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
============================================================
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.
“Only a small percentage of Phil Jones’ emails on that server were released”.
Just one turd in the fruit salad will stop me eating the fruit salad.
“…we cannot afford to wait a century for views on climate change to catch up to climate science…”
Dr. Tom Peterson, NOAA
This statement, in a nutshell, is the central theme which drives nearly all of the scientists within the cult of CAGW. In fact, a statement of this form appears in nearly every paper or press release related to CAGW. It should be nominated for WUWT “quote of the week.”
With all due respect to the guy – I cannot agree with some of Dr Peterson’s reply.
As has already been mentioned in a slightly different context, it really matters not whether the climategate emails are a subset or wholly representative – the implication remains the same. That implication can only be described as a total ‘damning’ of the validity of climate science as practised by the various protagonists whose names appear within the emails. Even if say, one of those emails had been cc’d to myself (just as a ‘for example’) – I would consider myself complicit in the misdirection/fraud if I did not immediately bring it to the attention of other unconnected senior scientists, the professional organisations, journal editors and suchlike. There is no point in trying to dismiss the nature of the emails with a ‘wave of the hand’ and casual apology. Science is damaged, and the specific protagonists within climate science should hang their heads in shame. Even if the intention was not fraud, the resultant effects of the emails (as we now know) almost certainly are indicative of fraud (Carbon credits anyone?)! This wasn’t a one-off, this was a long term orchestrated spin at best; and a downright scientific fraud at worst. Over the time period concerned – that is not casual or innocent mistakes – that is intentional misdirection!
So – sorry, but until all the protagonists are fully discharged from their involvement (at least in any supervisory capacity, but preferably ‘busted down to parking attendents’ !) the whole ethos of a ‘Team’ of scientists is completely destroyed in the eyes of the thinking public and other scientists. It is so widespread too – the CRU is a sham, and in conjunction with the MetOffice has spun us a merry yarn!
If you had shares in a company and the company boss admitted fraud, but says ‘he wont do it again’ or ‘we have learnt lessons’ (yeah, like how to avoid being caught!) – are you going to invest your pension in that company whilst the same guy is at the helm? Hmm, I didn’t think so!
Pinching sweets when you are a kid from the local shop is easily dismissed as a minor (learning) offence – still doing it when you’re an adult is most definitely not!
MP’s and suchlike get hounded to resign for much lesser ‘wrong doings’ – s’funny how the climate boys are still there.
Peterson’s notes contain the following:
“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”
It is heartening that a Warmista mentions Galileo. If you have visited Realclimate or the Guardian over the last few years, you know they haven’t a clue about Galileo. More accurately, they view Galileo as a trick that their critics play on them.
Good start, Peterson. Now, can you state the fundamentals of scientific method as set forth by Galileo? Do you practice them? Please explain. I cannot see that any among the Warmista have a clue about Galileo. If they did, they would get their heads out of computer models and start work on hypotheses that can be used to explain and predict relevant atmospheric phenomena.
That Peterson would say “Just ask Galileo” shouts that he is boiling with internal conflicts. After all, Galileo proved to be the pure scientist who chose to suffer for his science and to continue to practice it even under house arrest. He could have been sentenced to death. What risk is Peterson running? For whom is he running it? He should not invoke the memory of Galileo. This leads us to the really important point.
Peterson is no longer doing science. He is now employed as a propagandist for Big Climate. If he were doing science, he would publish interesting research and we would criticize it. He would be excited about his research and he would point us to his work that addresses many of our concerns. But Peterson no longer pursues Galilean science. That is why he invokes the phrase “peer reviewed.” From his exalted position in the hierarchy of Big Climate, he is telling us that his work must be recognized as good because it is “peer reviewed” and that he will address none of our concerns because they are not “peer reviewed.” Of course, he ignores the point that there is solid gold evidence that Phil Jones and crew actively sought to corrupt the “peer review” process and were enormously successful in doing so. (Maybe Phil Jones’ other emails, those not published in Climategate, reveal that Phil was just joking when talking about corrupting the peer review process? /sarc off)
So, where is the knife fight? It is not in science. It is in politics. Peterson makes that eminently clear in his notes. He confers with Congressmen on knife fights now, not with other scientists about science. His goal is no longer scientific truth but protection of the power and wealth that he and his fellows have created for themselves.
