Brian Angliss

Brian Angliss takes on Tom Harris

gregladen — Fri, 20 Feb 2015 08:42:37 +0000

Brian Angliss takes on Tom Harris

Regular readers of this blog will know Tom Harris, as he is an occasional commenter here. Tom is a climate science denier who wears an Invisibility Cloak of Concern. However, this particular Invisibilty Cloak was never worn by Ignotus Peverell; you can see right though it.

"Demanding and unreasonable and absurd level of proof from scientists is not Harris’ only dishonest expectation ... Harris is trying to make science appear to be mere opinion, presumably no better or worse than any other opinion. [But] some opinions matter more than others, and opinions based on knowledge matter more than those based on ignorance. Isaac Asimov noted this point, writing ... “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge” represented a “cult of ignorance” that was fundamentally anti-intellectual."

Brian Angliss, a journalist and engineer, is the science editor and climate and energy writer for the blog Scholars and Rogues. Brian has written an epic six part (five parts done so far, the sixth part will be an epilog) expose of Tom Harris's previous commentary on climate science, prompted by a recent spate of Op Eds by Harris. I recommend visiting Brian's posts not just to find out about Tom Harris, but to get a sense of how this particular brand of denialism works. You won't be disappointed.

Here are links to the posts:

Tom Harris – hypocritical peddler of deceitful climate change editorials: Eight related commentaries written by Tom Harris of the International Climate Science Coalition since mid-December are packed them with distortions, errors, hypocrisy, and more.

Tom Harris’ recent commentaries rife with errors and illogic: If you’re going to attack climate realists for making supposedly illogical arguments, you’d best be sure that your own arguments are logically flawless.

Tom Harris places absurd limits on scientific truths and elevates ignorance to equal knowledge: Tom Harris asks his readers to put aside their common sense and reject knowledge and expertise in favor of ignorance and inexperience.

Tom Harris distorts the maturity of global warming science and imagines expertise where little exists: The science supporting global warming theory has a history going back almost 200 years, but readers of Tom Harris commentaries might come away thinking that it’s all brand new science.

Tom Harris’ commentaries intended to impede, not advance, public understanding of climate science: Tom Harris’ stated goal in his commentaries is to advance the public discussion on industrial climate disruption, yet his language and arguments say exactly the opposite.

gregladen Fri, 02/20/2015 - 03:42

How to figure out what the stolen CRU emails mean

tlambert — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 13:33:33 +0000

How to figure out what the stolen CRU emails mean

Steve Mosher and Steve McIntyre have alleged that the stolen CRU emails prove that Keith Briffa had violated IPCC rules in when working on the 4th Assessment Report. They can't point to any particular IPCC rule and rely on a creative interpretation of an email from Jonathan Overpeck, which Mosher claims means that Briffa "should have no contact with other scientists outside of the IPCC process". Some of us might have just pointed out that this is an absurd interpretation, but Brian Angliss goes the extra mile and checks with Overpeck who tells him that "there is no restriction on IPCC authors talking to anyone. Thus, Keith as a Lead Author could consult with any scientist he wanted." Angliss goes through several more examples in thorough detail, checking with the scientists and with Mosher and McIntyre.

The bluster from Tom Fuller in response is priceless:

Brian, your quantitative meta analysis trying to invalidate criticism based on small sample size is ludicrous, and you should drop it quickly before you embarrass yourself. ...

At any rate, it has fulfilled one purpose, as in the future people at Deltoid or Desmogblog will be able to casually link here and tell their readers that the arguments we advance were decisively debunked as they Gish Gallop through their alternate universe.

Oh those crazy Deltoid people who think that "there is no restriction on IPCC authors talking to anyone" is not the same as "should have no contact with other scientists outside of the IPCC process" and that "up" is not the same as "down".

tlambert Wed, 06/09/2010 - 09:33

Tags

"Gish Gallop through their alternate universe"?

Is Fuller always projecting like that? That is priceless!

Looks like the Bad, the Ugly and the even Uglier are getting increasingly desperate. The trouble that liars find is that if you tell enough lies, you'll eventually get found out. Mosher, Fuller and McIntyre will I hope get publicly skewered on their own lies. I can't wait!

Oh what a tangle web we weave, when first we practise to deceive!

It's not as if anyone forced Fuller & Co. to write a trash work that swiftly found a level somewhat lower than trash supermarket tomes on serial killers or Brittney's agonies.

But he did and that's what his reputation is and will be.

I expect the Three Stooges SA mentions above (plus a Bishop) will also appear in a book one day.
That's the one I want to read.

I wonder what these guys will be like when they are the only ones left in the world who are arguing against the science. I suppose their only tactics will be either to say "I never said that!" and then plug their ears, or to continue their irrational denial until the day they die. They will be the TimeCubers/Flat Earthers/Moon landing denialists of the 2040s.

"your quantitative meta analysis trying to invalidate criticism based on small sample size is ludicrous"

That's what a Gish Galloper says when someone makes the effort to carefully examine one of the claims the Galloper had plopped out. To then call that detailed examination a Gish Gallop is, to quote a movie, "inconceivable."

I wonder what these guys will be like when they are the only ones left in the world who are arguing against the science.

There will be enough of them left to throw a small party. 95% male.

Sounds boring :)

Fuller has a book to sell, I suppose. And he ain't earning a dime until he's paid back those royalties.

Briffa answered when asked about this:

""I confirm that I requested an opinion from Dr Wahl on how I intended to respond to reviewers' comments on one draft of the IPCC AR4 Chapter 6. My request was motivated entirely by a desire to give fair consideration to the opinions of specific critical reviewers. Dr Wahl had detailed knowledge of a particular issue and to my knowledge, seeking his opinion of my response to the reviewers, as distinct from any specific text in Chapter 6 itself, was both justified and allowable under IPCC rules."

you will note that he denies exchanging the text of the draft. "AS DISTINCT FROM ANY SPECIFIC TEXT in ch06.."

I'll quote SteveMc on this since he says it best:

"At the time of the Wahl-Briffa exchanges, the AR4 process had reached the âPreparation of Final Draft Reportâ (IPCC Procedures 4.2.5). During this stage, Lead Authors had two slightly distinct responsibilities: 1) preparing a Final Draft Report, âtaking [review comments] into accountâ ; 2) preparing written responses to Review Comments.

But Briffa did more than ask for Wahl's help with reviewers comments. He transmitted the draft of the document to Wahl.

"I have added a brief suggested alteration to page 6-3 of the draft text you sent, to take into account the fact Wahl-Ammann decidely settles the issue concerning how proxy PC calculations impact the MBH style reconstruction. These changes are encoded using WORD's "Track Changes" feature. ...

Finally, note also that I corrected the reference to Wahl, Ritson, Ammann (Wahl et
al., 2006) on page 6-6, and put the correct publication information in the reference
section. (July 21 04:23 in 1155402164.txt)"

Briffa July 31 passes a version of the draft to Wahl. A version that was not seen by any other reviewer. Basically, Brian asked Overpeck the wrong questions. In any case

"I am attaching what I have done (see blue highlighting) to the section in response to comments (including the addition of the needed extra section on the "tree-ring issues" called for by several people). I have had no feedback yet on this as it has not been generally circulated , but thought you might like to see it. PLEASE REMEMBER that this is "for your eyes only " . Please do NOT feel that I am asking /expecting you to go through this in any detail â but given the trouble you have taken,I thought it reasonable to give you a private look."

And Wahl returns his edits

Hi Keith:
Thanks so much for the chance to look over this section. I think the long section you added on pp 6-5 and 6-6 reads well, and makes good sense according to what I know. Indeed, reading the whole section is a good review for me!

I suggested addition of a phrase in lines 32-33 on page 6-3 regarding MM 2003 and analysis of it by Wahl-Ammann 2006. I also suggest a (logically useful) change from singular to plural in line 42 of that page. The changes are in RED/BOLD font. [I should note that AW 2006 is still in "in press" status, and its exact publication date will be affected by publication of an editorial designed to go with it that Caspar and I are submitting this weekend. Thus I cannot say it is certain this article will come out in 2006, but its final acceptance for publication as of 2/28/06 remains completely solid.]

So the right question to ask overpeck is this:

Did Briffa violate the rules by passing a copy of the draft to Wahl when Wahl was not a reviewer. Did Briffa violate the rules by allowing Wahl to edit the text and by accepting Wahl's Edits without passing those edits onto the official review team.
Did Briffa violate the rules by passing a copy of the draft onto Wahl after review period was over. Asking if there was a rule against talking to other scientists is a strawman.

In any case, perhaps Jones and Briffa were mistaken. perhaps Briffa should not have felt the need to write things such as "for your eyes only" Maybe they wrongly thought they were breaking the rules. That would be hella funny. It would be hella funny if Jones request to have Mann delete his mails was the result of their misunderstanding of the rules. I'll gladly take this: Jones requested that mann delete his mails because Jones was so clueless that he thought Briffa had broke the rules when in fact Briffa had not.
i can live with that.

Being busted for covering up a non infraction is even MORE delightful than being busted for covering up a minor infraction. But then I like irony.

Like I've said before. Nothing in the mails changes the science. AGW is real and we need to do something about it.

John said: "Fuller has a book to sell, I suppose. And he ain't earning a dime until he's paid back those royalties".

...which is sort of a very apt circumstance when you're specifically cultivating the illiterate.

Makes Faustian bargains seem like a store charge card.

There's plenty of other gems here:

McIntyre's complaint about one of the investigators:

"Lisa Graumlich is a coauthor with MBHâs Malcolm Hughes "

She's a co-author with someone who co-authored with someone at CRU. What idiocy. Michael Mann has co-authored with James Annan, who's co-authored with Roger Pielke Sr.. Pielke Sr. obviously can't be trusted to critique Michael Mann. Neither can Anthony Watts, who has co-authored with Pielke Sr. (hey at least we're in agreement there!)

It's nice to see the claims of the accusers picked apart meticulously.

Hi John, the U.S. version was self-published so we didn't receive an advance. The U.K. version was published by an actual publishing company, but we didn't get an advance. We did get an advance for the Japanese version, but it hasn't hit the bookstores yet, and I haven't seen much evidence of Japanese traffic. But the book is selling well--many thanks for the free publicity. Trivia fact of the day for you--our sales on Kindle have been almost exactly 10% of hard copy sales--who would have guessed?

