“Bruce largely judged the book’s relevance based on what the author’s personal beliefs are, and later when he found out that Tom isn’t as orthodox as Bruce previously thought, he felt betrayed. This is pretty cut and dry ad hominem.”

If Bruce had been challenging Todd’s overall scholarship, you would have been correct. But he only argues that Todd lacks integrity to publish a book and claim to believe in Mormonism when in fact he does not.

This may or may not be true, but this was the actual claim and that is not an ad hominem attack because it’s potentially a real issue.

Unless you are one of those people that thinks good scholarship = objective truth, even you would have to admit that a book like Todd’s reads differently if you think of it as a pro-Mormon apologist that can’t seem to find anything but negative examples compared to if you think of it as a pro-NOM apologist that is intentionally selecting negative examples.

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But I don’t think that scientists acting like asshats is particularly relevant. Current climate science — such as it is — strongly supports global warming as a real phenomenon and AGW as a major cause. There is little scientific controversy (as opposed to much political controversy — mainly in America; it’s a non-issue in many countries) about this.

So I accept the current science of climate change (again, such as it is) in the same way I try to accept everything I “know”: tentatively, unless/until I am dissuaded by better information. So far, I haven’t seen anything like that better information. Almost all I’ve seen is political smoke-blowing (and that mainly from people who are almost always wrong about almost everything anyway).

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I never referred to the “trick” e-mail above. I do not know that it is a particularly telling e-mail. I don’t know that all the e-mails (there are a lot) portray significant problems with the scientists. Please tell me how I have misinterpreted the ones I have quoted.

Wha…? I never said that you did. You’ve repeatedly asked me about the statement from my original post (before any of your comments):

It looks like a large segment of the American public thinks that a couple of out-of-context quotes from some leaked emails constitute knock-out-punch evidence that global warming is a lie.

I’ve been totally transparent about what I meant by that. I was referring to the “hide the divide” and the “trick” quotes that hit the press running, and have been discussed. If you have something else to discuss, I’ve said repeatedly that I’m ready to discuss it in a reasonable manner. However, if all you’re looking for is a duel to the death, I’m really not interested.

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I am not certain what impact it will have on the scientific consensus on climate change. I think it will and already has change(d) the methods climate scientists use, and the IPCC in the future will follow different methods in issuing reports. How this will affect analyses of data, I have no idea.

How much of the community is “tainted?” I am not so sure what you mean by this, for the following reasons. Everyone in science has their biases and personal interests. Science is somewhat political already. Does this hurt science as a whole? Not enough to destroy it, certainly. The e-mails themselves can only implicate those directly involved. That said, I do think it’s a good reminder for all scientists to think about how they approach what they do.

One problem with climate science, and part of what sets it apart from another example, like medicine (you originally mentioned a vaccines example), is that, as was pointed out in the article I linked in #20, “Medical research has long been concerned with the introduction of such bias, which is why they conduct double blind studies when testing the efficacy of a medical treatment. Any such bias could be checked by independent analyses of the data” and she goes on to point out that climate scientists had been preventing independent analyses of their data, which is why people had to resort to freedom of information requests.

Climategate does not mean that AGW is right or wrong. It does mean that there have been serious problems with some prominent climate scientists’ work. Will this affect the future analysis? I don’t know. That’s a separate question.

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Please also tell me which quotes are questionable.

I’ve already explained what I meant by out-of-context @10. I’ve said there’s no need for hostility, and yet you keep harping on this question. As a show of good faith, I’ll give you a specific example, with the use of the word “trick” discussed here.

Now it’s your turn to make a show of good faith by answering my questions that I posed above. What do you think is the impact w.r.t. the scientific consensus on climate change? Where do you draw the line around how much of the scientific community is tainted? And Why?

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Please also tell me which quotes are questionable.

I will, however, point everyone towards an interesting opinion piece in “Physics Today,” which is the membership journal of the American Institute of Physics. The AIP is an umbrella organization that includes the American Physical Society, American Geophysical Union, Optical Society of America, American Astronomical Society, and a few others – it includes many thousands of scientists, and basically all prominent scientists in these fields of physics, astronomy, optics, geophysics, etc., in the USA are members of one or more of these societies. The AIP also publishes a number of regular journals. The article is written by Judity Curry, who is the Chair and Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech. I just learned about this article today as I went through this month’s “Physics Today.”

http://blogs.physicstoday.org/politics/2010/02/opinion-can-scientists-rebuild.html

In this article she gives a history of what are called “climate auditors.” These people apparently started their work a few years ago (I believe less than five years ago). She says “They tend to be watchdogs rather than deniers” and “They are independent of oil industry influence.” Some of their concerns are as follows:

