The shame of Seattle

Discovery Institute: The Mask Falls Away:
[Via The Sensuous Curmudgeon]

YESTERDAY we posted Discovery Institute: Thrilled About ClimateGate, in which we showed that the neo-theocrats at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture (a/k/a the Discoveroids) were gearing up to use the still-unfolding global warming email imbroglio as “proof” that brave dissenters from science orthodoxy have been suppressed by ideological conspirators.

Although not specifically expressed in the Discoveroid article we wrote about, the implication was that because the legitimate views of global warming skeptics had been suppressed, this means that all science dissent is similarly worthy, and therefore the irrational science-denial of creationists is somehow now respectable. We’re calling this interpretation of ClimateGate the “vindication of all kooks” doctrine.

Following that initial salvo, the Discoveroids have now posted a far stronger article at their blog. We’ve always told you what the Discoveroids were up to. Back when we started our humble blog we posted Discovery Institute: Enemies of the Enlightenment. But it’s no longer necessary to read between the lines. The Discoveroids are now out of the closet.

We present to you, dear reader, some excerpts from Climategate: a Word of Advice to the Scientists. The bold font was added by us:

[T]here will be an accounting for this [global warming] fraud. People are very very angry, and while the skeptics whose darkest doubts have been vindicated don’t pull the levers of organized science (the frauds do that), there are some financial and political resources available to the skeptics who have been demanding integrity in science, and they understand now that this is war.

Ah, “this is war.” Let’s read on:

A cabal of leading scientists, politicians, and media concubines have conspired to lie about global warming. The reasons are obvious: power and money. …

I’m not sure that the scientific community can or will respond to this debacle in a courageous or ethical way. The ID-Darwinism debate clearly demonstrates that venality and shameless self-interest, as well as a toxic leftist-atheist ideology, runs very deep in the scientific community.

There it is, right out in the open. We added color so you couldn’t miss it. The presumed vindication of global warming skeptics means the vindication of creationists too. Note that they persist with the goofy propaganda line that the “Darwinists” are all pushing a “toxic leftist-atheist ideology.” We continue:

Science surely provides much benefit to mankind, but we may need to pursue scientific truth with a different set of scientists than the ones we have now.

[More]

I point to the Discovery Institute when ever someone says that Seattle is full of liberal elitists who want to take over the world. We also have some really big conservative elitists who want to take over the world.

Now we need to get a different set of scientists than the ones we have know. Well, that worked so well before, why not just do it again?

Technorati Tags: Environment, Science

The theory of intelligent climatology

by ragnar1984

Climate Change — isn’t it natural?:
[Via Greenfyre's]

Potholer54 is back with a good one (he exposes Bob Carter for openers … what’s not to love?). Here he takes out several Denier Fables, including the “it’s not CO2″ and “it’s just the Sun.”

While Crock of the Week takes on the related issue of water vapour in:

Some excellent resources for debunking those Denier Crocks!@
[More]

Pictures always tell it better than just words. Remember that the goal of the denialists is not to prove the facts wrong. It is to muddy the waters and make it seem that no one really knows anything. It is a typical logical fallacy called argumentum ad temperantiam in Latin circles or Argument to Moderation at Wikipedia. Co-called journalists use this fallacy all the time.

They take people with 2 extreme positions and imply that the correct answer lies somewhere in the middle. The Tobacco Institute used this logical fallacy extremely well in its misguided measures to stop cigarette regulations.

But, when facts are involved, if one side has them and the other does not, then the so-called middle ground does not exist. The appeal to a middle ground is a lawyerly trick, not a scientific rationale.

That is what the denialists hope to achieve. Muddy the waters and create a middle ground if at all possible. Because almost anything but the truth is a benefit for them.

So they attempt to undercut any small aspect of climate change with the goal of destroying all of it. Denialists who use the same tactic against evolution (called creationists) seem to think that trying to identify a single weakness in any area of evolutionary thought will bring the whole thing down. Same with climate change.

And both are just wrong. That is not how scientific theories work. Theories are proposed to explain scientific facts. If you hope to overthrow a theory, you had better have a better one ready, one that has more explanatory power than the previous. That is how relativity overthrew Newtonian mechanics.

These theories have strength because they are not easily brought down. Researchers with tremendous experience and huge egos have had at these theories for 20-30 years. Careers can be made by trying to show the theory is wrong and propose a new, better one.

It is highly unlikely that someone working on a blog is going to be able to create a new theory of climatology that explains all the facts we have found. But they do not even seem to try. They only attempt to obfuscate one particular area, trying to make the entire theory suspect.

They have no theory to replace the current one!! None that explains all the facts we have at our fingertips. Well, none except for some sort of worldwide conspiracy between thousands of researchers who are purposefully lying so that they can get grant money.

Do these guys have any idea of how hard it is to do good research, work that can get you tenure? And just how improbable it is that there is some conspiracy between thousands of smart, independent, individualists who hate outside interference dictating what they can and cannot do?

If there was any chance to overthrow the theory of anthropogenic global warming there would be a large number of researchers working at that in ways that really matter, not by squawking from the sidelines. (And let me tell you, if there was such a thing, there are ample ways to get it funded and to get it published. Science and Nature LOVE publishing these sorts of contrarian articles. but the rigorous science must be there.)

