Bishop Hill Curry and Hickman in the Guardian
Feb 24, 2010 Blogs Climate: Curry It looks as though Judith Curry is going to have a piece up at the Guardian in which she continues in her struggle to bridge the chasm between the sceptics and the mainstream. It's not available yet, but reader Fran Codwire, in the comments, has caught a glimpse of Graun regular Leo Hickman's response, which looks as though it will appear before Curry's original.
Hickman's contribution seems like something of a rant to me, holding McIntyre and Watts responsible for the contributions of their commenters and apparently demanding that anonymous commenters be unmasked. This is the only rational explanation I can reach when he says "I think until those that frequent these sites come out from behind the cloak of anonymity that most of them choose to hide behind very few people, particularly climate scientists, will be willing to trust the motives of this army of DIY auditors."
I mean, how will retribution be handed out if nobody knows who these people are?
Bishop Hill
Reader Comments (38)
Bish, here's Judith's piece, I think:
http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/climate/towards_rebuilding_trust.html
[BH adds: Thanks - I've posted an update]
Surely the identities of the bloggers and their commentators are less important that what they actually have to say, and whether it can be supported?
I don't understand what is supposed to proven even if he identifies anonymous commentators.
Imagine for a moment where Leo Hickman has access to the names, addresses and telephone numbers of every anonymous commentator on every blog. What does it change about the debate? The issues still need to be resolved on their own merits.
Imagine he also get access to their political affiliations (right, left, or other - although he seems only concerned about the first of these), would that change a damned thing? Again the issues still need to be resolved on their own merits. You can't dismiss a criticism just because you don't like the politics of the person who made it.
Copner: "Imagine for a moment where Leo Hickman has access to the names, addresses and telephone numbers of every anonymous commentator on every blog. What does it change about the debate?"
If he had this information, I suppose he could get the private detectives on to us to track down our connections with Big Oil and the tobocco industry, which would save him the trouble of dealing with our arguments.
To Leo and his followers on the Grauniad every denier is white, right wing, with a resistance to acceptance of the 'facts' about 'AGW'. Many of Leo's pieces are just mind numbingly narrow minded - just like the Guardian generally..
The strange thing is I was a Guardian reader for many a year. My parents were both war time communists (who both lost many siblings to simple preventable diseases) and who volunteered for active service in WWII against fascists.
I want my young sons to grow up in a world which has not been taken over by the sort of people Leo Hickman represents. It really is that simple. It really is the case that these people just do not 'get it'.
Well done to Judith Curry for sticking her head over the parapet.
Wow, I'm impressed. You managed to read my "rant" before it went live. Maybe your reader Fran Codwire should buy herself a lottery ticket with those kind of powers.
Andrew, I think you might have somewhat misread what I was trying to say. My point is about how trust is unlikely to ever be restored so long as people can comment anonymously. I think this is true both on sites such as yours and over where I reside at the Guardian. My editors obviously disagree as they have a policy of allowing anonymous postings. I don't think it matters too much really with ding-dong sites such as Comment is Free etc, but I was talking very specifically about "climate auditing" sites, as mentioned by Judith Curry in her article. If these sites are to be used to add to our knowledge about climate science - and I think they should as they can clearly be a wonderful resource when the efforts of potentially thousands of people can be corralled - then I think the identities of the auditors should be known if we are to maintain trust in what is essentially a scientific exercise of sorts.
This isn't about gaining their identities so I can line them up against a wall. Although now you say that... (Joke.)
Best wishes, Leo Hickman
@Leo
It does not seem to make any difference on Guardian comments whether people are anonymous or not. People who do not follow the Guardian eco-meme, of which you are one of main 'enforcers' are called deniers, almost without exception.
Here is some of Leo's considered journalism and the use of 'denier'. This was just a quick search from Nov 23rd 2009 onwards. Mr Hickman you are full of it... God it is so easy being an eco-journalist...
"Deniers queue up to lambast Skeptical Science application developed by solar physicist John Cook. Now there's a surprise"
"Climate change denial as done by a WWF wrestler ... and June Sarpong"
"BNP document proves the far right is at home with climate change denial"
"Climate change email hacking to be looked into by University of East Anglia" containing "Selected and unverified extracts from the emails have been used by climate change deniers to claim that the scientists colluded to manipulate climate data, causing a storm on deniers' blogs."
And I am sure there is more...
Awesome article by Judith. She says, "Credibility is a combination of expertise and trust", and she is suggesting that Steve McIntyre and friends are winning the credibility war.
