Forging a Head: The Upside of Scientific Hoaxes

An anonymous reader writes "In a very funny piece over at Science Careers (published by the journal Science), scientist-comedian Adam Ruben suggests that a lot of good can come from a well-intentioned hoax. 'Hoaxes have infiltrated science for centuries,' Ruben writes, 'from fake fossils (Piltdown Man, archaeoraptor, Calaveras skull) to fake medical conditions (cello scrotum, the disappearing blonde gene) to fake animals (Ompax spatuloides, Pacific Northwest tree octopus, Labradoodle).' In contrast to fraud, Ruben argues, such hoaxes do a great service to science by illustrating 'failures of our most important tool: our skepticism.'"

Comments

Yes but

[mr100percent]

While it's true that we need one of these every so often to remind us of the need for scientific rigor, it also does great damage to science for many. e.g. Climategate gave ammo for global warming deniers, piltdown man gave more credence to creationists, etc.

Re:Yes but

[Mindcontrolled]

Well, "Climategate" gave ammo for global warming deniers within their own echo chamber. The whole shit was made up from out-of-context quotes making up about 1 ppm of the stolen mails they scanned for it. Nothing a rational man would consider harmful. That's playing in a completely different league than the piltdown man, which was made up from beginning to end.

Re:Yes but

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, no. Have you read the mails? Looked at the data? It's not at all about out-of-context quotes. In there were confirmation of things previously only suspected, like back-handed deals where papers in peer review were given to opponent writers before publishing etc.

Be objective.

Re:Yes but

[Mindcontrolled]

And your scientific reason for that statement is... anal extraction? The big bad global climate conspiracy, made up of tens of thousands of scientists is out for you too? Better stay in your basement then. They are SCARY.

Re:Yes but

[Arlet]

There are relatively few scientists in the field of climate science that question global warming. There are certainly not 'thousands'.

Re:Yes but

[Anonymous Coward]

There are relatively few jobs in the field of climate science that allow questioning global warming. Practically all of the funding for it now derives from global warming alarmism. The people paying for it always want to know, "What are you doing about global warming?" and the answer "Taking a serious skeptical look at whether it actually exists." consistently results in pulled funding.

The field ballooned tremendously with external support and funding, almost all feeding the side that says "the sky is falling", because the people outside of the field inclined to believe it unquestioningly see it as important enough to throw huge amounts of money at, while those who are skeptical or outright disbelieving see it as a rather low spending priority.

It's a very good example of why you can't find truth by a vote of the people in a field: sometimes the vast majority are hired directly into one side of the argument.

Re:Yes but

[Anonymous Coward]

The science of global warming is not carried by the CRU alone, nor is it by Al Gore, to avoid this strawman.

It's fine that you're willing to disown them, as long as you're also willing to disown anyone who has pointed at them as authorities, such as all of the mainstream climate researchers who applauded "An Inconvenient Truth" (full of laughable inaccuracies, including the famous silver bullet scissorlift graph of a prehistoric CO2 and temperature correlation graph which omitted the inconvenient truth that the actual data show the CO2 following the temperature by a considerable time delay, rather than leading it; I've heard this defended with "That doesn't prove that CO2 doesn't contribute to warming." and that's true, but it sure as fuck isn't a point in favor of CO2 being a major driver of temperature change) and recommended it as a good introduction for laymen.

All I see there is some people getting pissed of by the low quality of the review process of a second rate journal

If this is all that it was, we could laugh it off. But that's not the defense we heard from the mainstream. They didn't tell us, "Oh, those guys suck. We're not with them. Hang 'em out to dry." What we heard from the mainstream is, "There was no misconduct. This is business as usual and the way it should be done. Anyone who sees a problem with any of this is an anti-science loon with a nefarious political agenda."

Re:Yes but

[Hognoxious]

While it's true that we need one of these every so often to remind us of the need for scientific rigor

Define "us". The scientifically literate are already skeptical. Joe sixpack is going to oscillate between believing everything he hears and believing nothing. While that might sound good to those who believe in shit like crowdsourcing & the gambler's fallacy, in reality it's about as good as a stopped clock.

Re:Yes but

[rubycodez]

That's not the point, whether they question global warming or not. the point is "There are thousands of scientists who question the methodologies and conclusions of the CRU". That junk science by them is being the basis for a planned multi-trillion dollar parasitic system on the most developed countries.

Re:Yes but

[rubycodez]

There is no science within the CRU to carry, that is an institution which generate speculations to prop up a multi-trillion dollar wealth heist. The real collected data on global warming is a separate issue.

Re:Yes but

[Hognoxious]

Even if there were thousands, there'd be millions who didn't.

Not that the majority is always right. Obviously, they've all been [threatened by the Illuminati|brainwashed with orbital lasers|bought off by the all-powerful lentil growers' lobby|other please specify _ _ _ _ _ _]

Re:Yes but

[nbauman]

There are dozens of scientists who question the methodologies and conclusions of the CRU.

We have to take them seriously on the merits. That's the way science works. But for policy purposes, we should go along with the overwhelming majority.

Re:Yes but

[Mindcontrolled]

I guess we end that debate here. Your delusions are beyond repair. Enjoy your paranoia. Oh, and on occasion, think about who is really heisting the wealth of the middle class.

Re:Yes but

[timeOday]

Climategate wasn't a hoax, it was a political ploy. The difference is, a hoax shows how far within the scientific community an idea can go without merit. That's a good internal check.

Re:Yes but

[nbauman]

"There are thousands of scientists who question the methodologies and conclusions of the CRU".

Every scientific paper I read has a section on the limitations of the methodologies and conclusions of the study. That's standard thoughtful academic writing. Scientists question *everything*. That doesn't mean their conclusions are wrong. It just means they've carefully considered alternative explanations.

For global warming, the overwhelming consensus makes it unlikely their conclusions are wrong.

It's possible they could be wrong. Anything is possible. But when we're faced with an imminent danger, we have to stop arguing over hypotheticals created by coal and gas industry think tanks and come to a plan of action.

Re:Yes but

[nbauman]

The evidence is *much* stronger that burned fuel particles in the atmosphere increase the rate of asthma and bronchitis, causing as I recall 3,000 deaths a year from coal, 3,000 deaths a year from gasoline, and several times as much disability. (Just ask a nuclear power engineer.)

Is that also a multi-trillion dollar heist?

Re:Yes but

[sanzibar]

1. The scientists colluded in efforts to thwart Freedom of Information Act requests (across continents no less). They reference deleting data, hiding source code from requests, manipulating data to make it more annoying to use, and attempting to deny requests from people recognized as contributors to specific internet sites. Big brother really is watching you. Heâ(TM)s just not very good at securing his web site. 2. These scientists publicly diminished opposing arguments for lack of being published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. In the background they discussed black-balling journals that did publish opposing views, and preventing opposing views from being published in journals they controlled. They even mention changing the rules midstream in arenas they control to ensure opposing views would not see the light of day. They discuss amongst themselves which scientists can be trusted and who should be excluded from having data because they may not be âoepredictableâ. 3. The scientists expressed concern privately over a lack of increase in global temperatures in the last decade, and the fact that they could not explain this. Publicly they discounted it as simple natural variations. In one instance, data was [apparently] manipulated to hide a decline in temperatures when graphed. Other discussions included ways to discount historic warming trends that inconveniently did not occur during increases in atmospheric CO2. 4. The emails show examples of top scientists working to create public relations messaging with favorable news outlets. It shows them identifying and cataloging, by name and association, people with opposing views. These people are then disparaged in a coordinated fashion via favorable online communities. would you like more...?

Re:Yes but

[rubycodez]

Making models of climate a decade or a century from now is not science; that is not the way science works.