At least the creationists made an effort (after failing miserably for 50 years or so to change things). They came up with something called Intelligent design. It is a theory, not a scientific one and one that does nothing to advance our knowledge.

But it is a step. So I am going to propose the theory of intelligent climatology – that some intelligence is guiding the physical aspects of our climate and will make sure that it stays just right for human civilization. They or It made sure the last 200,000 years or so had varying climate conditions to drive us to higher and higher technological levels. They or It are now controlling the current warming, perhaps by injecting heat into the system through some super-intelligent process, in order to move us towards something. Let’s say interstellar travel.

They or It do not want us to fail so They or It will make sure the climate never gets so bad as to really hurt us. That is why the world has not been heating very rapidly the last few years. They or It are going to give us enough time to figure things out. We owe our continuing existence to They or It.

And any resemblance of this intelligent agent to God is simply mistaken.

Of course,this theory does not really explain anything but I might respect the climate change denialists a little more if they at least proposed something with a higher likelihood than a conspiracy of scientists.

Technorati Tags: Science

HR or LR

by Nolan O’Brien

Understanding how epigenetics influences weight:
[Via Research Blogging - All Topics - English]

In human weight loss studies, response to a given restriction of calories does not produce the same level of weight loss in every subject. Though genetic factors clearly have some role per monozygotic twin and gene manipulation studies, even then there are differences. Epigenetics is a likely candidate to explain these observations.

So, Bouchard et al. (1) studied the effects of restricting calories on epigenomic and transcriptomic responses.

14 overweight/obese women were subjected to a 500-800 kcal reduction from baseline resting metabolic rate for 6 months are part of another study. They were classified by how they responded to the reduction; high responders (HR) lost more than 3% of their body fat (average 7.34 +/- 3.05 kg), and low responders (LR) lost less than 3% body fat (average 1.81 +/-1.84 kg). The range of fat loss was 0.77 kg to 12.98 kg, a substantial range. Subjects were matched for baseline age, BMI, % body fat, blood pressure, lipids, glucose, insulin, and changes in fat-free mass.

[More]

What is intriguing is that there could be such a huge difference in weight loss, even though the people reduced the same number of calories a day for six months. It ranged from about 1.5 pounds to 27 pounds.

Gaining a better understanding of epigenetic factors will be pivotal for understanding weight loss. Simply saying “eat less” does not appear to work for everyone.

I wonder what effect different gut bacteria have on this. It may be that some people have bacteria in their intestines that are much more efficient in digesting food for nutritional use while other sets of bacteria are not. In the former, more of the food that is eaten is available for use by the human while the latter may see more calories just go through their system and never get used.

Figuring out why some people are HR and some are LR would be very useful. It would help design a particular plan for each type.

Technorati Tags: Health

The models are wrong

Copenhagen Diagnosis

[Via Deltoid]

The Copenhagen Diagnosis is an update to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report to cover research published since then.

This is the science that the cracker who stole the emails from CRU wants to distract you from.

Via RealClimate.

[More]

The IPPC projections from the third report from the 90s is the gray triangle. When the real data, from both tidal gauges and satellite records, is overlaid, it hits the top projection limits. The models generally underestimated the effects.

This is something we see again and again when different data sets are examined. Global sea level heights are now estimated to be twice as large as estimated in the report from just a few years ago.

While we know a lot about the West Antarctica Ice, the East Antarctica region has not bee examined as much in depth. The expectation was that since it is so bitterly cold there, climate change was inconsequential. This appears to be wrong.

Accelerated Antarctic ice loss from satellite gravity measurements. It is losing tens of gigatons of mass each year, mostly since 2006.

This data is so new it did not make it into the Copenhagen Diagnosis. It was just published in Nature Geoscience can be read by anyone. East Antarctica has more ice mass than any other location on Earth. If Greenland and West Antarctica completely melted, the combined sea level rise would be about 6-7 meters. If East Antarctica melted, it would raise sea levels 50-60 meters all by itself.

This report estimates that it could be losing 200 gigatons a year now. It will take a long time for it to melt completely. But the fact that it could be melting at all, and as fast as West Antarctica, is very worrisome.

So, again, the previous models were wrong. They underestimated the effects of climate change. Stupid, conservative scientists picking the low end of the estimates when they make their projections. I guess they would not have been listened to if they had chosen more realistic parameters. Of course, there are many people no who do not listen to them anyway.

[Listening to: Woman from Tokyo from the album "Rhino Hi-Five: Deep Purple - EP" by Deep Purple]

Honi soit qui mal y pense

The Manufactured Doubt industry and the hacked email controversy:
[Via Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog]

In 1954, the tobacco industry realized it had a serious problem. Thirteen scientific studies had been published over the preceding five years linking smoking to lung cancer. With the public growing increasingly alarmed about the health effects of smoking, the tobacco industry had to move quickly to protect profits and stem the tide of increasingly worrisome scientific news. Big Tobacco turned to one the world’s five largest public relations firms, Hill and Knowlton, to help out. Hill and Knowlton designed a brilliant Public Relations (PR) campaign to convince the public that smoking is not dangerous. They encouraged the tobacco industry to set up their own research organization, the Council for Tobacco Research (CTR), which would produce science favorable to the industry, emphasize doubt in all the science linking smoking to lung cancer, and question all independent research unfavorable to the tobacco industry. The CTR did a masterful job at this for decades, significantly delaying and reducing regulation of tobacco products. George Washington University epidemiologist David Michaels, who is President Obama’s nominee to head the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA), wrote a meticulously researched 2008 book called, Doubt is Their Product: How Industry’s Assault on Science Threatens Your Health. In the book, he wrote: “the industry understood that the public is in no position to distinguish good science from bad. Create doubt, uncertainty, and confusion. Throw mud at the anti-smoking research under the assumption that some of it is bound to stick. And buy time, lots of it, in the bargain”. The title of Michaels’ book comes from a 1969 memo from a tobacco company executive: “Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the minds of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy”. Hill and Knowlton, on behalf of the tobacco industry, had founded the “Manufactured Doubt” industry.
[More]

