Friday
Apr232010
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Interview with Judith Curry
Apr 23, 2010 Climate: Curry There is an interview with Judith Curry at Keith Kloor's place. Well worth a read.
Also, Judy's colleague Peter Webster has been commenting on the Academy heads thread on the subject of Bangladesh.
Reader Comments (24)
I'd recommend Keith's earlier post on the subject as well. A scan of the comments is interesting for anyone interested in attitudes and motives.
http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2010/04/17/some-spicy-curry/
I'm not sure whether I've seen any articles by the BBC covering Dr Curry's comments, though I may have missed them. Given the effect she's having on Gavin's blood pressure, I'd have thought that Roger or Richard would be queuing up to interview her instead of being beaten to the mark by Mr Kloor.
"I recall reading this statement from one of the blogs, which seems especially apt: the fire department receives report of a fire in the kitchen; upon investigating the living room, they declare that there is no fire in the house."
That's my quote :)
Glad (and proud) to see i could provide with a good analogy !
Benjamin
It will be my next cartoon - inspirational, well done!
Damn, i should start asking for royalties ! ;)
Josh, i love your cartoons !
Benjamin, thank you! look forward to Josh's cartoon . . .
You have to respect JC's courage. She is obviously a woman who want to address the problems in climate science and not just pretend they don't exist. Kudos
Josh,
Speaking of cartoons -- there is an idea you can steal (I don't think M4GW would mind) of using green balloons with Mike Mann's face drawn on it. Works well and just the "green" image he deserves :)
See the "Hide the Decline II" video here (look at the original as well for fun).
http://www.nocapandtrade.com/michael-mann-controversy/
PS. Welcome to Judith. I really don't eat people. Really. I might gum them a bit, but at my age I have to be careful of my teeth so I can't bite -- too hard, anyhow.
Well done to Judith for taking on Gavin. I wonder if she will get banned from RC like the rest of us. I got banned for contradicting Gavin on a subject I knew far more about than him.
Comment 48 Stands Out, just a small part:
http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2010/04/17/some-spicy-curry/
I absolutely disagree that the proprietors of the technical skeptical blogs are not open minded. I can only speak for the ones that I have gotten to know somewhat, such as Steve McIntyre, Lucia Liljegren, Andrew Montford and a few others.
I frankly find them to be more polite and less nasty than many of the “warmist” bloggers. Maybe you didn’t catch my (negative) review of Lindzen and Choi over on climateaudit? Re Douglass et al., they have a new paper in the mill, i expect it will be widely discussed.
I don’t care very much about credibility with my peers, if my peers are objecting to my attempts at open and honest dialogue on this topic.
I am too senior and sufficiently well established in my position that I don’t need any credibility from my peers.
So, my peers won’t elect me to the National Academy of Science or whatever?
Big deal, seems like that is about the worst they can do to me. Clobber me in peer review? So what, I can get funding from the private sector and publish on the blogs. So I won’t easily be intimidated by my peers, or anyone else for that matter. See, the reactions of the “warmists” to my activities have created a monster
Methinks, I owe Judith an apology, I was critical when I saw her original comments at Watts up/climate audit, mainly because she seem ed to believe in a wekll funded denial machine..
She has put herself in the middle, and has seemed to get a lot of flak from all directions. I think most people are in the middle, but have been forced into eithe alarmists or deniars. I imagine we all just want reason, calmness and debate.
I have a friend who has her own emails, amongst the climategate hack/leak. She also worked for the IPCC, and part of the teams editing reports..
We can discuss things rationally ( all though passionately) and remain friends, yet bizarrely she has not looked at ANY of the emails, or Harry_read_me.txt, I am still trying to persuade her to, as her job is to advise big business about climate change, surely at some point she need to deal with it, as she wil be asked about it.
This to me is an example of the consensus groupthink, that seems to have stopped a rational person, at least looking at the allegations at source.
Judith Curry robustly defending herself agian, Bishop hill gets favourable mention or 2.
http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2010/04/23/an-inconvenient-provocateur/
Last week, a single blog comment by Judith Curry, a climate scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, outraged the proprietors and readers of Real Climate. Curry had mentioned the IPCC and the term “corruption” in the same sentence. I then discussed the brewing firestorm here, and that triggered a spirited exchange in the comment thread, of which Curry was an active participant.
http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2010/04/17/some-spicy-curry/ defends herself...
