This will probably provoke quite the firestorm. Very interesting read.
Not having enough data to make decisions is bad enough. Making decisions based on bad data is even worse.
Its already been shown that their methodology of pointing out errors had errors.
Wow, if the linked to report is accurate, several scientists’ careers are (justifiably) over, or at least should be.
Here’s a “rebuttal” from someone who regularly debates with global warming skeptics.
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=bns1l1%242s3%241%40news.umbc.edu
Yes, I’m sure the skeptical community is just giddy with
delight that Energy and Environment just published another monument
to scientific scholarship.If they’d spend more time trying to do their own science,
rather than trying to target and debunk specific studies that they
think are noteworthy, they’d be more credible.What they’re really trying to do is present a case in the
court of public opinion whereby they can cast “reasonable doubt”
on Mann’s “testimony”. That would be fine if Mann and his work
were the only “star” witness providing eyewitness testimony.
The problem is: there are other independent analyses that show the
same overall climate patterns. I.e., there are other corroborating
witnesses. Are McIntyre and McKitrick going to cross-examine these
witnesses as well?Mann does not avoid the results of other researchers; they can
all be seen in this paper:http://w3g.gkss.de/G/Mitarbeiter/storch/pdf/Soon.EosForum20032.pdf
In my opinion, the IPCC should highlight this data plot in
the next report, and they would shoot the arguments of all the
benighted skeptics who assail the “hockey stick” to hell and gone.I sure wish there was a GIF or JPEG version of the plot
somewhere: I’d like to make a copy and glue it on John Daly’s
forehead, but I’m afraid that he still wouldn’t be able to see it.
“There are none so blind as those that cannot see.”Jim Acker
don’t worry xpav, if you say the sky is still falling, we’ll believe you!
How dare they try to debunk someone elses research. That’s just not fair!
Mulligan: Strictly out of curiosity - doesn’t it ever bore you, doing nothing but baiting? Don’t you ever feel as if your time might be better spent trying to come up with coherent arguments, or reasoned counter-arguments? I know you’re capable of it, but lately, I haven’t seen anything but flames from your direction.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but the fun of this forum for me is putting my ideals and thoughts to the test against contrasting ones. Pure flamebait is kind of a waste of time, don’t you think? I know that I’ve certainly been guilty of doing it here, in the past - it just seems like this place would be a lot more fun if we’d try to attack the arguments, instead of the people, no matter how silly we find them.
I am not surprised by people pointing out errors in the people pointing out errors. It illustrates the complexity of the data and the tendency of people to want a particular outcome in a complex dataset.
I can only shake my head at the people deriding the authors as amateurs. The bluster over credentials, the sacred priesthood of climatology, and Mann’s models matching the work of other expects distract from the fundamental question of how did such a seminal work survive expert peer review without those kinds of data errors and statistical flubs coming to light? Politics and science mix about as well as politics and religion.
Give me a break, they did their “criticism” with fucking Excel.
Was the report criticizing Mann peer-reviewed?
And I do my taxes with MATLAB, your point being? XPav is at least pointing to reasoned criticism of the paper. If you are discounting something because of a knee-jerk reaction due to your lack of understanding of the capabilities of a software package, I don’t know what to tell you. Excel is not a toy, nor is it a simple adding machine.
How about “Excel isn’t remotely powerful enough to be used as a tool for analyzing these things?” I mean, that’s in the Calpundit link above and everything, but do go on with the elitist-baiting.
Are you serious?
Pure flamebait is kind of a waste of time, don’t you think? I know that I’ve certainly been guilty of doing it here, in the past…
uhh huh. Flames usually erupt from a spark and good kindling. I used to think that I was the spark and you’re the dead wood. Or maybe you’re the spark, and I’m the flame, and the dead wood is your ideas and thoughts. But now I know that you are the weak, and I am the tyrrany of evil men. But I’m trying real hard to be the shepherd.
Sorry, Mulligan. To pull that line off, your wallet has to say ‘Bad Motherfucker’, not ‘TANSTAAFL’.
Just the discrepancies in the revised satellite data to the groundstation data should give an idea of the complexity of this particular subject, and give ASSPOTS of doubt to anyone who claims to see long term trends…
There’s a reason the most powerful computers can’t predict the waether for more than a week.
http://www-tec.open.ac.uk/eeru/natta/renewonline/rol26/10.htm
I knew I’d heard that satellite/ground thing before.
The (for the time being) final comment from Mann (one the authors of the original paper which was being criticized)
http://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/Mann/EandEPaperProblem.pdf
The recent paper by McIntyre and McKitrick (Energy and Environment, 14, 751-771, 2003) claims to be an “audit” of the analysis of Mann, Bradley and Hughes (Nature, 392, 779-787, 1998) or “MBH98”. An audit involves a careful examination, using the same data and following the exact procedures used in the report or study being audited. McIntyre and McKitrick (“MM”) have done no such thing, having used neither the data nor the procedures of MBH98. Thus, it is entirely understandable that they do not obtain the same result. Their effort has no bearing on the work of MBH98, and is no way a “correction” of that study as they claim. On the contrary, their analysis appears seriously flawed and amounts to a gross misrepresentation of the work of MBH98. The standard protocol for scientific journals receiving critical comments on a published paper is to provide the authors being criticized with an opportunity to review the criticism prior to publication, and offer them the chance to respond. Mann and colleagues were given no such opportunity.
A lot of this stuff is statistics stuff is over my head. I do however, tend to sit on the “peer-reviewed” side of the fence.
well, having worked in the world of science for about 20 years plus 9 years of college, there are two kinds of criticisms you normally get when you publish. You do get the criticisms from the referees (I’ve been on both ends, as a referee and as someone getting papers reviewed) and you have a chance to respond to them before the paper is published.
But you also expect other papers to be written which present opposing points of view, to the point of attacks on your methods and conclusions. Usually it is in a professional manner, but it is often very contentious on contraversial topics. And by no means do you always get a chance to review the paper before publication.
McCullough- Your Excel complaints are, to be as generous as possible to you, completely and utterly retarded. The alleged error was of data entry, not that Excel isn’t powerful enough. I realize that since liberals are never wrong it’s clear that the sky has, in fact, already fallen, but there’s nothing in the Calpundit link that indicates that Excel wasn’t powerful enough.
How about “Excel is buggy and produces unreliable output?” It is, if you read the link. You’ll have to take my word for it, but I wouldn’t trust a published result produced by Excel regardless of conclusion.
Oh christ Jason – Excel may not be the be-all and end-all of scientific statistatical analysis tools, and the users may indeed put in the wrong data and get the wrong results, but a lets blame Microsoft because every knows that all Microsoft software is crap point is just stupid.