Wednesday
Feb092011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Steig response coming
Feb 9, 2011 Climate: Surface Eric Steig has indicated that he will be posting a response to O'Donnell later today.
I can hardly wait.
Feb 9, 2011 Climate: Surface
Reader Comments (110)
So what approach is he going to take
1. I never said, what I said.
2. What I said was right at the time I said it, but may be wrong now.
3. What I said was right but people where too stupid to understand it so it’s their fault for misinterpreting me.
4. It’s all the fault of the deniers.
5. Look at really interesting tree over there.
6. Will somebody think of children or kittens or bunny wabbits
7. Those nasty people are bulling me again.
8. But the ‘Team’ loves me so how can I be wrong.
Think I will go for a mix of 3 and 5 with a touch of 2
May I respectfully suggest:
9. It was taken out of context.
No his tactic is to state that he never got a reply (comment) from his third review so was unaware or some of the changes (or in this case, non-changes with explanation of why)
Oops - this is a paraphrase from a Steve M post on CA
7. The mean, rotten, nasty deniers funded by the evil oil companies are viciously and unfairly attacking me, a member of the esteemed scientist community, who is only trying to save the planet and the future of all of humanity.
Perhaps he might state " I was not reviewer A".
It's up at RC now.
Calvi36 - or perhaps "I did not have reviewing relations with that paper! ?
Graphic Conception 9 anyother good one , but we seem to have an 10 . I was reviewer A and was not reviewer A depending on the time frame , but its up to you to prove when I was and was not reviewer A '
I agree with calvi36 he will say he was not reviewer A, i think he has already gone with this tac on
RC
I suspect the reply will be written by Mann in consultation with Fenton Communications. It will include the words bizarre, disingenuous, denier, and robust. I suspect the final sentence will be: "None of the manufactured controversy alters the fundamental finding of Steig (09), namely that the planet is warming and the human activity is the primary cause".
Yes, given that "reviewer A" was probably the entire "team", he can pretty much say that and not be lying, can't he?
What about Dot Earth?
Revkin said he had asked questions... Then writes about Walruses
Mpaul wins the prize, all of the above lmfao! Have you read it yet, his reply I mean?
Steig replies - It wasn't me guv I'm completely innocent of all charges
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/02/odonnellgate/
Well Steig went for the lot and throuhg in the usual insults , I wonder if RC will allow fair comment on the post or will it produced the right result by applying a ‘good filter ‘
Eric wrote "...The dependence of any analysis on the technical aspects of the methodology are completely legitimate subjects of discussion, and it is important to be clear about what does and what does not depend on those choices. People who want to see what the data are saying about the real world will focus on the similarities, people who are focussed (sic) on proving people wrong will focus on the differences. This is how O’Donnell and I can (legitimately) disagree about what their results mean...."
Is Eric saying that just because he got the methodology wrong, i.e his algorithm that uses the data produces biased results, that we should focus on the fact that in some instances it describes the real world correctly and additionally there was good discussion about other matters and therefore the paper is a credible addition to scientific knowledge. Using the wrong methodology is simply a difference (of opinion perhaps?), not the whole show, and don't throw the baby out with the bathwater?
If I have interpreted this comment correctly then it seem like the Australian saying of "You can't polish a turd" is appropriate.
Kind Regards
Michael
So he's saying he built a broken clock but it's still right twice a day.
Setting aside the technical differences between the parties, Steig's reply does not address the primary issue that he was one of the (anonymous) reviewers on a paper criticising his own work.
Talk about a brass neck!
I left a comment as follows:
yes but you evade the main issue...your construction of the Antarctic temperature record cannot be substantiated by your method.
His rebuttal is just evasion, as usual.
KnR, I do not even bother posting a comment over there as it would be easier to p### in the wind than to get one comment published.
I have read the RC post. Hopefully, the editors of the scientific journals will aswell.
But will the editors have noticed the amount of support Steig had in the 36? hours prior to his response?
Even the RC/AGW attack dogs are struggling, but please keep trying guys, the holes you are digging, keep getting bigger
Never ask a liar for their side of the story... because that's ALL you'll get, THEIR side... which, by the way, is another lie.
The warming outside the peninsular is an artefact of the data. Yes or no?
Correction;
artefact of the data analysis
Apologies
One thing I note, which I hate as I have built a website or two and yes this is off subject. How the hell can't RC center their site for firefox?
I am supposed to treat and trust them as Scientists when they can't even center their website!
Not apologising, cmon RC get a grip, perhaps, your virtual website designer model has inaccurate data.
To my understanding the warming outside the peninsula (en West Antarctica) is not just an artefact of the data, but mainly of Steig's faulty method.
The real trouble is the damage is done, Steig work has been BBC news , it’s been on the front page of Nature its entered the dogma of AGW. The fact it’s been proven to be rubbish does no matter unless this proof receives the same exposure, and with gate keepers on these that make Cerberus look like the Andrex puppy can anyone see that happing?
So although they have lost the science argument, and you do need to keep in mind that the ‘Team’ regard it has impossible for them to be wrong, they actual won the more important argument. All that is left now is some ‘pissing into the wind ‘exercises.
Warming or cooling matters not, please be assured that the polar bear population of Antarctica will not be affected
@KnR - agreed: the main issues disappear behind a carefully constructed smokescreen of bickering about statistical methods, with only the initial impression left behind for those who don't follow matters closely (people like politicians, the media, HRH etc)....
They did this with the hockey stick too.
golf charley, what polar bear population in Antarctica?
;-)
Eric says that it wasn't he who suggested the use of the different method, but that this instead was suggested by the authors and the he merely stated that it seemed reasonable. Is this correct?
Given that it was this (I believe) which spawned Ryan's angry blog post at CA, it would be nice to get this one cleared up.
pax,
Both Ryan and Eric are correct.
