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Climategate is not just for the British Isles. East Anglia is matched in the USA. See the following article:-http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/climategate_cru_was_but_the_ti.html-And ask yourself: why is 'global warming' a liberal vs. conservative issue?

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Climategate is not just for the British Isles. East Anglia is matched in the USA. See the following article:
> 
> http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/climategate_cru_was_but_the_ti.html&... 
> And ask yourself: why is 'global warming' a liberal vs. conservative issue?-Because of Fox News! (Sorry, had to take an easy shot.) -I think that its because in the US, environmentalists (as any other social group) look for anything that verifies their position and allows them to advance agendas. It just so happens that they are the only bloc of the Democratic party that is politically active, just like my hated religious conservatives in the Republican party. -(As a non-partisan with Libertarian leanings, I find disgust with all of this.)

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

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> (As a non-partisan with Libertarian leanings, I find disgust with all of this.)-I'm mainly a libertarian also, which in my view leans strongly to a conservative viewpoint to begin with.

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> > (As a non-partisan with Libertarian leanings, I find disgust with all of this.)
> 
> I'm mainly a libertarian also, which in my view leans strongly to a conservative viewpoint to begin with.-I have a hard time calling myself a conservative; doing so means I put myself into a category of being close in line of thinking to guys like Jerry Falwell or Rush Limbaugh--and that's not good company. -What the hell, I've already taken it off topic. -I'm for free markets, but not unregulated ones, because there will always be instances where a company gets so big that they can do whatever they want--and this poses security complications for any nation. Already, some decisions get made about American Foreign Policy due to the presence of large MNC. While you could argue that this is good in some instances, obviously its going to have long-term questions for sovereignty. -I'm not against having social programs in all instances, as long as they serve a vital function of the state: Welfare is something that I look at in a Roman view: if you provide just enough assistance that they can eat, they won't riot and tear your state down. The problem with it is one of sustainability, because Rome was able to do it because they continuously conquered and raped the lands to the east to pay for it. What makes this tricky is that the only way to generate more wealth is to grow GDP, some of which will always be eaten up to pay this extra bribe to the poor. -My wife is student teaching right now in the worst school in Nebraska. I am convinced now of at least two points. The first--Libertarians are right. Dissolve the Dept. of Education. The second--NCLB must go. My wife had to teach a highschooler what a Meter was the other day. The school has a 30% pass rate on physics education, and they've gone so far now as to eliminate homework in order to try and get the kids to care. You can lead a horse to water, as they say. -This is the problem: Schools need to serve their local communities, and the culture of the parents in this part of town does not support academics, but trade jobs. Therefore, this school should be converted to one that builds skills for these kids. Most of the kids are new immigrants and 1st gen citizens. If you watch the historical progression of immigrants, the parents and first generation of kids nearly always start out in exactly these kinds of conditions. Low-paying, unskilled labor. As for NCLB, it says that that kid who just learned what a meter is at age 16 must be able to pass a standardized test on physics. Yeah, good luck with that. -NCLB is trying to shove college down the throats of kids that aren't going to be prepared for it and then blaming THAT on teachers, and the Dept. of Education gives constant mandates and directives that shouldn't be federal in the first place.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

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Some quotes from an article in today's Sunday Times under the heading "UN climate panel blunders again".-"The United Nations climate science panel faces new controversy for wrongly linking global warming to a rise in natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods."-It appears that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) panel already knew that the evidence for the link was "too weak" before the Copenhagen summit, but no mention was made of this. The latest blunder comes a week after the panel was forced to withdraw the claim that the Himalayan glaciers would largely have melted by 2035. "The chairman of the IPCC has used bogus claims that Himalayan glaciers were melting to win grants worth hundreds of thousands of pounds."-Professor Roger Pielke (Colorado Univ.) is quoted as saying: "All the literature published before and since the IPCC report shows that rising disaster losses can be explained entirely by social change. People have looked hard for evidence that global warming plays a part but can't find it."-Robert Muir-Wood, head of research at Risk Management Solutions, London, says: "The idea that catastrophes are rising in cost because of climate change is completely misleading."