Here is a standing Galilean challenge, Dr. Peterson: Provide one physical hypothesis that was created by Warmista, that can be used to explain and predict atmospheric phenomena that multiply the effects of atmospheric concentrations (forcings), and that has proved to be reasonably well-confirmed. You cannot do it. Because you cannot do it, and because you are a follower of Galileo, you must recognize that Climate Science is in its infancy and cannot provide scientific conclusions to support the claim that seriously harmful results must follow from human production of CO2.
Sir, when the facts change I change my mind, what do you do?
Science? Is science the art of communication or the impartial pursuit of knowledge?
The science behind CAGW or whatever the newest trendy re branding exercise is being pushed today is not clear nor is it unequivocal. There are are valid concerns and growing doubts and uncertainties and unknowns and there is much to learn still.
The amount climate science does not know far outweighs what you are certain of yet still climate science pretends otherwise, you seek to assure us of your certainties while you know full well the massive gaps in your knowledge of climate change.
You and the climate science community are attempting to sell us a lemon, you realise it and we suspect it yet still you claim to hold the keys to to the mysteries of our climate.
Do you expect us to believe that the CAGW theory is failing because climate science is failing to sell it properly? Do you believe that by improving the ways you sell the CAGW theory to a larger world it will make the uncertainties disappear? You cannot make them go away by hiding them away, that much everyone knows.
It seems to me that you and climate science are attempting to improve the way you sell your product to those you class as somehow less expert or knowledgeable than yourselves but it seems to me that you should be attempting to improve your product instead and better yet holding forth all the uncertainties and doubts and mistakes and errors and failed predictions. Instead of hiding your mistakes bring them out into the light of day for all to see, instead of secrecy and elitism and hostility toward those you see as your enemies show us your mistakes as eagerly as you now hide them.
Communication is a two way street, if you are so sure of your findings then offer them up for all to see, if you wish us to understand then be honest and open and self critical and humble and ever ready to revise your position, that is the only way forward. In other words trust us. What climate science is doing now is morally wrong, you know it and we know it, you are attempting to persuade by domination and bullying and secrecy, you are attempting to push the political class into forcing us to acepting irreversible socio economic changes while freezing out, insulting and ignoring those who point out flaws and errors.
Climate science has forgotten that it serves society, it is clear that this young branch of science has become arrogant and elitist and too sensitive to healthy criticism, you are not the priesthood of some ancient tribe that is able to dictate and proclaim to an ignorant and servile and obedient masses, we are determined to ask the awkward questions and we will not be cowed or awed into silence by you or anyone else, if climate science will not police itself then why on earth are you surprised that we will do it for you?
Its time to stop selling us your science as if it were a new soap powder or beauty product and start proving it to us by good old fashioned scientific endeavour and honest hard work.
Defining/framing the Red-Green AGW fraud.
Red-Green Mao Stlong’s fraud.
Mao Stlong, aka Maurice Strong, is Canadian Liberal leader Bob Rae’s Uncle Mo.
More here* framing Liberal Iggy and his O’Harvard buddy.
“*Al Gore, Maurice Strong
Obama’s involvement in Chicago Climate Exchange—the rest of the story”.
“SUPPORTING THE SUN
Every solar company in the world relies on some form of subsidy to build or sell its products. That’s because solar electricity is still about eight times more expensive than power generated by coal-fired plants. The global solar industry only really began to take off when, about a decade ago, governments introduced subsidies for clean energy systems in an effort to trim their carbon dioxide output and reduce dependence on fossil fuels.”
“The difference with China
The big difference with China, its solar critics say, is that Beijing helps only its own manufacturers — who then send their panels around the globe to reap additional subsidies in other countries.”
“Toronto senior dies in extreme cold”
A Toronto senior whose calls for help may have been ignored in the freezing cold on Monday has died.”
(canoenews)
…-
“Is a solar trade war about to flare?”
“EBERSWALDE, Germany – Germany’s fifth-biggest solar power park emerges as a smudge on the horizon long before you reach it on the outskirts of the small, sleepy village of Eberswalde, an hour’s drive north of Berlin. “In the far distance, you can see it,” Peter Kobbe says, pointing through heavy December snowfall as he steers his Citroen van along an icy road.
Kobbe, 64, works at Finow airport, where a local investment firm built the 58 million euro (C$76 million) solar park in 2009. Finow itself was built by the Nazis before World War Two and later became one of the Soviet Union’s main Cold War hubs. Now the small aircraft that still use the airport share it with about 90,000 solar modules — which together generate enough to power 6,400 households a year.
