- #246
seycyrus
Andre said:So where would the classification 'crackpot' fit in?
You know the answer to that one. Anybody who disagrees with, in even the slightest way, the tenets of AGW, is a crackpot, MUST be ridiculed and censured.
Andre said:So where would the classification 'crackpot' fit in?
Well, if they consider public opinion (crackpot or not) to be an "irrelevant matter", then they are in no position to complain about it later.Count Iblis said:You don't want to waste your time on irrelevant matters. Data requested by some crackpot global warming deniers was not made available? Who cares!
I bet you're also one of those "crackpot" astrology deniers, too.seycyrus said:You know the answer to that one. Anybody who disagrees with, in even the slightest way, the tenets of AGW, is a crackpot, MUST be ridiculed and censured.
skypunter said:No one is attempting to levy taxes based upon theories related to aerodynamics, gravity or the big bang.
Folks can chose whether they trust aerodynamics enough to get on an aeroplane.
That is why this particular branch of science is being held to a higher standard of accountability than others might be.
Pattonias said:Most don't doubt that the Earth is warming. The problems are in realtion to the severity, results, and cause of global warming. This is the political argument. I can't tell whether you are arguing for free data or for people to stop arguing with these scientists.
This is a good point. However, a scientist who chooses to not engage in the political argument simply has zero standing in the political debate. And they have no obligation to do otherwise, like you say.sylas said:I am against scientists being obliged to take up time arguing with any nitwit who wants to argue with them. There's a lot of really blistering stupid argument out there on all manner of topics -- we all know that. Scientists are not under any obligation to actually answer anyone who want to argue. If they never bother to respond to a credible argument then they'll lose credibility; so this is not a problem.
A scientist is also a free individual, and may apply their own professional judgment as to what is worth responding to and what is a waste of time.
This is the politics forum, not a science forum. Which means it's the place for arguing politics, not just asking about science.sylas said:If argument over some science topic has one side without any representation or support in the scientific literature; then someone merely determined to argue is best ignored; and someone who is genuinely asking may be able to be helped.
Isn't this a red herring? Scientists in this context are not required to argue, they're not required to even answer the phone from crackpots. The FOI requests don't require argument, they require transparency.sylas said:...
I am against scientists being obliged to take up time arguing with any nitwit who wants to argue with them. There's a lot of really blistering stupid argument out there on all manner of topics -- we all know that. Scientists are not under any obligation to actually answer anyone who wants to argue. If they never bother to respond to a credible argument then they'll lose credibility; so this is not a problem...
sylas said:I am against scientists being obliged to take up time arguing with any nitwit who wants to argue with them. There's a lot of really blistering stupid argument out there on all manner of topics -- we all know that. Scientists are not under any obligation to actually answer anyone who wants to argue. If they never bother to respond to a credible argument then they'll lose credibility; so this is not a problem.
mheslep said:Isn't this a red herring? Scientists in this context are not required to argue, they're not required to even answer the phone from crackpots. The FOI requests don't require argument, they require transparency.
If the "information" is gigabyte-sized or terabyte-sized data-sets that have absolutely no value to the general population, what is the motivation for transmitting it? As it is, much of the raw data, processed data, and code is available to the public if they are motivated to pursue it, but what would they do with it?Pattonias said:I must ask - how any information can be held from the general population, when this information is being used to effect the way our governments will force/drive us to live our lives from now on?
Pattonias said:I must ask - how any information can be held from the general population, when this information is being used to effect the way our governments will force/drive us to live our lives from now on?
sylas;2466971 There's more: the upcoming inquiry should not be limited to the scientists who had their personal conversations and files stolen. It should also consider the theft itself said:Are we certain that it was a hack and not a concerned scientist on the inside?
Why is it odd to emphasize force used by government in a political debate about whether force should be used by government? In a forum specifically created to discuss force used by government (politics)?sylas said:As an aside, the curious emphasis in which any government decision is seen as forcing or driving us all on how to live is a trifle odd. It seems to be rather USAmerican thing.
sylas said:... frivolous and politically motivated.
Cheers -- sylas
sylas;2466971 One of the leading climate science groups is with the Goddard Institute for Space Sciences at NASA. This group also has a global temperature product. They have some of the most widely used climate models in the world. All the data is freely available. All the code is open source. All the results replicate and confirm -- in the normal scientific sense of the word -- the results from the CRU. Cheers -- sylas[/QUOTE said:Doesn't GISS use the massaged CRU data?
skypunter said:Are we certain that it was a hack and not a concerned scientist on the inside?
skypunter said:Doesn't GISS use the massaged CRU data?
I don't know how you observe this about 'any' government decision in the US. The topic at hand is a not just any decision, it is a major, game changing, policy change, with some goals attempting to drive CO2 emissions per head back to levels not seen for 100 years.sylas said:As an aside, the curious emphasis in which any government decision is seen as forcing or driving us all on how to live is a trifle odd. It seems to be rather USAmerican thing. ...
skypunter said:"It's very unlikely to be a scientist at all, in my opinion, but hey."
In my opinion it is a concerned scientist.
