A displaced Englishman teases at the tangled web of scientific inquiry and Anthropogenic Global Warming, especially as regards the so-called “hockey stick” phenomenon that was used to such startling effect on policy makers world wide. Much to do with R2 vs RE statistical correlation techniques, as well as a peek inside the closed world of professional scientific discourtesy:
(One) of the chief criticisms of the hockey stick was the fact that its author, Michael Mann, had withheld the validation statistics so that it was impossible for anyone to gauge the reliability of the reconstruction. These validation statistics were to be key to the subsequent story. At the time of their press release Wahl and Amman had made public the computer code that they’d used in their papers. By the time their paper was submitted to Climatic Change, McIntyre had reconciled their work with his own so that he understood every difference. And he therefore now knew that Wahl and Amman’s work suffered from exactly the same problem as the hockey stick itself: the R2 number was so low as to suggest that the hockey stick had no meaning at all…
It would have been harder for the agnostic to know how much significance to place on the issue of public paper submissions and revisions, far less esoteric statistical arcana, had not one of the proponents of AGW – prompted by a concerned reader – rebutted a point not in argument, before dropping the subject (read through to the end of the comments). This sort of tactic inevitably causes your correspondent’s antennae to twitch. Is this evidence of an intentional deception, or merely intellectual sloppiness? The reader is left to form his own conclusions.
Australia’s own Andrew Bolt weighs in on the controversy.
This is nothing, you should see it when two scientific antagonists wage proxy wars. The usual battleground is a symposium where the two antagonists have brought their coterie of grad students to present papers.
The students present their work which is viciously, and brutally attacked by the opposing professor. I chaired such a session once, poor kids. Oh well, they have to be blooded sooner or later.
I was personally amazed and saddened by the generally low level of discourse, the number of ad hominem attacks, and the refusal to answer challenging inquiries on the “bravenewclimate” site and those it linked to. There was no genuine interest in an open exchange of ideas and a search for “truth,” whatever that might mean today. Instead, it was just another forum for tightly held preconceived notions where whatever discourse there was served primarily as a means to bludgeon the other side. If that is what passes for informed scientific debate these days, Western civilization is in even worse shape than I thought.
How that stridently parochial idealogue has a research position anywhere outside of an ethnic studies department is beyond me.
It is no longer a scientific debate. There are too many economic and political interests tangled up in this. Most university professors are funded by the government; the null hypothesis does not fill the funding coffers.
Those interested might take a look sometime at NumberWatch’s “Complete List of Global Warming” sometime (with a link to each “news” story or journal article staking the claim). It’s available at http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm if you need a link. Almost 600 items (including contradictions and de-linked stories) at last count, always good for a laugh. Dr. Brignell, the proprietor over there, is a retired prof of electrical engineering, who used to specialize in instrumentation – what we can and cannot *in fact* measure in the real world (and how to do it). The blog’s full of little tidbits culled from the news that show off how badly innumerate the press generally is – and more than a few journal-published “scientists” that fall into that category.
“Is this deliberate deception or merely intellectual sloppiness?” the answer is sadly “Yes.”
O/T: Lex, I see the realtime comment display’s returned. Thanks!
Funny, the only ad hominem attacks that I read on bravenewclimate.com came from the “sceptics’. Including a personal threat to one blogger. Naturally and correctly, such people were advised to take their vitriol elsewhere. Question were answered politely and with detailed reference to the science. The problem for the scientists is that the entrenched sceptic either won’t or can’t understand the scientific information and keep asking the same question ad nauseam. even after answers have been provided.May I suggest that you all get together and present a scientific paper to NATURE or SCIENCE (or any other reputable peer-reviewed science journal) laying out your research and observations. If selected for publication you will be lauded as saviours of the world and we will all be able to heave a huge sigh of relief! I know you are either frightened of the science(who wouldn’t be), or stuck in a religious or political belief that this is a left/right issue or Christian/atheist one but that won’t help fix the problem Really, do you honestly believe that the majority of the world’s scientists are involved in some huge conspiracy – I don’t think so! So grow up, forget about putting your own comfort and security before that of your kids and grandkids and get behind those trying to mitigate and adapt to the problem.
I know you are either frightened of the science (who wouldn’t be), or stuck in a religious or political belief that this is a left/right issue or Christian/atheist one…
Bwahahahahaaa!!
*wipes eyes*
Bwahahahahahaha!!!