I was interested to learn that some of the UK's most influential warmers are those that determine whether UK scientists are funded:
http://climateaudit.org/2010/02/23/oral-testimony-at-uk-parliamentary-inquiry/#comment-223364
Why are UK journalists not interested in such conflicts of interest?
Leo, thank you for taking the time to respond. But I still don't get it.
Any piece of information can be judged by two general types of criteria:-
1. The person saying it
Specifically what you think of the person saying it
- If you like the person (their politics, their general reputation, or anything else about them), you can approve of the comment on that basis
- If you dislike the person (their politics, their general reputation, or anything else about them), you can disapprove of the comment on that basis
or
2. The information in the comment
Specifically wha tthe information is, and whether you can independently replicate or disprove it
Now, in science, I thought we were supposed to be using type 2 criteria to, and not type 1, to judge information (including comments). So I still fail to see the relevance of knowing people's identities.
And is it not unsurprising that people might be reluctant to reveal their identities, when for the last several years, for merely taking a contrarian position on a scientific issue, they have been compared to holocaust deniers, Nazi appeasers, war criminals, actual Nazis, flat-earthers, creationists, and so forth - and it has been publicly suggested (including in the Guardian!) that they should be put on trial, or wose.
Leo - the key players are known - McIntyre, Watts, Mosher, Eschenbach, Hughes, and many others. The ones who really do audit, and spend a lot of time on it. That some posters use a pen-name - Oh look that's me - means you would, I agree, devalue their work a tad, or maybe put it on caution.
@Jiminy Cricket
I expect we are unlikely to see eye-to-eye on many things but I do thank you for raising this. It's an important point. I don't actually like the term "denier" either - and my views have hardened on this in recent years. I think there is certainly a percentage of sceptics who are in genuine "denial" about what climate science tells us, but "denier" shouldn't be used as a term to describe all those who are sceptical about the science and/or the proposed policy response.
Those references you make to the use of the word "denier" are from headlines and standfirsts (intros) to my articles which are not actually written by me. For what it's worth, following the use of the word "denier" in the standfirst to my article last week about John Cook's iphone app, I did actually ask if the sub-editors could refrain from using the term on the "furniture" of my articles. The last article you referenced was from a news article. These can often be the work of several people including sub-editors. I wouldn't have inserted that term myself and, from what I understand, the term "denier" is no longer used in news pieces in that manner.
There's an advantage to anonymity that Leo Hickman seems to have overlooked: if the identities of ALL auditors were concealed, then people couldn't make preconceptions about whether they're "deniers", or dismiss their views simply because of who they are (as appeared to be the case in some of the leaked emails).
Remember, peer review is supposed to be anonymous.
Anthony Watts at WUWT has already posted Judith Curry's article as he did with a previous attempt by her to "solve" the debate.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/24/on-the-credibility-of-climate-research-part-ii-towards-rebuilding-trust/
As for using my real name or not, what business is it of anyone else but me? If I was to post anything unacceptable the moderators would usually delete it anyway and on most newspapers' websites not all of my "reasonable" comments get through. And that's on any subject not just AGW.
posted at CIF - will probably get deleted...
Climate scientists have to expect some reaction from the general public when:
1. They promote the Hockey Stick (revealed as a fabrication by bloggers)
2. Adjust the temperature record in an unjustified fashion (caught by bloggers)
3. Publish tree ring chronologies based on a tiny fraction of available trees to produce the desired effect (Yamal - discovered by bloggers)
4. Use Tiljander series upside-down so that the present looks warmer (caught by bloggers)
5. Make unsubstantiated claims regarding Himalayan glaciers (revealed by bloggers?)
6. Fabricate disaster loss data (caught by scientist who also blogs)
7. The CRU dog-ate-the-data affair
8. Climategate
9....
The list goes on, as we are all too aware. The litany of incompetence tinged with the suspicion of politically motivated data tampering would not have come to light if it were not for the efforts of a few dedicated bloggers. Neither the scientists nor the main stream media were interested in shedding light this sorry affair.
Now it seems the real problem is anonymous commenting on blogs like this one. That is plainly ridiculous! If you voice a slightly contrary opinion [on cif] you get deleted anyway!
Thank you bloggers, anonymous or otherwise, for bringing this debacle to my attention. I'm sorry climate scientists, I don't trust you anymore for obvious reasons. Goodbye mainstream media, you have become almost irrelevant on this subject anyway!
@Leo
Thanks for the response.