People see what they want to see, especially if they are getting paid. When their goal is deceit and misinformation, it is not surprising they see it in everything. The Manufactured Doubt industry is quite well-funded and I expect it to bring the full weight of its wealth to bear in order to fund its goals.

This post gives some real background to what scientists have been fighting for a long long time. Whether it is cigarette smoking, climate change, evolution or vaccines. The only difference in the individual campaigns is the wealth of the particular industry. Luckily for a biologist like me, the anti-vaxxers are not extremely well funded, do not have large think tanks nor have many lobbyists. They do have several celebrities.

Not so for researchers looking at climate change where trillions of dollars are at stake for the fossil fuel industry, which funds hundreds of lobbyists and think tanks to influence public opinion.

But, money for Manufactured Doubt does not change science. It can only change public opinion. That is the main effort presented by these emails. Not to actually change any of the science but to affect public policy.

Because the law, as it now stands, forces these fossil fuel companies to do everything they can to legally maximize profits, even galvanizing public policy in ways that are destructive to the world and to humanity. There is nothing illegal about lobbying but just remember that is what members of the Manufactured Doubt industry are trying to do.

Not manufacture doubt in the the research community but if the political community. For this goal, almost anything is reasonable to them, even if it involves hacking into computers or paying lobbyists with a PhD (who might have actually been a researcher at some point) to spout the latest talking points of the Manufactured Doubt industry.

Technorati Tags: Environment, Science

What they mean

by thomas pix

Here is a very nice annotation (Thanks, NonHomogenized ) of the CRU emails that were released. (h/t to a comment by caerbannog). I particularly liked this one:

[Santer complaining about FoI requests from McIntyre. Says he expects support of Lawrence Livermore Lab management. Jones says that once support staff at CRU realised the kind of people the scientists were dealing with they became very supportive. Says the VC [vice chancellor] knows what is going on (in one case)]

I already pointed out the problems with releasing the data, but here we have an illustration of a reason why, even if it were NOT professional suicide, they might not want to release the data: “One of the problems is that I’m caught in a real Catch-22 situation. At present, I’m damned and publicly vilified because I refused to provide McIntyre with the data he requested. But had I acceded to McIntyre’s initial request for climate model data, I’m convinced (based on the past experiences of Mike Mann, Phil, and Gavin) that I would have spent years of my scientific career dealing with demands for further explanations, additional data, Fortran code, etc. (Phil has been complying with FOIA requests from McIntyre and his cronies for over two years). And if I ever denied a single request for further information, McIntyre would have rubbed his hands gleefully and written: “You see – he’s guilty as charged!” on his website.”

and

“You and I have spent over a decade of our scientific careers on the MSU issue, Tom. During much of that time, we’ve had to do science in “reactive mode”, responding to the latest outrageous claims and inept science by John Christy, David Douglass, or S. Fred Singer. For the remainder of my scientific career, I’d like to dictate my own research agenda. I don’t want that agenda driven by the constant need to respond to Christy, Douglass, and Singer.”

Now, the latter of these, while I can sympathize with him, is not a good reason to not release data. However, given the descriptions of all the various data that has been requested from the various researchers (which takes huge amounts of time that they could better spend doing productive research rather than digging through old records of their work for whatever minutiae someone has decided to ask for with a FOI request, the former is actually reasonable.

“I have an actual goddamned job to do here, stop impeding my ability to do any real work by pestering me with requests for details that you don’t need for what you’re trying to do” is a pretty good reason to not want to have to deal with such requests, imo. Especially since, the more time they waste, the less research they can do, which means fewer grants, which means they can’t maintain their equipment and staff. Were it not for data confidentiality, this would be a real issue to debate – and I’m not sure where I’d stand on it, though I’d find it hard to fault them for their decision, even if I disagreed with it. However, as it stands, I can see no reasoning by which it makes sense for them to comply with the requests if they can possibly get out of them.

I think this is one of the goals of some of these ‘skeptics.’ Not to actually get anything to do science with but simply to harass researchers and prevent them from actually doing any work. By flooding them with a ton of bureaucratic they not only make the scientist’s life miserable, they slow progress.

The researchers do not have a lot of staff who can put all this information together. And even if a request is fulfilled, it only leads to more. Because it appears that getting data to replicate the research is not the real goal here, since it does seem that it has actually resulted in any publications.

SThis is a ploy sometimes used with FOI requests. In fact, apparently the UK FOI Act permits the government to deal with some of these abuses by having a cost ceiling and by being able to aggregate multiple requests.

