I’m reminded of this quote:
“No one is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart: for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.”
This below pretty much says it all.
http://twitter.com/RogerPielkeJr/status/318719008503365632
Given the evidence, will the science community find the integrity to call for a retraction?
Well stated.
I don’t think people realize how broken science really is if this is allowed to sit as is. Marcott should be allowed to resubmit the paper, but without the hockey stick and other wording pointing to modern warming. Perhaps he could write a different paper with different smoothing methods to prove these assertions. But until he utilizes a DIFFERENT method to come to these conclusions, the conclusions are just flat-out contradictions of his own words.
As I stated in a previous comment, I could logically write up a paper and claim I proved the existance of God. And then on page 23 in small letters state “the data is not conclusive (robust)” And science of this calibre requires that my scientific paper is fine like that.
Has there ever been a better opportunity for the scientific community to take action and demonstrate their integrity?
The public will not play ball with either scientists or politicians if the integrity of the establishment can be so easily questioned.
“Given the evidence, will the science community find the integrity to call for a retraction?”
You’ll be able to take an aerial tour of Liberty Island by flying pig about a week before that happens….
“Will the scientific community call for a retraction?”
I did, 2 weeks ago in an online comment submitted to Science. (Posted at BH about March 17th). Unfortunately my comment has not appeared at Science.
Great question and great post, Anthony. In addition, will all those who hyped the “new hockey stick” for the public and all those who fostered that hype take the necessary steps to mitigate the harmful disinformation that they unleashed on the public?
Baldwin said for morality what I say for technical matters:
Those who suffer from the Unique Solution Syndrome, in which there is only one correct or best solution, must, by the nature of their Syndrome, vehemently deny any solution other than the one they have embraced because, being it The One, by definition all others are wrong or inadequate.
CO2 is a Unique Solution to the 20th century warming. Mann’s tree-ring is a Unique Solution to determining paleotemperatures. Deep-ocean sequestration is a Unique Solution to Trenberth’s “missing” heat. The list goes on.
Skepticism denies that the Unique Solution exists. Sceptisim shares William James’ pragmatic view of truth, that we can approach it but never completely grasp it, that “truth” is something that is helpful for us to move forward until it doesn’t. Then we revise the “truth” into another, temporarily useful “truth”. Not so for the warmists.
Gore, the supporters of the IPCC, Mann, Trenberth, Guergis, McKibben, Suzuki all believe in Unique Solutions. They want and believe the world can be nailed to the floor, and since they have smacked a nail with their hammers, the world is settled and certain. They will carry their Unique Solutions to the grave, and if they can find acolytes as did Paul Erhlich, they will get them carried beyond it, too.
The link in the phrase “given the evidence”, points to this post, not to a page where one could read or review the evidence.
It is naive to think that this is about the unassailable purity of “science”. Such a thing has only ever existed as an ideal in the mind of idealists. It is a noble ideal not only because the scientific method is to be pursued and followed but also because the pursuit of scientific method requires that we believe in the fundamental goodness of humankind and therefore we can trust people to do science research using the honest way. That certain parts of the “climate science” community appear somewhat disconnected from the honest part of this ideal should (at this late stage) surprise no one. And it should be even less surprising that the dishonest ones don’t actually feel compelled to be – well, honest. So it is left to the honest ones to hold the dishonest accountable. But if there are no honest ones left then don’t hold your breath. For those who still believe that science can and should be trusted, we ought to be hearing from honest scientists loud and clear condemnation of Marcott and others like him that used a paper that said NOTHING about modern temperatures as a vehicle to promote an political agenda that is all about modern temperatures.
Why is there mostly only one sided climate scientists. Either they are all in on the AGW side or all in on the other side. Like Democrats or Republicans with only a few independents in the middle like me.
I am no climate scientist but there is writing on the walls of cooling and warming caused by mankind.
I believe from all the data that is out on the net to view on the climate there are changes from mankind’s actions of cooling and warming. There are also natural cycles of cooling and warming that fit in the puzzle.
I am getting fed up with all the BS with both sides picking and choosing certain data to make statements on the climate.
Vent!!!
