This is both my personal learning project and my contribution in the struggle to confront the ongoing Republican/ libertarian assault on rational science and constructive learning, as manifested in their malicious strategic Attacks on Science ~ A collection of articles, scientific resources, plus my own essays and indepth critique of various presentations from unidirectional-skeptics ~ Hopefully a resource for the busy, yet discerning, student who's concerned about the health of our Earth
Continuing my walk down memory lane in honor of the Paris Climate Conference, (well and also for my pal AL with his hate-on for Dr. Mann and rejection of climate proxy data in general as described in the comments thread atProf Ivar Giaever's pathetic YouTube PseudoScience talk), I'm going to reprint a few posts I'd originally written for my Citizenschallenge Blog a couple years back since the information they hold is a valid and relevant today as it was then.
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Traveling around the blogosphere these past years I keep running into the same misinformation being repeated based on the "authority" of an economist and a mining prospector turned mining engineer with a mathematical background and a political bone to pick.
Basically they are dead set against any sort of limitations or restrictions being put on carbon fuels and the global warming greenhouse gases we are adding to our thin atmosphere. Unfortunately they are so politically motivated that they have tossed scientific standards out the window and have adopted the ruthless standards of power-politics where any dirty trick and misrepresentation is part of the 'rules of engagement.' Unfortunately, this global warming situation requires a commitment to listening and learning or Catastrophic Global Warming will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. In order to shed light on the many mistakes and misrepresentations Ross McKitrick and Stephen McIntyre are guilty of I have culled the search results over at RealClimate.org to produce this voluminous reference list. It is in chronological order - I hope a one stop source for this information may come in handy for some in their struggle to educate our business and political leaders along with all the folks who prefer to ignore this situation that touches everyone of us. I've included links within the title to the original at RealClimate.org so please do check them out! I appreciate the folks at RealClimate.org allowing me to continue with this effort. Step right up and see real science in action.
Continuing my walk down memory lane in honor of the Paris Climate Conference, (well and also for my pal AL with his hate-on for Dr. Mann and rejection of climate proxy data in general as described in the comments thread atProf Ivar Giaever's pathetic YouTube PseudoScience talk), I'm going to reprint a few posts I'd originally written for my Citizenschallenge Blog a couple years back since the information they hold is a valid and relevant today as it was then.
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The Contender writes: "@citizen, My argument is that scientists fall victim to group think sometimes."
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How about admitting that all people fall victim to "group think" sometimes, some groups more than others?
With politicians and political advocates being near the top of the list of people who are susceptible to group think. In fact, they enthusiastically embrace group think, just look at the Republican or the Tea Party's xenophobia towards new or different ideas. Heck listen to the Republican's ranking member of the Science Committee, Rep. Paul Broun: If it ain't in the Bible it's "Hell-spawned lies." And, interestingly these are exactly the folks who scream loudest that their claims should be trusted more than the professional experts who understand the science.
But the thing is that "science" by it's very nature is skeptical, self-examining and open to self-correction since acquiring solid facts and continuing genuine learning is its goal. Competing and cross-checking each other's work and looking for the break-through to new perspectives and understanding is its imperative. And finding oneself making mistakes is an accepted part of the learning process - as opposed to the political arena where admitting a mistake is next to suicide.
The Contender then goes on:
"You are simply wrong about the facts you are claiming about the Hockey Stick. The observation remains that if all the proxies are just put into the standard processing methods, the traditional reconstruction of climate emerges including the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. Only by massaging the data can the past climate events be made to vanish.'
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The problem here is that only by limiting yourself to the science presented by the usual suspects, such as Heartland, SPPI, ClimateAudit, WUWT and such members of the echo-chamber can such a claim be sustained. The problem with those sources is they do science in a vacuum - meaning science that's isolated from the sunshine of open review and critique by experts in the field.