[Listening to: The Voice from the album "I Robot" by The Alan Parsons Project]

[Listening to: Real Real Gone from the album "Van Morrison - The Movie Hits" by Van Morrison]

Zombie ideas

by welovethedark
Creationist Wisdom — Example 82
[Via The Sensuous Curmudgeon]

WE present to you, dear reader, a letter-to-the-editor which appears in the Daily American of Somerset County, Pennsylvania. It’s titled Design or chance?

We’ll copy today’s letter in its entirety, omitting only the writer’s name and city, and adding our Curmudgeonly commentary between the paragraphs. The bold font was added for emphasis, as was a touch of color. Here we go:

Evolution not fact but theory. In fact there is more science that supports intelligent design. This is why evolutionists fight so hard to keep it from being taught in our schools.

Yes, we’re desperately fighting against real science. Let’s read on:

Evolutionists say that evolution is based on science and intelligent design is based on faith, but both require faith in something. Neither can positively prove the beginning of everything from nothing.

Jeepers! The theory of evolution just assumes that the universe exists. That’s a fatal weakness. We’ve been so blind! The letter continues:

Darwins [sic] theory of evolution requires working backward and sometimes ignoring facts that do not support their theory and requires millions of years opposed to the Bibles [sic] thousands.

The letter-writer’s brain seems to be missing the apostrophe lobe. Here’s more:

Carbon Dating measures the amount of carbon monoxide in material. Many things can vary these results; if buried or not and in what or exposed to air or sun and for how long, etc. Also you can set the scale from 0 to millions or thousands.

Aaaargh!! Moving along:

The rotation speed of the earth is slowing, if reversed the centrifugal force would overcome gravity and fling us from the earth well before the time required for evolution. Also dust on the moon increases at a given rate. The first moon landing they expected up to 22 feet; millions of years worth, but only found a few inches; 6-10 thousand years worth.

Wow — that’s a treat. We didn’t realize the moon dust argument and the earth’s rotation rate were still appearing in letters-to-the-editor.

[More]

This is why scientists get frustrated with continuing claims to their time and resources, by questions/statements that have been examined and debunked, yet continue to be asked. Every one of the statements can easily be falsified with simply a small amount of Google searching. The only reason to write such trite is because the author does not really want to be shown they are wrong. They do not care at all about reality.They wish to misinform and misrepresent. Truth is very far from what they seek.

After answering the same wrong question for the 80th time, after taking the time to try and answer politely, it can become a little tiresome to continue. Yet if the question is not answered, if the false statement is not addressed, if falsehoods continue to be promulgated, the scientist’s position is not strengthened. It is weakened.

So, setting multiple fires of misinformation requires the continuing effort of researchers to extinguish, even as this takes time away from the very work that often illuminates the world around us.

It often appears that the questions are continually being asked, not because anyone is really interested in the answer but simply to waste the time of the researcher. This seems too often the goal of some organizations. Slowing science down is what they really hope for.

They can not win on the facts so they will try and make sure the researcher is simply not able to do research anymore. It is like a lawyer during discovery sending over a million pages. They hope to drown the other side in incosenquentials so that a real defense can not be presented.

I expect we will find lawyers at the heart of this.

[Listening to: Side Slippin' from the album "Original Music" by The Supertones]

Creationist Wisdom? More like creationist humor

Creationist Wisdom #85: Salem Hypothesis
[Via The Sensuous Curmudgeon]

FOR your weekend contemplation, dear reader, we present a letter-to-the-editor which is much more than the usual “maniac in a shack” job. This one appears in the Orange County Register, our biggest source of information about the plight of Dr. James Corbett. Our last post on that topic was here, about a letter written by one of Corbett’s lawyers and two of his students.

Today’s letter-writer is responding to that letter, so this is in the nature of a follow-up. This morning’s gem is titled Debunking myths seculars spin against creation.

We’ll copy most of today’s letter, omitting the writer’s name and city, and adding our Curmudgeonly commentary between the paragraphs. The bold font was added for emphasis. Here we go:

My rebuttal is not related to the specifics of Dr. James Corbett’s case, but to the lack of scientific scholarship from writers Hannah Block, Michele Tyler and J. Craig Johnson [AP teacher challenges untenable views" Commentary, Nov. 15].

Ah, so this isn’t a follow-up about Corbett — it was inspired by the Corbett imbroglio, but it’s all about “lack of scientific scholarship.” Okay, now that know what we’re getting, let’s read on:

These scholars are not trained in theology or in its relationship to science. Otherwise, they would not make misleading statements about the Bible’s position on the placement of the Earth in our solar system, and its account of creation. Their understanding of evolutionary theory is also faulty.

We sense that a massive load of something will soon be showing up. The letter continues:

As a computer scientist who has completed all M.A. requirements in Science and Religion, and who is working toward a Masters in Philosophy of Religion and Ethics, I believe I’m on solid ground when I say that these writers may understand a few things about their respective domains, but they honestly need to avoid making public comments on the relationship between science and religion. Masters in education or a law degree does not qualify one to be a theologian, though some may think it does because they don’t view theology as representing a legitimate form of knowledge. As a result differing creation views are treated as equivalent regardless of the level of effort it takes to understand them.

Now we are confirmed in our suspicions. According to the Salem hypothesis, engineering types — and that often includes computer scientists — have a tendency toward the creationist viewpoint. Today’s letter-writer has taken that to the next level by seeking an additional degree of a religious nature. We’re in for a treat, so hang on!

