"You could argue whether trying PCA on a series with chunks missing is extrapolation or just stupid."
I could, but I won't (Mann did a much better job than I could ever muster).
My argument is that you are using the term PCA to hide the fact that the "hockey stick" is a simple moving average!! When that doesn't work you attack the data but neglect to mention even a fraction of the other peer-revieved studies that draw the same conclusion as Mann using different methods and different data. Finally you come up with a pathetic magical list of problems, that without any backing, amounts to nothing more that "because I said so".
You do this so that lay people will take you seriously, tell your mates at ExonnMobile to get with the fucking program. I regard your "astroturfing" of me as a compliment, but it is a complete waste of time for both of us.
I do not know any of the scientists, politicians or lobbyists involved and admit I had trouble last week when trying to sort out who was who. So far in my other posts to this particular story, your post is one of very few that offers some sort of reference in the form of links.
However a pending article in "Geophysical Review" and an existing article in "Energy and Environment" does not mean you know what you are talking about. Especially when compared to the numerous contra peer-reviewed publications appearing in Nature, Science and quite frankly every scientific journal I can think off, plus the backing of Nobel Prize winners as in this Letter to Congressman Barton. (Third paragraph has the meat).
OTOH: Nature rejected McIntyre's paper that used essentially the same argument as you are now using.
What you are telling me is that all these scientists are wrong because they don't have a clue how to calculate a moving average.
In the keeping with the scientific spirit, I am willing to assume you are a budding Eienstien, you are right and they are all "so wrong". Your brilliant insight would destroy the "hockey stick".
Hmmm, was that a hypothisis? Why yes I think it was! Now what does a scientist do with a hypothisis, why disproves it off course!
My assumption, (and therfore the hypothisis), doesn't take much to break. Like I said, I don't know Mann, McIntyre or you from a bar of soap, nor am I a climatologist. I put my faith in the billions of dollars the US and others have invested in a proven peer-reviewed process that has produced overwhelming evidence that our CO2 emmisions are an "imminent threat" to civilization.
Oh, fuck it, beam me up scotty they refuse to listen.
Ho ho he he ha ha. You call that a lambasting, a director of a resources company and a proffesor of economics attempting to baffle people with climate bullshit. If either of these two have even a glimmer of a serious scientific argument then where is the fucking peer-reviewed paper, where is the methodology and where are thier references? None of these basic things are in your pdf link because they don't exist.
The fact of the matter is that McIntyre's "paper" was rejected by Nature due to faulty and biased statistical analysis. Instead of listening to Nature's critique and resubmitting they simply turned to US newspapers to push thier perverted claims that Mann is the one who is incompetent, little wonder Mann responded with "I don't have the time".
"I checked to see what years his data started. Mostly it started in odd years, 1999 and 1949, not the even years we like to start with."
Considering Mann was published in 1998 and 1999 how is it they can claim his data starts in 1999, did Dr.Who lend them his Tardis? What a crock of transparent psudeo-scientific shit!
"...never responds in any relavant way to the massive evidence presented that he is incompetent...
A congressman with two paid up ExxonMobil fools pushing his anti-warming barrow does not strike me as massive evidence. If you can't understand Mann's responses in the link I provided then I can't help you, save to say there are many other peer-reviewed papers that discredit McIntyre and co.
I do however wonder why is it that you take the pdf at face value. You display an enourmous amount of faith in the simple "say so" of two people who are not trained in climate science in preference to the trully masive amount of peer-reviewed science contained in the IPCC report. If someone shot you in the arse would you go and see a doctor or a economist?
These two idiots you hold in almost God like regard think that if they can discredit Mann then the whole "IPCC house of cards" will collapse. Nothing could be further from the truth, if you discredit Mann then there are plenty of others who have obtained the same results using different data and different methods (ie: The gold standard of confirmation by replication). Mann's "Hockey stick" is just one small piece of evidence in a landslide, removing Mann's paper will not change the scientific conclusions.