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dhw,-All the people behind this should be sacked, tarred, and feathered. The damage this does to science as a whole is and will be enormous. Especially considering how systemic this whole thing was.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

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dhw,
> 
> All the people behind this should be sacked, tarred, and feathered. The damage this does to science as a whole is and will be enormous. Especially considering how systemic this whole thing was.-Here, Here!!! Science has enough to contend with trying to know and understand what is helpful and what is Truth without throwing in a pack of lies to unnecessarily have to deal with. But, the institution of science needs a comeuppance to help purify it. As with all that is institutional, it is subject to the power of greed. I'm sure there are more sincere scientist than not, but greed has become a major factor in the outcome of scientific findings, which may have always been, but should not be.

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> Here, Here!!! Science has enough to contend with trying to know and understand what is helpful and what is Truth without throwing in a pack of lies to unnecessarily have to deal with. But, the institution of science needs a comeuppance to help purify it. As with all that is institutional, it is subject to the power of greed. -Here is more fuel for the fire.The glaciers are not melting at high speed in the Himalayas, as the IPCC reported deliberately:-http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245636/Glacier-scientists-says-knew-data-verified.html

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More nails are entering the coffin of the UN's IPCC and the hoax of human global warming. The whole thing smells:-http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100023598/after-climategate-pachaurigate-and-glaciergate-amazongate/-Didn't Hans Christian write his fairy tales in Copenhagen?

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More proof of cimate science corruption. The erroneous Himalayan glacier melt story was known to be wrong well before Copenhagen. From the Times:-http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7009081.ece

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The scandals mount. From today's Sunday Times:-"A startling report by the United Nations climate watchdog that global warming might wipe out 40% of the Amazon rainforest was based on an unsubstantiated claim by green campaigners who had little scientific expertise."-Apparently the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) attributed this potential disaster to a slight change in rainfall. They relied on a report by WWF (World Wildlife Fund, I presume), which in turn was based on a study in the science journal Nature, but this did not consider rainfall at all; it looked at the impact of human activities such as logging and burning! -After East Anglia, Himalayan glaciers, false links between global warming and natural disasters, it appears that "scientists fear the controversies will be used by climate change sceptics to sway public opinion to ignore global warming." If the newspaper articles are correct, these are not controversies but instances of false data, by way of either negligence or deliberate deception. As we have noted many times, you can't separate science from scientists, but if you can't trust the United Nations panel, who can you trust? Even if, as they claim, the fundamental science "remains strong" (which many question), at the very least all these folk should be removed from office after being made to recite Aesop a hundred times: "The Boy Who Cried Wolf".

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The Guardian's Monbiot, gives a very fair guide to all the claims and counter-claims of climategate. Monbiot is a believer in the Earth is warming theory, but Calls for Phil Jones resignation:-http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/feb/02/climate-change-hacked-emails

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DAVID: "The Guardian's [George] Monbiot gives a very fair guide to all the claims and counter-claims of climategate."-All the recent scandals highlight the fact that the sheer scale of human culture makes us dependent to a potentially disastrous degree on so-called experts. We have no choice. Politicians can take us to war on false (or falsified) information, bankers can take us to ruin through incompetence and greed, and scientists can wreck people's lives through personal, political or industrial agendas. Most of these disasters are built on our trust in their expertise.-Frighteningly, our society at large has become almost inured to the incompetence and/or dishonesty of the experts we rely on. We're allowed to moan about them, but beyond media pressure they appear to be untouchable. The tragedies of the Iraq War and of the economic recession, both of which have ended or ruined hundreds of thousands of lives, have passed without any action against the people responsible. Bush is enjoying his retirement, Blair is being paid millions for telling people what an honest man he is, and the bankers continue to pay themselves fat fortunes. It takes a journalist ... the same George Monbiot ... to set up a fund to encourage private individuals to make a citizen's arrest of Blair (thousands of pounds have been raised). The experts of the IPCC and the UEA are still in office, but the police are busy trying to find the "criminal" who leaked the emails that revealed the UEA deceptions. -However, do not despair. For the last few days, a lead story in our news bulletins has been the fact that the (married) captain of the England football team had an affair with the girlfriend of one of his team mates. The nation is split ... should he remain captain or not? That really gets people worked up, but in this case action will be taken. John Terry's future lies in the hands of Fabio Capello, the manager, who will make the decision once he's in possession of all the facts. I dimly remember a quote. Was it Groucho Marx? "A sense of proportion is a wonderful thing. Mine is 38-26-38"