There are two key falsehoods in this article that must be addressed: the belief that the Bible 1) endorses a geocentric model that the Earth is at the center of the universe and 2) specifically advocates a Young Earth Creation view.

This guy can’t be serious! Or can he be?

The view that the Earth is at the center of the universe is the original work of Aristotle, who considered the Earth an imperfect place where heavy and corrupt things fell. Copernicus introduced the heliocentric model, but his observations were not accurate enough to be verified, and his intent was never to challenge “untenable religious views,” since geocentricism had been the prevailing scientific view since Aristotle. It was the observations of Galileo along with Kepler’s laws of planetary motion that verified heliocentrism. Far from demoting the status of the Earth, Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler saw the new scheme as exalting it. Newton was not a part of the story. So clearly, the writers of this article didn’t do their homework.

There’s more! The letter-writer continues into his next paragraph to further exonerate the bible from the “false” accusation of being geocentric:

The Genesis account in the Old Testament was produced well before the Greeks, and the Bible never mentions the Earth was at the center of our solar system or the universe. So this cannot be a flaw in the Bible when such a claim doesn’t even exist.

[More]

Of course, people from several hundred years ago, as well as today, believed exactly the opposite! Galileo’s trial involved extensive quotes from the Bible demonstrating that the Earth was the center and the Sun revolved around it.

And while this letter writer may be describing the beliefs of many scholars today, there is a very large group who do believe in the inerrancy of the Bible and its description of ‘days’. There are many people who do believe that the Bible advocates a Young Earth Creation (YEC) view and they certainly are not scientists.

I guess it is the choice of the word ‘specifically?’ Because I would be that YEC certainly feel that the Bible advocates. Science has proven that their geocentric view is incorrect. But they continue to fight a rearguard action on something that science pretty much demolished over the last 100 years.

The Earth is billions of years old, not thousands. Data from almost every arena of science demonstrates this, with actually more proof than the heliocentric view. Yet they continue to preach this sort of creationism.

And the Old Earth Creationism, such as this writer, , feel:

While I do agree with the writers that the Young Earth Creation view should not be taught as a generally accepted view, it should be acknowledged as an alternative with arguments for and against, since it does have some merits (I say this as an Old Earth Creation proponent).

Yes, it should be acknowledged … as wrong, just as the geocentric view is wrong. Deal with it.

Science fiction has already been there

by ahisgett
Forget Warp Drive and Faster-Than-light Space Travel: “Slow Light” Is Where It’s At
[ViaThe Science and Entertainment Exchange: The X-Change Files ]

Despite the fact that the speed of light is an absolute upper limit, faster-than-light space travel is deeply embedded in science fiction. Einstein showed that any object with mass cannot reach, let alone exceed, the speed of light. But science fiction tends to overlook this very inconvenient truth simply because the universe is so big. To reach Alpha Centauri, the nearest star after our own Sun, would take more than four years for a spaceship moving at the speed of light, and a jaunt across the full diameter of our galaxy would take 100,000 years. Knowing this, script writers imagine solutions like Star Trek’s “warp drive” that allow the Enterprise to travel around the galaxy at multiples of light speed, or “worm holes” that provide cosmic short cuts.

[More]

Bob Shaw wrote a story in the 60s called “Light of Other Days” which dealt with glass that slowed down the passage of light. Thus, light falling on the glass could take years to make it through. When looking at the glass, then, the scenes one saw could be from years past.

The value of a particular piece of slow glass was dependent on how many years from the past it could ‘hold.’ It was a particularly poignant story and one I remember from the first time I saw it.

I would not expect this correct work to produce something quite so interesting but you never know.

[Listening to: Along Comes Mary from the album "Monterey International Pop Festival (Live)" by The Association]

‘There’s a smoking gun? Where’s the body?’

by aubergene

CRU Hack, time to hit back … hard:
[Via Greenfyre's]

So Solid CRU

- ride wid us

The Frame
Sun Tzu
Habeas corpus

The story so far:

CRU research computer hacked, many emails copied, claims are made that they reveal broad scientific fraud;
Emails released, much sound and fury told by idiots, claims seem to be all innuendo and speculation;
More and more nothing as people search for something, anything of substance in the emails.

The climate change science community was caught off guard by this for obvious reasons. Initially most were quite understandably not willing to comment until they had at least seen the evidence. Now we have seen the evidence, or all that we know exists.

Aside: apparently what has been released is about 1/2 of the total copied from CRU. We do not know if what has been released is cherry picked and the remaining material fills in the blanks exhonorating everyone of any wrong doing, or if there is more to come. According to RealClimate, whatever is there, it will not be evidence of scientific malpractice such as tampering with data, and that’s good enough for me.*

*[UPDATE: some freepers are using this statement as evidence that I am "Accepting unsubstantiated statements, on faith and faith alone." Yup, and clear about it too ... not pretending that unsubstantiated statements are fact.