“This is where they (the Soviets) used to store their nuclear weapons,” says Kobbe, who runs a small museum documenting the airport’s history, guiding his van over the snow-covered landing strip.
Now there’s a different foreign presence in Finow. When the first solar modules arrived for installation they came not from a local manufacturer — German solar company Conergy runs a factory just 45 minutes away in Frankfurt an der Oder, for instance — but from China’s Suntech Power Holdings, now the world’s largest maker of photovoltaic (PV) solar modules. “We were quite surprised when the trucks brought Chinese modules, and not German ones,” Kobbe says. “But they were probably cheaper.” Solarhybrid, which spearheaded construction of the park, says reductions in Germany’s renewable subsidies meant it had to use Suntech modules to stay competitive.
Germany has long been the global solar industry’s engine. Europe’s biggest economy consumed more than half the solar panels produced around the world in 2010. Solar accounts for just 2% of Germany’s power production, but the country added a record 8,000 megawatts (MW) of solar modules last year — equal to the capacity of eight nuclear reactors — far outpacing Italy, Japan and the United States.
So why are China’s solar companies benefiting at the expense of renewable energy manufacturers in Europe and the United States? Virtually non-existent a decade ago, Chinese solar companies now control two thirds of solar cell production in the $39 billion US global PV market.”
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Environment/2011/01/17/16915251.html
*O’Fraud:
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/9629
http://www.bluelikeyou.com/2011/01/17/ctv-gives-iggy-a-hand/#comment-59006
This is a big fail, Mr Peterson. You are justifying brainwashing for a cause. you are saying, “We all may die, so lets all of us assume to be true what we cannot conclusively prove (otherwise known as a flight of fancy) so that we might save ourselves.”
There is only one species on earth that does this, Humans. We usually call humans who distance themselves from reality crazy, regardless of whatever situation caused it. We give these people treatment and try to bring them back into the real world with lots of attention and controlled experiences. You seem to be saying that the cause is just, therefore do not question the conclusion, ignore whatever may be reality so that we can all be saved.
That will only work if you are right in your prognostication. If you are wrong, well…, sad to say, but Jonestown was a good example of what happens when this kind of thinking is finally faced with cold reality.
“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”
I have a question. What could any unreleased email contain that would make Jones’ comments about deleting data before he handed it over OK?
Sound, rigorous, peer-reviewed science
Yes, but not in the way the Hockey Team and its cheerleaders rigorously ensured that only the “right” type of climate science was peer-reviewed.
Apologies above for calling Dr. Peterson “Mister” Peterson. I did not mean to be disrespectful in that manner, it was simply a mistake.
Looks like another lesson in the dangers of snippets of an out of context quote on an emotional issue. Thanks to Dr. Peterson for responding in a civil fashion.
Ah!
So it’s not that Dr. Peterson stands behind his “science” and thus strives to make it accurate, factual and repeatable for us “deniers”, it’s all about turning up the volume on the propaganda amplifier, and whining cuz he feels picked on.
Weak.
I find it interesting that Dr. Peterson continually refers to “collaborating with communicators.” I am going to assume that he is referring to people who can both present his message with the best spin, as well as have the ability to get this message out to the most people through the mass media. It is somewhat like propaganda in that it is one-sided. Certainly Dr. Peterson can understand that there are real, factual, scientific reasons to doubt his views, and I doubt he is planning to give this information to the “communicators.”
Also, there are two stages to this “knife fight.” The debate in the mass media continues to ignore this second stage: that is, the assumption that warming would be intrinsically bad. Many people have argued that even if AGW was provably true, humanity would certainly be able to adapt to its negative consequences (e.g., moving away from the coastline) and at the same time benefit from its positive consequences (e.g., more farmable land).
Would like to echo what Bob Tilsdale said a few threads up… Dr. Peterson, thanks very much for responding. To me, and others her, it shows class to wade into what you may view as the lions den… so to speak.
This part struck me. If you know the fight isn’t going to get more civil one way or the other, then why not release the e-mail that would make things fairer? The cat is already out of the bag, why not add material that would bolster the defense of Dr. Jones?
Kudos to Anthony Watts and Thomas Peterson for engaging in debate – it is interesting to watch.
The ‘knife fight’ imagery seems rooted in the fact that the only policy response to the catastrophic ending proferred was a complete re-wiring of the global economy with massive redistribution of wealth.
