Bishop Hill Culpability
Feb 5, 2011 Another interesting aspect of Emma Jay's letter to James Delingpole. This:
Sir Paul is very aware of the culpability of scientists and that will come across in the film.
Now we need to recognise that the film was almost entirely about Climategate and also that this is Delingpole we are speaking about - he was on the programme purely because of his prominent role in breaking the Climategate story into the mainstream media. So I think there can be little doubt that the scientists Ms Jay is speaking about is Messrs Jones et al.
So, if we are to understand correctly, Sir Paul made this programme about Climategate, in the full recognition of the "culpability" of the scientists and yet said nothing this about his concerns in the programme itself. Indeed he presented a rather chummy interview with Jones, with the UEA man presented as the wronged party. Can this be right? An alternative explanation might be that Ms Jay sexed up the message to Delingpole in order to encourage him to take part, but at the moment we have no way of knowing which explanation is the right one.
Reader Comments (24)
I don't recall any mention of any scientist being culpable of anything.
Perhaps this is an attempt at even handedness on Sir Paul and Emma Jay's part; i.e. they are aware of the culpability of Jones et al., and balance that out by being misleading and misrepresenting facts(?)
Nurse starts the programme by referring to the letter frrom NAS scientists to “Science” about attacks on climate scientists, which refers to the Virginia Attorney General Cuccinelli’s investigation into Mann. He says: “What worries me is not just that scientists feel under attack but that many people think these attacks may be intellectually justified”.
Nurse never mentions Mann or the “Science” letter again in the programme. The above quote makes it pretty clear that Nurse is NOT “aware of the culpability of scientists”. Perhaps Emma forgot to tell him what the programme was about.
Sir Paul's acceptance of the "trick to hide the decline" was unbelievable.
To pursue his own "cancer treatment analogy":-
If Sir Paul discovered that a drug company had used "a trick to hide" their cancer study results because they showed a "decline" in the drug's efficacy. Would he take the drug?
I have written to the BBC to complain.
Perhaps Mr Delingpole should submit a FOI request to the BBC regarding the programme communication between Paul Nurse and the BBC. This might provide some light on the real reasons for the programme.
There is another possibility, that Sir Paul Nurse was "stitched up" by the producers. Perhaps he really does believe what Emma Jay says he does, and it all ended on the cutting room floor too...
No, I didn't think so either.
Neil: Sir Paul's acceptance of the "trick to hide the decline" was unbelievable.
To pursue his own "cancer treatment analogy":-
If Sir Paul discovered that a drug company had used "a trick to hide" their cancer study results because they showed a "decline" in the drug's efficacy. Would he take the drug?
Please dear friends. Have a look at this video from Paul Nurse's area of expertise (medical research), because to me it is totally parallel to our climate science issues, using fraudulent pretences in the media to discredit good people uncovering serious scientific problems. This is something Nurse should be speaking up about IMHO.
http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=608256A446123276E4E72A5351322186
Lucy - I agree, see my response to your comment last night on the Integrity-in-the-internet-age post.
BH writes:
But we can guess, can't we?
Second paragraph 'nothing this about'.
Climategate.
I do not doubt that the majority of research scientists are decent honourable people, and they in turn think ALL their colleagues are the same.
I do not doubt that these people consider having an article published in the scientific literature, peer reviewed, is the ultimate, and selfless, tribute.
How can Nurse, a Nobel prize winner, accept the view that fellow Nobel prize winners, Gore, Pachauri, IPCC etc, are charlatans, without discrediting that which he holds so valuable?
I interpret
very differently.It is not referring to 'the scientists' involved in climategate and other things but just 'scientists'. I view that sentence in the context of those that follow it as Sir Paul Nurse believing scientists need to get out of their labs and make their case - the culpability Nurse sees is scientists not being forthright enough (!) and seceding the discussion to sceptics. Hasn't he heard of James Hansen? Does he ever watch the BBC? Science isn't under attack. Bad science is, and rightly so.
The preceding sentence also hints at a pre-formed view:
What does the term 'science sceptics' suggest? To me it suggests they think those who question the science are not (or worse, cannot be) scientists themselves.The Horizon piece was all about bolstering the warmist argument - reinforcing the notion that 'science' as the IPCC have distilled it says the correct thing and that James Delingpole and others are being awfully beastly in highlighting mistakes, uncertainties, failures of past predictions and conflicts of interest.
The BBC is well aware of its pension fund, its political masters wishes, its support of the Met office, its past utterings on the subject, its total bias towards warming and its unique position to influence the public to its way of thinking. As the proof against the limited way CO2 influences climate and weather builds by the utter failure and fabrications of the likes of Nurse etc. it will become more desperate and more exposed. Slow train crash comes to mind.
