Bishop Hill The Secret Science Society
Nov 1, 2013 Climate: Mann FOI ;)
Michael Mann and Stephan Lewandowsky have a typically overwrought article at the website of the Association of Psychological Science. Also on the roster of authors are Linda Bauld and Gerard Hastings - anti-tobacco scientivists from the University of Stirling - and a psychologist from the University of Irvine.
One of the principal themes in the article is that bad people keep asking to see scientivists' data and correspondence. This, apparently, is unacceptable behaviour - not a position for which I have much sympathy, or indeed any sympathy at all.
However, it's interesting to see this cross-disciplinary enthusiasm for secret science. Perhaps these paragons of scientific integrity should form a "Secret Science Society" (although the name is already taken). Most of the scientific establishment would sign up.
Reader Comments (141)
It's sad to see how many people seem to think this is something new that came about with the Global Warming debate. It's been a problem for DECADES in antismoking research regarding secondhand smoke and such things. Half the time the researchers seem to either claim that all of the data is in the published study (when it obviously is NOT), simply refuse to answer you, or just tell you that they have no interest in helping you in your efforts to examine their work.
The standards for "science for a good cause" being different than regular science have already been set and accepted. The extension to areas like global warming should come as no surprise to anyone who's been paying attention.
- MJM
Apparently this nonsense is a "paper":
"Preparation of this paper was facilitated by an Outstanding Researcher Award from the Australian Research Council and a Wolfson Research Merit Award from the Royal Society to the first author."
The Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award is intended to enable universities in the UK, "to recruit or retain respected scientists of outstanding achievement and potential to the UK…..The focus of the award is a salary enhancement, usually in the range of £10,000 to £30,000 per annum."
http://royalsociety.org/grants/schemes/wolfson-research-merit/
This award is funded by both "the Wolfson Foundation and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills….
"Professor Lewandowsky receives the award for his project entitled ‘The (mis)information revolution: information seeking and knowledge transmission’, which addresses how"……
http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2013/9330.html
The Department for Business Innovation and Skills states that:
"The Science and Research funding allocations will support the very best research, by further concentrating resources on research centres of proven excellence and with the critical mass and multi-disciplinary capacity to address national challenges and compete internationally."
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/32478/10-1356-allocation-of-science-and-research-funding-2011-2015.pdf
Taxpayer,s money is given to Lewandowsky by David Willetts, Minister for Universities and Science, and Vince Cable, Secretary of State of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, to produce utter drivel.
Britain's national debt is over £900 billion, which equals £40,000 for every working person in the UK and the government throws away more money on a self-pitying absurdity masquerading as science.
11:30 jorgekafkazar
Dressing up in ceremonial attire?
There must be graduation photos of younger versions of Pinky and Perky out there?
MJM +1 It's also been the case that for all the proclaiming about the scientific method for many people it's just a lip service exercise while they get on with the main career theme of self promotion.
@ Paul Matthews, 11:06 pm: "Geoff 7.55pm I'm afraid you must have misread the journal's notice about comments. It says that comments are moderated and may take a few days to process. And comrade, I can assure you that it has always said this."
The note about moderation delays first appeared sometime around 8pm on 1 Nov 2013. It wasn't there when the article was first posted. Furthermore, no other articles on the site appear to have a similar note.
Prof. Lewandowsky's articles have recurring analogies. That it is to assume the statement "There will be catastrophic climate change unless (some) countries implement drastic carbon reduction policies" is equivalent, in terms of supporting evidence, to the hypotheses "HIV causes AIDS" or "Smoking Causes Lung Cancer". If you search on the latter two statements, you will find very strong empirical evidence to support the hypotheses, through use of laid down standards. Both conditions are extremely serious for each person afflicted and in the number affected. Unfortunately, in neither case does knowing the cause indicate a cure.
Catastrophic global warming is a prediction about the future caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. There is very little evidence for a non-trivial effect, yet climate scientists seem to have the ability to prescribe the correct policies in the right dosage.
Four of the authors are authoritarians who believe public policy should be based on poor or inconclusive science, Linda Bauld and Gerard Hastings are heavily involved in ASH and the minimum alcohol price campaign, whereas the fifth is a highly distinguished debunker of poor science who is concerned about its influence upon society.
