Thursday
Nov242011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Thorne responds
Nov 24, 2011 Climate: MetOffice Peter Thorne's comments about politicisation of science have been among the most prominent of Climategate2. Now Thorne has apparently responded in a comments thread at RealClimate, making some extraordinary claims about Phil Jones.
I do not know of a single person who has done more to try to advance data sharing of meteorological data for the last 15 years than Phil Jones (if you doubt me you could mine something useful instead of personal emails … the GCOS report series to see how hard this really is to get to happen and how involved Phil Jones has been).
Reader Comments (64)
See? An' 'e's good to 'is old Mum.
Ah.....the "personal email" meme....One would expect Peter Thorne to understand what constitutes personal email - and it isn't email generated on university email accounts.
Thorne begins his long post:
Translation: Some people have been trying sincerely to read and understand these emails and have been inclined to look favourably on my honesty compared to the politicking and general nastiness of Phil Jones. It's one thing to criticise Phil in an email only seen by colleagues, it's another entirely to be thought a denier by the whole internet. That way we know leads to destruction. All that follows should be seen in the light of my current predicament. Can I now keep my job please?
I've pointed this out already, but it bears repeating:
The "excuse" that the e-mails quoted have been taken out of context, as e.g. here by Thorne, won't wash.
This 'out-of-context' excuse is favoured and generally used by shifty politicians who try to defend their misdeeds.
But then, as The Team and their hangers-on e-mailed explicitly and implicitly, their "science" is indeed mire politics than anything else, as their use of the 'out-of-context' meme underlines so nicely.
Laugh about the floor laughing.
Honestly, who needs enemies when Phil Jones has friends like Peter Thorne.
A rather long winded way of saying nobody has done anything about Data sharing,
Oh no, you sent me over to RC. It'll take me the rest of the day to recover. Fortunately I managed to avoid any of the sycophantic types and Gavin's put-down, supercilious responses.
They still don't learn about using a shovel.
Off topic again!
Ian Harris is a Green Party Member.
Found this perusing the emails 4648.txt
Ian "Harry" Harris is/was Election Agent for Norwich Green Party.
See also his photo and address in this Green Party newspaper, entitled “Green View the Green Newspaper for Norwich” circulated for the 2010 Local Elections.
He is quoted saying “Only the Green Party looks far enough into the future:
I want my daughter to live in a fair society and a healthy planet.
Who else is planning that?”
http://www.greenparty.org.uk/assets/files/localparties/norwich/greenview/greenview_12.pdf
Like in the Wicked Bible, I guess there is a "NOT" missing somewhere in there
The above link is missing pdf at the very end.
Those of us who have read the E-Mails know exactly what kind of person Professor Jones is. In my opinion, the evidence in those E-Mails is more than sufficient to prove that he knows exactly what he is doing together with the rest of the team. How he can sleep at night is beyond my comprehension.
Peter Thornes comment needs only to replace the word "more" with the word "less" and I would agree with every word.
"I do not know of a single person who has done more to try to advance data sharing of meteorological data for the last 15 years than Phil Jones"
If sharing was the norm then this would be a compliment. Since sharing is not the norm this can only mean that everyone is at least as bad as Phil Jones. From all the emails we've seen, no-one has done as much to encourage deletion of emails and suppression of data (except to his mates) than Phil Jones. So everyone is even worse than that, apparently.
Re: marchesarosa
Ian "Harry" Harris is also the the Harry of HARRY_READ_ME.txt fame.
the phraseology is worthy of the Jesuits:
"I do not know of a single person who has done more to try to advance data sharing"
Just try saying this phrase a few times and it becomes more opaque with each reading. It could mean that he has tried (and failed) to advance data sharing. It could mean that he has thought about it while others have not even done that. It could mean just about anything. But, from recollection, wasn't our Phil the last of the teams to get temperature data out there on the web?
