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Michael Mann Vindicated (Again) Over Climategate
An anonymous reader writes "Michael Mann, a climatologist at Pennsylvania State University, was one of the central figures involved in the 'Climategate' controversy, which saw many private email conversations between researchers posted publicly. Now, an investigation (PDF) by the National Science Foundation has found "no basis to conclude that the emails were evidence of research misconduct or that they pointed to such evidence." Phil Plait points out that other investigations have found similarly that claims of Mann's misconduct took his statements out of context. 'A big claim by the deniers is that researchers were using "tricks" to falsify conclusions about global warming, but the NSF report is pretty clear that's not true. The most damning thing the investigators could muster was that there was "some concern" over the statistical methods used, but that's not scandalous at all; there's always some argument in science over methodology. The vague language of the report there indicates to me this isn't a big deal, or else they would've been specific. The big point is that the data were not faked.'"
The "scientists are tricking us" motif is already well cemented in the minds of the GW deniers. Coming out with vindications this far from the initial story is like farting in the wind.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
issue from the beginning. It was never a big deal to be who work in scientific fields.
It's what happens when a 'news' channel is a arm of a specific ideological group.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
1: CO2 doesn't absorb as much IR as generally accepted theory states.
2: Volcanoes emit more CO2 in one explosion than all of humanity in one year.
There. That was easy. I think understand why people like to post these statements. It's so easy, you get to feel so smug, you don't need to read actual research papers or do real research..... Man, being ignorant is kinda cool. Maybe I can even make money off of it... although that field is awfully crowded right now.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Only that the interpretation of the data was far fetched. That argument still stands. The "trick" that was the subject of the Climategate email was to splice 2 time series together and present them in the same context. In one of the contexts (presentation to the laymen) it was actually presented as one chart. What the conclusions of the "study" didn't mention is that one possible interpretation for discrepancy in the data is not an "error" (as they claimed) but that some of the variables in data collection were not accounted for. He was vindicated of the most brazen accusation. But the emails indicated the frame of mind of the scientists which is consistent with the accusation that they more than willing to overstate the certainty of their conclusions. What exacerbates this overstatement is their claim that peer-review is an adequate method for such fact finding. Peer review is only useful for repeatable experiments. Obviously, whether measurements are not repeatable. So peer review is wholly inadequate for this type of research. Fact finding based on non-repeatable events must be conducted through adversarial review. And that's precisely what they are trying to avoid.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Further, if we're tlaking science we should stop using the term "greenhouse effect". A greenhouse works by stopping convection; its effect on IR radiation actually cools the inside.
The Earth's climate is mostly convection as well, with IR radiation from the surface a lesser form of surface cooling. As blackbody radiation goes with the forth power of temperature, and the upper atmosphere is pretty cold, it's not obvious why surface-emitted IR warming of the atmopshere would make make difference to surface temperatures. The underlying mechanism also isn't explained very well - though the current Wikipedia article at least takes a stab at it.
The "greenhouse effect" is in the same state that evolution was 20 or so years ago - the commonly available resources do such a poor job of explaining it that a bright skeptical mind comes away still skeptical. The talk.origins archive made huge strides in explaining evolution, and addressing arguments in great detail, but AGW proponents mostly just assert that disbelievers are ignorant rubes, which is no way to convince anyone of anything.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Structures built on permafrost will have to be completely rebuilt once the permafrost goes. Permafrost is also sequestering significant amounts of methane. Don't knock the status quo until you have tried the alternatives.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Here is the problem:
People who believe that drek, will read it and agree. And it will propagate.
SO it's important to note that, in fact, those statement are blatantly false. Not for the poster, but for the readers
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
> Now run those experiments,
Yes, run the experiment..... oh yea, we can't because we don't have a couple of spare earths around.
So everyone runs computer models and expects us to believe the results of that instead. But I have seen some of what passes for climate modeling and it is pathetic. And it has NEVER produced a testable result. There are ZERO predictions made by a 'reputable' climate scientist from 10 or twenty years ago that matched reality 10 or twenty years later. No model can predict the weather a day in advance 100%, none can predict a week or a month out with much skill and by the time you move from weather to climate the skill is pretty close to random chance, i.e. zero skill. There are no models that any scientist would be willing to bet his life savings on to predict the climate a year, five years or ten years out. Yet they every one line up in front of Congress telling us that we MUST spend trillions because they have models of the next hundred years that they claim to have great confidence in... oh and by the way another billion in research grants would be nice thank you very much. In the end science is about testable, repeatable results and there are none in climate science yet.
AGW also isn't falsifiable so it isn't science yet, only faith. Don't believe me? Think I'm trolling? Then show me. Tell me how one puts AGW to a falsifiable test. And remember that such a test won't prove AGW if it passes but it has to be such that a fail would stick a fork in it. Think Michelson - Morley and classical physics.
And as for the NSF whitewashing Mann, what did anyone expect? The whole AGW industry, including the NSF, is so invested in Mann that to discredit him would end the gravy train for all of them. But after his hockey stick fraud anyone with eyes knows he is nothing but a scam and anyone who refuses to disown him is in on it. Anyone with half a clue can look at that and see it was so wrong it couldn't have been an honest mistake; it just doesn't pass the smell test. So non-scientists like myself look at all of the scientists who refuse to speak up and wonder if they are all just bottle washers and button sorters more interested in keeping the grant money flowing than seeking the Truth and kicking the infidels out of the Temple of Science. Science has no place for frauds and by covering up obvious fraud the reputation of all science suffers. The world is a complex and dangerous place and we really need to be able to trust scientists.
Democrat delenda est
The main problem is, we honestly have no clue what's going on. Anyone who says we have this all figured out is either an idiot or someone pandering for funding.
There is lots of contradictory data and that's ignoring the fact that some of the data is extremely suspect from the start. Hell, some of the data has several multiples more noise the then signal they hope to detect. When questioned, literally the official response is, "Shhhh....noise doesn't effect our signal." Which is, of course, a major WTF??!?
Seriously, should we learn more about it? Absolutely! Should we be wary of absolute claims? Absolutely! Again, we honestly have no idea what's going on. Some 20% of climatologists admit this. Some 80% of meteorologists admit this. Please note, meteorologists don't get their funding from "Climate change grants."
actually I don't know what excuse they're on these days, all of those have been disproven.
All of them. It doesn't really matter which, since the conclusion ("We don't have to do anything") is foregone, and the rest is just details. Disprove one and they'll switch to a different one, and when you disprove that they'll jump back to the first, hoping you've forgotten about it.
They're still stuck with explaining how they, an ignoramus who would have failed high school algebra if they hadn't cheated off the nerd in the next row, is somehow more informed about climate modeling than the scientists. That's where the Global Socialist Conspiracy comes in.
Nope, a greenhouse works by preventing convection. The article you linked says this, and not what you claimed.
You may not have read the entire article you linked. It starts off by saying: "If you've ever heard an explanation of how a greenhouse works, it was most likely based on the differing transparency of glass to solar and thermal infrared radiation", but then the article goes on to show how that explanation is incorrect.
I work at a weather company. We are very good at predicting the weather a day out. More than ten days and it slips into random territory.
Luckily for the climate scientists, that has absolutely nothing to do with their ability to predict the climate. You know how December is colder than July? That's climate. Trying to say we can't predict the climate is like saying that next December could be warmer than the following July. If you believe that, or if you pretend to believe that in order to make stupid points in internet forums, then you are a blockhead.