Kinda obvious, it confirms what sexual selection theories predict. The important part is that they have found a very good demonstration of speciation resulting from said sexual selection theories, apparently good examples are difficult to find.
"Caterpillars turning into butterflies still boggles my mind" - Ditto, the life cycle of certain slime molds is even more mind boggling, fungus -> animal -> plant -> fungus.
"how is it that it suddenly figures out how to create a cocoon" - The same way you figured out how to grow hands and loose your tail while still in the womb.
"People who dismiss concepts like 'intelligent design' out of hand may often like to refer to themselves as scientific, but in fact dismissing something like that out of hand is the very reverse of scientific."
It is dissmissed because it is an article of faith and scientific investigation cannot prove God exists (apparently the Christian God himself said the same thing in the Bible, Hebrews 11:6, John 20:29). Even if all the scientists on the planet agreed with your faith, so what? How would it impact on science?
"At the very least there exists the possibility of a test; as we learn more about genetics and actually perform large scale genetic engineering it is possible that we may find that we can 'detect' GMO's which we create ourselves.
Once that happens, its a legitimate project to apply such a test to organisms which we believe to be of natural origin and, of course, to ourselves."
GMO's can already be easily 'detected' (commonly used by Monsanto to sue the pants off farmers who dare to modify crops the old-fashioned way). We can detect GMO's because we are looking for a gene that is not naturally found in those plants (ie: we put it there). Dolly the sheep is a clone and we can't tell the difference from a "natural" sheep (ie: we did not "Modify" the organisim, we copied it). The human genome has been mapped along with quite a few other critters, much of the information is in the public domain so it should be "easy" to find the God gene or whatever you think you are looking for. (Disclaimer: "Easy" but not quick. It will take you many years to get an education in science and then many more to specialise in genetics but the end result will be worth your effort)
"Unfortunately, many people (many of them calling themselves scientists) would argue that 'its a waste of time' because 'obviously intelligent design is just wrong'. Not very scientific eh."
See above, scientifically, ID is neither right or wrong it is a matter of faith and thus irrelevant to science. It could accurately be described as a "waste of [lab] time". (Disclaimer: science is based on the faith that real and abstract objects exist idependently of human observation, the behaviour of these objects can be predicted by observation and experimentation (ie: we can discover natural laws). This philosophy is generally credited to Plato, although you could try Popper for something more up to date. Phycopaths have a different "faith", ie: they exist but other people are a figment of thier imagination. There are many other "faiths" but Plato's brand of scientific faith is so ingrained into the everday, many do not even recognise they have it.)
"Perhaps a redefinition of science is in order, something closer to the definition of religion... 'Thou shalt not challenge the orthodoxy.'"
Redefining science as religion has been done before but it is more common to redefine religion as science. I think I will stick with the current definition and credo, 'Thou must challenge orthodoxy'.
"IMO, the true scientist witholds judgement until the experiments have been done and the data is in front of them."
IMO, faith is the absence of judgement. I am sure all respectable scientists would agree with your last statement, can you point to or propose an experiment that could determine what the one true faith should be? If you can't come up with an experiment, perhaps you should petition the Pope, he is interested in faith and his church has a huge wad of cash to waste on such things. (Disclaimer: "True scientists" are not interested in religiously motivated anecdotes.)
"I am not a deist nor an atheist nor agnostic. I am a non-dualist. There is no difference between what we think of as god and what we think of as anything other than god: its all one big thing"
Now it is such a bizarrely improbably coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful [as the Babel fish] could have evolved by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.
The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing." "But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
The above post was rated...
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30% Overrated
20% Troll
Is this moderation record an example of "astroturfing" or is it just that the US is the only place in the world where government officials are encouraged to go on witch hunts. Some (like Barton) are wasting taxpayers money in vain and increasingly stupid arguments to refute the fact that the earth is warming and humans are responsible for most of the increase.
Dispite the US spending literally billions in research, some industry spruker's in government, (eg: Barton), choose to ignore the basic facts that ALL of the billions of dollars worth of research they have paid for has been telling them for at least the past five years.
