"Seepage" - Mann's "Hockey Stick" and Santer's sentence

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 - from the 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.

I have to wonder, why was there never a huge scientific outcry -
loud enough to force the "talk of a nation" back on track.
"Well the human influence is discernible stupid"
let us count the ways . . . 
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
https://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-global-warming.htm
http://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/global-warming/science-and-impacts/global-warming-science#.VWjVpOtyHww
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/indicators/
and so on and so forth.
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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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UQx DENIAL101x Interview with Michael Mann

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=12&v=k3j9j6WNpRM

Published on Apr 27, 2015

UQx Denial101x Making Sense of Climate Science Denial

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UQx DENIAL101x Interview with Ben Santer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOrUYQhGzT8

Published on Apr 27, 2015
UQx Denial101x Making Sense of Climate Science Denial

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.

Join us in the edX discussion forum at http://edx.org/understanding-climate-denial.

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Exhibit 3c: HotWhooper's "Seeps and SCAMS" a closer look at Lewandowsky et al 2015

Sou at HotWhooper has written three insightful posts regarding Lewandosky et al 2015 that belong in this WUWTW collection of exhibits for my eventual complaint/presentation to the SFSU administration...  

The following was copied verbatim from HotWhooper.com.  Then I starting deleting it down to it's core points, my "cliffnotes" so to speak.  A couple long sections are complete, but most have been reduced.  Please read the full versions.

On Seeps and SCAMS Part I: Lessons for Climate Scientists
On Seeps and SCAMS Part II: Pat'n Chip'n David Fake a Debate
Seeps and SCAMS Part III: Richard Betts misunderstands (and misrepresents) a paper

I have added some paragraph breaks and highlights.  
I thank Sou for her excellent research and getting this information out there and tip my hat to HotWhopper's CC policy.

Highlights: HotWhopper's "Seeps and SCAMS" 

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On Seeps and SCAMS Part I: 
Lessons for Climate Scientists
HotWhopper  |  Sou |  May 14, 2015
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2015/05/on-seeps-and-scams-part-i-lessons-for.html

If you thought that dispassionate scientists, when doing scientific research, are immune from denialist propaganda you'd be wrong. It's not just when scientists talk about climate that they can demonstrate they've been influenced by denialists' campaigns. Even their scientific publications can be so influenced.

"About seepage - of denialist memes and framing - into the scientific community"

The paper is all about seepage. How denialists' talking points have "seeped" into the scientific community. The authors define seepage using two criteria. To be considered seepage the following two criteria must be met:

1. the scientific community has adopted assumptions or language from discourse that originated outside the scientific community or from a small set of dissenting scientific voices. 
2. those assumptions depart from those commonly held by the scientific community. 

Exhibit 3b: Lewandowsky responds to Betts critique re "Seepage" study.

For this exhibit #3b I'm reposting Prof Lewandowsky's response to Prof Betts (bio) prefaced by a comment and question I have for any takers.

What mystifies me to no end, is that although scientists thoroughly understand the physics of atmospheric greenhouses, the impression experts such as Professor Betts project is that until we achieve totally complete and absolutely correct measurements of every component of our Global Heat and Moisture Distribution Engine - we can somehow pretend greenhouse gases aren't doing their job 24/7/365 - specifically relentlessly increasing the heat and energy within our climate system.

What happened to our appreciation that the map is not the territory?

Can anyone explain how that rationale works?

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Voices from the climate community on "seepage"

http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/lewandowskySeepageII.html

By Stephan Lewandowsky

Professor, School of Experimental Psychology and Cabot Institute, University of Bristol

Posted on 14 May 2015

Our recent article “Seepage: Climate change denial and its effect on the scientific community” in Global Environmental Change, authored by me and Naomi Oreskes, James S. Risbey, Ben R. Newell, and Michael Smithson, has attracted a bit of attention over the last few days. I sample a few comments here and reply to a lengthy post by Richard Betts, Head of the Climate Impacts strategic area at the UK Met Office, that critiqued our paper.

A Critical Voice: Richard Betts on “seepage”

However, not unexpectedly, there are also some critical voices. We expected that our paper would evoke some spirited disagreement, and so Richard Betts’ critique of our paper is most welcome as it provides us with an opportunity to restate our argument and address some of the objections raised by Professor Betts. 

To facilitate discussion, I begin by noting that there is much in Betts’s post that we can agree with—for example, the increased role of social media, the increased focus by governments on the need for adaptation and hence decadal predictions. No disagreement there. But then again, none of those points pertain to the issue of seepage.

Exhibit Three: Lewandowsky et al. 'Seepage' paper and fabricated bias.

I've come to realize that my idea of getting San Francisco State University administration to take some action in response to Landscapesandcycles' Mr. Jim Steele's malicious slander and equally execrable misrepresentation of wildlife studies was naive and is dead in the water.  However, that doesn't mean I can't send SFSU Administration a well formulated complaint along with a learning experience regarding the ways of the con artist and how university administrations have an ethical obligation to proactively reject the active fabrication and dissemination of deliberate, and with malicious intent, lies and misrepresentations regarding the work of scientists.

Thus, my effort to collect, organize and support my argument will continue.  Serendipitously, yesterday the Hotwhopper blog alerted me to a new study by Lewandowsky, Oreskes, Risbey, Newell, and Smithson. It details something I've noticed for a long time, but haven't been able to enunciate.  

For my Exhibit #3 let me present 

Seepage: 

Climate change denial and its effect on the scientific community 

Stephan Lewandowsky , Naomi Oreskes, James S. Risbey, Ben R. Newell, Michael Smithson  -  Global Environmental Change  -  Elsevier Ltd 2015 

Summary

Appeals to scientific uncertainty are often used to forestall action on climate change:

 *We examine the seepage of this contrarian discourse into the scientific community.   *We highlight psychological reasons for scientists’ susceptibility to seepage.  *We use the global warming ‘‘hiatus’’ as an example of the consequences of  seepage.   *We offer ways in which the scientific community can detect and avoid such seepage. 

From the abstract

 We show that although scientists are trained in dealing with uncertainty, there are several psychological reasons why scientists may nevertheless be susceptible to uncertainty-based argumentation, even when scientists recognize those arguments as false and are actively rebutting them.   

Specifically, we show that prolonged stereotype threat, pluralistic ignorance, and a form of projection (the third-person effect) may cause scientists to take positions that they would be less likely to take in the absence of outspoken public opposition.  

We illustrate the consequences of seepage from public debate into the scientific process…"

FYI, in the internet this is shaping up to be quite a kerfluffle that I intend to report on after I get caught up on all the action.  But, first it would be good to allow Professor Lewankowsky's to speak for himself, so with a tip of my hat to Professor Lewandowsky I'm reposting his description of the study - followed by links to HotWhopper's triple play, and AndThenThere'sPhysics' guest post by Prof. Richard Betts, who's the Head of Climate Impacts at the Met Office and disagrees.

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update:

Voices from the climate community on "seepage"

By Stephan Lewandowsky

Professor, School of Experimental Psychology and Cabot Institute, University of Bristol

Posted on 14 May 2015

http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/lewandowskySeepageII.html

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By Professor Stephan Lewandowsky

Posted on 7 May |  http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/lewandowskySeepage.html