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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.'"
Psst. Might want to read the full post. Or calibrate your irony meter.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
The whole rhetoric of environmental scientists is a problem. What most people object to is the use of weasel words and dubious statistics to justify another round of expensive research funding. In fact, even the genre's title is misleading. The Globe is not Warming. Yes, there is probably Climate Change, which may or may not be human activity driven, but the idea that the globe is warming and the net result is more deserts between the tropics (which seems to be the layman's view) is really rather preposterous and totally unjustifiable by facts.
Thanks for this post, it says many of the things I had intended to say. However:
The idea that "there is money to be made both ways" is disingenuous. Most of the research is being done with money from government grants, and grants have been (very much) selectively given to people known to be on the "AGW" side of the argument. The other "money to be had" -- private money -- typically only comes after a study is completed. Which means that one side of the argument has been getting by far the majority of the up-front money, to back its pre-formed conclusions. That is neither "scientific" or fair, and to pretend that it is, is not facing reality.
And then we get to "Once everyone is at step two." Which will probably never happen, because even reputable scientists on the "non-AGW" side of the argument have been blatantly ignored. The very idea that "everybody" should be at Step Two is more than a bit presumptuous, because the much-reported "scientific consensus" about this hypothesis does not even really exist. Heck, even the paper that originally made the claim of "consensus" and got that whole ball rolling (Naomi Oreskes' non-peer-reviewed paper that appeared in Science in 2004) has been soundly -- and quite thoroughly and indisputably -- invalidated.
The majority of the IPCC's "thousands of scientists" involved in their Assessment Reports are not actually scientists and researchers at all but reviewers, among them schoolteachers who have never done a lick of scientific research themselves, and even a janitor or two. On the other hand, there is the Petition Project (easy enough to find) that has signatures from over 30,000 people from the US alone, all with advanced degrees, 9,000 of them PhDs... and all of whom put their names to a petition saying that AGW is probably nonsense.
Further, you suggest that the criticisms of "climate science" come from non-experts who basically don't know what they're talking about... and that is a mis-statement of fact. The majority of critics actually come from many different fields of science, and almost all of them criticizing the climate scientists for using questionable (at best) statistical methods. You don't have to be a climate scientist to know math, fella.
Note that Phil Plait plays down the fact that this investigation had "concerns" about the statistical methods... yet he doesn't bother to mention that EVERY OTHER investigation that has been completed has also stated concerns about those statistical methods. Need I mention that 100% is statistically significant?
We won't "all scientifically get to step two" until the science is shown to be valid. Today, it is shaky at best. As you say: let science do its work. We'll come to that conclusion if and when it is scientifically justified. Right now it simply isn't.