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You mean like the George W. Bush White house email scandal? It got MSM some coverage, not front page, and certainly no awards. In fact, it was only noteworthy

You mean like the George W. Bush White house email scandal? It got MSM some coverage, not front page, and certainly no awards. In fact, it was only noteworthy because it was a meta-scandal that lived inside the far bigger one of the firing of US attorneys, a story that was basically set ablaze not by the media but by the moronic testimony of Alberto Gonzales and Monica Goodling before congress. And it was never wrapped-up or followed-up on beyond diggings from the progressive blogosphere because after AGAG was hung out of dry the media deemed its job complete. Anyway, your comparison is apples and oranges. Political scandals will always carry more weight in the public eye than science ones, if for no other reason than the fact that their hands are directly on the levers of power, whereas scientists just use a (relatively) small amount of taxpayer money compared to what is doled out in the halls of political power. And their impact on our daily lives is significantly less direct than even a mid-level staffer.

cwan 17y ago
Do you also not see this as a political scandal given the policy measures that are being proposed in response to the conclusions some of these people make? These political measures being proposed have a real impact (financial and social) that far exceeds any war in recent years. Personally, I suspect that the AGW thesis probably stands given that it's more than this handful of apparently corrupt scientists. That being said, where does the science stand if we take out these suspect models and the ensuing research that was based on them? Given these scandals, why is there not more of a movement to make these climate models and data in effect open source? The level of secrecy, defensiveness and arrogance as shown by example in the Scientific American is especially troubling when you realize that practically all this research was publicly funded. Why are there non disclosure agreements on the data to begin with? (A real question - does anyone know?)
- patio11 17y ago
  Personally, I suspect that the AGW thesis probably stands given that it's more than this handful of apparently corrupt scientists. I think there is a risk there. Much of the work in the field is reworking and resplicing old results -- for a graphic illustration of this, see McIntyre's graph of which tree-ring series are used in which papers. http://noconsensus.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/slide18.jpg?w=576&h=432&h=432 http://noconsensus.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/slide18.jpg?w... Primary data are hard and expensive to collect. Computer munging on existing data is, relatively, cheap to produce -- you only need grad students, pfft, they work for ramen. So the papers tend to gradually build up more series, more stats, more regressions on the same existing data sources. Then you get into computer modeling, which takes the assumptions gleaned from the 43rd reworking of the source data and combines it with the 27th reworking of other source data to predict that in scenario N where X assumption holds... What if we're building a skyscraper on a foundation of rotten timber? P.S. That being said, where does the science stand if we take out these suspect models and the ensuing research that was based on them? I think the scientists are very, very reluctant to do that. Look at the amount of remixing that has to be done for these papers. If you were to draw a graph of all the results in this field, connect all papers via citations (or a less promiscuous method of your choice, such as "Did I use their numbers for a calculation of importance?"), color one early result in the field red, and then floodfill -- I think it is quite likely that the whole discipline goes red. This is presumably why, when McIntyre et al have demonstrated problems in earlier research, they always get fobbed off with "Pfft, yeah, maybe, but we had 200 data sources and that was only two or three of them." P.P.S. There is no incentive for a scientist to go back and check their own papers for errors introduced by a paper or data source they relied on suddenly going bad. Heads they spent a lot of work and their paper survives scrutiny: good news, but defending results from 1993 didn't get them a grant now did it. Tails, they find an error, can't correct it, and admit so. BAM, loss of professional reputation, funding, etc. And then they get to the really sticky business: calling up all their friends who cited them for the "Bob, got a bit of bad news for you..." conversation.
  - cwan 17y ago
    If what you're saying is true, this is truly frightening. It's surreal looking at Google News and what hits the headlines is the drumbeat towards some type of deal at Copenhagen with this scandal hardly being discussed at all. It's difficult to reconcile the almost dismissive attitude of the general media and this scandal. What perhaps frightens/annoys me the most is thinking that perhaps politically, some of these people are so invested in AGW that any new data is irrelevant so we will end up spending hundreds of billions if not trillions trying to deal with a problem that may end up not even to exist. Personally I think a lot of the changes in technology and energy usage favor reductions in greenhouse emissions and this should happen regardless, but some of these other massive costs... I guess we'll see in coming days which narrative wins out - that nothing is done and is as irrelevant as the media thinks or the mainstream media begins covering the story grudgingly only because competing forces in governments (ie congressional investigations / investigations) make it impossible not to.
catzaa 17y ago
> You mean like the George W. Bush White house email scandal? The media was highly critical of GWB during his whole presidency. He was portrayed as a stuttering moron. This is in complete contrast to the current love-fest with Obama. (I am not American btw, just making an observation).
- chez17 17y ago
  To be fair, GWB was a stuttering moron.

