What disturbs me about all of this is the common public reaction to it -- there is truly a dearth of comprehension of the scientific process.
If you doubt me, see the comment left by a fellow I know personally and consider quite intelligent, on my blog-post at
http://www.functionalisminaction...ic-
process.html
Any scientist will tell you that the review process does not always or even usually include data checks. Keenan's rebuttal is an example of the process at work; denialists jumping on this and using it to cast aspersions on...everything else...is not.
What Keenan did is an example of proper skepticism, not the nonsense that passes for it. Somehow the word "skeptic" is coming to mean one who disagrees. A pity, as it elevates cheap and often irrational, argumentless obstinacy for to the level of high intellectual inquiry.
Hats off to Keenan!
Why is this the only topic you comment on anymore, Ben?
You're more than a one-trick pony.
Skeptic doesn’t mean disagree it means to question. And I question the anthropogenic warming claims. In this case the real story I emphasized is the one you glossed over. First, we had a study that was not properly checked. It was a study heavily based on numbers and no one reviewed the numbers. If the numbers are false the conclusion is false. And the numbers were false. Keenan thought the numbers were so obviously falsed he suggest this article was scientific fraud.
So we have a seriously flawed, if not falsified, study published with no review of the data on which it was based. It did, however, tell the AGW crowd precisely what they wanted to hear. And the study was then trumpeted in the press very widely as more “proof” of AGW theory. In fact it was not proof. It doesn’t disprove it but it clearly doesn’t support it.
What it does do is show the willingness of the AGW people to print without verification anything that seems to bolster their side. And the media then trumpets these false facts to the public. Al Gore does precisely the same thing, even misquoting the IPCC when convenient while praising them.
And I do think this story and what you say does cause a problem for the IPCC. This story shows the data was not checked. You say the data is not usually checked. So the preponderence of the studies out there came with data that is not checked. (I bet anyone questioning this theory who submits a paper would have the data checked very carefully.)
But the IPCC does no studies and checks nothing. It merely takes what was printed and then has a grou write a paper on what the literature says -- including, no doubt, this very study. That synopsis of the unchecked literature is then in the hands of the lead author, some of who have been caught changing sentences to reflect their views instead of what the committe wrote. In some cases he has basically reversed the claims into their opposite which has lead to some high profile resignations from the IPCC. After this it is then given to politicians who write it again with their political agenda in mind. And then that is released to the public with much publicity. Weeks and months later the actual report is released . The public statements are political statements hyped up for press coverage in a way that would be improper for a scienctific work.
I find this process of “reaching consensus” deeply flawed.
Ben Kalafut writes that "Keenan's rebuttal is an example of the process at work", however if Keenan's article didn't appear in Nature and wasn't read by the same people, and same numbers of people, as the original article, then the net effect is that the review system might just as well not have existed. The lies were still broadcast large and the truth writ small. If the system that is supposed to prevent lies in the first place is negligent in stopping them, then to claim that the system works because one man managed to shout a little truth is hardly a genuine claim.
It is not now and never has been about the environment. It is about private property and individual liberty. Those who want a bigger government see global warming from anthropogenic causes as their current (and perhaps last) best hope for draconian measures to strip private property and individual liberty from everyone and consolidate that power into the hands of whoever controls the state. These maniax always see themselves in control of the state, of course.
Rachel Carson and her false data on DDT condemned tens of millions of people to death from malaria and other mosquito borne illnesses. The current crop of enviro-wackos and their lies won't be satisfied until they raise a new soviet of internationalist socialism or a new nationalist socialist workers party. They won't be happy until everything has been made a bureaucracy and everyone made a bureau-rat.
As Ludwig von Mises noted years ago, rivers of blood have been shed for the accomplishment of this goal. It is childish in the sense that it demands that everyone deny their own personal responsibility for anything and place their property and liberty in the hands of those supposedly elite in the ways of government to tell them what to do. It is monstrous in the sense that no one else can ever know what is best for me, nor can I ever know what is best for thee. And no amount of killing those who won't kowtow to the icon of the state is ever going to satisfy these monstrous maniacs.