We could talk about the vagaries of the publishing business for days--or you and Mark B could perhaps address my co-author's comment at #8 above.

Steve Mosher,

Give the comprehensive way Angliss exposes the multiple misrepresentations you have have made on this subject, how do you expect any fair minded person to take at face value any further selective interpretations mis-contextualizations you make?

Tim:

Why do people bother with Tom Fuller?

First of all, his venue is a joke - xxx.examiner.com is just another web site. You get a little teeny kickback from your hosts if you get a lot of hits. The connection to journalism is absolutely nonexistent. An examiner.com bears the same relationship to, e.g., a paper like the defunct L. A. Herald Examiner that the National Enquirer does to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Second of all, Fuller writes op-eds for that venue without any explanation as to why that op-ed is relevant to anyone.

Third of all, he does a terrible job in every direction other than saying propaganda points in a fake-newsy way the way Karen Ryan did until she was busted on TV.

Just saying, correcting a Tom Fuller is, to a degree, a case of "someone is wrong on the internets." The more attention you give him, the more likely he can rise (as seems already to be the case) to the pretentious but attention-getting level of a Monckton. Do you want to be producing more of those?

Steve, this is just nuts. Overpeck said

>"there is no restriction on IPCC authors talking to anyone. Thus, Keith as a Lead Author could consult with any scientist he wanted."

What do you think that means?

Can you quote the IPCC rule that you claim was broken?

"Maybe they wrongly thought they were breaking the rules."

Or maybe they just didn't want to stir up a hornet's nest of paranoid idiocy.

Did Briffa violate the rules by passing a copy of the draft to Wahl when Wahl was not a reviewer?

You tell us, Steve. Which rule in particular did you have in mind?

Strike up the chorus and enter Marion the Barbarian. Hi, Marion!

Tom, I'm pleased to hear you're making no money and having no influence in any case. Our very own troll Brent has conceeded that Climategate has fizzled out. So much for the last nail in the coffin, eh?

Tell me, what are the publishers going to do with all the unsold copies of your book?

What's perhaps most ironic about this particular Mosher/Fuller/McIntyre idiocy is that a key part of their narrative is based on the notion that scientists should communicate more with others and be more open. Since that's what Briffa's doing, Mosher makes up a bogus claim

"Overpeck the review editor of Chapter 6 or AR4 informed Briffa that he should have no contact with other scientists outside of the IPCC process."

...which doesn't follow at all from the quoted email, and claims that Briffa violated this rule. He then asserts:

"Asking if there was a rule against talking to other scientists is a strawman."

What I've noticed about Mosher is that when cornered, he spends time generating long-winded dodgy responses that don't address the issues, as if that's supposed to impress anyone. A simple "I was wrong" would be much more appropriate.

McIntyre is fully consumed by the stolen emails. He has obsessively mined them looking for the smallest tidbit he can extrapolate into proof that global warming is a fraud.

McIntyre used to (somewhat) try; now he's just a joke on a snipe hunt.

Hi John. Well, I don't think I ever had much influence, but we're quite pleased with sales. Mark B, read the emails. Mosher shouldn't have to load them all into poor Timmy's comments section. And if he did, someone would accuse him of generating long-winded, dodgy responses. Read the emails. You don't even have to buy our book. They're on the internet. And they're worse in context.

>*Mark B, read the emails. Mosher shouldn't have to load them all into poor Timmy's comments section.*

Tom, "read the emails" is no longer a credible defense of your claims given the context provided by findings of [Brian's investigative journalism](http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2010/06/08/climate-scientists-still-be…).

Hi jakerman, it's been a while. How are you? I've posted my comments on what you charitably label Brian's investigative journamalism on his weblog. Read the emails, jakerman. They're worse in context.

Tom Fuller writes:

"Read the emails."

Um...Tom? That's what we've done. And they reveal that you're Fuller ****. And your quotes are worse in context.

>*Read the emails, jakerman. They're worse in context.*

That would be your fantasy "context" that Brian disproved. Amazing to watch this display of you clinging to your claims while they are pulled out from under you.

Fuller, you might [not be able to admit that you are wrong (see point 3)](http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/jun/08/monckto…), but it is clear to the rest of the world that you are.

The old maxim that fools rush in where angels fear to tread has never been so apposite. In your haste to publish the first Denialist trope purporting to analyse the stolen correspondence, you not only ignored the real context, you seem to have ignored that you were bound to be caught out in the process.

Telling us now to read the lot in order to establish the context as you see it will not work. If you're doing so in the hope that something might suddenly pop up and reveal itself, where rationality and logic were unable to see it previously, you are sadly mistaken.

If you're doing so simply because you actually, fervently believe your own nonsense... Well, there's no cure for an ideology that won't account for the ever-growing list of evidence that contradicts it, and you and your friend Mosher seem to be blind to the evidentiary elephant in the room.

Keep it up though. One day your great-grand kids will be so proud.

Is this when we remind Tom Fuller and Mosher-Piltdown-Man what they claim men (or women) of honor do not do?

Still crickets on Dr. Lambert's question @14. No surprises there.

Still playing at ambiguous dog are we Steve and Tom?

What is the Piltdown-Man referece to?

Tom,it's your comments which are "even worse in context". And neither you or your co-author have had the professional courtesy or curiosity to consult the authors of the stolen emails for clarification or context before publishing. You have a hide making any statements in public,frankly. Just what goes on in your head?

Hi Maple Leaf, how are you? Hope all is well in maple leaf land. Funny how quickly comments march down the page and leave comment number 8 unanswered, isn't it? That's number 8 before comment 14, innit? As for your veiled reference to our oh-so humble host's publishing my private communications, my anger at that, and the amusing irony that I wrote a book about other people's emails, I believe I've responded to it before, but just in case: What our oh-so humble host did was wrong, and I'm still angry at him about it. I did indeed co-author a book about the leaked Climategate emails. In fact, I received the emails before anybody else in the media. I did not publish them. In fact, I wrote a column about why I would not publish them. I could have had the scoop of the year, and maybe Koch industries or the Heartland guys would have made me a millionaire, despite the fact that all through the book we say 'this doesn't change the science--global warming is real'. But then, wonder of wonders and miracle of miracles, Gavin Schmidt started publishing them on Real Climate. That gave me a free pass, and I've ridden that horse to fame, glory and literally dozens of dollars.

Hi Nick: Sadly, my attempts to communicate with the email authors were to no avail, due to their lack of response. Pity, that.

Bernard--sssh. Don't tell the world that I'm wrong! It might hurt sales of our book! And for God's sake don't read the emails. No, no--in fact, maybe you can put them back in a metaphorical bag by saying that people who have read them and have looked at the historical context of what was happening while they read them are... um... liars! Yeah, that's it! Denialists! Yeah... But don't worry about my grandchildren Nardo--I ate them.

Tom and Mosher,

You both concede that AGW is real and a legitimate concern, no? I have not read your story,nor do I intend to give you money for your transgressions, but anywhere in your story do you explicitly state any or all of the following?

1) AGW is real
2) That we should take action
3) That your interpretation of the emails in no way refutes the underlying science behind the theory of AGW

Thanks.

Hi Maple Leaf--you sure you want to know?

Page 8, Climategate: The CRUtape Letters, by Steve Mosher and Thomas Fuller

We have taken sides in this analysis. Our critics will say that we took sides before we started, and although we are confident we have approached this objectively, there may be a little truth to that.
Butâand itâs a big butâalthough we are harsh in our criticism of the actions of this group of climate scientists and paleoclimatologists known as The Team, readers need to understand two things:
1.Our criticism does not extend to criticism of the theory of global warming. Both your authors believe global warming exists, is a problem and needs to be addressed. We just donât think it poses a catastrophic threat to civilization. We explain in detail below.
2.Our criticism should not be construed as criticism of the majority of scientists investigating our climate, its effects and possible changes to it in the future. We have communicated with a large number of climate scientists, and they are not at all like The Team in either attitude or behavior.
We are tough on the scientists we call The Team, and we think deservedly so. But we want to stress from the outset that we do not for one minute believe there is any evidence of a long-term conspiracy to defraud the public about global warming, by The Team or anyone else. What we find evidence of on a much smaller scale is a small group of scientists too close to each other, protecting themselves and their careers, and unintentionally having a dramatic, if unintended, effect on a global debate.

And Maple Leaf, the final paragraph of the book:

But as clearly as we are able to see the truth, we have written it here. Global warming is real and it is a problem, if not the catastrophe they want you to believe. It needs our attention. CO2 is a contributor, along with other factors, some natural and some manmade. And yes, we do need to do something about it.

Tom,

All is well in MapleLeaf-land, setting record highs left right and centre-- must be global warming ;)

Anyhow, you claim:

"Hi Nick: Sadly, my attempts to communicate with the email authors were to no avail, due to their lack of response. Pity, that."

Prove it, show us all your email correspondence with CRU folks. It seems completely lost on you that you are using stolen material to make money.

"But then, wonder of wonders and miracle of miracles, Gavin Schmidt started publishing them on Real Climate."

Uh, huh. That is a pretty lame effort, so you misrepresenting stolen emails from CRU is all Dr. Schmidt's fault? Your logic is warped. And I would like to confirm the time line. That might be true for you, but if I recall correctly that doe snot apply to WUWT, AirVent, CA et cetera?

I'm going to cut to the chase here-- I do not know why I'm bothering arguing with you. I am not in the habit of lying, and when engaging two world-class liars I simply don't stand a chance. You can deceive, distort, cherry-pick, engage in rhetoric et cetera at will, but some of us are bound by ethics, conscience and morals. Alas you seem to have checked those important traits at the door, and a long time ago too.

But then, wonder of wonders and miracle of miracles, Gavin Schmidt started publishing them on Real Climate.

I don't see any e-mails published in Gavin's posts here and here and here.

I see only one explicit html link to a Harry email in the second CRU hack post.

Declaring that Gavin "published" them on RC is a stretch of Mr. Fantastic proportions.

Is this really your best justification for your book, despite your previous quote about men of honour?

Sadly, my attempts to communicate with the email authors were to no avail, due to their lack of response. Pity, that.

Aw shucks. Ever wondered why they refused to talk to you?

