One in four Americans don't know...

[EdFred]

There's a difference. Cops don't have the brains to realize that the bad cops are doing them all a disservice. Scientists do. Anyone found fabricating data is done. They won't publish, they won't get grants. They are done. It's happened to Nobel Prize winners, the scientific community is enormously militant about this. We have to be able to trust each other to tell the truth so that we can uncover the truth. Someone lying or fabricating results can cost us years, time and tons of money, and damages the whole enterprise.

Really? You mean like when an outlier tries to get something published and gets shunned? Yeah, that *never* happens, ever.

 

[AuntPeggy]

I remembered from High School that the Earth's orbit varied from approximately 92 million miles to 94 million miles from the sun. So, I just looked it up. It appears that the amount of difference in the closest point and the furthest point is approximately 2 million miles. I don't know how that figures with the 500 miles previously reported in this thread. I also remember that the sun is not in the center, it forms just one of the foci of the Earth's orbit and the other focus is just a point in space. I haven't found any verification of that, yet.

http://geography.about.com/od/physicalgeography/a/orbitsun.htm
"The earth's orbit around the sun is not a circle. The earth's orbit around the sun is slightly elliptical. Therefore, the distance between the earth and the sun varies throughout the year.

"At its nearest point on the ellipse that is the earth's orbit around the sun, the earth is 91,445,000 miles (147,166,462 km) from the sun. This point in the earth's orbit is known as perihelion and it occurs around January 3.

"The earth is farthest away from the sun around July 4 when it is 94,555,000 miles (152,171,522 km) from the sun. This point in the earth's orbit is called aphelion."

 

[Palmpilot]

Duh. Control of people and money. Same as everything else.

That's awfully vague.

How does having research results turn out a certain way give the sources of grant money greater control over people and money?

And how does having control over people and money personally benefit the people making the grant decisions? Are their salaries based on the number of people and the amount of money they control?

 

[Palmpilot]

Really? You mean like when an outlier tries to get something published and gets shunned? Yeah, that *never* happens, ever.

How do you know that the decisions about which papers to publish are not being made for valid reasons?

And if this were really the problem you think it is, why don't the oil companies start their own scientific journals? It's not like they can't afford it.

 

[EdFred]

How do you know that the decisions about which papers to publish are not being made for valid reasons?

How do you know they are? Oh, I know, just ask them.

There is internal politics on who is "right" and who is "wrong" in everything. Science is no exception. And I never brought up oil.

 

[jsstevens]

[snip]

And why would the providers of grant money care what the results were, as long as the methodology was sound?

Because grant money providers don't have any agenda? Really?

I don't have an axe to grind and I'm not going to type multiple pages to get my appropriately nuanced position across, but at least some grant providers (on both sides of any issue you can name) have an agenda and choose "promising" lines of investigation based on those biases.

John

 

[wsuffa]

The global warming debacle did enormous damage to the credibility of scientists and science by demonstrating that scientists are capable of engaging into a set of wide ranged activities with the explicit aim to deceive (destroying the raw data in order to thwart verification, stacking editorial boards across the whole field, etc.). Of course now those who carry out the scientific progress are mistrusted.

The problem with climate change is that it has become politicized.

And given that most funding for scientific research comes from the government (i.e. the same system that is ultimately managed by political folks), some people have drawn the conclusion that there is somehow a conflict of interest given that there is dependence on those government research dollars. That's compounded by government contracts in certain government departments where the R&D grant is narrowly written in a way that minimizes effort on research not directly on-point for the desired outcome. There's a difference between scientific research and R&D research for those departments, but many people don't understand that.

Would there be apolitical, third party funding of climate change research, I would bet that we'd be having a different discussion. Alas, that's not likely to happen.

 

[Palmpilot]

How do you know they are? Oh, I know, just ask them.

I think the burden of proof is on those who are making the accusations.

There is internal politics on who is "right" and who is "wrong" in everything. Science is no exception.

There is also competion among scientists.

And I never brought up oil.

I brought up oil.

 

[MAKG1]

It's not how it's done. Scientists are not "told" to become warmists, as a rule. Sure, the moral hazard is sometimes presented, but it's not effective and best avoided. Instead, a competent manipulator uses the natural variation among scientists to advance those agreeable (and their works), while suppress those who are not. Voila, nobody is being "told" anything by any supervisor.