Re:Yes but

[rubycodez]

I don't like fossil fuel pollution either, and your death and maiming statistics are too low.

Re:Yes but

[Arlet]

In one instance, data was [apparently] manipulated to hide a decline in temperatures when graphed.

It is clear you have no idea what they were really talking about.

Enlighten yourself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz8Ve6KE-Us

Re:Yes but

[rubycodez]

I am speaking of a planned heist not implemented, "cap and trade" and carbon tax and such. The mega-corporations with our governments in their pocket are heisting us, and it includes almost all energy production, but they also have plans for increased profits from "cap and trade" and carbon taxes.

Re:Yes but

[Mindcontrolled]

True. Declaring it, and by proxy climate science as a whole, a hoax, is just another part of that ploy.

Re:Yes but

[nbauman]

Why not?

Re:Yes but

[JoeMerchant]

So, in short, they waged a spin-war on the opposition. Regardless of title, they're politicians, and they happen to be on the side of "Global warming is a real problem."

It's a big, important question, with dramatic implications in the long, medium and short term. Deniers have a lot more to gain in the short term than believers, and based on that alone, I find the believers more believable.

Any question that involves Trillions of dollars will generate a political circus around it, with clowns on all sides.

Re:Yes but

[Arlet]

On the contrary, making models and predictions based on theories is exactly what science is all about. That's how you test the theories.

Of course, the same models can also be verified with events that happened in the past, such as ice age cycles.

Re:Yes but

[superwiz]

Climategate has actually proven that the degree of certainty of their conclusions is overstated. It hasn't disproven the theory, of course. But that's not really the point. In fact, you can't credibly claim damage to debate if it's shown that the side which goes by the mantra "trust us" is possibly deluding itself. Let's be honest, if the same kinds of emails came out from quant department of an investment bank, everyone would be saying that this bank is a fraud. I think we can insist on the same degree of rigor from science which is supposed to effect public policy as we do from investment banks.

Re:Yes but

[MillionthMonkey]

I think we can insist on the same degree of rigor from science which is supposed to effect public policy as we do from investment banks.

Uh no. People in investment banks have an obvious motive to deviate from your standard and are in positions where they have to be trusted in a way that scientists do not.

Re:Yes but

[Arlet]

You don't have to trust scientists. You are free to become an expert on the subject, perform your own research, and publish the results.

Re:Yes but

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course I have. I also know better than to claim things I cannot source, here you go:

How was Briffa doing this if all communication with the authors had to be part of the official record?

At the time, in May of 2008, McIntyre assumed that Briffa was getting information from Casper Ammann since Ammann was listed as a contributing author to chapter 6. It did not occur to McIntyre that Wahl was the source of the text. Thanks to the individual who liberated the Climategate emails, we now know that Wahl was the source of that text. The Climategate emails, quoted above, show Briffa and Wahl exchanging emails about the way McIntyre’s arguments should be handled. Confidentially, outside the process of the IPCC which is designed to capture reviewer objections and authors’ responses to those objections. Wahl is brought in by Briffa to defend his own work. And defend it with literature that has not been published yet.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/08/to-serve-mann/

There are more examples. It seems your knowledge of Climategate comes from less than honest sources.

Re:Yes but

[superwiz]

Not really. In fact, calling the opposition "bone heads" and loons and such only makes the proponents seem more fraudulent. Being dismissive of skeptics is a customary tool of con-man. If they want to be taken seriously, they should keep the gravitas in the phase of opposing view. Otherwise, they only lose credibility.

Re:Yes but

[Troed]

Agreed. Science would be to design a model and the observe how it fares over the next ten or so years. No changing of model parameters allowed.

That hasn't happened. If I'm allowed to change a model with enough free variables I can fit any history, and any observations-after-the-fact. But it's not science.

Re:Yes but

[Mindcontrolled]

If there is a single sceptic amongst the deniers, and not another bonehead repeating talking points that have been debunked for years, well, yes, then I will take him serious. There is serious debate about the mechanisms and models of climate change amongst the scientists involved, you know. Ever had a glimpse into the literature? Just a tiny review article or two?

Re:Yes but

[superwiz]

Your statement about scientist in this case is completely untrue. They most certainly do have a vested interest in the conclusions since their funding is tied to the amount of public acceptance of their conclusions. And once again, since their conclusions directly effect public policy, even more specifically global energy policy, the amount scrutiny they have to receive is actually larger than the amount of scrutiny which banks have to receive. A bad decision by a quant in an investment bank could result in a loss of a few billions. A bad decision by a climate scientist, once it results in public policy, could result in a loss of trillions.

Re:Yes but

[Arlet]

The model doesn't have any free variables, only physical properties and physical laws, plus initial conditions.

And if you don't believe it, you can download the source code, and see for yourself. http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/modelEsrc/

Re:Yes but

[Mindcontrolled]

You mean they blackballed one journal that happened to publish a denialist article without it going through review? That journal? The one, where the editors had to resign later, because that's where the TRUE scientific scandal did happen? I won't even argue with the rest of your talking points. They have been thoroughly debunked ages ago. Repeating them is lying. Simple as that.

Re:Yes but

[Troed]

Funny, but untrue. Your physical properties and laws aren't physical properties and laws, but best guesses.

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/HOWTO.html

Again, no model has run for any extended amount of time without having had it's variables changed to fit observations. Thus not science.

Re:Yes but

[Mindcontrolled]

Chances are, he pretty much has a good idea what he is talking about. Truth is not important for the denialist spinmeisters. Can't use the truth to argue when you got no data supporting your position, after all. I have given guys like this the benefit of the doubt for years. I am done with that now.

Re:Yes but

[superwiz]

Since this research is conducted with public funds, I would argue they have to publish collected data with all of their conclusions.

At the moment such requirement does not exist. This is actually a problem not only in this particular discipline. It's a problem in all of scientific publications. This is one of the reasons I am skeptical of most academic research in applied science. I know (because I've seen it happen personally) that people on occasion collect data at great expense in academic setting and then realize that a few of the variables weren't accounted for in the data collection. Then they pretend that those variables were accounted for when doing the analysis and publishing. Since publishability is the determining factor which drives their funding (ie, salary, kids' braces, mortgages, etc.), the pressure to overstate the accuracy of results is huge. The results may not be wrong. But the certainty to which they can state those results is definitely wrong.

The only honest way to publish is to separate the inputs, processing and outputs during the publication process. That is to have row data, analytics and conclusions clearly identified. The row data is NEVER published at the moment. In fact, most people feel a sense of proprietorship of their data and are very reluctant to reveal it... Even though it's collected with public funds. Without an ability to have row data go through altenative analytic interpretations, it's very difficult to actually believe that the conclusions (outputs) are the only possible ones.

Re:Yes but

[UnknowingFool]

The mega-corporations plan to capitalize on carbon credits. And that make the science less valid?

Re:Yes but

[Arlet]

Can you give an example of a variable that has been changed to fit observations ?

Obviously some inputs to the model change, as data becomes available. After a volcanic eruption, the aerosol data is plugged into the model, for instance.

Re:Yes but

[Arlet]

If you don't trust the people, how would you know to trust their copy of the raw data ?

As with any other science, the best way is to redo the whole thing from scratch. Use your own data and calculations. Go drill your own ice cores and trees and collect your own thermometer data.

Re:Yes but

[Mindcontrolled]

I am not talking to the general audience here, I am talking to one person who claims to have the truth, the absolute truth, nothing but the truth without bringing forth any argument as to where this truth comes from. Just baseless assertions. That is a difference...