However when a couple of Barton's lobbyist mates score an article in the WSJ based on previously discredited science, suddenly Barton is interested enough to make a noise and "demand answers". Barton was elected to "serve the people", what a fucking joke that is.
I thought the USA was supposed to be proud of it's percived place at the top of the technological tree. If so, why do so many members of it's government, media and energy industries insist on beating up science when it disagrees with thier economic dogma? In Bartons case his motives are obvious, look at his personal investments and his largest campain contributors, (oil/gas/electric), no fucking suprises there!
Barton's behaviour only reinforces the rest of the world's view that Yanks are by far the most arrogant and sociologically retarded group of people on the planet.
"I've read this article before. I tried to find a copy of it with google scholar. I recommend everyone shut their faces until they read the article."
I read the WSJ article and it was rubbish, the WSJ is a newspaper not a scientific journal. You wont find any peer-reviewed paper from the people Barton is quoting. Thier argument has already been discredited (see link below), that is why they make these kind of attacks via newspapers.
"As a scientist, it sickens me.....I would love to see a good astrophysicist's paper on cyclic variation in the earths average temperature. Or maybe a well done statistical analysis."
I hold a BSc. but I am not a climate scientist, it sickens me that a "scientist" cannot do simple research before telling others to "shut thier faces", kinda ignores the "republic of science" don't you think? The Mann paper can be found here, along with many other quality papers including some that address sunspots, etc. The most authoritive review of the science is found in the IPCC report "Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis", here.. Even GWB cautiously endorsed the IPCC conclusions at the recent G8 meeting (is hell getting colder?).
"Investigating changes in the earth's climate is important. I just don't like secular religions (actually, I just don't like religion) propped up by "science"."
Can't agree more, realclimate.org is apolitical and is open to all scientists and laymen. Maybe you should write to Congressman Barton and ask him to keep his well known anti-warming religion to himself and offer something constructive. To quote Mann and the other climate scientists in the link above...
"The real question we are faced with is not whether humans are changing climate. The science on this is clear, and decades of research have culminated in a scientific consensus on this point. The real question now is what we need to do about it. A Congressional committee concerned with energy could be - and indeed should be - a key player in exploring policy options to deal with the global warming threat. We hope that after studying the responses by the scientists, they will make a start."
"But in true./ form, you've missed the point of my post: forget best, the authors of this paper didn't even try to model it well. Linear Extrapolation! A seven year old defaults to linear extrapolation. It's totally inappropriate."
Read the paper, there is NO EXTRAPOLATION in it, linear or otherwise.
You are right about predictions, but wrong about the "hockey stick". The hockey stick is well supported and repeatable with different methods and data, it does not extrapolate into the future (you can do that for yourself). Nobody seriously claims to have difinitive predictions, they have a range of senarios based on how much CO2 we pump into the atmosphere. What they do claim to know is the change is real, it is caused mainly by human GHG and it will get warmer. This knowlage does not come only from the "hockey stick", the best review of the evidence is contained in the IPCC report, it is far from complete but it is also well past arguing the "hockey stick". The best minds on the planet are telling us we are headed for serious trouble, sure they argue about the details, that's thier job.
If Mann has screwed up there is a quaint tradition called peer-review that can be used to show where he went wrong. However he has not been shown to be wrong (many have tried). But hey, there is an article in the WSJ with pear-shaped data and disproven theroies. There can be only one explanation, all these Phd's have totally fucked up.
Perhaps you were thinking of a different graph, there have been many that have come and gone (some because of the errors you pointed out), the Mann paper in TFA is circa 97-98 from memory and has been updated since.
"incorrect assumptions and mathematics made in the prediction models."
Here is Mann's and the other scientists responses to Barton, please point out where he went wrong or at least offer a link to back up your bullshit (err, I mean statements). Oh and here is a dummies guide to the hockey stick that you might find useful.