Tom,

Thanks, only saw your posts #30 and 31 after I posted #32.

Well colour me surprised. Pity your audience has largely ignored those caveats-- that is what happens when you play at ambiguous dog. But kudos to you for being upfront in the book at least.

I do not think that you are qualified nor are you in a position to declare that that severity of AGW will not be severe or 'catastrophic' as you claim. All indications are that if we continue with BAU, the consequences will be extremely severe (not only form warming and sea level rise, but ocean acidification too) and not limited to 2100.

You say CO2 is "a contributor". That is misleading and understates the problem, as shown by this graph:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/images/anthropo…

And that contribution from CO2 is going to go up a whole lot more in the next 100 years.

Time to get some rest.

Ahhh, Maple Leaf, no kudos for mentioning our belief in global warming in our tome? What a pity... And I still note that comment #8 is still unanswered, an even greater pity. Tell me exactly what CRU emails I misrepresented, I pray thee.

I blame Gavin Schmidt for nothing. In fact I have several times nominated him for blogger of the year for his heroic performance after the Climategate emails were leaked--he responded to comments almost 24 hours a day for 3 days on two threads that got more than 2,000 comments. Truly amazing. However, despite the fact that I don't blame him for anything, the fact that emails were being published on a website where their authors were contributors in my mind released me from any considerations of privacy. (I had already verified their provenance from a still-anonymous source in the UK.)

See, Maple Leaf--I don't blame people just because I disagree with them. Amazingly enough, I don't deceive, distort or cherry pick, either--feel free to correct me, showing where I may have erred. And because I too am bound by ethics, morals and duty, I don't (for example) accuse you of deceiving, distorting or cherrypicking. See how that works?

Former Skeptic, no, I didn't wonder why they didn't respond to me. I had offered to interview all of them before Climategate, and none responded. I didn't expect a response, really, but considered it a professional courtesy.

Maple Leaf at #34 (moving ever farther away from comment #8), tell me on what basis you formed your opinion of my qualifications?

As for your second point, I doubt if you mean that CO2 is not a contributor, so let me just assume that you object to me placing it in context with other human contributions to warming, and for not forgetting that natural forces are at play. Do you dispute that? The IPCC says that deforestation is the cause of up to 25% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Are they mistaken, or is that just something we don't want to mention in front of the children? Mustn't have them getting distracted by irrelevancies, I guess...

Tom,

I really need to get some sleep. You are off base on the CO2 forcing, seem to be floating red herrings everywhere and obfuscating-- it seems that you failed to look at the graph. I'll try and find some time to respond to your posts tomorrow.

An FYI I did give you kudos for your preface.

Could you please direct me to your CV, to the part where it says you are a climate scientist, or heck, have a degree of some sort in the sciences? This is what I found at Sourcewatch:

"Fuller initially said he "...used the G.I. Bill to double major in Journalism and Anthropology"[3],[4], but later qualified this statement, saying he had left without taking a degree in either subject.[5]"

http://www.sourcewatch.org/images/6/69/Fuller-Email-2010-01-14.pdf

http://www.sourcewatch.org/images/7/76/Fuller-Email-2010-01-13.pdf

In that second email (2010-01-13) written by you, you state:

"I am not a scientist and did not take any climate science courses".

So no, by your own admittance you are not qualified to speak to climate science. EOS.

I imagine people are going to have a field day with this gem:

"Amazingly enough, I [Tom Fuller] don't deceive, distort or cherry pick"

Any volunteers to audit all of Tom's scribblings (including blog posts) for deception, distortion or cherry-picking? Actually, you have done that when you made reference to Gavin publishing the stolen emails at RC. Former Skeptic called you on that. Not to mention people calling you on your claims here at Deltoid, Bart Verheggen's place, and at Michael T's place. So you are not off to an awfully good start.

PS: Again, please post your emails in which you asked the folks at CRU for their input.

Well, I guess I'm just lucky that Anna Haynes chose to do her dirty work with me via email instead of stalking me at my place of business. She put that up on Sourcewatch and as usual she changed what I wrote. In fact she, shall we put it delicately, lied.

Tom Fuller

Steven Mosher told me, over at Lucia's Blog that he didn't want to ask the authors of the emails what they meant. He felt it would obscure the message.

You and Mosher play this stupid Postmodern game of taking emails that have no context, then apply a context that suits you to them. It's a mugs game and I feel sad for the people you have conned into buying your book.

Get thee to a Nunnery.

You're such a phoney Tom...

Come on, what's your degree??? And from where???

For reference, here's Fuller's "Men of Honour" comment, which the poor fellow is unable to escape from.

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/11/tom_fuller_and_senator_inhofe.p…

The thread is also revealing of his views on climate science in general, in between the Pielke-like concern trolling.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/concern_troll

Some further Fuller unraveling, courtesy of Michael Tobis...

http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2010/01/fuller-wit.html

I liked the last comment by Tobis:

"Nevertheless Fuller is working on a "climategate" book with CA denizen Steve Mosher. Won't that be ever-so-helpful? Maybe they will finally tell us what we ought to be so upset about."

and we're still waiting...if anything, folks should be upset that the Examiner is affiliated with someone engaged in trash journalism.

Guy's Tom's degree (or lack of?) is a distraction from the up ending of his misrepresentations by Angliss.

Tim's questions remains unanswered.

Tom, which of the correspondent did you contact to get your zero strike-rate reply? (Quite a remarkable strike-rate) Did you try Overpeck?

MattB

Maple Leaf, just stop me when you're bored. I didn't even get to the prinicpal post:

The Guardian Disappoints, 23 February
Wigleyâs âgrave doubtsâ were a suggestion that the key line be rewritten as

âWhere possible, stations were chosen on the basis of station histories and/or local knowledge: selected stations have relatively few, if any, changes in instrumentation, location, or observation timesâ

The CRU Hack, 20 November

[Response: Your presumption is just not justified by the text. Just below he says "Phil: is this worth a followup note to GRL, w/ a link to the Matlab code?" which is hardly a declaration that the code is going to be withheld. Code gets cleaned up and hopefully easier to use all the time. - gavin]

ON this thread, over 100 emails were published in comments approved by Gavin Schmidt. For example,

In the circumstances, here are some summaries of the CRUgate files. Iâll update these as and when I can. The refs are the email number.

* Phil Jones writes to University of Hull to try to stop sceptic Sonia Boehmer Christiansen using her Hull affiliation. Graham F Haughton of Hull University says its easier to push greenery there now SB-C has retired.(1256765544)
* Michael Mann discusses how to destroy a journal that has published sceptic papers.(1047388489)
* Tim Osborn discusses how data are truncated to stop an apparent cooling trend showing up in the results (0939154709). Analysis of impact here. Wow!
* Phil Jones describes the death of sceptic, John Daly, as âcheering newsâ.
* Phil Jones encourages colleagues to delete information subject to FoI request.(1212063122)
* Phil Jones says he has use Mannâs âNature trick of adding in the real temps to each seriesââ¦to hide the declineâ. Real Climate says âhidingâ was an unfortunate turn of phrase.(0942777075)
* Letter to The Times from climate scientists was drafted with the help of Greenpeace.(0872202064)
* Mann thinks he will contact BBCâs Richard Black to find out why another BBC journalist was allowed to publish a vaguely sceptical article.(1255352257)
* Kevin Trenberth says they canât account for the lack of recent warming and that it is a travesty that they canât.(1255352257)
* Tom Wigley says that Lindzen and Choiâs paper is crap.(1257532857)
* Tom Wigley says that von Storch is partly to blame for sceptic papers getting published at Climate Research. Says he encourages the publication of crap science. Says they should tell publisher that the journal is being used for misinformation. Says that whether this is true or not doesnât matter. Says they need to get editorial board to resign. Says they need to get rid of von Storch too. (1051190249)
* Ben Santer says (presumably jokingly!) heâs âtempted, very tempted, to beat the crapâ out of sceptic Pat Michaels. (1255100876)
* Mann tells Jones that it would be nice to ââcontainâ the putative Medieval Warm Periodâ. (1054736277)
* Tom Wigley tells Jones that the land warming since 1980 has been twice the ocean warming and that this might be used by sceptics as evidence for urban heat islands.(1257546975)
* Tom Wigley say that Keith Briffa has got himself into a mess over the Yamal chronology (although also says itâs insignificant. Wonders how Briffa explains McIntyreâs sensitivity test on Yamal and how he explains the use of a less-well replicated chronology over a better one. Wonders if he can. Says data withholding issue is hot potato, since many âgoodâ scientists condemn it.(1254756944)
* Briffa is funding Russian dendro Shiyatov, who asks him to send money to personal bank account so as to avoid tax, thereby retaining money for research.(0826209667)
* Kevin Trenberth says climatologists are nowhere near knowing where the energy goes or what the effect of clouds is. Says nowhere balancing the energy budget. Geoengineering is not possible.(1255523796)
* Mann discusses tactics for screening and delaying postings at Real Climate.(1139521913)
* Tom Wigley discusses how to deal with the advent of FoI law in UK. Jones says use IPR argument to hold onto code. Says data is covered by agreements with outsiders and that CRU will be âhiding behind themâ.(1106338806)
* Overpeck has no recollection of saying that he wanted to âget rid of the Medieval Warm Periodâ. Thinks he may have been quoted out of context.(1206628118)
* Mann launches RealClimate to the scientific community.(1102687002)
* Santer complaining about FoI requests from McIntyre. Says he expects support of Lawrence Livermore Lab management. Jones says that once support staff at CRU realised the kind of people the scientists were dealing with they became very supportive. Says the VC [vice chancellor] knows what is going on (in one case).(1228330629)
* Rob Wilson concerned about upsetting Mann in a manuscript. Says he needs to word things diplomatically.(1140554230)
* Briffa says he is sick to death of Mann claiming his reconstruction is tropical because it has a few poorly temp sensitive tropical proxies. Says he should regress these against something else like the âincreasing trend of self-opinionated verbiageâ he produces. Ed Cook agrees with problems.(1024334440)
* Overpeck tells Team to write emails as if they would be made public. Discussion of what to do with McIntyre finding an error in Kaufman paper. Kaufmanâs admits error and wants to correct. Appears interested in Climate Audit findings.(1252164302)
* Jones calls Pielke Snr a prat.(1233249393)
* Santer says he will no longer publish in Royal Met Soc journals if they enforce intermediate data being made available. Jones has complained to head of Royal Met Soc about new editor of Weather [why?data?] and has threatened to resign from RMS.(1237496573)
* Reaction to McIntyreâs 2005 paper in GRL. Mann has challenged GRL editor-in-chief over the publication. Mann is concerned about the connections of the paperâs editor James Saiers with U Virginia [does he mean Pat Michaels?]. Tom Wigley says that if Saiers is a sceptic they should go through official GRL channels to get him ousted. (1106322460) [Note to readers - Saiers was subsequently ousted]
* Later on Mann refers to the leak at GRL being plugged.(1132094873)
* Jones says heâs found a way around releasing AR4 review comments to David Holland.(1210367056)
* Wigley says Keenanâs fraud accusation against Wang is correct. (1188557698)
* Jones calls for Wahl and Ammann to try to change the received date on their alleged refutation of McIntyre [presumably so it can get into AR4](1189722851)
* Mann tells Jones that he is on board and that they are working towards a common goal.(0926010576)
* Mann sends calibration residuals for MBH99 to Osborn. Says they are pretty red, and that they shouldnât be passed on to others, this being the kind of dirty laundry they donât want in the hands of those who might distort it.(1059664704)
* Prior to AR3 Briffa talks of pressure to produce a tidy picture of âapparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy dataâ. [This appears to be the politics leading the science] Briffa says it was just as warm a thousand years ago.(0938018124)
* Jones says that UK climate organisations are coordinating themselves to resist FoI. They got advice from the Information Commissioner [!](1219239172)
* Mann tells Revkin that McIntyre is not to be trusted.(1254259645)
* Revkin quotes von Storch as saying it is time to toss the Hockey Stick . This back in 2004.(1096382684)
* Funkhouser says heâs pulled every trick up his sleeve to milk his Kyrgistan series. Doesnât think itâs productive to juggle the chronology statistics any more than he has.(0843161829)
* Wigley discusses fixing an issue with sea surface temperatures in the context of making the results look both warmer but still plausible. (1254108338)
* Jones says he and Kevin will keep some papers out of the next IPCC report.(1089318616)
* Tom Wigley tells Mann that a figure Schmidt put together to refute Monckton is deceptive and that the match it shows of instrumental to model predictions is a fluke. Says there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model output by authors and IPCC.(1255553034)
* Grant Foster putting together a critical comment on a sceptic paper. Asks for help for names of possible reviewers. Jones replies with a list of people, telling Foster they know what to say about the paper and the comment without any prompting.(1249503274)
* David Parker discussing the possibility of changing the reference period for global temperature index. Thinks this shouldnât be done because it confuses people and because it will make things look less warm.(1105019698)
* Briffa discusses an sceptic article review with Ed Cook. Says that confidentially he needs to put together a case to reject it (1054756929)
* Ben Santer, referring to McIntyre says he hopes Mr âIâm not entirely there in the headâ will not be at the AGU.(1233249393)
* Jones tells Mann that he is sending station data. Says that if McIntyre requests it under FoI he will delete it rather than hand it over. Says he will hide behind data protection laws. Says Rutherford screwed up big time by creating an FTP directory for Osborn. Says Wigley worried he will have to release his model code. Also discuss AR4 draft. Mann says paleoclimate chapter will be contentious but that the author team has the right personalities to deal with sceptics.(1107454306)