You can talk about whether the data supports one set of conclusions or another if you wish. I'm satisfied that the Earth is mostly warmed by the Sun, and that the dinosaurs had no great difficulty with a much warmer Earth. I'm satisfied that the Medieval maximum was a period before 1370 when things were much warmer and Europe prospered.
What horrifies me is that these various sects of socialism and state worship were responsible for the massacre of about 250 million people. Some 74 million in Soviet Russia, about 80 million in China under Mao, perhaps 30 million in Hitler's occupied Europe, and tens of millions in combat casualties, just in the 20th Century. A quarter of a billion people whose bodies were mangled, whose souls were tortured, whose lives were expunged so some trust-fund kid would not have to work very hard to keep his inherited fortune, so some bureau-rat could get his incompetent nephew a job, so the prosperity of free market economics could be denied to whoever it is that those in power seek to keep down.
Look upon the mangled bodies of these people and then say whether you shall bow and scrape before the imperial majesty of your would-be rulers. Or thrust a (metaphorical?) bayonet through the stomachs of the next set of socialist curs that come around whining for more taxes, regulations, and government power.
It comes down to two groups. Those who want to leave you alone, asking only the courtesy that you leave them alone. These are various stripes of liberta
I think that some of the hyperlinks are misaligned. For example, the hyperlinks anchored to "His response" and "the article" are interchanged.
Davidson: are you taking your medication?
You say that when we talk about the environment we're really advocating socialism. Give me a break. That's paranoid ideation if there ever was any. And changing the subject to socialism is appropriate because...?
Have you been reading Randist talking points lately? Some ideologue from the ARI puts out an ill-wrought op-ed about Rachel Carson and DDT and next thing you know, I see it brought up here. Check the comment board over at Rational Review to see just what Carson *really* said about DDT. You'll find the position to be far more humanist than you let on.
Now of course "the earth is mostly warmed by the sun"--that's a truism, and perhaps it's equivocation, as you're using the word "warm" in a different sense. And yes, the earth was warmer millions of years ago--so what! That's not what this is about. I ought to assume that you're merely ignorant and not dishonest, but anyone who deigns to talk about this issue should know better. Learn what global warming is about--what AGW means and why it's considered a problem--before you open your mouth, and before you go vote!
This story is very amazing since people refers to Keenan paper but probably never read it. A very rapid examination of Keenan paper is sufficient to see that is totally wrong!
First the paper is itself contradictory since in summary it is claim that "method is highly unfounded" whereas the conclusion is "method is wrong to detect hottest year even if it work on average". First of all Keenan lies when he says that reconstructed temperature for 2003 was overestimated by 2.4° since overestimation is just 1.6°. Second 2003 clearly the higher ever recorded summer temperature for burgundy for more than 2° that can be considered indeed as tremendously warm !
Likewise it is never said in Chuine paper that 1945 1947 and 1952 was much lower that actual temperature ! On the opposite Keenan show that the 3 temperatures are around 1 standard deviation higher than mean temperature for period 1960-1990 and Keenan conclude that is "nearly average". It is amazing for a somebody that claim to be a specialist of statistics to said that mean+standard deviation=mean! we probably had not the same teacher in mathematics !
In fact, since distribution is not gaussian, everyone can check that the data of Chuine are freely available) all the three years 1945,1947 and 1952 are ranked, in the reconstructed temperature as the 10% of the warmer years !!!!
When Keenan says that data was published with essentially no checking of work prior to publication. It is obviously totally wrong since, in the paper itself a table gives the correlation between estimated temperature and the main others temperature proxys as well as differents direct temperature records.
In summary the paper published by Keenan in T.A.C is totally wrong. What is strange is that Keenan could pass the peer review process. What is also strange is that T.A.C never contact the authors of the Chuine et a.l. paper who would had no difficulties to shows that this paper was totally hipped. One point that Keenan does not notice in is explanations is that in fact Keenan first try to publish a comment to Nature that was rejected after the arguments of the Chuine et al. authors of the paper and from others rewievers.
