Wednesday
Jan202010
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Nature on respect for adversaries
Jan 20, 2010 Journals Hot on the heels of Nature's editorial damning "denialists" comes these words of advice from the editorial staff at that august journal.
And scientists should be careful not to disparage those on the other side of a debate: a respectful tone makes it easier for people to change their minds if they share something in common with that other side.
Sorry, it seems, is still the hardest word to say.
Reader Comments (10)
'Struth, yer grace.
Love this bit:
I can only speak for myself but my own "sophisticated communications strategy" involves, err, telling the truth. Works for me...
Nature have moved on now though - the Hockey Team emails are now accepted to have been to be 'leaked' rather than 'stolen'.
Progress...
Very interesting - the cross-referenced article cited by Quirin Schiermeier in the Nature editorial says:
"Climate scientists are worried in particular about tree-ring data from a few northern sites. By examining temperature measurements from nearby, researchers know that tree growth at these locations tracked atmospheric temperatures for much of the twentieth century and then diverged from the actual temperatures during recent decades. It may be that when temperatures exceed a certain threshold, tree growth responds differently."
Which would of course make them fairly poor temperature proxies, thus entirely useless for Mann's mission to deny the existence of the Medieval Warm Period in the first place.
Sorry, that should read
"the article by Quirin Schiermeier cited in the Nature editorial says..."
Well I read that Nature ed, and I had to laugh, I loved:
"Over the years, the climate community has acquired some hard-won wisdom about treading this minefield."
You have to know that that sentiment doesn't include the readers on this blog, or even particularly their own readers - it is exclusive for a certain mindset
Frankly that editorial is even more disturbing than their last. They may have thought that some rolling back of their denialist talk was in order, but it seems they have merely elected to hold their 12 year old diatribes under their breath and try and adopt the base rhetoric of the sophisticated "clearly right" teenager.
Their self awareness about politics is wonderful, but begs the question why they write about science since they begrudgingly now say:
"hard-won wisdom about treading this minefield."
Get this engraved on the edge of the next pound coin :
"must be frank about their uncertainties and gaps in understanding"
When I see Natures compound thought;
"Even as climate science advances, it will be just as important to invest in research on how best to communicate environmental risks."
I can't describe how inane and stupid that sentence sounds in my head, if it is indefendable in any way I could think of, maybe that defense is out there, until then I will ignore these Lysenkoists.
Nature magazine is doing their own experiment.
Having reached zero credibility they are exploring what negative credibility looks like.
Whaddyah know? Glad to see scientific progress.
hy·poc·ri·sy (hĭ-pŏk'rĭ-sē)
n. pl. hy·poc·ri·sies
1. See "Nature"
This is really an incredible complaint. Many of you are going around accusing scientists of being liars and frauds, either flat out or by insinuation, and you complain of name calling? You act like your feelings are hurt if they don't respect you? Why should such egregious misrepresentations be respected?
And if people are going around denying facts - such as for example the greenhouse effect or that the global temperature is showing a warming trend (regardless of whether you think this is due to CO2 or not), why shouldn't they be called denialists? Is there a better term for this? Or do you deny even the obvious fact that such people exist?
Sceptic doesn't fit, because sceptics can be convinced by scientific evidence.
Show me the evidence, Frank and I'll show you an about-turn.
Have you read the Climategate evidence? Have you looked at the supposed global mean temperature squiggles, which just refuse to go vertical? Or do you deny that these things mean anything?