Science stupid! Science lies! : Pharyngula

ScienceBlogs Book Club: Inside the Outbreaks

Search

Profile

PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
…and this is a pharyngula stage embryo.
• a longer profile of yours truly
• my calendar
• Nature Network
• RichardDawkins Network
• facebook
• MySpace
• Twitter
• Atheist Nexus
• the Pharyngula chat room
(#pharyngula on irc.synirc.net)

I reserve the right to publicly post, with full identifying information about the source, any email sent to me that contains threats of violence.

I support Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Random Quote

An experiment is a question which science poses to Nature, and a measurement is the recording of Nature's answer.

Max Planck

Other Information

2005 Koufax Award
Best Expert

2006 Weblogs Award

« A poll, the herald of another bus campaign | Main | That's some cookie »

More articles by PZ Myers can be found on Freethoughtblogs at the new Pharyngula!

Science stupid! Science lies!

Category: Humor
Posted on: December 10, 2009 3:19 PM, by PZ Myers

Bad news, gang: we're going to have to give up on all of science because cranky human beings came up with it.

Jump to end

TrackBacks

TrackBack URL for this entry: http://scienceblogs.com/mt/pings/126884

Comments

Posted by: DanielR | December 10, 2009 3:27 PM

Damn it, does this mean we have to give up our technology too?

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | December 10, 2009 3:29 PM

You damn scientists in your ivory towers hurling your barbs!

How can we trust people who express emotion?

HOW
CAN WE

WE
ARE
DOOMED

Posted by: jojame | December 10, 2009 3:32 PM

Did you actually read some of those e-mails? Throwing out raw data is science!

Posted by: Desert Son, OM | December 10, 2009 3:34 PM

And yet, even now, someone somewhere is watching that and saying, "I knew it!"

And then warming up the old e-mail distribution device.

Still learning,

Robert

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | December 10, 2009 3:36 PM

Did you actually read some of those e-mails? Throwing out raw data is science!

My understanding, and I'll admit I've pretty much ignored this manufactroversy as much as possible, the Raw data was provided to them from other sources where it still exists.

Posted by: AJ Milne OM | December 10, 2009 3:36 PM

#3:

They didn't throw out any raw data.

(/You just been had by dishonest, cherry-pickin', email-stealin', astroturfin' con artists. No need to feel bad--they're good at this stuff. But please stop repeating their bullshit, insofar as this is pretty much doing their dirty work for them.)

Posted by: Glen Davidson | December 10, 2009 3:39 PM

Fortunately, religion was not something humans came up with at all.

Well, it's true that all religions except one (pick your favorite) were made up by humans. But the one true one came straight from God. And I can prove it, because certain sayings and writings of humans say that it came directly from God.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

Posted by: jojame | December 10, 2009 3:40 PM

CRU didn't disclose the actual data they've used.

Posted by: jojame | December 10, 2009 3:44 PM

In a statement on its website, the CRU said: “We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece

#10

Posted by: DanielR | December 10, 2009 3:45 PM

CRU didn't disclose the actual data they've used.

Did you even click on the link that AJ provided? Only a small fraction of their data was not disclosed because it was not owned by them. They didn't have the legal right to disclose it. All of the data that they have gathered is publicly available.

#11

Posted by: jojame | December 10, 2009 3:55 PM

i.e. their work cannot be scrutinized by the outside? The show where they get their data from but not the actual they used (the raw or adjusted data). That data can be disclosed.

#12

Posted by: The Science Pundit | December 10, 2009 3:56 PM

I saw this yesterday (I follow @markfiore and so should you). Mark Fiore is great!

#13

Posted by: jjr1993p2 | December 10, 2009 4:02 PM

Freedom Yang Word!
Vote Palin!, etc.

Good video.

Anyway, really liked the Skeptics Guide to the Universe takedown on "climate-gate". Put it into lay language I could follow & understand. SGU performing good public service, thanks you guys.

#14

Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | December 10, 2009 4:17 PM

i.e. their work cannot be scrutinized by the outside? The show where they get their data from but not the actual they used (the raw or adjusted data). That data can be disclosed.

So now it's not the data that was "thrown out" that you have a problem with (since you've been shown that didn't actually happen), now it's data they haven't disclosed?

Pick a goalpost and stick with it, would ya, jojame?

#15

Posted by: --PatF in Madison | December 10, 2009 4:28 PM

I have been following this nonsense since it started and, while I don't know all of the ins and outs of the criticism, I do think most of it has been stirred up by the Anti-Global Warming crowd for their own benefit.