It will be interesting to see if any comments are allowed and how butchered/censored they will be. Assuming comments are allowed and unbutchered(yea right) I will make a comment on there. However not really worth it to take 4 hours to write a comment and then have the douchebags remove half of it or simply block it all together.
Here's a rather mind-boggling side-aspect to the publication of this travesty, courtesy of André van Delft via comment at WUWT.
André noted that there's an accompanying cover story which, uh, covers this (with onehellofalot of "revisionism", IMHO) as well.
"The critics were invited to submit a commentary for publication"??! Geoff, Barry and other critics ... have you been holding out on us, or has my memory failed me?!
Setting aside the fact that I'm not sure how one might reasonably be expected to "submit a commentary" when the authors are so reluctant to provide all their data, I think we've heard this song before! As in 'skeptic blogs were invited to participate in Lewandowsky's survey'
And while I'm here, if I might be forgiven for cross-posting my own comment from WUWT ...
I had to double-check my calendar (because I was fairly certain the date is Nov. 1, not April 1) when I read this excuse for “scholarship” under the “leadership” of Team Mediocrity Forever.
Mann and Lewandowsky seem to have much in common – including a most unwarranted high opinion of themselves, of their inane utterances and, it would appear, of each other!
Their mutual dedication to “the cause”, could well have led to this meeting of (two very small) minds, However, theirs appears to be a cause that is crumbling – at least in part – under the rapidly increasing weight of their very own recursive and self-reinforcing furies;-)
And the bottom line, of course, is that regardless of what may (or may not) be happening to the climate (and/or our planet) neither Lewandowsky nor Mann – nor what surely by now must be a dwindling army of supporters who favour such charges from this blight brigade of mendacity and mediocrity – can provide any evidence whatsoever that the primary “cause” of the latest and greatest scare-variant is human-generated CO2.
Hilary
Not only has Lewandowsky settled in, but he’s found the time to write numerous articles and give interviews on three continents, but not to answer a simple request from his editor.Many thanks for the tip. I now have three comments in the queue at the second article at Psychological Science. The claim that we were invited to comment is false in my case. The only correspondence I had from Psychological Science as this from their Editor in Chief back in April:
' ..... emails to editors which have been described as “bullying” by some parties involved.'
The emails must have been very mild, otherwise they would have been described as "death threats".
Michael J. McFadden, Kevin Marshall and DocBud: Thank you for interesting perspectives on the other authors and areas of science. There are many ways to look at all this. My own is that in the climate boondoggle the forces of authoritarianism have overreached themselves and in so doing wrecked their plans in many other areas. Now they are in the bunker trying to hold it all together. It will become highly amusing but with efforts like the current UK Energy Bill we're not at that stage quite yet.
One of the main aims of the climate band waggoners has always been to draw in other scientific debates that have nothing to do with the issue at hand. Sort of borrowing moral outrage. I’m sure we’re guilty of it too but we have far more examples to draw from. Tobacco is a popular one for warmists because in many eyes smoking is just dirty and the connection with cancer is even more persuasive for those wishing to strike fear in the minds of others. Or so they hope.
Of course the two issues are poles apart. One is a largely won argument about something a growing majority hate and the other is the very cloudy science surrounding one of the essentials of life. It’s a poor tool to use because most intelligent people will guess they are being manipulated. Warmists seem intent on reminding us how few arguments about climate change they actually have or they’d be the things they talk about.
Nobody argues with Flat Earthers because nobody really takes the alternative argument seriously, not even them. At the other end of the scale, few people would say that medical science is infallible and shouldn’t be scrutinised. Indeed our media is full of examples where the medical world is badly letting us down, even on stuff that doesn’t need a PhD to understand. Climate science is further up the scale of uncertainty and impact than medicine and as such deserves more scrutiny not less.
Lew’s papers and to a certain extent Mann’s represent desperation. They are a misguided attempt to capture the support of a disinterested audience. Instead of using PR attempts to repackage their failed products they need to go back to the drawing board and ask themselves why their basic arguments are not working.
Qn. What do you do when your previous BOGUS reports have all picked apart & trashed.
Ans. Well, write another BOGUS report
(..your friends in the media will hype it up.