No, it's your fantasies about my assumptions.

You're clearly assuming there is a head scientist.

There isn't.

There is no one "calling the shots." Scientists work in small groups or individually.

And how do you "advance" as a scientist? This is not a corporation, nor is it a government. Heading a department is not something many aspire to, as it is a position that has next to no power.

You seem to be confirming my "fantasies" by claiming mechanisms that don't exist. Power is extraordinarily decentralized for scientists. It is not at all like you are assuming. Not even close.

 

[EdFred]

I think the burden of proof is on those who are making the accusations.

It's easy enough to look at the 20th century and see a number of instances where opposing views were "wrong" only to be found out years later their theories were actually correct.

 

[Palmpilot]

Because grant money providers don't have any agenda? Really?

I don't have an axe to grind and I'm not going to type multiple pages to get my appropriately nuanced position across, but at least some grant providers (on both sides of any issue you can name) have an agenda and choose "promising" lines of investigation based on those biases.

I've never seen proof that the grant money providers have an agenda that would cause them to make funding decisions for improper reasons. And in the absence of proof, I'm not willing to just assume that they do.

Science has a very impressive track record over a period of centuries, which could not have been achieved if scientists in general were as corrupt as some people assume climatologists to be. That's why I'm skeptical of these wishy washy plausibility arguments about supposed widespread corruption in that field.

 

[txflyer]

I knew Americans were dumb, but not that dumb.

25% of the public walking around do not know our solar system or have a rudimentary knowledge of how it works?

That's catastrophically sad if it's true. I shouldn't be surprised. I'll bet that 25% can name Kim Kardashian's latest foible's.

 

[FastEddieB]

It's easy enough to look at the 20th century and see a number of instances where opposing views were "wrong" only to be found out years later their theories were actually correct.

Stipulated.

So what?

 

[zaitcev]

You're clearly assuming there is a head scientist.

Once again, your proclamations about my assumptions are laughably false.

 

[MAKG1]

Once again, your proclamations about my assumptions are laughably false.

Who "advances" these scientists in your storybook?

You talk about "a manipulator," but claim you're not assuming there is one. Not everything is a dichotomy, but this is. Either there is a manipulator with the power to advance or there is not.

Explain.

The reality is that "advancement" comes in the form of citations, and any paper that convincingly overturns assumptions automatically gets a hell of a lot of them, while simple confirmations generally don't. Even those that make a good argument and ultimately turn out wrong with additional data get a big boost. There are lots of examples of that. The one I'm most familiar with is the steady state cosmology. Fred Hoyle made a hell of a career despite virtually the entire community disagreeing with him. In the end, he couldn't support the model with the flood of data that started to come in in the 80s. Prior to that, it was a decent contender. But, that's how scientific disproval works.

 

[EdFred]

Stipulated.

So what?

We were told that never happens in the scientific community. But it does. So why should I believe anything they say when I catch them, I wouldn't say lying, but yeah, lying, right off the bat?

It's the equivalent of us GA pilot saying GA planes never crash.

 

[Palmpilot]

It's easy enough to look at the 20th century and see a number of instances where opposing views were "wrong" only to be found out years later their theories were actually correct.

It's true that the state of scientific knowledge has advanced over time, but advances haven't usually arisen out of claims that previous scientists were faking their results. They arose out of people gathering reproducible observations and data that proved the previous theories wrong.

As for faked or erroneous results, there is an established process for dealing with those, and that is for other scientists to repeat whatever observations, measurements, or experiments were performed, to see if they get the same results. Accusations based on plausibility arguments have never been enough, and they shouldn't be enough now.

 

[Palmpilot]

We were told that never happens in the scientific community.

If anybody said that it "never" happens, I missed it. Could you please provide a quote?

 

[write-stuff]

That's worse than I would have expected, and of course not knowing the details of the source data I put zero faith in its accuracy.

He's right. It was some national polling service of 2200 (I think that was the number) adult Americans. There were 9 questions in the survey. My wife (who is no scientist) got them all right, well, except for the last one that involved evolution. I guess we shouldn't be suprised that 25% of Americans think that the sun orbits the earth - nearly half of Americans believe the earth and its inhabitants were created in six days by a supernatural being. The US is clearly not a hotbed of scientific education these days.