Re:Yes but

[ArcherB]

Deniers have a lot more to gain in the short term than believers, and based on that alone, I find the believers more believable.

"Believers":
For business, we are talking about trillions of dollars in government investment and laws that will favor your bottom line if you play ball. GE, for example made billions in profits and paid zero in taxes. Carbon credit trading companies stand to be the next Enron, except they will be trading government mandated nothings in exchange for real cash.

Government stand to gain unlimited power. They will gain the power to tell citizens what to eat, here to go, what to drive, where to work, what they will do, where to live and what temperature to keep that house at. They will literally be able to control EVERY SINGLE ASPECT of the lives of citizens. This may also go beyond borders as well. A "world eco government" could be set up to set international rules. Of course, companies that play ball will receive government help, so the system is pre set up for corruption.

Scientists can gain because there is so much money and power to be gained, scientists and universities seeking grants will have better luck proposing a study that will "prove that stricter government control is required to prevent global catastrophe" will more likely get a grant than one that will "prove that global warming is not a problem and regulation is not needed".

"Deniers":
Scientist deniers are going nowhere. They do not get grants and get shunned by their peers.
Politicians are being compared to flat earthers and ridiculed by the main stream media. NBC and MSNBC were owned by GE, btw, who made billions in profits, yet paid no taxes.
Businesses gain nothing by being a global warming denier. They lose any "green cred" which would run off an environmentally conscious customers. Oil companies are about to have their taxes raised (or tax brakes taken away, same thing) while gas prices are at a all time high.

So, it appears that "believers" have unlimited power and money to gain. The absolute best anyone can hope for by being a "denier" is the status quo, so absolutely nothing to gain, but everything to lose.

Re:Yes but

[superwiz]

You modularize the units which need re-testing. If you separate it into row data, analytics and conclusions, you can attempt verifying any one of those. It has multiple advantages. First, it reduces the cost of verifiability. At the moment someone who can understand the analytics but doesn't have the funds or expertise to reproduce the data can't make a fully informed judgement of validity. Just as someone who is an expert in experimentation isn't able to reproduce the experiments because their cost would not be justified without the analytics. This is not a hypothetical scenario. This is actually a huge problem in experimental science right now.

You are getting all worked up about these scientists' work as if they were doing volunteer work or something. These are paid professionals. And once again, they are paid from public funds. They don't go to collecting this data as a hobby after their day job. They do it during fully-paid work time. C'mon, who ever heard of an employee saying, "ok, I've done the investigation and this is what I conclude. Now trust me or do the investigation yourself." This kind of attitude is completely unacceptable when this investigation is conducted with public funds. And conclusions of such an investigation are high questionable even if done with private funds.

There isn't a dichotomy between trusting or not trusting someone. They have a responsibility to go the extra step to make sure everything they state is reproducible and verifiable. Otherwise, peer review has no meaning.

Re:Yes but

[superwiz]

so you are talking to yourself?

Re:Yes but

[Entropius]

Ugh, Fortran. :P

Re:Yes but

[Troed]

Changing the whole model would be one (II to E) - that is why we have no model that has been verified against observations over an extended period of time yet.

As for GISS model E, it's quite a way off observations currently.

http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/argo-era-nodc-ocean-heat-content-data-0-700-meters-through-december-2010/

http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2008/09/11/giss-model-e-climate-simulations/
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2008/09/16/giss-model-e-climate-simulations-part-2/

Re:Yes but

[cduffy]

I imagine you're no fan of that scumbag Ronald Reagan and his cap-and-trade system for sulfur dioxide (acid rain)?

Re:Yes but

[Swave An deBwoner]

There are relatively few jobs in the field of climate science that allow questioning global warming. Practically all of the funding for it now derives from global warming alarmism.

There are relatively few jobs in the field of physical science that accept offhand dismissal of thermodynamic principles, the paleoclimate record, and melting of polar icecaps.

Re:Yes but

[BergZ]

I think it is worth while to point out that, of the 5 independent investigations that were launched as a result of the so-called "Climategate", all 5 have exonerated the Climatologists under investigation. None of the 5 were able to find any evidence of scientific malpractice. I'd call that, coupled with the endorsement of the G-7 national academies of science, a pretty unequivocal vindication of the science of Global Climate Change.

Re:Yes but

[Vancorps]

How so? Given that climate scientists don't make decisions on public policy, what large corporations have been put out of business by "going green." I haven't seen any proposals put forth by the scientific community that would put anyone out of business, in general it only creates more business opportunities which I have trouble seeing as a bad thing although I'm certainly will to hear arguments.

The issue at hand is consumers can't afford for some industries to keep growing, look at record profits for oil companies during a recession. Cutting into the profits of those large oil companies, and they are just one example of many industries potentially getting affected hardly seems like a bad idea since they have never paid the full costs associated with their products. Now that we better understand those costs they are naturally fighting tooth and nail to retain their profits while we try to reclaim what we've lost.

It's funny how I pay more for a car battery if I don't have my old battery to replace it with. No one complains about it because of how toxic they are if they aren't disposed of properly or in many cases recycled preventing the need to make more car batteries. It's a sensible approach to making sure that damage is prevented or cleaned up. The additional funds for the battery go straight to environmental efforts while the cost of the battery and usual profit margins are retained.

Now people want to do this on a much grander scale and are encountering resistance why exactly? As I said, it doesn't put anyone out of business.

Re:Yes but

[Vancorps]

Actually this attitude is very much prevalent in the professional community. I myself have had independent contractors come in to verify my work. They will inventory assets, model topology, analyze business rules, and then provide a conclusion with a course of action.

Three times in five years this has happened to me, all three times I was promoted afterwards as my inconvenient conclusions were verified by a third party, sometimes by more than one depending on the size of my proposal. They then gave me the funds to invest according to the plan I laid out. It's called due diligence and very much means do the investigation yourself.

The nice thing about the global scientific community is that while your analytic expert cannot obtain new raw data, they can however use a different team's raw data and see if it tracks, this happens quite often with meta-studies comparing data from sometimes dozens of different sources. This is why science is never about trust or the lack of trust. It is always, test and verify. None of the climate scientists are saying we should shut down all electricity and slow global warming to it's normal track. They are merely saying that we need to make preparations for changes that are coming and anything we can do to slow those changes will give us more time to prepare. In short, they are saying invest in one or both but certainly not none.

Re:Yes but

[Xyrus]

You need to loosen your tin foil hat.

There are much better and far more convenient means to establishing a new world order than what your propose. In fact, your method would be one of the dumbest ways to go about doing it. And that's assuming the government is competent enough to do so in the first place (which if you ever worked for the government, is a big ass assumption.

No, if governments and businesses want to create a cash cow to milk while spread eagling the general public, the create a clear and immediate threat to promote fear and use that fear to reach their goals. The global specter of terrorism is the perfect vehicle to accomplish this, and in many ways has already been used in the ways you proclaim climate science will be.

Businesses follow the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition. They will make money, bribe^H^H^H^H make campaign donations, and shit on the general public no matter what happens. Subsidies will continue to exist. Tax breaks will continue to exist.

If climate scientists wanted to make money, they'd go into the private sector and become deniers. Compared to a normal climate scientists income, many other professions pay A LOT better without nearly as many headaches. I'm also not sure where you get the idea that scientists have any sort of power. Even in the most highly paid sciences or in defense research, scientists don't have much in what one could consider power.

There aren't any scientists out there saying we can stop climate change. We passed that point a long time ago. We can only reduce the impact and prepare.

Oil companies will lose their subsidies and tax breaks. Boo hoo. Perhaps then we will finally get a real sustainable energy policy and ditch oil crack habit.that will eventually drive us into the ditch. The longer we wait, the worse it will be.