..and you can have a good laugh knowing that your critics have all paid, since you funded it with money mostly derived from tax)
Tip: look for rhetorical tricks e.g. phrases which still stand up, when you plug in nouns from opposite sides or the argument
: 2nd Nov 10am still zero comments ..they now have this
Isn't this just another round in the Lefts 'false consciousness' gibberish: "Our ideas are so wonderful and necessarily correct that anyone who is rejecting them is either (a) mentally ill (b) a victim of capitalist propaganda (c) - touching grace note of humility - we haven't explained ourselves well enough (ie please give us more money for more propaganda). Never once does it occur to those in the thrall of this peculiar pyschological phenomenon that people pick holes in their ideas, don't accept them etc etc because the ideas themselves are bollox. In the real world, we test our ideas empirically - ie if people won't have - the idea, the product, whatever, we move on and try something else. Its the disease of the Left that they 'must' be right, and anyone against them is perverse, at one level or another. And thats because socialism is scientific, y'know.
why they aren't posting comments yet
- one thing I noticed is that dramagreen posts drop dramatically at weekends, maybe cos the posts are made from peoples jobs at BigGreen NGO's and solar panel corps. So they are probably snowed under with negative comments now and have no positive comments from their dramagreen mates.
bill: Very well put but by now I don't think it will do on BH to ascribe all this manipulation and self-deception to the Left without further qualification. Who has proved one of Dr Loo's most able adversaries? Self-defined man of the left Geoff Chambers. Who is helping Doug Keenan with the final touches of his takedown of AR5? The UK peer who wrote this on an American blog in May:
That didn't read like gibberish to me but a return to the roots of a Labour movement steeped in radical desire for social justice coming out of Tolpuddle and other offshoots of early Methodism. Let's not cause unnecessary division but follow the great Paul Matthews as he greeted Geoff as his 'comrade' earlier. :)
At least Mickey Mann and Loopy Lew provide a useful litmus test for detecting liars and zealots.
Anyone defending these clowns shows themselves to be incapable of reasoning objectively, or lacking the integrity to do so publicly.
TinyCO2. Very well put. I particularly like the phrase "Borrowing moral outrage".
Foxgoose, Thanks for the link:-
http://notrickszone.com/2013/10/31/green-psychologists-confirm-climate-alarmists-are-making-themselves-mentally-sick-doomer-depression/
I see it all now........when it finally hits the fan they're going to plead insanity!
I've commented, my comment's visible, but someone else's comments are visible to me!
Comment by Adam Gallon on November 1, 2013 @ 2:34 pm
Maybe you should pause a moment and consider why climate science is held in low regard.
Consider Dr P. Jones response to a request for information.
“Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”
The answer, of course, “Because that’s scientific methodology, I wish to test your claims”
The consistant refusal to share data, methods and algorithms
with anybody considered not to be “On our team” and response to anyone questioning your results, for example Dr Mann’s response on Twitter to Dr Robert Wilson’s description of his work.
“Michael E. Mann @MichaelEMann
Closet #climatechange #denier Rob Wilson, comes out of the closet big time: http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/10/21/wilson-on-millennial-temperature-reconstructions.html … #BadScience #DisingenuousBehavior”
Let’s also look at the actions of climate scientists, trying to block publication of critical work in peer-revued journals and in trying to prevent it getting into the IPCC’s revues, as shown in the e-mails stolen/leaked/whistleblown from the CRU.
Look at the language used “Denier”, “Contrarian” and other purgative terms.
All of this, plus the massive spend by “Green” organisations and governments on the whole arena and their reliance on taxes that are, to say the least, “Indulgencies” (In the theological meaning of the word), casts severe doubt upon the validity of large areas of work
Geoffrey Fisher (Archbishop of Canterbury 1945-1961) gave a rousing speech at our school graduation many years ago. I recall that he said, among other things - 'A guide to a person's maturity is: what that person would do if he 'knew' that he could get away with it.'
With the support of the scientific societies, academia and the MSM, Mann, Lewandowsky, Cook, Nuccitelli etc do what they do because they 'know' that they can get away with it.
That's our Mikey!
Hide the decline.
Hide the data.
Hide the truth.
What a legacy he will leave. You have to wonder why U. Penn covers up for him and keeps him on staff. I mean really, he must be at the very top of the Embarrassment List the president keeps. And at U. Penn, that list, given the years of sanctioned child molesting, is a really, really big list.