 

[write-stuff]

people are willing to buy into the fantasy that mainstream climatologists are faking results to get grant money.

Sheesh, here we go again. Dude, grant money would dry up, people's careers would be destroyed, and some people would likely go to jail if that was the case. You clearly know nothing about the research grant process.

Oops, I reread your post. Sorry, I overlooked the "fantasy" part. Good on you. My bad.

 

[EdFred]

If anybody said that it "never" happens, I missed it. Could you please provide a quote?

Post 78, second paragraph. History has shown otherwise.

 

[FastEddieB]

We were told that never happens in the scientific community.

No.

No sane person would hold that scientists are never wrong.

The entire scientific method is geared to discovering error.

And no sane person would hold that scientists never commit fraud.

The entire scientific method is geared to weeding out fraud.

Replication. Peer review. Both dedicated to finding error and fraud and very good at it.

So, what is it that "we" were told, exactly?

 

[Palmpilot]

...You clearly know nothing about the research grant process.

So, are you saying that mainstream climatologists ARE faking results to get grant money?

 

[Palmpilot]

Post 78, second paragraph. History has shown otherwise.

You wrote "It's easy enough to look at the 20th century and see a number of instances where opposing views were 'wrong' only to be found out years later their theories were actually correct."

Post 78, second paragraph says, "Scientists are of a group devoted fanatically, slavishly, monkishly to one thing and one thing only. The Truth. It is a pity that we are so badly slandered by people who's primary motives are money and power, and who are well known to have little regard for the truth."

Where do you see a statement that it "never" happens that opposing views were later found to be correct?

 

[steingar]

You wrote "It's easy enough to look at the 20th century and see a number of instances where opposing views were 'wrong' only to be found out years later their theories were actually correct."

Post 78, second paragraph says, "Scientists are of a group devoted fanatically, slavishly, monkishly to one thing and one thing only. The Truth. It is a pity that we are so badly slandered by people who's primary motives are money and power, and who are well known to have little regard for the truth."

Where do you see a statement that it "never" happens that opposing views were later found to be correct?

Often we obtain better tools to scrutinize the world. The facts revealed can confirm older observations, clarify them, or even contradict them. Yes, scientists can be wrong. I ask my genetics class every year if the Nobel prize should be taken away if the guy turned out to be wrong. It has happened.

That doesn't mean the folks who make the original conclusions were corrupt, inept, or anything else. They did due diligence with the tools they had and reached the logical conclusions from the observations they made. That's why science is non-dogmatic.

Anthropogenic climate change has been presented as a controversial theory within the scientific community. Nothing could be farther from the truth. If you want to split hairs, I've seen Evolution presented as a controversial theory within the scientific community by its detractors.

 

[write-stuff]

So, are you saying that mainstream climatologists ARE faking results to get grant money?

No, no, I jumped too quick and misread your post. It's one of my pet peeves and we hear it here so frequently. My mistake.

 

[Palmpilot]

No, no, I jumped too quick and misread your post. It's one of my pet peeves and we hear it here so frequently. My mistake.

No problem. ("Been there, done that.")

 

[EdFred]

You wrote "It's easy enough to look at the 20th century and see a number of instances where opposing views were 'wrong' only to be found out years later their theories were actually correct."

Post 78, second paragraph says, "Scientists are of a group devoted fanatically, slavishly, monkishly to one thing and one thing only. The Truth. It is a pity that we are so badly slandered by people who's primary motives are money and power, and who are well known to have little regard for the truth."

Where do you see a statement that it "never" happens that opposing views were later found to be correct?

If the bolded were actually true, there would never be any sort of railroading, or supression that went on, because even if one of their competitors had a better take on things, they would jump on the bandwagon for the "greater good" rather than try and shut them up. But since the latter does and has happened the statement of only being devoted to the truth is, well, false. So, right off the bat I'm being fed misinformation. Why should I believe anything else?

 

[EdFred]

No.

No sane person would hold that scientists are never wrong.

The entire scientific method is geared to discovering error.

And no sane person would hold that scientists never commit fraud.

The entire scientific method is geared to weeding out fraud.

Replication. Peer review. Both dedicated to finding error and fraud and very good at it.