Judith Again: comment 40 (nailing sceptics well funded by oil:)
"The corporate and NGO funding for the skeptical side pales in comparison with funding that the enviro groups have. Do your homework."
comment 35
"I have actually found the people who habituate the technical skeptical blogs and their proprietors to be much more open minded than most of the “warmist” blogs."
and no organised denial machine: 35 again
Keith, re the skeptics, I would say there is no real organization among them. During the heyday of the oil funded libertarian think tanks and Karl Rove, there seemed to be some well organized talking points; Marc Morano seems to be the current leader of this particular wing of the skeptics (with support from Chris Horner and Myron Ebell). As far as i can tell, the academic and blogospheric skeptics don’t pay much attention to Morano. The academic skeptics (e.g. Lindzen, Christy, Gray et al.) don’t agree with each other at all (note: the academic skeptic that I find to be most reasonable and open minded is John Christy).
Judith Curry -
I applaud your standards.
With much respect
Darce
Judith,
I have read many of your previous articles (eg at CA) . Aa a skeptic I have to say I disagree with you on many issues. But that is what all this should be about...debate, argument, developing ideas. I find I can listen to what you say and I can engage. I suspect we may have opposing views on AGW but I like to think we believe in the same principle that science is not arrived at by consensus but by attempting to falsify a hypothesis. Robust theories and models will survive this process.
Anyway, hats off to you...there are few on the "other side" standing up for science and integrity. My skepticism may prove to be utterly misplaced and the theory of AGW may be proven right by future events...so be it. My disappointment is that I find little evidence for a moderate perspective from those who strongly advocate the theory of AGW. As an educated person with appropriate expertise to evaluate many of the papers I still wait to be convinced.
My motivation in following the arguments for and against AGW derive from my belief in the scientific process. In this my role model is Galileo, a man persecuted for his views that contradicted the prevailing consensus.
I congratulate you on speaking out on the various blogs and look forward to disagreeing with you on your next essay. :-)
The Keith Kloor interview of Judith Curry is now posted on Andrew Revkin/NYTimes DotEarth blog in its entirety. Thank you for helping to broaden its exposure by mentioning it here.
PS If that sounds like a back-handed compliment (as we say in Blighty) then that is exactly what it is.
PPS Do you know I checked the Wiki entry for back-handed compliment and it suggests disdain and the reverse intention of a compliment. That is not how I meant it - i intended to convey the impression that although I often disagree with your viewpoint , I respect what you have to say. No offence was intended.
Bishophill - you may wish to strike out this entry and my immediately preceding one (please)
Well done to Judith for taking on Gavin. I wonder if she will get banned from RC like the rest of us. I got banned for contradicting Gavin on a subject I knew far more about than him.
Which one? There are so many, Phillip.
Well done Dr. Curry, I well remember you used to post a lot on climateaudit a few years ago, but then suddenly stopped. Was there a reason for that?
I suggest that Dr Curry may be, above all, very good at recognizing a sinking ship.
"One element of scientific integrity is when to speak up vs when to stay silent."
"The Georgia Tech students and alumni expected me to speak out on this issue"
"When others failed to speak up, I felt that I needed to step up to the plate."
Not a sceptic:
"I guess the problem is that i am a “moderate warmist” without a policy agenda. My lack of a policy agenda regarding CO2 mitigation means my focus is on worrying about the quality, integrity and uncertainty of the science than about saving the planet based on this highly uncertain scientific research. I seem to lack the hubris of some of my peers in this regard."
Comment 48: from
http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2010/04/17/some-spicy-curry/
She has really put herself in the middle. I hope she gets the support she deserves from Georgia tech
Just read this on CA
Sounds very interesting.
One courageous lady and one delightful blog column.
By the way, Proffessor Curry, there's a lot to take in here! So forgive some of the clumsiness. Actually, I personaly am distracting myself with re-runs of 'Curb Your Enthusiasm'. If flagging in the odd world of academia, not in the enormorse belly laugh of Larry David!
Hey Lewis
You must have watched the pilot CYE episode of "Hide the Incline".