However, you miss the fact that most deniers are also attacking science in general. They stand to gain quite a bit ideologically if they can just wave a hand and discredit entire branches of science that they disagree with. That is incredibly dangerous and opens the doors for a whole world of shit, and not just because of climate change.

If you haven't been paying attention over the past 60 years, this is just the latest salvo in big corporations vs. science they don't like. This has happened multiple times in the past. Only this time, it seems to be coupled with a massive anti-science/anti-intellectual movement making it all the more dangerous.

Until th deniers can put up peer reviewed research to discredit the current scientific consensus, then they are just part of the FUD.

Re:Yes but

[hsthompson69]

When something as informative as the parent is modded down to zero, you know the warmists have way too many mod points on their hands.

Look, you might disagree, and disagree vehemently, but that's no excuse to mod down an obviously informative and actually quite polite comment.

Mod parent up.

Re:Yes but

[hsthompson69]

None of the 5 whitewashes actually investigated the science, conspicuously so.

For those interested in even more details: http://rossmckitrick.weebly.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/rmck_climategate.pdf

The sad part here is that had the inquiries been honest, they could have possibly recovered some of their lost credibility. Instead, we now have yet again baseless appeals to authority in order to justify a non-falsifiable hypothesis.

If you want to talk about the "science" of Global Climate Change, posit your falsifiable hypothesis first. Models upon models upon fudge factors isn't science, it's entertainment.

Re:Yes but

[Vitriol Angst]

The Flat-Earthers have the same problem.

"Round-Earthers"
Airline companies, get Billions more in dollars than they otherwise would if they made DIRECT flights. Going on these fanciful arcs in the sky costs us all a lot of money!

The Government, has implemented this FAA, and seemingly benign organizations that seek to determine WHERE you an put a building -- based on ELEVATION alone! Not to mention the weather nonsense like trade winds -- how could that be when they start at one EDGE?

"Flat-Earthers"
Get mocked and ridiculed by the so-called scientific community. The Pro-Flat politicians get nowhere outside of Florida and Arizona.

>> And GE spends money to deny climate change! Why? So they can sell us more inaccurate maps with curved lines. You see FLAT road maps don't you? Yet we can't get a decent world map without cutting the globe into a weird shape -- that right there should tell you it's all a scam!

Re:Yes but

[BergZ]

The sad part here is that had the inquiries been honest, they could have possibly recovered some of their lost credibility. Instead, we now have yet again baseless appeals to authority in order to justify a non-falsifiable hypothesis.

Unfortunately it seems that you've fallen victim to the popular counterpart of the appeal to authority: The appeal against authority.
I would remind you that "the authorities say it is true, therefore it is not true" is no more credible than "the authorities say it is true, therefore it is true".

Re:Yes but

[ArcherB]

Until th deniers can put up peer reviewed research to discredit the current scientific consensus, then they are just part of the FUD.

Wait a minute. Wasn't that whole climate-gate email scandal because scientists were trying to keep scientists who might disagree with them from getting their word out? Won't you simply accuse any scientist that shows that GW is not a problem or is not happening of spreading FUD and/or working for big oil or (insert evil company here)? So they prevent those that may disprove their work from getting published, attack and credibility and ridicule any who might get the word out otherwise and then use the fact that no published or credible work disagrees with them as proof that their work is correct.

Of course, anyone who disagrees is immediately discredited simply by the very fact that they disagree. Here is a quote that proves it:

However, you miss the fact that most deniers are also attacking science in general.

See, those that disagree are labeled "deniers", as in they are denying the facts. And of course, simply by the fact that they question GW, they are "attacking science in general". In other words, they have no credibility as scientists because a real scientist wouldn't dare go against the "consensus".

Also, "consensus" means nothing in science. Everything that science has proved wrong was once supported by a consensus. Science is not a democracy.

Oil companies will lose their subsidies and tax breaks. Boo hoo. Perhaps then we will finally get a real sustainable energy policy and ditch oil crack habit.that will eventually drive us into the ditch. The longer we wait, the worse it will be.

You do know that companies don't pay taxes, right? Companies, including oil companies, pass any increase in cost directly to their customers.

Your post is a fine example of what I like to call environmental hypocrisy. You will fight tooth and nail to not do so much as take your shoes off to get on airplane. You will fight to the death for the right to not carry an ID card. However, because you believe that there will be an energy shortage one day, you want government to create an artificial shortage today. It doesn't matter that we have enough energy to last us for hundreds of years, you wish to create an artificial shortage by limiting the amount of energy we may produce domestically and you actually believe that it will somehow make us import less. People like you are so happy to punish those who use more than you that you lose your ability to think logically. You really don't care that you have to pay more for food and transportation as long as you know that the rich guy in the SUV has to pay more also. You are happy to make someone else suffer for their lifestyle, simply because you don't like it. And when you see that mother of two have to tell her kids that they can't afford to go to Grandma's house because gas is too expensive, you comfort yourself by saying, “we all have to make sacrifices in order to create the world that I want to live in. Besides, they can see Grandma on Facetime.”

The best part? You accuse others of using fear to force the people to change the way they do things and then turn around use fear to force others to change the way they live their lives. It means nothing to you that real people have really died due to terrorism, and that terrorists really do want to kill more people, you see climate change as a bigger threat even though exactly zero people have died due to global warming, and that climate change has happened since the beginning of time. You want government to force me to live my life the way YOU think I should live it, even though, and I use your words, “There aren't any scientists out there saying we can stop climate change. We passed that point a long time ago. We can only reduce the impact and prepare.”

You won't remove your shoes to stop terrorists from killing the innocent, but you will gladly pay more for your life just to keep me from taking my little girl away from the city lights to see the rings of Saturn through her new telescope.

Re:Yes but

[TuringTest]

they will be trading government mandated nothings in exchange for real cash

Can you detect the ironc of that sentence?

Re:Yes but

[hsthompson69]

Actually, I didn't just appeal against authority, I provided a citation for exactly what the problems were with the Climategate whitewashes.

Let's take one example, Oxborough. An investigation so thorough that it ended up being 5 pages long. Here's some relevant detail on the 11 so-called representative papers they examined (and you'll of course do me the favor of actually responding to the specific allegations and problems here, rather than appealing again to authority of course):

The Committee did not issue a call for evidence. They claimed that the 11 papers they selected for examination were chosen because they “cover a period of more than twenty years and were selected on the advice of the Royal Society.” (Report paragraph 3). UK blogger Andrew Montford inquired who at the Royal Society advised on the selection. In response, the Royal Society would only state that they recommended the Committee have access to “any and all papers” they needed, but would not confirm the claim that they had selected the 11 papers specifically. It later emerged that the Royal Society did not provide any meaningful advice on the selection of papers. The actual chronology of their selection was unearthed through FOIA requests.

On 12 March 2010, UEA Vice-Chancellor Trevor Davies contacted Martin Rees of the Royal Society and Brian Hoskins (FRS) of the Hadley Centre to ask if they could say the list had been selected on the advice of the Royal Society.

Ron [Oxburgh]... is keen that we can say that it was constructed in consultation with the Royal Society. I did send you this list earlier, which I attach again here.[List obtained] They represent the core body of CRU work around which most of the assertions have been flying. They are also the publications which featured heavily in our submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry, and in our answers to the Muir Russell Review’s questions.

I would be very grateful if you would be prepared to allow us to use a form of words along the lines: “the publications were chosen in consultation with The Royal Society”.