“They are concerned about inadvertent introduction of bias into the CRU temperature data by having the same people who create the dataset use the dataset in research and in verifying climate models; this concern applies to both Hansen’s group at NASA and the connection between CRU and the UK’s Meteorological Office’s Hadley Centre. This concern is exacerbated by the choice of Hansen to become a policy advocate, and his forecasts of forthcoming “warmest years.” ”

“people outside the inner circle were unable to obtain access to the information required to link the raw data to the final analyzed product. Further, creation of the surface data sets was treated like a research project, with no emphasis on data quality analysis, and there was no independent oversight. Given the importance of these data sets both to scientific research and public policy, they feel that greater public accountability is required. [Editor's note: Some of the datasets at CRU are not owned by the university, nor do they have permission to release proprietary information into the public domain. However, the announcement today that the world's major meteorological organizations are going to open access to some of their climate data may reduce the likelihood that this will happen in future.]”

“Steve McIntyre’s early critiques of the hockey stick were dismissed and he was characterized as a shill for the oil industry. Academic/blogospheric guerilla warfare ensued, as the academic researchers tried to prevent access of the climate auditors to publishing in scientific journals and presenting their work at professional conferences, and tried to deny them access to published research data and computer programs. The bloggers countered with highly critical posts in the blogosphere and FOIA requests. And climategate was the result.”

She attributes part of the success of the auditors as follows:
“On the other hand, the climate auditors have no apparent political agenda, are doing this work for free, and have been playing a watchdog role, which has engendered the trust of a large segment of the population.”

Climategate is a very interesting event in the history of science. It is not a trivial matter.

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Okay, since you’re still questioning the sources of the e-mails, thinking they’re from a “chain email,”

I never said that I “still” question your sources (despite links), I said that back when you posted quotes without even saying who they were attributed to (much less providing sources), I thought they might be from a chain email. As soon as you posted sources, I said @15 that I would read them.

If you have further information (above the couple of questionable quotes that hit the press running when this story first broke), I’m perfectly willing to give you a platform and discuss it. There’s no need to take a hostile stance.

If you have a Ph.D. in Physics, then you’re obviously quite familiar with the peer review process. Therefore, you can start by giving an educated opinion on the answer to my question in @15: Which part of the data, and which conclusions, specifically, do you think are tainted?

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Also, FWIW, I wasn’t really following this thread until I learned it was truthlover. Some intriguing links and fascinating quotes. Perhaps I need to reconsider anthropogenic global warming…

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All the e-mail quotes I gave above are there except the last one. The version on the website I just gave gives only a portion of this email. Here is a link to a blog post written by a UK philosopher, that mentions this:
http://www.practicalethicsnews.com/practicalethics/2009/12/climate-scientists-behaving-badly-part-2-objectivity.html

Here’s the link to the Guardian, a “liberal” newspaper (which has done its own investigation into climategate), which uses the repository, as you can see from this link.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/01/leaked-emails-climate-jones-chinese

From this link:
“A Guardian investigation of thousands of emails and documents apparently hacked from the University of East Anglia’s climatic research unit has found evidence that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed and that documents relating to them could not be produced.”

And here’s the link to the earlier Phil Jones interview I mentioned in #3.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8511670.stm

Please check my sources, and, more importantly, show me where they have been shown to be flawed. I know of no such claims, and the admission by Phil Jones before Parliament seems to show that they are true.
You should now have links to all the websites from which you can get the quotes I have provided.

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Okay, since you’re still questioning the sources of the e-mails, thinking they’re from a “chain email,” here they are:

About this site, the Guardian (a “liberal” newspaper) uses this source, although it is apparently tied to conservatives. Go figure. Please show me any reports denying these e-mails’ authenticity.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/02/hacked-climate-emails-flaws-peer-review

First quote from post #1;
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=419&filename=1089318616.txt

Second quote from post #1:
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=423&filename=1092167224.txt

Third quote:
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1062&filename=1256735067.txt

Fourth quote:
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=295&filename=1047388489.txt

Finally, #5 was truncated on that site. Interesting. Here is the link it should be at, but you can see the text is not complete.
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=544&filename=1120593115.txt

Here are some links discussing this particular quote:
http://www.practicalethicsnews.com/practicalethics/2009/12/climate-scientists-behaving-badly-part-2-objectivity.html

And one from a “conservative” published in the “conservative” New York Post:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/what_climategate_really_tells_us_pHSBh1uNXagcp4ygKUsXSJ

Again, please, please, please show me where the authenticity of these e-mails is disputed. I cannot find it anywhere.

I have never said climategate implicates all scientists involved in AGW research, and, by extension, not all scientists. I am no conspiracy theorist. I do claim it’s much more than “a couple of out-of-context quotes from some leaked emails.” And I am not alone. Otherwise, why would Phil Jones be removed from his position, and why did Penn State conduct a review? And why did the IOP, the Royal Society of Chemistry, and other organizations file documents to Parliament about it that did not indicate it was just a misunderstanding?

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