Opengate - Josh 158

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It looks like John Cook and co at Skeptical Science are in a bit of a tizzy because their secret forum has been exposed to public view. Their complaint is that they have been hacked though John Cook admits that their security is almost non-existent.

What is interesting, in reading some of the excerpts from the forum posted here, is the similarities between the SkS secret forum and the Climategate emails - i.e. we know the facts don't support what we say but don't tell anyone!

That's ok, guys, your secrets are safe with us ;-)

Cartoons by Josh

Comments

[James P]

It looks like we have humour on our side, too. Unless the warmist cartoon supplement is under the sofa somewhere...

[Mac]

It makes you wonder what is actually being said via the various back-channels that climate scientists and activists have apparently set up.

I thought it was all meant to open, honest and transparent after Climategate. It would appear to be the opposite.

[Dreadnought]

James P

Warmist cartoon supplement here:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/2012-SkS-Weekly-Digest_12.html

I think I'll stick with Josh.

[mat]

James it seem the only humour the soulless greens have is purely unintentional like the ever green explode a skeptic vid or getting some earnest concerned but dim activist to dress as a polar bear and drown himself or really anything they point at as proof of their delusion makes me sides hurt ! .
So compared to Josh they are still pratting about with rag week kids stunts!

[Simon Hopkinson]

Josh is King, no question! :)

[Grumpy Old Man]

Josh, this is possibly the most biting,brilliant cartoon you've yet produced. Lampooning the," Only We Know" phantoms of the climastrology activists in this way is downright cruel. Hilarious though.

[sHx]

Very nice. I bet they are wearing The Guardian for alien shield helmet. :D

[j ferguson]

josh,
I think you've got it spot on. The tragedy, if it rises to that level, is that from what their comments on an earlier thread suggest, they don't realize it.

[Mac]

Quotes from John Cook:

In private:

Someone with admin access (there are about half a dozen SkSers with this access) made the change. Or we were hacked in some way and the hacker changed the levels. None of the options seem likely to me but the most likely is human error on my part although the fact that the admin forum was still set at admin level belies some kind of blanket wiping of all levels.

For public consumption;

Access to the full database (which includes private details) is restricted only to myself and I am the only one with access to all of the raw data - this fact alone indicates that this breach of privacy came in the form of an external hack rather than from within Skeptical Science itself.

So private doubts change into public certainty. Isn't that always the way with AGW.

[John Anderson]

Glorious, Josh. Thanks as ever

[jamesp]

Dreadnought

Oh dear. I wish you hadn't.. :-)

BTW, 'Opengate' is wonderful. Who thought of that?

[Martin A]

I seem to be in a minority (or even all by myself) but cartoons that simply ridicule warmists leave me unamused.

[added 2 minutes later...}

Ahhhh... I missed the title. Yes, now I get it.

[Shevva]

Brilliant as always Josh, have you got your Big Oil pay cheque yet?

[RichieP]

I still can't find a working link to download the data. The ones at Tom Nelson are dead as doorknockers. Anyone have a link please?

[redc]

Often in life things are presented or named exactly the opposite of what they are, so much that I'm wondering why I don't just initially assume the opposite.

Skeptical Science is no exception.

Maybe if it was named:

www.ClimateScientistsAreRightAboutEverythingAlways.com

...we'd know what to expect.

(and of course our host is not even a Bishop!)

[Josh]

Opengate seemed an obvious choice of 'gate' to me as the forum was indeed open to all.

Shevva, still waiting. Any minute now. Really.

[red (rc)]

Working link is here:
http://www.crocko.com/F81EFEBC53FB4FF79607092FB9F5CA62/sks.zip

This is the file I downloaded from the comment on Shub's site, file creation/access dates on the .zip might have changed but the contents should be untouched.

(apologies in advance if links to the file are unwanted here)

[David]

Nice one! JC won't mind - before he became Saviour of Planet Earth he was a cartoonist too, as one to another.

And I _know_ he's got a sense of humour (in private)...

Tom, thanks for that link. Hey, they don't link to SkS! This jumps out at me:
Wow, $1,667 a month for Bob Carter. Totally outrageous! That’s less than the minimum wage (around $2,500 per month), and maybe pays for his electricity bill.