Seven minutes later Martin Rees replied:

Dear Trevor, It seems to me that the scope of the panel’s work is a matter primarily for Ron [Oxburgh], but if Brian [Hoskins] is also happy with this choice of papers (as you know, I have no relevant expertise myself!) I see no problem with saying that the list was drawn up in consultation. best wishes Martin

Thirteen minutes later Brian Hoskins replied:

Dear Trevor I am not aware of all the papers that could be included in the list, but I do think that these papers do cover the issues of major concern. Best wishes Brian

(text of emails posted at http://climateaudit.org/2010/06/10/british-due-diligence-royal-society-style/)

That is the extent of the consultation behind the claim of the Inquiry that the papers were selected “on the advice of the Royal Society.” It is more accurate to say that the list of papers to be studied by the “independent” inquiry was drawn up by the UEA itself, and within about 20 minutes was rubber-stamped by two members of the Royal Society, both of whom cautioned that they did not have the proper expertise to do so. At no time was the list subject to any extensive examination by members of the Royal Society itself.

As for the 11 papers themselves, they were never ones that have been controversial (see http://climateaudit.org/2010/04/15/a-fair-sample/). The list also omitted the paleoclimate papers that had been subject to controversy, such as the Tornetrask and Yamal papers by Keith Briffa, and all the ‘hockey stick’-related paleoclimate papers from CRU. By focusing only on journal articles, the Oxburgh panel avoided the key question of whether CRU staff had suppressed uncertainties in WMO and IPCC Reports.

Re:Yes but

[Altrag]

I've got a very simple argument against that sort of logic: Consider the consequences! Two possible negative outcomes:

1) AGW is correct. The whole planet burns up sooner or later and while I don't see microbial life ending, us more complex beasts would have to undergo some pretty serious physiological changes or simply perish.

2) AGW is not correct. A few large companies with too much money anyway puts some of it towards reducing emissions. It might not have been necessary to save the world, but things like smog and other pollution would still be reduced, increasing the quality of life for those in the affected areas.

I don't understand the "don't worry about it" crowd. The only people with an excuse to be in that group are those heavily invested in large polluters. For everyone else, there's NO negative results for playing it safe, and lots of possible benefits ranging from simply cleaner air and water all the way up to having a planet left for our great grandchildren to live on.

As for validating the models, there's one sure-fire way to do so. Keep polluting the planet and see how fast we push it over the top. Of course by that time, we're screwed and there's no going back. Is that really a risk you'd like to take? For the sake of preventing Shell's stock price from dropping a few cents?

Re:Yes but

[Altrag]

You're saying there's a point to running a model that you've already seen is incorrect?

When something is proven incorrect, you fix it. That's basic science. Tuning parameters is a perfectly acceptable way of doing that, especially when you know ahead of time that the parameters have wide variability and will probably need to be tuned.

Scientific models don't just magically appear in someone's head fully complete. They go through iterations and adjustments just like everything else. The only thing science requires that few other things in life does is a strong logical basis for doing what you're doing, whether that be introducing an entire new framework or simply tweaking an existing one a bit.

Science is:
1) Observe something
2) Model it (rigorous logic needed)
3) Check if your model fits further observations ("prediction")
4) If no, then adjust model and go to step 2.

How long each of these steps takes is irrelevant. Step 3 for Newton's gravity took a few hundred years -- but that wasn't be cause he was right, it was simply because observational techniques weren't good enough to see that he was wrong. We might have had general relativity a few centuries before Einstein if our observation techniques could have kept up. And Einstein himself could well be wrong at some even harder-to-observe level (in fact its quite possible -- we already know GR and QM don't play nice together so something's got to give).

Does that suddenly make Newton's or Einstein's work not "science"? Is there perhaps a specific time interval you require between steps 2 and 3 before it can be called science?

Re:Yes but

[tbannist]

...

Are you aware that the article that prompted action against the Journal in question also prompted more than two thirds of the journal's editors to resign including it's chief editor because the owners tried to block a retraction of the article after it was published. The journal had to be restructured to give the chief editor final say on all articles to be published, because the article was published on the say-so of one individual editor. Furthermore, the follow up investigation revealed that the editor who published the anti-global warming paper did so against the recommendation of all three of the peer reviewers for the article. In essence a single editor took it upon himself to publish an article over the objections of his peers and his reviewers, while hiding the fact that it had failed to pass peer review.

In other words, the article that was published was badly flawed and actually should never have been published, it diminished the credibility of the journal that published and and embarrassed the employees of the journal to the point where most of them quit rather than be associated with it any more. Or to put it bluntly, the scientists at the CRU were totally and completely right when they decided that they should have nothing further to do with the journal. In the science world, reputation is important. A journal that prints deeply and obviously flawed articles loses it's reputation and it's credibility, and no one wants to be the person propping a disreputable journal up.

Re:Yes but

[Troed]

Thanks for agreeing with me that there are no climate models that have run for any extended periods of time and thus been validated.

On the contrary, they seem to get falsified very quickly. (Not surprising though, we need a lot more science behind both ENSO variations and clouds before it's even likely they can perform useful predicitons)

Moon landings

[sentientbeing]

The Moon landings is my favorite. A hoax demonstrating against something that really DID happen. How meta is that?

Oh and the Creationist hoax, obv.

Re:Moon landings

[sentientbeing]

I meant the Chariots of the Gods guy DISPUTING them = the hoaxer, obv. Not the actual landings themselves.

Re:Moon landings

[Samantha Wright]

That it is possible to live in a world where the mere concepts of such things are so alien that you find yourself drawn to say "how meta is that?" is simultaneously tragic and tantalizingly promising. I can only hope that our (rhetorical) children live in a world of such comparative innocence.

Re:Moon landings

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, to that I would add the "hoax" that atoms look like little solar systems with shiny, ball-shaped protons (red), neutrons (black), and electrons, and grossly inaccurate scales. The "Bohr model" is a complete hoax!

Seriously, though, of course there are errors in textbooks, and sometimes those errors persist for a long time. But science corrects itself. It *does* change, and eventually people kept on testing Piltdown man and found out it was a hoax because many people were skeptical about it from the beginning, and more so as additional evidence turned up from other parts of the world. That doesn't mean Piltdown man is of any significance or gives any real ammunition to anti-evolutionary creationists today ... except that they are so low on ammo that this antiquated bit of evidence gets brought up as something useful to flesh out their lame stories that scientists are closed-minded to other ideas. That claim doesn't stand up to scrutiny. It's the creationists that are close-minded and locked to an idea.

The "young Earth global flood" idea was scientifically rejected because of the evidence 200 years ago, even before evolutionary theory was proposed, yet here we are today with some creationists still believing it has scientific validity. There's a whole museum devoted to it. Those creationists have some extraordinarily serious skepticism failures of their own, and have no business scolding scientists about the long-rejected Piltdown man. Hell, I still hear claims about "Moon dust", "salt in the oceans" and all sorts of other nonsense from "young Earth global flood" creationists even though other people have tried many times to patiently explain the problems with those arguments. Yet the same old stuff gets used over and over again. A thoroughly incorrigible lot. At least scientists learned from mistakes like Piltdown man.

Re:Moon landings

[samwichse]

I wish there were a mod up option for this kind of thing. Where a post says the opposite of what the poster intended by logical fault.

Like "+1 unintentionally insightful." It could come with no karma like +1 funny, but allow others to see all.

Sam

Re:Moon landings

[kasperd]

HAS creationism ever been correct?

According to Richard Dawkins they are right about one thing. I don't recall how far into this video he says it. But don't worry, the video is worth watching in entirety.

Re:Moon landings

[juasko]

Did you read the references and links of that wiki article about modern piltdown?

Re:Moon landings

[juasko]

where is your logic, your making a circular statement which does not apply.

Re:I did not evolve from an ape....

