Saturday
Oct092010
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Turn my back for 30 secs...
Oct 9, 2010 Climate: HSI Climate: Mann ...and all hell breaks loose.
- Wegman being investigated for plagiarism
- Prominent physicist resigns and cites HSI as he goes
- HSI shooting up Amazon charts stateside
Very busy. May comment later.
Reader Comments (33)
Is that last link right? It currently points to The Guardian story about the revised RS statement on CC.
Mind you, Amazon.com does currently show HSI as
http://www.amazon.com/Hockey-Stick-Illusion-Climategate-Independent/dp/1906768358/
#1 in Books > Science > Earth Sciences > Climatology > Climate Changes
#4 in Books > Outdoors & Nature > Environment > Weather
#4 in Books > Outdoors & Nature > Nature & Ecology > Rivers
Though the rivers connection eludes me. Illusory Hockey played on illusory frozen rivers, perhaps?
You can't afford to turn your back for 30 seconds with the rabble rowsers here.
I agree with Jim; the last link is wrong.
Hal Lewis's description of Climategate: " ... a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work."
The letter from Hal is a great read. And he gives your book a positive mention.
And then your book shoots up the charts. Good. Book of the year IMHO.
In the US, there has been no official inquiry into Climategate. This is mostly because the "science" has been custom manufactured to support policy preferences of the current majority party. The majority party is simply not interested in looking into how this sausage was made -- they'd rather not know. All they know is that they have enjoyed eating it. But its now nearly certain that the mid term election in November will result in a changing of the guard. This will surely result in a new level of scrutiny into the conduct of the Team and the veracity of the science. As a result, there must be absolute panic in the Alarmist community. I think what we are not seeing is desperate last attempt to rally their dwindling political allies before their castle walls are breached.
The letter by Prof Hal lewis is outstanding.
I hope it will be mentioned and quoted as far and wide as possible.
Any scientist who is not outraged by the fraudulent pseudoscience that is AGW should hang their heads in shame!
Phillip Bratby
One for your wind farm files:
http://www.letelegramme.com/local/finistere-sud/chateaulin-carhaix/chateaulin/arret-nocturne-des-eoliennes-seulement-en-reve-08-12-2009-690184.php
The court of appeal at Rennes has ordered some turbines in Finisterre to shut down at night so that the locals can get some sleep. It has also ordered the owners to fix the problems they are causing to TV reception. The owners have not complied so far.
Dreadnought: Thanks, I will study it later.
Prof Lewis letter is getting wider coverage now that James Delingpole has posted it in full at http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100058265/us-physics-professor-global-warming-is-the-greatest-and-most-successful-pseudoscientific-fraud-i-have-seen-in-my-long-life/
How about a singular post on Wegman?
I am struggling to put my lower jaw back in place after reading the Hal Lewis letter.
"APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?"
"Since I am no philosopher, I'm not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question."
Blunt *and* gracious. A class act. Just....Wow.
Just to prove to myself that looking for plagiarism is a sad activity (!) I went to Bradley's publication page:
http://www.geo.umass.edu/faculty/bradley/bradleypub.html
(Bradly helpfully posts PDFs of all his publications - no need to deal with those pesky pay walls for his disciples) and ...clicked on....the first paper posted).
http://www.geo.umass.edu/climate/papers2/mann2008.pdf
I took the first sentence "Knowledge of climate during past centuries can both improve our understanding of natural climate variability and help address the question of whether modern climate change is unprecedented in a long-term context"
...and Googled...
I observe among the hits:
http://faculty.washington.edu/mkuettel/docs/Luterbacheretal_Springer_2010.pdf
(Phil Jones is a coauthor) which begins...
"The knowledge of climate and its variability during the past centuries can improve our understanding of natural climate variability and also help to address the question of whether modern climate change is unprecedented in a long-term context"
The similarities/coincidences continue - e.g.the second sentence in both papers begins "The lack of widespread instrumental climate records before the mid 19th century..." Mann et al; "The lack of widespread instrumental climate records" Luterbacher et al
So, I'm inclined to suspect that cutting and pasting is quite common in climatology, if not science. But, no doubt some cutting and pasting is more equal than other cutting and pasting.
ZT: The best way to get fame and funding in climate science is to publish lots of papers. The easiest way to do that is to produce lots of papers with multiple authors and to regurgitate the same crap using cut and paste. Works a treat for these guys. Now which is that Climategate email between Mann and Jones discussing Jones' papers to get his fellowship of the American Geophysical Union? Ah yes, see the following from the Climategate anaylsis by John Costella:
June 11, 2008: email 1213201481
Phil Jones replies to Mike Mann, on Mann’s nomination of Jones:
On point 1 (what Mann called “N”), this is what people call the H index. I’ve tried working this out, and there is software for it on the Web of Science website.
