Bishop Hill More learned analysis of Climategate
Mar 18, 2012 Climate: CRU Another academic paper on the meaning of CLimategate comes in the shape of this study, by Marianne Ryghaug and Tomas Moe Skjølsvold.
This article analyzes 1073 emails that were hacked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in November, 2009. The incident was popularly dubbed “Climate Gate”, indicating that the emails reveal a scientific scandal. Here we analyze them differently. Rather than objecting to the exchanges based on some idea about proper scientific conduct, we see them as a rare glimpse into a situation where scientists collectively prepare for participation in heated controversy, with much focus on methodology. This allows us to study how scientists communicate informally about framing propositions of facts in the best possible way. Through the eyes of Science and Technology studies (STS) the emails provide an opportunity to study communication as part of science in the making across disciplines and laboratories. Analysed as “written conversation” the emails provide information about processes of consensus formation through ‘agonistic evaluations’ of other scientists work and persuasion of others to support ones own work. Also, the emails contain judgements about other groups and individual scientists. Consensus-forming appeared as a precarious activity. Controversies could be quite resilient in the course of this decade-long exchange, probably reflecting the complexity of the methodological challenges involved.
The paper is also being discussed at Klimazwiebel.
(H/T Messenger)
Reader Comments (39)
Whatever else Climategate may have done it has certainly provided fertile ground for other scientific disciplines to flourish!
The very first comment at Klimazwiebel points out that you can’t understand the emails without reading The Hockey Stick Illusion, and the rest of the comments are of the same high standard - mostly by non-native English speakers.
Incidentally, there’s a good review of the Hockey Stick Illusion at
http://klimatilsynet.wordpress.com/
It’s in Norwegian, but if you read it aloud in a Geordie accent, you get the gist.
I am eagerly awaiting the next paper where yet another bunch of otherwise unemployable academics with time on their hands will anlayse the methodological processes, framing and meme presentation that go on among those 'researchers' writing papers about the methdological processes, framing and meme presentation about Climategate.......
Seems to me that as we 'progress' from Climategate to papers about Climategate to papers about papers about Climategate tp papers about papers about papers Climategate and so on....that we may be building an infinite series.
But even infinite series can converge to a definite conclusion. And in this case the conclusion is simple:
'It's All A Load Of Bollocks'.
Does this translate from academic speak as - "making stuff up and lying about it"?
"if you read it aloud in a Geordie accent, you get the gist."
@geoffchambers
oh I did laf, but you really must stop. I laught so much I had to use the last squirt of 'glyceryl trinitrate'
Joe6pack - maybe not total bollocks. If the first sociology paper adds 25% to our understanding of Climategate and the next a ninth and the next a sixteenth and so on then our understanding of the subject eventually increases by 64.49... percent.
h/t Leonhard Euler
geoffchambers
I applied to read Nordic Languages at Kings College, Newcastle (as it then was). I should have persevered; obviously as a Geordie I'd have had a head start!
This is not as daft as it sounds.
I'm a Geordie (well Wearsider actually) and I remember being told as a kid that, when the Norwegian fishing fleet came into Tyneside, after a good few beers the locals would converse quite happily with them in a hybrid mixture of Geordie & Norwegian.
grant b
'If the first sociology paper adds 25% to our understanding of Climategate and the next a ninth and the next a sixteenth and so on then our understanding of the subject eventually increases by 64.49... percent'
But Grant, the key word is 'if'.
I read the paper. It didn't add to my understanding at all.
Having read the CG1 emails assiduousy at the time of their pubication, I already knew that the major participants were a bunch of mendacious rent-seeking, third-rate thugs.
The paper did nothing to change that view, but only to confirm my suspicion that far too many academics spend far too much of their time (and my money) on 'studying' and producing complete.
bollocks.
A career in academia is beginning to look like the YTS scheme for kids with A levels. Free of any tangible merit, expensive and difficult to administer, but it keeps the unemployment figures down.