[Response: Putting this list up so that there is an index for what people seem to think are important. - gavin]

No doubt, instances of cherry-picked and poorly-worded âgotchaâ phrases will be pulled out of context. One example is worth mentioning quickly. Phil Jones in discussing the presentation of temperature reconstructions stated that âIâve just completed Mikeâs Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keithâs to hide the decline.â

(Ibid) Read the emails dealing with the IPCC report editing process. Lots of discussions (and disagreements), but that end up in compromise language that the authors and reviewers mostly agree on. - gavin]

(Ibid) Gavin,

There is thought that some or all of these emails that were leaked are fraudulent? As far as you know, are any of them fake? If some/all are, could you post which ones are not real?

[Response: I'm not in a position to tell for the majority of them. The ones I sent have not been tampered with, but then there is nothing particularly interesting in them either. - gavin]

To me, the most damning comment Iâve read is Kevin Trenberth saying that it was a âtravestyâ that they âcanât account for the lack of warming at the momentâ. He makes the candid admission that his observation model is âinadequateâ â because the CERES data on 2008 shows that more warming shouldâve happened, but obviously didnât.

While Iâm open to the possibility that there could be a defensible explanation for these comments, it sounds an awful lot like a presumed conclusion in search of supporting evidence.

[Response: Trenberth is talking about our inability to be able to measure the net radiation balance at the top of the atmosphere to the requisite precision to be able to say on short time scales what the energy budget is doing. The observations are inadequate for that - not sure who is saying otherwise. - gavin]

(Ibid) Can you comment on some of those emails that include you? [edit] Iâm sure that you can clear this up. Please do so.

Robert M

[Response: Sure. I take full responsibility for anything I wrote. What do you want explained? - gavin]

TomF:" She put that up on Sourcewatch and as usual she changed what I wrote. In fact she, shall we put it delicately, lied."

Really? Perhaps you could reproduce the original emails. Else, we can chalk up another unsupported or false assertion. Anthony Watts also has a heck of a time with simple questions of that variety.

Jackerman in 43 I think you meant MarkB... he is my brother;) Hi Mark!

@jakerman #20

[Context is here](http://climateaudit.org/2007/11/09/al-gore-and-dr-thompsons-thermometer…)

Mosher is quite pleased with himself for coining that particular phrase.

It looks like Tom is embroiled his own email scandal - FullerGate. I have read the full emails for context and am now writing a book.

So Tom Fuller thinks that if:

a) someone stole/leaked and made public a bunch of correspondence, some of which he was party to, and

b) there was public comment by various people about the correspondence, said comment including (say) uncharitable, questionable and perhaps even outright false assessments of Tom (and others') professional behaviour and personal qualities, and

c) in response some other person who was party to some of the correspondence commented on the public comments that has ben made to set the record straight from their perspective...

...then anyone else should feel free to not only publish but profit from any and all of those e-mails.

Not only do I consider it deeply slimy to attempt to personally profit from this situation - I find it astonishing that Tom thinks this somehow fails to run afoul of his "men of honour" standard.

No wonder "journalistic ethics" is considered an oxymoron by many.

Tom Fuller,you forgot emails xxxxxxx,in which T.Fuller and S.Mosher,desperate to deal their incompetent attention-seeking asses into something topical,agree to combine multiple wild guesses and pre-conceptions in interpreting for publication a deliberately edited thirteen year email stream without attempting to contact the authors for context,explanation or permission to reproduce....

19 Derecho64,

How can this be when Mosher has told us

Like I've said before. Nothing in the mails changes the science. AGW is real and we need to do something about it.

Thanks MattB yes, what a fine family you make.

Thanks DaveH.

In any case, perhaps Jones and Briffa were mistaken. perhaps Briffa should not have felt the need to write things such as "for your eyes only"

Huh? I thought that's something regular people write when the document in question isn't yet ready for full public exposure, but not actually top secret. They're not spies. You do know that, right?

It would be hella funny if Jones request to have Mann delete his mails was the result of their misunderstanding of the rules.

Have you even read the emails? Isn't it obvious that Jones' attitude towards McIntyre is to never give him anything (while quietly making as much as possible available for public download) unless he absolutely has to?

According to the FOI Commissioner's Office, IPCC is an international organization, so is above any national FOI. Even if UEA holds anything about IPCC, we are not obliged to pass it on, unless it has anything to do with our core business - and it doesn't!

As for Keith Briffa, here's his motivation:

I have been of the opinion right from the start of these FOI requests, that our private, inter-collegial discussion is just that - PRIVATE . Your communication with individual colleagues was on the same basis as that for any other person and it discredits the IPCC process not one iota not to reveal the details. On the contrary, submitting to these "demands" undermines the wider scientific expectation of personal confidentiality . It is for this reason, and not because we have or have not got anything to hide, that I believe none of us should submit to these "requests".

You should read the emails.

Now that FullerGate has been exposed I can say, without a hint of irony, that it's the final coffin in the denial bandwagon.

What do the stolen CRU emails mean? They mean the AGW denialists steal internal emails with no legal authority to do so, take them completely out of any context, and lie about what they say; all the while pretending that stealing and lying are valid substitutes for actual science.

They mean the denialists are thieves and liars with no case and no credibility.

Tom Fuller says,
Mann tells Jones that it would be nice to ââcontainâ the putative Medieval Warm Periodâ. (1054736277)

Read in context (and yes, I *did* read said email in context), the word "contain" is used in a discussion regarding the length of time needed to encompass the entire MWP (along with enough time preceding the MWP to allow it to be completely identifiable as such),

Mann said nothing more sinister than "you need a gallon jug to *contain* an entire gallon of milk". That is the context in which Mann used the word "contain".

To bad you weren't smart enough to figure that out for yourself.

PS: I hope that you had to kick in a whole bunch of your own money up front to get your silly book published. And I hope that you had to put it all on your credit-cards. I also hope that the credit-card companies used their "universal default" rules to jack up your interest rates to 30+%. And I genuinely hope that the Republican-sponsored Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005 comes around to bite you in the ass, real hard.

Tom Fuller:

Lotharsson in #50 beat me to the punch.

From your previous statement ("Gavin Schmidt started publishing them on Real Climate"), I thought Gavin did what McI et al. have done, and directly referred to large swathes of the emails in the main body of the post.

After your explanation, and given the context accurately described by Lotharsson, I can only conclude that you have a very interesting and loose definition of "publish".

I stand corrected. This is much more than a Mr. Fantastic stretch.

Is that really your only justification to profit from purloined emails? This is very thin gruel, even by your standards.

Oh, one more thing.

Unlike others here who enjoy baiting you for your mistaken and creative interpretation of the e-mails (rightfully and justifiably, perhaps), I have a suggestion for you and Mosher.

Why not write a book investigating who stole the e-mails in the first place?

I believe that you have some journalistic talent that is currently (and terribly) misguided; why not use it to sniff out the criminals?

