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- benhocking, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4So, we take a story about oral cancer, where the journal Science has asked the question: "Suppose his findings, which precisely identified people at high risk of the deadly disease, were accurate even though data were faked?" and we take that to mean:
(1) The journal Science is advocating science where the data is faked as long as the premise is accurate (which they're not), and
(2) This is relevant to global climate change?!?
How in the world is this "Proof of less than solid ethics within the scientific community regarding global climate change"?!? All this proves is that occasionally, a small minority of scientists lie. It's happened in particle physics, cloning, and medicine. Are we now supposed to believe that all results in these fields are suspect? Or, should we believe that all results from the scientists who engaged in this fraud are suspect?
Regarding the connection to global climate change, this is definitely inaccurate. - phonest, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The article is a hatchet job. It says the Mann hockey stick is "fake". Actually, Wegman found that it was slightly flawed, not faked. The article also misrepresents the facts about the hockey stick.
If you are interested in further reading about global temperature change over the past thousand years, I recommend the executive summary of the National Academy of Sciences "Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2000 Years":
http://newton.nap.edu/execsumm_pdf/11676 (caution, pdf link)
The money quote:
"It can be said with a high level of confidence that global mean surface temperature was higher during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period during the preceding four centuries....less confidence can be placed in large-scale surface temperature reconstructions for the period from AD 900 to 1600. Presently available proxy evidence indicates that temperatures at many, but not all, individual locations were higher during the past 25 years than during any period of comparable length since AD 900....Very little confidence can be assigned to statements concerning the hemispheric mean or global mean surface temperature prior to about AD 900...."
snip
"The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes both additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and pronounced changes in a variety of local proxy indicators, such as melting on icecaps and the retreat of glaciers around the world, which in many cases appear to be unprecedented during at least the last 2000 years. Not all individual proxy records indicate that the recent warmth is unprecedented, although a larger fraction of geographically diverse sites experienced exceptional warmth during the late 20th century than during any other extended period from AD 900 onward." - Lambert58, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Excellent compilation of links and references. Thank you.
I do, however resent your implication that being christian and conservative somehow disqualifies someone from the discussion. - shefftim, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The author of this is a Christian-conservative with a demonstrable political axe to grind against the notion of Climate Change as demonstrated in:
http://www.makehasteslowly.com/galileo_redux.htm
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5772
He’s also got bit of an anti science bias:
How Scientific Pride & Idolatry Blot Out the Perception of God
http://www.newoxfordreview.org/article.jsp?did=1101-carson
I’m just establishing that he’s not a dispassionate observer.
OK – after a long dissection of the proceedings of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the author of this article gets down to the final act of the drama. The report produced by Edward Wegman of George Mason University, Chairman of the Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics of the National Academy of Sciences.
Though some seem to see the Wegman report into the ‘hockey stick’ report on climate change as contradicting its findings on climate change, it doesn’t. For example the last line of the report – I quote it below in full:
“The most conclusive finding is that the 20th century is the most anomalous interval in the entire period of analysis, including significant positive extremes in the proxy records.” Wegman report.
In plainer language:
More 'anomolous' [defined as ‘deviating from the normal or common order, form, or rule’] than the 'significant positive extremes in the proxy records'. That includes the Medieval Warming Period and Little Ice Age period.
Wegman backs the conclusion of the Mann [IPPC] Report:
a) There is Climate Change - and b) It is more significant than the other unusually significant climate changes that we have seen before over the past thousand years of civilisation. (This includes the Medieval Warming Period and Little Ice Age period.)
That statement firmly backs the idea that global warming/climate change is occurring. It’s not a hoax as some claim.
And much other evidence produced by the scientific community supports the claim that the earth’s climate is changing. Actually there’s very little disagreement over climate change per se [The average surface temperature around the globe has risen by about 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1880.] the argument is over its cause.
‘The National Academy of Sciences recently reviewed this issue. In a report released on June 22, entitled Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years, the Academy concluded that, while Mann’s statistical procedures weren’t optimal, the procedure did not unduly distort his conclusions, which the Academy reinforced. “The basic conclusion of Mann et al. was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes both additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and pronounced changes in a variety of local proxy indicators, such as melting on icecaps and the retreat of glaciers around the world, which in many cases appear to be unprecedented during at least the last 2,000 years.’
http://www.aaas.org/spp/cstc/stc/index.shtml
And other witnesses, as well as North - quoted by Carson - also backed up Manns conclusions before the committee:
http://www.pewclimate.org/what_s_being_done/in_the_congress/7_27_06.cfm
http://www7.nationalacademies.org/ocga/testimony/Climate_Change_Evidence_and_Future_Projections.asp
As for the issue of peer review it turned out under cross-examination that Wegman also had ‘social networks’: (as does any scientist who doesn’t work as a complete hermit.)
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=072606G
and the Wegman report hadn’t been peer reviewed at all.
It’s also notable that McIntyre and McKitrick, despite spending much time nit-picking over whether the 1990’s were the hottest decade, can’t themselves commit to naming a month that was hotter.
If you want another, more balanced view of the report and hearings then Eric Berger gives one from a scientific viewpoint in:
http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2006/07/the_climate_cha.html - Lambert58, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Excellent compilation of links and references. Thank you.
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