So, what is it that "we" were told, exactly?

Follow along, already been answered.

 

[Florida Cracker]

The inconvenient truth....

The Earth's climate has been in a a state of change for as long as records have been kept. It is the ultimate vanity of a small group of pseudo scientists that they can make a bit of data here and bit of data there into a harebrained claim that mmgw is all it has been mad out to be and all it has been out to be doing.

The sole purpose of that seems to be political and greedy in nature.

Just like obamacare, the mmgw whores are all about money, power and taking.

 

[Palmpilot]

If the bolded were actually true, there would never be any sort of railroading, or supression that went on, because even if one of their competitors had a better take on things, they would jump on the bandwagon for the "greater good" rather than try and shut them up. But since the latter does and has happened the statement of only being devoted to the truth is, well, false. So, right off the bat I'm being fed misinformation. Why should I believe anything else?

I think you're reading too much into his statement. It's true of scientists as a group. That's not the same thing as saying that no individual scientist ever enages in wrongdoing.

The claim that seems to be going around would require that climatologists in general be corrupt. I just don't see the evidence for that. Instead, I see weak plausibility arguments.

If it were really possible to corrupt an entire scientific discipline to that degree, then you should never get on an airplane, take medicine, or even turn on a light switch, because the arguments that climatology results are being faked could be applied to ANY scientific or engineering discipline.

When Einstein's theories and the limitations of Newton's laws were accepted, it wasn't a result of people claiming that Newton faked his results. It was a result of people making observations, measurements, or experiments that confirmed the new theory and contradicted the old one. That is the ONLY valid way to do it, and it applies to climatology as much as to any other discipline.

 

[Palmpilot]

The Earth's climate has been in a a state of change for as long as records have been kept.

According to climatologists, BOTH natural causes and human causes are capable of having a significant effect on climate. They're not mutually exclusive.

 

[FastEddieB]

Follow along, already been answered.

Doing my best.

What were we told? It seems like an oblique reference to something previously posted, but I'm not sure what.

 

[steingar]

But since the latter does and has happened the statement of only being devoted to the truth is, well, false. So, right off the bat I'm being fed misinformation. Why should I believe anything else?

Can you cite a specific example of a scientist being "silenced" by the scientific community because of the nature of their conclusions? Keep in mind that articles about mental power, homeopathic medicine, and cold fusion have all graced the pages of the foremost science journals despite widespread disbelief by scientists.

 

[Everskyward]

I remembered from High School that the Earth's orbit varied from approximately 92 million miles to 94 million miles from the sun. So, I just looked it up. It appears that the amount of difference in the closest point and the furthest point is approximately 2 million miles. I don't know how that figures with the 500 miles previously reported in this thread. I also remember that the sun is not in the center, it forms just one of the foci of the Earth's orbit and the other focus is just a point in space. I haven't found any verification of that, yet.

http://geography.about.com/od/physicalgeography/a/orbitsun.htm
"The earth's orbit around the sun is not a circle. The earth's orbit around the sun is slightly elliptical. Therefore, the distance between the earth and the sun varies throughout the year.

"At its nearest point on the ellipse that is the earth's orbit around the sun, the earth is 91,445,000 miles (147,166,462 km) from the sun. This point in the earth's orbit is known as perihelion and it occurs around January 3.

"The earth is farthest away from the sun around July 4 when it is 94,555,000 miles (152,171,522 km) from the sun. This point in the earth's orbit is called aphelion."

This is what I would consider "science" which isn't particularly relevant to many people. On the other hand, I would consider the fact that the earth orbits the sun part of "common knowledge". Maybe people don't need to know that fact to get along in their daily lives but it seems strange that people wouldn't know it.

 

[steingar]

This is what I would consider "science" which isn't particularly relevant to many people. On the other hand, I would consider the fact that the earth orbits the sun part of "common knowledge". Maybe people don't need to know that fact to get along in their daily lives but it seems strange that people wouldn't know it.

I was really proud of myself that I knew what a LaGrange point was. Tough crowd.

 

[Everskyward]

I was really proud of myself that I knew what a LaGrange point was. Tough crowd.

Weirdly I remembered hearing about the LaGrange point before, back when I was learning to fly and other members of the flying club were astronomy faculty. I think they tried to explain it to me but I don't remember the explanation if I ever understood it to begin with.

