Peer Review; Last Refuge of the (Uninformed) Troll

Current peer review science, by attempting to explain away model failure, in fact confirms that the science is wrong

Guest essay by David M. Hoffer

It has become a favorite tactic amongst trolls to declare their belief in peer reviewed science.  With this simple strategy, they at once excuse themselves from the need to know anything about the science, and at the same time seek to discredit skeptic arguments on the grounds that, not having been published in peer reviewed journals, they may be dismissed out of hand.

A retreat to authoritarian arguments in the face of dead simple observations is not new.  It is a repeat of history.  Not having learned from it, we appear to be condemned to repeat it.  But both history and the current peer reviewed science are, if one steps back and looks at the big picture, on the skeptic side.

In the fifth century BC, Empedocles theorized that one could see by virtue of rays emanating from one’s eyes.  Falsifying this notion required no more than pointing out that one cannot see in a dark room.  Despite this simple observation, his theory enjoyed substantial support for the next 1600 years.

Galileo died while under house arrest for supporting the notion that the earth orbited the sun.  His was convicted in part on the basis of peer reviewed literature of the time insisting that the movement of the planets as observed from the earth could be explained by the planets simply reversing direction in orbit from time to time.  For nearly two thousand years, into the early 1800’s, when people fell ill, the peer reviewed literature confirmed that the best course of action was to let some blood out of them.  The simple observation that death rates increased when this treatment was applied was dismissed out of hand on the premise that, if it was true, it would appear in medical journals.  Sound familiar?

History is replete with examples of what seems today to be utterly absurd ideas.  Ideas which stubbornly refuse to die, sustained in part by the equally absurd notion that evidence to the contrary was not to be accepted simply because it hadn’t appeared in the “right” publications.  But is the notion of climate science today as easily falsified by simple observation?  I submit that it is.  We have the climate models themselves to upon which to rely.

For what are the climate models other than the embodiment of the peer reviewed science?  Is there a single model cited by the IPCC that claims to not be based on peer reviewed science?  Of course there isn’t.  Yet simple observation shows that the models, and hence the peer reviewed literature upon which they are based, are wrong.  We have none other than the IPCC themselves to thank for showing us that.

The leaked Second Order Draft of IPCC AR5 laid bare the failure of the models to predict the earth’s temperature going forward in time.  In fact, if one threw out all but the best 5% of the model results…they would still be wrong, and obviously so.  They all run hotter than reality.  Exposed for the world to see that the models (and hence the science upon which they are based) had so utterly failed, the IPCC responded by including older models they had previously declared obsolete as now being part of the current literature:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/04/no-matter-how-the-cmip5-ipcc-ar5-models-are-presented-they-still-look-bad/

Even with those older and supposedly obsolete models included, the models look to be complete failures.  In other words, confronted with the data showing that thousands are dying from bloodletting, the IPCC is resurrecting old studies showing that three or four patients recovered once in an old study from a long time ago.  They are point blank asking you to believe that planets reverse direction in orbit quite of their own volition.  They’ve contrived a theory that you can’t see in the dark because the rays from your eyes must interact with light to work.

As ridiculous as that may seem, for the IPCC, it is (literally) even worse than that.  For this we have the foremost climate scientists on the planet to thank.

Kevin Trenberth, arguably the most politically powerful climate scientist on earth, famously lamented in the ClimateGate Emails that we cannot account for “the missing heat”, a tacit admission that the models are wrong.  Since then we’ve seen multiple papers suggesting that perhaps the heat is being sequestered in the deep oceans where, conveniently, we cannot measure it.  If true, this also invalidates the models, since they predicted no such thing.

Dr Roy Spencer’s paper suggests that the heat is escaping to space.  If he’s right, the models are wrong.  More recently we have the paper by Cowtan and Way, which tries to make the case that the heat is hiding in places on earth where we have no weather station or satellite data.  Pretty selective that heat, going where nobody can measure it, but not where we can.  If they are right, then not a single model predicted any such thing, and so, once again, the models would be wrong.  Spencer’s paper stands apart from the others because it doesn’t twist itself into absurd contortions in a blatant attempt to preserve the CAGW storyline.  But make no mistake about it, all these papers are being published, not because the models (and the science they are predicted upon) are right, but because they are wrong, and obviously so.

No longer is the debate in regard to if the models are wrong.  The debate is now about why the models are wrong.  The models having fallen, the peer reviewed science they purport to represent falls with them.

But you need not believe me in that regard.

Just the peer reviewed science by the foremost climate scientists on earth.