Monday 1 March 2010

We've Seen It All Before

Phil Jones during his light toasting from the commons select committee.

Jones's general defence was that anything people didn't like – the strong-arm tactics to silence critics, the cold-shouldering of freedom of information requests, the economy with data sharing – were all "standard practice" among climate scientists
Hey, don't go off, jaw agape, just yet. There's more.

The most startling observation came when he was asked how often scientists reviewing his papers for probity before publication asked to see details of his raw data, methodology and computer codes. "They've never asked," he said.
Really? Why ever not?

"Most scientists do not want to deal with the raw station data, they would rather deal with a derived product."
Oh, I see where the concensus comes from now.

It's a result of a bunch of scientists regurgitating what they have read for the purposes of keeping the tax-funded grant tap running.

Listen, if any reader here is an expert in climate science, which I am not, then you are welcome to challenge my summation. However, I have seen exactly the same blind repetition of fake science in areas of which I am right bastardly expert, so you will also need to have a serious word with those who have perverted science for their own selfish ends for over three decades.

It's all been done before. The deception, the lies, the concensus. Debate is over after some shonky, totally fucked up study or other which is merely repeated by those with a vested interest and a generous funding stream. The evidence is overwhelming because demonstrable nonsense is spread around the world by press release before the truth can get its boots on.

I don't know much about climate science, but I disbelieve these fucks simply because I've seen this hideous truth-avoidance process before.

If the world does, in the next couple of generations, disappear up its own backside in an orgy of searing heat, flooding of anywhere beneath the summit of K2, and alligators gobbling up comely bikini-clad Swedish beach-dwellers, a fair proportion of the blame will lay with those who have previously shown contempt for the reputation of science by using its majesty for their own selfish, and dictatorial ends.

And if so, may God rot them all on a rusty spike, with crows picking at their purgatorial eyeballs.


13 comments:

Anonymous said...

The thing is, peer review isn't the final word in the scientific process that people make it out to be. When you publish a paper and everyone can see it or when you present it at a conference is really the time when the scientific process starts. At this point people can try to falsify your results, check what you did, follow your methodology, and so on. Peer review is really just a strict reviewing process and I get agitated when people portray it as the be all and end all. People rarely check raw data in peer review because that isn't the purpose of it. That would come later if someone disagreed with your results.

(a scientist)

Dick Puddlecote said...

Anon scientist: Sincerely glad that you commented. Very illuminating, thank you.

The problem we have seen in many areas in the past few years is the upsurge in 'science by press release' whereby a 'study' which is known to be false is released to the MSM and blasted out loudly and with great fanfare. However, once peer review (if it is attempted at all) or true figures prove it to be pure fantasy, there is no rebuttal or corresponding reportage by the same media who trumpeted the junk in the first place.

THIS is my problem. And why I can't believe climate science as I see the same kind of shenanigans being utilised as I have seen many times before.

If you haven't disappeared for good, I'd be seriously interested in how such mendacity can be tackled and what conscientious scientists think about it all.

Joe Public said...

But they wouldn't turn the heat up on him for fear of increasing AGW.

Mark Wadsworth said...

"Light toasting", love it. So we no longer have good cop/bad cop, we have "light toaster" and "griller"?

"Listen sonny, if you don't sign the confession we're calling in the barbecue guy!"

"Nooo! Not the barbecue guy! I'll only do a deal with guy who'll do no more than pop me on top of the boiler in the airing cupboard!"


As to bullshit detection, not only are their predictions of when CCC will kick in being pushed further and further into the future, they are busily re-writing history - apparently there's been no 'global warming' since 1995.

banned said...

wattsupwiththat.com are reporting

"The Royal Society of Chemistry has made a statement to the Parliamentary inquiry saying they as an organization support open data sharing. They now join the Institute of Physics in making a strong statement on the practices of UEA/CRU."

Suck on that Phil Jones.

Chuckles said...

It seems that the whole peer review thing is typical of the voodoo sciences like sociology, together with the whole no data thing. It seems that once you are published in a peer reviewed journal, thats it, and the whole genre is VERY resistant to the idea of replication or verification of results.

The idea of discoverer and others working together to falsify a proposal, well, don't even go there

Anonymous said...

Dick, I don't really know what can be done about it. I think that sceptical bloggers, authors, and so on provide a useful service that isn't carried out by the media wrt climate science and I'm glad they exist. I think that scientists themselves do not do enough but I understand most not wanting to be labelled as maveriks when funding mostly depends upon towing the line.

Most science is funded by government in one way or another. In my experience the setting of specific goals by the funding bodies (as opposed to guaranteed funding of whatever research in general areas) is what leads to the problems. When you are funded to find a specific something you do your best to find it. The change in the way funding is doled out since maybe the 1970s or 80s has certainly had an adverse affect on science in this country.

Bucko said...

I clicked on "Bikini clad Swedish Beach dwellers" and didnt get any :-(

SamDuncan said...

"Most scientists do not want to deal with the raw station data, they would rather deal with a derived product."

I'm sure our Anonymous Scientist is right, but what I read here is “Most scientists do not want to do any work”. Don't blame 'em. (And the journalists reporting all this should feel right at home.) But they can't then sit with their arms folded and tell the rest of us “the science is settled”: if they haven't scrutinized everything the Team did, they don't know.

Wormsnapper said...

Peer review also means peer pressure. Another whitewash this, and the government will be introducing carbon taxes even as the iceberg rumble down Whitehall.

Dick Puddlecote said...

Bucko: My apologies. Unless Miliband isn't as loopy as we think he is, the alligators would have been a waste of keyboard time too. ;-)

Pogo said...

I've said on numerous occasions on many blogs that "peer review is, in essence, very similar to allowing GCSE students to mark their friends' exam papers".

(also a scientist, now retired)

bayard said...

"However, once peer review (if it is attempted at all) or true figures prove it to be pure fantasy, there is no rebuttal or corresponding reportage by the same media who trumpeted the junk in the first place."

Yes, because trumpeting junk, especially if it's a health scare or miracle cure, sells newspapers and solid science is usually boring and doesn't.