[maxwell demon]

So I get you are still an ape? Fortunately I evolved away from that. :-)

Somehow... I don't believe it

[c0lo]

In contrast to fraud, Ruben argues, such hoaxes do a great service to science by illustrating 'failures of our most important tool: our skepticism.'"

But... was this peer-reviewed?

Fake Dogs?!?

[Alcoholic Synonymous]

Wait...

Labradoodle's are fake? I bet all the Labradoodle owners would be shocked to learn their dogs are not real.

Maybe the author should research before he declares what's real and what isn't. I mean, his bad science isn't actually helping here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labradoodle

Re:Fake Dogs?!?

[ShakaUVM]

Labradoodles are both real, *and* a blasphemous abomination before the Lord.

Seriously. Labs and Poodles should never be in the same room together, let alone mated. They're the most disgustingly horrific dog to have ever been successfully bred this side of Lovecraft's fecund imagination.

Re:Fake Dogs?!?

[GuldKalle]

It's just the "Labradoodles are fake"-hoax.

Re:Fake Dogs?!?

[RDW]

One thing the wikipedia article doesn't mention is the distinctive bark of the Labradoodle, an unusual sound often written as 'Whoosh!'

Re:Fake Dogs?!?

[BlortHorc]

Wait...

Labradoodle's are fake? I bet all the Labradoodle owners would be shocked to learn their dogs are not real.

Maybe the author should research before he declares what's real and what isn't. I mean, his bad science isn't actually helping here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labradoodle

Glad I am not the only one thinking that, I've known people who breed Labradoodles all my life.

Re:Fake Dogs?!?

[zippthorne]

No, I'm pretty sure that the Chinese Crested is the canine abomination...

Re:Fake Dogs?!?

[formfeed]

They're the most disgustingly horrific dog to have ever been successfully bred this side of Lovecraft's fecund imagination.

No, that would be the cross between an American and a Poodle, the Yankee Doodle.

Re:Fake Dogs?!?

[skywiseguy]

Seriously. Labs and Poodles should never be in the same room together, let alone mated.

black labs will pretty much mate with anything that goes on four legs, and some that walk on two

Re:Fake Dogs?!?

[rippeltippel]

Don't know about Labradoodles, but I'm sure Platypus must be a hoax.

It goes both ways

[JamesP]

I guess the biggest failure is not skepticism, but failing to recognize a hoax. There's an important difference.

Most skeptics reject everything outright (instead of "ok, let's wait for more evidence"). This is also bad. With a hoax the answer is usually dancing in front of you.

Remember, the platypus was considered a hoax for a long period of time. The Gorilla was also considered in the same league as 'Bigfoot" once

From TFA "between one-quarter and one-half of the students voted to regulate or ban outright the scary-sounding DHMO.These were college students"

Really, THINK "Di - Hydrogen Mono-Oxyde" "two hydrogen oxide", gee where have I seen this...

Re:It goes both ways

[TapeCutter]

Most skeptics reject everything outright

Those people are not skeptics.

Re:It goes both ways

[JamesP]

Most skeptics reject everything outright

Those people are not skeptics.

Agreed, but they usually label themselves as such

Re:It goes both ways

[OnTheEdge]

"Most skeptics reject everything outright" This may very well be true of most skeptics you know, but my definition of skeptics is different. My definition, and the skeptics I know, more closely align with the definition of skepticism associated with philosophy (second definition here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skepticism#Definition) or the one just following for scientific skepticism (here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skepticism#Scientific_skepticism). They tend not to reject everything outright, but to suspend judgement until sufficient evidence is in place to make a judgement.

Re:It goes both ways

[Anonymous Coward]

"I guess the biggest failure is not skepticism, but failing to recognize a hoax. There's an important difference."

True. Skepticism isn't enough on its own, it's just a starting point.

In the case of "archaeoraptor", the paper was rejected from multiple journals (e.g., Science and Nature) because reviewers and others did question the integrity of the specimen. So, skepticism was working well enough to have people questioning the data and interpretations. In some cases people couldn't be confident it was a "hoax" (a chimera of different specimens put together) from the information initially available, but they had enough doubts to keep it out of the scientific literature until those possibilities were properly checked -- at which point it became evident that it was indeed a hoax. Even though it's probably a good example of the system working the way it is supposed to, there were plenty of other people who were fooled (to the tune of $80000 for the illegal purchase of the specimen!).

So, I guess the distinction is: skepticism makes you ask whether something could be a hoax, even if demonstrating the latter can take a lot of careful scrutiny before you are willing to accept the interpretation. Paradoxically, skepticism requires being open-minded enough to consider the possibility someone is intentionally trying to fool you. That is the kind of skepticism everybody should develop, especially on the internet, but you have to follow through with an investigation to find out whether your suspicions of that possibility are well-founded. Here on slashdot I suspect that instinct is pretty well developed, what with the fear that clicking on a random link could lead to goastse, regardless of what the author says it links to.

Go ahead. Click on that second link. You know you want to.

Re:It goes both ways

[Mindcontrolled]

We rightfully call this kind of people "deniers" or "denialists". They may foam at the mouth as much as they like, that is what they are.

Re:It goes both ways

[clang_jangle]

Grumpy people whose default setting is "no new information" do indeed label themselves skeptics. The funny thing is a lot of them seem to be incredibly gullible once they let that guard down. Makes me wonder if the "skeptic" pose is a form of self-protection.

Re:It goes both ways

[Bobtree]

Agreed. A skeptic will say "show me the evidence." A denier says "that's impossible."

Pure deniers operate on faith, just like true believers.

Re:It goes both ways

[Carewolf]

No, a denier will ask constantly ask "show me the evidence" without ever looking at the evidence presented.

Almost no one would self-classify as a denier, it is only a term that can be applied by a 3rd person. A denier will always consider him or herself a reasonable skeptic. Just like a truly malicious person would never consider her or himself evil.

Re:It goes both ways

[Xtifr]

Yeah, and those damn deniers at the patent office keep refusing to look at my perpetual motion machine! And that hot scientist at the local university refuses to come see the breeding pair of Scottish Plesiosaurs I have locked up in my basement. Damned deniers!

Re:I did not evolve from an ape....

[Mindcontrolled]

If you understand evolution to mean that you, personally, have been an amoeba at some time, you are so far out that I don't know what to tell you here. Please, read up on the subject before making comments. Besides, every scientific theory is unproven. the thing about evolution is that it is unfalsified despite of decades of people trying hard.

Re:I did not evolve from an ape....

[Nidi62]

Seriously, evolution is unproven.

Ok, so, please, show us your evidence that proves where we really came from? And no, a book written over the course of a few centuries and edited by a large group of men centuries after the events it describes took place is not valid as evidence.

Re:I did not evolve from an ape....

[Troed]

Evolution does not suggest that man evolved from apes. You fail at trolling.

Re:I did not evolve from an ape....

[mangu]

There is more evidence in Creationism - as well as it making more sense.

But if we take Bronze Age myths as evidence, then there's much more evidence for theories other than Judeo-Christian creationism. There are hundreds, thousands of different creationist myths out there.

If you think an old book is evidence enough you have to consider all other old books as equally valid, don't you?

Interesting title

[engun]

Who is forging heads?

Re:Interesting title

[rubycodez]

and who finds striking either of their heads in a forging press enjoyable?

Re:I did not evolve from an ape....

[Mindcontrolled]

I am pretty much tired of this discussion. The evidence supporting evolution is laid down in decades worth of scientific journals filled with articles on every detail. First we constructed the interrelationship of species by anatomical means. Later we learned to read genetic codes and protein sequences. And guess what - the relationships derived from those are nearly identical to the earlier though. What stronger evidence do you need? Well, you are entitled to your believes of course, but reality exists separately from those.

