Friday
Jul022010
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill 
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Reader Comments (125)
Mac,
I think those 340 pages were rural.
Personally I'm hoping for 'reverse-ferreting' on an industrial scale!
I've lost count now, seems to be another white wash (copied from the guardian);
"The climate scientists at the centre of a media storm were today cleared of accusations that they fudged their results and silenced critics to bolster the case for man-made global warming. Sir Muir Russell, said the "rigour and honesty" of the scientists at the Climatic Research Unit are not in doubt. They did not subvert the peer review process to censor criticism as alleged, the panel found, while key data needed to reproduce their findings was freely available to any "competent" researcher. The panel did criticise the scientists for not being open enough about their work, and said they were "unhelpful and defensive" when responding to legitimate requests made under Freedom of Information laws."
mailman
That well-known rattlesnake Moonbat has already moved his burrow. 'Sceptics' will not be hung out to dry next Wednesday, there'll be too many of us there. No, this unenviable situation is being reserved for Phil Jones. Until Jones is removed from CRU Monbiot will not have any credibility.
We will all be able to see the new pragmatic Monbiot. Don't forget the Guardian needs to sell newspapers and Fred Pearce wants to sell his book.
You need at least three coats of whitewash up to cover up all of the dirt and mess before you can apply a coat of gloss, but if the underlying wall is crumbling no amount of whitewash will help. I am hoping that the good Bishop is off somewhere putting the final polish on some sort of major revelation to be detonated at the guardian debate.
The report is out - 160 pages - to be downloaded from here
http://www.cce-review.org/index.php
1. On the terms of reference within the report there's an asterisk by the word hacked and they state:
"*Note: The word hacked as contained in the Review‘s terms of reference
has been challenged ... This matter is subject to police enquiries and the Review has
made no judgment on the question."
The report exec summary actually opens with mention of the e-mail being "made public without authorisation."
2. As most know the report also states "It is important to note that we offer no opinion on the
validity of their scientific work."
3. An interesting bit here is the trick of the hockey stick - "We do not find that it is misleading to curtail reconstructions at some point per se, or to splice data, but we believe that both of these procedures should have been made plain – ideally in the figure but certainly clearly described in either the caption or the text."
Still reading...
Three findings:
"we find that their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt"
"we did not find any evidence of behaviour that might undermine the conclusions of the IPCC assessments"
"but we do find that there has been a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness"
Seems like a pretty thorough whitewash job to me.
How can "we offer no opinion on the validity of their scientific work" and at the same time "find that their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt". I suppose they could be honest, but produce invalid scientific work, but then they'd need to be honest about that!
This seems to me to be saying 'They're nice chaps, all good sorts y'now, and I'm sure they do good work, but that's not for me to say.
The Chairman of my local golf club could have been as searching and definitive as that!
Philip, I take your point - those are the only findings that will count in the short term headlines.
But going through the detail (and having read Ross McKitrick's and others submissions) at least they have been thorough in covering a wide range of the allegations that have been thrown around for ages. The full list of issues is complex for those not in the know, closely following the blogosphere debate and so it's at least good to have them collated like this.
The peer review crititque is especially good for those who think that peer review = scientifically proven.
Cumbrian lad - all the reports are essentially trying to do is to prevent the scientists involved from the worst accusation that can be made of a scientist in today's world - fabrication of data. (with plagiarism close second).
That they've corrected, adjusted, homogenised, shoe-horned, normalised, truncated, bodged, lost, inverted, interpreted in line with bias, selectively excluded, over-weighted etc is plain for everyone who wants to see.
What is the point of putting on a blindfold and THEN examining a problem?
Although they are actually judging the science using a consensus model:
"The answer to ii) depends upon the implication that the response to MM2004 in
the published Chapter 3 was not scientifically credible. Having read most of the
relevant papers however, we observe a consistence of view amongst those who
disagree with MM2004 that has been sustained over the last 6 years, that the large
scale organisation of atmospheric circulation produces a spatially integrated
response to forcing."
As predicted a WHITEWASH.
On BBC Radio 5Live the correspondent (not sure who it was as I wasn't paying attention at first) said that at the press conference it was asked if the committee has looked into why Phil Jones had deleted emails. There was a shuffling of papers and embarrassed looks all round (I am probably getting the details wrong, but that was the gist of it).
And from M-R's speech:
"Validity of the science" in the report becomes:
"First, this was not about forming a view on the content or quality of the
scientific work and the conclusions drawn by CRU."
How confusing.
How STUPID does Dr Richard Horton now look, the editor of the medical journal the Lancet, who provided expert evidence on peer review to Sir Muir Russell.