I could turn out to be wrong, but at least I am not lying to anyone else about what the basis for my position is. And if there is a subsequent release and it contains actual credible evidence of data tampering, I will say so]

The frame

Since seeing the emails we have been responding by:

pointing out that while some (and only a few) of them sound dubious, there’s no actual evidence of anything;
attempting to point out that in every case there are also perfectly innocuous interpretations;
putting these sorts of discussions in context*

*Carbonfixated’s Newtongate: the final nail in the coffin of Renaissance and Enlightenment ‘thinking’” is a brilliant example of this. Many climate bloggers have impressed me, surprised me, delighted me, but this is the first time I have felt actual envy … I wish I’d done that piece.
Sun Tzu
Four problems with this strategy:
1) It’s not a strategy, it’s a tactic, and not even a good one. “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” Sun Tzu

2) It assumes that “the problem” is a scientific one. Pretty natural concern for the science community, but it is increasingly clear that the science is in no way affected. The battle going on now is political, not scientific, and we have to fight it as a political battle.

3) To date the Deniers are annotating the emails with “helpful explanations” ie total fictions making outrageous claims about the context. As such they are dictating the narrative and we are responding to them within that frame.

They keep throwing punches and all we do s try to block them. No matter how good we are, some will land; hence Sun Tzu’s dictum.

4) The problem with offering reasonable interpretations is that they are always going to sound apologetic and never quite convincing. Particularly as most of us were not actually there. As certain as we can be that there are perfectly innocent explanations, we do not know for certain that the explanations are innocent.

[More]

There is no there, there. Show us where the data is wrong, which papers are incorrect. Badmouthing a researcher does not alter climate change. Insinuation does not make warming go away.These are lawyer tactics and ones that get used by creationists all the time. Casting doubt may work in a murder case. It has little real impact on scientific facts. From Greenfrye’s here are some good ways to deal with these approaches, not only with climate change denialists but denialists of any sort:

One of the many holes in the Denier narrative is that they take it as a given that the climate science is false and that all that was left to do was to find the culprit. Their language is completely framed in terms of that assumption, hence the histrionics that the alleged “smoking gun” of the CRU emails seals the case.

Quite understandably the climate rationalist response has been to point out that the “gun” isn’t a “gun”, and it’s not smoking. Clearly Jones got hot under the collar at times, and different people were pretty steamed up about certain other people, but no smoking gun. That may be clear to us, but it’s not satisfying to the general public.

I suggest that we have change our response to “smoking gun? who cares? show us the “body!” Of course there is no “body”, or even “bullet holes” anywhere … ie no evidence that anything actually happened.

A great example of confirmation bias. If you are looking for something in particular, it is often easy to make it happen. It is something all humans do. One of the main things that scientists are trained in are processes that help diminish confirmation bias. But not deniers.

We need to switch from seeming to be defending the supposed culprit to demanding actual evidence of a crime, any crime. We need to be asking:

“Which studies were compromised, how? be specific. Cite papers and data sets. What is the evidence? where is it? what work is affected? how? show me the evidence that says so.

This supposed scandal involves perhaps a half dozen people, how does it affect the work of the 3,000+ others who’s work makes up climate science?

How does it affect the work that was done before the alleged culprits graduated from univeristy? the work from before they were born?

Of the 30,000(ish) studies that make up climate science, which ones are undone? where is the evidence? be specific … show us exactly how and why?” etc

Another part of the denialist toolkit, one seen with creationists all the time, is that if they can find something weird in just one thread of the scientific fabric, they can complete unravel the entire thing. But the world, and science, does not work this way. It is more like a building where even if you can turn off one light in one room, the rest of the building continues to be illuminated and still stand.

Because of course another hole in the Denier frame is thier certainty that the CRU hack topples climate science. Naturally they are taking advantage of the bobbhead credulity and the public naivete, which does work, but it also makes them vulnerable to it being challenged on it.

“You are certain it topples climate science? how? where? which studies? what evidence? You don’t know? then how are you certain?

Please run through a list of the studies you believe are affected? Hockey stick? what’s that? please refer to specific papers and studies.You don’t know? then how can you be certain?

Ahhh, Soandso 2004? so just how is it compromised? what part of the work? I thought you were certain?”

We need to hammer that and keep hammering it. Push hard, and not only the Deniers, but the media drones who brainlessly echo the Denier memes. Not hysterically or in anger, but with relentless defiant decency and certitude. Make it clear that they do not understand the science, and in fact have no idea what they think the emails actually mean.

We have to be the ones asking questions and demanding answers!

There’s a smoking gun? where’s the body?

Make them do a little work instead of just lobbing in little smoke bombs.

Technorati Tags: Environment, Science

Where are these emails?

NASA Fakes Email Leak:
[Via DenialDepot]

A rocket launches from NASA CRU’s GISTEMP headquarters. Can it really be right for such launches be to made in such close proximity to important climate data?

Over the weekend NASA’s University of East Anglia has alleged hackers have “stolen and released” a bunch of scientist’s emails.

However what makes me deeply suspicious is the complete lack of correspondence with Al Gore in these released emails. Where are all the emails showing Al Gore’s involvement? Even more bizarrely there is no plotting and planning on how to raise taxes. I don’t see any mention of the socialist new world order that these scientists are trying to bring about. Not once do they talk about how to best achieve wealth redistribution or world government.

So I have to conclude this this email release is a big con. It has all the hallmarks of a deliberate leak to make these scientists look better and to try and silence skeptics who question their motives. If we are to believe the emails, the scientists don’t actually think their work is in error! But we know they must realize it’s all a big con, so how can these emails possibly be true?