Carter spends $1667/month on electricity? What is he, Al Gore? :-)

-- John Cook

[Don Pablo de la Sierra]

You caught the true essence of the issue --- little boys playing at being big boys and crying when they fail.

And these little boys want to tell us on how to run the world when they can't even run a web site?

[sHx]

@red (rc)

Thanks for the link. Trawling through now. Most of it is boilerplate stuff about manufacturing consensus. Our friend Tom Curtis genuflects and then resigns from the project in a thread entitled "Sorry John":

Under current instructions I am being forced to rate far too many papers as neutral when it is almost certain they accept the concensus, but do not mention "anthropogenic" or "GHG". The result will be that the the ratings will underestimate support of the consensus to a level that amounts to distortion, IMO. Of the last five papers I have rated, 3 where rated as neutral as per instructions, but which I believe to clearly have supported AGW.

In light of this, I feel I can no longer participate in this project. I wish you and everybody else invovled good luck, and look forward to the final results.

The final results will take a little longer, Tom. Skeptical Science cannot possibly countenance a result that shows the consensus isn't as strong, so rest assured. It'll be 99% consensus by the time it's done.

[sHx]

There are however a few good mind taking part in the The Consensus Project.

Glenn Tymble:

To reiterate the point from my previous comment. Your categories MUST be impeccably impartial. If you have 2 categories above Neutral you MUST have 2 categories below it. Otherwise you are open to accusations of bias in how the study is set up.

It isn't an issue of what Oreskes did or anything else. If this study is to have the cut through impact we hope it will, it must cross every T and dot every I in the objectivity stakes.

You MUST approach this as if you are completely dispassionate and detached from what the outcome will be. The point of the study must NOT be to show that there is a consensus. It must be to find out if there IS a consensus. We may have a view about what the outcome of the study will be, but the methodology MUST be brutally dispassionate.

(2012-01-19-Endorsement categories.html)

Tom Curtis however resigned because he feared the research will show the consensus isn't as strong:

If you mouse of the instructions, it says that if a paper merely metions global climate change or global warming, that is not sufficient to imply anthropogenic global warming.

To me that means if it merely mentions CC or GW, then it must be classified as neutral; however my admitedly brief experience is that nearly all papers on impacts or mitigation mention CC or GW without specifying either anthropogenic, or GHG. Hence a neutral classification even though I believe it is clear the auithors support the IPCC consensus. (2012-02-22-Sorry John.html)

Dana1981, who wants the project result to show 99% consensus replies:

That depends what else it says. For example, I think if it talks about the impacts of impending global warming (or something similar), that's a clear implicit endorsement (as predictions of impending warming are contingent on AGW).

This is riveting sausage-making. A case study for social anthropologists studying cults and insular social systems.

[sHx]

John Cook on the many phases of The Consensus Project

Phase 4: Repeat each year

Fingers crossed, Phase 3 will be complete by the end of 2012. Then in early 2013, we can repeat the process for all papers published in 2012 to show that the consensus is still strengthening. We beat the consensus drum often and regularly and make SkS the home of the perceived strengthening consensus.

Consensus, consensus, consensus. Consesus up, consensus down. Good consensus, better consensus, strengthening consensus. Drum, drum, consensus.

[David]

Tom shows himself in the "bunker" and here to be one of the more honest and intelligent ones. It would appear his beef with the project results from the inclusion of papers which don't necessarily require AGW to be a given. Like a paper might claim "if it warms all the fish will die", which may be true, but doesn't require the source of warming to be anthropogenic.

Unless they specifically and only look at papers which seek to make a determination on the validity of the AGW theory then the whole project is bunk anyhow i.e. scientists who count fish don't add weight to the climate consensus.

[jamesp]

"We may have a view about what the outcome of the study will be"

May?

[jamesp]

"before he became Saviour of Planet Earth he was a cartoonist"

I was forgetting that. Not a patch on Josh, though. The Devil has all the best tunes... :-)

(Sorry, yer grace.)

[Jonas N]

Tom Curtis felt he had to litter his comments with the d-word, and deride Heartland for 'financing climate denial' (!?). Had he refrained from that, I would have agreed that he sounded a bit more sensible than your run-off-the-mill green activist. But seriously, I cannot take anybody seriously who feels that he needs to use the d-word as a part of his arguments. As an insult, I reckon it may be passable. But not in a reasoned discussion about any issues. Sorry No ...

