The Limits To Skepticism

jamie found a long and painstaking piece up at The Economist asking and provisionally answering the question: "Does the spirit of scientific scepticism really require that I remain forever open-minded to denialist humbug until it's shown to be wrong?" The author, who is not named, spent several hours picking apart the arguments of one Willis Eschenbach, AGW denialist, who on Dec. 8 published what he called the "smoking gun" — it was supposed to prove that the adjustments climate scientists make to historical temperature records are arbitrary to the point of intentional manipulation. The conclusion: "[H]ere's my solution to this problem: this is why we have peer review. Average guys with websites can do a lot of amazing things. One thing they cannot do is reveal statistical manipulation in climate-change studies that require a PhD in a related field to understand. So for the time being, my response to any and all further 'smoking gun' claims begins with: show me the peer-reviewed journal article demonstrating the error here. Otherwise, you're a crank and this is not a story. And then I'll probably go ahead and try to investigate the claim and write a blog post about it, because that's my job. Oh, and by the way: October was the hottest month on record in Darwin, Australia."

Comments

My take

[RJBeery]

It's possible that the CRU of East Anglia grossly manipulated the data in an attempt to influence the public, AND that their presumptions that they are trying to make the data fit to happen to be true anyway. Ironically, bad science does not make it wrong necessarily

Nevertheless, Climategate was a blow to scientific integrity. If you don't think so then you haven't read enough about it.

Re:The answer is yes.

[timmarhy]

if they do know more about the topic then answering the skepticism shouldn't be a problem should it?