Interesting. So, say, NASA, which shares its data liberally, has gotten its conclusions right, while CRU, which resisted doing so, has gotten them wrong?
So, say, NASA, which shares its data liberally, has gotten its conclusions right, while CRU, which resisted doing so, has gotten them wrong?
Don’t try to put words in my mouth, thanks.
Wicherts and Bakker’s finding that failure to share data corresponds to failure to speak the truth is evidence in favour of the idea that the CRU’s consistent refusal to share data is related to their being pseudo-scientists.
The fact that their line on global warming is synoptic with James Hansen’s group’s line has two parsimonious explanations: they have both discovered the truth; or they are willing to manipulate the data to prove whatever they want to prove.
Either way, the evidence in Konkvistadors’s post (presuming it is news to anyone) should reduce one’s confidence in the scientific competence of the CRU.
Not really putting words in your mouth, just trying to make sense of what you said in context of the post. It turned out to be pretty, well, normal. You’re mentioning reasons that will allow you to say global warming isn’t happening, not trying to evaluate claims of global warming, in general, using this heuristic.
To explain the comment about “putting words in my mouth”: my comment relating the activities of the CRU to the subject of Konkvistador’s post was to the effect that the CRU is unwilling to share data, even when it is legally obliged to do so; there is debate regarding whether this is acceptable scientific practice; and that here we have concrete evidence that failure to share data is related to bad science; therefore, in light of this finding everyone (AGW-credulist or skeptic) should take a dimmer view of the CRU’s opacity.
From the credulist point of view, it might appear that the CRU has problems with quality control, which they are trying to shield from view – perhaps their work on paleoclimatology should be handed over to the Met office, for example. This is compatible with the idea that they are right about AGW in general but CRUTEM is a mess, or even that the problems with CRUTEM are not too severe but they should be doing better.
From the skeptic (or fence-sitting) view, this is more evidence that the CRU are pseudo-scientists in general. The fact that NASA agree in general with the CRU on AGW, and NASA happen to share data, doesn’t exonerate the CRU; there are plenty of ways to lie and mislead that do not involve failing to share data, so the fact that NASA is more transparent is no guarantee that their and the University of East Anglia’s conclusions on AGW are sound in general.
Your comment implied that I had claimed that the CRU’s conclusions were necessarily wrong, because they don’t share their data; and that NASA’s conclusions in general are necessarily right, because they do share data.
This is a non-sequitur on both counts. What makes this objectionable is that you supplied no reasoning beyond a mere statement, as though these conclusions followed trivially from what I had said. This is a rhetorical technique designed to score points, rather than something I would expect from a valuable debating partner – a suitable description of this style of commenting is “putting words into someone’s mouth”, and I think that the best way of dealing with it is to refer to it directly, so as to dissociate oneself from the non-sequitur.
The hyperbole of my original reply was shorthand for “is evidence for,” and I’m sorry if me doing that derailed the topic a bit by miscommunicating. The purpose of my reply was so I could get a better idea whether you were assessing claims of global warming using the tool referred to in the post (“the more reluctant that scientists were to share their data, the more likely that evidence contradicted their reported findings.”), or whether you were making a related but not-covered-by-the-post argument about how CRU wasn’t doing science. Your replies indicated that you were doing the latter.
The CRU has been exonerated of manipulating data or hiding information that challenged the consensus on global warming.
If they had, though, it would certainly be understandable. As with any issue that deals with a lot of motivated cognition, climate skeptics will seize on any data that will support their disbelief out of the sea of all the data that confronts it, and not revise their confidence back down if the data is retracted or shown to be false. A single study contradicting the consensus at low P-value would be no problem in a rational world, but it’s a social liability in our own. But no bigger a liability than being found hiding information. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
The CRU has been exonerated of manipulating data or hiding information that challenged the consensus on global warming.
By whom? is the important question. Having read some of the incriminating emails and the infamous harryreadme.txt I certainly don’t exonerate them.
