5 ms·

Okay, here's the thing. If you're publishing scientific stuff on a blog or in a newspaper, instead of in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, then you're playing

by lucumo 17y ago

Okay, here's the thing. If you're publishing scientific stuff on a blog or in a newspaper, instead of in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, then you're playing politics, not science. This topic has been politicised enough. Stop doing that. If you're critical of some peer-reviewed paper, publish it in a peer-reviewed journal. Those dudes know if what you're saying is truthful and valuable, the general public (including me) does not.

jacoblyles 17y ago
Yes, this amateurish analysis detracts from what ought to be the real outrage from the CRU leak: the lack of transparency, denying FOI requests, and lying to the public about it. That, and the apparent irreproducibility of some IPCC analyses due to shoddy coding practices. Stuff like this is genuinely shocking: http://camirror.wordpress.com/2009/11/25/willis-eschenbachs-foi-request/#more-75 http://camirror.wordpress.com/2009/11/25/willis-eschenbachs-... http://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/2009/11/data-horribilis-harryreadmetxt-file.html http://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/2009/11/data-horribilis-harry... Crackpot analysis is not really as interesting, and frankly just reduces the credibility of those rightly calling for transparency after the incident.
- gaius 17y ago
  There's a story in the British papers about how our delegation to the climate conference in Denmark is dozens of people, and they're all flying. Regardless of the climate change argument, it's undeniable that for these people it merely represents a gravy train,.
wisty 17y ago
I agree. The skeptics will claim (with some merit) that the climate journals (and even Science and Nature) are a little biased against denial articles. But that's no excuse to just publish in blogs though. Even if they can't find a climate journal to publish in, there would be other journals (physics journals, economics journals, applied mathematics journals) that would take a good skeptical article. They could even pull a Sokal, and use fake data and dodgy analysis to write an article aimed at discrediting the climate community. I haven't seen either of those happening, so I'm guessing that their position is still pretty weak.
hop 17y ago
Those dudes know if what you're saying is truthful and valuable, the general public (including me) does not. Not necessarily. They are incentivized by fame and grant money to produce studies with a wow factor. Climatologists skeptical of global warming are outcasts among their peers - the leaked CRU emails illustrate this, as well as, intimidation to scholarly journals that publish skeptical papers. I am not a climatologist, but I've done some complicated math simulations in college and there is no way you can future predictions look like these - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global_Warming_Predictions.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global_Warming_Predictions... - how the fuck do you have squiggly lines, not a range, after 20 years from now - fails the common sense test. Plus, can any non PhD even get access to a scientific journal? Can you or me even access most of them without a paid subscription?
- lucumo 17y ago
  > They are incentivized by fame and grant money to produce studies with a wow factor. That's why I said "peer reviewed". Sceptics have the same incentives as climatologists and when they just publish in newspapers and blogs, they don't have the peer review stage. There is absolutely NO guarantee of correctness or even scientific soundness. Whatever you may think of the peer review process, it's a good deal better than nothing.
- ewjordan 17y ago
  Plus, can any non PhD even get access to a scientific journal? Can you or me even access most of them without a paid subscription? Yes - go to any local university library, walk to the section labeled "scientific journals" and go nuts. You won't be able to take the journals home with you (they're too damn expensive for libraries to have multiple copies), but most decent university libraries will let anyone in to do research without paying anything, and photocopies are relatively cheap. Obviously that's much more difficult if you're not near a university, and it is a sad state of affairs when publicly funded research is not instantly available for free online - anyone in academia should fight against this trend, and I think many are starting to, which is a good sign for the future. But it's at least possible to get to this stuff in person, and worth doing from time to time if you're interested in academic matters.

by lucumo 17y ago

jacoblyles 17y ago

Yes, this amateurish analysis detracts from what ought to be the real outrage from the CRU leak: the lack of transparency, denying FOI requests, and lying to the public about it. That, and the apparent irreproducibility of some IPCC analyses due to shoddy coding practices. Stuff like this is genuinely shocking: http://camirror.wordpress.com/2009/11/25/willis-eschenbachs-foi-request/#more-75 http://camirror.wordpress.com/2009/11/25/willis-eschenbachs-... http://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/2009/11/data-horribilis-harryreadmetxt-file.html http://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/2009/11/data-horribilis-harry... Crackpot analysis is not really as interesting, and frankly just reduces the credibility of those rightly calling for transparency after the incident.

gaius 17y ago
There's a story in the British papers about how our delegation to the climate conference in Denmark is dozens of people, and they're all flying. Regardless of the climate change argument, it's undeniable that for these people it merely represents a gravy train,.

wisty 17y ago

I agree. The skeptics will claim (with some merit) that the climate journals (and even Science and Nature) are a little biased against denial articles. But that's no excuse to just publish in blogs though. Even if they can't find a climate journal to publish in, there would be other journals (physics journals, economics journals, applied mathematics journals) that would take a good skeptical article. They could even pull a Sokal, and use fake data and dodgy analysis to write an article aimed at discrediting the climate community. I haven't seen either of those happening, so I'm guessing that their position is still pretty weak.

hop 17y ago

Those dudes know if what you're saying is truthful and valuable, the general public (including me) does not. Not necessarily. They are incentivized by fame and grant money to produce studies with a wow factor. Climatologists skeptical of global warming are outcasts among their peers - the leaked CRU emails illustrate this, as well as, intimidation to scholarly journals that publish skeptical papers. I am not a climatologist, but I've done some complicated math simulations in college and there is no way you can future predictions look like these - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global_Warming_Predictions.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global_Warming_Predictions... - how the fuck do you have squiggly lines, not a range, after 20 years from now - fails the common sense test. Plus, can any non PhD even get access to a scientific journal? Can you or me even access most of them without a paid subscription?

lucumo 17y ago
> They are incentivized by fame and grant money to produce studies with a wow factor. That's why I said "peer reviewed". Sceptics have the same incentives as climatologists and when they just publish in newspapers and blogs, they don't have the peer review stage. There is absolutely NO guarantee of correctness or even scientific soundness. Whatever you may think of the peer review process, it's a good deal better than nothing.
ewjordan 17y ago
Plus, can any non PhD even get access to a scientific journal? Can you or me even access most of them without a paid subscription? Yes - go to any local university library, walk to the section labeled "scientific journals" and go nuts. You won't be able to take the journals home with you (they're too damn expensive for libraries to have multiple copies), but most decent university libraries will let anyone in to do research without paying anything, and photocopies are relatively cheap. Obviously that's much more difficult if you're not near a university, and it is a sad state of affairs when publicly funded research is not instantly available for free online - anyone in academia should fight against this trend, and I think many are starting to, which is a good sign for the future. But it's at least possible to get to this stuff in person, and worth doing from time to time if you're interested in academic matters.