I downloaded the files in question and have started going through them. (I am a retired mathematician/statistician/computer programmer and I have time for this.) There are about 1074 e-mails and, the ones I have read - about 100 - are pretty boring. The correspondents spend most of their time criticizing each others approaches, suggesting improvements to papers and making arrangements for conferences and workshops.

I _have_ found one e-mail in which the writer refers to someone with whom he disagrees as an "utter prat." Not being English, I have no idea what that means but I think it is supposed to be an insult. If so, it's pretty lame.

These things aren't a smoking gun. They aren't going to prove that atmospheric scientists have faked data. All they do is show that Cardinal Richelieu was right when he said:"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."

#16

Posted by: llewelly | December 10, 2009 4:33 PM

jojame Author Profile Page | December 10, 2009 3:44 PM:

i.e. their work cannot be scrutinized by the outside?

The NCDC and the GISS independently analyzed the modern temperature records from around the globe, developed two more records of global temperature trends, and came to the same conclusions. That is replication of findings from the outside. (Except that the GISS and NCDC show greater warming over the last 10 years.) You have been told this many times before.

#17

Posted by: jojame | December 10, 2009 4:43 PM

The NCDC and the GISS can do what they want. Their looking at their own data. I'm talking about the data the CRU used. Some of the data is manipulated or adjusted (justifiably) but we do not know how it was adjusted. That data has been thrown out.

#18

Posted by: NewEnglandBob | December 10, 2009 4:47 PM

I watched the cartoon. I'm convinced.

#19

Posted by: destlund | December 10, 2009 4:48 PM

@llewelly I love the flame warriors. Thank God we don't ever get this guy in here! Oh, wait; strike that. I rephrase: thank no one in particular we don't ever have to be that guy in here.

#20

Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | December 10, 2009 4:48 PM

jojame -

You didn't read the link A.J Milne provided at #6 at all, did you, you little scamp?

Go on.. just admit it.

#21

Posted by: sasully60 | December 10, 2009 4:49 PM

It would be lame to call someone a prat because they disagree. But not if they disagree because they are a prat.

#22

Posted by: Alyson Miers | December 10, 2009 4:50 PM

As opposed to religion, which was developed by human beings describable as some combination of the following: ignorant, dishonest, power-hungry, delusional, bigoted, violent, and completely effing batshit.

#23

Posted by: jojame | December 10, 2009 4:54 PM

@Celtic #20
I have read it. I'm not talking about the data from the weather stations. I'm talking about what data (adjusted and how) the CRU used.

#24

Posted by: sasully60 | December 10, 2009 4:54 PM

It would be lame to call someone a prat because they disagree. But not if they disagree because they are a prat. And if they are worse than prats then prat is indeed a lame insult.

I'm a non-retired scientist and I've seen some pretty withering putdowns of scientists by other scientists, not just in private, but in public. The most pertinent case for Pharyngula readers might be John Maynard Smith's knifing of Stephen Jay Gould in the pages of the NY Review of Books:

"Gould occupies a rather curious position, particularly on his side of the Atlantic. Because of the excellence of his essays, he has come to be seen by non-biologists as the preeminent evolutionary theorist. In contrast, the evolutionary biologists with whom I have discussed his work tend to see him as a man whose ideas are so confused as to be hardly worth bothering with, but as one who should not be publicly criticized because he is at least on our side against the creationists. All this would not matter, were it not that he is giving non-biologists a largely false picture of the state of evolutionary theory."

And he wasn't even reviewing a book of Gould's!

#25

Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | December 10, 2009 4:54 PM

You didn't read the link A.J Milne provided at #6 at all, did you, you little scamp?

Cause if you had, you would never have posted your quote in #9, which was answered in that link...

Will you go and read it for that answer? Nah... you'r not gonna read it... so I'll put it here for you:

"Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit, said that the vast majority of the station data was not altered at all, and the small amount that was changed was adjusted for consistency.

The research unit has deleted less than 5 percent of its original station data from its database because the stations had several discontinuities or were affected by urbanization trends, Jones said.

"When you're looking at climate data, you don't want stations that are showing urban warming trends," Jones said, "so we've taken them out." Most of the stations for which data was removed are located in areas where there were already dense monitoring networks, he added. "We rarely removed a station in a data-sparse region of the world."