I knew an Englishman who, taken to one of the Amsterdam museums where there was an exhibit in very old Dutch, was able to translate it on sight. He had a background in early English literature and Anglo Saxon.
Apparently he lost the ability to perform this trick when he learned modern Dutch.
As to the article, could someone explain to these guys that quotation marks are meant to enclose words that are actually a quotation. Sprinkling them at random through a text does not add anything to ones meaning, in fact it obscures it by making the literate readers wonder what on earth one is quoting from, and why there is no reference to tell them.
Wouldn't agree the comments are high standard... The comments are all long and rather assume the public will do what it's told is best for them...
They just don't get it.
Joe Sixpack
"Having read the CG1 emails assiduousy at the time of their pubication, I already knew that the major participants were a bunch of mendacious rent-seeking, third-rate thugs".
Sorry to lower the tone of the thread but, on reading Joe Sixpack's incisive line above, I couldn't suppress the thought that "the Team" should henceforth be known as "the Rent Boys".
@Brian E
'I couldn't suppress the thought that "the Team" should henceforth be known as "the Rent Boys".
Well bugger me! Why didn't I think of that first?
It’s not often that I’m the one to get a discussion back on-topic, but let’s try. From the article:
So: how to frame propositions of facts in the best possible way:1) Be glad when your critics die
2) Fantasise about getting them up a dark alley
3) Refuse all information
4) Insult your critics at every opportunity
5) Prevent them from publishing
6) Sit back and wait for philosophers of science to rewrite history
While I find it interesting that non-native English speakers would try to analyze the subtle and gradient meanings and interpretations of these emails, I wonder what they would say if I tried to do the same with emails written in their native language.
But at least they are not trying to get the world's governments to ban carbon at the cost of trillions.
Don Pablo:
You’re being a little harsh on these guys. This is transatlantic chitchat they’re analysing, not Keats or Dr Johnson. Any subtle differences between their Norwegian usage and mine are probably no greater than that between mine and yours.
This made me laugh though:
"While I find it interesting that non-native English speakers would try to analyze the subtle and gradient meanings and interpretations of these emails, I wonder what they would say if I tried to do the same with emails written in their native language. "
They'd say, "speak English, you wog".
Seriously, why do you think non-native speakers wouldn't be good enough "to analyze the subtle and gradient meanings and interpretations of these emails"?
Evidently, those who disagree with Don Pablo on the meaning of the word 'trick' in the emails couldn't possibly be native English speakers. As a native English speaker Don Pablo knows exactly what 'trick' means.
Attempting to fix the first part of the Introduction in the paper with changes in italics.
In November of 2009
a computer hacker infiltrated an email serverunknown person or persons obtained assorted files which included email at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and made publicly available manyprivatemessages among key climate scientists. Given the highly polarized political debate around climate science and, especially, the prospects for climate-related government regulation, some of these email messages were incendiary. Itwasn’t so muchwas the poor scientific content of these messages that caused such a stir and, but rathertheir unusually candidtoneactivism that provoked strong criticisms of climate scientists and climate science.No one should be surprised that scientists, when among their closest colleagues, will let down their guard in the interests perhaps of
conversational efficiencypromoting an agenda and say things like "Mike's Nature trick" and "to hide the decline" to refer toan acceptablea deceptive method for combining different kinds of data sets.geoffchambers & sHx
Oh?
Tell me what that means.
sHx
I find it very reprehensible that you put words into my mouth, meaning or intent. Just where do I discuss the word "trick"? I said NOTHING about the word, or in fact any other. I was pointing out the complexities of our language.
From the final paragraph:
Anyone remember any shock and outrage in newspapers? Anyone know any suspicious-looking emails which look less suspicious when cited in context? As for “analysing a large part of the emails” - I counted quotes from about 24.Is this article an example of philosophical “business as usual”?
Don Pablo
My point was that there's a lot more wrong with this article than can be attributed to it being written by Nowegians.
