Friday
Dec042009
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill The Hockey Team: still no dissent permitted
Dec 4, 2009 Climate: CRU Climate: Curry Judith Curry in the National Journal
Somebody who was named in those e-mails e-mailed me and was rather upset about my lack of support and my speaking about this.
Reader Comments (30)
“I understand. The fact that you won't explain . . . explains everything.”
-- The Prisoner
Less meat - less heat:
Sir Paul McCartney wants us to become vegetarian:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEyzfFkEYoc
Judith says:
"Scrutiny from [politically motivated] contrarians and deniers and the noise generated by such people do distract scientists from their real work... "
That;s being one-sided - why not take issue with the noise generated by [politically motivated] supporters?
It is easy to put up with people who say things you agree with. But if Judith really wants to claim the good scientists are being distracted by "noise", why would she overlook the distraction which comes from inaccuracies put about by supporters?
For example. Every little unusual weather condition has been blown-up as evidence of MMGW for quite some time now. The good scientists could have silenced those noisy inaccuracies at the time. But they didn't.
The very least they did was to put up with it Personally, I think they agreed with it as it suited their confirmation bias.
When contrary evidence comes along, the good scientists have the distraction of mounting a rearguard action because of the accumulation of expectations about how MMGW will reveal itself to believers.
So we get "climate" versus "weather" defence - which is exceedingly unconvincing to me.
OT (sorry 'bout that) but C4 reported tonight on the Government being forced to defend the "scary ad"
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/science_technology/government+forced+to+defend+climate+change+advert/3450237
And the make some quite interesting links in the names at the bottom of the letter defending "the science"?
Spooky!
Am I the only person who heard Professor Andrew Watson FRS, Royal Society Research Fellow say on television 'What an asshole' after the Newsnight item with Watson and Marc Morano. Admittedly not a good debate. Both protagonists ill informed and unable to address the substantive issues of the case. However, indicative of the sneering attitude those in the team and close allies have of others.
Wow! Just watched "debate" on BBC2 Newsnight between Prof Andrew Watson of UEA and Mark Morano.
Watson made much of the alleged character assassination of CRU scientists by the so-called denialists. Morano did not help his case by a poor showing in my view. But the clincher was Watson's closing comment "What an asshole", presumably referring to Moran, although he might have been looking in a mirror.
Missed the "asshole" statement - but notice how Prof Watson was given a good free go to put his side of the argument whereas Morano was continually chopped off from his statements - admittedly he came at the interview as if it were on FOX, which was a mistake on his part, I would have hoped for better from Newsnight.
One shouldn't forget how much of Watson's own research interests are tied to carbon cycle studies and obviously the research income to be gained by linking CO2 cycle studies to AGW. He is hardly independent. What is interesting, apart from his real feelings which were betrayed by his lack of decorum, is that he could not speak to anything (FOIA, distrotion of peer review, science) but the 'trick' in order to blend proxy data and the modern temperature record.
He did a pretty good job of dismantling the tree ring record by stating that after 1960 they don't respond to temperature. Any sentient Newsnight watcher will ask if they don't respond to temperature post 1960 then perhaps they don't respond to temperature in the past.
The devil is in the details: "contrarians and deniers". So, in my opinion, just a damage control.
Yes, it was a "messy" debate on BBC. It seemed I was cut off after every sentence which only further agitated the situation. It is ironic that Prof. Watson would name call after claiming ClimateGate was just a smear against scientists.
I was trying to make the case that the environmental Left and UN scientists and even Prof. Hulme, Watson's colleague, all disagreed with him about the importance of the scandal.
www.climatedepot.com
Looks like gorgle I mean google doesnt want any dissent either
www.twawki.com
Marc, thank you for your response here and I can understand your frustration. Your point was well made but of course when your co-debater won't engage with the issues the whole debate suffers.
I wonder if we'll be seeing a public apology from either Professor Watson, or the UEA. BBS certainly felt they had to apologize.
I just watched it again at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00p92nx/Newsnight_04_12_2009/
The debate was very short and as usual with the BBC, the wrong questions were posed and not followed through. The 'what an asshole' clearly showed the frustration Watson felt as he knew he had lost the argument. He showed his complete ignorance about FOIA.
