Do not cite or quote

Clif at Sadly No mocks some blogger who thinks that because the draft report Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States used a photoshopped picture of flood to illustrate a flood, rather than a picture of a real flood, this casts doubt on the science. Following the links I get to Anthony Watts who reckons that it was photoshopped “for better impact” — I guess he thinks beautiful clean fake water has a better impact than the disgusting brown water you get in a real flood. From Watts I find, surprise surprise, that this story originated at Climate “mountains out of molehills” Audit. Also hyperventilating is Roger Pielke Jr, who finds that this picture is the most serious example of sloppiness in the report.

Large letters at the bottom of the page spell out “First Draft – July 2008 Do not cite or quote“. Do these people not understand what drafts are for?

Comments

#1 Dano
August 7, 2008

Desperate ants, trying to make a picnic out of a crumb. Then ululating at the top of their lungs about how yummy the feast is and how alarmists are trying to ruin their huge feast.

Again, this is the best they can do, folks. Focus on this fact.

Best,

D
#2 sabinefemme
August 7, 2008

You all have never read Confederate Yankee before?

I guess that’s a blessing really..but Bob Owens (the CY in question) is famous for the stupid. He made his “name” going after Scott Beauchamp for defaming “the troops”, but has been remarkably quiet regarding the recent charging of 4 of Beauchamp’s unit for murder or and the video showing American troops running over a taxi…really, he’s notorious.
#3 Mark Bahner
August 7, 2008

“Large letters at the bottom of the page spell out “First Draft – July 2008 Do not cite or quote”. Do these people not understand what drafts are for?”

Draft scientific (or “scientific”) reports are for U.S. government to see whether its citizens can spot fake photographs, eh, Tim?

A novel idea. You probably shouldn’t quit your your day job.

P.S. Especially for one that requires even a rudimentary knowledge of the thermodynamics of the atmosphere.
#4 Phila
August 7, 2008

really, he’s notorious.

And rightly so!

Confed’s finest hour:

Halp! Mah grill done blowed over!
#5 Phila
August 7, 2008

Oops. Let’s try this:

http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/7135.html
#6 Phila
August 7, 2008

Also, having looked at the Pielke thing, I have to say that his color-coded PowerPoint slide was interesting. Highlighting the word “now” in Hassol’s slide and in the draft report seems a bit…eccentric, though.
#7 Interrobang
August 7, 2008

Do these people not understand what drafts are for?

Not to steal Clif et al‘s schtick, but…

Sadly, no!
#8 bi -- IJI
August 7, 2008

In this new Web 2.0-licious era where wikis roam free, there’s no such thing as a “draft”. Or rather, everything is, and is not, a draft.

Watts, Pielke, and McIntyre have, in Galileo-like fashion, embraced this new information paradigm. While Luddite Inquisitors such as Hansenus, Lambertus, Gavinus Smithus, and E Pluribus Unum are still clinging to the Old Order with all their “drafts”, “revisions”, and “camera-ready copies”.
#9 nanny_govt_sucks
August 8, 2008

“First Draft – July 2008 Do not cite or quote”.

Pointing out that the picture was photoshopped is not “citing” or “quoting”.
#10 bi -- IJI
August 8, 2008

It’s still a draft.
#11 mikesmith
August 8, 2008

nanny_govt_sucks, do you even understand what cite or quote actual means?
#12 Brian D
August 8, 2008

Gee, nanny. I never thought of it that way. I guess in the text our lab is writing, which bears the same “Draft: Do not cite or quote” caveat, the fact that some figures bear an uncanny resemblance to highlighted text that says “insert figure 3.2 about here” means that the figures in the (eventually) completed work are totally worthless — and that people who find our lab’s site and read the drafts are obliged to proselytize about the quality of the finished work based on the clearly-labeled DRAFT. Thanks for showing me the error of my ways.
#13 jade
August 8, 2008

That’s nothing. I heard that on one page they have an arrow.

But it’s not a real arrow. It’s a computer-generated Photoshop of an arrow, pointing at something in a fake diagram-picture. NOT REAL. There are no graphs, arrows, or pictures, in Nature, let alone writing. The Anthropogenic Manmade Warming Consensus is now unveiled (“Lamberted”) as Photoshop “Dodgy Arrows” Bunk. Nanny_underscore_sucks is absolutely right on this one.
#14 Barton Paul Levenson
August 8, 2008

Ceci n’est pas un pipe.