"I had Mann (RTFA) for a class when I was in school"
To be kind, I think you are mistaken about his identity, I trully doubt he has taught at your level recently. He was certainly not "lambasted" and his work still stands. His paper was cited and the graph reproduced in the recent IPCC report.
The source was never "hidded" it's been in the public domain for years, There is a link to it on this page.
From the above link- "...A Congressional committee concerned with energy could be - and indeed should be - a key player in exploring policy options to deal with the global warming threat. We hope that after studying the responses by the scientists, they will make a start."
"No more than an open source advocate would expect."
Not everyone who programs a computer is a scientist, nor does the skill of programming imply they understand the scientific method. The data and method are what is important, any competent programmer should be able to implement the experiment with a bit of help from a SME. In fact it adds weight to the conclusions if two different code implementations come up with the same conclusion. The conclusion of the "hockey stick" paper are much stronger than this, yet it only forms part of the evidence, it is not a "smoking gun". Global warming does not have a simplistic "smoking gun", neither does cancer, stroke, heart attack, terrorisim, blah, blah, blah. Imperfect knowlage does not mean no knowlage.
"While I think asking for personal data and computer codes is pretty far out of line, I think a review of the raw data and a detailed analysis of the "Spatially resolved global reconstructions" may not be asking too much."
You might want to start with the official responses from the scientists to Barton's request. They make plain that the study has been independently repeated with the same data and method AND more importantly with different data and different methods. There are some big words in thier letters, if you have trouble ask someone with an education or spend a few years to get one yourself.
"The largest of these debates centers around whether or not Global Warming is manmade" - Yes it is now the "largest [public] debate", maily because of people like Barton and the recent G8 pronouncement by Bush. The scientists Barton is attacking have no doubt and are now debating the magnitude of it's effects.
Read the scienists official responses to Barton. The hockey stick has not been discredited and it is not claimed to be "the difinitive proof". It is generally acknowledged that the IPCC report is "the" standard body of Global warming knowledge, undermining the IPCC report is the real target of Barton.
The scientists responses. They gave him all he wanted and then some. I don't think he was expecting the answer he got and probably wishes he hadn't asked it now.
The resopnses to Barton can be found here. The site is apolitical, thier editoral on the matter ends with these very sane words...
"The real question we are faced with is not whether humans are changing climate. The science on this is clear, and decades of research have culminated in a scientific consensus on this point. The real question now is what we need to do about it. A Congressional committee concerned with energy could be - and indeed should be - a key player in exploring policy options to deal with the global warming threat. We hope that after studying the responses by the scientists, they will make a start."
This BBC artice quotes one of Barton's cronnies as saying "it's about time the science was put on trial". WTF - To be "science" means it is permanently "on trial" but this moron wants to "settle it in a court of law".
Coincidently, there are ~6 billion people on the planet.... No wonder I am here in my study all alone. Why is everyone is in China? Are you guys planning a suprise party for me?
We all get sucked in by mumbo-jumbo at least once, some more than others. Although it's not about a persons intelligence it is about manipulating peoples faith (especially the young and impressionable).
In the '70s I thought Uri Geller was for real, (my "dead" watch started ticking, haha). It was a magician's book that first woke me up, (The Great Randi). My mum gave up teaching sunday school because "it was brainwashing drivel", and so it goes on.
People need to be exposed to a wide variety of philisophical and religious views before they can be expected to be tolerant and reasonable. Without that "wordly education" people tend to end up saying stuff like "You're either with us or against us!" and then proceed to blow each other up.
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Have a look at my other posts on this article, see if you think this moron has tried to "astroturf" me!
"You could argue whether trying PCA on a series with chunks missing is extrapolation or just stupid."
I could, but I won't (Mann did a much better job than I could ever muster).
My argument is that you are using the term PCA to hide the fact that the "hockey stick" is a simple moving average!! When that doesn't work you attack the data but neglect to mention even a fraction of the other peer-revieved studies that draw the same conclusion as Mann using different methods and different data. Finally you come up with a pathetic magical list of problems, that without any backing, amounts to nothing more that "because I said so".