Re:I did not evolve from an ape....

[Calydor]

Well, an amoeba is a single-cell organism.

At the moment of conception you really were an amoeba.

Your point is invalid.

Re:Software development hoaxes are among the best.

[juasko]

Well you need to start looking att cocoa or gnustep to get what object oriented programming is all about.

Re:I did not evolve from an ape....

[JoshuaZ]

Part of what you said is sort of correct. None of your ancestors was an amoeba. Whether one of your ancestors was an ape or just a common ancestor between humans and apes is uninteresting semantics. You had ancestors that would look like something any of us would see and say "that's an ape!" . But let's focus on the amoeba claim. Amoebas are not simple primitive organisms. Indeed, they share some similarities with complex life forms such as the presence of a cell nucleus. Amoebas are highly adopted for their niches. This means that no ancestor you had ever resembled an amoeba. You did have single-celled ancestors but that's not the same claim. Let me tentatively suggest that if you think that amoeba is a generic term for single-celled organism then you really don't have nearly enough knowledge to discuss evolution, and thinking you know enough to reject it against the scientific consensus is probably an example of the Dunning-Kruger effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect. So take a few biology classes. Local colleges will often allow people to take classes they have. Start with an intro bio class, then take a genetics class and an evolutionary biology class. At that point, if you still reject evolution you'll at least understand what you are rejecting.

Trust and skepticism

[Fractal Dice]

Science is about focused skepticism, not general skepticism. It is very difficult to successfully peer review a paper that is deliberately attempting to decieve. Those usually need to wait until the experiments are repeated and fail to produce the expected results. Politics is a bitter, poisonous soup of lies and disingenuous spins where accurate models do not trump clever rhetoric and trolls will attempt to strike you down not in the search for truth, but just to see if they can do it. Science is hard enough to do without people deliberately attempting to set you up for failure.

Re:Trust and skepticism

[nbauman]

When a scientist commits fraud and is discovered, he's discredited for life.

When a politician commits fraud and is discovered, he just goes on like nothing happened. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200499,00.html Hundreds of WMDs Found in Iraq

Re:Trust and skepticism

[jmac_the_man]

When a scientist commits fraud and is discovered, he's discredited for life.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38127084/ns/us_news-environment/
Apparently not.

Re:Trust and skepticism

[Arlet]

Apparently, there was no fraud.

Re:Trust and skepticism

[jmac_the_man]

OP picked a Fox News story contemporaneous with the beginning part of the Iraq war to point out something that it's now clear is false. Fox News doesn't have weapons inspectors, they, and all the other news sources, rely on what other people said to bring out the news. ABC and NBC had similar stories to this at the time, but OP picked Fox News to prove some kind of point, probably that Fox News was biased, and excusing President Bush for being wrong about something.
Similarly, MSNBC didn't investigate the Climategate claims themselves; this story quotes a report conducted by the university that the Climategate researchers worked for. (It also quotes authors of the report talking about the report.) The report says that the researchers did all the things that their opponents say that they did as far as the "Nature Trick" and threatening publications that would print research showing conclusions opposite theirs, but doing all of those things isn't actually that bad, and thus, there was no fraud, which is why the headline declares the researchers "vindicated."
I have no problem with this kind of story, where the news organization (which presumably does not employ experts on the scientific method) has a story based on a report about scientific fraud/not quite fraud but still bad. I picked MSNBC because they're generally not trustworthy in the opposite sense that OP is claiming that Fox News is generally not trustworthy. But in any case, the MSNBC story got something right here. The CRU researchers committed the things the report says they committed, and were discovered. But according to MSNBC (and, in fairness, everyone else), they were NOT discredited for life.
Global warming is a lot closer to wholly political than a lot of people would like you to believe.

Re:Trust and skepticism

[Arlet]

The MSNBC article is poorly written. It claims there was talk about a "trick" to "hide the decline". That wording is a blatant misunderstanding of what was said in the e-mail.

The "trick" and "hide the decline" are two different things. The "trick" was just a method used to display two different measurements in the same graph. Both were clearly labelled as such, and published in 'Nature'.

The decline refers to tree ring data for a group of trees, that started to show a mismatch with the observed temperatures in the last couple of decades. This issue had been publicly discussed in scientific journals since 1995. This was not a secret, and they were not "discovered". It was a publicly known fact for years.

The only "fraud" was committed by some people who were a little bit too eager to misunderstand quotes taken out of their context.

Re:Trust and skepticism

[drolli]

The function of a peer review is *not* to examine for intentional deception. This can not be done, since i could fake measurements, down to the device level. There have been examples of people having a black box, attached to measurement equipment, and everything was all right, just that in the black box there was an electronic circuit faking the desired behavior of a physical device seemingly attached to it, instead of the black box just being the biasing/preamplifier/signal preconditioning circuit, as originally claimed by the investivators.

What a good peer review should do is: Make sure that the experiment is consistently described and can be reproduced in another lab - or not, which was uncovered the black box fake mentioned above. In the case of the forgeries of samples collected in nature or biological samples this would obviously involve a description at which places and with which procedures dating was performed, and access to the original samples, as far as possible.

However we should mention that not all cases of this are discussed in public. Sometimes articles are plainly retracted by the authors for "experimental error" with a certain fraction of the science field knowing what was happening, but fearing for a loss of reputation because a possible flagship experiment is not available any more instead of a boost of reputation because the proper scientific culture of the field.

Re:Trust and skepticism

[jmac_the_man]

The reason for the "trick" was because they were using tree ring data when the tree ring data proved their point, and switched to observed data when that supported their point. Scientists aren't allowed to cherry pick data to prove their point. Doing otherwise is fraud.

Re:Trust and skepticism

[Arlet]

They had good reasons to trust the older tree ring data, so that's why it was used. They knew there was a problem with recent tree ring data, so they didn't use that. It's as simple as that. This was well known, published, information, so the accusation of "fraud" has no merit.

Even now, years later, with many more different proxies added, the original "hockey stick" is still valid. If there was a fraud, surely somebody should be able to come up with better data.

Re:Trust and skepticism

[jmac_the_man]

Even now, years later, with many more different proxies added, the original "hockey stick" is still valid.

Clearly my original point (that Global Warming supporters support bad science because it agrees with them) has been proven. My work here is done.

Re:Trust and skepticism

[nbauman]

You've had your chance to argue once again that global warming is bad science. I'm not convinced. You're using a standard debater's trick, which is to go through an enormous document and find details to disagree with. You're entitled to try, but it doesn't hold up. You're reduced to an ad hominem attack on Phil Jones rather than addressing the merits.

I think it's good science. More important, most of the top scientists in the world think it's good science.

The weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, OTOH, don't exist. They were a deliberate lie. Colin Powell stood up in the UN, showed photographs of supposed poison gas generators (actually hydrogen balloon generators) and said that he had "irrefutable" evidence if WMDs. I was ready to believe him. I didn't think anybody would go out on a limb like that if it wasn't true. It turned out to be a lie. The entire Bush Administration lied. More Americans died in Iraq than in the World Trade Center. And yet they elected Bush again. So politicians have no accountability for lies.

Re:God is punishing the Bible Belt

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither the tornado season nor any floodings are outside of historial norms. Don't let mass media educate you on science.

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-04-tornadoes-climate.html

Re:Labradoodle is real

[PPH]

Real enough. But they are rotten hunting dogs if you are going after the elusive jackalope.

Re:I did not evolve from an ape....

[russotto]

Well, an amoeba is a single-cell organism.

At the moment of conception you really were an amoeba.

