As Kimstu has clearly explained, the author of the email’s issue went beyond “this is a skeptic paper, therefore it must be incorrect.” The paper was substandard: it used flawed logic and misinterpreted data. It was allowed to be published due to Climate Science’s submission policy of allowing authors to submit a paper to a single editor of their choice. In addition to the Soon and Baliunas (2003) paper, there were three other substandard, flawed papers which had all passed through the same editor.
They weren’t making a concerted effort to bring down a journal’s impact factor. They were making an effort to avoid publishing in a journal with low standards and to avoid citing papers from a journal with a demonstrated record of flawed publications. That is scientific rigor.
Finally:
It’s not too early. The events at Climate Science happened in 2003.
Seriously, yes it is the job of scientists. They’re not forming “secret groups” or anything, it is an email between collaborators. They did, in fact, rebut the paper in Climate Science.
Quit saying “their beliefs” and the like. We’re not talking about beliefs. We’re talking about scientific rigor. If a journal has an editor with the power to control publications without input from other editors and uses that power to publish substandard, flawed papers, then scientific rigor demands avoiding publishing in that journal and citing potentially flawed papers.
It’s also worth pointing out, for instance, that the SDMB lost a significant number of posters and several splinter boards were set up because suddenly one day, a guy came in and said that we could no longer use the word “fuck” in thread titles. Nerds getting overly indignant about minor shit and making a big row over it isn’t exactly a new nor mysterious phenomenon.
Who here has actually read it? It really is far to soon to tell. I’ll note that this archive is being crowd-sourced so the ‘juicy bits’ will be swiftly highlighted and so we won’t have too long to wait.
Right now, more than anything else, I’m wondering who paid for it. There are hackers who do it just to prove that they can, true. Then there are the hackers who do it for money, who break into secure sites to carry away something of value, i.e., credit-card numbers.
Who benefits from disarray and confusion in the “global warming” debate? Depends on who you think is winning, doesn’t it? If the “warmists” are winning, they have no motive for this. My impression is that they are, more or less.
On the “skeptic” side, who would benefit outside of the circle of academic “deniers”? Well, running dog jackals of the ruling class, or course, people who feel their money is threatened by the prospect of global warming, or, more directly, people who feel their money is threatened by the prospect of action upon said threat?
Col. Exxon, in the library, with the T1 connection…? God, I love conspiracy theorizing, a wholesale return of conjecture from a minimal investment of facts…
I disagree. Whether it leads to better technologies or not, the failure of ACC (anthropogenic climate change - a term much more accurate and inclusive than AGW) will be viewed by the general populace as a failure of science. With the current anti-science bent of a large portion of the populace, this could very easily be a disaster for science in the United States. We already have a significant fraction of those that govern us (and those that support them) believing that science should be ignored if not dismissed for being against their perceived economic interests or religious beliefs. We have an even larger portion of the population thinking that science is for those whom sex is not important to (i.e. nerds and dorks). With current immigration policies, the influx of technical workers from overseas via the US university system has been curtailed in the last decade. Instead of being allowed to stay in the US after receiving a graduate degree, many are being forced to return to their home countries where they create the business they would have created here, except that it can more efficiently compete (due to lower labor costs) against US businesses.
I look at the tabloids by the checkout stand at the supermarket and see “Bat Boy Lives!” right next to “Angelina called Aniston a Trollop!” While the latter might be true, I honestly don’t give it a lot of credence because of the former. Is this repulsive of me? Do you think that I should trust the Daily Enquirer for everything except the stuff that can be dismissed on sight?
Your kidding right, hackers will some times do stuff for fun or perhaps the Hadley people got a blackmail situation and did not play along, but also failed to mention it to the police etc. But really the closest thing I can think of that’s comparable, is the pentagon papers and I don’t think there was a price tag attached to those.
Who bennifits from this could be anyone that wants to keep the status quo on the economic side of the climate debate, to someone who wants to rig the futures market and then the aforementioned possible extortion that I was thinking of.
You mean more of a disaster, right? Let’s not be romantic about it, the “general populace”, and the general American populace are no exception, are a bunch of braindead slugs when it comes to science. The advancements have always come from a small percentage of the population despite the general populace.
No, you’re the one claiming I’m claiming that. “Sheeple”, as I understand it, is a label one slaps on people who disagree, but who would agree, if only they weren’t so sheeplike. It’s no slur to point out that education and interest in science in the U.S. is not especially widespread or popular, but it doesn’t have to be since scientific breakthroughs aren’t produced by mass action, but by individuals or small groups of individuals. Heck, I love science, but even I’m inclined to shrug off yet another AGW debate because I can’t summon the energy or interest in delving into the murky mess of who (if anyone) knows what will actually happen. Since it makes little difference to me, I may as well play along because I believe that more efficient vehicles and industries are better for society anyway.
“Sheeple” is something you’d call AGW deniers (if you were a believer), or AGW believers (if you were a denier). I just figure that most of the population isn’t encouraged to learn science, doesn’t care about science, and doesn’t really need to know about science, so the suggestion that AGW being exposed as a fraud would rock society is an implausible one. Society isn’t really going to care all that much either way.
There are indeed some people I might consider calling “sheeple”, but those who don’t care about science? Since that’s most of society, the label rather loses its punch.
Don’t forget to complete the sentence: “…when it comes to science.” The general populace is energetic enough in matters that interest them. I don’t see yet another round of AGW fraud claims, regardless of the evidence, doing that.
“Ends justifies the means” gives a statement a value not for its truth but for its persuasiveness. While the ends here may be innocent and desirable, my mind immediately leaps to fact that the mark of the totalitarians of the 20th century, both fictionally and in real life, was this method of justifying their propaganda.
(General statement, no comment whatsoever on the global warming debate.)
Well, you’re free to view it with suspicion, of course, but like knee-jerks, immediate mental leaps are not automatically indicative of the best reaction to have.
Let me get this straight. Hired goons hacked into the climate scientists computers and are now publishing snippets of their private correspondence, and its the climate scientists that are the conspirators.