I'm willing to bet it would make much more of a splash than your current tome. Oprah might even call!

>Tom Fuller says, Mann tells Jones that it would be nice to ââcontainâ the putative Medieval Warm Periodâ. (1054736277)

>Read in context (and yes, I did read said email in context), the word "contain" is used in a discussion regarding the length of time needed to encompass the entire MWP (along with enough time preceding the MWP to allow it to be completely identifiable as such),

>Mann said nothing more sinister than "you need a gallon jug to contain an entire gallon of milk". That is the context in which Mann used the word "contain".

Tom you evidently do take stuff out of context, and here is a case in point. Mann said:

>Phil and I have recently submitted a paper using about a dozen NH records that fit this category, and many of which are available nearly 2K back--I think that trying to adopt a timeframe of 2K, rather than the usual 1K, addresses a good earlier point that Peck made w/ regard to the memo, that it would be nice to try to "contain" the putative "MWP", even if we don't yet have a hemispheric mean reconstruction available that far back

clearly wanting to extend the record back to include the last 2000 years so that it covers the whole MWP, even though the resolution of the data would be worse further back.

We have taken sides in this analysis. Our critics will say that we took sides before we started, and although we are confident we have approached this objectively

Fuller's a liar. Both he and Mosher were on record regarding the e-mails from the very beginning.

Amazingly enough, I don't deceive, distort or cherry pick, either--feel free to correct me, showing where I may have erred.

Well, the very sentence is a lie ... that was easy.

Where to start?

OK, This is what Tom said at #37:

"I doubt if you mean that CO2 is not a contributor, so let me just assume that you object to me placing it in context with other human contributions to warming, and for not forgetting that natural forces are at play. Do you dispute that? The IPCC says that deforestation is the cause of up to 25% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Are they mistaken, or is that just something we don't want to mention in front of the children?"

Tom, you are making a straw man argument. I, of course, meant that you were understating the contribution of the radiative forcing of anthropogenic CO2, which Tom, includes CO2 emitted from land-use change (see IPCC WGI section 2.5 where they classify land use change as anthropogenic). I even provided a nice graph (from NASA) showing the relative contribution of different forcing mechanisms (both natural and anthro in origin), and that graph shows anthro CO2 (whether it be sourced from burning of oil, methane, gasoline or from land use) to be the primary forcing mechanism right now, and especially in the coming decades (and after that even).

My objection was with you saying that "CO2 is a contributor" without applying a quantifier or prefacing it with something like "primary", "significant" as the radiative forcing data show. In reply you then went off on some bizarre tangent and arguing straw men about deforestation.

So Tom you and Mosher are deceiving people here and in your book by clearly making an attempt to understate the significant contribution of CO2 to radiative forcing. So you did err and deceive.

Fuller (#45) appears to be copying and pasting some text that orginated elsewhere (bishophill). The text "Mann tells Jones that it would be nice to ââcontainâ the putative Medieval Warm Periodâ" (which indeed is blatantly leaving out relevant context) is part of a junky 11/20/09 bishophill post (echoed around the denialosphere) as are the other quotes as far as I can tell. Being the lazy propagandist that he his, Fuller cares neither to cite the original source, nor critically evaluate any of the claims. They fit his narrative. That's enough.

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/11/20/climate-cuttings-33.h…

Re Tom Fuller at #45. My, what a lot of effort oon your part to only demonstrate that you do not seem to understand what "publish" means. Others beat me to it, but all that you have demonstrated is that you were misleading people when you said in post #29 that:

"But then, wonder of wonders and miracle of miracles, Gavin Schmidt started publishing them on Real Climate. That gave me a free pass,..."

Dr. Schmidt did not "publish" the emails, at least not in the correct use of the word. Seriously, and you expect me and others to take what you say at face value?

Here is a classic example of Fuller playing at ambiguous dog:

"Overall, CO2 emissions declined by 2.6% for the entire world. (So why did temperatures rise? Hmm.)........You know what? I don't care what's happening to temperatures right now. Hot year, cold year--who cares? We're actually doing what the climate science community recommended, right or wrong. It's having the effect they have begged for." [Examiner, May 18 2010]

Tom I actually agreed with most of what you said in that article, with the exception that you failed to note that CO2 concentrations are still going up. Regardless, you just can't help playing mind games (see text in bold) and/or being ambiguous. That is when you lose credibility.

And today Tom has this gem in which he quotes (out of context of course) comments made at Deltoid:

http://www.examiner.com/x-9111-Environmental-Policy-Examiner~y2010m6d10…

I can't decide, who is more dishonest? Fuller? Mosher? Dead heat?

OK, last post.

Re Tom's allegations about Ms. Haynes falsifying/changing his emails (allegedly without permission). If she did, then I do not support that, although she did obfuscate sensitive text in the emails. But Tom fails to see his own double standard, he did not seek anyone's permission to write a book using the stolen emails.

Now, as for Fuller characterizing Ms. Haynes as a 'stalker'. Tom, you clearly did not bother to get Ms. Haynes' side of the story did you? Yes, this is a bit of a "he said, she said", but I am more likely to believe the account given by Ms. Haynes-- and let it be noted that I was very supportive of Mr. Watts when this "story" came to light, as were the vast majority of people at Tamino's site. That was before they heard Anna's side of the story. I do agree with others that it would be best for her to apologize to Mr. Watts; actually they both have something to apologize for, but we are still waiting for Anthony to apologize to NOAA.....so I'm not holding my breath.

Either way, you libeling Anna and characterizing her as a "stalker" is just another example of you not playing fair and misrepresenting the facts. In fact, you do seem to be rather compulsive in that regard.

Two questions (you still have not proven that you contacted "The Team"):

1) Please prove that Ms. Haynes is lying and show us how she changed your email/s.
2) Please apologize to Anna for your ridiculous and libelous characterization of her.

And Tom, I stand by what I said at #33, and which you reproduced on your blog today. Sadly, you had scored some brownie points with me with your quotes from the book (I was honestly pleasantly surprised), but then it was all downhill form there. And revelations here today and elsewhere, have only reinforced my opinion about the vacuity of journalistic ethics on your part. I recommend that you take pause and reflect and your actions to date...

Not only does he quote out of context, Fuller hides the context by not linking to the comments. And he also claims that I "wouldn't publish" [this comment](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/06/how_to_figure_out_what_the_sto…), even though I did.

Sadly, you had scored some brownie points with me with your quotes from the book (I was honestly pleasantly surprised)

Reality alert: it's a tactic. Sorta like that speech that starts "I have come to bury Caeser, not to praise him ..."

Fuller has a history of repeating the most ridiculous of denialist points. Pay attention to what he says and it is clear he's a denialist, no matter how often he insists he is not.

Not only does he quote out of context, Fuller hides the context by not linking to the comments. And he also claims that I "wouldn't publish" this comment, even though I did.

I'm sure his trolling here was for the express purpose of generating responses he could quote-mine and distort.

No worries dhogaza, I do not refer to Fuller, McI and Mosher playing at "ambiguous dog" without good reason. If that term confuses you, it is from a poem by Arthur Guiterman (?):

"THE AMBIGUOUS DOG

The Dog beneath the Cherry-tree
Has ways that sorely puzzle me:

Behind, he wags a friendly tail;
Before, his Growl would turn you pale!

His meaning isn't wholly clear
Oh, is the Wag or Growl sincere?

I think I d better not descend
His Bite is at the Growly End."

IMO that sums up the guilty party's pretty well. And yes, I am very cautious about believing what they say, and (as shown here and elsewhere) clearly with very good reason.

Lotharsson:

As an actual journalist, I have to insist you can NOT tar us with Tom Fuller - or with the examiner.com mess. Just because you give a blog troll a web space does not make him a journalist, or reflective of journalists, or their standards. That's one of the grumbles of dead-tree (as well as radio and TV) journalists about web-based, especially weblog-based soi-disant journalism - not that it's never as good, but that it has no consistency. People dismiss filters as gatekeeping, but filters are necessary for people with finite time to devote to informing themselves.

The blog trolls can argue that we learn nothing in J-School, or from being daily general reporters, or beat reporters, or editors, or producers, or from our Poynter seminars or IRE seminars, and so on. But talk is cheap, and their shoddy and inaccurate results speak for themselves.

Also:

The point of trolling is to generate bites.

If you don't bite, the troller goes home hungry.

We should in general go about our aquatic lives and hone our perceptions so as to distinguish real bugs from baited hooks.

Note that now that Fuller has apparently written his blog masterpiece related to this thread, he has disappeared. As Marion says, he was here to generate bites (to which I'd add, again, that he can sound-bite, i.e. quote mine).

Mission accomplished, and no more Fuller.

Now he can happily misrepresent people to his heart's content.

If our oh-so humble host hadn't held onto my post for 10 hours before letting it through, I could have continued this entertaining love fest. As it is, your gracious comments and compliments will have to stand alone.

Hi Marion,

Re feeding the troll/s, guilty as charged....

So if I read your post correctly, Fuller does not have any legitimate journo credentials?

mosh-pit,

If you're still reading this, your co-author made a fool of himself in post 45. We both know you know this.

Best,
Boris

If Tom Fuller were a man of honor, then he would be putting all his energy into making sure that his book is not misrepresented as an argument against global warming. But he doesn't do that, because his goal is to limit the actions taken to deal with it.

I'm not surprised, given his symptomatic behavior at other blogs since he first appeared on the interwebs last year.

I certain I'm not alone in thinking that his modus operandi is to funnel hits to his Examiner blog (sic) in order to generate revenue, which is a major reason why I avoid that site as much as possible. Why report on and discuss the truth and facts, when context-free bull$#!t gets more hits?

On the other hand, the fallout from Fuller's behavior over the past year has had a beneficial effect.

More and more people, including the lurker traffic in popular science blogs, have caught on to his BS.

The fact that Fuller flees when confronted with reality and facts has cemented his very poor reputation to most (if not all) dispassionate readers.

My final word on Fuller: I'd rather listen to Tom Fuller than read him.

Do you really consider that to be the sort of thing that honorable men write, or do?

I certain I'm not alone in thinking that his modus operandi is to funnel hits to his Examiner blog (sic) in order to generate revenue, which is a major reason why I avoid that site as much as possible

I never visit his site, and recommend others resist the urge. No reason to line his pocket with pennies, as valueless as they are.

