Thursday
Aug042011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Mashive attack
Aug 4, 2011 Climate: other John Mashey and friend have been given space in the Chronicle of Higher Education to respond to Peter Wood's articles about Mashey's antics.
Reader Comments (300)
Its a good old attack piece complete with healthy mixture of smears on Wood, call to authority when its their own authority and accidental humor as we are told 'We value the academy for open discussion and seeking truth' while they effectively damned that only 'qualified' people be allowed to speak and that speech to be truthful most always support the faith .
In 1984 terms you can hold different views on the subject , good or double good but no other views are possible.
Upon reading the Mashey and friend piece in Chronicle of Higher Education, the word I thought of was the psychological term 'decompensating'. Not good.
Mashey and friend have just proven Wood's point about them better than Wood could ever have done.
John
"It surprises me, however, that proponents of AGW, or what might be called the climate orthodoxy section of AGW theory, often respond to criticism and dissent with a kind of fury. Far from welcoming discussion, they seek to suppress it."
As you said John, Mashey and friends have done exactly what Wood wrote about in Climate Thuggery.
Mailman
I particularly liked this line from Mashey:
'Academic controversy is not characterized by use of Nazi labels or exhortations that scientists be physically harmed.'
So let me get this straight: About 15 years after Gelbspan first uses the label 'climate denier', a decade after Pimm and Harvey quite explicitly compare Lomborg to a Holocaust denier (in the journal Nature, no less), and Pachauri likens Lomborg to Hitler, Mashey gets all sensitive about Monckton unwisely flashing a swastika in a Powerpoint presentation for all of about three seconds to criticise a demand that we accept authority rather than evidence.
Mashey might have credibility if he was on the record making the same point about Gelbspan, Pimm, Harvey and Pachauri. He was strangely silent. 'Nough said.
I note that Mashey throws around allegations of libel against Mann. Why doesn't Mann sue then? We'd all love to see a forensic examination (and cross-examination) of his science. It might be a bit more demanding than peer review and ad hominem arguments.
I suspect Mashey was only given this platform to prove Wood's point; expect a robust reply.
I see that Mashey and Coleman denigrate Wood as an 'anthropologist' with 'no apparent expertise' in climate science.
Mashey is a computer studies geek, and Coleman a chemist and biochemist (albeit one at Penn State). What gives them their apparent expertise? I don't see why their comments should be listened to any more or less than Wood's.
Ah. I've just looked at Mashey's 34-page rebuttal, linked to in the piece the Bishop points us towards. Oh dear. He appears to be something of a green-inker.
Aynsley, thanks for mentioning the Nature review of Lomborg which made an explicit comparison of him with Holocaust deniers. I wasn't aware of that at all. I've now found your longer quote from (your own) Science and Public Policy on Watts Up With That on the subject from March. What date exactly was the Pimm and Harvey? Is this the first occurence of an explicit comparison of a 'contrarian' with Holocaust deniers that you know of? It's certainly earlier than anything I've been aware of up to now - outside science journalism and Mike Hulme in an Climategate email this seemed to me to break out with Margo Kingston in 2005 and Scott Pelley of CBS News in March 2006. Plus the Pachauri. These guys are way beyond shameless. They're a disgrace. All the more reason to get the history right. Thanks again.
John W:
Very well said. It certainly deserves repeating at CHE.
This provides an answer to a question that had long troubled me - who could possibly be the next IPCC figure head.
Pachauri would be tough act to follow, but I suspect that Mashey would make a rather good, if detailed oriented, IPCC chair.
@PeterJ: 'albeit one at Penn State'
ouch
@Richard Drake
See my earlier comments on "Mann Vents", including those on the second page.
John Whitman
word I thought of was the psychological term 'decompensating'.
It is an excellent example of such behavior, although not as extreme as say the 10:10 red button video of a few months ago.
Although I was never a practicing psychologist, I was trained in that field, and even today I find myself drawn to this blog because of all the interesting behavior that is on offer -- both in the linked article and some of the comments. ZBD is one of my favorites. She is utterly fascinating at times.
That Mashey’s report concerning Wegman’s report to Congress is merely a hit job is demonstrated by the fact that he was asked by me in post #160 on the Collide-a-Scape blog (and others in different words and contexts) to: “Please demonstrate the 3 worst examples of fabrication that you can identify.”
And Mashey, although the thread (See link http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2010/10/08/skepticgate/#comments ) continued for 377 comments, declined to identify the most important of the so-called fabrications. Instead he just provides links to reams of trivia. In fact, comment #375 shows that Mashey virtually admitted that his fabrication/plagiarism charges didn’t affect the merits of Wegman’s work.
