Bishop Hill Celebrating bad science
Apr 20, 2014 Climate: IPCC Climate: Mann Climate: Pachauri Climate: Parliament Yeo When the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee considered the Fifth Assessment Report a few months ago I was surprised when chairman Tim Yeo asked witnesses about the Hockey Stick. Although central to the Third Assessment and still relevant to the Fourth, I was of the view that its importance had now waned as all but the activist parts of the climatological community seem to have quietly accepted its methodological...ahem...peculiarities.
Like so many of his colleagues, Brian Hoskins seemed unable to say clearly that the Hockey Stick was wrong but, with a wonderful sirhumphreyish circumlocution, allowed the committee to understand that this was in fact the case:
Q3 Chair: Do you have any anxiety that controversies that arose from previous reports—take the hockey stick graph that seems to be referred to quite frequently—may cast doubt on the conclusions reached in AR5?
Professor Sir Brian Hoskins: There is a concern always if previous mistakes have been made, as in some cases, or maybe be accentuation of one view. It is a group of people and mistakes will be made and that should not reflect on anything in the future for that body. Of course, we should all be sceptical and we are all sceptical the whole time; so probing it must go on. It is not going to be taken as the Bible, but it should be taken as the view of a large group of scientists from the diverse range of where the scientists come from and this is the consensus view given by them. That is what it is. There must always be a concern if then people can return to a mistake made 20 years ago or an accentuation made 20 years ago to down excellent work that has been done now. There must be a concern.
I couldn't help but remember Hoskins' words when I saw this photo on Twitter yesterday. It shows the President of Yale, Peter Salovey, making a presentation to IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri.
As Max Planck noted, science advances one funeral at a time. On that basis, expect Yale to continue to celebrate junk science for many years to come.
Reader Comments (19)
And so the circus continues its way to the inevitable train wreck of finding who will take the blame.
As usual, the politicians like Hoskins will survive.
Presumably Hoskins was knighted for services to verbosity?
Where Yes Prime Minister is concerned there are a wealth of examples that are relevant....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNKjShmHw7s
When was that photo taken? Surely not recently
That reply must have been written by Antony Jay! Surely?
Or possibly it's too humphreyish even for Humphrey.
A fine example of the intellectual dishonesty that has been the driving force of the whole CAGW issue from the start.
The hockey stick wasn't a mistake. It was deliberate distortion of the evidence to produce what the politicians and activists wanted. Yet again, Hoskins distorts the truth.
Brian Hoskins supports the sceptical position:
Isn't that how these people twist logic normally?
I'm currently reading Mann's book "The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars" (library book, didn't buy it!), and he is saying the hockey stick is valid. Is this one of those things where both sides claim victory?
Mann is saying the hockey stick is valid? MRDA . Well he would, wouldn't he., doesn't make it so.
Factual. Substantial faults were published, peer reviewed, about the hockey stick statistics by McIntyre and McKitrick, as is well known.
Sir Brian's stance cannot be justified unless he demonstrates that M&M were wrong. I have not seen this done except in a crackpot way on a couple of delusional blogs, the arguments being so weak that dismissal is appropriate.
It is highly irregular and quite unscientific to promote discredited data. I'd call it pathetic for a person of standing.
Just flicked through these minutes only to be reminded of what a disgraceful chairman Yeo is. The way he leads the witnesses and misrepresents their views. His ejection from Parliament cannot come quickly enough.
They're 'aving a larf.
University president whose organization benefits hugely from monetizing a non-existent problem presents a potent symbol of discredited science to an international committee head whose obscenely large, expensive and unwieldy organization has been responsible for encouraging a uniquely one-sided view of science.
You couldn't make it up.
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2014/04/18/conference-considers-energy-future/
Sir Brian appears to have taken Dickens' short and witty essay 'The Circumlocution Office' as his model.
"Accentuation"? Now there's a euphemism to savour like a fine cognac. Mmmmmh that's good.
THE HOCKEY STICK
There was a crooked Mann
Who played a crooked trick
And had a crooked plan
To make a crooked stick
By using crooked math
That favored crooked lines
Lysenko's crooked path
Led thru the crooked pines
And all his crooked friends
Applaud what crooked seems
But all that crooked ends
Derives from crooked means
Eugene WR Gallun
So "There must be a concern." and that is all?
Fudged figures in the research and "There must be a concern."
Wholesale hijacking of grant money and "There must be a concern."
Researchers and heads of department whose primary aim appears to be politics not science, and "There must be a concern."
Yes I'm concerned, I'm concerned that more taxpayer's money is being spent on this foolishness.
I'm so concerned that I vote - and if I can, I vote often - for the candidate that can get us out of this steaming pile of dog-mess.
"so probing it must go on."
He's not allowed to question "the science"!! That's Denier talk!
Answer to Mr. Hoskin:
Unfortunately, although the answer was indeed clear, simple, and straightforward, there is some difficulty in justifiably assigning to it the fourth of the epithets you applied to the statement, inasmuch as the precise correlation between the information you communicated and the facts, insofar as they can be determined and demonstrated, is such as to cause epistemological problems, of sufficient magnitude as to lay upon the logical and semantic resources of the English language a heavier burden than they can reasonably be expected to bear.
You told a lie.