If they had, though, it would certainly be understandable. As with any issue that deals with a lot of motivated cognition, climate skeptics will seize on any data that will support their disbelief out of the sea of all the data that confronts it, and not revise their confidence back down if the data is retracted or shown to be false.
If this is the case, I wonder why legitimate scientists never caught on to that idea in the past – defeat the skeptics by hiding data and the details of scientific practices from them. This seems 180 degrees from reality.
Creationists are often mentioned in this context – transparent scientific practices have failed to persuade them. However, this is simply because creationists are in possession of a memeplex that renders them immune to reason; hiding data and scientific information from the public would only embolden them, besides giving more rational people reason to doubt the veracity of Darwinism.
Even if there were any substance to the idea that transparency in science empowers skeptics, that is vastly outweighed by the hazards involved in permitting these people to recommend massive social and economic policy changes, without their being subject to scrutiny from outsiders (NB: peer review is not incorruptible, as the climategate emails have revealed). They can hardly claim to be minding their own business!
By the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, the Independent Climate Change Review, the International Science Assessment Panel, Pennsylvania State University, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, and the United States Department of Commerce, as stated in the article I already linked to.
If this is the case, I wonder why legitimate scientists never caught on to that idea in the past – defeat the skeptics by hiding data and the details of scientific practices from them. This seems 180 degrees from reality.
Science is rarely so closely connected to social policy; whether public officials accept that evolution is true mainly determines whether kids get taught about evolution. Whether public officials accept anthropogenic climate change determines whether we attempt to do anything about it.
I doubt that legitimate scientists in any field have ever systematically refused transparency in order to protect their favored theories, and it’s certainly not the case with climate change research, but it’s not as if there’s been a historical shortage of scientists who don’t play their cards straight. I’m simply saying that this is a case where there’s a particularly obvious motive.
No, when I said legitimate scientists in any field, I meant the body of scientists in a legitimate field. There have certainly been scientists who have earned their degrees legitimately who systematically refused transparency, but I do not think there has been any legitimate field of science where the practitioners in general had a systematic tendency to refuse transparency. I apologize if my wording was unclear.
Interesting. So, say, NASA, which shares its data liberally, has gotten its conclusions right, while CRU, which resisted doing so, has gotten them wrong?
Don’t try to put words in my mouth, thanks.
Wicherts and Bakker’s finding that failure to share data corresponds to failure to speak the truth is evidence in favour of the idea that the CRU’s consistent refusal to share data is related to their being pseudo-scientists.
The fact that their line on global warming is synoptic with James Hansen’s group’s line has two parsimonious explanations: they have both discovered the truth; or they are willing to manipulate the data to prove whatever they want to prove.
Either way, the evidence in Konkvistadors’s post (presuming it is news to anyone) should reduce one’s confidence in the scientific competence of the CRU.
Not really putting words in your mouth, just trying to make sense of what you said in context of the post. It turned out to be pretty, well, normal. You’re mentioning reasons that will allow you to say global warming isn’t happening, not trying to evaluate claims of global warming, in general, using this heuristic.
To explain the comment about “putting words in my mouth”: my comment relating the activities of the CRU to the subject of Konkvistador’s post was to the effect that the CRU is unwilling to share data, even when it is legally obliged to do so; there is debate regarding whether this is acceptable scientific practice; and that here we have concrete evidence that failure to share data is related to bad science; therefore, in light of this finding everyone (AGW-credulist or skeptic) should take a dimmer view of the CRU’s opacity.
From the credulist point of view, it might appear that the CRU has problems with quality control, which they are trying to shield from view – perhaps their work on paleoclimatology should be handed over to the Met office, for example. This is compatible with the idea that they are right about AGW in general but CRUTEM is a mess, or even that the problems with CRUTEM are not too severe but they should be doing better.