Refuting CEI's claims of data-destruction, Jones said, "We haven't destroyed anything. The data is still there -- you can still get these stations from the [NOAA] National Climatic Data Center."

#26

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | December 10, 2009 5:33 PM

I have read it. I'm not talking about the data from the weather stations. I'm talking about what data (adjusted and how) the CRU used.

wow... you're impressively dense. the data from the weather stations IS the data the CRU used.

#27

Posted by: Urmensch | December 10, 2009 5:38 PM

#15

I _have_ found one e-mail in which the writer refers to someone with whom he disagrees as an "utter prat." Not being English, I have no idea what that means but I think it is supposed to be an insult. If so, it's pretty lame.

Prat is another word for arse (prat-fall or to fall on your arse) so while it is not so vulgar, you are calling someone an arse.

#28

Posted by: Lynna, OM | December 10, 2009 5:44 PM

Hey, some of those scientists were fucking around (Johannes Kepler) ... and writing it up in a format that has been preserved for hundreds of years. Now that's some data.

And why don't we get those kinds of reports in our present-day news? We could bump Tiger Woods from the top of the sex scandal charts with Scientific Shenanigans! Surely this is the kind of PR we need to present scientists as "oddly human" to the world at large, and to capture part of the tabloid market.

#29

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | December 10, 2009 5:56 PM

"When you're looking at climate data, you don't want stations that are showing urban warming trends," Jones said, "so we've taken them out."

Jojame, they removed the data showing the fastest warming trends. In other words, they made the AGW heating trend seem less than it would have been with those stations. You still won't get it though. That really requires the ability to do math, and not just regurgitate nonsense.

If you think the data has been manipulated, run your own models and show the models match the known data, and publish it in the appropriate peer reviewed journals. That is how one refutes science, and the only way to do so.

#30

Posted by: Kristine | December 10, 2009 6:05 PM

No science, no shimmies. Know science, know shimmies.

#31

Posted by: MonkeyDeathcar | December 10, 2009 6:10 PM

Yeah, but you're not listening she can't get the data because it's all been erased, all of it, every last bit. Oh and they paved over Antarctica so she can't get ice core samples. And Greenland is now property of the Underpants Gnomes and there's travel restrictions. She can't get any data from NASA because Houston has been bombed by samurais from one of those socialist countries. And the arctic is not melting, there was never ice there, just stacks of data that were erased by the CRU.

Also polar bears are man eaters and their cubs aren't cute (that's a Zionist conspiracy), so who cares anyway.

#32

Posted by: jojame | December 10, 2009 6:38 PM

@Nerd #29
It's ridiculous to expect me to make my own climate models but others have. There are differences in the models that cannot be explained without the original data.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/08/the-smoking-gun-at-darwin-zero/

#33

Posted by: mythusmage | December 10, 2009 6:40 PM

The problem with the deniers is that they assume that science works like the humanities do. They do not understand that science does not reconcile contradictions, but corrects errors. That science is not a matter of marshaling superior rhetoric, but more accurate demonstrations.

Science is not a way of knowing, science is a way of learning.

#34

Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 10, 2009 7:04 PM

The problem with the deniers is that they assume that science works like the humanities do.

No, the problem with deniers is that they are ideological assholes like jojame who will latch onto anything that they can interpret as supporting their position regardless of how poorly it does.

#35

Posted by: llewelly | December 10, 2009 7:06 PM

The problem with the deniers is that they assume that science works like the humanities do. They do not understand that science does not reconcile contradictions, but corrects errors. That science is not a matter of marshaling superior rhetoric, but more accurate demonstrations.

Science is not a way of knowing, science is a way of learning.

Superior rhetoric is a way of making a nation make policy which is in fierce denial of reality. To the deniers, your explanation that "science is a way of learning" is irrelevant. In their eyes, if people continue to behave as if global warming is not real, they win, regardless of what scientists know, or whether global warming is real. How science works does not matter to them. What matters is how politics works.

#36

Posted by: llewelly | December 10, 2009 7:11 PM

jojame Author Profile Page | December 10, 2009 6:38 PM:

@Nerd #29
It's ridiculous to expect me to make my own climate models but others have. There are differences in the models that cannot be explained without the original data.

The link you give does not show that.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/08/the-smoking-gun-at-darwin-zero/

Willis Eschenbach, via Andrew Watts, is perpetrating a lie. And you are either a victim, or an accomplice.