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> All the recent scandals highlight the fact that the sheer scale of human culture makes us dependent to a potentially disastrous degree on so-called experts. We have no choice. Politicians can take us to war on false (or falsified) information, bankers can take us to ruin through incompetence and greed, and scientists can wreck people's lives through personal, political or industrial agendas. Most of these disasters are built on our trust in their expertise.-The problem in current science arises from the fact that governments give a massive amount of science grants, compared to grants from charitable foundations. The government grants are very often connected to political agendas. This is a reverse from years ago when I was doing cardiac research. Further, then there was no peer review; editors of journals decided what would be included in a given issue.Now, pharmaceutical companies give grants to help them find new products. What the new system has done is create a requirement that an author state there is no conflict of interest, because the current system can easily creates conflict of interest.. What current peer review does is give a small group of people the chance to indulge in conspiracy. And it sure looks like it has permeated science in several areas and certainly has happened in climate science. From the WSJ:-http://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=Eric%20Felten&mod=DNH_S

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In my post of 5 February at 12.05, I bemoaned the fact that we are dependent to a disastrous degree on so-called experts. I should also have highlighted our dependence on the media.-One of the scandals I'd mentioned earlier concerned an IPCC report, based on a report by the WWF, that a slight reduction in rainfall could reduce the Amazon rainforest by up to 40%. In last week's Sunday Times there was an article claiming that scientists condemned the WWF paper as being inaccurate and unsubstantiated. Today, the same newspaper has published letters from the Chief Executive of the WWF and from a co-author of the original report, insisting that not only are their figures correct, but their work has also been peer-reviewed and is based on sound evidence collated by respected scientists.-So who are we to believe? The layman only knows what he is told. Frighteningly, the people who must ultimately take the decisions which will affect millions of lives are equally dependent on the experts. But if the experts are chosen by politicians/entrepreneurs/industrialists with an agenda, what price the objectivity of science? And in fairness to the scientists, the media need stories, so what price the objectivity of the media?

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> One of the scandals I'd mentioned earlier concerned an IPCC report, based on a report by the WWF, that a slight reduction in rainfall could reduce the Amazon rainforest by up to 40%. In last week's Sunday Times there was an article claiming that scientists condemned the WWF paper as being inaccurate and unsubstantiated. Today, the same newspaper has published letters from the Chief Executive of the WWF and from a co-author of the original report, insisting that not only are their figures correct, but their work has also been peer-reviewed and is based on sound evidence collated by respected scientists.
> 
> So who are we to believe? -I've got your answers. Follow the honest climate blogs: "Climate audit" and "Watts up with that".-A fellow named A. Agoumi, a fellow who works in carbon credits (!) wrote a piece for a Canadian evironmental advocacy group; fully discredited with references in the following blog:-http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/02/and-now-for-africagate.html REported by Dr. Richard North, an investigative journalist-This is a conspiracy. The rule is always to 'follow the money'. Carbon credits is another term for money. It has been reliably reported: Al Gore has made billions so far!

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> Follow the honest climate blogs: "Climate audit" and "Watts up with that".
> 
> This is a conspiracy. The rule is always to 'follow the money'. Carbon credits is another term for money. It has been reliably reported: Al Gore has made billions so far!-A very complete essay on science and politics, peer review, basically an overall review of climategate's implications, by someone, I believe a philosopher of science, who was not closely following the skepticism until now. From Watts up with that (Anthony Watt's blog):-http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/09/climategate-plausibility-and-the-blogosphere-in-the-post-normal-age/#more-16262

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> > Follow the honest climate blogs: "Climate audit" and "Watts up with that".
> > 
> > This is a conspiracy. The rule is always to 'follow the money'. Carbon credits is another term for money. It has been reliably reported: Al Gore has made billions so far!
> 
> A very complete essay on science and politics, peer review, basically an overall review of climategate's implications, by someone, I believe a philosopher of science, who was not closely following the skepticism until now. From Watts up with that (Anthony Watt's blog):
> 
> http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/09/climategate-plausibility-and-the-blogosphere-in-t... I primarily got out of that was the issue of an uneducated public. Anyone claiming to be an expert on something is likely to get followers, be it salvation or global cooling. (Digging back 30 yrs or so...) The more you obfuscate, it seems, the more followers you can get. Reminds me of a certain ID philosopher who shall remain nameless. -Good blog.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

