Comparison
The recent climategate shenanigans have been compared to a few second amendment related items. Glenn Reynolds compares it to the Bellisiles fraud:
Bellesiles eventually lost his job at Emory (and his Bancroft Prize) over the fraud, but not until his critics had been called political hacks, McCarthyites, and worse. But what’s amazing, especially in retrospect, is how slow his defenders — and the media — were to engage the critics, or to look at the flaws in the data. Instead, they wrapped themselves in claims of authority, and attacked the critics as anti-intellectual hacks interested only in politics. Are we seeing something similar with regard to ClimateGate?
Smitty calls me Brady-esque:
As a supporter of the 2nd amendment and a research scientist, I am really disappointed in the Brady-esque denial of the facts going on here. Many, many sources show a global upward trend in the Earth’s temperature. It is real.
Indeed. There is a trend of upward temperatures, though none in the last 15 years with some models. But that’s not the issue with climategate. The issue is that some of the science seems crafted to fit an agenda. Science isn’t supposed to have an agenda. And due to other issues with it, I remain skeptical.
February 16th, 2010 at 11:17 am
The agenda is total government control of all factors of production, akin to what the soviets had. Oh yea, the ‘science’ points straight to that solution, what a coincidence!
February 16th, 2010 at 11:51 am
I don’t think it’s the models not showing any warming so much as it is the data showing no statistically significant warming.
February 16th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
I don’t think it’s the data showing no statistically significant warming so much as it is the shenanigans surrounding the data itself.
While I think the theory behind AGW is at least plausible, the fact is that we would need reliable data going back at least 150 years (before the industrial age took off) to even begin to substantiate the theory – something that, given the accuracy, precision, and distribution of weather thermometers even 100 years ago, is a sheer impossibility. The shenanigans surrounding the data means that even the data from the last 10 years is suspect. Add to that the earth’s natural heating/cooling cycle, and we really need to get data from the last 1000 years or more to even think about ruling out natural causes. If we can’t get precise enough data from 100 years ago, there’s no way we have it from 1000 years ago, no matter what they say about “tree rings” and “ice core samples” – without substantial, long term, verifiable experiments there is no way these things can be considered accurate to the range necessary (0.1 deg C) to substantiate the amount of warming they’re claiming has occurred.
We now know that the data we do have has been manipulated, filtered, and just plain made up – not with the goal of increasing accuracy or discarding unreliable data, but with the goal of making the data support the AGW theory. That is not science, and it throws serious doubt on the reliability of the theory itself, especially now that the politicians have gotten involved.
February 16th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
In before Sebastian. 😉
This is indeed a serious issue for the Global Warming Believers: If your sources lose their credibility, then it doesn’t matter if all of them agree.
Instead of actually addressing the real flaws in the IPCC report and the credible allegations of cover-up and falsifying of data at the University of East Anglia, GWB’s instead have resorted to a “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain” strategy, hoping that their status as the Great and Powerful Oz will still allow them to overwhelm and intimidate their critics.
February 16th, 2010 at 2:02 pm
The funniest part is their leader, The Al Gore is an idiot.
check out this clip from the tonight show with conan where he states that the center of the earth is MILLIONS of degrees!!!
I shit you not the man is dumber than a turnip.
February 16th, 2010 at 8:28 pm
Really, in some respects, whether warming is actually occurring is irrelevant. The bigger issue is whether climate changes are caused by man’s activity. Even if we assume that there is climate change and that it is caused by man, there’s still the issue as to what impact it will have. The science on that iis very, very iffy even if the global warming data is rock solid.
February 16th, 2010 at 8:46 pm
The models don’t predict correctly (for example, the critical-to-the-theory mid-tropo warming layer that isn’t there).
Temperature data has been corrupted by “adjustments” in order to support AGW.
Historical records have been altered or erased to support AGW.
Peer review has been corrupted to support AGW theory.
Supporting AGW isn’t science. It’s political, economic, and possibly quasi-religious, but science it ain’t.
February 18th, 2010 at 2:35 pm
There is only one model which correctly shows the climate events Earth has experienced, and one only. None of the others can even prove or postulate that what we know happened, happened. How can anyone take those seriously for predictive purposes when they cannot be relied upon to verify known events?
Oh, and that one model? Solar output graphed to Earth’s climate.