“The reality of climate change, the importance of the cause or the evilness of the deniers”
No, it’s about none of these things. It’s about power. Nothing more, nothing less. And according to the psychopathology of those who pursue such power, anything and everything is justifiable. It has never been about the science, evilness of anybody, a cause, or even whether or not climate change is a reality.
How the Yahoo resident warmist Bill MacCracken, director of the Climate Institute, promotes garbage as observation based study…
“Here is article about studies seeking to better understand what is happening
and its implications–an example of learning from observations and analysis:
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/global-warmings-paradox-more-antarctic-sea-ice-20130401-2h262.html
Mike MacCracken”
Just sat through a presentation about compliance and ethics in research. I wonder how many ‘climate scientists’ have ever done the same?
Mike MacCracken, of course… not Bill McKibben, although…
Will RC censor?
48
Nancy Green says:
1 Apr 2013 at 10:09 AM
Since Marcott et al ends in 1950 and the IPCC has concluded the temperature increases pre 1950 are due to natural causes, Macrott cannot be showing us anything about the human influences on temperature.
[Response: Marcott ends 1940. IPCC concluded no such thing, and Marcott’s work does place the 20th Century rise in the context of the long term natural trends. – gavin]
Rather, it must be concluded that what Marcott is showing is only the natural variability in temperature and if any weight is to be given to the uptick, it shows that at higher resolutions there may be significant temperature spikes due to natural causes.
[Response: Of the size and magnitude of the 20th Century – unlikely. Even the 8.2kyr event which is the biggest thing in the Holocene records in the North Atlantic is small comparatively. It would definitely be good to get more high resolution well-dated data included though, and Marcott’s work is good basis for that to be built from. – gavin]
Nancy Green says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
1 Apr 2013 at 10:47 AM
Response: 20th Century rise in the context of the long term natural trends… Even the 8.2kyr event which is the biggest thing in the Holocene records
==========
NOAA shows the 8.2kyr event as greater than 3.0C, while GISS shows the 20th Century rise as less that 0.7C.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/alley2000/alley2000.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Greenland_Gisp2_Temperature.svg
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1900/to:2000/trend
When one looks at long duration events we have the Younger Dryas event, with a temperature change of approximately 15C as compared to 20th century warming of less than 0.7C
“Near-simultaneous changes in ice-core paleoclimatic indicators of local, regional, and more-widespread climate conditions demonstrate that much of the Earth experienced abrupt climate changes synchronous with Greenland within thirty years or less. Post-Younger Dryas changes have not duplicated the size, extent and rapidity of these paleoclimatic changes”.
again from NOAA
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/alley2000/alley2000.html
Nancy Green says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
1 Apr 2013 at 11:03 AM
Once cannot conclude from Marcott that there have been no short term events of similar magnitude to the Younger Dryas (approx 15C) within the period covered by Marcott. Such events would be hidden by the lack of resolution so long as they were shorter than 1/2 the sampling rate as per Nyquist.
Dr. Pielke Jr was too polite. He focused on the fact that the new FAQ explicitly gives the lie to the press release, author interviews, and MSM reporting of this new hockey stick.
But it has been conclusively shown that Marcott’s thesis did not have the uptick, it’s methods explicitly prevented such resolution with any statistical certainty ( which the FAQ clarifies), and that the uptick was created by core top redating, pulling forward some that uptick and pulling back some than down tick. See other posts here, at Climate Audit, and at Climate Etc.
Dr. Pielke also offered the formal definition of academic misconduct, which includes fabrication/falsification of data. By fabricating new core top dates different than those expressly noted in the proxy papers themselves, a clearer case of explicit formal misconduct involving data falsification does not exist.
I for one hope that the full and severe consequences are borne by the perps, as an object lesson to the entire climate science community.
I am writing Science to demand the paper’s retraction, and hope others will do likewise. Enough is enough. They were caught red handed with a smoking gun. FAQs do not excuse the crime against science this paper represents.
Regards
It is really quite simple. If they knew what they were doing it is malfeasance. If they didn’t know it is incompetence.
Either way it is damaging to climate science, which already has a bad reputation for a pattern of such activities.