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> > > Follow the honest climate blogs: "Climate audit" and "Watts up with that".
> > > 
> > > This is a conspiracy. The rule is always to 'follow the money'. Carbon credits is another term for money. It has been reliably reported: Al Gore has made billions so far!-
Now a blog showing the dishonest temperature manipulation in Australia by an Aussie. It involves urban heat island (UHI) adjustments when they are not warrented. It is an obvious problem, urban areas cause increased temperature readings. Much of this has not been properly corrected in USA records as previously shown in WUWT (above blog):--http://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/giss-manipulates-climate-data-in-mackay/

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> > > > Follow the honest climate blogs: "Climate audit" and "Watts up with that".
> > > > 
> > > > This is a conspiracy. The rule is always to 'follow the money'. Carbon credits is another term for money. It has been reliably reported: Al Gore has made billions so far!
> 
> 
> Now a blog showing the dishonest temperature manipulation in Australia by an Aussie. It involves urban heat island (UHI) adjustments when they are not warrented. It is an obvious problem, urban areas cause increased temperature readings. Much of this has not been properly corrected in USA records as previously shown in WUWT (above blog):
> 
> 
> 
> http://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/giss-manipulates-climate-data-in-mackay/-I would ask then about the well-studied heat Island of Houston. How many Lone Star scientists have harped on that?

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

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> I would ask then about the well-studied heat Island of Houston. How many Lone Star scientists have harped on that?-We live in Hempstead, about 45 miles northeast of downtown Houston. In the winter 3-6 degrees cooler, and in the summer 1-2 degrees. Our humidity is much less, being that much further from the Gulf coast. Since our government has not seen fit to move observation posts further out as a city surrounds them the UHI effect appears. They use 'expert guesswork' to correct for it. LOL

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The following website contains an essay by a former Dutch Science Acadamy member. He explains why peer review is such a bad system, why it is entangled with bureaucrats controlling grants, that jargon isolates branches of science, and other brilliant observations. If you will remember, when Matt discussed this development in science, I wrote stating that it was not a good development, coming from the old school as I do.-We depend on science in our discussions here. Is it safe to depend too much on current scientific conclusions and theories? Again to harp on current climate science, the answer is no.- http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/12/scientist-i-don%e2%80%99t-want-to-remain-a-member...

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The following website contains an essay by a former Dutch Science Acadamy member. He explains why peer review is such a bad system, why it is entangled with bureaucrats controlling grants, that jargon isolates branches of science, and other brilliant observations. If you will remember, when Matt discussed this development in science, I wrote stating that it was not a good development, coming from the old school as I do.
> 
> We depend on science in our discussions here. Is it safe to depend too much on current scientific conclusions and theories? Again to harp on current climate science, the answer is no.
> 
> http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/12/scientist-i-don%e2%80%99t-want-to-remain-a-member... have been uncovering the hoaxes of other scientists--now as they always have been. Everything always comes out in the wash, David, and I see no reason to blanket the entire profession with a "cloud" for the acts of climate scientists seeking pub. (Though the seeking pub part should be rectified.)-Having worked in one of the "hard" sciences for some time now, I generally have a certain level of disdain for everything below chemistry in the "order of logical purity." Biology and everything else below it on this continuum end up becoming more and more interpretation-based explanations culminating all the way at the other end with sociology. What you're talking about as a systemic problem is GOING to exist however you try to reform it, because the nature of the study is heavily interpretive and very open. -A webcomic will illustrate what I'm getting at: 
http://xkcd.com/435/-It jokes, but its pertinent. -I think your time spent in the trenches of working in what IS grouped in the social sciences category has kinda jaded your view here. You recognize rightly that it is often a battle of mentors, but I think its naive to think that you can take the social aspect out of a social science. It's easy for math/phys/chem because those fields are very clear-cut. It might take 100 years for a bad idea to be expunged from a social science, and that's just a fact of life. Social changes are extraordinarily difficult.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

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A webcomic will illustrate what I'm getting at: 
> http://xkcd.com/435/
> 
> It jokes, but its pertinent.- 
> 
> I think your time spent in the trenches of working in what IS grouped in the social sciences category has kinda jaded your view here. You recognize rightly that it is often a battle of mentors, but I think its naive to think that you can take the social aspect out of a social science. -The real problem is biased peer review, where one small group defines their favorite paradigm. You haven't studied cardiology as i have. EKG's are hard science; vessel flow rate formulas are hard science; the extent of a coronary infract is hard scienced; ejection fraction of the left ventricle is hard science. Probably why I liked it and become a cardiologist.