If our oh-so humble host hadn't held onto my post for 10 hours before letting it through, I could have continued this entertaining love fest.

Oh, my gosh, Tim Lambert sleeps at night !!!

MapleLeaf:
I want to emphasize I'm not just picking on him, but in fact, advocating completely ignoring the entire xxx.examiner.com morass of BS. Its myriad of defects as an information model are not confined to any one person.

I guess that Fuller had some J-School, actually, but I know of no journalistic credentials. This is the bio I found:

Tom Fuller has just returned to his home town of San Francisco following 10 years in Europe. He has written technology commentary for The International Herald Tribune's Italy Daily, and consulted on green technology for the UK government.

If he has them, I'm surprised he hasn't at least mentioned them. I.e, I don't know if he's been in the Society of Professional Journalists - which virtually all us "real" journalists in the States join; or been a part of any other journalistic groups, for example, Investigative Reporters and Editors which I joined for a while. Or had training after finishing school, as most of us have (the Poynter Institute is a big one for that, at least on the West Coast, and IRE sponsors good computer-assisted reporting training).

My sense is that no real Editor-in-Chief ever told Tom Fuller what he was doing right or wrong to meet the needs of a newspaper as either an editor or reporter.

Thanks Marion.

Can't believe I wasted a good part of my day and last night on this guy!

>If our oh-so humble host hadn't held onto my post for 10 hours before letting it through, I could have continued this entertaining love fest. As it is, your gracious comments and compliments will have to stand alone.

>>Do you really consider that to be the sort of thing that honorable men write, or do?

More to the point TM, I'd be wondering whether Tim deliberately held the comment, or whether the blog software automatically hold onto ludicrously long posts like the one in question?

I'm betting on the second, which of course makes Fuller look even more foolish.

Whether it's Monckton with Pinker - as shown by Tim Lambert.

Or Monckton with a dozen researchers - as shown by John Abraham.

Or Mosher and McIntyre with Overpeck - as shown by Brian Angliss.

When will you Al Gore-ite watermelons realize that going to the primary source and asking them in the plainest possible terms what they mean is simply NOT ENOUGH?

Information is not information until the Heartland Institute has vetted it. Conversely, once so vetted, it's beyond challenge.

I'm ready for my close-up now, Mr. Murdoch.

Stu, that was my subtext. As my alter ego wrote on Fuller's blog:

"Lambert wouldn't publish them. They were held for moderation and never went up."

"10 hours" is not "never". "Didn't for 10 hours" is not "wouldn't". Such mischaracterization and leaping to conclusions is par for you.

Well I do state the obvious sometimes, in this case I think it was worth it. Really, Mosher and (particularly) Fuller have no excuse, and what you've pointed out just typifies Fuller's dishonest approach.

Marion Delgado has it exactly right. It is a terrible mistake to give these idiots attention. And that is exactly what their nonsense is intended for: not getting at the truth but grabbing attention and diluting information space with any old rubbish they can think up. When we respond to nonsense like this we prostitute ourselves and waste time that could be put to better use.

And that is exactly what their nonsense is intended for: not getting at the truth but grabbing attention and diluting information space with any old rubbish they can think up.

In Fuller's case, even worse, not just attention but material for his examiner blog, for which he gets paid by the visitor.

When we respond to nonsense like this we prostitute ourselves

And in a very real sense, he's acting as our pimp ...

>*I never visit his site, and recommend others resist the urge.*

Does anyone expect to get information there? Life is too short for demonstrable disinformation, let alone [rehashed](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/06/how_to_figure_out_what_the_sto…).

Let me guess, the purpose of Fuller's [disinformation rehash](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/06/how_to_figure_out_what_the_sto…); Fuller wasn't sure that his credibility was total shot, and he just couldn't stand the uncertainty. He wanted to be sure.

Hi all, haven't disappeared.

Let's see. First, Lambert posts an article criticizing me, and you think I am drumming up traffic. No, it's Tim.

Second, Delgado, I have had an editor telling me what she wanted and how to write it. Haven't seen your pub list recently. It's pretty obvious it didn't include any investigative journalism assignments.

Clueless In Gaza, what timezone is our oh-so-humble host in? Do the math.

Former Skeptic, if more people are catching on to me, why are more of them coming to read my site and our book?

Truth Machine, as you may note from other comments here, people see what they want to see. I have written about my beliefs on global warming repeatedly. I criticize the consensus, so skeptics like that and the people here do not. Both sides forget what I actually write about global warming. There really isn't any difference between the fanatics on either side, at the end of the day. Except I've never been called a pimp on a skeptic site.

Tom, you made time for many posts here, but [this challenge](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/06/how_to_figure_out_what_the_sto…) still goes unanswered.

We know [you've read](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/06/how_to_figure_out_what_the_sto…) it.

Tom Fuller: "Former Skeptic, if more people are catching on to me, why are more of them coming to read my site and our book?"

Never rubberknecked the scene of a car crash?

Steve Mosher writes:

....perhaps Briffa should not have felt the need to write things such as "for your eyes only"...

Well there you have it. That's evidence for a conspiracy right there. At the very least it smells of MI6 involvement, and they probably have agent 007 working on the secret climate science project as we speak.

Hi Jakerman, haven't seen a response to my co-author's comment at number 8 on this thread, either.

J. Bowers, we all rubberneck, but paying $16.99 for the privilege? That's serious voyeurism.

Once bitten by an ambiguous dog, twice shy.

Don't feed the troll which responds to the name Thomas W. Fuller folks, based on my experience here and over at Bart's place you are wasting your trying to engage said troll.

Tom Fuller: "J. Bowers, we all rubberneck, but paying $16.99 for the privilege? That's serious voyeurism."

Three words: Eric von DÃ¤niken.

MarkB, you should know that reputable journalists, or at least those that are members of the SPJ or a similar professional organisation, would never stoop to plagiarism. It says so in their respective Codes of Ethics.

So, Mr Fuller must have written those comments at Bishop Hill's and so owns the copyright of them (they just forgot the byline), or Mr Fuller wrote them somewhere else and the plagiarism is on Bishop Hill's part, or they are a collaborative effort between the two named parties (and possible other parties), or Bishop Hill has given Mr Fuller permission to use his work without attribution, because, as I said, a reputable journalist would never plagiarise. Oh, and I suppose lack of attribution might have been an honest oversight (it happens, sometimes), rather than the heinous scientific or journalistic crime of plagiarism. There's a simple explanation, you'll see.

Tom Fuller, Tim's question was a reply to Mosher's statment. And many others replied to Mosher's statment, including me.

Further more Mosher contained no question. Tim's did. That is what you [keep avoiding](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/06/how_to_figure_out_what_the_sto…).

>>Tom Fuller: *"J. Bowers, we all rubberneck, but paying $16.99 for the privilege? That's serious voyeurism."*

>Three words: Eric von DÃ¤niken.

Don't forget the army of denialist who want to believe the fastasy Tom Fuller creates. That is an easy (and undiscerning) market to play to.

> As an actual journalist, I have to insist you can NOT tar us with Tom Fuller - or with the examiner.com mess. Just because you give a blog troll a web space does not make him a journalist, or reflective of journalists, or their standards.

Fair point. My term reflected what I think is the reality - that loose cannons who *appear* to be practicing some form of pseudo- or actual- ethics-light journalism are often lumped together in the public's mind with professional journalists who uphold the code of ethics.

I criticize the consensus

From a position of ignorance and ideology, the same that informs and drives your scurrilous attack on "The Team".

There really isn't any difference between the fanatics on either side, at the end of the day.

Standard issue self-serving bullshit from self-styled "moderates" of various sorts, but there's nothing inherently correct about a "middle" position ... and in this case your assertion is especially dishonest -- you know full well that the denialati are wrong about the basic scientific facts and that the consensus that "global warming exists, is a problem and needs to be addressed" is correct. Any difference you have with the consensus -- the view of 97% of climate scientists -- cannot be a matter of fanaticism on the science side.

Well folks, it's been fun. As for your challenge, jakerman, Lambert is right--he could talk to whomever he wanted.

And Mosher is right. It was against IPCC guidelines to have unauthorised people change text, and to conceal it.

Pretty tough, I'd say.

Fuller writes:

"Tom Fuller: "Former Skeptic, if more people are catching on to me, why are more of them coming to read my site and our book?"

Any supermarket tabloid would use the same defense. A rational argument continues to elude Fuller, but I think he's helping to confirm what Tony Sidaway said in #89.

It's a good idea not to help give Fuller per click revenues at his site. As for here, I just think it's amusing that after a couple of days of replies, Fuller still has yet to say something remotely substantive. There's lots of questions he's avoided, including providing information on his educational background and his providing evidence for his assertion that Anna Haynes "lied". These aren't "tough scientific questions" like determining the difference between emissions and atmospheric concentration, after all. They should be pretty easy for him. Then again, he's co-authored a book erroneously accusing scientists of various misconduct.

Three words: Eric von DÃ¤niken.

Books "proving" the earth is only 6,000 years old sell well, too ...

Pretty sad that Tom Fuller feels he has top defend himself against us brainless, intellectually challenged, attention seeking, pathetic alarmists working away in our own isolated corner.

Tom Fuller,

"I could have had the scoop of the year, and maybe Koch industries or the Heartland guys would have made me a millionaire...."

Millionaires? Do tell.

And Mosher is right. It was against IPCC guidelines to have unauthorised people change text, and to conceal it.

As Tim said, "this is just nuts". Overpeck said "Keith as a Lead Author could consult with any scientist he wanted". The Briffa/Wahl exchange did not violate any IPCC guideline, and it's dishonorable to claim that it did.

Fuller's comment went in to moderation because it contained too many links. I approved it when I saw it about 5 hours later. When he posted his comment claiming that I "wouldn't publish" his comment had already been approved.

Tim Lambert [writes](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/06/how_to_figure_out_what_the_sto…):

>Steve, this is just nuts. Overpeck said

>>*"there is no restriction on IPCC authors talking to anyone. Thus, Keith as a Lead Author could consult with any scientist he wanted."*

>What do you think that means?

>Can you quote the IPCC rule that you claim was broken?

