Thursday
Jan192012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill More problems at Skeptical Science
Jan 19, 2012 Blogs Climate: other Shub notes some more integrity issues at Skeptical Science. Coming so soon after the comment editing problems, quote doctoring is not really a surprise.
Reader Comments (87)
Yet he got an award... And the media love it.....
Anybody asked for a journalist thoughts on this type of behaviour... Quote misrepresentation, etc would get a journos into trouble...
How can scs be considered a trustworthy source by anybody..
It is also so blatant, and people try to defend it.. ie ref Spencers problems there.
I think this is known as COOKing the books.
I also see a couple of sks cultists are stinking up the Pat Michaels thread over at Whats Up.
The funniest bit was when one of the cultists tried to explain the context of hide the decline and got utterly buried! :)
The saddest part of all of this is supposedly intelligent scientists who use sks as some kind of shining light of scientific enquiry to back their opinions up...while at the same time declaring skeptical blogs like this as peddling misinformation and lies.
Regards
Mailman
More revealed truisms created by warmists for other warmists.
The certainty of CAGW is most revealing by the tricks the adherents deploy.
This is a perfect example of the kind of partisan slime that characterises SkS. Good for Shub on bringing it into the light.
P.S. And you Bishop!
Those seized with righteousness and zeal seem to think anyone opposing them is a fair target using fair means or foul, much as one might feel if fighting in a savage war. Their emotions get in the way of their manners, their morals, and their last remnants of integrity. If there is any 'war analogy', it is a war their side has won. They dominate education primary secondary and tertiary, politics local national and international, NGOs ditto, the electronic and the printed mass media, and the internet. They are wealthier by orders of magnitude than the 'other side'. Their main problem is that they do not have Mother Nature on their side, and I guess it threatens their sanity to be reminded of that, even if only by the poor down-trodden 'sceptics'.
John Shade: They haven't won the war and they know it. Everything you've said is true, but we're still out here reminding them of the failures of their forecasts, and as you so rightly point out, Mother Nature is on our side. That's why they want to speed up the actions, they're not sure so they want to get their crazy green agenda in place before they are proved wrong. One day we'll look back on this and wonder what madness grabbed the world. I would hazard a guess and say the politicians were receptive because it was "science" and "scientists" telling them, which makes the IPCC the greatest con job of all time. They then smeared their opponents as flat-earthers, holocaust deniers, creationists and troofers, and effectively silenced debate. They should pay a terrible price for what they're doing in the name of Gaia, but I doubt they're bothered, the global warming scare has given them a chance to seize the high ground and impose their religion on the rest of us by force. We're have I seen that before?
@john shade
In sales training, it is taught that objections to one's pitch are actually good things because it shows that the other participant is actively engaged in the discussion rather than sitting passively. Voicing objections gives the sales rep the further opportunity to understand the punter's position and to tailor his pitch accordingly.
And any salesman will tell you that the hardest punter to sell to is the one who shows no interest whatsoever in the pitch.
Schmidt, Mann and their henchmen think of themselves as master salesmen, yet have failed to grasp the essential point that you do not persuade somebody by browbeatings and put downs. Richard Betts at least has teh commons sense to recognise this. The Team do not.
Latimer Alder:
Browbeatings and putdowns are as traditional in academic science as anywhere else in the history of the world. In that regard, I and Richard Betts and every other scientist has been brought up in a bad moral environment -- intellectually competitive academe -- and has either risen above it or not (and the little snots plying the world stage generally have not).
@geronimo,
"I would hazard a guess and say the politicians were receptive because it was "science" and "scientists" telling them, which makes the IPCC the greatest con job of all time."
I'd say there was more to it than that.
It gives enormous scope for control, taxes and growing bureaucratic empires to administer the legislation arising. It distracts attention from problems politicians should be addressing but which aren't glamorous. All very tempting for politicians and civil servants.
It's a perfect example of one of Mencken's hobgoblins.
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
H. L. Mencken
Unless the appeal to politicians was there, none of this would have happened. The "science" and the politics developed together, but the political motivation was there early on. So, the politicians haven't exactly been deceived by the "scientists", it's more like the "scientists" have been cultivated to tell the politicians what they wanted to hear. The fact that "scientists" were coming out with the fundamental justification gave it an authoritative basis which it wouldn't have had as a purely political idea.
Harry Dale Huffman
Absolutely correct. That is what I saw in the 1960's when I was in academia.