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A webcomic will illustrate what I'm getting at: 
> > http://xkcd.com/435/
> > 
> > It jokes, but its pertinent.
> 
> 
> > 
> > I think your time spent in the trenches of working in what IS grouped in the social sciences category has kinda jaded your view here. You recognize rightly that it is often a battle of mentors, but I think its naive to think that you can take the social aspect out of a social science. 
> 
> The real problem is biased peer review, where one small group defines their favorite paradigm. You haven't studied cardiology as i have. EKG's are hard science; vessel flow rate formulas are hard science; the extent of a coronary infract is hard scienced; ejection fraction of the left ventricle is hard science. Probably why I liked it and become a cardiologist.-I'm glad you took the joke for what its worth, I've always loved that one. -Your point about your specialty coincides with my own view that I tend to prefer surgeons to internal medicine... surgeons can actually FIX something. In this I'M jaded by having worked at a teaching hospital and sometime getting to listen in on differentials. No offense, but it often seems like doctors only have a slightly better idea of what's going on than the patient. -I disagree just a bit on describing anything in medicine (outside of infectious disease) as a "hard science." But maybe trying to use you as an example misses the point. The kinds of things you reference were all borrowed from engineering; flow rates, etc. all essentially the study of hydraulics. Let me try this: All cardiologists have to agree on certain explanations and on a central framework, yes? Are you suggesting that they always agree? If two cardiologists disagree on a diagnosis, what method can you use in order to definitively prove one correct? Or are these usually resolved as a battle of persuasion? -In math/comp sci, I write out my proof, the other guy reads it. If my proof has no flaws--that's the end of the debate, and vice-versa. In physics they have the extra step of experimenting to see if the mathematical description accurately represents reality. In that article I posted the other day, there is a mathematical proof of how using purely random selection improves the quality of information in the example of network routing. There was a bit of heat at first, but by the end of the day the grad student's idea was accepted [because there was no choice. There was nothing to debate. That's the difference between a "hard" science and a "soft" science. Outside of descriptive items, how many things in medicine are like that? -My point about peer review is still something to consider; you'll *never* get rid of bias. In soft sciences you have no definitive method to show you the right answer, and that's why bias can exist (and will always exist.) And wrong ideas will always be purged--journalists do a good job of that, and especially nowadays, there's the internet.-[EDIT]-And self-appointed gadflys.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

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> Your point about your specialty coincides with my own view that I tend to prefer surgeons to internal medicine... surgeons can actually FIX something. In this I'M jaded by having worked at a teaching hospital and sometime getting to listen in on differentials. No offense, but it often seems like doctors only have a slightly better idea of what's going on than the patient. -Surgeons only think they fix things. I'm an internist at heart, and we always point out to them where and what to fix. ) They are mainly hand skills, not brain skills.
 
> 
> All cardiologists have to agree on certain explanations and on a central framework, yes? Are you suggesting that they always agree? If two cardiologists disagree on a diagnosis, what method can you use in order to definitively prove one correct?-Again: an EKG interpretation, a CAT scan of ventricular volume, a cath for flow rates, an ultra-sound, etc. Technical hard science. You are right however, lots of it is Arthur Conan Doyle, which is why Holmes is such fun and a great story to tell.-> 
> My point about peer review is still something to consider; you'll *never* get rid of bias. -Then why enter a large dose of it by committies of people who think the same? In a sense Kuhn warned of this.

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David,
> > 
> > My point about peer review is still something to consider; you'll *never* get rid of bias. 
> 
> Then why enter a large dose of it by committies of people who think the same? In a sense Kuhn warned of this.-No offense to Kuhn, but anyone with a basic understanding of how humans operate should see this clearly. -I don't really think this is broken: the ideas still get out and if they're good, they do their job, and everyone who worked to hold back the ideas look awful, those that came up with them get a career boost. No one ever said this would be easy!-In ALL fields, you'll get people at the top that made their lives on their ideas, and they don't want them being challenged. We don't have the right to tell CEO's to adopt ideas they don't agree with or like, or to not use their power to fight ideas they don't like, and the modern role of journalism is to help people get around blocks of power like this. In most cases Peer Review does its job exactly as intended--how many stories of it working properly do you hear? None. Just like most corporate CEO's actually do their job well, the same goes for the majority of those in Peer Review. I agree that the entire process should be transparent to the public, but I don't see *any* reason that the machine is so broken that it doesn't work.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

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> I agree that the entire process should be transparent to the public, but I don't see *any* reason that the machine is so broken that it doesn't work.-But it didn't work in climate science. How do you prove transparency is present?