Strong indications of which it is lie in the ad hominem attacks against those who raise questions. This is reinforced by the failure to correct the science, instead choosing to move the goalposts, such as in the shift from global warming to climate change. As John Maynard Keynes said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do Sir?”
The reality of climate change, the importance of the cause or the evilness of the deniers — none of these excuse misrepresenting science.
Dear Roger Jr.
The end justifies the means for these people and it is high time that you understood that.
Just remember Plank’s dictum
“Science advances, one funeral at a time”.
Science has far more in common with religion than most want to admit. It is compounded when you consider any portion of science a “cause”. It is further debased when you call those who disagree with your science as “deniers”.
benfrommo at 8:36
Marcott should be allowed to resubmit the paper, but without the hockey stick and other wording pointing to modern warming. Perhaps he could write a different paper with different smoothing methods to prove these assertions.
I think he already did in his PhD thesis which covers the same 73 proxies but with a different result.
…which Anthony and McIntyre have commented on…
Well if they don’t retract (and resubmit is OK with me without the uptick) I would say the Journal Science and the AAAS is finished
“No one is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart: for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.”
That’s pretty much why I stopped regularly reading this site. The lack of self-awareness on display here is matched only by the surplus of projection.
REPLY: so says the anonymous coward with the fake email address…
…who can’t put his name to his words. Nice try though – Anthony
What might impress me about RC would be if occasionally one of them there ‘real’ scientists could just start his defence with ” of course it wasn’t a good idea to talk up the blade…” and then do the defence of “it doesn’t change anything” – but they never do. That’s what is worrying.
If the “data” aren’t fact, you must retract.
To paraphrase the late Johnnie Cochran, who last year was accused by OJ prosecutor Christopher Darden of tampering with evidence, just as apparently did the bad company into which impressionable, ambitious young Marcott fell.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/08/oj-simpson-tampered-with-glove_n_1866945.html
I’m not a climate scientist but I play one on TV…………Seriously though, is the concept of not comparing apples to oranges not taught anymore? Perhaps some ‘Sesame Street’ intensive therapy is called for here. ‘One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just doesn’t belong. Can you guess which thing is not like the others before I’m done typing this song.’
/kinda sarc
Theo Goodwin says:
April 1, 2013 at 8:44 am
“Great question and great post, Anthony. In addition, will all those who hyped the “new hockey stick” for the public and all those who fostered that hype take the necessary steps to mitigate the harmful disinformation that they unleashed on the public?”
On ALL past experience the betting is against. I am not holding my breath on this one!
How is Marcott any different from Mann? Indeed, how is it any different from the entire facade? Therefore, why are we expecting a different result (ie, scientists to be outraged)? This is getting boring.
The Baldwin quote reminds me of this pearl from Robert Anton Wilson: “An honest politician is a national calamity.”
So they are trying to ride the paper through shotgun and we are the cowboys. If this stands then science falls into the same realms as Astrology.
You would think that scientists might get their work checked before publishing. Oh wait, isn’t that what the review process is for? I wonder who the reviewers were?
David Jones says:
April 1, 2013 at 10:43 am
Theo Goodwin says:
April 1, 2013 at 8:44 am
“Great question and great post, Anthony. In addition, will all those who hyped the “new hockey stick” for the public and all those who fostered that hype take the necessary steps to mitigate the harmful disinformation that they unleashed on the public?”
=============
On ALL past experience the betting is against. I am not holding my breath on this one!
I agree. The original hockey stick was shown to be built by poor statistical algorithms yet it is still being quoted indeed Marcott was feted as it replicated the same hockey stick. Now it turns out that it was similarly built by poor statistics and smoothing. So what we can expect is that Marcott’s invented hockey stick will be cited in AR5. These people will go on saying “look a hockey stick, and the MSM will carry on trumpeting the discovery of more ‘proof’ of a hockey stick.
To paraphrase an aphorism – we appear to have mistaken some climate ‘scientists’ for people that have ethics.
Well said Tim Ball,
I cannot help but see this as a black and white situation, I see no shades of grey in the behaviour Shakun for one.