You do this so that lay people will take you seriously, tell your mates at ExonnMobile to get with the fucking program. I regard your "astroturfing" of me as a compliment, but it is a complete waste of time for both of us.
How's that job going, still rearranging deck chairs?
For anyone interested, see my other posts by clicking on my name.
I do not know any of the scientists, politicians or lobbyists involved and admit I had trouble last week when trying to sort out who was who. So far in my other posts to this particular story, your post is one of very few that offers some sort of reference in the form of links.
However a pending article in "Geophysical Review" and an existing article in "Energy and Environment" does not mean you know what you are talking about. Especially when compared to the numerous contra peer-reviewed publications appearing in Nature, Science and quite frankly every scientific journal I can think off, plus the backing of Nobel Prize winners as in this Letter to Congressman Barton. (Third paragraph has the meat).
OTOH: Nature rejected McIntyre's paper that used essentially the same argument as you are now using.
What you are telling me is that all these scientists are wrong because they don't have a clue how to calculate a moving average.
In the keeping with the scientific spirit, I am willing to assume you are a budding Eienstien, you are right and they are all "so wrong". Your brilliant insight would destroy the "hockey stick".
Hmmm, was that a hypothisis? Why yes I think it was! Now what does a scientist do with a hypothisis, why disproves it off course!
My assumption, (and therfore the hypothisis), doesn't take much to break. Like I said, I don't know Mann, McIntyre or you from a bar of soap, nor am I a climatologist. I put my faith in the billions of dollars the US and others have invested in a proven peer-reviewed process that has produced overwhelming evidence that our CO2 emmisions are an "imminent threat" to civilization.
Oh, fuck it, beam me up scotty they refuse to listen.
Yes, also look at my other posts in this story and check out this site for enlightenment about who is funding McIntyre and co.
Ho ho he he ha ha. You call that a lambasting, a director of a resources company and a proffesor of economics attempting to baffle people with climate bullshit. If either of these two have even a glimmer of a serious scientific argument then where is the fucking peer-reviewed paper, where is the methodology and where are thier references? None of these basic things are in your pdf link because they don't exist.
The fact of the matter is that McIntyre's "paper" was rejected by Nature due to faulty and biased statistical analysis. Instead of listening to Nature's critique and resubmitting they simply turned to US newspapers to push thier perverted claims that Mann is the one who is incompetent, little wonder Mann responded with "I don't have the time".
"I checked to see what years his data started. Mostly it started in odd years, 1999 and 1949, not the even years we like to start with."
Considering Mann was published in 1998 and 1999 how is it they can claim his data starts in 1999, did Dr.Who lend them his Tardis? What a crock of transparent psudeo-scientific shit!
"...never responds in any relavant way to the massive evidence presented that he is incompetent...
A congressman with two paid up ExxonMobil fools pushing his anti-warming barrow does not strike me as massive evidence. If you can't understand Mann's responses in the link I provided then I can't help you, save to say there are many other peer-reviewed papers that discredit McIntyre and co.
I do however wonder why is it that you take the pdf at face value. You display an enourmous amount of faith in the simple "say so" of two people who are not trained in climate science in preference to the trully masive amount of peer-reviewed science contained in the IPCC report. If someone shot you in the arse would you go and see a doctor or a economist?
These two idiots you hold in almost God like regard think that if they can discredit Mann then the whole "IPCC house of cards" will collapse. Nothing could be further from the truth, if you discredit Mann then there are plenty of others who have obtained the same results using different data and different methods (ie: The gold standard of confirmation by replication). Mann's "Hockey stick" is just one small piece of evidence in a landslide, removing Mann's paper will not change the scientific conclusions.
"...Also sounds like Mann is an asshole..."
So was Issac Newton, what's your point?
Kinda obvious, it confirms what sexual selection theories predict. The important part is that they have found a very good demonstration of speciation resulting from said sexual selection theories, apparently good examples are difficult to find.