It may be a kind of distortion field or 'chinese whispers' - Paul Nurse relays his alleged 'intentions' (which, of course, can 'change' over time) to Mizz Emma Jay who, maybe sincerely, relays her understanding of those 'intentions', at the time, to James Delingpole. Nurse, already shifting (co-opted, anyone? What I call the 'Lord Carlyle Syndrome'!), interviews the various participants, and the BBC, via the editor, puts it's final, interprative imprimiter. Not quite lieing, not quite honest, but enough wiggle room for 'plausible deniability'?
Peter Whale, Lewis Deane
I am offering Nurse the opportunity to plead naivete, through misplaced trust.
The BBC, Royal Society, and Met Office, should lose tax payer funding, as they are defrauding the tax payer
Are we now into 'Emmagate' or is this part of 'Nursegate' ?
That's the beauty of the English language, the '-gate' suffix tells you all you need to know in 4 letters !
The now-infamous 'Emma', tells James that Paul Nurse 'wanted to explore why science isn't trusted and whether we as scientists are largely to blame ?'
As part of the problem himself, he now has his answers loud and clear !
Lapogus, thanks.
Bishop, sometimes my lateral awareness gets provoked. I do my best to express that awareness strictly in terms of thread subject but I'm still learning.
Has anyone found out whether Ms. Jay is related to Baroness Jay/Peter Jay etc?
Re DDB
I don't think she's related to Peter Jay. I'd wondered that given the media can be rather an incestuous business.
Re London Calling
Or vice-versa. Ms Jay isn't a climate scientist so may have been mislead. Sir Paul isn't a climate scientist either, so may have been mislead by people he trusted to advise him. The programme credits for the show don't seem to list writer or adviser credits, so we don't really know how the BBC's editorial guidelines were followed to ensure accuracy. I'm a bit curious about whether SMC played any part though, which may explain the Bob and Fiona zone defence. FOI's may not help because the BBC enjoys and uses it's journalistic exemption frequently to avoid responding to those.
It is clear that this programme was intended to discredit James Delingpole, in the eyes of the public, as a critic of AGW. I believe that the purpose of the subsequent Horizon programme was to discredit Lord Monckton. These programmes should be seen as part of a propaganda war by the "warmists" against the "deniers" to win support from the general public after the "failures" at Copenhagen and Cancun.
In this enterprise, the BBC is a willing tool of Coalition government policy, the PM and the Secretary of State for Climate Change and Energy. To borrow a phrase "they are all in this together". This battle for public opinion will run and run until one side or the other is defeated and gives up.
I think it is possible and even likely Sir Paul Nurse was stiched up too. There is simply no question that his scientific credentials are first class. There is also good evidence that the producers are mendacious sacks of ordure, who need to make money and promote their business. It is well known that scientists are easily duped, as James Randi has repeatedly shown, and there is some reason to think that the more respectable they are the more easily they are fooled.
Having said that, Sir Paul may not completely disagree with the final product, even if it wasn't what he thought he was agreeing to. He may be only mildly aggrieved at having been used and not sufficiently upset to repudiate the whole thing. Until he responds we can't know.
someone posted the following info on WUWT re the canadian public funded broadcaster:
http://www.cbc.ca/manitoba/eal/lessons/may10t_2008.doc
Title: Learning English with CBC
(excerpt) Extension Activities: Learning more about climate change
Calculating your own ecological footprint
Writing a letter to your elected representative asking for action on climate change
meanwhile,
4 Feb: Guardian: Terry Macalister: European carbon market reopens but traders stay awaySuspicion that carbon trading system is not secure enough remains after cyber attacks
The ETS is seen as a vital tool in the fight against climate change and the fraud is a setback to attempts to sell the cap-and-trade scheme to the US, Australia and elsewhere.
Britain, France and three other countries resumed trading but it took three hours before any trades had been reported on the Paris-based BlueNext platform, while larger exchanges such as that of London-based ICE remained shut.
New York's Green Exchange, backed by JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, also remained closed for business, with officials there saying it could weeks before they felt confident the system had been suitably cleansed...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/feb/04/european-carbon-trading-resumes
Lucy & lapogus
please also read this:
http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5347.full
I see parallels with climate science alarmism in so far as we have a medical researcher alarmist that was supported by the establishment (the Lancet) initially anyway, academia (UCL, refusing FOI requests) and the media, and had vested interests in his own product. The due diligence of a reporter uncovered this. Unfortunately climate science alarmism will take longer to be exposed.