JD
Richard Drake:
Pimm, Stuart and Jeff Harvey (2001) ’No need to worry about the future’ Nature, 414: 149-150.
For those interested, the passage in my book that quotes Pimm and Harvey reads as follows:
Pimm and Harvey also resorted to the tactic of likening Lomborg to a
Holocaust denier in pointing to the virtual nature of most of the species
supposedly becoming extinct annually:
'The text employs the strategy of those who, for example, argue that gay men
aren’t dying of AIDS,that Jews weren’t singled out by the Nazis for extermina-
tion,and so on.‘Name those who have died!’demands a hypothetical critic,who
then scorns the discrepancy between those few we know by name and the
unnamed millions we infer.'
This is a fallacious argument.While any individual would be hard-pressed
to name more than a few Holocaust victims, the identities of the over-
whelming majority of them are known, or were known by those who sur-
vived.They had lives,families, birth records, bank accounts, friends, and so
on.There is copious evidence that they existed and that they suffered at the
hands ofthe Nazis.With claims by Norman Myers or Edward Wilson that
40000 species supposedly become extinct every year, we have no strong
evidence that they exist, or that they have ever existed, or ceased to exist,
outside a mathematical model relating species and area.
"We value the academy for open discussion and seeking truth. We both take academic misconduct seriously and have filed formal, detailed misconduct complaints."
"Open discussion"! Now there is a phrase not normally associated with climate science. "Seeking Truth" tends to be more in the S.M. court. They may file complaints but seeing them upheld is a different matter. Will Mann/Jones bring along the data and methods to the hearings?
Popcorn anyone?
Clicking on the links from the CHE article leads to this admirable piece from Kerry Emmanual (when he refers to "charlatans" think Christopher Monckton);
"There are and will always be mavericks in science, and this is a good thing as it combats any herd behavior that might develop.... Once in awhile, these mavericks’ ideas prove to have merit. But when extra-scientific organizations embrace maverick views, one can be sure that politics are at play...
But it turns out that there are not enough mavericks in climate science to meet the media’s and blogosphere’s insatiable appetite for conflict. Thus into the arena steps a whole host of charlatans posing as climate scientists. These are a toxic brew of retired physicists, TV weather forecasters, political junkies, media hacks, and anyone else willing to tell an interviewer that he/she is a climate scientist. Typically, they have examined some of the more easily digestible evidence and, like good trial lawyers, cherry-pick that which suits their agendas while attacking or ignoring the rest. Often, they are a good deal more articulate than actual scientists, who usually prefer doing research to honing rhetorical technique. Intelligent readers/viewers should demand to know the actual scientific backgrounds of these posers and recognize that someone with a background in particle physics or botany may in fact know very little about climate science. Does he/she have a background in atmospheric physics? Can they answer elementary questions about radiative and convective heat transfer, or about the circulation of the ocean and atmosphere? More precisely, does their expertise actually bear on the particular points they are making? It may sound elitist these days, but there is a point to credentials."
"when he refers to "charlatans" think Christopher Monckton"
...oh, and Peter Wood, of course.
I hope CHE are checking the comments. The 'recommends' seem to be following the pattern we see so often at CIF (despite the best efforts of its moderators).
Richard Drake and Aynsley Kellow:
Re Holocaust victims;
I understand that the methodical Germans kept complete records of all those murdered during the holocaust and that a lot of tese records survive I think this fact was mentioned some years ago on a TV programme my wife and I saw.
So the names all victims of this awful period could be located. I also imagine that the Red Cross in Switzerland may have fairly comprehensive records.
It's always good to see professionals having a good "spat", and even better with hyperbole hissy fits. I think one can judge where the truth lies.
It also adds weight if one can find a co-author - it saves you having to look in a mirror to find someone to aggree with you.
PFM (and Friend)
Aug 5, 2011 at 7:26 AM Michael
Your quote, from here on, "Typically, they have examined some of the more easily digestible evidence etc...."
could be describing Professor (Steve) Jones and his recent ridiculous forays.
One comment there is interesting:
5. Reportedly, the UK Met. Office which had become climate change central has had a palace revolution with the head of modelling having moved and the forcing is now 50% solar, 50% CO2. This is presumably because the obvious 'warming bias' had made its weather predictions laughably inaccurate and commercial customers were leaving in droves.
I seem to have missed this story.
