Corrupt science
On the chance that anyone remains interested in the global warming debate, below are two links describing newly discovered fraud and scandal at the level of data collection and analysis. Both involve, among others, senior people at the premier British climatological research center, the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at U. of East Anglia, also known as the Hadley center. Both cast doubt on what have been considered key supports for the reality of global warming, because both raise serious questions about the evidentiary basis underlying "consensus" claims about climate change.
The first involves emails among senior researchers that describe how data was fudged to hide results that did not support claims about historical temperature trends; these emails, which go back many years, have only now come to light as the result of hackers breaking into files at the CRU. It is an interesting question whether deliberate data fudging would constitute a conspiracy to defraud taxpayers who, in good faith, foot the bill for this research, as well as paying the salaries of the perpetrators.
The second is a scandal involving failures of peer review to uncover biased selection of tree-ring data that was used in at least eight highly-cited papers appearing in both Science and Nature, among other prestigious journals. The papers made sweeping claims about historical warming trends based on what now appears to be clearly fraudulent methodology involving purposive data selection; the scandal only came to light after prodigious efforts by a Canadian mathematician to gain access to the original data on which the published results and associated claims had been based.
Scientific corruption like this is exactly what you should expect once science becomes politicized, and the Consensus Gravy Train starts to roll down the track. The failure of peer review at highly prestigious journals is especially destructive, as that is ordinarily the only line of defense against sloppy or fraudulent research making its way into the literature, from there to be widely cited as Truth. But once the declared "consensus" has become highly rewarding to the participants (publications, salary increases, academic promotions, grant money, trips to conferences, appointment to high-profile government bodies and panels, TV appearances, job offers, etc.), all the normal safeguards and controls that keep science honest go out the window. This is especially the case if a moral dimension can be attached to the subject matter; that effort has succeeded with respect to global warming, with skeptics seen not merely as mistaken, but also as possessing evil intentions.
Notice that in both of these cases the dishonesty was discovered by outsiders. That's no surprise, and neither is the constant effort to discredit and silence those who are skeptical of the global warming "consensus." This is science at its worst.
Byron
Do hacked e-mails show global-warming fraud?
Treemometers: A new scientific scandal
The first involves emails among senior researchers that describe how data was fudged to hide results that did not support claims about historical temperature trends; these emails, which go back many years, have only now come to light as the result of hackers breaking into files at the CRU. It is an interesting question whether deliberate data fudging would constitute a conspiracy to defraud taxpayers who, in good faith, foot the bill for this research, as well as paying the salaries of the perpetrators.
The second is a scandal involving failures of peer review to uncover biased selection of tree-ring data that was used in at least eight highly-cited papers appearing in both Science and Nature, among other prestigious journals. The papers made sweeping claims about historical warming trends based on what now appears to be clearly fraudulent methodology involving purposive data selection; the scandal only came to light after prodigious efforts by a Canadian mathematician to gain access to the original data on which the published results and associated claims had been based.
Scientific corruption like this is exactly what you should expect once science becomes politicized, and the Consensus Gravy Train starts to roll down the track. The failure of peer review at highly prestigious journals is especially destructive, as that is ordinarily the only line of defense against sloppy or fraudulent research making its way into the literature, from there to be widely cited as Truth. But once the declared "consensus" has become highly rewarding to the participants (publications, salary increases, academic promotions, grant money, trips to conferences, appointment to high-profile government bodies and panels, TV appearances, job offers, etc.), all the normal safeguards and controls that keep science honest go out the window. This is especially the case if a moral dimension can be attached to the subject matter; that effort has succeeded with respect to global warming, with skeptics seen not merely as mistaken, but also as possessing evil intentions.
Notice that in both of these cases the dishonesty was discovered by outsiders. That's no surprise, and neither is the constant effort to discredit and silence those who are skeptical of the global warming "consensus." This is science at its worst.
Byron
Do hacked e-mails show global-warming fraud?
Treemometers: A new scientific scandal
posted by Byron | Friday, November 20, 2009
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