 

[EdFred]

Can you cite a specific example of a scientist being "silenced" by the scientific community because of the nature of their conclusions? Keep in mind that articles about mental power, homeopathic medicine, and cold fusion have all graced the pages of the foremost science journals despite widespread disbelief by scientists.

I haven't dug into it to read both sides, but John Yurkin(?) wrote a book in the 70s about the toxicity of sugar and it's correlation to heart disease, obesity, etc and was completely rebuffed by the apparent consensus at the time of "low fat" scientists. Of course the low fat scientists were seemingly backed by the food industry. 40 years later, it appears that he was probably correct.

I take neither side in the argument, and I just started looking into it, so I'm not saying whether he IS correct, or ISN'T, but rather than silence him, why didn't the low fat scientists say, "hey, he may be on to something" in search of "the truth."

Now, it may turn out he is completely wrong, but that should be proven through experiments, not egoistic and industry pressure.

 

[tmyers]

There is global warming taking place outside my office window right now and I LIKE IT!!!

 

[AcroGimp]

So, are you saying that mainstream climatologists ARE faking results to get grant money?

While not 100% addressing this question, this can give you some sense of the overall internal dialogues - from the UK Guardian following the release of the East Anglia E-Mails (also called ClimateGate). For the sake of 'fairness' I have left the after-the-fact explanations offered by many of the Scientists as part of $200,000+ publicity campaign following the leak.

"Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a wealth of others. This is just downright dangerous."
​

• Peter Thorne, research scientist, Met Office Hadley Centre, to Phil Jones, UEA, 4 February 2005 (email 1939)
Having been asked to look over an early draft of part of the latest IPCC report, Thorne expresses concern that it over-simplifies or even dismisses uncertainty about temperature rises in the atmosphere. The fact Thorne was asked to comment is part of the process intended to make sure such omissions or distortions do not get published, and his reponse demonstrates the openness with which the scientists debate those issues. The resulting public review drafts and final report in 2007 reflected much more observational uncertainty, in line with Thorne's comments.

"Getting people we know and trust [into the IPCC report team] is vital."
​

• Phil Jones, UEA, to Kevin Trenberth, NCAR, 15 September 2004 (email 714)
In an earlier email in the thread, Jones refers to two scientists he does not "trust". He does not say why, but does not say because he does not agree with them. He and Trenberth discuss a huge range of names as possible contributors, from several countries, and are keen to widen the net.

"Mike, the figure you sent is very deceptive ... there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC."
​

• Tom Wigley, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, US, to Michael Mann, Penn State University, US, and others, 14 October 2009 (email 2884)
Wigley is referring to a graph on the Real Climate blog by climate scientist Gavin Schmidt. On Wednesday Schmidt responded, again on the blog, saying he "disagreed (and disagree) with Wigley", and replied at the time to say so. The general allegation about dishonest presentations is uncomfortable, but these are often scientifically difficult judgements, and are being argued out.

"The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guide what's included and what is left out."
​

• Jonathan Overpeck, University of Arizona, to Ricardo Villalba, IANIGLA-CONICET, Argentina, 16 December 2004 (email 4755)
Overpeck is advising Villalba on how to edit something down to a half-page summary, in which context his advice looks less conspiratorial. Notably, he goes on immediately to say: "For the IPCC, we need to know what is relevant and useful for assessing recent and future climate change. Moreover, we have to have solid data – not inconclusive information."

"I find myself in the strange position of being very skeptical of the quality of all present reconstructions, yet sounding like a pro-greenhouse zealot here!"
​

• Keith Briffa, UEA, to Edward Cook (probably Edward R Cook at the Earth Institute, Columbia University), 20 January 2005 (email 2009)
Briffa explained to the Guardian: "I am trying to reinforce the request to my co-author to provide a strongly critical review of the draft text. I believed that I had taken account of the considerable uncertainties in the evidence when producing the draft and still came to the conclusion that the late 20th century was unusually warm." This explanation is backed up by the email thread, in which he writes: "Really happy to get critical comment here." Not in keeping with the idea that the scientists were only interested in opinions that agreed with theirs.
Waspishly, Briffa does also suggest however that another climate scientist, Kevin Trenberth, is "extremely defensive and combative when ever criticized about anything because he figures that he is smarter than everyone else and virtually infallible." That does not make Trenberth unique!