Having read the majority of C1 E-Mails, I quickly came to the conclusion that the team was capable of almost anything to defend their "Cause"
Subsequently; I have learned a great deal more about the so called scientific institutions and the establishment. Needless to say, I am more shocked by the behavior of people like Dr Paul Nurse, Simon Singh and many more than I am by the team. It has been a real education.
Here's an idea for a non-science article about climategate to be written in ten years or so.
DRAFT ABSTRACT
It has been demonstrated in major cities such as New York that minor property crimes like graffiti and broken windows when not addressed by the authorities tends to lead to more serious crimes like burglary, rape and murder. When minor offences are allowed to continue unchecked the general trend is that the offending behaviour will continue and escalate into broader areas of criminality. This is particularly noticeable in other people's children. This paper examines the behavioural patterns that evolved during life of the blog Real Climate. It will examine changes in editorial policies that initially fostered logical fallacies such as ad hominem and straw man arguments, and appeals to authority in support of the blog owners' theses and evolved into hard core censorship of opposing oppinions, allowing unsupportable falsehoods and threatening behaviours. The resulting timeline will then be compared to the five releases of the so called Climategate e-mails, examining the concurrent escalation of incidental criminal behaviours that ultimately lead to the Augsberg Declaration of 2016.
The word 'trick' was used as a case in point.
The reason I mention 'trick' is to show how divisive the meaning of that simple word proved to be even among native English speakers. In the context of that particular email, did 'trick' mean a dishonest act or did it mean a clever way of doing things?
Now if you and I were debating the opposite sides of the argument on the meaning of 'trick', I presume it wouldn't take long before you pulled out 'I'm the native speaker here' card, even if I had a legion of native speakers agreeing with me. Any non-native English speaker with self-respect would get offended by that no matter how complex your language is.
geoffchambers
I do not disagree, but my point is they were READING the emails in English, which were written in colloquial, jargon-filled, semi-complete sentences typical of email writing. And when you throw in the use of expressions specific to their group as well as profession, you end up with very difficult to understand statements even for native speakers. And then on top of that, if you put in the complexities of our language, which is full of double and triple meanings, well, good luck.
One of my favorite words is "oh". I once spent three hours discussing the many and complex meanings of that world with a Chinese student in Shanghai. Although he spoke excellent English (he was my guide and translator for a trip into the country), he fully realized the complexities of English and was determined to master its subtleties.
sHx
You are presuming a good deal which is not true. I suggest you stick to facts.
Go take a hard look at English. Start, as I suggested, with the word "oh".
"about framing propositions of facts in the best possible way"
Err, do you mean how to exaggerate, distort and lie perhaps?
Dontcha just love marketing speak!
"oh"
Heh! That explains a lot. Thanks.
Time flies like an arrow
Fruit flies like a banana.
Tried to explain this to some spanish friends. Failed miserably
Don Pablo
Uh huh (or do I mean uh-uh?)
I spend a lot of time discussing the complexity of English with Chinese students. It’s my job. AND I have to do it in French.
If you look at the article, the authors are not the least interested in the subtleties of the language. Their interest is in applying the insights of a particular school of thought in their own arcane speciality to the emails, in order to reinforce a point of view they share with the authors they cite so freely (far more frequently than they cite the emails themselves).
They “assume that a large bulk of the emails is concerned with how to prepare to engage in controversies” and come to a conclusion in line with this assumption. What’s wrong with that as nothing to do with the authors being Norwegian.
I find it quite surprising that such stuff gets published in a philosophy journal. Expect this article to be cited in the next IPCC report in support of the claim that the emails reveal a climate community dying to partake in honest debate.
geoffchambers
Again, I agree with you. Your take is pretty much what I came away with as well. I was simply applying a slightly more abstract test to their work. It was, as you suggest, a hack job destined for IPCC's next "report".