Eric questioned TTLS, and O'donnell et al presented the different method
"Eric questioned the choice of the truncation parameter [for TTLS], and we presented the work Nic and Jeff had done (using ridge regression, direct RLS with no infilling, and the nearest-station reconstructions) that all gave nearly identical results."
The entire submission/review exchange can be found here:
http://www.climateaudit.info/data/odonnell/
Climate debate US style
http://truewest.ning.com/photo/nevada-saloon/prev?context=user
After reading some of those comments; I believe there needs to be an argument law similar to Godwin's Law and mentioning Hitler, for those who bring up "Creationists". I am sick to death of these types of statements belittling people by comparing them to creationists. It’s the same tactic with a different subject, same result.
Pharos thanks for that , its shows one hell of a difference between the reviewers with reviewer A being , who we now known was Steig, being very down on the article right from the start in contrast to the others. If that did not give away that the ‘Team ‘ was at work what does is the prise this review heaps on the Steig 09 article while talking about this one. From the information it seems that reviewer A was trying to push this article to make changes to be more supportive of Steig 09 , and now we know why.
correction thanks woodentop ,
It seems many people know him better than he knows himself. Got it!
I kinda like Steig. He remind me of the Prince of Wales but without the cuddly bits.
Now that I've sussed the novel statistical smearing techniques that turn non-measurements into peer-reviewed Journal articles, I can now understand why the poor penguins are so threatened by polar-bear predation while the predators may be wiped out by Southern Hemispherical Immunilogical Toxis.
Anyway folks, make sure you tune into Radio Four tomorrow at 9 pm (?) for a barrel-load of laughs as dear old auntie puts us past-it, reactionary fossil-fuelled pensionairres on the psychiatrists couch.
I see Connolley has turned up at CA with another piece of misdirection to throw into the mix:
http://climateaudit.org/2011/02/07/eric-steigs-trick/#comment-254176
The basis of the original post by Ryan O'Donnell was a detailed statistical critique - most objective observers would say 'demolition' - of Eric Steig's methodology. Leaving aside the patently obvious personal acrimony between the two parties, the best that Steig has come up with in his RealClimate 'rebuttal' concerning what really matters in his paper is this:
"With respect to O’Donnell’s lengthy discussion of the technical aspects of the difference between our papers, I’m not complaining. It is possible to have a disagreement — or even to be wrong — about the technical aspects of a paper without being ‘duplicitous’. The dependence of any analysis on the technical aspects of the methodology are completely legitimate subjects of discussion, and it is important to be clear about what does and what does not depend on those choices. People who want to see what the data are saying about the real world will focus on the similarities, people who are focussed on proving people wrong will focus on the differences. This is how O’Donnell and I can (legitimately) disagree about what their results mean."
Surely Eric Steig has admitted defeat:
- He concedes he might be wrong;
- He states that the "technical aspects of the methodology are completely legitimate subjects of discussion" but doesn't go on to discuss and defend them;
- Earlier in his post he agrees "I am not a statistician";
- Since the entire basis of the paper is a statistical analysis of data that supposedly demonstrates alarming warming across wide areas of Antarctica, but the author agrees he's not a statistician and might be wrong, why should anyone attach any weight to this particular piece of work?
ColinK
"People who want to see what the data are saying about the real world will focus on the similarities, people who are focussed on proving people wrong will focus on the differences."
I suspect people who want to see what the data are saying about the real world will focus on correct methodology, and ask if there is sufficient data to justify any conclusions about the real world.
I suspect people who claim "I am not a statistician" that go on to cobble together an on message statistical paper neglecting to include expert statisticians as co-authors; who subsequently publish after pal review to a cacophony of trumpets in the MSM, knowing full well expert statisticians would rebut it after the fan fair, don't really care about possible fall out because the agenda has already been served.
I expect such people would be quite smug with themselves that they managed to pull it off without answering the scientific points raised.
Since you all are so interested in the science of the Antarctic you may find this of interest:
King Crabs Invade Antarctic Waters
A warmer Antarctica makes a hospitable home for these crabs, endangering an entire ecosystem that has no defenses against them.
McMURDO STATION, Antarctica -- Warming waters along the Antarctic peninsula have opened the door to shell-crushing king crabs that threaten a unique ecosystem on the seafloor, according to new research by a U.S.-Sweden team of marine researchers.
http://news.discovery.com/animals/king-crabs-antarctic-waters-110208.html
King Crab in Antarctica? Jolly good for the poor souls trapped there doing science. Likewise I look forward to seeing the Northwestern and Time Bandit prowling about hoping to get on the crab.
They'll need to up the shipments of drawn butter certainly.
I am surprised that anyone here thought that RC would do anything other than double down and go on the attack. The only thing Steig didn't do in his piece was add some Mannian obfuscation of statistical methods, but he says in the inline comments that is forthcoming in another paper.
One thing still puzzles me, and I hope someone knowledgeble can
clear it up for me.
Was it approriate for Steig to be a reviewer of a critical paper?
I am not familiar with the publication process but it seems to me that
reviewers should be persons who are free of obvious conflicts of interest.
It would be acceptable for an independent reviewer to contact Steig to
provide input but not for Steig himself to be in a position to frustrate the
publication process.
Eric the skeptic,
I wrote this yesterday. I think my cynicism was justified after all then.
"Unless one realizes that this is serious stuff, with serious consequences, this matter would most probably die off, and there is every good chance that it would be O’Donnell and colleagues who would be made out to be the stupid and evil ones, and that it is Eric’s good faith that has been broken.
How long do you think it would take for RC to come up with a strategy for rescue here? (Although it stretches my imagination to conceive what that could be – which is precisely my point, this is a fight of the ‘clueless but honest’ vs the professionals)"