File under "Undistributed Middle, Fallacy thereof".

Re:I did not evolve from an ape....

[ByteSlicer]

Seriously, evolution is unproven.

Nonsense. Evolution can be easily demonstrated in the lab by observing viruses of bacteria for several generations. Or where did you think the next influenza strain comes from each year?

Epigenetics is Saving the Blonde Gene

[crunchygranola]

Fortunately the disappearance of the blonde gene in females cannot happen due to a interesting epigenetic phenomenon.

As is well known, blondeness is fairly prevalent at birth in both males and females but fades as the individual matures, with most blondes turning brunette before the end of adolescence. But a remarkable phenomenon, evidently involving the modification of the blonde gene possibly through environmental effects, often occurs soon after whereupon the prevalence of blondeness starts to increase again. Most remarkable, individuals whose innate blondeness was never expressed as a child (they were always brunette), begin to express the blonde gene in early adulthood. For reasons that so far remain unexplained this phenomenon, though not avoiding males entirely, is almost entirely seen in females.

It appears then that this epigenetic phenomenon will act to restore blondeness to the female population offsetting any long-term trends to the gene's underlying extinction.

Re:Epigenetics is Saving the Blonde Gene

[JoeMerchant]

I'm sorry, are you sure it's epigenetics and not hydrogen peroxide?

Re:Epigenetics is Saving the Blonde Gene

[crunchygranola]

I thought about citing research data that exposure to the far more toxic cousin of dihydrogen monoxide produced by industrial economies - dihydrogen dioxide - might be the environmental factor causing this remarkable epigenetic phenomenon, but that seemed to be "gilding the lily" as they say.

Re:Epigenetics is Saving the Blonde Gene

[meglon]

The real question is why all those women dye the roots of their hair to be darker....

So...

[Anonymous Coward]

"We doubt everything, including this, so we should have credibility, but there is no doubt about this (which we doubt so we have credibility) so you must accept it unquestioningly, along with our orders for dealing with it, based on our credibility from being doubters of everything including this."

Some days I question whether reducing the fundamental principles of science to the style of an insincere pose of humility is really the right way to go about the business of truth-finding. That's why you need to believe me when I say that it is.

Re:I did not evolve from an ape....

[marcosdumay]

Man, that is bad. At the fist two comments I thought you was just joking, but that one has a quite serious tone. Really, we did learn a thing or two at the last couple of millenniums, take a loot at it.

Re:Forging

[TaoPhoenix]

I hear we're making some head over at Sourceforge.

Re:I did not evolve from an ape....

[taiwanjohn]

Are you suggesting that early Hominidae were not apes?

If you mean that evolution doesn't suggest that we evolved from modern apes, then I see your point. But I think it's more accurate to say evolution suggests that we are apes.

Here is the science in a nutshell

[rubycodez]

CRU alarmist propaganda at bottom, reality at top, argue with the NOAA if you don't like the graphs:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/images/temp-anom-larg.jpg

Re:Here is the science in a nutshell

[Arlet]

I see two very similar graphs. What's your point, exactly ?

The small differences are explained on the page where you found it: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/instrumental.html

Re:I did not evolve from an ape....

[Culture20]

Evolution does not suggest that man evolved from apes. You fail at trolling.

Aren't humans classified as great apes? Does evolution suggest that humans became apes directly from monkeys? Wouldn't it make sense for evolution to suggest an ape progenitor?

Don't be so sure

[Anonymous Coward]

For the last couple of years I have made a hobby of 'global warming'.

What I can tell you is this: There is bad science verging on outright fraud being perpetrated on BOTH sides of the question.

It is dismaying that the scientists on the skeptical side are, in the majority, obviously on the right of the political spectrum. The alarmists seem to me to be mostly on the left.

The other thing that dismays me is that both sides have become less scientists and more advocates. When that happens, you really can't trust their science any more. IMHO, the alarmists have badly overstated their case and it is much more likely that we are heading for a long period of cooling.

If you want someone who is trying to get some kind of constructive dialog going, check out http://judithcurry.com/

Re:I did not evolve from an ape....

[Troed]

You can either go with that (we are apes, I would agree) or that we didn't descend from apes (but a common ancestor).

humans didn't descend from apes

http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/life/evolution/humans-descended-from-apes.htm

Re:I did not evolve from an ape....

[Troed]

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2117354&cid=35990920

Re:I did not evolve from an ape....

[Arlet]

The common ancestor would also be classified as an 'ape'. It's just semantics.

The Common House Hippo

[holophrastic]

I can't believe it wasn't in the list. I love the common house hippo.

Re:The Common House Hippo

[CanadianRealist]

For those unfamiliar with the reference, the "North American house hippo" was the subject of a Canadian television public service announcement encouraging kids to question the reality of what they saw on tv.

Re:real science

[UnknowingFool]

Wow. There is so much wrong in all of your statements, I don't know where to begin: "Observed Reality" and "CRU Propaganda"
From the NOAA website where that graph came from:

Both use the same land-based thermometer measurement records from the GHCN, but the records contain some differences. These differences are due to different approaches to spatial averaging, the use and treatment of sea surface temperature data (from ship observations), and the handling of the influence of changes in land-cover (i.e., increases in urbanization). However, both show the same basic trends over the last 100 years. The units shown are departures from the 1960 - 1990 period.

So you either did not read clearly what NOAA said and/or made up your own conclusions based on nothing but your perceptions.

No delusion here, look at the last five years of these two graphcs . . .

Selectively focusing on the last 5 years and ignoring the larger trend of 145 shows that you don't understand basic tenets of science on interpolation. By your logic, the rent money and bills that I paid yesterday means I will be broke by Monday.

Re:Skepticism

[thomst]

Most skeptics reject everything outright.

I'm inclined to dismiss that statement out of hand ...

Re:I did not evolve from an ape....

[orkysoft]

Exactly! There are still amoebas and apes, so we couldn't possibly have evolved from them!

for jesus in range(6000): print "Goddidit!"

Labradoodle is fake?

[wmbetts]

Last time I checked there was a breed called Labradoodle.

Re:I did not evolve from an ape....

[Hognoxious]

Seriously, evolution is unproven.

I wondered why modern domestic animals are identical to wild ones from thousands of years ago.

Water *is* a greenhouse gas

[andrewagill]

Just sayin'. It's unlikely that the girl in the story was talking about the feedback effect of water in an ecosystem that was already warming due to other factors... but she could have been.

Let's rebrand creationism as a new science

[Tripp1000]

...we'll call it "Intelligent Design" lol, the mid western folks will love it. Surely it proves the existence of an invisible man in the sky.....

Luckily there's Slashdot to fill that role for me.

[EnsilZah]

After a bunch of stories that start out as "Microsoft spies on your children while they sleep" and then after reading some comments it turns out to be something along the lines of the the Xbox sending occasional queries to the Kinect to see if it's still working while in standby I'm somewhat skeptical of anything I read here.

Re:I did not evolve from an ape....

[shutdown -p now]

GP might be a Catholic, in which case what he said makes perfect sense as is.

Creationst argument detected...

[TapeCutter]

The reality of the situation is that, with vanishingly few exceptions, a biologist who is determined to do any work which does not presuppose the existence of evolution will quickly find himself an unemployed outcast. Students unwilling to presuppose the existence of evolution will have a very hard time graduating with an advanced degree relevant to the field.

Re:real science

[rubycodez]

CRU cherry picks its methodologies, in this case to "show" the time-averaged graph to fly above the 1998 peak, rather than NOAA essentially flat within statistical noise. So we had a warm spike in 1998 over the last 145 years (if lip blown hand shaped thermometers are to be believed for the old records), big deal.