As for instructing Chinese students, I was fortunately able to spend those three hours we traveled to Suzhoi speaking in English to a very motivated student who had 10 years of English training, all of it of excellent quality. Unlike some contributors to this blog, he did realize that there were subtleties in English expressed mainly by inflection. In exchange, I learned a good deal about Mandarin. One word, "ma" has dozens of meanings ranging from "horse", to "mother", to god knows what else. Those were also expressed in inflections which were hard for my ear to pick up. While I can read a number of Chinese Pinyin characters, I would not attempt to speak that language without a great deal more training.
sHx
You're quite welcome. I wish to point out that you said a great deal more than you think you said.
For your next assignment explain, "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."
What is most irritating about this rubbish is that it tries to convey the false impression that CG reveals how scientist normally operate.
Doesn't this exactly follow on Wegman's testimony to the US Congress? Am I not correct to recall he spoke regarding the "social network" of climate scientists, which at first limited, and later seemed to deliberately exclude, professional statisticians from review of the techniques and datasets being used?
And if the recent work confirms that earlier work, shouldn't we all be able to agree that in one particular regard, "the science is settled" ?
The following points are made in my peer-reviewed paper now published on at least four sites and linked from my site http://climate-change-theory.com
(1) Radiation from cooler parts of the atmosphere to warmer parts of the surface cannot transfer thermal energy, but can slow just the radiative component of surface cooling, which is less than half the cooling, probably about a third.
(2) When radiative cooling is slowed, the rates of evaporative cooling and diffusion (conduction) followed by convection will increase for reasons explained in my paper.
(3) The energy in each photon is proportional to the frequency of the associated radiation.
(4) Short wave (high frequency) infra-red radiation (making up about half of the total solar radiation) thus has far more energy per photon than does long wave (low frequency) infra-red radiation from the atmosphere, which is mostly well below freezing point.
(5) The effect which radiation from the atmosphere has on radiative cooling of the surface depends upon both the temperature of the region from which it originated and the density of frequencies in that radiation.
(6) Carbon dioxide radiates far fewer frequencies than water vapour, and each radiates fewer than a blackbody.
(7) Hence each carbon dioxide molecule has far less effect on the radiative rate of cooling than each water vapour molecule, of which there are usually about 20 to 50 times as many.
(8) So carbon dioxide is like a picket fence with most of its pickets missing, standing up against full blast radiation from the surface.
(9) Any warming effect of carbon dioxide is cancelled because of the reasons in (2) and, because of those in (4) there is a significant cooling effect as it sends back to space at least half of the high energy photons it captures from solar radiation.
(10) Hence carbon dioxide has a net cooling effect, but such is absolutely minimal compared with the effect of water vapour which also has radiative cooling effects, but possibly some warming effects also about which we can do nothing.
The authors of this conclusion-free gobbledegook are apologists for well known 'climate scientists' and Muir Russell didn't even give them a contract!
I notice they didn't interpret the context of Santer's temptation to beat the crap out of Pat Michaels; maybe that comes under:
... ‘agonistic evaluations’ of other scientists work and persuasion of others to support ones own work ...
Like good social scientists they keep each other employed by heavy use of citation.
This comes across like a study by anthropologists who have come equipped with a fully formed idea about the tribe they are studying i.e. scientists - and are just looking for confirming evidence. However ironically I don't think their ideal scientist would appeal to most scientists ideal self description.
They excuse the "hide the decline" issue in the middle of their study and ignore the fact this was an example of this group communicating with governmantal policy bodies and they were hiding their flaws doing so. The fact that these social scientists took this big social point and brushed it away by essentially saying that scientifically this was "probably" ok is a big red flag.
They talk about "experimenter's regress" constantly without once talking about the real likely hood that the CG team were fully engaged in positive feedback as mentioned in the wiki refrence:
My emphasis.
The fact the paper authors only seem to assume that the Team scientists have been only applying "experimenter's regress" in an unselfconscious self correcting way points to a big flaw in this study my mind. They seem to be over reaching what they can know at every convenient level.
A "trick" is a prostitute's transaction with her client. Given the Climategate context -- Hmmm.