[Josh]

It looks like exposing the inner workings of The Consensus Project has very effectively torpedoed and sunk the idea that there is a coherent and singular 'Consensus' among climate scientists - something we all knew/suspected anyway but SkS has done a great work here by showing how hard it is to work out what scientists really think.

Opengate might not end up not being about letting people see in but letting some rather interesting ideas out... mmm, another cartoon then.

[Jiminy Cricket]

Josh, you summed up my thoughts for me in that cartoon... it was a great thread yesterday. Much easier to have a little tree house of your own.

"It's my consensus, and unless you let me play you can't 'av it... and I'll tell me Ma"

[Carrick]

I have to say this is worthy of a good chuckle or two.

John Cook running a study on how many papers accept the consensus view on climate.

What pray tell is the consensus view (or what should it be)?

I'd say it should go something like this:

1) Globally, the Earth has been warming since 1850.
2) Until circa 1970, most of the warming can be explained in terms of natural forcings, based on uncertainties in measurement, it is not necessary to invoke any anthropogenic warming to explain the data.
3) Since 1970, an anthropogenic component must be invoked to explain all of the warming.
4) We don't have good bounds on how much of the post 1970 warming is anthropogenic. Perhaps as little as 1/3, perhaps as much as 2/3.

Point 1 I hope few people would disagree with. Points 2 and 3 are from the model forcings.

Point 4, is gleaned from the large uncertainty in the value of the climate sensitivity to CO2 increase.

(The horizontal axis is °C increase per doubling of CO2, all other forcings held constant.)

Anyway, one of the chuckles I have had is that neither Dana nor John will publically confirm they accept all of 1-4.

In other words, I don't think they themselves accept the consensus view of AGW.

[Salopian]

Josh,

Nice cartoon, but I can't help thinking that an underground bunker knee-deep in sh*te might be more appropriate; or maybe you're saving that for the more prominent members of the Team?

[James P]

So we have a website claiming to be both sceptical and scientific sponsoring something called a consensus project with the aim of using it to shoot down other sceptics?

You couldn't make it up.

[Wijnand]

Josh, above your title, strikethrough font:
"blamehackerswhileleavingopenthegate"*
No?
Love it anyway, keep it up!

*courtesy somebody in 200+ comment thread about the sKs publication hack

[James P]

I'm looking forward to Delingpole's take on all this.. :-)

[Russell]

It looks like we have humour on our side, too. Unless the warmist cartoon supplement is under the sofa somewhere...

Mar 26, 2012 at 11:52 AM | James P

Be very afraid:

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2556#comic

[LC]

Sorry Russell, no comparison. Looks like he/she had a good idea, but got lost trying to go somewhere with it. Josh would have said all that and much more in a single cartoon without needing a series of them or a "strip". If that's the style you like though, well we've got one of them too. Go look at Fenbeagle. Fantastic artwork and packed full of little asides and references. A giggle or two in every frame.

[flaxdoctor]

James P

So we have a website claiming to be both sceptical and scientific sponsoring something called a consensus project with the aim of using it to shoot down other sceptics?

Cracking observation - I remain intrigued by the very idea of a 'consensus' among scientists - anybody who has ever tried to manage scientists (i.e. real ones - people who seek to advance human knowledge through applying the scientific method as opposed to box-ticking grant thieves) will know that you'd have more chance of herding cats with pit bull terriers.

Why waste an IQ of 150 bleating in a lobotomised herd?

[Josh]

Yes, LC, Fen's blog is definitely a regular must-see.

After far too long, a week or so ago he and I met at last and had a really great chat - we celebrated by doing a cartoon together see here or on both our websites. All power to his fantastic talent and his awesome work!

[diogenes]

Russell - did you understand that strip? Anout physicists thinking they have the secret of knowledge? Such as the people who tell us that the science is settled?

[diogenes]

Carrick - the big clue is thaqt Dana and co want to "discuss" the value of the sensitivity coefficient. If you need to discuss it, then you are departing from the realms of science.

[David]

One word in sHx's quote above really needs to be highlighted:

We beat the consensus drum often and regularly and make SkS the home of the perceived strengthening consensus.