We should value the rantings of Mashey.
He has made me aware that we are no longer fighting an open battle over AGW but that we are now involved in siege warfare - CAGWists have retreated to their Ivory towers, raised the drawbridges, and have been reduced to throwing only insults from the ramparts.
It is amazing to think that a small rag-tag group of sceptics have turned public opinion against the advocates of AGW.
Michael funnily enough when ti comes to those that can't ' answer elementary questions about radiative and convective heat transfer' AGW proponents have no issue with Gore , Monboit etc indeed they happy to take ever word they say as gospel . Meanwhile a whole rack of climate scientists have shown themselves to have poor statistical skills on top on their issues with peer-review, data control etc , despite being 'experts'
"the head of modelling having moved"
Happens all the time, once they get a few wrinkles...
Mashey seems to suffer from a serious irony defficiency when he objects to the term flyspecking by issuing an impenetrable 34 page turgid analysis.
Incidentally, the flawed basis of the species-area model in generating claims of a biodiversity apocalypse has now been exposed:
He, Fagliang and Stephen P. Hubbell (2011) 'Species-area relationships always overestimate extinction rates from habitat loss.' Nature. 473: 368-371.
A long discussion between Jeff Harvey, me, Tom Fuller, 'Harry' and others, on biodiversity and Amazonian 'collapse' is at this page.
.............
Mashey is not</> an academic. I don't get even a faint whiff of the gentleman, which you can with an academic, in Mashey's discourse. He is not even competent at the junk that he produces.
He had to post a picture of Monckton with the Nazi symbol in his 34-page treatise? Is that what 'academics' do in climate science? Is that what, anybody, with any substance in their corner would do?
And for that, he is called this, by the arch-coward 'ray ladybury' who specializes in generating different appellations for horse excrement at realclimate.org, where he resides:
[Mashey] ...will lose the honor and credibility he has built up and jealously guarded over a long career?
This is water expert Peter Gleick:
Really? Even I feel sorry for climate science that it has such worst advocates. In fact, it has the worst of the possible advocates. The ok ones - JNG, Curry, Pielke Sr, Betts, Spencer, HVS, Zorita and a few others - their efforts are swept clean repeatedly by this nucleus, repeatedly. It is like cleaning up the house, and letting the dogs in, do their stuff inside the house, over and over.
Shub
"'ray ladybury'"
Was that intentional? :-)
I think he calls himself 'ladbury', although as a long-time fan of Ray Bradbury, it instantly raises my hackles.
Aynsley Kellow
Thanks for the link to:
He, Fagliang and Stephen P. Hubbell (2011) 'Species-area relationships always overestimate extinction rates from habitat loss.' Nature. 473: 368-371.
Anyone interested can download a free-access PDF here.
What is it with people like Mashey? Are they trying to create a commonality of criminality all around climate science? "Ha, your bloke plagiarized so our bloke who (made stuff up etc) is no worse and so your criticism is unwarranted". Don't they get it that there's a difference between stealing a packet of sweets from the corner shop, and armed robbery? Or do they really believe that Wegmans's lifting a bit of boilerplate background info can in some serious way undermine the findings of his report? Or do they believe nothing except that the AGW myth must be supported in all ways, always, and if dishing out half truths and jumping up and down about irrelevancies helps, then thats the thing to do: all part of well established PR tactics of sowing doubt and confusion in the minds of the broad masses. But even it were cynicism of that kind, where would the energy come from to write these absurd reports, one 34 pages, another 250pp....doesn't cynicism engender idleness? Can we be sure Citizen Mashey is wholly sane?
KnR,
Your supposed conundrum has a simple answer, one fairly obvious to any person exercising real scepticism.
One requires no special knowledge to summarise and present the overall findings of experts in a particular field. However, if one were to claim the whole feild is wrong or a fraud, one would have to demonstrate a thorough understanding of the feild to be able to arrive at such a conclusion.
And those who make such claims and are unable to demonstrate their understanding, or more typically demonstrate that they don't, are charlatans. Monckton is just the most obvious example.
Emmanual also mentions "TV weather presenters" - wonder who he meant?
Michael the problems remains the belief that none-experts are fine if their supportive of AGW but not if they aren't . And the 'experts' are hardly trouble free , for example how often have climate scientists looked total out of their depth when its comes to advanced statistics and that is before we get on to these 'experts' behavior in essentials of science like peer review . If its lie its a lie , what side the lie is used to support makes no difference to that .