Dr North in rejecting claims of a whitewash said prior to publication of the review " a forensic and deeply critical analysis", adding, "UEA fell badly short of its scientific and public obligations. It needs radical reform. What Russell has identified is the beginning of a revolution in the way science is being done."
Is that right Dr North??????????????????
Sir Muir Russell concluded: "their (CRU scientists) rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt"
160 pages just one word needed - WHITEWASH
Steve M's precog abilities are pretty good:
http://www.thegwpf.org/climategate/1202-stephen-mcintyre-muir-russell-what-to-be-looking-for.html
"data petulance" and "paleo-phrenology" - excellent!
re: "First, this was not about forming a view on the content or quality of the
scientific work and the conclusions drawn by CRU."
Just like Oxburgh, just like Penn State, just like the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee , just like PBL, just like the IAC
This was safe ground for all these review panels - lets not investigate the validity of the science lets concentrate on the integrity of the scientists.
"These scientists are honest people", they all claim, "it is of no concern to us if the science is badly flawed."
There’s a lot to read. I wouldn’t say whitewash I’d say hide stuff in plain sight and then forget you've seen it. Example:-
The report accepts that peer review is not a way of ensuring research is right or wrong (1.5.33 or 8.1.2) but when considering if Briffa’s Hockey Stick is right, the report can’t comment because there isn’t a peer reviewed research paper that debunks it.(7.3.1.14) But CRU is innocent anyway (7.3.1.21).
What they should have said was that it’s looking increasingly embarrassing that there isn’t a better reconstruction of the past temperatures and that alone should raise alarm bells about the science and the journals that report it.
On hide the decline. I still can't get over why these people think it's ok to cut out data that doesn't fit the predetermined results. The only excuse is if you can prove that the data was faulty for the specific time frame for a demonstrable reason. 'Cos it doesn't fit' is not a reason. Can anyone explain why they think it's ok?
Only half way through it at this point, but so far I haven't been disappointed. This work is a masterpiece of insouciant duplicity. A tour de force.
TinyCO2.
This mirrors Lord Hutton's inquiry. We all saw the evidence, we all came to the same conclusion, unfortunately Lord Hutton did not. He took the establishment line - nothing to see here and anyway it was all the BBC's fault.
Accept it - this was a whitewash.
So who is validating the science at CRU?
Wait for it, wait for it - Professor Phil Jones has taken up the new post of director of research within CRU.
Divergence (7.3.2.22) – “We have however investigated this matter enough to be satisfied that it is not hidden and that the subject is openly and extensively discussed in the literature, including CRU papers.”
However, the public and (probably) politicians aren’t made aware of it whenever the Hockey Sticks are waved in their direction. A good example was that silly BBC documentary Dr Iain Stewart’s Climate Wars. The report sort of admits this (7.3.2.26) though includes (but does not agree or disagree with) Jones’s claim that it was “a mathematical approach brought to bear to solve a problem”. They must agree with it however because once again the CRU are innocent!
“We do not find that it is misleading to curtail reconstructions at some point per se, or to splice data, but we believe that both of these procedures should have been made plain – ideally in the figure but certainly clearly described in either the caption or the text.”
You don’t just have to say you’ve spliced data you have to justify why you’ve done it!
Note the new context of Guardian's public meeting to discuss Climategate.
"How dare these sceptics impune the honesty and integrity of climate scientists" , adding "Crush the sceptics".
I hate to say I told you so, but, "I told you so".
I suggest that sceptics take some bars of soap to this event. You may need to lob a few just to keep the eco-loons at bay.
There is no point in dissecting the Russell review report if you don't understand the context in which it was written.
Some investigation, full of of contradiction and bowing down to those being investigated.
On the allegation that CRU does not appear to have acted in a way
consistent with the spirit and intent of the FoIA or EIR, we find that there
was unhelpfulness in responding to requests and evidence that e-mails
might have been deleted in order to make them unavailable should a
subsequent request be made for them.
And then
There is a clear statement that e-mails had been deleted – for example, an e-mail
from Jones to Santer sent on 3rd December 2008 (1228330629.txt ): ―About 2 months ago I deleted loads of emails, so have very little - if anything at all.
So the written evidence is there that emails were deleted and is cited in the report but because Uncle Phil refused to say that he deleted emails, obviously not under oath, we have to take him at his word and ignore the written evidence because Uncle Phil is a Climatologist and a true Scientist.
Once you get into the depths of the inadequacies of this report it does blow apart any theory about battered and bruized scientists under pressure from sceptics being misunderstood for their motives.
This report is led and controlled by the UEA, or in the terms of the Royals, independent, independent my arse.