Sure, we’ve all made some doozies (me included) but you have to admit this exchange between top climate scientists Tom Wigley and Phil Jones is downright hilarious.
No wonder he has trouble with Excel.
Tom Nelson nails the decadal scale error:
Email 3235, Mar 2004, more stellar paleo work by Phil Jones. Given that he was born in 1952, he calculates that he must have been 28 in 1970
[Phil Jones] Tom, I presume you meant Jan 18, 2005 ! In 1965 you would have been 25 – your heydey. Mine was when I was 28 in 1970 ! Some people do work beyond 65, but the examples I’ve heard of have only been doing teaching
[Wigley] Phil, Good news. You are correct, my 65th bithday is Jan. 18, 1965. I thought retired persons were allowed to be employed up to one-third time for the next 5 years?
Phil Jones (climatologist) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Philip D. Jones (born 1952) is a climatologist at the University of East Anglia,
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What if Jones was actually born in 1942, he just has a fake birth certificate?
Phil Jones was born 2 years before me, and in 1970 I was 16!!
However, we all make mistakes and I made a doozy last week regarding the date of my last son’s birth. I was out by about 20 years!! 🙂
It isn’t jst the standard of maths these clowns have problems with, it is Ethics they canot comprehend.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21355-carbon-dioxide-encourages-risky-behaviour-in-clownfish.html
One can only think that our increaded CO2 levels have turned climate scientists into a school of clown fish..
What did Einstein saty about insanity??
regards
I think the post was worthwhile, if only for the additional humor in the comments: 3 types of people, 10 types of people, Muphry’s Law…hilarious!
So far, though, the funniest one is by tom (January 17, 2012 at 3:35 pm). Good one, tom!
I have no idea how old I am. After 50 I stopped counting. Not for any reason. I LOVE birthdays. Mine especially. But it just doesn’t matter anymore how old I am. I can see me making this kind of mistake. Hell, I call my dogs my kids’ names and my kids my dogs’ names. I figure if I just say all of them, the correct name is in there somewhere.
This is an incredibly petty post.
Mark
REPLY: One person’s petty is anothers funny. Thanks for showing you are humorless – Anthony
Got nothing to do with humor – when trying to set yourself up as the best science blog you post this as a headline and come across just as petty and trite as those you heckle. There is a big difference between abject stupidity and obvious misstatements – not unlike your regular insistence that posters not hammer typos in each others posts (which I agree with).
If you ever want the moral high ground, this ain’t the way… just sayin.
Mark
What this exchange reveals is carelessness and lack of reality checking. As someone who is not a natural mathematician, I learned a long time ago to apply a reality test about orders of magnitude to any calculation I do, and to check and recheck before going into print (real or virtual).
It seems that the UEA team are not only barely literate, they are not real strong on basic arithmetic either. Could someone remind me what skill set these climate gurus have that entitles them to direct the world’s economy?
I’d just like to take the opportunity to wish Tom Wigley a very happy birthday (18th Jan). Hope you’re having a great time Tom. You’ll be 72 today, if my calculations are correct.
Sounds right to me.
Re your post, I should have said 100 sure.
Reminds me of the woman who had about 5 boys, all named the same. When she called, and they came, she just pointed at the one she wanted.
Did you hear about the 10-faced climatologist? Eventually his complex deceptions 1000 his brain.
Brian H says:
January 17, 2012 at 9:54 pm
“…1000 his brain.”
As the 11 stooges would say Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!
I think we’ve reached a record low of inanity. Insanity(?)
All I can say is, “101010 10 U!”
Look mate, Jackie Stewart couldn’t spell to save his life, but he’s a bloody successful businessman.
He’s also dyslexic.
Maybe Phil Jones is too, maybe he just had a bad day, maybe his typing let him down, I dunno.
You know the most pathetic experience I ever had in business?
An MD/CEO refusing to contribute one iota to a major tender document, then making out that the document was third rate because there were two or three missed commas in a 60+ page document. Such an anally retentive, OCD dork, eh?
Focus on big things……….
I’m trying to follow this website to see the other side of the debate, but these types of silly articles are wasting space on my RSS aggregator. Consider this as constructive criticism. Cheers.
To err is humane…
Just for laugh – this skit by Monty Python about the role of village idiots is funny, but listen to the bit at 2:50; village idiots do their degrees at non other than the University of East Anglia. I knew Python was good, but this is prophetic.
http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=NZ#/watch?v=jNBNqUdqm1E
Brian H says: January 17, 2012 at 9:49 pm Reminds me of the woman who had about 5 boys, all named the same. When she called, and they came, she just pointed at the one she wanted.
……………….
The usual ending to this story is that when she wanted to call one child in particular, she used the child’s surname.
It must have been a slow news day for this to receive any sort of coverage here. This does not even qualify as “humour”. Stick to the high ground, please, Anthony.
While I condemn a lot of what is seen in the Climategate emails, seizing on a typo like this seems really, really silly. I reiterate what others have said above: for heaven’s sake delete this post.
This is still neither funny nor worthwhile, and will be used against you to show how petty you are later. Delete it.
TheFlyingOrc – I agree that the post was unwise, but it would be wrong to delete it now. Like it or not, it happened.
I have two things to say: The post does not, (no do i think it was intended to) imply Dr. Jones is simple minded. The post is funny and people ought to lighten up a bit. Let’s not pretend that we are above mocking someone for a stupid mistake when that someone is someone who badly needs to be taken down a peg.
Tom said….. “regardless of the cause it is time for all you smart guys to get to work on ways to feed us cause things are going badly and fast.”
I can teach you to fish Tom, then you can feed yourself.
As someone who’s done improv and stand up, I can tell you that this post is indeed funny and humorous because it displays the irony of the ‘Trust our math and give us more money’ crowd as being useless at math. Keep up the fine work Anthony. The trolls are pretending to be fellow deniers with their noses out of joint.