For someone brought up by left-wing socially conscious parents from that generation, the 'denier' term is particularly emotive. I have lived in a country for many years where many hundreds of thousands where either shot on the banks of the river or transported to their deaths. I have met holocaust survivors.
I support your right for free speech, however if you want to embrace people, to get them to listen to what you have to say, then refraining from using the 'denier' term will serve your paper far greater than any strident use of the term.
Again thanks for putting your head above the parapet and surviving my arrows.
Quite apart from the professional scientists who fear funding drying up, I think you'll find there are many people who have concerns about expressing their views freely. We've recently seen the example of Paul Dennis. Consider the position of those working for local authorities, or in government departments. Some of this is linked to funding; many projects now depend on the 'climate' angle, so any hint that the billions may be better spent in other ways is not welcome. Having said that, I do feel that since Climategate a number of people are more willing to stand up and be counted. It has been the 'awkward squad' - those who will stand up and argue irrespective of what the consensus is, who have brought the establishment to the point that it accepts that a debate is to be had. I don't think you can expect the man on the Clapham omnibus to put himself in the firing line, but you most definitely need to hear his opinion.
OT_1: D**n you and your book! No sleep now for two days (except at work).
OT_2: It is exceedingly interesting (deep mystery really) to me that a lot of people seem to think they are going to actually get access to raw data at some point (I mean actual raw data). The reason you won't is because there is too much money in the hoppers and, secondarily, it would put a lot of important people in jail. I'm guessing close to 100% of this work (IPCC, CRU, etc.) has been perfromed under contracts with pretty clear fraud and disclosure clauses.
As a consultant in hydrology and water resources engineering, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in the blog discussions on climate change and appropriate policy responses. However, I have to remain anonymous as I am frequently asked to do studies for clients on potential climate change impacts on water supply and flood control. Many water resources projects now have climate change components whether they are relevant or not.
As a consultant I have to review the literature, proceed with the analysis based on current best practice and provide an interpretation of the findings. It would be detrimental to my business to be too "open" with my personal views. In simple terms it is unlikely I would be awarded contracts that have a climate change aspect.
Leo--
You seem to be telling bloggers and the public that climate scientists won't trust us until we meet their standards. I'll grant you that point, but add, "So what?"
It seems to me that Judy is concerned about a different problem which is that the public, and bloggers who are popular and trusted by enough people to have enormous readership have come to distrust climate scientists.
If climate scientists wish to regain the trust of the public, it's probably wise they modify at their own behavior and possibly that of their advocates. Telling the public that climate scientists don't trust them is better tailored to decreasing public trust in climate scientists.
Hickman's idea of exposing anonymous internet commenters is downright creepy.
Does Curry not know of the close links between "realclimate.org" and Al Gore's PR friends at Fenton Communications. They started the site and still fund it.
Follow the money...
Leo,
I take it that you are aware how carefully responsible journalists guard the identity of their sources?
I assume you understand why?
I comment under my real first name and the good Bishop has my real email address.
However, I am not dependant on preaching "the one true faith" for my livliehood.
Taking the church analogy a little further, would you expect a curate or a paish priest to openly question say; the virgin birth, regardless of what his or her own thoughts are?
Would you expect them to go public with their own name, with the misdeeds of their bosses, say a bishop or an archbishop?
There is a sensible place for anonymity; I'm sure that your postal address and cell phone aren't published at the foot of your articles, for any old nutter to come a visiting?
I haven't actually seen grossly irresponsible comment on the skeptical and agnostic climate change sites, at least not from the regulars, although I did see the good Bish' delete some racist trolling a few days back.
I certainly have not seen from this side, even in jest, the sort of threads asking whether those holding the opposing viewpoint should be given trialls before execution.
I have seen threads like that from the true believers
That brings me to politics. The denial of triall before execution was characteristic of collectivist ideologies. Apparently Che was rather fond of wandering around the room ranting before decorating the walls with the brains of some poor captured peasant, as were those hijackers of the German green movement in the 1930s; the NSDAP.
Strangely the latter racist scum get pasted onto the same part of the political spectrum as small government libertarians.
That brings me to the use of the national domestic extremism cops.
Is holding a view differrent from the official line of the civil service "extremism"?
If it is, then you can expect very few people to want to comment with their own name.
Now, regardless of name posting, Would you like to comment on the validity of the arguments?
you might like to go visit Borepatch's comments about gatekeeping, and why the lame stream media can't keep us off their lawn these days.
LOL! Well these so called scientists better deal with what this anonymous NASA engineer have to say about the lousy quality of their methods and conclusions. My anonymity has no bearing on where I can point to the errors and holes in their theories.