A challenge that Tom Fuller dodge despite prompting. Finally when shamed into to facing Tim's challange Fuller responds with the following dead squib:

>*Mosher is right. It was against IPCC guidelines to have unauthorised people change text, and to conceal it.*

That's a daming white flag Fuller. That is zero defense of the your book's claim that were examined and [overturned by Angliss](http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2010/06/08/climate-scientists-still-be…). That also fails to address the either the question or challenge made by Tim.

Instead you try to direct discussion to a different claim. Classic hand waving. It obvious you want to leave these points behind, but before we turn attention to your next conconcoction how about you address the points raised in relation your claims that Brian's investigated?

Either answer's Tim's challenge or correct the record so we can move on to discuss your next "interpretation".

And Mosher is right. It was against IPCC guidelines to have unauthorised people change text, and to conceal it.

Tom Fuller, enough with the verbal sleight-of-hand.

An authorised person changing text in response to suggestions the authorised person received from someone else he was absolutely entitled - as you well know - to consult with is NOT the same as having "unauthorised people change text".

Do you seriously not know the difference?

I think you are going to spend the next 10 years trying to untangle the intellectual knots you've tied yourself up in.

Tom Fuller: the Human Pretzel.

[MarkB's final parrgraph](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/06/how_to_figure_out_what_the_sto…) is worth reemphasizing given Fuller's emtpy attempts of distraction.

Do you seriously not know the difference?

Of course he does, making him completely dishonorable.

n n ttmpt t b nc, s wll s ccrt, lt m smpl s ... Tm Fllr s fckng lyng sck f sht. M tr flngs r nprntbl ...

Gaz decodes what Fuller's insinuating claim may refer to:

>*An authorised person changing text in response to suggestions the authorised person received from someone else he was absolutely entitled - as you well know - to consult with is NOT the same as having "unauthorised people change text".*

Apparently (if Gaz is correct) [Fuller's vague insinuation](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/06/how_to_figure_out_what_the_sto…) is refering to Briffa, consulting with Wahl. An issue that Angliss takes up and provide context that once again overturns Fullers desperate claim of *"unauthorised people change[ing] text".

I repeat this challenge to Fuller:

>*Either answer's Tim's challenge or correct the record so we can move on to discuss your next "interpretation".*

Whatever your next interpretation is.

Hosed, I can tell you're upset--your sentence lacks an article.

Four quick points:

a) You assume that people going to your site agree with you? As J Bowers points out, they are there to see the train wreck.

b) Your site isn't exactly as well-read as you presume it is - where is it on Alexa, Technorati and other rankings?

c) I've pointed out your loose definition of "publish" in your justification for your book; others have rightly called you the "human pretzel" with your injudicious mangling of both words and context. There's a psychological condition for people systematically exhibiting this behavior; I leave it up to you to figure out what it is.

d) A few years ago, a famous pro cyclist who won a famous bike race was accused of doping.

Like you, he wrote a book trying to illustrate how a conspiracy/scandal within the sport was out to get him.

Like you, the book sold copies and - not a bestseller, but still sold nonetheless.

Like you, the book had rave reviews on Amazon.

Like you, the book was built on a pack of half-truths and lacked much grounding in reality.

A few months ago, that cyclist came clean and admitted that he lied and that he was wrong. Good for him, even though you can now get the book on Amazon for a buck sixty plus S&H.

Care to follow him, Tom Fuller?

dhogaza:

"I can't decide, who is more dishonest? Fuller? Mosher? Dead heat?"

I'd give Fuller the nod, simply because of the ease with which he switches from smarmy civility trolling to gruelingly arch attacks on his "enemies."

The rest of his lies are just icing on the cake.

You'll never go wrong telling people what they want to hear.

This is good because I am about to publish "Inject Heroin and lose 50 kilos in five days!"

"Former Skeptic, if more people are catching on to me, why are more of them coming to read my site and our book? "

Gee I don't know Tom. Why do people believe Obama is a Muslim, or is an alien, or that global warming ended in Febuary becuase it snowed, or that the Polar bears are not really in danger from melting ice, or that the Arctic sea ice isn't really receding, or that the health care bill had a death panel clause for old people, or the swift boating of John Kerry, or ...........

You play to that audience, and unfortunately in America the dumbing down is well under way.

I'm just getting very despondent over all this stuff. Why are there so many people who are just so f*cked in the head?

That the climate is "changing" (ie, getting warmer) is beyond any scientific doubt apart from the incoherent ramblings of a tiny minority who change their minds on the causes and magnitudes with every wax and wane of the tides.

That the large and accurately measured anthropogenic CO2 increases are most likely a very significant factor is also beyond much doubt unless we re-invent our understanding of basic physics (which some amateur sceptics have apparently just decided to do over the last couple of years).

So why do we have to repeat all this crap ad nauseum?

Hosed, I can tell you're upset--your sentence lacks an article.

Tom Fuller got something right!

Typo nitpicking stretches, but does not break, his core competency.

>I'm just getting very despondent over all this stuff. Why are there so many people who are just so f*cked in the head?

Despair not, amigo. It's really just a small minority with a persistent pathology. They're just loud and obnoxious, that's all. Narcissism does that to people, and one doesn't need to be a diagnostic clinician to realize that it is narcissism, and its contingent megalomania, that drives people like Mosher, Fuller, McIntyre and Watts.

Look...
Haven't you worked it out yet?

There is a secret code in the emails. That's what the hackers were really interested in.

If you break the code you'll find the secret huge sums of money hidden away by climate scientists deep in the Amazon jungle.

I would tell you, but I have already booked my flight and i'm off to grab my share this weekend.

Brian Angliss is doing a great job exposing these frauds. Kudos Brian and a big thanks.

Now if Mr. Fuller were a real journo, surely he would be a member of a professional group and/or press council? If so, surely someone would make the effort to file a complaint either against him of xxx.examiner.com.

Hi Jakerman, haven't seen a response to my co-author's comment at number 8 on this thread, either.

Considering your poor reading of the emails, I'm not surprised you haven't seen a response. Makes a catchy little showmanship phrase, though, regardless of the truth, doesn't it? Hey, I just thought of your own special tagline you can use: "Tom Fuller. Regardless of the Truth."

Mr. Fuller:
Often one can learn from a bad book as well as from a good book.

I click over to WUWT. Its fun to find the lie: there's always a lie. Usually I click away as soon as I find what'ts wrong with Mr.Watts et al's arguement. Sometimes i go elsewhere to better educated people for the correct answer. Either way, Watt's follies instruct me.

Your analysis is also instructive.

I'm convinced that a new ice age is upon us! It snowed here in SW Montana today! In the valley! OMG! OMG!

Oh, you say it isn't that unusual? What we got 3 feet on June 15th just 9 years ago? What? It happens pretty much every year?

Never mind!

John @128, you are right. I have learnt a hell of a lot by examining the deception and misinformation put forth by the likes of WUWT and CA.

Alas, doing so requires dedication and work, especially in the beginning (they rehash so many arguments that is does get easier with time). And alas, many people do not get beyond the misleading headline or sound bite, and opportunists like Fuller and Watts know that all too well.

I was very disappointed to see that Spencer plays at the same word games on his blog:
What is wrong with the wording in these two headlines for some posts on his blog?

"Warming in Last 50 Years Predicted by Natural Climate Cycles"

Well, he only looks at N. Hemisphere temperatures for starters......

Updated: Low Climate Sensitivity Estimated from the 11-Year Cycle in Total Solar Irradiance

It seems that he is making the mistake of comparing transient climate sensitivity (TCR) with equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS). Regardless, even his value of TCR is in fact at the low end of the range of ECS reported in the IPCC. If one calc. the ECS using his value for the TCR one gets a number (+2.55 K) close to the +3K reported by the IPCC. I could be wrong about my interpretation of his analysis identifying the TCR, but the title remains misleading. Funny enough, not any of his supporters are commenting on that thread.

Correction to #130:

"Funny enough, not many of his supporters are commenting on that thread."

Jeez, is it time for Friday beers yet?

Well it is time for beer here, but then I am at least 6 hours further into the future than you, living in the UK rather than Canada.

When the emails were stolen, I was distant from climate information. The fuss made me read all the email released to the wild. How silly: nothing to see here.

One thing I noticed right away was the parrot effect on Google. A single denialist story bounced from blog to blog to blog. No attribution , just the same little blurb. It soon became clear that real information was often on the second or third page.

A while ago I saw a great demonstration of the parrot effect. A blog carried a story about a famous explorer , attempting to prove global warming freezing to death in the Antarctic. Reading the story tripped the FAKE lights on my laptop. The guy's wife was said to mourn ; when he said he was going to be be down to Chili I thought he was talking about his rations;.

Denaialist blog after denialist blog ran with the story. Google revealed no entries for the famous exporers name save said blogs. No source for the story was Googleable; just silly blogs. A fake , but a fake that took every position in the top ten on Google.

Hopefully , circling until dissapearance uparsewise, will help turn people away from such sillyness.

Hosed, I can tell you're upset--your sentence lacks an article.

And we can tell you're a dishonorable lying asshole -- you didn't respond to any substance. Your charge against Briffa stands as libelous.

A while ago I saw a great demonstration of the parrot effect. A blog carried a story about a famous explorer , attempting to prove global warming freezing to death in the Antarctic.

I remember that one. Here's another one from just this week:

http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2010/06/curious-climate-hoax/

"On June 5th the local newspaper in Beeville, a small town in Southern Texas, published a story about a local 4th grade student who had it said had just won the Junior Division of the National Science Fair for a project entitled âDisproving Global Warming.â[...] In the course of two days, the story had spread around to dozens of blogs, hundreds of twitter posts, and various media outlets. It also appears to have been an elaborate hoax."

I guess global warming used up so much of their skepticism, they have none left.

# 133 and # 135,
Just Google "James Schneider" if that's the one you're thinking of.

Good old Rupert and friends have a very long history of this stuff.

Remember that people like these are simply dishonest.

Need a laugh?

http://www.indecisionforever.com/2010/03/30/fox-nation-punks-itself-wit…

Rupert was spreading this discredited rubbish as recently as a couple of months ago.

Of course everyone's favourite climate scientist Andrew Bolt ran something similar a little while back. Such nice people.

Tom Fuller should really stick to sub-editing, it's where his talent lies.