#37

Posted by: Kagato | December 10, 2009 7:13 PM

Jojame, let me get this straight:

You complain that they threw out raw data.

- It's pointed out that a small set of data points were deleted due to urbanisation trends.

You complain that their work can't be scrutinised by 3rd parties.

- It's pointed out that NCDC and GISS analysed global data and got comparable results.

Finally,
You complain that NCDC and GISS used their own data so aren't relevant,
that again, CRU threw out the raw data,
and that you don't want weather station data, you want CRU's raw data.

Now, I'm no climatologist...
but if you don't want CRU's current data (because it's been "altered"), you don't want NCDC's raw data (because it's "not CRU's", even though it came from the same sources), and you don't even want the weather station data, then what the hell do you want?

It seems to me you don't even know.
But you're sure delighted by the prospect of the potential appearance of possible worngdoing thanks to the use of the word "deleted".

#38

Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 10, 2009 7:15 PM

Science is not a way of knowing, science is a way of learning.

Epistemological fail. The religious learn that Jesus loves them and will cast atheists into hell forever. The difference between scientific learning and religious learning is that the former is epistemologically justified. There's no guarantee that the claims of science are true, but if they are true then science is the way to get to them, whereas religion is very unlikely to get one to anything true.

#39

Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 10, 2009 7:19 PM

you are either a victim, or an accomplice

He's actually both because he's both stupid and an intellectually dishonest asshole, so he has no scruples about interpreting what he misunderstands in a way that supports his ideology.

#40

Posted by: edivimo.wordpress.com | December 10, 2009 7:31 PM

Beautiful, I was going to say to jojame to wait for the refutal of that link, but I never expected to be refuted the next day Eschenbach publish it! Another victory for ScienceBlogs.

#41

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | December 10, 2009 7:32 PM

what the hell do you want?

It seems to me you don't even know. [emphasis in original]

What jojame wants is for the whole AGW mess to just go away. If AGW is true then the fixes are going to be painful for folks like jojame to deal with. He (or she, it really doesn't matter) will have to change his lifestyle, even (gasp) forgo certain pleasures he thinks he might want to enjoy. IT'S NOT FAIR! Why should jojame suffer? But if AGW isn't true then the changes that could be forces on him don't need to happen.

#42

Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 10, 2009 7:41 PM

He (or she, it really doesn't matter)

I apologize for my gender inference; women can be dishonest assholes too.

#43

Posted by: jojame | December 10, 2009 7:44 PM

@llewelly #36
I read your link. I guess we'll have to wait and see what becomes of this. One side is saying the adjustments are bogus and the other is saying it's justified. The jury is out.

What was not refuted was why the CRU will not show the data they used.

@Tis #41
You found me out.

#44

Posted by: RobertN | December 10, 2009 7:48 PM

The global warming deniers want the data showing that there is no warming trend. Since this data has not been released, and they cannot find it in their hacks, obviously it must have been deleted.

#45

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | December 10, 2009 8:01 PM

@Tis #41 You found me out.

You may think you're making a tongue-in-cheek comment but I wasn't. At heart all of you AGW denialists are afraid that dealing with AGW is going to effect you adversely and you don't want that. So if you pretend that the science is fudged and the data are non-existent and it's all a hoax like your heroes, Limbaugh and O'Reilly, tell you, then the problem and its unpleasant consequences will go away.

#46

Posted by: jojame | December 10, 2009 8:12 PM

@Tis #45
Why do you deny the existence of Santa Claus? You're just afraid of having to deal with the lifestyle changes. You pretend he isn't there so that you can be naughty instead of nice. The problem isn't going to go away.

See, I can do it too.

#47

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | December 10, 2009 8:19 PM

What was not refuted was why the CRU will not show the data they used.

because it doesn't belong to them, you nitwit! you can go and get the very same data from their proper owners, except that you've already said you don't actually want it.

#48

Posted by: jojame | December 10, 2009 8:23 PM

@Jadehawk #47
Are you telling me that CRU will not tell us what data they've used even though that data is open to the public? Can I get a source for that?

#49

Posted by: Kagato | December 10, 2009 8:50 PM

because it doesn't belong to them, you nitwit! you can go and get the very same data from their proper owners

Are you telling me that CRU will not tell us what data they've used even though that data is open to the public?

Er, no, what Jadehawk said was that CRU can't show you the data as it's not "theirs", so you have to get it from the owners.

"Publicly available" is not the same as "free to distribute".