Re: Nov 2, 2013 at 1:10 AM | 52
"Britain's national debt is over £900 billion, which equals £40,000 for every working person in the UK and the government throws away more money on a self-pitying absurdity masquerading as science."
Yes indeed, it would seem an utterly absurd waste of money, but one could perhaps conjecture that it is flawed papers such as theirs that are contributing to the public backlash against the 'science'!
Interesting to note that the BBC published an article recently
"Are conspiracy theories destroying democracy?"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24650841
which solicited a large number of comments (though unfortunately the BBC saw fit to close commenting after only one day).
Interesting to note the most recommended comments -
223. With 195 votes
C_Cat
27th October 2013 - 2:47
"Are conspiracy theories destroying democracy?"
No, democracy is being destroyed by:
- vested interests highjacking the democratic process in order to perpetuate privilege
- unending government & media propaganda designed to keep the masses frightened & divided
- a legal system that is slow, expensive &, hence, inaccessible to the average person
- the insatiable greed of business
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24650841?postId=117736947#comment_117736947
11. With 137 votes
Extraterrestrial
27th October 2013 - 0:31
"Conspiracy theorist" is a term often used to deride and quieten people with genuine reservations of official accounts because the evidence is lacking, or simply does not stack up.
People claiming that the NSA were secretly monitoring communications several years ago would have been been pigeon holed thus and yet people who have "faith" in an unproven but mainstream "belief" go unquestioned.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24650841?postId=117736634#comment_117736634
Perhaps not quite what the BBC were hoping for!!!
In a day when a child pointing a finger and saying "bang" leads to a suspension for bullying, I am sure that any email Mann and Lew (and other luminaries) receive that criticizes them is bullying in the same sense.
Social justice, is the sole preserve of the left, I rather think not Richard, in fact the opposite may be more true.
Methodism, Christianity - is inclusive of those who stand on the left and right, what we need in Britain is inclusiveness of all and actual representation, we do not get this from any of the main political parties, left, middle left and far left, Lib, Conservative and Labour respectively.
Anyone, who espouses the policies of left wing 'thinking' and with it the end of collectivism needs to get a reality check. Similarly, anyone who regards the Conservatives as the party of the right - needs to think again, the Conservatives are the party of corporate business, they are playing a game at the moment in trying to call to account many big multinationals who do business in the UK and from water and energy to Google and Starbucks: it's a farce they sit in the pockets of the multinationals. . Know this - there's a chasm between these Crony Conservatives and those who desire small government and realistic policy based on true representation and personal freedom.
The left are more than welcome to join free Britain but they must discard their Marxist baggage and devotion to PC. Freedom and for those - who want Britain to be once more a sovereign nation out of the EU, independent and free of the statist policy, welfarism and released from the overbearing tax burden we all labour under - give us our money back, we must govern ourselves - that means responsibility needs to be taken by everybody and most of all: taken back from government - after all "the people" are the government.
Richard North's Harrogate Agenda is the best way forwards for us all. See it here.
Marion: I'm not sure the BBC has a party line on conspiracy theories in general. Look at their report on Project Paperclip in November 2005, which I mentioned during one of our earliest discussions of Dr Loo in August last year. The report last week was about the rather interesting new project at Cambridge called Conspiracy & Democracy. In the video David Runciman makes clear he doesn't consider conspiracy theorist as automatically pejorative. They'll be much more of this kind of thing in the run up to the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F Kennedy on 22nd November. A big subject - one of many one ends up grappling with just because of an interest in climate. Strange world.
Adam Gallon: The development of what we might call the doctrine of denialism in the Mann/Loo collaboration is for me related and perhaps the most interesting point. Thanks for bringing it up.
Athelstan: Iain Duncan Smith founded the Centre for Social Justice in 2004. It wasn't at all clear at that point that David Cameron would put IDS in charge of the DWP if he became prime minister. But he did. Point taken. I never meant to imply that social justice was only a concern of the self-defined left. Only that 'false consciousness gibberish' wasn't the only thing they might have to offer :)
I'm also for smaller government than we currently have. So is David Laws. I was struck this week that Laws is now part of the most relevant cabinet committee - the Public Expenditure Committee. Will that change anything? Once vested interests have so many hooks in the system, how does it ever reform? In the bad old days of the 18th century one had Edmund Burke and John Wesley. Which did most to change things for the better? These questions are for me the really fascinating ones.