Real or perceived consensus?

[j ferguson]

No wonder they didn't like this stuff getting loose in public. Very revealing. Opengate is wonderfully appropriate. bravo!

[Shub]

I thought it was WhoForgotToCloseTheBloodyGate. OpenGate is good too!

[jferguson]

The thing that's really puzzling is that the worthwhile stuff at least what there was of it was going on in the background.

Morelocks at work while the pap was spread for the eloi.

h.g. wells' "time machine" reference

[Andy Scrase]

The Code Green cartoons linked from SkS are even more humourless than I thought

[Tom Curtis]

This forum continues to show why the term "denier" is appropriate for (most of) its members. In particular, you continue to show the same practice of out of context quotation which results in creationists being excoriated in any intelligent society. Mac (26 March, 12:48 PM) for example, quotes John Cooks descriptions of two separate incidents (so far as is known) a month apart as if they where the same incident. He does so to prove John Cooks dishonesty, but only succeeds in proving his own.

Not to be outdone, sHx variously quotes me as disagreeing with the Consensus Project because I to not think it will show the "right" result. On the contrary, my problem with the consensus project is that the methodology has been biased against showing the consensus in an over zealous attempt to ensure that it is not biased towards showing a consensus. It is my strong opinion that such projects should not be biased in either direction, so far as that can be ensured. In fact, I made several suggestions on the project to ensure against accidental bias in favour of a finding of consensus, suggestions which were taken up.

While on TCP, a key feature of the project is that papers are classified based on the primary topic of discussion. Consequently it will be possible to distinguish between the consensus among papers which merely accept AGW as a working hypothesis (such as the fish analogy used), and those among papers which actively explore whether the world is warming, and its causes. Except for the inbuilt bias against finding a consensus, the project is to my mind very well designed and worth while.

In the mean time, if you don't want to be called "deniers", stop taking creation "scientists" as your role model of how science is done. And in particular, you can start by no longer misrepresenting, and quoting the SkS internal forum out of context (not to mention the UEA emails).

[Tom Curtis]

You want humour? You can't handle the humour.

http://throbgoblins.blogspot.com.au/2007/12/merry-bleedin-christmas.html

[betapug]

@James P The cartoons are now under a green sofa in the Unitarian church here: http://firstparish.info/HelpingOut/Green_Sanctuary.html#CartoonsandVideos

The main Unitarian effort seems to be located here: http://climate.uu-uno.org/ adjacent to the UN where they claim many connections are maintained.

[geoffchambers]

James P: “I'm looking forward to Delingpole's take on all this.. :-)”

He’s got lots to work on. From the first few references to Dellers I picked up:

... a crescendo of Delingpole-level stupidity and scientific illiteracy .. One of the more zealous of the anti-science conspiracy wingnuts here in the UK .. Man, Delingpole's a twit .. the unintelligible ravings of a certifiably raving loon. (on Lindzen and Delingpole) What scum... both of them.

[geoffchambers]

Tom Curtis (Mar 27, 2012 at 6:52 AM) gives an example of warmist humour. It’s really interesting, a variation of the 10:10 joke. The punchline is “I’m going to have to hit you now..”

I don’t get it.

[Jiminy Cricket]

@tom read that paragraph again mate...

"On the contrary, my problem with the consensus project is that the methodology has been biased against showing the consensus in an over zealous attempt to ensure that it is not biased towards showing a consensus. It is my strong opinion that such projects should not be biased in either direction, so far as that can be ensured. In fact, I made several suggestions on the project to ensure against accidental bias in favour of a finding of consensus, suggestions which were taken up."

We are not really looking for the thing we are looking for? So why are you looking for it?

Wildwest hanging judge: Every no good son of a guilty b*tch will get a fair trial before I hang him?

In the mean time, if you don't want to be called "deniers", stop taking creation "scientists" as your role model of how science is done. And in particular, you can start by no longer misrepresenting, and quoting the SkS internal forum out of context (not to mention the UEA emails).

And this insult makes me really pleased. Because you still do not understand your "opponents" and the quality of the people and processes. Much safer to sit in your own tree house as Josh points out.

Hide behind the "we are all deniers" comfort blanket for as long you want. Makes our task easier,