Being allowed to re-submit for me is too generous.
As an analogy as a professional engineer had I submitted a report to a client with this kind of dis-honesty, then on discovery, I would at a minimum have been barred from further practice for life and quite possibly, if warranted, I could have faced both criminal and civil action.
When will the scientific community consider establishing some form of governing body with teeth and start policing itself to a code of ethics and behaviour. This is tax payers money being pissed down the drain.
No doubt Michael Mann will continue to support the conclusions as reported. After all, as Mr Hockey Stick, he can hardly deny it doesn’t exist!
benfrommo says: “Marcott should be allowed to resubmit the paper, but without the hockey stick and other wording pointing to modern warming.”
I’ve taken the liberty of rewriting the paper without the erroneous, misleading, and pedestrian content. Here it is:
Excellent series of questions Nancy. I suspect you need not wait for those new posts making it through moderation. Too much accuracy on your part. If they do make it through, check them carefully for editing.
Lets see.
GISS builds and rebuilds and twiddles with temperature records that have a lot of problems.
Then Mann et al. built a proxy record going back 1000 years by standing on the shoulders of GISS.
Then Marcott et al. built a proxy record going back 11,000 years by standing on the shoulders of Mann.
Reminds me of the old saying-
“I have seen nothing by standing on the shoulders of mental Midgets.”
I think that’s how it goes…
Marcott et al. ‘research’ has severed its purpose , headlines claiming the stick is validated and its ‘worse than we thought ‘
In the long term that is pretty much all it needed to do for has is very often the case its was not about the needs of science but the political needs of the IPCC and the ego need of Mann.
I would not be surprised to find that in the mid to long term this BS does Marcott’s career no harm at all has the reality is ‘the Team’ still acts major gatekeepers to those looking to progress in this field.
Probable the only question now is how the IPCC will included this rubbish , I would guess the graphical BS gets big headlines and the facts that prove its BS get buried in the deepest pit of AR5.
Ali baba says:
“No one is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart: for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.”
That’s pretty much why I stopped regularly reading this site. The lack of self-awareness on display here is matched only by the surplus of projection.
REPLY: so says the anonymous coward with the fake email address…MX record about ‘thieves40.net’ does not exist.
As in “Open says me…” your mind, that is.
It’s the headlines they were after, they don’t care about the rest. A retraction is a must, but it also must be shouted from the rooftops. It has to be publicly withdrawn – and not in small print somewhere after the classifieds.
To all those wanting to write to Science, might I suggest you mail rather than email? Emails are easy to wipe away, “lose” or trash. Letters through the post have more “presence”.
Is it possible to organize a group of scientists to turn up in person at their head office? There are 31,000 scientists in the USA who signed no confidence in CAGW – how many can be brought together to go in as a mob to voice their concerns and demand a retraction?
It doesn’t have to be a huge number. My thinking is, it doesn’t help science or scientists if Science does see the complaints due to active moderators filtering out the emails or comments, or a secretary dumping the mail. Even a small group physically present will have more impact when crammed into one office talking to the head honcho (even if he runs away and/or refuses to meet).
Is it possible for people to organize a gathering to make a peaceful march on parliament or wherever/whatever heads science, demandind tighter controls and an end to misconduct, fraud, sloppiness and whatever other excuse “climate scientists” present?
Isn’t it time we – the world over – start being a little more active? We can still be polite and sensitive, but let’s just do more than write polite little notes of objection from home. The CAGW crowd have an agenda and it suits them to ignore us whenever they can. What does it take to make that impossible? Same goes for the MSM, although they at least are beginning to pay attention.
We can do this. It just takes numbers. Unlike the alarmists, we don’t need rent-a-crowd. And to those who want to object to what I am saying, don’t bother, these are just my thoughts. Sooner or later, though, we have to take to the streets.
Combatting the misrepresentation of science receives support from all sides. Lewandowsky and Cook begin “The Debunking Handbook” with
I always come back to “there are no solutions, there are only choices…”
Stanislaw Lem from Solaris I believe. Not sure how exact the quote is. SO fundamental.