Fred, Michael Mann is at Penn State University, not UPenn.
Pennsylvania State University's primary campus is in State College, PA, in the middle of the state. The University of Pennsylvania is located in Philadelphia.
Alumni do not like to see them conflated.
Re: Nov 2, 2013 at 2:39 PM | Richard Drake
"In the video David Runciman makes clear he doesn't consider conspiracy theorist as automatically pejorative."
Just as well, Richard, as under the current bandying of the term Runciman himself could find himself accused -
"Conspiracy theorist enters government shock! ....He is also well known as a tenancious campaigner, whose investigations helped prompt Peter Mandelson’s second resignation from the government and revealed early on the widespread abuse by MPs of their expenses claims. Even conspiracy theorists can be right some of the time.
More striking is what his promotion (to the Home Office of all places!) says about the goings on within the Coalition. Nick Clegg demanded it and apparently Home Secretary Theresa May is ‘spitting tacks’ as a result. From the outside it looks pretty peculiar – Clegg must be playing a complicated game to want someone like Baker causing trouble inside the tent rather than out. When a conspiracy theorist enters the government, it is tempting to think a conspiracy must be at work."
http://www.conspiracyanddemocracy.org/blog/conspiracy-theorist-enters-government-shock/
"I'm also for smaller government than we currently have. So is David Laws. I was struck this week that Laws is now part of the most relevant cabinet committee - the Public Expenditure Committee. Will that change anything? Once vested interests have so many hooks in the system, how does it ever reform?"
Well I'm all for smaller government, much smaller!!
But I'm not sure I share your hopes re David Laws. Too easy to talk the talk, but do they walk?
The usual level of hypocrisy at play -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/7783687/David-Laws-resigns-over-expenses-claim.html
And he seems quite happy to toe the party line most of the time -
http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/mp.php?mpn=David_Laws&mpc=Yeovil&house=commons
Marion (3:44 PM): I pick David Laws partly for this reason, partly because of the strength of his argument from history. He may not always walk the walk - but do any of us? He who is without hypocrisy let him replace the current cabinet. :)
Marion (3:10 PM): Yeah, I read that one already :) As discussed in the memorable month of July 2011 on Climate Audit I broadly agree with Norman Baker in believing David Kelly must have been murdered so I'm perfectly happy with the Lib Dem man at the Home Office on that score.
But in almost all of these cases where some of us doubt the official version of events the data is highly complex. As John Naughton, one of the three lead researchers with Runciman at the Cambridge project, puts it in the BBC article:
I thought that was a bit wet in fact. What one needs is more humility, not contempt, in the face of such complexity. But better this than making out that anyone who comes up with a different interpretation than you is automatically mentally ill.
The other key corollary for those of us doubting some of the official line on climate is that we will never all agree on every other area where conspiracy theories, so called, have developed. Just because Dr Loo paints us as all the same doesn't make it true - like a lot of other things that great scholar comes up with. We are bound to come to different conclusions on the manifold details of the climate debate and all the more so in areas of study which are a million miles away from it. But we can, I believe, learn to work effectively together despite this, for the common good.
Bottom line is : Have people's "science" been VALIDATED by multiple independent replications ?
- saying "We are all authoritative people and we say we did it 5 years ago behind closed doors in our office, and got it published and reviewed by our mates, who all said it looked OK" ....just is not good enough & is not science.
I notice you use a manufactured word "scientivist." I am not sure whether you mean by this a concatenation and shortening of "scientific activist," or a pseudoscientist. If you intend the later, then you may not know that another term was coined for this many years ago by Oliver Heaviside, i.e., "scienticulist."
See, for reference, http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Heaviside.html
BBC and conspiracy theories
Rule 1 if you don't want people to have mad conspiracy theories about the BBC organizing a secret Climate meeting, then DON'T HAVE a mad secret climate meeting and DON'T SPEND hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal costs trying to cover up, that you had a secret Climate meeting.
(28gate)
Comments are now starting to appear below Mann & Loopy's paper.
Encouragingly - they are uniformly hostile to the evil twins, even though they don't seem to come from identifiable sceptics.