"Caterpillars turning into butterflies still boggles my mind" - Ditto, the life cycle of certain slime molds is even more mind boggling, fungus -> animal -> plant -> fungus.
"how is it that it suddenly figures out how to create a cocoon" - The same way you figured out how to grow hands and loose your tail while still in the womb.
"People who dismiss concepts like 'intelligent design' out of hand may often like to refer to themselves as scientific, but in fact dismissing something like that out of hand is the very reverse of scientific."
It is dissmissed because it is an article of faith and scientific investigation cannot prove God exists (apparently the Christian God himself said the same thing in the Bible, Hebrews 11:6, John 20:29). Even if all the scientists on the planet agreed with your faith, so what? How would it impact on science?
"At the very least there exists the possibility of a test; as we learn more about genetics and actually perform large scale genetic engineering it is possible that we may find that we can 'detect' GMO's which we create ourselves.
Once that happens, its a legitimate project to apply such a test to organisms which we believe to be of natural origin and, of course, to ourselves."
GMO's can already be easily 'detected' (commonly used by Monsanto to sue the pants off farmers who dare to modify crops the old-fashioned way). We can detect GMO's because we are looking for a gene that is not naturally found in those plants (ie: we put it there). Dolly the sheep is a clone and we can't tell the difference from a "natural" sheep (ie: we did not "Modify" the organisim, we copied it). The human genome has been mapped along with quite a few other critters, much of the information is in the public domain so it should be "easy" to find the God gene or whatever you think you are looking for. (Disclaimer: "Easy" but not quick. It will take you many years to get an education in science and then many more to specialise in genetics but the end result will be worth your effort)
"Unfortunately, many people (many of them calling themselves scientists) would argue that 'its a waste of time' because 'obviously intelligent design is just wrong'. Not very scientific eh."
See above, scientifically, ID is neither right or wrong it is a matter of faith and thus irrelevant to science. It could accurately be described as a "waste of [lab] time". (Disclaimer: science is based on the faith that real and abstract objects exist idependently of human observation, the behaviour of these objects can be predicted by observation and experimentation (ie: we can discover natural laws). This philosophy is generally credited to Plato, although you could try Popper for something more up to date. Phycopaths have a different "faith", ie: they exist but other people are a figment of thier imagination. There are many other "faiths" but Plato's brand of scientific faith is so ingrained into the everday, many do not even recognise they have it.)
"Perhaps a redefinition of science is in order, something closer to the definition of religion... 'Thou shalt not challenge the orthodoxy.'"
Redefining science as religion has been done before but it is more common to redefine religion as science. I think I will stick with the current definition and credo, 'Thou must challenge orthodoxy'.
"IMO, the true scientist witholds judgement until the experiments have been done and the data is in front of them."
IMO, faith is the absence of judgement. I am sure all respectable scientists would agree with your last statement, can you point to or propose an experiment that could determine what the one true faith should be? If you can't come up with an experiment, perhaps you should petition the Pope, he is interested in faith and his church has a huge wad of cash to waste on such things. (Disclaimer: "True scientists" are not interested in religiously motivated anecdotes.)
"I am not a deist nor an atheist nor agnostic. I am a non-dualist. There is no difference between what we think of as god and what we think of as anything other than god: its all one big thing"
That's nice but just because your
Now it is such a bizarrely improbably coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful [as the Babel fish] could have evolved by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.
The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing." "But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
Yes, I read that and cracked up laughing. He is basically asking Barton "are you contradicting your boss?".
The above post was rated...
30% Informative
30% Overrated
20% Troll
Is this moderation record an example of "astroturfing" or is it just that the US is the only place in the world where government officials are encouraged to go on witch hunts. Some (like Barton) are wasting taxpayers money in vain and increasingly stupid arguments to refute the fact that the earth is warming and humans are responsible for most of the increase.
