Thread: Climategate!

Originally Posted by gssixgun

That just scratches the surface, so to speak, and guess what it says??? "Scientists don't really "know" doodly" and what they think they "know" will be different in 10 years when somebody else disproves it...
So please do not even try and tell me the science behind Man Made Global warming is in the least proved....

I wouldn't be so hard on scientists in general. Until AGW came along climatology was not one of the "important" sciences. Perhaps "science envy" is what got them into trouble.

But I agree that climatology is pretty flaky. Here was the big scare in 1975. They had lots of "science" to back this up too! More settled science. To disagree was to be a troglodyte capitalist.

Someone wrote them a letter a few months back taking them to task for being so sure of AGW and pointed the above out to them. Their lame response was that they used a question mark. As I remember the article (I did read the original!) the question was more in the spirit of "how soon and hadn't we ought to act NOW before it's too late?" Oddly enough the "cure" then was the same as it is now -- more government regulation and higher taxes.

I can't remember if that was related to "Nuclear Winter" or not -- another big scare that has been abandoned in the search for justified government control over the evils of free enterprise.

A lot has changed in science since 1975.

Computers are surprisingly good at recognizing patterns.

The argument, "Science has changed its answer, admitting that their previous answer was wrong, therefore I have discredited it," shows a fundamental misunderstanding of scientific method.

I've always felt it very disingenuous to debate a scientific topic when you have no expertise in the field, so that's all I've got to say on Climate Change.

Originally Posted by IanS

A lot has changed in science since 1975.

Computers are surprisingly good at recognizing patterns.

The argument, "Science has changed its answer, admitting that their previous answer was wrong, therefore I have discredited it," shows a fundamental misunderstanding of scientific method.

I've always felt it very disingenuous to debate a scientific topic when you have no expertise in the field, so that's all I've got to say on Climate Change.

So, when Newton said "If I have been able to see farther than others, it was because I stood on the shoulders of giants" he meant all the others whose science he discredited? Must have been a pretty deep pile of discredited scientists for him to see so far.

When Einstein advanced the theory of gravity did the planets suddenly change course to match his new rules?

Must be, because when climatologists improve their science it somehow "discredits" their previous data.

Boy do I feel like a dummy! I never saw the truth of this before.

Well, Newton's statement was actually a joke at one of his contemporaries expense that has been skewed into a statement of humility because history is kind to geniuses. (He was actually not at all humble.)

But yes, he was in fact discrediting massive amounts of science that preceded him.

You seem to be misunderstanding the point I was making. If you take the stance of 'science was wrong before, therefore I can reasonably assume it is wrong now'; then you may as well throw all science out the window. In effect, that argument is the same as plugging ones ears and humming, since you are effectively saying that scientific method is wrong because it is scientific method. Let me give an analogy.

My razor wasn't shave ready off this 1k stone. Therefore, though I've since honed it on my 4k stone, I can assume it still isn't shave ready. And the 8k after that, the same logic applies. And the 12k... same logic. The strop, same logic. Therefore a razor can never be shave ready.

Originally Posted by TexasBob

Well, I may have been wrong about that. The CRU itself made that claim in August, per this quote from The Register: (Global Warming ate my data • The Register)

The world's source for global temperature record admits it's lost or destroyed all the original data that would allow a third party to construct a global temperature record. The destruction (or loss) of the data comes at a convenient time for the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in East Anglia - permitting it to snub FoIA requests to see the data.

That's a secondary source but Google will show lots of references to this. Note this was all *before* the release of the emails and was also ignored by most mainstream media. I simply took it at its face and believed the CRU's version. Come to think of it, maybe this is what motivated someone to snatch and publish the emails and source code.

What the emails appear to show is that the data was not lost (unsurprisingly); the CRU was just lying to avoid responding to the FoIA request.

I have not tried to track down the original sources of the above -- not my job!

OK, this IS hard to keep up with. CRU is back to claiming much of the data is lost: Climate change data dumped - Times Online. So the dog DID eat their homework! This is also hard to believe -- would any scientist really discard the original data? Either way CRU has a mess on its hands.

Originally Posted by IanS

Well, Newton's statement was actually a joke at one of his contemporaries expense that has been skewed into a statement of humility because history is kind to geniuses. (He was actually not at all humble.)