I don't visit Skeptic Science website much. Of the few times I've visited, it seemed like the author was instructing alarmists on how not to be fooled by opposing views. It seemed more of an alarmist advice and strategy site than a science site. A great place to maintain ones AGW faith.
I think I was fooled by the name Skeptical Science. It did not seem skeptical at all.
A candidate for Johann Hari quote reconstructionism awarded annually by the Independent?
Come on! Skeptical Science is a purely political propaganda site. Why would anybody be the least bit surprised by what goes on there?
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/11989/
Sex Drug and Rock n Roll (and polio)
Ian Dury and The Blockheads
Ian Dury was called the Grandfather of punk
He was and still is a rock legend
He was also crippled by polio that he caught in a swimming baths as a child
But Polio didnt stop him from becoming the inspiration to the Sex Pistols The Clash and me and many others
In India a country that we mostly assiciate with povety and disease
They have had their first ever year WITHOUT ANY reported cases of Polio
ABSOULOUTLY BRILLIANT Great news for India and its 1.2 billlion people
They introduced a massive vacination program
Cost them a few billion rupees but they paid for it through their own unfashionable economic growth
Thats why its called the New Tiger Economy
Top Gear went out there to celebrate the place and its people not mock it
Best of all in this uplifting story about the triump of the humanity
The words carbon or sustanibillity arnt in it
So for all you smug western arrogent Enviromentalists
Obsessed by to many people using up few resources
Thats how you progress ordinary peoples lives
Not by serilizing trying reducing peoples carbon footprints but by economic and commercial enterprize creating wealth pulling them out of povety
In world politics that how to Rock and Roll
So there's an ellipsis missing from the quote. How do these alarmists expect us to believe a word when they can't even get their punctuation right </sarc>
Not interested in how the missing ellipsis matters? Whether it makes Cooks job easier for him and therefore dimishes his standing (it does outside the partisan playpen)?
I see. So just the number of ellipsis that are missing matters...one ... measly... ellipsis.
Lol. Looking forward to Hengist being equally sanguine about any other errors like this in the future - no matter where they appear, it's OK! So long as there is just one shown. ;)
Sarc indeed ;)
SKS is a Teams recommended go to site , that really is all you need to known about the value of SKS , its fawning attempt from Cook to please his prophets by mimicking Real-climate. That's the goal and that is what drives its policy .
Charlie A at 04:38 AM on 18 October, 2011
Dana, you could make your hypothetical version of Lindzen's predictions look even worse if you moved them down another arbitrary 0.25C or so.
Or you could use the same baseline adjustment method you used for the other lines, in which case is would be relatively close to the observed temperatures.
It's really a moot point, though, since you are the one that generated the data you claim to be Lindzen's prediction.
Response:
[DB] Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can and will be rescinded if the posting individual continues to treat adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.
Moderating this site is a tiresome chore, particularly when commentators repeatedly submit offensive or off-topic posts.
There is more read it all, Comment 2 at:-
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=1055
Yes Hengist, because running two parts together is utterly misleading, and what's more, you know that it is and it was deliberate. That makes you equally dishonest.
As an example, the original bad film review : " this film is so bad I would not watch it if it was the only film around" becomes : "this film I would watch", and there's only a couple of ellipses missing. According to Hengist it's an honest rendering.
Hengist, now reduced to snide remarks because he hasn't got any substance left.
In the UK as indeed the entire EU, there are Moral Rights to copyrighted material. One day it would be nice to take someone to court and sue them for the sort of behavior Hengist apparently approves of.
Not only is it dishonest but illegal.
After adding ellipsis to the original Pat Micheals quote, they have now silently replaced it a different passage from an article in The Australian.
"Shub notes some more integrity issues at Skeptical Science. Coming so soon after the comment editing problems, quote doctoring is not really a surprise."
"no integrity issues at Skeptical Science... quote doctoring is really a surprise."
May I quote you on that?
Shub
"After adding ellipsis to the original Pat Micheals quote, they have now silently replaced it a different passage from an article in The Australian."
It can't get much more Ministry of Truth than that.
You gotta love Hengist, when someone makes use of a reasonable full quote of Carl Sagan about witch hunting in science Hengist raises his handbag and screeches like a Monty Python chracter in drag about the memory of Carl Sagan being sullied - Hengist tells us how unreasonable this is because he knows just how Sagan would think from beyond the grave, Oh yes!