You see? Despite all of the devious machinations and feral plotting that are championed by Jones in the new emails, it's all "taken out of context." He's really just a sweet and diligent climate scientist. /sarc
It is pathetic. Almost everything these people plot and connive in private - as revealed in the emails - is then recited in public. To wit, Jones, UEA, and Mann are others are all reciting this week that the new emails are "out of context." There have probably been lots of Bob Ward emails sent around with that precise "talking point" this week.
I don't think the term "co-conspirators" is inappropriate, perhaps not in any legal sense but most certainly in the decade-long and ongoing violation of the public trust and certainly of longstanding scientific principles.
This crew cannot help but to dig themselves in deeper with every public pronouncement. I guess that's a good thing, and inevitable.
"I do not know of a single person who has done more to try to advance data sharing of meteorological data for the last 15 years than Phil Jones"
This can easily be seen from all the emails from the extraordinary effort to (not) supply the data for the handful of FOI requests he received.
Jones was unwilling/unable or too embarrassed to advance data sharing because all he had was the data poor Harry was trying to bolt together because it was all in such a mess.
It was full of guesses, fudge factors and made up data. To release the raw data would have been not just embarrassing for him but ruinous for 'the cause'.
We can only really speculate if he would have released the data had it been in a respectable condition.
Sleepy little UEA. No one there ever thought anyone would be interested in their messy temp data still less did they expect, or know how to handle, FOI's. demanding it's release.
Jones was only pestered by multiple FOI's because he wouldn't comply to the first one.
Hang on a cotton-picken minute.......... did not Phil Jones not testify at Science and Technology Committee inquiry claiming it was not 'standard practice' to release data and computer models so other scientists could check and challenge research.
So if Phil Jones and Peter Thorne are to be believed then Jones was both releasing and not releasing data at the same time.
Perhaps the context here is that Jones released data only to his Team mates but not to the opposition.
I so hate it when my vicar quotes from the bible. I can't take such quotes seriously as the ARE OUT OF CONTEXT.
Another suggestion for Josh:
Little boy caught by his mother with his hand in the cookie jar claiming that:
"But Mommy! This is out of context!"
@Diogenes,
I think that phrase you quoted perfectly encapsulates most pronouncements in 'climate studies'?
Aubrey de Vere's 'Eating pea soup with a fork.' refers.
I do however suspect that MANY people have done more not just to try, but actually, to advance data sharing
It would appear there has been a press conference at UEA.
"After new leak, climatologist takes case to public" - By RAPHAEL G. SATTER, The Associated Press
This is the first admission that Jones deliberately deleted emails concerning the IPCC process.
You're all missing the point.
There's data sharing, and there's data sharing.
Thorne is referring to the "You can have my blocks because you're my special friend" preschool sort of sharing, and perhaps in that scheme Dr Jones is a leader in his field.
In the grownup sense of "We need to exercise due care with this information and make it available even to people we don't like because the taxpayer is paying for our work" he kinda falls down, methinks.
To have one set of out-of-context emails might be regarded as a misfortune; to have two looks like a pattern.
One thing I remember from Jones' testimony before Scitech is this interaction with Evan Harris (an ardent supporter of the climate consensus who very sadly failed to be re-elected in last year's general election):
Combine this with what Peter Thorne revealed yesterday and we have the tragedy of the man: trying to advance data sharing of meteorological data for the last 15 years - but how much could he achieve when nobody asked?
Love the way he feels entitled to break the law because he can't see the point of it.
Quote of the day, Phil Jones excusing himself over the deletion of emails concerning the IPCC process, "Why do people need to know who wrote what individual paragraph?"
It's called accountability.
We've got to call time on this "out-of-context" bollocks.
It's simple: if I quote something out-of-context in order, maliciously, to make you look bad, then don't whine about being quoted out of context. Use that breath to show the context and make ME look bad for being both a) obviously untruthful and b) malicious and c) make yourself look clean as a whistle.
Using the "out of context" defence without providing the very context that forms it is almost certainly prima facie evidence that no such defence exists: you are caught bang to rights. Suck it up loser.