"We're choosing the periods to show warming."
​

• Phil Jones, UEA, to Kevin Trenberth, NCAR, and others, 21 December 2004 (email 2775)
On the surface this was one of the more damaging excerpts. But Jones explained at briefing in London on Wednesday that he was referring to the colour scheme and scales on graphs showing temperature records from 1901 to 2005 – the last century – and 1970 to 2005 – the period for which satellite records are available. "Those periods show warming. They were not pre-selected to show warming," he added.

"My most immediate concern is to whether to leave this statement ["the last two decades of the 20th century were probably the warmest of the last millennium"] in or whether I should remove it in the anticipation that by the time of the 4th assessment report we'll have withdrawn this statement."
​

• Peter Stott, Met Office Hadley Centre, to Phil Jones and others, 8 September 2004 (email 4923)
Stott is preparing for a meeting with the ecologist David Bellamy, who has publicly called global warming "poppycock", and is being cautious about not overstating the evidence in case ongoing research shows it to be untrue. In the event the IPCC report in 2007 still suggests they were the warmest decades, despite the previous extra research.

"We don't really want the bull**** and optimistic stuff that Michael has written ..."
​

• Phil Jones, UAE, to Jonathan Overpeck, Arizona University, 8 February 2008 (email 3062)
Jones is referring to new research by Michael Schultz of the University of Bremen – not, as many at first assumed, Michael Mann. Jones said on Wednesday he was not confident enough in Schultz's early work on a new way of reconstructing ancient climate through the oceans. Interestingly, Jones's email then asks Overpeck to write something and adds: "What we want is good honest stuff, warts and all, dubious dating, interpretation marginally better etc."

"The results for 400ppm [parts per million carbon in the atmosphere] stabilization look odd in many cases ... As it stands we'll have to delete the results from the paper if it is to be published."
​

• Rachel Warren, UEA, to Rita Yu, UEA, 19 August 2008 (email 310)
This is a clear illustration of the danger of people posting excerpts online using ellipsis (...). What Warren actually wrote was: "The results for 400ppm stabilization look odd in many cases as I have commented before. I would like to try to understand why, before we finish the paper. As it stands we'll have to delete the results from the paper if it is to be published." Warren has seen an anomoly in Yu's results; Yu is a PhD student and she is being asked to give more detail before an unexplained anomoly is written up in a journal paper.

"What if climate change appears to be just mainly a multidecadal natural fluctuation? They'll kill us probably ..."
​

Tommy Wills, Swansea University to the mailing list for tree-ring data forum ITRDB, 28 Mar 2007 (email 1682)
Wils' email is part of an exchange about whether and how to respond to climate sceptic criticisms. It appears to be a point made for more for rhetorical effect than anything else. As one contributor on the blog Quark Soup by David Appell put it: "Well, at least they considered it as an option."

"There shouldn't be someone else at UEA with different views [from "recent extreme weather is due to global warming"] – at least not a climatologist."
​

• Phil Jones, UEA, to Melissa Murphy, UEA, 23 Aug 2004 (email 1788)
The TV programme Tonight with Trevor Macdonald is going to feature a colleague of Jones, David Viner, arguing that (then) recent extreme weather was a result of global warming. Jones is responding to a request via the press office for another member of the Climatic Research Unit to appear making the opposite argument. Jones is arguing it would "look odd" if two people with opposite views were from the same department and suggests the TV production team "could easily dredge someone up" from elsewhere.

"I doubt the modelling world will be able to get away with this much longer."
​

• Tim Barnett, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, US, to Gabi Hegerl, Duke University, US, 18 May 2007 (email 850)
This is during a discussion about information a group of scientists wants to request from climate modellers to improve their understanding of the models – and presumably improve the models themselves. Barnett says getting forcing data is "a must" because many climate models, when tested against history, produced results close to observed temperatures, despite making different assumptions about "forcing" (probably radiative forcing, the net difference between heat radiation entering the earth's atmosphere and leaving it).

"All models are wrong."
​

• Phil Jones, UEA, to Timothy Carter, Finnish Environment Institute, 11 Mar 2004 (email 4443)

'Gimp