The problem is my surname. I get a number of 62 if I just use the software, but I have too many papers. I then waded through and deleted those in journals I’d never heard of and got 52. I think this got rid of some biologist from the 1970s and 1980s, so go with 52.
I don’t have soft copies of the early papers. I won’t be able to do anything for a few days either. When do you want this in, by the way?
Again, Jones reveals that there is no electronic archiving system at the Climatic Research Unit. Mike Mann:
OK—thanks, I’ll just go with the H = 62. That is an impressive number and almost certainly higher than the vast majority of American Geophysical Union Fellows.
Mann dishonestly ignores Jones’s own disclaimer that the figure of 62 is completely wrong, and decides to use it regardless. Is there any greater insight into the absolute lack of integrity of this man?
@Philip Bratby - Agreed. It is a shame that they didn't produce a few sonnets while they were cutting and pasting all those random strings and H indices for people with similar names.
ZT: Could it be that Bradley is upset that Wegman's gang produced a work which didn't meetg the highest standards of Plagiary?
He's clearly quite adept himself.
Nice catch ZT.
It looks to me as though Mann, Bradley, et al came before Luterbacher et al.
Both papers may both have a common ancestor.
All this shows is that climatologist scruples are fungible - but what else is new.
ZT and Phillip, a great take on the whole fiasco. And it inspired this
http://www.cartoonsbyjosh.com/topcopy_scr.jpg
at
http://www.cartoonsbyjosh.com/
It is a quick response and might need a bit of polishing so any comments welcome.
Apologies to anyone who hasn't the foggiest who Molesworth or Ronald Searle is. I bet you have all heard of St Trinians tho'!
Very good, Josh. Caricaturing successfully in the style of RS is quite a feat - I especially like Mann as Molesworth. You'll have to work on the spelling, though - it's a bit too accurate...
Very nice Josh - hello trees, hello sky!
Another good one Josh. I didn't notice the hockey stick at first glance - a nice touch. At my skool, boys played rugby and girls played hockey; just saying, I wouldn't want anybody to accuse me of being sexist or not PC.
James, good point.
Like the British hockey stick. J for Josh. haha
How about Mannsworth "thanks Jones minor i'll get bradley to sort him out later"
Josh, very good! - thank you.
HSI shooting up Amazon charts stateside
Looks like it is #1 in the three categories mentioned.
#1 in Books > Science > Earth Sciences > Climatology > Climate Changes
#1 in Books > Outdoors & Nature > Environment > Weather
#1 in Books > Outdoors & Nature > Nature & Ecology > Rivers
Bishop: Any rough idea of how many copies have been sold on Amazon? You probably know, but if you don't, I believe that information is available on the author page.
James
HSI is also #6 in the full Science>Earth Sciences category. Pretty good!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/13592/ref=pd_ts_b_nav
James
Over at the New Stateman, where the comments for Steve McIntyre "20 people who matter in 2010" are now over 700; the Deltoids are dismissing Prof Lewis and mumbling about
So the truth is out. For us the game is up, Phillip Bratby.
On Newton's quote from Delingpole's article -
I'm a bit suspicious. I'm sceptical. Did Sir Isaac really say that? Maybe something similar in Latin. Any ideas?
Well, it's not as if physicist arrogance is exactly a mythical phenomenon. But then, it's not as if it only shows up on one side of the climate debate either.
HSI is still moving up. Now #1 in Climatology and #6 in Earth Sciences, behind 3 other titles, two of which are in two editions and only one of which (The Wave) I would classify in Earth Sciences.
Perhaps more significantly, #917 in Books overall. I think it was at #6000+ when I looked yesterday evening.
Speaking of US publicity for HSI, why hasn't someone sent Glenn Reynolds a copy yet? At the very least it would get an "In the post" acknowledgement.
Wow! Congratulations on the growing popularity of your book! If people are buying because of Dr. Lewis that's a double whammy - hopefully other APS scientists are becoming curious about what has been going on. And thanks for the spectacular clarity and meticulous detail of your writing, Bishop.
Well you are getting some good pub somewhere. #535 overall now.
HSI gone viral! Can't imagine the gnashing of teeth at RC lol.
James
Let's keep a countdown :-)
Update: Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #428 in Books
James Delingpoles Hal post has 2221 comments, gosh, that's a lot, isn't it?