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.
Congratulations to both Dr. Tom Peterson and to Anthony Watts — a significant advance in civil conversation.
Some of my fellow posters here seem to be unable to give up the knife fight and engage in the improved conversation. Silly intellectual blood lust, IMHO.
Galileo wrote ‘on the tides’ and was completely wrong because of his dogma. He mocked Kepler for suggesting that it was the moon’s gravitational attraction that caused the tides.
“If the earth ceased to attract the waters of the sea, the seas would rise and flow into the moon…”
“If the attractive force of the moon reaches down to the earth, it follows that the attractive force of the earth, all the more, extends to the moon and beyond”
Galileo thought that he should get people to laugh at such ideas. But Kepler was streets ahead of Galileo. Although he did not quite derive that it was a square law (which he had demonstrated for light) he knew that gravitational attraction was proportional to the masses of the attracting bodies and inversely proportional to a a factor of their separation. Galileo could have politely disagreed (and been wrong), but chose mockery of Kepler instead.
Kepler was pretty close to getting there:
“Gravity is a mutual corporeal disposition among kindred bodies to unite or join together; thus the earth attracts a stone much more than the stone seeks the earth… If two stones were placed anywhere in space near to each other, and outside the reach of force of (other bodies), then they would come together…at an intermediate point, each approaching the other in proportion to the other’s mass.”
Dr Petersen deserves some credit for taking up Anthony’s offer and I applaud him for that. Anthony, kudos to you for offering Dr Petersen this forum to explain himself.
One of the facets of this discussion and of Dr Petersen’s comments that fascinates me is the idea that civilised professionals in the 21st century might take weapons along with them to settle arguments. This highlights a psychological aspect of American society wherein protagonists in a discussion go as far as to perceive themselves as embattled and anonymous historical characters which, to me, seems juvenile and silly. Life is not a game of ‘Cowboys and Injuns’ which most boys in the Western world played until it become definitely non-PC to refer to Native Americans as ‘Injuns’ and we all grew up and learned that the ‘Cowboys’ were not always pure and morally upright and that the ‘Injuns’ were frequently the good guys..
Most of the mythology of the ‘Wild West’ is just that, but some Americans seem to have a deep psychological need to see themselves as the mythological good cowboys who always wore white 10-gallon hats.
As I see it, Dr Petersen, you do not qualify for a white 10-gallon hat as you fired a nasty sneak shot at a reputation from behind the saloon; this shot was the term ‘Climate Fraudit’. Cowboys who qualify for white hats have a code; they are so expert at what they do, including being amazingly fast on the draw, they always wait for their opponent to go for their six-guns first, they always tell the truth and they always face life squarely and with honour.
And sorry, Dr Petersen, but casting yourself as taking a similar position on science and truth as Galileo did is just a transparent piece of utter silliness.
Mods;
I clicked ‘post comment’ and the comment immediately become lost in the ether;
I won’t post it again as it is now nearing my tea-time. No doubt it will pop up at some time.
Thanks [it went into the spam filter which happens for several reasons but the wrong ‘uns largely get put back into the debate]
@Ian H January 18, 2011 at 12:53 am:
A: Dr. P’s term “malicious person” argues that the attitudes in the emails themselves was not malicious, but that a whistleblower’s actions are. (It has never been determined that the release was an outside job, so an internal whistleblower is very much still on the table.)
B: Unlikely? I do expect that it is very likely that the emails were targeted and not random. At the same time, I do not believe that all the damaging ones have been released. The other shoe may yet be dropped.
This logic would work if these emails were not damaging ones, but were on-topic for a FOIA request. They are anything but that.
Steve McIntyre:
January 17, 2011 at 8:44 am
And I’ll bet that trip to Hawaii was via CO2-spewing jet. Failing to practice what one preaches is called hypocrisy.
Impressive that Dr. Peterson took the whole 3.5 minutes to write this staccato response. Heart warming that he did not engage a communicator to deliver the message. His comment, however, is not on AGHG warming or on “climate change” it is about the corruption of science. There may be more pleasant ways to corrupt science but the surest of all is engaging communicators. They will come up with a story, not with science.
But unlike heliocentrism, we cannot afford to wait a century for views
on climate change to catch up to climate science
Correction: we cannot wait a century for climate “science” to start resembling actual science, because these people want to spend trillions of our dollars right now.
“Lesson 3: Collaborate with communicators”
“You’re in a knife fight and need to fight back”
“partnering with communicators can help bridge the gap
-From nerdy scientists like myself to regular people.”
How typically delusional, as well as patronizing of “regular people”. Paterson, no matter how much lipstick you paint on your CAGW pig, it still doesn’t change the fact that it’s a pig. A knife fight? That’s hilarious. Climategate alone was an atomic blast against your side. November 2 was another.
So, go ahead and deploy your “science communicators”. Just more cannon fodder.
@Feet2the Fire, 8.57 am
“This logic would work …. etc”
Being of a devious nature I think it would work:
Jonesy and friends don’t want to risk breaking the law over FOI unless they really, really have to, but they cannot know what further FOI requests may come at any time.
