Monday
Nov302009
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Is Obama's climate czar implicated in Climategate?
Nov 30, 2009 Climate Republicans on Capitol Hill certainly seem to think so and have started an investigation into his conduct.
Having reviewed Holdren's correspondence in the emails I can't see it myself. Now if there really are more emails to come, maybe my views will change, but saying you don't think much of someone's paper doesn't seem like a crime to me.
Reader Comments (25)
Is he from Chicago? If so they may hope to dig up some dirt whatever the pretext for their investigation.
He worked at Harvard before going to Washington.
There is a big danger in going down the road of using climategate to play party politics.
You end up with people deflecting your criticism with "they would say that".
PS: Bish - looks like you're on fire :-)
Aside from whoever leaked /hacked into the emails, is anyone implicated?
Everyone who plotted to oust journal editors is implicated IMHO. Those who hid the evidence that tree ring proxies were failing to capture temperature information too.
Bishop,
That is pretty thin since the tree ring proxy issue was public knowledge and disclosed.
As for the journal editors thing, the evidence for that claim is also pretty weak and there is even evidence against it.
Anyway, science has operated under a system of peer review for several centuries, as well as independent replication (not repetition). On the whole I'd say that system has worked pretty well, yet now we are treated to the odd spectacle of conservatives wishing to change it.
They don't seem to have something better to offer it in its place - in fact the quality of their own scientific contribution ranges from insignificant to appalling.
Frank
The disclosure in Briffa 2000 does not excuse the deletion in AR4 and the document discussed re the Nature trick. You cannot say that you have been honest once and therefore dishonesty in thenceforwards excused.
What evidence do you have against the journal editors thing? There is clear evidence of two plots, and an allusion to a third. There is also a fourth plot to prevent a journal enforcing a data availability policy.
Peer review was virtually unheard of before 1950. In particular, Einstein and Watson/Crick were not peer reviewed.
'but saying you don't think much of someone's paper doesn't seem like a crime to me.'
It would if it were a Right Wing or Conservative group saying this - the MSM would be on it like flies on sh1t!
I don't care about politics in this context, I care about actual, verifiable science. Anyone who helped, even peripherally, in this "magic data" crap-fest needs to feel the pain. Lots of pain.
Mojo
Did he help?
Bishop,
"The disclosure in Briffa 2000 does not excuse the deletion in AR4 and the document discussed re the Nature trick. "
A scientific paper explaining why data should not be used doesn't 'excuse' not using them? Really?
One wonders what would excuse it.
"What evidence do you have against the journal editors thing? "
The evidence you posted on your site here. (Saying it doesn't 'stack up' is your opinion - it doesn't make it go away)
Not only that but it's not all clear that biased editors who bring down the standards of published papers shouldn't be ousted. The word 'plot', or that this is in anyway untoward, is just your spin.
Can you point to a single significant paper that should have been published that was not because of this?
It is also amusing to see the thin evidence that is accepted for any wrongdoing (cf. the woeful CSC study shamefully cited here to smear NZ scientists - the only fraudulent piece I have seen here so far, but it comes from 'sceptics' so it gets a pass). Meanwhile multiple lines of evidence corroborate the CRU temperature series - indeed there is scarcely a signal in the natural world that doesn't - and you won't accept that.
It would be funny if it wasn't so serious.
Briffa: Yes really. You display the limitations of your data every time you use it, particularly in documents aimed at policymakers. I'm appalled that you could think otherwise.
Re Journals: I don't think you can have seen my later post. It now seems clear that Saiers was given the push as editor in charge of the McIntyre papers, not from his post as was implied by Pielke Jnr's question. So we are back to where we started: there were successful plots to oust editors who published sceptic papers. If you want to argue that suppressing dissenting opinions is a valid way of doing science go right ahead.
Re unpublished papers. Of course not. That's the point. We can't know what has been lost. That's the tragedy of Climategate.
Bishop,
"there were successful plots to oust editors who published sceptic papers. "
Which papers though and were they any good? Should they have been published?