From the skeptic (or fence-sitting) view, this is more evidence that the CRU are pseudo-scientists in general. The fact that NASA agree in general with the CRU on AGW, and NASA happen to share data, doesn’t exonerate the CRU; there are plenty of ways to lie and mislead that do not involve failing to share data, so the fact that NASA is more transparent is no guarantee that their and the University of East Anglia’s conclusions on AGW are sound in general.
Your comment implied that I had claimed that the CRU’s conclusions were necessarily wrong, because they don’t share their data; and that NASA’s conclusions in general are necessarily right, because they do share data.
This is a non-sequitur on both counts. What makes this objectionable is that you supplied no reasoning beyond a mere statement, as though these conclusions followed trivially from what I had said. This is a rhetorical technique designed to score points, rather than something I would expect from a valuable debating partner – a suitable description of this style of commenting is “putting words into someone’s mouth”, and I think that the best way of dealing with it is to refer to it directly, so as to dissociate oneself from the non-sequitur.
The hyperbole of my original reply was shorthand for “is evidence for,” and I’m sorry if me doing that derailed the topic a bit by miscommunicating. The purpose of my reply was so I could get a better idea whether you were assessing claims of global warming using the tool referred to in the post (“the more reluctant that scientists were to share their data, the more likely that evidence contradicted their reported findings.”), or whether you were making a related but not-covered-by-the-post argument about how CRU wasn’t doing science. Your replies indicated that you were doing the latter.
The CRU has been exonerated of manipulating data or hiding information that challenged the consensus on global warming.
If they had, though, it would certainly be understandable. As with any issue that deals with a lot of motivated cognition, climate skeptics will seize on any data that will support their disbelief out of the sea of all the data that confronts it, and not revise their confidence back down if the data is retracted or shown to be false. A single study contradicting the consensus at low P-value would be no problem in a rational world, but it’s a social liability in our own. But no bigger a liability than being found hiding information. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
Noticably more damned if you do, insofar as actually being found hiding information also damages your credibility among the rest of the population.
By whom? is the important question. Having read some of the incriminating emails and the infamous harryreadme.txt I certainly don’t exonerate them.
If this is the case, I wonder why legitimate scientists never caught on to that idea in the past – defeat the skeptics by hiding data and the details of scientific practices from them. This seems 180 degrees from reality.
Creationists are often mentioned in this context – transparent scientific practices have failed to persuade them. However, this is simply because creationists are in possession of a memeplex that renders them immune to reason; hiding data and scientific information from the public would only embolden them, besides giving more rational people reason to doubt the veracity of Darwinism.
Even if there were any substance to the idea that transparency in science empowers skeptics, that is vastly outweighed by the hazards involved in permitting these people to recommend massive social and economic policy changes, without their being subject to scrutiny from outsiders (NB: peer review is not incorruptible, as the climategate emails have revealed). They can hardly claim to be minding their own business!
By the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, the Independent Climate Change Review, the International Science Assessment Panel, Pennsylvania State University, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, and the United States Department of Commerce, as stated in the article I already linked to.
Science is rarely so closely connected to social policy; whether public officials accept that evolution is true mainly determines whether kids get taught about evolution. Whether public officials accept anthropogenic climate change determines whether we attempt to do anything about it.
I doubt that legitimate scientists in any field have ever systematically refused transparency in order to protect their favored theories, and it’s certainly not the case with climate change research, but it’s not as if there’s been a historical shortage of scientists who don’t play their cards straight. I’m simply saying that this is a case where there’s a particularly obvious motive.
So what you’re saying is that no true scientist has ever refused transparency in order to protect favored theories.
No, when I said legitimate scientists in any field, I meant the body of scientists in a legitimate field. There have certainly been scientists who have earned their degrees legitimately who systematically refused transparency, but I do not think there has been any legitimate field of science where the practitioners in general had a systematic tendency to refuse transparency. I apologize if my wording was unclear.