Michael: Kerry wasn't so keen to show Trenberth up when he (a) represented himself as a hurricane expert at a press conference and (b) told the press there would be an increase I frequency and intensity of tropical storms. Kerry' response was along the lines of "he could be right, but there's nothing in the literature to support that view."
Monckton's a side show, not being outraged at scientists representing themselves as experts and predicting increased hurricane activity due to global warming is indicative of a science that is rotting at the core. Kerry Emmanuel did just that and the bogus predictions duly appeared in TAR without a murmur of protest. Not just from Emmanuel, but Pachauri, Solomons, Jones and the rest of the cabal who were told that the predictions were not supported in the literature. But they're out there.
KnR,
There is a profoundly good reason for that as I explained above - what you present as simply two different sides of the same position are clearly not. Claiming, as an non-expert, to know that all of climate science is wrong is an extraodinary claim, requiring extraodinary evidence and a demonstration of special insight.
A non-expert saying 'this is what the experts have found' , is banal.
And clearly the side of the lie matters a great deal here - the recent Monckton thread here had not a harsh word (oh, except for those labelled 'trolls' by the faithful for pointing out his fibs) for this pompous liar.
Michael,
lots of sceptical people here or at other blogs are pretty unimpressed by some aspects of people like Monckton. But that's not what this blog is about...
About your other point: "A non-expert saying 'this is what the experts have found', is banal." Except that sometimes the 'experts' who say that e.g. hurricanes are increasing (the Trenberth example highlighted by KnR) are demonstrably wrong, and contradict people who are actually more expert than them. You do not need to be an expert in climate science (I am not) to detect that there is a problem there. The asymmetry of expertise is not as great as you claim.
Jeremy,
It's the same point - the experts usually have it right.
We see it all the time. People commenting in areas outside of their expertise need to be careful, whether it's Trenberth or Monckton.
But the 'skeptics' have it real bad - they'll believe anyone saying anything, as long as it disagrees with AGW.
Michael, not true. Many skeptics - you will find this is true of many albeit not all commenters here - evaluate the truthfulness of what they read carefully, irrespective of whether it is pro- or anti-AGW. See the thread about Murray Salby - you'll find many skeptics there making the case that the evidence for an human-caused rise in CO2 levels since pre-industrial times is a strong one, despite this being 'pro' AGW. It is true, you'll find people on various blogs claiming that anything pro-AGW is wrong - and neglecting the fact that people commenting outside their expertise need to be careful. Your comments seem to suggest that the same thing does not happen to 'pro' AGW people - yet the example of Trenberth is a very good one. Due to he, and other people, making the link between warming and hurricanes repeatedly, this is now uncritically taken to be gospel truth by loads of pro-AGW commenters on other blogs. Do you criticize them?
Michael, first off sceptics, like greenies are a broad church, so coming on this site and telling us that sceptics believe anything as long as it disproves AGW is fatuous, not to say ill-mannered, because you have no idea what sceptics think. There are large numbers of sceptics who, like myself, would be amazed if humans weren't having an effect on the ecosphere, it's alarmism I'm sceptical about. My mind is open about the science, but it's closed about people telling porkies that can easily be disproved. So why didn't Kerry Emmanuel openly refute the IPCC when they said that AGW will cause an increase in frequency and intensity of tropical storms, he is, after all , an expert on tropical storms when the science doesn't support it? Please do tell.
Michael
I have never heard of any credible blogger/poster making the claim that "all climate science is wrong" and I wouldn't understand what they meant if they did. How can "science" per se be "wrong", or for that matter "right"? It's a meaningless concept.
I'm not desperately impressed by Monckton either (nor by Delingpole, come to that). But equally I am not impressed by Gore or John Mashey. Much of the sceptical stance is a reaction (over-reaction, perhaps) to the arrogant assertions and assumptions of infallibility from a number of climate scientists and their supporters. Nothing gives them the right to denigrate, sometimes in libellous or near-libellous terms, those who disagree.
Your categorisation of Monckton as "a pompous liar" is a good example. Any First Year psychology student would be asking why you need to use such terms rather than address the perceived inaccuracies in his statements. Are you so insecure in your own beliefs that rather than debate them with someone who disagrees your only recourse is ad hominem attack?
"Experts" are not always right: the definition as "someone who knows more and more about less and less" ensures that sooner or later they will end up knowing pretty well everything about not really very much and my experience in a long life is that they, as a breed, should always be treated with extreme caution. They usually have tightly closed minds and are devoid of common sense — a dangerous combination in a scientist, wouldn't you say?