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> > I agree that the entire process should be transparent to the public, but I don't see *any* reason that the machine is so broken that it doesn't work.
> 
> But it didn't work in climate science. How do you prove transparency is present?-If the system at large wasn't working the way it was supposed to, you wouldn't have any fodder for "climategate." The information is coming out, isn't it? As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing to be concerned about here.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

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> If the system at large wasn't working the way it was supposed to, you wouldn't have any fodder for "climategate." The information is coming out, isn't it? As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing to be concerned about here.-That's not an answer. Unless someone had squealed, leaking the emails, the skeptics would still be ranting something is wrong; instead the whole edifice is falling apart. Without the leak, where are we? Sorry, don't buy your offhandedness.

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> > If the system at large wasn't working the way it was supposed to, you wouldn't have any fodder for "climategate." The information is coming out, isn't it? As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing to be concerned about here.
> 
> That's not an answer. Unless someone had squealed, leaking the emails, the skeptics would still be ranting something is wrong; instead the whole edifice is falling apart. Without the leak, where are we? Sorry, don't buy your offhandedness.-See my post discussing Linear B.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

4847 views


> > > If the system at large wasn't working the way it was supposed to, you wouldn't have any fodder for "climategate." The information is coming out, isn't it? As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing to be concerned about here.
> > 
> > That's not an answer. Unless someone had squealed, leaking the emails, the skeptics would still be ranting something is wrong; instead the whole edifice is falling apart. Without the leak, where are we? Sorry, don't buy your offhandedness.
> 
> See my post discussing Linear B.-See my refutation of your post

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Case Study:-The decipherment of Linear B stands as one of the greatest archaeological feats of the last 100 years. But the story of its decipherment brings something to bear on this discussion. -Sir Arthur Evans was an archaeologist studying ancient Greece, and to speed up the story a bit, found the clay tablets of Linear A and B, and theorized (and attempted) to decipher the tablets. His studies concentrated on assuming that the scripts were Minoan, and actively worked to destroy the careers of those few who disagreed with him--the opposition asserting that they were Mycenaean. The work was only allowed to be seen by those who agreed with him that they were Minoan.-The first breakthrough came four years after his death when Alice Kober from Brooklyn College managed to get her hands on some of the script. She deliberately decided to attack the problem assuming nothing at all, and managed to make heavy inroads in comparing the language with Akkadian. -Full decipherment didn't occur until she died and passed her work to Englishman Michael Ventris. Michael Ventris himself submitted his first article on Linear B at the age of 18 (withholding his age from the journal) and it was published. Time passed and he continued his attack on the language, uncovering first the three towns Knossos, Amnisos, and Tulissos, and eventually more. Though he at first was a supporter of Arthur Evans, it became clear as he attacked the script as Greek instead of Minoan that the script was clearly Greek.-As an architect by trade he wasn't taken seriously by archaeologists when he was asked to appear on television and he dropped the Greek bombshell, bolstered by his confident decipherment. An old war-cryptographer and Greek lecturer, John Chadwick dismissed the claim as well, but decided that he'd better study it well because he would undoubtedly be asked question about it by his students. He ended up the first supporter of Ventris's Greek theory, and in short, Linear B is decidedly Mycenaean--Greek, through and through. -My point, is that even if an active conspiracy works against a theory or an idea, on a long enough timeline--such a conspiracy can never hold if the weight of the explanation is TRULY powerful. Peer review can fail, but a simple appearance on TV was enough to take a theory, advance it, and make it the center stage in an entire field of study. -This is what I mean when I say that I don't think the system is broken.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