Hope the Bish doesn't mind but I thought as a service to APS and all diligent climate communicators out there - here are all the comment on this piece being shown as of the date of this comment. Anyone whose doesn't see their submitted missive will just have to suck it up or adjust their tin foil hat ;)
"Nov 2, 2013 at 11:11 AM | Richard Drake"
The problems started for the Labour movement in Britain when the North London intellectuals moved in on it; by that mean the eugenicist Fabians, not the later Blairites.
@litb: The comment from Annette has to be the eye-opener! I read it and went, 'wow!!' Then: 'bastards!'
Ah creepy is back with its feculent vomiting.
I'd like to think that while it was spewing its vileness that it was into the face of a strong northerly.
PM
Adam wrote,
===
Maybe you should pause a moment and consider why climate science is held in low regard. Consider Dr P. Jones response to a request for information. “Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”
===
As I previously noted, the similarities to antismoking "science" are pronounced. Here's the response I got from researcher Marita Hefler after a request that she share her research on how to "use" Facebook, Twitter, etc for "Tobacco Control Advocacy." Her initial response was: "I would be happy to forward a copy, but would you be able to provide some more information about your group including name, contact details, website etc?" I replied openly and honestly, got no response, until I'd sent five followup, polite, reminders. I then received this:
"I have no interest in assisting you or your group."
So much for openness and honesty in sharing scientific research, eh? Both climate research and the social engineering aspects of "Tobacco Control" have been hopelessly corrupted by enormous and one-sided funding (I don't know climate funding specifics, but the AMA pegs "Tobacco Control" spending, just from the MSA smokers tax allocations, at between $500 million and $900 million PER YEAR!), and the the support of only one side of the story. In both cases you also have an "idealism" at play in which the activist-researchers justify their sloppy or misleading work by telling themselves, "Well, it's for the greater good." or "It can't hurt: after all, ANY sort of pollution is bad." or "Better safe than sorry."
Antismoking advocates have been playing this game a lot longer and with a lot more money than the warmers: you should look to their history and methods to see where they're heading and where they've gotten their methodological inspiration from. Remember the "Warming Train" hurtling toward the little girl on the railroad tracks? How about the "Thirdhand Smoke Monster" drifting through through a window and along a heating duct into a little teddy bear to attack a similar little girl? Read Snowdon's "Velvet Glove, Iron Fist" for the historical insight, and my own "Brains" and "TobakkoNacht" for the psychological, media, linguistic, and scientific trickery used in the past for antismoking campaigns and in the present for climate campaigns.
- MJM
It might be appropriate here to again mention the Numberwatch site (right sidebar) and its superb essay 'March of the Zealots'
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/zealots.htm
Another dreary, careerist salvo from Micky "Crock of Shit" Mann.
The CAGW movement is, if nothing else, an interesting case study in who rises to the top of a highly politicised academic establishment at a time of stagnating or even declining career prospects for most.
I am having problems too- can't access Unthreaded, colour all over the place, side bars and blue bar at the top in a shambles
how about referring to Mann and Lew as activists posing as academics?
So far people have failed to prove a LINEAR relationship between CO2 and temperature
but there is a LINEAR relationship between Trolling and CO2
..the more I have to put up with trolling, the more CO2 I will produce
Flights, motorbike/car trips join the BH REWARD disLOYALTY scheme
Michael Mann and Stephan Lewandowsky have a typically overwrought article at the website of the Association of Psychological Science.
This is good stuff! They should be encouraged to write a lot more in the same vein.
Everywhere I look, I can see the establishment view of Climate Change shifting. The only chance left for the AGW Team is to agree that there''s a hiatus, and argue that more work needs to be done to investigate the new situation. Instead, I can see them stubbornly clinging to the old line - claiming that the Earth is still warming, making even direr predictions, and claiming that there should be no investigation of their earlier work because the 'science is settled'.
With that kind of defence, they will be dropped rapidly. And this paper just makes their demise more swift and certain.
Fair comment Richard, I'd better not go on, I've spoiled the thread as it is.
Apologies to Andrew.
A certain troll makes a great point: Why should we listen to those who claim that a ~20 year move in certain temperature averages are significant. when the history shows larger swings over periods more like 60 years?