Let's take the CSC 'study' that you let through here. It is clearly bullshit, and it uses blatant lies to smear scientists. Should a scholarly journal publish crap like that?
Should papers have to meet any standard at all? Should editors?
"Re unpublished papers. Of course not. That's the point. We can't know what has been lost. That's the tragedy of Climategate."
LOL! Given that crap HAS been published, I doubt that anything has been lost.
If no decent journal will touch it, E&E probably will. And if they won't Watts will seemingly publish anything.
"suppressing dissenting opinions "
These are supposed to be scientific papers not op-eds.
If they want to express their opinion let them contact a newspaper or start a blog.
Frank I answered this point in my last response, but I'll say it again. We don't know what has been lost. Have papers not been published? Have scientists just given up because they know that they will be sidelined by the Hockey Team? Who knows?
Bishop,
"Have scientists just given up because they know that they will be sidelined by the Hockey Team? "
Have scientists just given up because they know that they will be accused of fraud and treated like criminals by 'sceptics', simply because their work corroborates AGW?
Who knows.
That argument helps my case - that we don't know - more than it helps yours - that we do. Transparency is the only answer to this conundrum, but of course your side believes that is a plot against them.
It's also instructive to note Zorita's comments, that he is aware of PhD students tweaking their results to better fit the AGW paradigm rather than risk being ostracised.
"Did he help?"
A fellow-traveler, at the least. Providing covering fire.
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=374&filename=1066337021.txt
Bishop,
"'also instructive to note Zorita's comments, that he is aware of PhD students tweaking their results "
Actually, he claimed they were often tempted. He didn't say they had done so and he certainly didn't prove it. It is certainly difficult to see how he would know or what he bases the assertion on. You're a sceptic, remember?
Let's cut to the chase: the CRU data says there is a warming trend - and there is. It is corroborated by multiple independent data sets. You sceptics are just blowing smoke. Isn't that right?
It warmed at the end of the twentieth century. Yes, I think that's fair.
Is it unprecedented? We don't know.
Was the warming overstated? Quite possibly.
"Have scientists just given up because they know that they will be accused of fraud and treated like criminals by 'sceptics', simply because their work corroborates AGW?"
Is there actually an example of a prominent skeptic doing this, as opposed to some anonymous poster commenting in such a manner on an uncensored skeptic site? The problem with your view, Frank, is that all the problems you mention come back to behavior by the 'hockey team', not skeptics. If they disclosed data from the begining, there wouldn't have been a problem. There may have been <I>criticism</I>, some justified some not, but no one could accuse them of being frauds or hiding or manipulating data in such a sustained manner. The reason they can be so accused is because of their own behavior.
With regard to Briffa, sure it was disclosed. And then chopped off on the graphic presented to, you know, the rest of the planet itself as justification for the idea of anomalous 20th century warming. You'd think that if there were an identifiable problem with one of their major proxies they would have made sure it was clearly understood by everyone, not just the people who bother to read footnotes.
A similar issue is evident in the emails because the front the public sees about the current cooling is "Oh yes, it was predicted, all's fine, we knew this was coming," meanwhile behind the scenes the lack of prediction is a 'travesty'. If these researchers hadn't been so stubborn, two-faced, secretive, and biased toward a certain outcome, none of this would be an issue. You can call out bad behavior on all sides in any dispute, the reason the problem itself doesn't go away is because at base the complaints against the climate 'scientists' are justified. It is their refusal to simply share data and methods that keeps this whole damn thing going.
Sigh.
If you SHOW YOUR WORK, you won't be treated like a fraudster. It's secrecy that's poisonous here.
Another White Staffer included in the CRU emails is Rosina Bierbaum, an environment czar.
OK, I see her. Same conclusions as Holdren I would say - no case to answer.
Richard A
"Is there actually an example of a prominent skeptic doing this, as opposed to some anonymous poster commenting in such a manner on an uncensored skeptic site?"
Are you kidding? Stick a pin in any skeptic site.
And why the special pleading for anonymous posters?
"all the problems you mention come back to behavior by the 'hockey team'"
Blame the victim - and untrue.
Each of you is responsible for your own behaviour.