Count Iblis said:More likely a concerned sceptic who took a temporary job as a cleaner at the university to gain access to some passwords.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2009-11-30-warming30_ST_N.htmGeorge Monbiot, a well-known environmentalist who writes for the United Kingdom's newspaper The Guardian, called for re-examination of all the data discussed in the stolen notes and said Jones "should now resign" because of a message saying he would keep climate skeptics' papers out of the benchmark 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. Jones vows in the e-mail to "keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"
russ_watters said:Fast moving thread so I'm sorry if this was posted earlier and I missed it: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2009-11-30-warming30_ST_N.htm
This is really bad because the unity of the consensus position is often touted as de facto evidence of how strong it is. I believe someone even mentioned it earlier in the thread how of several hundred mainstream peer reviewed articles over the past few years, not one forwarded a thesis counter to the AGW position. But if "skeptics" research is being actively suppressed, that creates a self-reinforcing appeal to authority type argument.
We've had some pretty lively debates among the moderators about what kind of evidence/papers/blogs/etc should be acceptible for use on PF and the starting point of such debates is the sanctity of the peer review process. If the peer review process has been compromised when it comes to climate research, then it all but necessitates opening the door for a free-for-all of unverified research. It's a really, really bad situation.
If someone told a story like what we're getting here without these emails, they'd probably have been banned as a conspiracy theorist/crackpot. But what we're seeing is equal in concept (scale still unknown) to the worst of what guys like Rush Limbaugh claim (that AGW is a conspiracy by some scientific establishment). No, he doesn't get a win for making something up that happened to turn out to be true, but it is a very bad situation when a crackpot turns out to be right. It's instant credibility.
while at the same time Pachauri personally attaches a http://www.indianexpress.com/news/heat-on-cricket-pitch-warms-this-climate-change-laureate/231802/0" importance level to flying:Pachauri according to the Guardian said:Hotel guests should have their electricity monitored; hefty aviation taxes should be introduced to deter people from flying; and iced water in restaurants should be curtailed, the world's leading climate scientist has told the Observer [...] "I think the section of society that will make it happen is essentially young people. I think they will be far more sensitive than adults, who have been corrupted by the ways we have been following for years now."
That anecdote aside, we also have the http://www.ipcc.ch/meetings/session29/doc7-add1.pdf" per this anti-flying website.Pachauri according to the Indian Express said:So strong is his love for cricket that his colleagues recall the time the Nobel winner took a break during a seminar in New York and flew into Delhi over the weekend to attend a practice session for a match before flying back. Again, he flew in for a day, just to play that match.
mheslep said:On the subject of ethics and corruption Pachauri apparently feels the IPCC is beyond reproach, but he also feels the need to point out the lifestyle corruption endemic http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/29/rajendra-pachauri-climate-warning-copenhagen" :
while at the same time Pachauri personally attaches a http://www.indianexpress.com/news/heat-on-cricket-pitch-warms-this-climate-change-laureate/231802/0" importance level to flying:
That anecdote aside, we also have the http://www.ipcc.ch/meetings/session29/doc7-add1.pdf" per this anti-flying website.
Proton Soup said:so India's got their own Al Gore, huh? when's this guy getting his Nobel?
I would argue that that is precisely the case. Some researchers with views contrary to this apparently engineered consensus have been forced to publish in journals such as Energy and Environment, for example. Not a crackpot journal, but not well-regarded either.russ_watters said:We've had some pretty lively debates among the moderators about what kind of evidence/papers/blogs/etc should be acceptible for use on PF and the starting point of such debates is the sanctity of the peer review process. If the peer review process has been compromised when it comes to climate research, then it all but necessitates opening the door for a free-for-all of unverified research. It's a really, really bad situation.
Surely you jest.sylas said:Pachauri said the large number of contributors and rigorous peer review mechanism adopted by the IPCC meant that any bias would be rapidly uncovered.
"The processes in the IPCC are so robust, so inclusive, that even if an author or two has a particular bias it is completely unlikely that bias will find its way into the IPCC report," he said.
You do not jest??!sylas said:Is there actually a problem here? Not of ethics, or corruption, surely.
It is probably worse. Sane people avoid making truly damning statements in email messages; the really bad stuff is in private phone conversations and face-to-face conversations. That said, those email messages are very, very bad.Is it so bad that we find them saying so in a personal email?
That would be a start. Not near enough, but a start.Should they be punished for that, or actually excluded from any further participation in the IPCC?
Andre said:I studied the 'runaway' tipping point issue based on paleo climate but if I explain it, my threads get locked -even if I use peer reviewed studies- because it is against that so called CRU type 'mainstream' and hence it is so called deniers 'crackpot'. So the rules have to change first.
Did you misread the quote? He's not saying that papers should be excluded based on their lack of merit, he's saying that the rules of the game should be changed to keep out papers that at face value do seem to have merit. That's clearly inethical!sylas said:I wouldn't panic on that score. Part of the fun of science is that trying to get a large community of active scientists to collude on something is about as likely as a feline synchronized swimming team.
Part of the free and open disagreement that goes on is not just on the science, but also on decisions relating to what is and is not part of something like an IPCC report. It is hardly a scandal that scientists might disagree with each other on such a thing. We knew that already! Neither is it a serious ethical concern that some scientists have a strong feeling about keeping out what is -- in their judgment -- bad papers. It's a point of view to which they are entitled. I don't know why you think this it would be particularly surprising, or dismissed as conspiracy, that there are active scientists who feel this way. [emphasis added]
Certainly, the scope of this is something I don't yet have full grasp of. I doubt anyone does. But because of his prominence, this will raise suspicions that his attitude may be more pervasive than the evidence available can actually tell us.What WOULD be surprising, and remains a rather far fetched conspiracy theory without any evidence, is the notion that Professor Jones would actually be able to manage the whole IPCC to his own taste. The sentence is obvious hyperbole, even without the amusing notion of redefining peer-reviewed literature.