But when a scientist says that “we cannot afford to wait a century for views on climate change to catch up to climate science” – he has injected himself into the POLICY debate and is advocating a solution. Its just that simple. I have a different solution is all.
It is meaningless that other of Phil Jones’ e-mail might have been pure as the driven snow. The e-mail we saw were enough to see that he was not above being unprofessional and unscientific and that he obviously thought and communicated this at least some of the time. The e-mail also show that his thinking was not limited to only his thinking; he shared such thinking with others in a manner that showed that he felt that they thought along the same lines. Now we are talking collusion and fraud.
Where is the sound scientific evidence that proves AGW/CC/ACD?
All I see is rising polar bear populations, lower rate of rising sea levels, ice breakers stuck in ice, floods in drought areas, blizzards in snow free areas……………….
Plus continual manipulation of data to favour AGW by so called scientists working for the USA and UK governments and their politicians taking the lies and taxing the masses accordingly.
Hopefully my grandchildren will not be so gullible as the present generation seems to be.
The Greens have a lot to answer for. History’s latest Witchfinder Generals and Dragon Slayers.
Peterson’s notes contain:
“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”
The emails clearly showed that Jones and others contemplated corrupting the peer review process and illegally violating FOIA requests. Maybe they are not actually guilty, as Peterson suggests. However, the matter must be taken seriously. There must be an investigation that uses all the apparatus of a criminal investigation to get at the truth. We cannot afford to commit a trillion dollars to CO2 mitigation programs and then discover that Jones was acting illegally and corrupting science.
Peterson’s attitude toward this is lackadaisical. A Galilean, a person whose heart is in the science, would recognize that science must be no less thorough in ridding itself of those who would corrupt science than is the Pope in ridding the Catholic priesthood of pedophiles. As that scandal has hurt what is most precious to the Catholic Church, the trust of the faithful, so Climategate threatens to destroy the trust that all rational people have placed in science.
Dr Peterson’s response is in the language of politicians that have dubbed “sloganbyte.” His comments are frequently irrelevant and non-responsive.
“Only a small percentage of Phil Jones’ emails on that server were released
-The subset that was released was not random”
Sounds like an indictment of tree ring and ice core proxies.
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system – ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
Eisenhower’s Farewell Address to the Nation
January 17, 1961
Wish we would have heeded this warning…we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Dr. Tom Peterson,
thanks for contributing, but I failed to understand your point (if there was one). The point about climategate is that we saw people calling themselves — supposedly impartial observers and impartial judges of the evidence — being highly partisan in their approach in a way that is not permissible in real science (it may be in climate “science” but that really questions whether climate “science” should be called a science not whether such behaviour is permissible in real science)
As for the suggestion that all scientists should have a blog … totally the reverse! If people like Michael Mann didn’t have highly biased websites and highly biased staff editing Wikipedia in order to LIE to the public by suppressing even basic information like the 20th century pause, then there wouldn’t be websites like this one set up in response.
The simple solution is for the climate “scientists” to stop behaving like spoilt children who have had the sweety jar taken away because they were caught with their hands in the tin, to stop believing that the louder you cry, the more attention you’ll get, and start acting responsibly. Get on with science in a scientific way (not e.g. redefining the scientific method and reversing the NULL hypothesis like Trenberth) and ensure everyone in your subject behaves with integrity by completely removing their dirty hands from the petty politics, PR and media hype and stop their nasty blogging and manipulation of Wikipedia!
Well done Dr Peterson and WUWT.
To refuse to debate in an open forum with experts who hold a different view is more than strange. Just present the unambiguous evidence that rising CO2 is linked to rising temps. without mentioning computer modelling and maybe you will win the argument.
I totally agree with Prof. Ryan that the economic and energy consequences which follow on from AGW are so huge that it would be foolish in the extreme to embark on such a course without compelling evidence.
Mac
Well said.
It is interesting that it was a congressman that supports AGW that brought the knife into the discussion. The congressman also indicated there was a greater need to fight back.
This is the perfect example of the real problem which is the scientists getting pressure from politicians. Supporting global warming is politically correct. The politicians have corrupted the science through a combination of money, pressure and power.
Cheers to Dr. Peterson for releasing his notes. Of course if he turned against the orthodoxy then he would really be in trouble.
John Kehr
The Inconvenient Skeptic