Bishop Hill Italian comedy
Feb 26, 2011 Climate: CRU Climate: HSI You may remember that my Climategate Inquiries report was recently translated into Italian, and was published by a Turin-based think tank. Today I picked up my name being mentioned on Italian blog and I decided to get a machine translation. It was well worth it, because this must be one of the funniest pieces about my work to date.
The author appears to be a science writer and journalist called Mark F. Let's take a look at what he has to say - this is a machine translation tidied up by me. I think it's right though...
I did not read much (I did with the phone) but enough to understand that the choice of sources by the author is dubious - there is also the online version here. GWPF is an organization that fights against the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis: [inside there are climatologists?]. The aforementioned Andrew Montford is a chemist with no climatological background...
Now I don't know about you, but I can't think for a moment why a climatological qualification would be of any relevance at all to a report about the conduct of some official inquiries. Sure the inquiries looked at climatology, but I was looking at questions such as choice of panel members, and whether particular allegations were investigated. The idea that only climatologists could assess, for example, the email correspondence of the astronomer Lord Rees on whether the Royal Society would pretend to have taken part in the selection of papers for the inquiry to look at is quite monumentally absurd.
Do you think Mark should maybe have studied the report a little longer - you know, long enough to find out what it was actually about? Mind you, you would have thought the title, The Climategate Inquiries, might have given him a tiny clue?
Next Mark takes a pot-shot at the Hockey Stick Illusion, and in a truly roll-on-the-floor-laughing moment cites Sourcewatch on the subject, finding it more reliable than Wikipedia (I kid you not)!
and his book The Illusion Hockey Stick was considered a bad (and boring) example of disclosure [?] - the link above is to SourceWatch , because the Wikipedia page is clearly flawed, and only cites sources in favor of Montford.
Do you think if he had maybe delved into the Wiki discussion pages he might have found the bit where everyone was complaining that they couldn't find any negative reviews of it (six months after it was published)?
Does anyone get the impression that Mark has just written this article without doing any research at all? I certainly do. Which is a pity, because his next line is:
I will not go into the analysis, but just five minutes of research to understand that the source was not reliable. Why have not they done that? And in a newspaper that prides itself on having three or four pages of science!
Yes, folks, five minutes of research seems to have been all he actually did, and having got himself a nice example of the genetic fallacy as the crux of his argument he considers his job done.
And apparently he is a science writer and journalist.
Strewth.
Reader Comments (25)
Well, research gets in the way of lunch and other very serious activities.
Par for the course. Why bother doing any research (including any reading) when you already 'know' the 'truth'.
I am reminded of George Monbiot (and his 10 second 'investigation')
He probably did meejah studies to get his qualification as a science writer and journalist.
Un vero pasticcio.
Bish
"You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!"
[BH adds: LOL!]
Commedia dell'arte
a bit like street fighting
The bit about qualifications is also in the original La Stampa article which set off poor Mark F. With the assistance of a machine translation, the article quotes a Florentine physics professor: "This is not science - they say - it is part of propaganda. Montford himself has no expertise in climate science."
Italian job.
I just re-read my post above at 11:09. That was an extremely poorly placed prepositional phrase. Apologies to all who winced, as I just did.
When an author uses the word "clearly" (palesemente)' as in "clearly flawed", you know that you are facing a "debate is over" moment.
The mood is: It doesn't agree with me, ergo, it must be flawed. This is an attitude which pervades the Warmist approach to the climate debate, and climate science generally.
I'm very excited by ths article.
I am sure that Mark F. would find many enticing employment opportunities in the Australian MSM, both print and radio.
His skills at mis-paroting what others have written will get his through the toughest of job interviews.
This I believe!
As someone in Ausie land once kept prattling on about, long ago.
It would make the basis of good comic Italian opera: Il Dopie misreads the newspaper that the world will end next Thursday, he rushes out to sell everything to get on the space ship by Wednesday night, but La Doce, his lover, sells their tickets in the hopes that they can buy that house in Tuscany, only to discover that the polar bears are moving south to get out of the melting snow and into the now frigid alps, only to discover the wonder of grapes used to make wine.
Grand final scene where everyone sings as loud as possible. You get the idea.
Only in Italy
HaroldW
We hardly noticed given the preponderance of "him and me goes to the store" we see everyday. Nice to see someone who knows the difference. Thank you for caring.
Don Pablo --
Be sure to put in a part in your opera for del Monteguado, the chemist. A tenor, I think?
A grand final scene wherein everyone sings as loudly as possible, surely.
"We hardly noticed given the preponderance of "him and me goes to the store" we see everyday. Nice to see someone who knows the difference. Thank you for caring."
Pablo and Harold,
Should I feel inadequate for not having the faintest idea what the two of you are on about? I fear that I should.
Was he saying HSI was boring? It is anything but boring. I agree...little effort went into writing that blog post.
Deadman
Surely. Nice that you noticed. My bad. :)
Don P. Brilliant. I do have to confess that finding out what many Italian operas were actually about spoiled them a bit for me.
"My God, the Ferrari won't start."
By the way, please share yours with us when you've finished it. Remember to publish the CODA.
"Hang on a minute, lads. I've got a great idea."
Shub
"I am reminded of George Monbiot (and his 10 second 'investigation')"
I'm also reminded of Andy Revkin, writing within an article about trust in science, admitting he wasn't up for reading the HSI, and perhaps readers shouldn't bother either... just head on over to RC for a review.
See no evil, hear no evil, etc.
Anyone remember the little world of the priest Don Camillo, endlessly in conflict with the communist mayor Peppone, in a small village in the Po Valley, which is forever flooding? All that parody of politics and blissfully free of global warming.
Well, that's not the only blog in Italian that tries to critique the Bishop's report without bothering to read it at all. Here's another. And another.
Entertaining stuff, no doubt. I guess one of them must have understood that the original La Stampa article only pretended to exhonerate the Climategate participants, having confined the comical remarks by Ugo Bardi to the very end of the piece, i.e. the bit nobody usually reads 8-)
Mark F should be careful Bish! Tell him to beware the 15th of March is!