Oh this is fun, Bishop Hill catches John Cook’s “Skeptical Science” in a revisionism gaffe using The Wayback Machine.
He writes:
Skeptical Science and its host, John Cook, have been much commented upon recently, the site’s grubby treatment of Roger Pielke Snr having caused considerable disquiet. I’m grateful to reader PaulM for pointing me to another example of the way things are done on John Cook’s watch.
… he shows the issue and the proof…then…
Astonishingly, more than six months after having their errors pointed out to them, the denizens of Skeptical Science rewrote the article and then inserted comments suggesting that their commenters hadn’t read the article properly.
I’m simply flabbergasted.
And it’s even more amazing when one recalls that Skeptical Science was recently the recipient of an award from the Australian Museum for services to climate science.
Read all about it here: http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/9/20/cooking-the-books.html
My long time concern about Skeptical Science has been one of visual nature, but I’ve kept it to myself until now. Here’s the current header for the website
Can you really put much stock in a website that offers a fake photoshopped representation of Antarctica’s flora and fauna in the header? At least they are in good company, as NOAA/NCDC and Science have also used fake photoshopped imagery to their advantage.
Of course there’s always the Penguin image they could use, which goes well with Ursus Bogus
gobsmacked. The need to find out where they guys went to school and institute some accountability.
I believe that Cook is a graduate of the UEA/Penn State/CRU/Hari school of advanced climatological ethics and accountability…
By the way is it significant that Johann Hari’s fake identity ‘David Rose’ was, according to Hari – “a starred first from a degree specialising in environmental science at Cambridge”, with “extensive work in Antarctica observing the effects of global warming”.
Did Hari somehow discern the fact that ‘climatology’ automatically confers an assailable right to make things up?
We simply have no use for Cook’s shenanigans or his air-brushed SS whatsoever. Learning is key to progress… since Warmist sites are thoroughly predictable, expounding in bad faith under false pretenses, why waste your time?
From the box quotes, ‘One must also be careful how you interpret…’
Sorry, what?
They lost me right there. Sound like pretentious idiots, using formal ‘One must’ then garbling it incoherently.
Either ‘You must be careful how you interpret’ or ‘One must be careful how one interprets…’
We are doomed as this hodgepodge mixmash language takes over. Another example, ‘Is it just me or are you incoherent?’ No it is just you.
Amazing, Bish? But … surely it’s precisely this sort of dishonesty that’s required to perform “services to climate science”, at least in the post-normal sense of the word “science”?
Here it is: http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-2672314-global-warming.php
They’ve only made the iStockphoto (i.e. photoshop composition) look a little greener.
🙂
Apparently the response to the sceptic commenters has yet again been altered:
“Response: Note: the rebuttal above has been updated since this comment was posted, incorporating later references and clarifying that sea ice and land ice are two separate phenomena. Antarctica is losing land ice at an accelerating rate. Sea ice around Antarctica is increasing. The reasons for sea ice increasing in a warming Southern Ocean are complex and described in detail above.”
Then there was the Emperor penguin found miles from home in New Zealand. Nursed back to full health tagged with a GPS tag and released.
Eaten by a great white shark or similar predator a week later.
I see Skeptical Science has rewritten their response in comments again. How embarrassing!
The following is one way to look at SS, but for me it does not fully capture SS’s broad and deep disrespect for the open and uncensored scientific spirit; so the below only gives a partial treatment of the SS phenomena.
——————–
In one sense, John Cook’s SS can be considered selectively skeptical. SS could be perceived as practicing a myopic form of skepticism developed especially for use by the seriously biased supporters of the IPCC’s so-called consensus on their so-called settled science of CAGW by CO2. SS may be viewed as having selective skepticism because it is focused solely on all critics of the IPCC’s products. SS’s selective skepticism seems not focused on anyone/anything that supports the science endorsed by the IPCC.
SS seems to be a textbook example of confirmation bias . . . . not subconscious confirmation bias . . . conscious intentional confirmation bias.
In order to improve our skeptical precision, all skeptics and independent thinkers on open venues would do well to study the problematic shown by the so-called skepticism of SS.
John
pwoodsvt says:
September 20, 2011 at 1:57 pm
….. I would love to see more of these arguments of theirs debunked.
Lubos Motls rebuttals of John Cooks Sceptical Science can be found at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/03/john-cook-skeptical-science.html
Cheers G
Leo Norekens says:
September 21, 2011 at 1:59 am
Apparently the response to the sceptic commenters has yet again been altered:
So now we can compare 2x wayback machine pages plus the current version.
That’s three alternative “realities”…
Whilst the wayback machine has allowed this current examination of shonky SS practices, it’s only by following SS in real time that the extent of some of the more corrupt aspects of the SS moderation can be appreciated.
The SS moderators who not only participate in threads but act as moderators of the same thread, seemingly acting unilaterally, often allowing their own personal prejudices and grudges to determine what stays and what goes.
Regularly the contributions of skeptic posters who have often put a lot of original thought, as well as time and effort into a convincing argument, will see their post “disappeared” without trace, often within minutes, at the whim of a moderator.
It is most evident that some of the more enlightening and original thinking skeptic contributors who pose difficult questions find life hard at SS, not only having solid arguments disappear without explanation, but having to endure scorn and ridicule heaped upon them by the moderators mates, often in concert with the moderator, clearly in breach of the comments policy, yet their responses in defence are subjected to the most pedantic interpretations of that same policy.
It is no wonder that sooner or later, generally sooner, all the more enlightened skeptic posters move on leaving the rather mediocre regulars to continue to defend their position using the only knowledge they appear to have, that being how to selectively cut and paste rebuttals from peer reviewed literature.
“Integrity” is easy to earn by being honest while “Credibility” takes longer, having to show integrity on a consistent basis.
John Cook and Skeptical Science are now just like the famous Japanese world war II planes (Zeros).
All of you, read John Cook’s response above. To summarise:
1. SkS is not a blog, it is an encyclopedic resource, hence it is updated in the light of new information.
2. John Cook accepts he made the mistake of thinking the commenters were commenting on the updated article.
So, what’s the big deal?