How arrogant that anybody thinks they know any kind of a solution/answer to most anything in these fields, a few hundred years after the enlightenment. I am flabbergasted at the arrogance of these people.
John
ali baba says: April 1, 2013 at 9:48 am
“No one is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart: for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.”
That’s pretty much why I stopped regularly reading this site. The lack of self-awareness on display here is matched only by the surplus of projection.
————————————————
ali baba and his 40 climate thieves … !
Interesting comment from Mr. Mosher at Roger Jr’s
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2013/03/fixing-marcott-mess-in-climate-science.html?showComment=1364838251481#c2226877055371583964
“Its not even wrong. I usually expect to see this kind of crap on WUWT, not in Science. “
“This below pretty much says it all.”
Yes it shows Mr.Pielke Jr. is willing to paint “evilness of deniers”.
In defence of Pielke, I think he was using those phrases as an example of the kind of rhetoric which some alarmists throw around (those same alarmists he points out are ‘misrepresenting science’) rather than an expression of his own stance on the matter.
He should have stuck a few quote-marks around the place to make this clearer.
atheok says:
April 1, 2013 at 12:20 pm
Excellent series of questions Nancy.
=============
There is a message in Marcott that I think many have missed. Marcott tells us almost nothing about how the past compares with today, because of the resolution problem. Marcott recognizes this in their FAQ. The probability function is specific to the resolution. Thus, you cannot infer the probability function for a high resolution series from a low resolution series, because you cannot infer a high resolution signal from a low resolution signal. The result is nonsense.
However, what Marcott does tell us is still very important and I hope the authors of Marcott et al will take the time to consider what they are actually showing because it is quite important. The easiest way to explain is by analogy:
50 years ago astronomers searched extensively for planets around stars using lower resolution equipment. They found none and concluded that they were unlikely to find any at existing the resolution. However, some scientists and the press generalized this further to say there were unlikely to be planets around stars, because none had been found.
This is the argument that since we haven’t found 20th century equivalent spikes in low resolution proxies, they are unlike to exist. However, this is a circular argument and it is why Marcott et al has gotten into trouble. It didn’t hold for planets and now we have evidence that it doesn’t hold for climate.
What astronomy found instead was that as we increased the resolution we found planets. Not just a few, but almost everywhere we looked. This is completely contrary to what the low resolution data told us and this example shows the problems with today’s thinking. You cannot use a low resolution series to infer anything about a high resolution series.
However, the reverse is not true. What Marcott is showing is that in the high resolution proxies there is a temperature spike. This is equivalent to looking at the first star with high resolution equipment and finding planets. To find a planet on the first star tells us you are likely to find planets around many stars.
Thus, what Marcott is telling us is that we should expect to find a 20th century type spike in many high resolution paleo series. Rather than being an anomaly, the 20th century spike should appear in many places as we improve the resolution of the paleo temperature series. This is the message of Marcott and it is an important message that the researchers need to consider.
You have just looked at your first star with high resolution and found a planet. Are you then to conclude that since none of the other stars show planets at low resolution, that there are no planets around them?
Given the evidence, will the science community find the integrity to call for a retraction?
yes straight after concerns are expressed over the rate of ice growth in hell.
Nancy Green… That was an awesome analogy! Thank you very much!
Nancy Green April 1 8:41pm
Go Nancy Green! I like your mind.
Eugene WR Gallun
“will the science community find the integrity to call for a retraction?” – Excellent question. If you had narrowed it to the “climate science community”, the answer would have been easy. That you opened it up to the broader scientific community will put a lot of pressure on real scientists to speak out against this abomination.
Ben says:
April 1, 2013 at 4:26 pm
Interesting comment from Mr. Mosher at Roger Jr’s
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2013/03/fixing-marcott-mess-in-climate-science.html?showComment=1364838251481#c2226877055371583964
“Its not even wrong. I usually expect to see this kind of crap on WUWT, not in Science. “
———–
~grin~ Well, Steven isn’t being particularly kind to WUWT, but his larger point is cogent. Unless I’m misunderstanding badly, he’s explaining what’s wrong about Marcott splicing the blade onto the handle of the hockey stick.