4884 views


> My point, is that even if an active conspiracy works against a theory or an idea, on a long enough timeline--such a conspiracy can never hold if the weight of the explanation is TRULY powerful. Peer review can fail, but a simple appearance on TV was enough to take a theory, advance it, and make it the center stage in an entire field of study. 
> 
> This is what I mean when I say that I don't think the system is broken.-Immediate developments in the climate gate scandal are making your point:-A math study from Israel: -http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/14/new-paper-on/#more-16426-And Phil Jones from CRU at East Anglia:-http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/14/phil-jones-momentous-qa-with-bbc-reopens-the-science-is-settled-issues/#more-16418-However, how much money has been spent on phony grants and how much time wasted in this illgotten pursuit. How about cap-and-trade and capitalists making money from the sky-is-falling hysteria. Yes the truth is dragging itself out under the weight of the phoniness started by the hacked emails. What if they were never hacked. Must we rely on one good honest person to appear to oversome a peer review system that asks for conspiracy. Human nature is to sin if you can get away with it. Ronald Reagan: "Trust, but verify".

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> > My point, is that even if an active conspiracy works against a theory or an idea, on a long enough timeline--such a conspiracy can never hold if the weight of the explanation is TRULY powerful. Peer review can fail, but a simple appearance on TV was enough to take a theory, advance it, and make it the center stage in an entire field of study. 
> > 
> > This is what I mean when I say that I don't think the system is broken.
> 
> Immediate developments in the climate gate scandal are making your point:
> 
> A math study from Israel: 
> 
> http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/14/new-paper-on/#more-16426
> 
> And Phil Jones from CRU at East Anglia:
> 
> http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/14/phil-jones-momentous-qa-with-bbc-reopens-the-scie... 
> However, how much money has been spent on phony grants and how much time wasted in this illgotten pursuit. How about cap-and-trade and capitalists making money from the sky-is-falling hysteria. Yes the truth is dragging itself out under the weight of the phoniness started by the hacked emails. What if they were never hacked. Must we rely on one good honest person to appear to oversome a peer review system that asks for conspiracy. Human nature is to sin if you can get away with it. Ronald Reagan: "Trust, but verify".

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> > My point, is that even if an active conspiracy works against a theory or an idea, on a long enough timeline--such a conspiracy can never hold if the weight of the explanation is TRULY powerful. Peer review can fail, but a simple appearance on TV was enough to take a theory, advance it, and make it the center stage in an entire field of study. 
> > 
> > This is what I mean when I say that I don't think the system is broken.
> 
> Immediate developments in the climate gate scandal are making your point:
> 
> A math study from Israel: 
> 
> http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/14/new-paper-on/#more-16426
> 
> And Phil Jones from CRU at East Anglia:
> 
> http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/14/phil-jones-momentous-qa-with-bbc-reopens-the-scie... 
> However, how much money has been spent on phony grants and how much time wasted in this illgotten pursuit. How about cap-and-trade and capitalists making money from the sky-is-falling hysteria. Yes the truth is dragging itself out under the weight of the phoniness started by the hacked emails. What if they were never hacked. Must we rely on one good honest person to appear to oversome a peer review system that asks for conspiracy. Human nature is to sin if you can get away with it. Ronald Reagan: "Trust, but verify".-The nature of human nature doesn't allow conspiracies to be held for long. Sooner or later the dams burst--even more so in science where a great deal of fame is bestowed upon someone who overturns a long-held paradigm. In the end, Adam Smith turns out right again: Self-Interest wins. -How much money were spent on phony grants in Linear B? Fifty years of scientists were forced to adopt a bad perspective that was a dead end. Things like this always happen, and--will happen again. -As for the quip about human nature being one of sinning when they can get away with it, that's a gross over-generalization. Look at the NYC power outage back in '03, '04. It turned into a gigantic block party, with an incredibly low crime rate. If you look for evil, you shall find it.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

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David is updating us on the latest grim revelations, and has also referred us to Jerome Ravetz's comprehensive analysis of how these problems arise and mushroom. Extremely revealing and beautifully presented. He's right, there has to be dialogue. We need to examine the whole climate question again, starting from scratch with no preconceptions. Even if it turns out that climate change is indeed the threat it's been made out to be, without an open debate in which all voices are heard, there's no way that we ordinary folk are going to trust the scientists or the politicians who have led us into this state of confusion.-Meanwhile, another depressing tale for you, but at least the scientists come out of it rather well. Last October our benighted government sacked Professor David Nutt, Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Drug Misuse, because his findings on ecstasy and cannabis went against the wishes of the Home Secretary Alan Johnson. Five other members of the committee resigned in protest. Now the government is proposing a set of rules which would effectively gag scientific advisers from publicly disagreeing with government policy. Many scientists have said they will refuse to join advisory committees under such rules, and the managing director of the charity Sense about Science says, "The academic community is outraged." One fears that the politicians ... just like industrial and pharmaceutical companies ... will always find some "expert" to toe their preordained line, but it's reassuring to hear that there's vociferous opposition to this scandalous abuse of power from the scientific community itself.