Dispite the US spending literally billions in research, some industry spruker's in government, (eg: Barton), choose to ignore the basic facts that ALL of the billions of dollars worth of research they have paid for has been telling them for at least the past five years.
However when a couple of Barton's lobbyist mates score an article in the WSJ based on previously discredited science, suddenly Barton is interested enough to make a noise and "demand answers". Barton was elected to "serve the people", what a fucking joke that is.
I thought the USA was supposed to be proud of it's percived place at the top of the technological tree. If so, why do so many members of it's government, media and energy industries insist on beating up science when it disagrees with thier economic dogma? In Bartons case his motives are obvious, look at his personal investments and his largest campain contributors, (oil/gas/electric), no fucking suprises there!
Barton's behaviour only reinforces the rest of the world's view that Yanks are by far the most arrogant and sociologically retarded group of people on the planet.
- Now that's a troll!!!
"I've read this article before. I tried to find a copy of it with google scholar. I recommend everyone shut their faces until they read the article."
...
I read the WSJ article and it was rubbish, the WSJ is a newspaper not a scientific journal. You wont find any peer-reviewed paper from the people Barton is quoting. Thier argument has already been discredited (see link below), that is why they make these kind of attacks via newspapers.
"As a scientist, it sickens me.....I would love to see a good astrophysicist's paper on cyclic variation in the earths average temperature. Or maybe a well done statistical analysis."
I hold a BSc. but I am not a climate scientist, it sickens me that a "scientist" cannot do simple research before telling others to "shut thier faces", kinda ignores the "republic of science" don't you think? The Mann paper can be found here, along with many other quality papers including some that address sunspots, etc. The most authoritive review of the science is found in the IPCC report "Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis", here.. Even GWB cautiously endorsed the IPCC conclusions at the recent G8 meeting (is hell getting colder?).
"Investigating changes in the earth's climate is important. I just don't like secular religions (actually, I just don't like religion) propped up by "science"."
Can't agree more, realclimate.org is apolitical and is open to all scientists and laymen. Maybe you should write to Congressman Barton and ask him to keep his well known anti-warming religion to himself and offer something constructive. To quote Mann and the other climate scientists in the link above
"The real question we are faced with is not whether humans are changing climate. The science on this is clear, and decades of research have culminated in a scientific consensus on this point. The real question now is what we need to do about it. A Congressional committee concerned with energy could be - and indeed should be - a key player in exploring policy options to deal with the global warming threat. We hope that after studying the responses by the scientists, they will make a start."
"But in true ./ form, you've missed the point of my post: forget best, the authors of this paper didn't even try to model it well. Linear Extrapolation! A seven year old defaults to linear extrapolation. It's totally inappropriate."
Read the paper, there is NO EXTRAPOLATION in it, linear or otherwise.
"What is contested are the predictions."
You are right about predictions, but wrong about the "hockey stick". The hockey stick is well supported and repeatable with different methods and data, it does not extrapolate into the future (you can do that for yourself). Nobody seriously claims to have difinitive predictions, they have a range of senarios based on how much CO2 we pump into the atmosphere. What they do claim to know is the change is real, it is caused mainly by human GHG and it will get warmer. This knowlage does not come only from the "hockey stick", the best review of the evidence is contained in the IPCC report, it is far from complete but it is also well past arguing the "hockey stick". The best minds on the planet are telling us we are headed for serious trouble, sure they argue about the details, that's thier job.
If Mann has screwed up there is a quaint tradition called peer-review that can be used to show where he went wrong. However he has not been shown to be wrong (many have tried). But hey, there is an article in the WSJ with pear-shaped data and disproven theroies. There can be only one explanation, all these Phd's have totally fucked up.
Perhaps you were thinking of a different graph, there have been many that have come and gone (some because of the errors you pointed out), the Mann paper in TFA is circa 97-98 from memory and has been updated since.
"incorrect assumptions and mathematics made in the prediction models."
Here is Mann's and the other scientists responses to Barton, please point out where he went wrong or at least offer a link to back up your bullshit (err, I mean statements). Oh and here is a dummies guide to the hockey stick that you might find useful.