This is why I decided to break into the RealClimate.org files in order to reproduce a record of their discussion regarding the Hockey Stick. Mind you "Mr. Hockey Stick", that is Dr. Mann, is one of the authors at RC. I bring this up because in America when we charge someone with misdeeds or crimes - we allow, and in fact, expect them to respond to incriminating claims made against them.
Not so random thoughts recalling seepage in action - gotta run today, so it's rough notes, I hope someone can do something with it.. (edited 3:15, May 29th} (I've added a couple interviews with Dr Santer and Dr. Mann - fromthe UQxDenial101 MOOC May 30th)
Considering the process of learning.
Learning is a cumulative process.
For example in the late 1990s a team of scientists led by Michael Mann pioneered paleo-climate studies.
They produced a graph that told a story that Republican/libertarian interests did NOT want to hear.
… I don't need to repeat the history.
The take away point is that nowhere have R/l individuals been interested in learning from incoming evidence. It's all about stonewalling with their God-given self-certitude and disinterest in evaluating any information that might threaten their perceived interests.
But learning is about taking in all the information you can, objectively evaluated all of it.
In the real world mistakes are teaching tools that we learn from and that constructively inform future actions.
But Republican/libertarian interests only seek bludgeons for battering down all they don't want to hear or think about.
So we have this scientific graph, "Mann's Hockey Stick" paleo-temperature record.
It's a pioneering effort, the "flaws" it has are all extremely minor and part of the learning process. Similar exist in most studies, and any short comings were actively investigated to learn what happened and why. That's the scientific process - study and understand mistakes, and learn your lessons, then move on to doing more accurate work in succeeding studies.
Subsequent studies repeatedly have shown that the Mc/Mc alleged errors were small and when plotted out on a graph indiscernible to the unschooled eye. They did nothing to change the factual integrity of the work.
But look at what we've allowed to happen.
Even today I can't count the times I read "broken hockey stick", etc.
Yet, in the real world one study after another repeats, the "hockey stick" shape.
The personal experience of our own lives over the past half century support the impression of sky-rocking changes like none our planet has experienced since deep time.
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Another seepage incident, the Ben Santer diversion.
A carefully penned generally agreed to sentence: "The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate." IPCC, Madrid, November 1995 (see his video interview 20:50)
Then very crafty Republican/libertarian political word factories twisted the story and dictated the story, making an enemy out of Ben Santer who was doing his duty as lead author
the last step, physically inserting said sentence into the final IPCC report.
And the public discourse runs right off the rails.
Republican/libertarian spin masters dictated the entire discuss.
Or my latest favorite beer glass inspiration: "It's atmospheric insulation stupid, it holds in heat" now can we get on with dealing with what we know we have done and continue doing to our life sustain planet Earth ….
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Climate change is real, so why the controversy and debate? Learn to make sense of the science and to respond to climate change denial in Denial101x, a MOOC from UQx and edX.
Denial101x isn’t just a climate MOOC; it’s a MOOC about how people think about climate change.
To supplement my previous post, here's a list of investigations into Dr. Mann and allegations stemming from the break in and hacking of the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, courtesy of SkepticalScience.com. I finish with a DeSmogBlog profile of the American Tradition Institute:
What do the 'Climategate' hacked CRU emails tell us?
John O'Sullivan is a principle founder and pusher of "Principia Scientific International" a group of AGW deniers intent on spreading misinformation and furthering the echo-chamber's crazy-making regarding the scientific knowledge surrounding our planet's climate.
And since I don't have the time to devote to helping expose the various nonsense around this group I can at least share the efforts of others.
At http://globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.co.uk/ Pete Ridley is doing a fine job of examining the details of PSI's beautifully worded 'mission statement' compared to the reality of what they do.
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" .. advocates of transparency and accountability .. "
1.0 INTRODUCTION
In the spirit of the quotation above this article aims to provide as much transparency as possible about Principia Scientific
International (PSI)’s origins as well as the motives, methods and
ambitions of those whose vision PSI was. Anyone having little or no
knowledge of PSI should find it worthwhile initially referring to the
promotional material published on various pages on the PSI Web-site (http://principia-scientific.org/).