cwan 17y ago

Do you also not see this as a political scandal given the policy measures that are being proposed in response to the conclusions some of these people make? These political measures being proposed have a real impact (financial and social) that far exceeds any war in recent years. Personally, I suspect that the AGW thesis probably stands given that it's more than this handful of apparently corrupt scientists. That being said, where does the science stand if we take out these suspect models and the ensuing research that was based on them? Given these scandals, why is there not more of a movement to make these climate models and data in effect open source? The level of secrecy, defensiveness and arrogance as shown by example in the Scientific American is especially troubling when you realize that practically all this research was publicly funded. Why are there non disclosure agreements on the data to begin with? (A real question - does anyone know?)

patio11 17y ago
Personally, I suspect that the AGW thesis probably stands given that it's more than this handful of apparently corrupt scientists. I think there is a risk there. Much of the work in the field is reworking and resplicing old results -- for a graphic illustration of this, see McIntyre's graph of which tree-ring series are used in which papers. http://noconsensus.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/slide18.jpg?w=576&h=432&h=432 http://noconsensus.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/slide18.jpg?w... Primary data are hard and expensive to collect. Computer munging on existing data is, relatively, cheap to produce -- you only need grad students, pfft, they work for ramen. So the papers tend to gradually build up more series, more stats, more regressions on the same existing data sources. Then you get into computer modeling, which takes the assumptions gleaned from the 43rd reworking of the source data and combines it with the 27th reworking of other source data to predict that in scenario N where X assumption holds... What if we're building a skyscraper on a foundation of rotten timber? P.S. That being said, where does the science stand if we take out these suspect models and the ensuing research that was based on them? I think the scientists are very, very reluctant to do that. Look at the amount of remixing that has to be done for these papers. If you were to draw a graph of all the results in this field, connect all papers via citations (or a less promiscuous method of your choice, such as "Did I use their numbers for a calculation of importance?"), color one early result in the field red, and then floodfill -- I think it is quite likely that the whole discipline goes red. This is presumably why, when McIntyre et al have demonstrated problems in earlier research, they always get fobbed off with "Pfft, yeah, maybe, but we had 200 data sources and that was only two or three of them." P.P.S. There is no incentive for a scientist to go back and check their own papers for errors introduced by a paper or data source they relied on suddenly going bad. Heads they spent a lot of work and their paper survives scrutiny: good news, but defending results from 1993 didn't get them a grant now did it. Tails, they find an error, can't correct it, and admit so. BAM, loss of professional reputation, funding, etc. And then they get to the really sticky business: calling up all their friends who cited them for the "Bob, got a bit of bad news for you..." conversation.
- cwan 17y ago
  If what you're saying is true, this is truly frightening. It's surreal looking at Google News and what hits the headlines is the drumbeat towards some type of deal at Copenhagen with this scandal hardly being discussed at all. It's difficult to reconcile the almost dismissive attitude of the general media and this scandal. What perhaps frightens/annoys me the most is thinking that perhaps politically, some of these people are so invested in AGW that any new data is irrelevant so we will end up spending hundreds of billions if not trillions trying to deal with a problem that may end up not even to exist. Personally I think a lot of the changes in technology and energy usage favor reductions in greenhouse emissions and this should happen regardless, but some of these other massive costs... I guess we'll see in coming days which narrative wins out - that nothing is done and is as irrelevant as the media thinks or the mainstream media begins covering the story grudgingly only because competing forces in governments (ie congressional investigations / investigations) make it impossible not to.

catzaa 17y ago

> You mean like the George W. Bush White house email scandal? The media was highly critical of GWB during his whole presidency. He was portrayed as a stuttering moron. This is in complete contrast to the current love-fest with Obama. (I am not American btw, just making an observation).

chez17 17y ago
To be fair, GWB was a stuttering moron.