Right to the point. Couldn’t have said it better.
When a financial audit was done on my dept their first action was a data dump of every transaction, they then searched for anything unusual using their knowledge of what to look for and from that they digged deeper for dirt, the final report listed all the dirt but no mention of the 10,000,s of tranactions that they did not highlight.
Thats life, deal with it.