So, they create a special folder/file/cache (or whatever) and systematically sift through their past Emails over a period to displace any that might prove embarrassing, with a view to ‘losing’ them if necessary as a last resort.
Someone within the unit then finds them, is not happy, so contrives to release them anonymously.
It makes much more sense than an outsider hacking everything and then trying to select which are worth releasing – after all, who better knows what is embarrassing than the author/recipient?
(Who knows – if Mann’s archive is ever forced into daylight it may prove to have those very same Emails now missing, which would be awful for them all!)
Seems like the file released from UEA contained about the sorts of files; e-mails and code and the like, that would comply with an FOI request; and seeing that such a request was on file; then it seems that the released file; was it FOIA2009, contained only the materials being requested.
Maybe that is why it didn’t contain all the unrelated e-mails of Phil Jones. Remind me again; what was the name of the gal who was convicted of stealing all those files illegally; I can’t seem to remember who it was now; it’s been so long.
@ur momisugly ScientistForTruth January 18, 2011 at 5:12 am says
“…the establishment was not ignorant (though it was, ultimately, wrong) and Galileo should not be painted as some sort of martyr for science – he would have been far more effective if he had behaved reasonably and honourably.”
Disingenuous spin. Galileo’s experience is a most apt analogy to-day. Your statement may be rephrased as: A section of “the establishment (is) not ignorant (though it (is) wrong)” and hideously corrupted. The rest of the establishment is pig ignorant. Sceptics would be “far more effective if (the establishment) had behaved reasonably and honourably.”
From Peterson’s Lesson 2 he says, “Only a small percentage of Phil Jones’ emails on that server were released
-The subset that was released was not random.”
This suggests to me, if Jones was not the leaker, that someone else had access to many or all of Jones’ emails. It could be that, as George E Smith says above, ” that the released file; was it FOIA2009, contained only the materials being requested. Maybe that is why it didn’t contain all the unrelated e-mails of Phil Jones.”
Or could it be that the subset emails (FOIA2009?) were taken out so as to be NOT included in the FOI request, as they are (presumably) the most damning. Just a thought.
Mr. Peterson (Dr.?, I think I remember some issue about this title but nevermind), if you are still reading any of these comments I would like to send you a serious message.
You may still believe that you sit on the righteous side of the table, but it is important to realize that whether or not your side of table turns out to right, wrong, somewhat right etc., history will not judge your side well at all.
The behavior of you, Trenberth, Mann, Rahmstorff, Jones et al and others on the Team will be used as a textbook example of noble cause corruption. You really need to read up on the subject, take a deep breath and do a good deal of introspection.
You will also be compared in history of Science classes to Lysenko or worse. Students will be asked to write essays comparing and contrasting your actions.
The walled garden you call science is wilting and dying for a lack of sunlight. Defections are occurring from the inside as this behavior continues.
You have to realize WHETHER YOUR IDEAS ARE CORRECT OR NOT, you and the post modern team you work with are no longer doing or researching anything which could be called “Science”. By refusing to confront challenges to ideas, whether you are withholding information of any kind, or by evasive verbage, or hurling invectives, or playing politics to push your ideas, you are simply advocates and tellers of tale. You may write sciency-sounding papers and get them fast-tracked into the most prestigious of journals, but you are simply wearing a mask of science, with no science beneath the mask.
Science is about being open to criticism, in fact seeking out the most shattering and difficult criticism you can find, in order to validate your ideas.
Free the data. Free the code. Free the communication. Free the process. End the circling of the wagons. Invite challenge.
You’ll sleep better.
So, it seems that random snapshots of the gang leaving in the getaway car aren’t reflective of the actual crime. Hmmm.
James Sexton
Something we can agree on then, and an issue where you would also be in agreement with James Hansen. On this at least, does it really matter so much why we want to build nuclear power stations, whether it’s as a way of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions or as a way of having a cheap and safe energy supply? What matters is that we get more of them up and running.
I also agree with you on this one, assuming your “wonderful” and “Brilliant!” are meant sarcastically, which I thnk they are, but the fact that Bush & co. tried to pretend they were promoting biofuels for environmental reasons was completely bogus (as bogus as the alleged environmental benefits of these fuels) just a PR stunt to obscure the actual motives which were financial. Still, that’s all history now.
steven mosher
In fact, he’s asked people to stop claiming that the hockey stick is fraudulent. I applaud him for that and I hope the people making those claims take heed of his words. Sometimes your most fanatical supporters can do more harm to your reputation than your worst enemies.
Roger Otip says:
January 19, 2011 at 5:00 pm (Edit)
steven mosher
In all of his private communications with me and his public communications, steve has never suggested that Mann is a fraud.
In fact, he’s asked people to stop claiming that the hockey stick is fraudulent. I applaud him for that and I hope the people making those claims take heed of his words.
OK.
So, since the Mann-made Hockey Stick is dead wrong, deliberately wrong, completely inaccurate and distorts what (little) valid data can be extracted from tree cores, what does “your” endorsement of S. Mosher reveal about your thought process and your knowledge and your judgment?