It presents a picture of what PSI purports to be and relevant quotes
will be made in this article as necessary when considering whether or
not PSI lives up to those praiseworthy claims.
Comments in
this article are based upon the facts collected since my first
involvement during 2010 with the significant participants in PSI. I will
concentrate initially on those individuals who played a major role in
founding the organisation. " .. British legal analyst and science
writer, John O’Sullivan pursued a vision to form a large body of experts
united in opposing the worst excesses of government-funded science. ..
From the outset PSI was driven by retired Dutch Analytical Chemist, Hans
Schreuder, Texan engineer and science writer, Joseph A. Olson and
Canada's most popular climatologist, Dr. Tim Ball .. Tom Richard .. the
driving force behind Neveu Design .. has made the PSI website ..
adaptive to the growing demands of an ambitious and globally-expanding
science publishing and communications hub .. " (http://principia-scientific.org/about/principles-of-association). After that I propose to take a look at each of the other individuals involved.
Dr. Michael Mann's Data is Available on the Internet
"My
research is all based on data sets regarding the Earth’s climate that
are freely and widely available to all researchers. Whether I make
available my computer programs is irrelevant to whether our results can be reproduced...
My computer program is a piece of private, intellectual property, as the National Science Foundation and its lawyers recognize. It is a bedrock principle of American law that the government may not take private property “without [a] public use,” and “without just compensation.”"---Dr. Michael Mann's letter to Congressman Joe Barton (7-15-05)
Mendacious
people who spread falsehoods on the Internet about the alleged
fabrications of climate scientists often claim that the famous Penn
State climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann
has kept his data secret. Actually, as Dr. Mann's 1995 letter to
Congressman Barton states, Dr. Mann's data is available on Internet at
government and university sites.
Dr.
Mann's computer programs are a secret because they are his private
intellectual property; still, researchers can develop their own computer
codes and use Mann's data to verify his results. Scholars have
replicated Dr. Mann's results by using his data with their own computer
programs.
Researchers
need not have access to exactly the same computer programs (or “code”)
as Dr. Mann developed. Dr. Mann's results can be replicated using his
underlying data and methodologies. See the letter (7-15-05)
that Dr. Mann sent to the corrupt Congressman Joe Barton explaining the
true facts and listing the Internet sites where his data was stored in
2005.
The
MBH [Mann-Bradley-Hughes] data have been publicly available for more
than a decade now! When Dr. Mann moved from U.Va, the same information
and data were maintained through his Penn State research site.
Dr. Michael Mann also has his own Facebook Page that is a valuable source of information coming from the man himself, along with many informative comments as proven in my previous post.
Over at Skepticforum I’ve just been introduced to the latest example of the ruthless depths the AGW “skeptic” community is happy to sink to, in order to distract attention from the scientific evidence of what society is doing to it’s one and only home planet. The slander is so disgusting I will not discuss it, though the above link will take you to the post in question.
Suffice it to say the attacks against Michael Mann have reached new depths of sleaze in their desperate attempts to deny what Earth Observation evidence is showing us. Namely, that Michael Mann’s pioneering paleoclimate reconstructions and the early so called Hockey Stick graph’s voracity continues to be supported by the evidence. And that the basic outline has been repeated, well... repeatedly. As illustrated within the evidence at the other side of the links provided below.
It is tragic that the contrarian skeptical community has managed to sell the notion that anything less than 100% accuracy should be shrugged off. As for the constant refrain 'we want proof', well the lie in that is - we don’t even have proof the sun will rise tomorrow morning until after it happens. So can we try to be realistic? When will these folks start learning rather than dodging and ignoring every new piece of evidence?
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Thus I share a slightly cleaned up version of my reply:
I'm still in a bit of shock at these new depths of brutality and ruthlessness that the denialist community and it's adherents feel comfortable promulgating. {and some folks wonder why I'm so motivated - and frustrated at not being able to spend all my energy in trying to present the science and confront lying predators like osullivan et al.}