I was expecting something like this:
From: “Michael Mann”
To: “James Hansen”
CC: “Al Gore”, &WorldGovernmentDistributionList
Subject: A good idea!
Date: Mon, 21 October 2008 09:15:31

Hail Comrade,

October temperature release draws near. How about you just reuse the Sept 2008 temperatures? I figure that way it will make it the warmest October on record!

Al says this will be an excellent move for his stock portfolio.

btw I don’t know what to do with all that grant money coming through my door, it is starting to fill up my front hall. I bought 5 more Ferrari’s and a yacht, but it isn’t reducing it much.

In Stalin,

Mike

[More]

Maybe if there had been some emails even remotely like this, then we might have something to talk about. But DenialDepot is always a good place for a laugh.

Technorati Tags: Environment

A nice description of the problem – wasted time

As discussed by DarkSyde, the problem is really not the emails that were stolen from the University, cheery-picked and released without context. Climate change does not go away because of this furor.

The problem will be the huge amount of time required now to put these emails in context and explain what is really going on. This is time that these scientists really do not have and will keep them away from their research.

Thus it is perfect for the denialists. Either they make people think climate change is a fraud or they keep the scientists so occupied that they slow down the rate of research.

And, since we have seen what happens when someone gets in the crosshairs of these fanatics, I would expect that the latter is what will have the greatest effect on our understanding of climate change. I would not be surprised to hear that these researchers have gotten death threats.

Well, if you like conspiracy theories, ask yourself who really benefits from this? It does not stop climate change and it only delays our understanding. It muddies the water but not one email I have seen does anything about changing the data in ways to change the conclusions. And there are thousands of scientists elsewhere whose work is completely independent from these particular researchers.

So who benefits? Well, since the energy companies such as Exxon have already spent million if not billions on muddying the water, in exactly the same fashion as the tobacco companies, I think we have a nice suspect.

SImply pay lots of money to illegally hack into the email server, cherry pick the results and send them on to their denialist friends (Has anyone really looked at the finances of the premier denialists?). It is a great win-win for them.

Aren’t conspiracy theories fun? No need to have any real facts at all. Innuendo and misrepresentation works best. And that is all we have really seen from the stolen emails.

[Listening to: A Time For Everything? from the album "Jethro Tull]

They are doing it wrong

by Alan Vernon.
The CRU hack
[Via RealClimate]

As many of you will be aware, a large number of emails from the University of East Anglia webmail server were hacked recently (Despite some confusion generated by Anthony Watts, this has absolutely nothing to do with the Hadley Centre which is a completely separate institution). As people are also no doubt aware the breaking into of computers and releasing private information is illegal, and regardless of how they were obtained, posting private correspondence without permission is unethical. We therefore aren’t going to post any of the emails here. We were made aware of the existence of this archive last Tuesday morning when the hackers attempted to upload it to RealClimate, and we notified CRU of their possible security breach later that day.

Nonetheless, these emails (a presumably careful selection of (possibly edited?) correspondence dating back to 1996 and as recently as Nov 12) are being widely circulated, and therefore require some comment. Some of them involve people here (and the archive includes the first RealClimate email we ever sent out to colleagues) and include discussions we’ve had with the CRU folk on topics related to the surface temperature record and some paleo-related issues, mainly to ensure that posting were accurate.

[More]

None of the emails I have seen show anything untoward actually happened. It is only by taking things out of either the context of the email or historical context that anything can be made. In particular, worry anytime you see ellipses (…) in something like this. Quote-mining is what denialists do.

The best response I read in the comments was this, which presents reality that these people need to hear:

#430 Intrigue says: “Does anybody think that this is the only compilation that the hacker has? After this little taste, perhaps another two, or three, or twelve compilations will be presented onto the net. Looking forward to the rest of the chapters, after certain folks have explained their way into a deep hole.”

Actually, I have yet to see anything that requires explanation. The picture that emerges to my eye is of people doing science–and I’ve been doing science for more than 20 years. The fact that the denialists are trumpeting this as if it were some scandal merely illustrates how devoid of understanding they are.

I’m going to try to be uncharacteristically nice to all you lower-than-snakesh*t and dumber-than-owlsh*t denialists: Yer doin’ it wrong! You will never make the specter of anthropogenic climate change go away by resorting to personal attacks and trying to discredit science or the scientific process. In the end, we need scientists–can’t do without them when it comes to important issues like climate. In the end, any new scientists will wind up doing science in pretty much the same way as their predecessors, because 1)they’re human, and 2)science works. And they’ll ask exactly the same questions of ol’ Ma Nature, and she’ll give them the same answers. Ol’ Ma Nature doesn’t change her story, and she’ll keep telling us what we don’t want to hear no matter how long we sit there and say, “La-la-la-la, I can’t hear you.” Matter of fact, she’ll turn up the volume on her response!

If you want to make the specter of anthropogenic climate change, the answer is easy: Come up with a theory of climate that equal explanatory power and greater predictive power than the current consensus theory, of which anthropogenic causation of the current warming is an inevitable consequence. Now run along and do that. The adults have work to do saving the planet.

Comment by Ray Ladbury — 21 November 2009 @ 8:06 AM

Creationists think that if they can just find one chink in the theory of evolution it will bring down the whole thing. Same with climate change denialists. But there is a lot more to both theories than just one little debating point worried at by denialists. They both provide better expanatory power than any other approach. They both lead us to knew areas of exploration that help us understand the world around us better. No other theory does as much.