When they admit 99+% of their data from which they base conclusions are unfounded and unproven guesstimates and only a small fraction are actual measurements, then we can talk. When they show their error budget, and how scattered measurements are combined over the 130 year record in such a manner that a sub degree change in their global index is way inside the uncertainty and noise of their guesstimates we can talk.
Until then they have demonstrated a serious lack of professional quality that invites the criticism they are getting. Africa will not lose 50% of its food production in 10 years, the Himalayan glaciers will not be gone in 25 years, the sea levels will not rise much in the next two decades, and neither will the global temperature index.
This ain't rocket science - but should be held to the same standards at a minimum.
From Curry:
However, there is nothing in this crazy environment that is worth sacrificing your personal or professional integrity.
I agree.
Maybe anonymous commenters/auditors will be judged not by their identity, but by the content of their arguments...the logic, the cogency, the reason and results of their arguments. If their auditing proves real and helpful, I'm sure they will come forward to take credit.
Bull$hit arguments will fall on their own merits whether or not we know the true identity of the commenter/auditor.
Leo, I always use my own name on blogs. That is because I am privileged to be old enough to not have to fear for myself nor my family, should I fall foul of someone's political beliefs. Most bloggers are not so privileged and most do not have the protection of a constitutional right to freedom of speech.
Despite the commendable efforts of the UEACRU whistleblower, and blogs such as this one, the unraveling of the climate data fraud would not have been so fully exposed had it been obligatory for bloggers to identify themselves. Many able and knowledgeable people would have been denied the opportunity to participate.
Leo, given that the scientists failed to trust Steve McIntyre despite having his name and address and a proven track record of good work, I’m not sure where better candidates are going to come from.
The good auditors are known by their work, not by their true names. If you want to limit membership to those who are prepared to bare all, you might miss out on those who are dipping their toes in the audit waters for the first time. There may be some well know specialists who would make very good auditors but won’t risk what they’ve got for the dubious reward of being an unpaid cog in what should be an organised field.
Perhaps membership of an inner sanctum should be entirely anonymous, limited solely by track record. Anonymity might promote more honesty, a resource that has been sadly lacking in climate science so far. Access to that exclusive club could be restricted by work done in an open but free for all forum.
Watch Curry try to reposition herself...
Today she can write:
November 2009 just as Climategate was breaking she wrote in the first part of "On the credibility of climate research"
Lets play that bit again:
Sorry, Judy, we don't need to spin them we need to just read them. Gloating over the death of skeptic John Daly. How ya gonna spin gloating over someone's death?
Just 2 years earlier in 2007 she was happy to write in the WaPo
This anon poster on CA blog sums it up:
Looks like they have sent the “little woman” out to try and smooth things over with soothing words.
Lickman wants a top job at the Ministry of Blogging Permits.
Leo, welcome it is really nice of you to come on here and explain yourself. So thanks. Actually I don't know of a sceptic blogger who is anonymous, I prefer to be anonymous because I'm a private person and don't really think I have anything important to say. There is an "anonymous" blogger I know of he's called Tamino and he kept his name as quiet as possible which is not surprising because he appears to have a name closely related to a cheap sunglasse range sold by Woolworth's before they went out of business.
Nonetheless you're engaging with the sceptics and hopefully you'll find we're not the swivel-eyed bunch of right wing fascists of popular myth, many of us are engineers and scientists brought up on a science culture that expected rigour and openess for acceptance of ideas. People who see sceptism as the path to truth not an heretical denial of the conventional wisdom.
@Jack Hughes
Cut Judy some slack, she invited Steve McIntyre to speak to her undergrads and she's consistently tried to engage with sceptics. My sense is she's been reined in by her superiors in case we tainted her. My take on this is that Judy, like Mike Huhne and others, who aren't so fanatical are taking advantage of the freedom they've been given to try to engage openly with critics something that the AGW Inquisition has clamped down on. Now there's a story for you Leo.
@Geronimo
OK if she is truly repentant and says 3 "Patchy must goes".
The real confusion comes from the use of the word 'scientist' when referring to climate study. The study of the climate is no more a science than the study of economics, and for many of the same reasons.
Guys can we cut Leo some slack? At least he is prepared to engage [politely too!] although he may not agree with us or we with him. For the record Leo its my real name, I'm a long retired statistician and my politics are slightly left of centre. Have you read Andrew's book Leo? The book is the first tightly argued non-technical expose of Mann and his dishonesty. It all stems from MBH 98 and until Steve McIntyre started to take it apart in 2003 Mann had got away with it. The acrimonious debate started then and AGW was supported by "scientists" who ought to have known better.