Yet in this occasion, when a sentence is fabricated (note also the initial "t" is capitalised instead of using [T] as well to add the effort used in the fabrication Hegist ;) ) Hengist then gives us his insouciant man about town, cigarette flicking act, "Hey!. So what? Chill" act.
I don't know why anyone takes him seriously. I think he should be cherished as the village idiot :)
I don't think you could get away with that, Edward.
Quote doctoring usually draws the line at messing about with individual words. You can leave them out but not put them in and changing 'notes' to 'no
tes'would be considered very naughty!Bentley,
I think you are being overly generous to Hingst by suggesting he/she/it had some substance to start with?
Mailman
"I don't know why anyone takes him seriously"
His mum, perhaps.
Woooah straw mans aplenty
@Bentley
Dana says 'The slight misquote was unintentional.' So on the face of it it was unintentional. The burden of proof is on you.You're going to have to withdraw your remark to me "you know that it is and it was deliberate." I don't , you are wrong and there is simply no way you can support your remark.
@Leopard You are misquoting me, deliberatley. Your remark " [Hengist] knows just how Sagan would think from beyond the grave, Oh yes!" Is simply nonsense, there is no way you can support it.
So what are we going to call this ? Ellipsisgate ? Would any BH readers like to speculate as to why the MSM aren't on to this one yet ?
keep going Hengist - everything you say makes Septical Science seem even more underhand. hSo Dana misquoted unintentionally...did he have his eyes closed when he copied?
In the comments on his article Shub has a link showing the original text with the parts used by SS highlighted. Pretty devastating imo. I encourage others to have a look and see for themselves.
Interesting. The SkS 'Serial Deleter' article deals with three examples of Michaels' misrepresentations:
- Hansen 1988
- Schmittner 2011
- Gillett 2012
All are clear-cut: Michaels omitted data from figures taken from these papers and used them in support of misleading claims.
But Shub ignores this and tries to direct attention to another post altogether. Wonder why?
Anyway, looking at the SkS article on Antarctic land ice vs sea ice, Michaels is indeed using misleading terminology. He repeatedly uses the word 'surrounding' without ever making it clear that this refers to sea ice, not land ice and not ice shelves:
'the amount of ice surrounding Antarctica'
'ice surrounding Antarctica'
'there is more ice than ever surrounding Antarctica'
Only in the final paragraph - after having created a strong (and misleading) impression that the Antarctic ice cap is growing - does Michaels actually slip in a reference to the loss of land ice compared to the increase in sea ice:
While you can argue that Cook should have been more precise in indicating text omitted in the quotes, he has not changed Michaels' meaning at all.
Michaels deliberately avoids using the term 'sea ice' and repeatedly talks about ice 'surrounding' Antarctica, which is misleading.
SkS should perhaps have been more diligent in its use of ellipses, which is trivial.
Who is more sinned against than sinning?
Now, back to those really serious, indisputable examples of misrepresentation by omission...
Thought not ;-)
"SkS should perhaps have been more diligent in its use of ellipses, which is trivial. "
As the actual example at Shub's site shows, this claim is misleading to say the least. This is no trivial omission, but a deliberate attempt to mislead. As I said above I suggest people look at the original article with the SS text picks highlighted. Climate clownery at its finest.
Eddy
What link? Couldn't see that yesterday either. And I read the original AS article etc.
Why is what I say misleading. Be specific: show links and quote examples.
And read my comment properly.
Yes BBD you want to make a scientific point but to who? People who know the point already? That’s a bit redundant isn’t it?
Making the case that Michaels has made errors requires both the technical ability of the case maker and some trust on the part of the reader. The example detailed by Shub shows a falling that gives any layman reasons not to trust- a failing any child can spot – so if it doesn't engender trust why plough through the detail?. In fact I would say it does the opposite and it would be reasonable not just for the antagonistic but any neutral person to feel wary of trusting any further product from that source. Your attempt to minimise just reflects badly on yourself, believe me your sciencey puffery in this context doesn't actually act as a cleaning agent that makes it better ;)
TLITB
You what? SkS writes a piece detailing Michaels' blatant misrepresentations of:
- Hansen 1988
- Schmittner 2011
- Gillett 2012
Shub goes into major distraction mode and treats us to another example of Michaels carefully misrepresenting something - and getting caught.