#50

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space | December 10, 2009 8:50 PM

jojame,
You have 4 datasets to choose from:
HADCRUT, GISTEMP, RSS and UAH. All show warming and all agree with predictions based on climate models.

Don't believe the data? Well, there's a few trillion tons of missing ice that used to be on the planet that testify to warming. And there are literally mountains of phenological data--including a record of the first cherry blossoming on Mt Fuji going back to the 17th century. That we are warming significantly is beyond dispute.

What is more, the fact that all INDEPENDENT datasets agree is corroboration for HADCRUT. Do you really not understand that confirmation by independent analysis is a more stringent test than merely copying a previous analysis?

#51

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | December 10, 2009 8:52 PM

Are you telling me that CRU will not tell us what data they've used even though that data is open to the public? Can I get a source for that?

Jojame, are you just stoopid, or purposely stoopid? The source data is always mentioned with peer reviewed papers. But you wouldn't know that, since you aren't smart enough to read and understand them. The data is open, meaning, except for some countries who charge for their data, it is out there for you to see. And model if you have the skills and money for a supercomputer. Until then, either put up the peer reviewed papers, or shut the fuck up. Not being able to do either option says you are nothing but a liar and bullshitter without honesty and integrity.

#52

Posted by: Euphoria5L | December 10, 2009 8:58 PM

I found their data!

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/ncdc.html

#53

Posted by: destlund | December 10, 2009 9:12 PM

I love climate thread trolls. I learn more when they show up than from the originating posts. I wonder if that's a viable classroom model: get all the kids chatting online about something, then sneak in with a sockpuppet troll to make the kids prove you wrong...

#54

Posted by: destlund | December 10, 2009 9:18 PM

Err, I'm not jojame though. Didn't mean it to seem like I might be testing that classroom strategy.

#55

Posted by: llewelly | December 10, 2009 9:36 PM

A case of classic Swift-Boating: How the right-wing noise machine manufactured “Climategate”

#56

Posted by: Mark | December 10, 2009 10:25 PM

Helpful visualization of the arguments at Information is Beautiful

#57

Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 10, 2009 10:42 PM

Why do you deny the existence of Santa Claus? You're just afraid of having to deal with the lifestyle changes. You pretend he isn't there so that you can be naughty instead of nice. The problem isn't going to go away.

See, I can do it too.

Moronic analogy fail; AGW does exist.

#58

Posted by: nemryn | December 10, 2009 11:07 PM

I read your link. I guess we'll have to wait and see what becomes of this. One side is saying the adjustments are bogus and the other is saying it's justified. The jury is out.

You're close! What's actually happening here is, one side is saying the adjustments are justified, and the other side is lying.

#59

Posted by: truth machine, OM | December 10, 2009 11:56 PM

One side is saying the adjustments are bogus and the other is saying it's justified.

No, moron, one side says, correctly, that the adjustments are justified, and the other side says, incorrectly, that the adjustments are indisputable evidence that the “homogenized” data has been changed to fit someone’s preconceptions about whether the earth is warming. And then the asshole goes on to say That way, you get an average that looks kinda real, I guess, it “hides the decline” -- he's referring to what he believes to be a real decline in temperature, while he knows that "the decline" that made that phrase famous refers to proxy data that disagrees with actual temperature measurements. Deniers = assholes.

#60

Posted by: Silič O'Nopolitanopoulos, Färschdbischuf Beesknees aus Ulm und Klein Elguth, Elector Pharynguline. | December 11, 2009 10:49 AM

Impressive. I don't think a troll has ever bored me as fast a jojave.

But I'm pretty cranky by nature.

#61

Posted by: David Marjanović | December 11, 2009 10:51 AM

A case of classic Swift-Boating: How the right-wing noise machine manufactured “Climategate” [link]

Climategategate.

#62

Posted by: destlund | December 11, 2009 10:57 AM

No more -gates! There should be a law. We've had at least 5 per presidency since the Watergate caper. That's 35+ -gates! We're all sick of it!

#63

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space | December 11, 2009 11:24 AM

I notice that jojame tried to refer to the latest nontroversy--the so-called darwin-zero affair. And once again, their smoking gun turns out to be a premature ejaculation:

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/willis_eschenbach_caught_lying.php

#64

Posted by: destlund | December 11, 2009 8:13 PM

Oh BTW David, the rant wasn't directed at you. I just boil whenever someone makes up a new -gate. I'm sure the jar Nixon's head is in boils too.