Yes we need a proper debate about how much temperature is rising, the likely causes and what if anything we need to do about it. Incidentally Andrew says in his book that McIntyre offered to write a joint paper with Ammann in 2005 so that differences could be set out side by side. Ammann failed to respond. So the offer to engage by sceptics [of AGW] has been there since 2005. What have the "warmists" done? Basically tried to undermine McIntyre and like minded people with lies, lies and more lies.
Leo you should not be at all surprised that sceptics are likely to be very suspicious of both Professor Curry and yourself.
We can test the need to disclose identity by asking what would have been the response had an anonymous commenter suggested that "deniers" are guilty of crimes against humanity.
I would suggest there would have been only one response - the fellow is an extremist nutter with no grasp of reality.
Instead the supposed expertise of such as Dr Hansen is prayed in aid to give the suggestion weight. Yet it has the same weight whether made by James Hansen or Nutty McNutt the anonymous commenter.
I blog and comment using the name I use here because I want any judgment of my arguments to be based on what I say not on who I am (not that my real name would mean anything to anyone). If I say, as I do, that any steps taken in the UK to reduce CO2 emissions are futile gestures because India and China will dwarf them by their increased emission, I would rather someone tackled the point on its merits rather than by looking me up and saying "you can be ignored because you don't have a PhD in this that or the other".
To use my favourite mixed metaphor, Mr Leo is barking up the wrong end of the stick.
Leo
a percentage of sceptics who are in genuine "denial"
I think you'll find a higher percentage of warmists in a similar condition! The higher your horse, the more difficult it is to dismount...
Hmm.
Anonymity has been very useful as a way for blogs like Climate Audit and this one to tap the expertise that dare not speak its name. But there does come a point when people 'grow a pair', as Willis Eschenbach has quite rightly urged all climate scientists to do on WUWT (and I guess that has to come first), and use their real names. Whatever one says about the falsity of arguments from authority none of us can be experts in everything and thus we all rely on others and their reputations to some extent. A good example for me would be Edward Wegman. I already thought from my own reading that McIntyre and McKitrick had got the maths right. But it helped that Mr Wegman said so too. That increased my confidence. It's obvious to me therefore that Leo Hickman has a point. And it's worth offering up thanks for those like Steve McIntyre who've made themselves known from the outset and have taken such outrageous flack and attempts at character assassination as a result.
Roger Harrabin's request for the names of UK physical scientists who are willing to question climate science is likewise understandable. He may have to make do with Freeman Dyson! The man is a genius, of whom the UK should be very proud. But Dyson's case illustrates three aspects of the difficulty: 1) he's lived in the US almost all his adult life, where, despite all, there is more freedom to dissent (just consider James Imhofe's recent interviews); 2) he's very old and his reputation (and money) is therefore already made; 3) he's one of the few genuine cross-disciplinarians across all of science.
The last point is extremely important. It was very helpful of Tennekes to draw attention to the silo effect, which he also is good enough and brave enough to want to break through. But one of the reasons I judge that people elect to go anonymous on blogs like this is that although (like professional statisticians) they may have some very relevant expertise in the debate of the hockey stick and other things, the way science is organised and funded it's not the done thing to make criticisms in one's own name across official disciplines. It can I'm sure have a detrimental effect on one's career, even if the expertise involved is very applicable. This is crazy and needs to be fixed. Because if one very immature and over-funded area of science (so-called) has become totally corrupt - and I follow Lindzen and Eschenbach in thinking about climate science that way - then that creates a massive problem.
This of course also plays into whether Boulton should have got the gig with Muir Russell or whether it should have been someone with impeccable credentials in another area of science. Hang on, Russell himself is a distinguished physicist. Why didn't he have the confidence to do it himself? One can see the point writ large there.
I'm not a professional scientist and I'd be interested in any reactions from those that are. Or indeed from those that anonymously claim to be.
I think Lucia has come closest to hitting the nail on the head here.
So what if Im anonymous? Im not the one that affects policy makers...Im not the one the creates Government policy...Im not the one that increases taxation due to global warming (tm) legislation.
Surely, as I have absolutely no affect on mann made global warming (tm) and its associated policies then whether you know my real name or not is neither here nor there.
However...all those so called "scientists" not only should identify themselves and STAND BY their work, they should also grow a pair and handle criticism of their work because that is the only way those so called scientists will ever better themselves or improve their work!
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