Aynsley, anonym: Thanks greatly for the references.
Michael actual I made no claim that I know all climate science is wrong , I will claim that the message is over sold for political reason and that the 'experts' behavior has been poor and that they made mistakes because it has and they have .
You don't need to be a expert in climate science to review the use of data , indeed its been show these 'experts' are the ones lacking skills in both statistics and data control . While their attempt to manipulation peer review and reverse the null hypotheses are not the behaviors of scientists of any short now matter of 'expert; they regard themselves.
The RS moto is 'take no bodies word for it ' for a very good reason , the days of getting away with 'trust me I am scientists' have long gone and its people like the 'Team' and their total lack of understand of public perception , that have waved it on its way.
Climate science would do itself a big favor if those in it started to call out the poor behavior of some its leading members , while holding its hands up to its mistakes and uncertainty rather than trying to deny them out of existence .
Michael
Haven't noticed your criticisms of Bob Ward, Pachauri, Chris Huhne, Miliband, Nurse, and so on pontificating outside their area of expertise - can you point us to them? Also, do you agree that Lewis, O'Connell, McIntyre and Condon have between them far more statistical expertise than Eric Steig, or does Steig's role as a principal of realclimate render him beyond criticism? Being on the public payroll is no guarantee of scientific integrity, as I am sure you know.
The main difference as far as I can see between the sceptics and the "consensus" is that there is a wide range of views, freely debated, on one side of the table, consistent with the immaturity of the science, and a rigidly enforced party line on the other - see for instance the brutal moderation policy on realclimate. Which do you call science?
Michael, I'm betting you, like Lord Monckton, have not got a background in Science, Mathematics or Engineering, so you assume that one discipline is completely different from all others. The content may be, but the core scientific methods are the same, so it's pretty easy to challenge the methods if they're wrong.
The entire case for CAGW rests upon the premise that temperatures have risen, that the climate science community can only account for 50% of the rise through natural causes and as CO2 has risen it must be the CO2 that's caused it. The rest of the evidence is simply pointing at warming and say "See, I told you so.". Well I have to say if Boeing engineers used that same logic I'd never get on another plane.
Freeman Dyson, just another clapped out physicist who thinks they're talking nonsense, we can dismiss him can we because he never attended the UEA? He did, of course, study the effects of soil on the climate for around 20 years, but then he's a physicist and can be discounted I suppose.
No, your new to this debate and have come complete with the baggage of pre-conceived ideas you've got from the warmist blogs.
Be polite and tell me why you find Emmanual's ( a good scientist) silence when a matter of incredible political importance was put forward as true, and which he knew that the literature didn't support, is any worse than Monckton's pretending to be a scientist?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/05/polar-bear-mauls-british-death
C'mon! Stop laughing! It isn't funny!
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." (Wm. Shakespeare)
David S. I don't believe Michael will have heard of any of the people you mentioned. I may be wrong, but the arguments he's coming up with suggest he's new to the debate and is totally unaware of the issues.
Michael, read the Bish's book HSI, he too isn't an expert, but he's managed the impossible in the sense that he can teach people not familiar with the topic the details and explain how the Hockey Team have defended the indefensible for a very long time.
By the way welcome to the site it's nice to have dissenting voices.
@ PeterJ
Mashey and Coleman denigrate Wood as an 'anthropologist' with 'no apparent expertise' in climate science.
Only an anthropologist can fully explain the existence of climate psience.
Martin Brumby
Nobody is laughing, but I expect Horatio Chapple's family is weeping. You should be ashamed of yourself.
@Geronimo.
One thing in my, admittedly, limited understanding of the people that are involved in climate science is that Viscount Monckton DOES have a very good grasp of mathematics, apparently it is his proffession, I think some of his points are that he has done the maths required in certain areas of climate science and he finds certain results to be false. I do not wish to infer criticism in the above sentence but should this be true he may not quite be the charlatan he is named as by some people.
With regard to the incident in Svalbard, the loss of life and injury is very sad and thoughts are with all involved.
However there is another sad aspect, the BBC coverage:-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14415592
Contains two statements opposite each other on the page:-
"A blog on the group's website dated 27 July described polar bear sightings from their camp where they had been marooned due to "an unprecedented amount of ice in the fjord". "
and opposite "Analysis" by Matt Walker Editor, BBC Nature:-
"As climate change reduces ice cover, there are concerns that more polar bears will become displaced and will move further inland to seek food, bringing them into contact with more people."
And they wonder why people question if the BBC's reporting is biased?