I repeat - Cook did not change Michaels' meaning in the quotes he provided in the SkS article.
This is just misdirection to keep attention away from:
- Hansen 1988
- Schmittner 2011
- Gillett 2012
Nothing more or less. And I'm not buying it.
there has been considerable discussion of this over at The Blackboard, at least about the Hansen point. the view seems that Michaels was on the money.
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2012/galloping-camel-posts-the-wgii-zod/#comment-88823
<"AMac (Comment #88821)
January 20th, 2012 at 9:43 am
Re: HaroldW (Comment #88815),
> Hansen’s Congressional testimony explicitly calls scenario A “business as usual”.
Michaels and others have claimed that Hansen called scenario A “BAU”, but it wasn’t clear to me that that is actually the case. It is: some Googling brought up a condemnation of Michaels from a 2007 Deltoid post by Tim Lambert:
The trick Michaels is using [in noting that Hansen called Scenario A "business as usual"] is to use BAU to mean something different to what Hansen meant. Hansen did not use the term in his paper, but he did use it in his testimony:
The other curves in this figure [besides the observations] are the results of global climate model calculations for three scenarios of atmospheric trace gas growth. We have considered several scenarios because there are uncertainties in the exact trace gas growth in the past and especially in the future. We have considered cases ranging from business as usual, which is scenario A, to draconian emission cuts, scenario C, which would totally eliminate net trace gas growth by year 2000.
[Lambert then explains that by describing scenario A as the "business as usual" scenario, Hansen was conveying the idea that scenario A projected "continued exponential trace gas growth".]">
BBD
From that I can take it you sign up that deceptive presentational style because you personally find agreement with the argument it is attached to. The end justifies the means? Good for you. But now I am presented with two people’s word I have to trust. And both these people stem from the initial introduction of a fabricated quote they feel is fair play. Not a good start. You can raise your hand-bag as high as you like with your cries of “you what!” but it really does not add to your credibility in my eyes.
You could hypothetically start from this point lead me through the intricacies of the underlying argument and have me agree that the factual content of the quote matches Michael’s presentation and that would be fine for the moment, however it still wouldn’t make me trust the source any better. In the future you would have do the same over again from the most painfully axiomatic beginnings of the most basic sort because I would not trust the source – (I know of Cooks extremist political ideology for one thing in his case). I hope my being this clear on this narrow point will clarify this and help stop you spluttering at your screen naming papers ;)
Believe it or not I have formed some opinions on the technical side coming from a purely layman position that isn’t slavishly favourable to using the likes of Michaels as a sole source of knowledge on this subject either.
When will the unbiased Climate Science Messiah descend upon us!
TLITB
There is no 'fabricated' quote. No words were changed.
Michaels repeatedly refers to ice 'surrounding' Antarctica instead of calling it what it is: sea ice. He misleadingly creates the impression that the Antarctic ice cap is growing, when in fact it is losing ice mass. Much of which ends up as sea ice. Who'd have thought?
Missing ellipses that do not change Michaels' meaning in any way are irrelevant.
diogenes
Hansen in 1988 presented the best information he had, truthfully. He acted in good faith.
Michaels, ten years later in 1998, tells Congress that Hansen over-predicted CC by 4x. He does not tell Congress that Hansen's B scenario was (for its time) commendably accurate in its projection of warming based on actual GHG emissions 1988 - 1998. Michaels acted in bad faith.
The question is, why?
BBD
OK fine that helps sort out some definitions, a contiguous block of text - lower cases capitalised where needed and surrounded with quotation marks picked from separate parts of an article and put at the head of a debunking article proudly displaying the subscript name attributed to the "about to be debunked" makes a fine definition of a fair representation in your books.
Could be a cultural failing on my part, maybe I missed a meeting, but that is not good enough for me.
I'll explain. Every time from now on I see from BBD something like (and now I am making it up here ;) )
I will now make extra care to check the source. If the source is erm, (not fabricated don't say fabricated!) shall we say "constructed" then I will have to put in the extra spade work to wonder why that particular construction was made. Remember this is before the proof of the pudding, the hypothetical construction is at the introduction.
So at the beginning I am made to ask myself is this a fair construction? Why is it at the beginning not the end? Do I trust his summation? This is before I move on to even read the justification. The justification may be too technical for me. Then again I could say, hmmm if a construction is used here where else has he done this? In his graphics? In his characterisations? By ommision? Oh God! Oh Sod it. I just wont trust him.