I would have to agree that the debate was not well structured and people were not given full reign to explain themselves. Matter of fact is though: Marc, You ARE an arsehole. Deal with it and move on.
The BBC seem to have cut the sound at the critical moment on the iPlayer.
That was a desperately uninformative debate. Scientist vs politician is never going to get us very far, but I don't think Marc Morano's approach will have won him many friends.
Watson was on very shaky ground when he said we didn't need to go into the details of the divergence problem. Removing evidence of the decline is scientific misrepresentation and Watson could have been left in the unenviable position of having to defend it. As it was, I think he probably emerged the victor.
I believe Dr Curry "gets it" and basically the deal is that the science "is what it is". If it can be presented in an open fashion, warts and all, then it can be improved upon and errors corrected, etc. It is basically the same model upon which such open source software as Linux is based. You just lay it out there. Yes, you have someone who manages that project but the changes are made in a very public way. There is public debate and real consensus is reached. And in the end you get a very robust result.
Climate science should not fear scrutiny, it should welcome it.
Andrew Watson is right Marc Morano is an 'asshole', at least judged by his continued talking over Watson in this Newsnight programme.
He also doesn't know that 'Mike Home' is actually Mike Hulme and that 'Edward Zuarto' is Eduardo Zorita and that 'Hans von Stork' is actually Hans von Storch. Now I'm a confirmed skeptic who is doing my bit to show that there is plenty of evidence both in the CRU emails and the code to prove that Ben Santer, Tom Wigley, Michael Mann, Phil Jones and various other lesser known IPCC scientists have been 'cooking the books'. The way to do this IS NOT to have someone like Marc Morano putting our side of the skeptic case.
Marc you have done our cause a great deal of damage during your Newsnight interview. Please confine yur tactics to US TV. In the UK we DO NOT like people who attempt to put their case by interrupting other people who are talking during a debate. In mouthing off in attempting to make your case, you missed at least two important mistakes that Andrew Watson made.
You failed to him on his avoidance of discussing the 'divergence problem'. You also did not challenge him at the end (OK the time did run out but mainly because of your interruptions) about his last statement 'did the world warm in the last 100 years?'. Of course it did as we are recovering from the LIA , no skeptics I know doubt that, What is in doubt is whether or not man has contibuted in any significant way to this general warming trend. You misse dthe opportunity to mak eit clear that the warming trend is not very largely and is well within the range of past climate variability. It is most definitely not any indication of posiible impending dangerous climate change.
KevinUK
I agree, with the sentiments. There should have been a UK sceptical scientist, such as Philip Stott, as there was on the Today programme.
A video of the ASSHOLE comment is here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8WDcQon9DY
I watched it live and was dumbstruck. I immediately emailed Marc to let him know in case he missed it.
Hilarious
KevinUK
I'm sure you would have done so much better.
When you consider transatlantic time lag and Kearneys haste and lack of direction, Morano probably did as well as could be expected.
Sure he's loud, he's America. He tried to make too many points before Kearney moved on, and failed.
Yeah, right, if you say so. Your pompous attitude is not unlike Watson's.
Morano runs a news aggregation site that simply collects links to every anti-AGW story he can find. The design looks like it is based on the "Drudge Report" model of link aggregation. Making a website that is simply a pointer to other people's stuff doesn't make one an authority on the subject. Morano is a "denier" in that he has almost a religious anti-AGW zeal. I consider myself a skeptic, not a denier. I am skeptical of data and process that is kept hidden from scrutiny. Maybe once we have a close look and the data and methods I will be a denier, too, but until that time, I am simply a skeptic.
Anyone claiming to "know" one way or the other at this point in time is making a leap of faith because there isn't enough clarity in the science at this point to form an opinion.
KevinUK - Yes you would have done better. I would like to see a good debate amongst Scientists. The "broad consensus" versus the "significant sceptics"? However, Scientist versus Scientist is rather boring for the masses. Loud politician versus scientist makes for more interesting viewing.
thanks for all the feedback. I hope to be on more UK tv and will listen to reactions here. Sorry if you don't like my style or if you think I am a "denier."
