Awful astronomer astray

Feb 1, 2012
Bishop Hill in Climate: Sceptics

Matt Briggs has been reading The Bad Astronomy post about global temperatures and is not impressed.

...the scientists were right and Plait was wrong. Or, as he might phrase it, he blatantly misinterpreted long term trends. Notice old Phil (his source, actually) starts, quite arbitrarily, with 1973, a point which is lower than the years preceding this date. If he would have read the post linked above, he would have known this is a common way that cheaters cheat. Not saying you cheated, Phil, old thing. But you didn’t do yourself any favors.

Somewhat amusingly, Plait ends his semi-random venting by telling us that Michael Mann has been “tweeting furiously” about this. Good grief! This isn’t helping his case. Mann’s understanding of statistics may be likened to an overly enthusiastic undergraduate who left the lecture early.

Article originally appeared on (http://www.bishop-hill.net/).