"I had Mann (RTFA) for a class when I was in school"
To be kind, I think you are mistaken about his identity, I trully doubt he has taught at your level recently. He was certainly not "lambasted" and his work still stands. His paper was cited and the graph reproduced in the recent IPCC report.
"The source has now been released."
The source was never "hidded" it's been in the public domain for years, There is a link to it on this page.
From the above link- "...A Congressional committee concerned with energy could be - and indeed should be - a key player in exploring policy options to deal with the global warming threat. We hope that after studying the responses by the scientists, they will make a start."
"No more than an open source advocate would expect."
Not everyone who programs a computer is a scientist, nor does the skill of programming imply they understand the scientific method. The data and method are what is important, any competent programmer should be able to implement the experiment with a bit of help from a SME. In fact it adds weight to the conclusions if two different code implementations come up with the same conclusion. The conclusion of the "hockey stick" paper are much stronger than this, yet it only forms part of the evidence, it is not a "smoking gun". Global warming does not have a simplistic "smoking gun", neither does cancer, stroke, heart attack, terrorisim, blah, blah, blah. Imperfect knowlage does not mean no knowlage.
"While I think asking for personal data and computer codes is pretty far out of line, I think a review of the raw data and a detailed analysis of the "Spatially resolved global reconstructions" may not be asking too much."
You might want to start with the official responses from the scientists to Barton's request. They make plain that the study has been independently repeated with the same data and method AND more importantly with different data and different methods. There are some big words in thier letters, if you have trouble ask someone with an education or spend a few years to get one yourself.
"The largest of these debates centers around whether or not Global Warming is manmade" - Yes it is now the "largest [public] debate", maily because of people like Barton and the recent G8 pronouncement by Bush. The scientists Barton is attacking have no doubt and are now debating the magnitude of it's effects.
Read the scienists official responses to Barton. The hockey stick has not been discredited and it is not claimed to be "the difinitive proof". It is generally acknowledged that the IPCC report is "the" standard body of Global warming knowledge, undermining the IPCC report is the real target of Barton.
Joe Bartons 2006 campaign funding.
Scientists funding history is detailed in thier individual responses to Barton. (not to mention 'Nature' requires this info before publication).
The scientists responses. They gave him all he wanted and then some. I don't think he was expecting the answer he got and probably wishes he hadn't asked it now.
The resopnses to Barton can be found here. The site is apolitical, thier editoral on the matter ends with these very sane words...
"The real question we are faced with is not whether humans are changing climate. The science on this is clear, and decades of research have culminated in a scientific consensus on this point. The real question now is what we need to do about it. A Congressional committee concerned with energy could be - and indeed should be - a key player in exploring policy options to deal with the global warming threat. We hope that after studying the responses by the scientists, they will make a start."
This BBC artice quotes one of Barton's cronnies as saying "it's about time the science was put on trial". WTF - To be "science" means it is permanently "on trial" but this moron wants to "settle it in a court of law".
...get me that suit! Oh, have security burn down that internet thingy, we don't want riff-raff beating us to the prize.
"There is 6.4 billion people in China..."
Coincidently, there are ~6 billion people on the planet.... No wonder I am here in my study all alone. Why is everyone is in China? Are you guys planning a suprise party for me?
"I know; I used to be one growing up..."
We all get sucked in by mumbo-jumbo at least once, some more than others. Although it's not about a persons intelligence it is about manipulating peoples faith (especially the young and impressionable).
In the '70s I thought Uri Geller was for real, (my "dead" watch started ticking, haha). It was a magician's book that first woke me up, (The Great Randi). My mum gave up teaching sunday school because "it was brainwashing drivel", and so it goes on.
People need to be exposed to a wide variety of philisophical and religious views before they can be expected to be tolerant and reasonable. Without that "wordly education" people tend to end up saying stuff like "You're either with us or against us!" and then proceed to blow each other up.