I said it at the time of Climategate and I'll say it again now. If Phil Jones wanted to share his data, instead of taking a trip to Tahiti, he could have spent the money on an electronic data management system. I guess we know now that his knowledge of computing was so low (he can just about manage to send emails) that he wouldn't have known anything about it, unless Harry was forthcoming (and I guess that Harry, knowing what a mess Phil's data was, wouldn't have wanted to touch it with Phil's bargepole, knowing that he would have ended up with the job).
Has Phil got something juicy on Thorne?
I can't really come to any other conclusion.
Such a thing is taken for granted in Wikipedia, with all its faults.
But then Wikipedia isn't held up as the gold standard for an incredibly complex area of science, to be used as a basis for policies diverting trillions away from productive investments, too much into the pockets of insiders, and in many cases taking away hope from the poor.
Now I see the difference. Carry on as you were, Captain Jones.
agreed Philip. Knowledgeable folk have been saying that it is no surprise that Phil cannot use Excel....(ok I believe them but would ask them to consider joining the 20thc)...but then go on to say that proper people use more powerful tools. But Phil was unable to use them either, to perform a simple regression. I have found that when you are considered the expert on a dataset, you have to get your hands dirty and actually look at the nasty, grubby data and see all the errors that come up when you try to process it.
@richard drake
'Carry on as you were, Captain Jones'
?? Corporal Jones, surely. He certainly doesn't like it up him...
Latimer, yes, my worst mistake on Bishop Hill for many a year. Don't panic, don't panic.
May 19th 2007 edition of New Scientist had an item entitled "The 7 biggest myths about climate change". Apparently, Mann and Gavin had some input into it.
1660.txt
Hopefully "they're all doomed". h/t Private Fraser
'I was just wondering if I could be excused........'
'Carry on as you were, Captain Jones'
?? Corporal Jones, surely. He certainly doesn't like it up him...
Hopefully "they're all doomed". h/t Private Fraser
Josh! Josh! where are you!
For Josh: Phil Jones in a dark office, actively shredding IPCC emails, with a shocked/embarrassed expression as Norfolk plod bursts in.. "Wait.. you're taking this out of context!"
"I do not know of a single person who has done more to try to advance data sharing"
Of course not - he probably knows of hundreds! He obviously speaks Huhneese fluently.
Now, how did that email from the first batch, in reply to the Steve McIntyre request for data go?
By the way Bish, we really seem to have Ward a little upset!
@ret_ward Bob Ward
@Adissentient I see you are continuing to promote the lie that an email from me states "How can I spin that?". Bishop Hill = Liars' Alley
http://twitter.com/#!/ret_ward
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
Pete H,
So Ward is in denial about his spinning function? So what does he get paid to do then? I'm not aware of anything novel or positive from this person, all he ever does is corrupt the truth into his own image.
I'd like to see Jones in prison garb sending an SMS. That's my idea for context.
J4R: "Love the way he feels entitled to break the law because he can't see the point of it."
I can sort of understand that. Many a time, you don't follow a silly rule, or even a serious one, if you have difficulty aligning your own moral compass with its purpose.
I would reiterate: many scientists feel exactly the way Jones feels about data. It belongs to them, it is theirs, it is a product of their hard work etc. But there must come a time when they have to confront the issue: 'This has gone a bit far. What do I do now? What principle shall I uphold? Are my actions still not violative of the law?'
I think Jones failed to confront the question in a meaningful way.
'I do not know of a single person who has done more to try to advance data sharing of meteorological data for the last 15 years than Phil Jones' ...
I don't think 15 years is long enough to be statistically significant.
Someone needs to remind Thorne that, in netiquette, statements such as his are supposed to be ended with the "/sarc" tag.
Beddington on radio 4 'Material World' today. Worth a listen if only to hear that 99% os scientists...
Its about the perception of risk....interesting
Pete H: thanks for alerting me to Bob Ward on Twitter (not that I expect to return very often). Clicking on one of his latest tweets gives the following classy interchange
Somehow that's very funny. Keep it up James.
This is the Grandest Red Herring I have encountered. The question was not whether Jones has advanced data sharing in general but whether he advanced data sharing with Steve McIntyre. Is Thorne ready to address the actual issue?