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An even better essay on how peer review and government control of science grants is a dangerous setup to create conspiracy and fraud in science: -
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/22/jerry-ravetz-part-2-answer-and-explanation-to-my-critics/#more-16627

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An even better essay on how peer review and government control of science grants is a dangerous setup to create conspiracy and fraud in science: 
> 
> 
> http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/22/jerry-ravetz-part-2-answer-and-explanation-to-my-... by Jerry Ravitz, a very clear-thinking philosopher of science. Thought provoking. Matt, please read it though. You were born during all this, raised by it and I don't think you appreciate the dangers.

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An even better essay on how peer review and government control of science grants is a dangerous setup to create conspiracy and fraud in science: 
> > 
> > 
> > http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/22/jerry-ravetz-part-2-answer-and-explanation-to-my-... 
> Again by Jerry Ravitz, a very clear-thinking philosopher of science. Thought provoking. Matt, please read it though. You were born during all this, raised by it and I don't think you appreciate the dangers.-http://www.physorg.com/news185780169.html-You'll find the last paragraph especially enlightening as this would completely democratize the process of peer review. At the moment I'm contemplating designing just such a website, allowing all people to join but differentiating between credentialed and lay reviewers. I like the idea because it would drastically speed up the process, and in your own case, would make the entire peer review process public, open, and visible. Everyone's happy except Nature and Science, heh. -Haven't read your article yet but I bookmarked it. Have to finish a programming project.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

4837 views


> http://www.physorg.com/news185780169.html
> 
> You'll find the last paragraph especially enlightening as this would completely democratize the process of peer review. -It always amazes me when I read a 'new' medical finding that we 'knew' in the 1960's in cardiology. And your article above concerns an idea from 1941!!

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> > http://www.physorg.com/news185780169.html
> > 
> > You'll find the last paragraph especially enlightening as this would completely democratize the process of peer review. 
> 
> It always amazes me when I read a 'new' medical finding that we 'knew' in the 1960's in cardiology. And your article above concerns an idea from 1941!!-Well, I can't speak for cardiology, but suffice it to say that I doubt Brin and Page would ever have thought to find their search algorithm in an old economics paper from 1941, heh. -Just read the editor's letter in my ACM journal, and heh, apparently there's a bit of a fuss in Computer Science regarding Peer Review. Publishing in CS is conference-driven as opposed to journal-driven. This means that the pressure isn't to say, make it into a journal like Nature, but to make it to the biggest name conferences. Personally, I prefer the conference approach--your publishing is your presentation, and people can tear into it right away. But those in my profession want it otherwise. Sigh. (Publication in computer science takes 4-5x as long as any other discipline.)

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

4807 views


> > > http://www.physorg.com/news185780169.html
> 
> Well, I can't speak for cardiology, but suffice it to say that I doubt Brin and Page would ever have thought to find their search algorithm in an old economics paper from 1941, heh. -Our medical meetings were always full of fresh material with questions from the floor.-In medicine for researchers is "Medline", but when I knw it it never went back far enough to search the oldest stuff.

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Another essay on peer review and its insidious consequences:-From the WSJ: -http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704131404575117314262655160.html?KEYWORDS=Peter+Berkowitz

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Climategate is not just for the British Isles. East Anglia is matched in the USA. See the following article:
> 
> http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/climategate_cru_was_but_the_ti.html&... 
> And ask yourself: why is 'global warming' a liberal vs. conservative issue?-Just as an aside, here is the famous article for global cooling from Newsweek. 1975:--http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf

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Watts Up and the Berkeley Earth Project

Latest on Climate Change

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/10/23/watts-wrote-a-check-he-couldnt-cash/?...

I had to go back quite a way to find a thread on this topic.

--
GPJ

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