But yes, he was in fact discrediting massive amounts of science that preceded him.

You seem to be misunderstanding the point I was making. If you take the stance of 'science was wrong before, therefore I can reasonably assume it is wrong now'; then you may as well throw all science out the window. In effect, that argument is the same as plugging ones ears and humming, since you are effectively saying that scientific method is wrong because it is scientific method. Let me give an analogy.

My razor wasn't shave ready off this 1k stone. Therefore, though I've since honed it on my 4k stone, I can assume it still isn't shave ready. And the 8k after that, the same logic applies. And the 12k... same logic. The strop, same logic. Therefore a razor can never be shave ready.

Ah you see you have stated something profound here.

Those who would discredit science as weak and just one theory away from rendering all that came before as valueless for what is really its strength they don't understand can replace it with their own views they know are the truth because they believe in it for no other reason than that.

Originally Posted by IanS

Well, Newton's statement was actually a joke at one of his contemporaries expense that has been skewed into a statement of humility because history is kind to geniuses. (He was actually not at all humble.)

But yes, he was in fact discrediting massive amounts of science that preceded him.

You seem to be misunderstanding the point I was making. If you take the stance of 'science was wrong before, therefore I can reasonably assume it is wrong now'; then you may as well throw all science out the window. In effect, that argument is the same as plugging ones ears and humming, since you are effectively saying that scientific method is wrong because it is scientific method. Let me give an analogy.

My razor wasn't shave ready off this 1k stone. Therefore, though I've since honed it on my 4k stone, I can assume it still isn't shave ready. And the 8k after that, the same logic applies. And the 12k... same logic. The strop, same logic. Therefore a razor can never be shave ready.

I can agree with most of that.

MY point may have been lost in my lame attempts at humor. Science generally progresses slowly, with refinements, not revolutions that totally invalidate previous science. There may be a revolution in depth of understanding, but people were able to plot the course of the planets pretty accurately before Einstein. We didn't suddenly realize that our observations had been all wrong and the planets were actually revolving in the opposite direction.

With climatologists the pendulum is swinging so wildly it is best to step back and not make any sudden move based on its current position! The emails we have seen even have some of the climatologists themselves stating their predictions aren't working and they have no idea why. The solution seems to have been to keep quiet about that.

(OK, correction. Because of the three-body problem I believe it is impossible, or at least impractical, to precisely predict the motions of the planets but Einstein's theory doesn't help with that either.)

Well that statement is hard to agree with. Most of our technology has come in massive bursts. Particularly following the dark ages, as we've been essentially playing 1500 years worth of catch up. Most history classes even section out units based on the relative times of these bursts. Renaissance, Industrial age, etc;

Add to that nature of scientific and technological discovery the massive computational power achieved with computers in the past 35 years as well as greatly improved dating and archeological discoveries allowing a much better picture of the previous few million years of weather on earth, and really it would speak poorly of our scientists if they hadn't massively overhauled our understanding of weather patterns in the past few decades.

Your example of planet courses is a fairly poor one, as our method of plotting their courses was derived purely from observing their courses (and any theorizing was derived specifically to agree with what was observable). So if we weren't able to say where they were going by watching where they were going, we'd be in pretty rough shape.

Originally Posted by IanS

Well that statement is hard to agree with. Most of our technology has come in massive bursts. Particularly following the dark ages, as we've been essentially playing 1500 years worth of catch up. Most history classes even section out units based on the relative times of these bursts. Renaissance, Industrial age, etc;

Again, I agree with that. But when the internal cumbustion engine was invented steam engines didn't stop working.

So if we weren't able to say where they were going by watching where they were going, we'd be in pretty rough shape.

Kinda like where the AGW people are right now. It seems to be located somewhere in the state of denial.

Interesting that as their agenda did not advance as they desperately hoped in the past decade and as the years went by and an undeniable cooling became more obvious, then about two years ago their stance became - 'ya, but it is going to start warming in about twenty years'.

Come on - what a load of crap. The devout defenders are just in denial.

And now these blockheads have supposedly deleted or lost data. They don't have the basic intelligence to have multiple backups of data yet they want you to believe that they have this 'special' intelligence to determine things which will end up implementing procedures which will regulate our lives.

Puhleeeeze!