Well, somebody had to say it…
#15 pough
August 8, 2008

This is exactly what it’s like to do web design. No matter how many times you tell a client that the ugly graphic is a placeholder and will be replaced by something better when they actually provide us with something better, they focus in on it like it’s magnetic and will not shut up about their disappointment. It’s hard to understand how people can be so incredibly stupid, but it’s more common than not. It’s also hard not to be rude to them.

(It’s also similar to my friend’s experience in the recording industry where a client was waving around a tape, whining about his disappointment with this “final product”, and the only word written on it, in big felt marker, was “rough”.)

I also like how nanny doesn’t get that the violation in question isn’t so much “cite or quote” but just not getting that a first draft’s quality isn’t supposed to be so high.

Also, I’d like to state for the record that poor graphics in no way reflect on the quality of the science being done (unless the science is graphic quality science). In fact, I would argue the opposite: if they’re devoting so much time to the graphics, isn’t that a sign that they might be stinting on the more important science bits? (Not really. They just might happen to also be talented in graphics or have some friends who are.)

“Albert Einstein, you can’t draw for shit. Give it up already with the physics stuff, it just wasn’t meant to be!”
#16 Dano
August 8, 2008

No matter how many times you tell a client that the ugly graphic is a placeholder and will be replaced by something better when they actually provide us with something better, they focus in on it like it’s magnetic and will not shut up about their disappointment. It’s hard to understand how people can be so incredibly stupid, but it’s more common than not. It’s also hard not to be rude to them.

Same thing happened to me when I used to do landscape design. I ended up putting puppies on the rough drawing rather than shrubs.

But human nature doesn’t matter to denialists. They’ll use anything to keep the FUD going.

Best,

D
#17 z
August 8, 2008

“That’s nothing. I heard that on one page they have an arrow.”

and yet, they do not quote any actual native american indigenes.
#18 z
August 8, 2008

“This is exactly what it’s like to do web design”

i’ve learned in circulating drafts of reports, etc to make them into pdfs in order to reduce the chances that random not fully baked tables and graphs leap from the page and take on lives of their own, emerging from the shadows years later to attack me in the middle of a presentation on an unrelated topic. but that only works because most of my coworkers are baffled by the question of deconstructing a pdf.
#19 Eli Rabett
August 9, 2008

Don’t you have to click on the shrink wrap saying you agree to the conditions before getting access to the draft. If so, where are all the lawyers when we need them?
#20 JLowe
August 9, 2008

Putting “do not cite or quote” on your document doesn’t help. If you really don’t want it quoted, don’t allow it to circulate while it’s in review. Have numbered copies that reviewers sign for, make sure you have good review instructions and that your review team will cooperate. If someone violates the process and releases a copy, let your colleagues know that individual cannot be trusted.

If you’re writing on a topic that’s at the intersection of science and policy, particularly with uncertainty involved and lots of hypercritical opponents, then even initial drafts and the review process need to be as bulletproof as possible. Even then it’s scant defense against the yahoos, who are interested in uproar, not discourse, or the dim-bulbs who provide an audience for the yahoos.
#21 Rich Puchalsky
August 10, 2008

“I ended up putting puppies on the rough drawing rather than shrubs.”

That’s brilliant, seriously. I’m going to have to remember that for the Web mockup problem.
#22 Vagueofgodalming
August 10, 2008

Pough, I think it’s often that they don’t like to admit they don’t really know how to critique substance, so they just latch onto the poor graphic.

It’s something you can use to advantage, of course: stick a few spelling mistakes, etc. into your work, and you can get away with saying anything because once they’ve spotted those, people feel happy they’ve contributed something.
#23 John Cross
August 11, 2008

I think you are all being too hard on Nanny. I am sure that the particular link he was thinking of had text along the lines of:

I saw a picture the other day that I can’t describe or link to because it is a draft but it may or may not have been photoshoped.

Nanny, please put these silly rumors that you don’t know what you are talking about to rest by linking to the document you are referencing.

Thanks,
John
#24 Dano
August 11, 2008

That’s brilliant, seriously. I’m going to have to remember that for the Web mockup problem.

Works like a charm, really. Always good to get a laugh out of a client, then they’ll start thinking about your non-typical personality and your problem-solving skills.

Best,

D