Here is my write up of BBC Debate with Watson.
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/4292/Climategate-Professor-to-Skeptic-on-Live-BBC-TV-What-an-Asshle
Thanks
Marc
www.ClimateDepot.com
Alex
The thought did occur to me that a Morano vs Bob Ward bout cage fight might make entertaining Friday night viewing.
@ David Harrington
Marc Morano clearly heard the "asshole", listen to the Haa!! at the end....
Chris S, have you ever had a debate with a confirmed AGW believer? Talking over your reply to a clearly inaccurate statement they have made is one of their classic tactics to prevent you from making a valid point. Marc Morano was doing this to Andrew Watson during interview. He was inaccurate and could not get his facts right. IMO anyone who watched Newsnight in the UK and observed this debate and who is currently neutral will have been a completely wrong impression of skeptics and as a result would sadly have sympathised with Watson and the IPCC scientists who are trying to defend the indefensible at the moment. They are all to a man on the MSM at the moment staying on message saying that the contents of the emails don't matter. Thatthe poor CRU scientists were frustrated because they were under attack from skeptics. marc Morano's actions only helped to re-inforce this message. Watson looked like and consequently acted like he was a frustrated victim henc eis inexcusable expletive.
One of the things that makes me proud to be a skeptic is that in generally when skpetics debate with warners they do not resort to this type of tactic. Think Dick Lindzen, think Lord Monckton, in particular think Steve McIntyre and Ross Mckitrick. We don't need to stoop to such low levels. Could i have done better? Was i pompous in my previous post? I'll leave that to thos ewho read it to decide.
KevinUK
Well, this Canadian agrees with the Brits here who think that the American Marc Morano lost this match, despite Andrew Watson's expletive at the close. Mr. Morano's style is is very similar to the style of the Fox channel, which I don't like either. I don''t watch news channels for the entertainment value but because I want information. I don't get it on TV hence here I am.
The BBC knew what they were doing when they set this up. I first noticed this tactic on CNN during the last presidential campaign and recently in segments they did between democrats and tea party representatives. I am convinced that they deliberately look for the most obnoxious guest they can find to represent the point of view that they want to discredit. And it works.
I am sorry Mr. Morano. But we don't want style, we want substance. Don't give the BBC the ammunition they want to destroy the credibility of climate science skepticism.
And Mr. Hill, I really like your blog. It's one of my regular reads now...for the substance...but I do like your style too.
Shelley
"but I don't think Marc Morano's approach will have won him many friends"
I disagree.
Watson looked increasingly frustrated and you are right to mention how he was let off the hook when he side stepped the divergence problem. The "A**hole" comment only added to the impression.
The interviewer gave Watson space to make his point, but was aggresive towards Morano. You will note how Morano was first interrupted as he made his first point. And so it continued.
Watson did not cover himself in glory as he told Morano to shut up, while it was obvious that Morano was being continually cut off when seeking to make his points. The intervewer even changes the subject haf way through Morano's reply to one of Watson's points.
It reminded me of a comedy sketch from "Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge", where Partridge (acting as "Chair" for the debate) continually interrupted the Labour pannelist - even calling her rude for interrupting - and showed bias towards a Conservative pannelist who was struggling to get his point acorss.
So I put Watson as the loser in the debate as beteween the two interviewees. But the biggest loser was the interviewer. Out of a badly managed interview, Morano comes out on top.
Interesting that the general opinion seems to be that Marc lost. I pegged it strongly in his favour. I thought Watson came across as wierd, his mannerisms were poor and he was on the back foot with most of his talk. He looked like a sad individual about to drop dead whereas Marc presented much better in my opinion. I can see how it might be read differently however the clinchers to me were when Watson said "oh shutup" and calling someone an ahole on TV. I found it hard to believe anyone of substance would do that and I think a lot of people would be thinking a similar thing. Actually to me saying that on TV during a debate is like a home goal and he did it twice.
We are all watching the formation/emergence of a new religion with the usual fanatical leaders, there for their own ends only and prepared to do anything in order to further their ends and get as much money into the collection boxes as possible. We the poor tax payer having to give our offerings like it or not.