That is why they are used and defended. They work better than any other approach for explaining what is going on in the world around us.

Come up with a better theory and scientists will listen. Simply being destructive with any constructive will not do it. But whining and crying conspiracy is a whole lot easier than actually doing any work.

[Listening to: Walk Don't Run from the album "Gold" by The Ventures]

ACORN?? Really? Try a little harder, please.

by Big C Harvey

Public Policy Polling: ACORN
[Via Public Policy Polling]

Losing NY-23 candidate Doug Hoffman became the latest in an increasingly long line of conservative politicians to blame his problems on ACORN yesterday despite the complete lack of evidence the organization played any role in his defeat.

The Republican base is with him though. PPP’s newest national survey finds that a 52% majority of GOP voters nationally think that ACORN stole the Presidential election for Barack Obama last year, with only 27% granting that he won it legitimately. Clearly the ACORN card really is an effective one to play with the voters who will decide whether Hoffman gets to be the Republican nominee in a possible repeat bid in 2010.

[More]

So, somehow ACORN prevented John McCain from getting elected. And how was that supposed to have happened?ACORN workers has been guilty of registration violations, which happens with almost any voter registration effort, but no one has demonstrated that this has led to ineligible voters voting in any substantial way. Where is the actual election fraud?

Registering MIckey Mouse is a violation but does not mean that Mickey Mouse gets to vote. Let’s see. Obama got 10,000,000 more votes than McCain. So how did ACORN swing over 5,000,000 votes and where did that happen?

Obama got 365 electoral votes to McCain’s 173. Where in the world did ACORN swing that many states around?

Jeez, if you are going to have a good conspiracy, at least do a little leg work. Look at some of the Dem’s:

2000 – Bush gets only 540,000 more votes than Gore and 5 more electoral votes. In fact, if Florida swings to Gore, he wins. Bush carried Florida by 537 votes. There are lots of great conspiracy theories dealing with a swing of 270 votes. I like the Palm Beach County’s butterfly ballots, where it appears several thousand votes for Gore were mistakenly marked for Buchanan. Or perhaps Republican politicians’ efforts to scrub thousands of rightful voters from the voter rolls, who did not find out this had happened until election night. Those are much better conspiracies than somehow registering people swings elections by 5 million people. This would only take a couple of hundred, very easy to imagine.

2004 – Bush got 3,000,000 more votes than Kerry and 35 more electoral votes. Let’s look at Ohio with 20 electoral votes. There was an 120,000 vote differential between Bush and Kerry. And the electronic voting machines used by Ohio were made by a company whose Republican head had claimed that they were going to bring the election to Bush. This makes for a great conspiracy theory of how real voter fraud could have been perpetrated. And how about those exit polls? There was a huge discrepancy between how people said they voted and how the results came out. If the vote had gone by exit polling, which had been pretty correct in every election until 2000, then Kerry would have gotten 40 more electoral votes than Bush.

Liberals don’t even have to break a sweat to actually make a convincing effort on the side of the 2000 and 2004 results being a sham. Lots of almost believable stuff there. I love this one that suggest that Obama won, even with massive election fraud.

But that ACORN somehow caused a shift in 95 electoral votes and 5,000,000 people? Without anyone knowing or even having any sort of ‘real’ evidence? That is just insanity. That would put them right up there with the Trilateral Commission and the Freemasons for organizations that somehow are undermining something without any outward sign. In fact, it would really put ACORN out in front because at the same time it is secretly undermining our Republic it is also demonstrating itself to be a very incompetent organization when it comes to voter registration, embezzlement or guerilla videographers.

Their incompetency must actually be a smokescreen for their diabolical plans! We would never suspect them because they are so incompetent. Brilliant!

Like I say, at least work for it. Simply saying ACORN did it is like say the Boogey Man did it. While the Romans actually had a real enemy when they scared children by saying ‘Hannibal ad portas‘ (Hannibal is at the gate), modern Republicans have a much less pithy ‘ACORN ad portas’, which apparently only frightens other Republicans. Luckily they only appear to represent about 20% of the population.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the punditry was skewed to reflect actual numbers? So instead of having one liberal for 3-4 conservatives on talk shows, it would be exactly the opposite. Even having 3-4 moderates per conservative would more accurately reflect the actual electorate.

[Listening to: The Man Comes Around from the album "American IV: The Man Comes Around" by Johnny Cash]

[Listening to: South Side of the Sky from the album "Culture of Ascent" by Glass Hammer]

A semen protein that helps HIV

An atomic-level look at an HIV accomplice:
[Via Eureka! Science News - Popular science news]

Since the discovery in 2007 that a component of human semen called SEVI boosts infectivity of the virus that causes AIDS, researchers have been trying to learn more about SEVI and how it works, in hopes of thwarting its infection-promoting activity.

[More]

Getting some structural understanding of how this peptide helps HIV enter a cell provides some greater understanding of the opportunistic aspects of the virus.

SEVI stands for semen-derived enhancer of virus infection and was found when researchers looks for inhibitors and enhancers of HIV in human semen. While it costs $30 to read the whole paper, the abstract provides a lot of info, including a picture of the protein SEVI is derived from.

Perhaps one of these inhibitors of HIV entry found in the blood will be useful. VIRIP could be very interesting. The gp41 protein of HIV is involved in the actions of both VIRIP and SEVI.

Technorati Tags: Health, Science