Another interesting point is that Keenan was surprised by the fact Chuine replied "no data was send to Nature" showing that he clearly don't know the normal process of paper submission to a journal. A journal is not a database! so you submit papers not data. What Keenan says about problem to have the data is also totally wrong! if the data was not sent to Nature, they are freely available on NOAA database So Keenan like everybody was able to retrieved the data!
I discuss of that with the authors. In fact he ask more data that used in the paper, something that authors was not obliged to give to Keenan but the do !
if it took long time it is just because is request was totally confuse !
At the final it obtain all the data he wanted.
Karlst -- if you want to be taken seriously, calm yourself down.
BenK: Your response was just as disingenious, but of course you will never recognize that.
IanC. I am really calm but I would just rectify the truth about this story that is really a shame. Remenber that Keenan used the term "fraud" it is about slandering !
Where in the demonstration of Keenan there is any indication of a Fraud ?
Moreover, as a said, just a small scientific background is sufficient to see that demonstration of Keenan as non sense and that Chuine et al. paper is clearly valid !
In fact the main discover that apparently surprised Keenan is that grape harvest like others temperature proxy is less precise that a thermometer ! But as given in the Chuine paper correlation with temperature is about 0.7 which is certainly not perfect but better than most of others proxy !
Karlst: thanks for pointing this out!
IanC: How else is one to respond to something nutty? I weary of having to respond to craziness a la Davidson. Some people want to talk about AGW, others want to say that this is really about socialism or pink elephants or whatnot.
You know, trying to dig out the math on a lot of this stuff is difficult.
We should all know that ice expands as it freezes and that things float because they displace a greater mass of water than their own mass. Which is why 9/10 of an iceberg is under water. So if all the polar pack ice were to melt, the net effect on the sea level would be nada.
Alright there's a lot of ice that's above sea level, but how much?
Then theres a little geometry to consider. The Earth is more or less spherical, the volume of a sphere is 4/3 Pi R cubed. Most of what I've seen seems to imply that they worked out the rise in sea level by assuming you were pouring water ont a flat surface. Bit of thought and you can see that on a flat surface the rise is the volume of water divided by the area you pour it on. Not quite the same thing.
That of course ignores the fact that as the sea level rises it covers more land, so the area it covers goes up to. And lets face it, look at a map (better yet, look at a globe, Mercator projection and all that)LOTS of sea, not much ice...
Frankly, I'm not that interested. What really annoys me about it is that the fact that digging the data out is so hard implies, to my mind, one of two things, either the math is dodgy, or someone thinks I'm stupid. Possibly both.
Then you got this CO2 thing. Which if I've got it right is saying that we shouldn't be burning fossil fuels as it puts CO2 in the atmosphere and that's a bad thing.
So, fossil fuels. That'll be Carbon that was originally in the biosphere then? And by putting it in the atmosphere you make it available for things like trees to fix don't you?
So has this got anything to do with the fact that we've been having ice ages for the last 65 million years? You know, 65 million years ago, when a big rock gave us the Gulf of Mexico and took away Dinosaurs. Apparently turning something like 60% of the biosphere into fossil fuels...
Well I say 60%, but I haven't checked the math.
I've yet to meet anyone who disputes that there have been ice ages roughly every forty thousand years for the last 65 million years. Well OK, Bishop what's his face said it was all made in 4004 B.C. (but hey, I haven't checked his math either..). So round about the time all this Carbon got buried (apparently), things started getting cold.
And putting it back in the atmosphere is going to make it hot again.
Not rocket science then is it. However if you ever heard of Edward Lorenz, and Chaos theory, then you might have reason to doubt the predicted outcome. Sensitive dependence on initial conditions and all that.
So what's my point? Well, should we live that long, anyone want a bet? I got a hundred bucks that says in a hundred years time the terms "Global Warming" amd "Lysenkoism" are synonymous.....
Keenan's web site lists a second paper that he has published exposing another global-warming study published in Nature. This time Keenan is explicitly alleging fraud. See
http://www.informath.org/pubs/EnE07a.pdf
and
http://www.informath.org/apprise...prise/
a5620.htm
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