You know in the world there is choice and one day the Messiah may come ;)
TLITB
Please illustrate how the quote changed Michaels' meaning.
BBD
Do you think the onus is on me to do so? If so what led you to think that?
The answer is no.
it's hardly worthwhile but in an attempt to stop the astroturfing:
"Hansen in 1988 presented the best information he had, truthfully. He acted in good faith.
Michaels, ten years later in 1998, tells Congress that Hansen over-predicted CC by 4x. He does not tell Congress that Hansen's B scenario was (for its time) commendably accurate in its projection of warming based on actual GHG emissions 1988 - 1998. Michaels acted in bad faith."
Please prove that Hansen acted in good faith.
The B scenario turns out to have performed quite well although none of the parameters in it correspond to real-life values.
Michaels shows this. Hansen's model B was right although everything about its construction was wrong. It is hardly worth arguing about, unless you are a Hansen-shill and CAGW astro-turfer.
TLTB
So you are unable to show how the quote changed Michaels' meaning.
Thank you for confirming this.
the discussion at the Blackboard is more detailed and nuanced than an astroturfer could understand, but consider these few points of view:
"HaroldW (Comment #88828)
January 20th, 2012 at 3:05 pm
AMac -
Thanks for the Deltoid quotation. For one thing, it spares me having to type in Hansen’s testimony, because that part is accurate. Lambert’s interpretation of Hansen’s use of “business as usual” would make Humpty-Dumpty proud.
Anteros, in #88823, made the same interpretation as I did in #88815, based on the plain meaning of what Hansen said in his testimony, and the context. It would have been quite easy to say that B is a reasonable guess at future emissions (barring changes in policy), and A is a plausible upper bound; and that would not be taken incorrectly.
Now, in the Hansen et al. paper, it’s described rather differently:
These scenarios are designed to yield sensitivity experiments for a broad range of future greenhouse forcings…Scenario B is perhaps the most plausible of the three cases.
As we’ve seen, even scenario B over-estimated the greenhouse gas forcing, notably that of methane and CFCs. The discussion at CA indicates that the scenarios predate the testimony by several years (which finally explains to me why the scenarios diverged after 1984 rather than closer to 1988), and the Montreal Protocol’s effect on CFCs would not necessarily have been anticipated at that time. By the time of Hansen’s 1988 testimony & paper, however, the Montreal Protocol had been agreed, and it would have been fairer to add the caveat that the CFC trajectory was overstated in both A&B.
bugs (Comment #88829)
January 20th, 2012 at 4:10 pm
@HaroldW
“As we’ve seen, even scenario B over-estimated the greenhouse gas forcing, notably that of methane and CFCs.”
From what I can tell, he didn’t. The forcings he considered are reasonable, he just didn’t at the time have the ability to predict how important other forcings are, and how they would all pan out now. The problem with relying on particulates as a negative forcing is that they only have a short lifetime in the atmosphere, while CO2 has a long one.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #88830)
January 20th, 2012 at 4:29 pm
The relevant question about Hansen’s 1988 testimony is not whether he got it right, but whether it had more skill than a naive extrapolation. Obviously it had more skill than a prediction of no change, but then so would a linear extrapolation of the previous ten or twenty years."
This is Cook's article summary for his 'intermediate' version (emphasis in original).
"While the interior of East Antarctica is gaining land ice, overall Antarctica is losing land ice at an accelerating rate. Antarctic sea ice is growing despite a strongly warming Southern Ocean."
This is Michaels:
"Despite a warming Southern Ocean, the amount of ice surrounding Antarctica is now at the highest level ever measured for this time of the year, since satellites first began to monitor it almost thirty years ago."
Looks like they are saying the same thing.
BBD, you should expend your stalinist tactics for a better cause, no? SkepticalScience themselves have apologized to Pat Michaels and taken down their original quote.
Take a look at this page to see how this particular myth was manufactured. This is the page Eddy was referring to (which your lazily refused to go looking for).
BBD
All you can possibly have confirmed to yourself is that I can't be tempted to "show" you anything when I have no reason to do so and when you have made no reason clear why I should do so.
The "unable" bit is something you have, er, constructed. But knock yourself out! By using that open ended rhetorical technique you can successfully make up as many things you like about what I am "unable" to do - just make sure you assiduously ignore touching upon anything I've said ;)