Thursday
Feb252010
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill McIntyre and Harrison
Feb 25, 2010 Climate: HSI Climate: McIntyre One of my favourite political bloggers, "Tom Paine", says some nice things about the Hockey Stick Illusion in an interesting essay charting the parallels between Steve McIntyre's experiences at the hands of the scientific establishment and those of John Harrison, the man who solved the problem of longitude.
Reader Comments (7)
Nice article. Some good coverage of HSI. Cool...
There was a film about John Harrison on one of the sky channels a couple of weeks ago. Unsurprisingly it was called "Longitude".
Since they have a habit of repeating everything you might find it in the sky listings.
The book is better..written by Dava Sobel.
You had to get "parallel" in there, didn't you? (yes I know that's latitude).
Nice article. I disagree with the following bits:
"Professor Mann is a poor scientist and a weak man, but not a bad person."
On the contrary, my impression of him as revealed in the e-mails is of a guy I would definitely describe as "a bad person".
"That Mann is a scientific Salieri does not make McIntyre Mozart."
My understanding is that Salieri wasn't a bad composer - he just wasn't a genius like Mozart. The comparison may be valid to the extent that McIntyre made Mann confront his own incompetence and limitations - or would have done so if Mann were in the least capable of self-criticism and self-analysis - but there is no indication of that in the e-mails.
I have just finished reading the Hockey Stick Illusion and it was definitely a good read, a page turner even. Interestingly, while I was part way through it the rest of my family were at one point watching a Columbo re-run. It occurred to me that the HSI was a bit like a Columbo story in that you sort of know the outcome from the beginning and it is how he works it out that is the interesting part.
Not having read Mr. Paine's post, I trust that the similarity will not extend to having Her Majesty plead at the bar of the House of Commons for justice to be done
Many thanks for the link your Grace,
I shall be visiting Tommy Paine (ii) again.
Now to leave a comment at your draft constitution