MapleLeaf: There're no real sanctions in journalism other than firing and not buying, even for the real thing.

in the case of examiner.coms, clicking on them is buying them.

in the case of the particular representative, responding to him is buying him.

Gee what an echo chamber this blog is; full of insults and profanity.

Welcome to "The Gang that Couldn't Shot Straight" Tim.

http://climateaudit.org/2010/06/11/desmogging-desmogs-trick-part-1/

From Steve McIntyre in the link above. "In a recent post, Angliss moves the pea under the thimble, using an IPCC diagram to supposedly rebut a criticism of Jonesâ trick email (about the WMO 1999 diagram), and then, after this sleight-of-hand, accuses me of making claims ânot supported by the published recordâ â relying on this trick to supposedly justify his claim. Desmogblog, without doing any due diligence of their own to determine whether Anglissâ claims are valid, spreads this disinformation". And Deltoid etc, etc.

It amazes me how a person who is a professed non- sceptic is so maligned simply because he stands up for proper scientific process and fights against the corruption of same process.

Now to sit back and watch the customary scurriious insults.

Geoff, McIntyre titles his post "The Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight" and you complain about insults here?

The challenge that Mosher and Fuller and McIntyre have failed to meet is to quote the IPCC rules that they allege were broken. You'd think if they did some "due diligence" they would have checked the IPCC rules.

As for McIntyre's post, you seem to have fallen for his bait and switch tactics. The McIntyre post that Angliss is responding to is about 'The IPCC "trick"'. The IPCC is not the same as the WMO.

Geoff,

Should you be worrying people who can shoot straight when it seems you have just shot yourself in the foot.

Yeah, I noticed the bait-and-switch, and just pointed it out in the comments.

McIntyre has posted a second rebuttal (which I've also commented on) and Mosher posted a rebuttal at WUWT. And Bishop Hill in the UK (that's Montford's blog, right?) posted on it too. I must have struck a nerve to get this kind of a response.

142 Brian,

Yes, 'Bishop Hill' is AW Montford, author of 'The Hockey Stick Illusion'.

Keep up the good work.

McIntyre has posted a second rebuttal (which I've also commented on) and Mosher posted a rebuttal at WUWT. And Bishop Hill in the UK (that's Montford's blog, right?) posted on it too.

Mosher's post at WUWT is hilarious. No one seems to understand other than McIntyre and a few of his friends. Mosher, Hill, Fuller ... anyone else? They're the only ones who understand. The rest of the world is wrong.

Illusions of grandeur. No different than various inventors of perpetual motion machines, never believed because physicists simply can't understand them.

It would seem that we can now categorise climate change denial as an exciting conspiracy hobby for bored (and boring) retirees, looking at it's main proponents.

144 dhogaza,

Delusions of grandeur. Sorry, had to point that out.

But we know that delusion is a necessary component of denialism, don't we?

OTOH, Tom, your articles lack any sense.

TrueSceptic: how embarrassing :)

Unfortunately, McIntyre did correctly point out that I had made an error. IMO, his post was sufficiently unclear that my error was entirely reasonable (he added a clarification note earlier today, and I verified his point independently), but nonetheless I ran a correction at S&R.

I hate making mistakes, especially on subjects where I have some expertise. :(

149 Brian,

There's the difference. Just how often do we see "sceptics" admitting error?

I'll repeat what I've said before many times: McIntyre is not careless, unlike so many of his fellow travellers.

Gee what an echo chamber this blog is; full of insults and profanity.

I can't help but think you don't know what an echo chamber is. Tell me, do you think an echo chamber is where people yell insults and profanity and then giggle at the echoes, or do you think they are a place where people disagree with each other?

What McIntyre means by "The Trick" changes to suit his convenience.

It amazes me how a person who is a professed non- sceptic is so maligned simply because he stands up for proper scientific process and fights against the corruption of same process.

It no longer amazes me that people can make such grossly dishonest claims.

Now to sit back and watch the customary scurriious insults.

The insults are an appropriate response to scurrilous behavior.

Dhogaza:
"n n ttmpt t b nc, s wll s ccrt,..."

I had to stare at "ccrt" a while before I figured it out. Nothing like a good disemvowelling to get the brain ticking over.

I had to stare at "ccrt" a while before I figured it out. Nothing like a good disemvowelling to get the brain ticking over.

I don't want to go there. Fuller deserves worse. He's evil.

Or:

dn't wnt t g thre. Fllr dsrvs wrse. H's vl.

Just to save Tim the trouble.

Why treat these people as though they're worthy of respect?

Dhogaza,

You should read what Fuller and Mosher are saying over at Bart Verheggen's place. Claiming that BAU is what will actually help us reduce emissions, not a global agreement. Yes, you did read that right.

And lecturing me that words like "renewable energy" and "sustainable energy" are misleading, because there is no such thing as a sustainable energy source. Jee, solar and wave power and wind are not sustainable? OMG they must know that the sun going to stop shining soon or that the winds and waves will cease and tides will stop.

I reminded them about the inaction of the auto industry to improve CAFE standards, about Du Pont fight the Acid rain program and the MP (which was also fought). Yes, industry will dramatically reduce emissions out of the goodness of their hearts (sarc).

For the record (re 155) , I condemn violence of any kind. The only exception, alas, being the sometimes necessary evil for war.

I had to post a correction at Bart's place about Du Pont. Of course, Du Pont opposed reducing CFCs, not SO2. Sorry for the error.

Well, the point is, Dhogaza, when you descend to that level their narcissistic personality disorder marks that down as a win for them.
It is probably best not to give them any sort of satisfaction, even if your response is an appropriate one when confronted by dishonest stupidity.

Today I've been re-reading the Alan Moran gibberish on ABC's "The Drum" and am reliving my surprise and disappointment at just how stupid and deluded some of these people are and the (in my eyes) terminal damage he has done to the IPA's credibility through his opinionated mis-analysis.

> H's vl.

Yes, vile too :-)

>It would seem that we can now categorise climate change denial as an exciting conspiracy hobby for bored (and boring) retirees, looking at it's main proponents.

That's been public knowledge for a while.

160 John,

You both forgot the politics: they are as likely to be libertarian/extreme right as they are to be of retirement age. Combine the 2 and it's almost a dead cert.

Sorry Vince,

I don't know to quantify the damage Moran might have done - because you can't measure something that small.

Their reputation was so utterly buggered in the first place that any dribbling flatulance Moran might have contributed via "The Drum" would have been like taking Coals to Newcastle (as they say in the classics).

In fact, if you were to look up 'oxymoron' in the Macquarie Dictionary you'd see 'IPA credibility' as one of the textbook definitions.

TrueSceptic said: "You both forgot the politics: they are as likely to be libertarian/extreme right as they are to be of retirement age. Combine the 2 and it's almost a dead cert".

Yes, very true. I didn't mean to appear to be having a go at the older person. After all, some of my luckier best friends are now approaching retirement options.

Dhogaza and Vince (@115, 155 and 158),

Guys, while I share your distaste for Tom and Mosher, I think you have taken the mockery and insults too far. Mockery is one thing, but stooping too low is IMHO a) not acceptable and b) counterproductive.

But [Vince](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/06/how_to_figure_out_what_the_sto…) as Martin [shows](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/06/how_to_figure_out_what_the_sto…) sometimes it may not be quite accurate.

From a post made at Bart Verheggen's. Tom Fuller, I'm posting this here b/c I'm trying to direct the discussion here where it belongs Tom.

"MapleLeaf Says:
June 15, 2010 at 21:12
Dear Tom,

âYou gossiped and joked with dhogaza after he called me a pimp and a lying sack of shit.â

Not true. Iâm sorry if you feel wronged, but you are way off topic and way out of line and not stating the facts. You are desperately trying to make me guilty by association with what dhogaza wrote at #105. Those were his words, not mine.

Also, I wrote a post to dhogaza after he made his post #155. Now the post you quoted (#105) here at Bartâs place was made by dhogaza on 10 June 2010 (#105), the post I made at Deltoid last night was #156 on 14 June 2010â go and check the date and time stamps. Reality check, the two are not related, and you are trying to mislead people into thinking that they are.

Additionally, I did not joke or discuss with dhogaza about what he wrote about you at #105 or #155. I informed him of what was going on here and made some (deservedly) sarcastic comments. The only time I made reference to his post( #155) was when I said:

âFor the record (re 155) , I condemn violence of any kindâ.

So I did defend you, albeit implicitly, and in doing so also distanced myself from their inflammatory rhetoric. For what it is worth, I have made another post at Deltoid to clarify my position. People can go over there and read for themselves.

Re your journalism credentials. You told Ms. Haynes that you took majors in journalism and anthropology through the G.I. Bill, but said in an email (which is online for all to read at sourcewatch) but that you left without taking a degree in either of them. Now you said that Anna lied, but have still not provided evidence to the contrary. A search of Google has turned up nothing about you having formal/official credentials in journalism, although it was not an exhaustive search, no time. I did find you at journalisted.com, but no information about your credentials was provided. Your âBioâ at examiner.com does not list any credentials.

Now, if you want to take this further, please take it over to Deltoid."

[MapleLeaf](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/06/how_to_figure_out_what_the_sto…) when these people (and I am using that as a perjorative) pull the indignation act, in my experience it's because they've got nothing else.
It's essentially a faux appeal to an authority they don't have.

Tom I'm taking the liberty of posting your comment (in full) from Bart's place over hear where it belongs.

"Tom Fuller Says:
June 15, 2010 at 19:53
Maple Leaf, you donât get to define what BAU is or should be. You should note that the definition has changed over time. But when I say that what BAU really is in the real world is different from the accepted definition, you go to Dulltoid and tell them I am defending BAU. Cheap and sickâand typical.

Maple Leaf, you are a troll with a more fanciful style. You are a world-class liar with elegant phrasing. You lie about what you wrote and what happened at Deltoid. You did not defend me. You gossiped and joked with dhogaza after he called me a pimp and a lying sack of shit.

P.S. My journalistic credentials are published. If you and your fellow weirdos are too lazy or too stupid to find them, I donât consider it my problem."

Good to see Fuller is still practicing his self-published creative fictions.

Some more text from Tom posted at Bart's place.

"Tom Fuller Says:
June 15, 2010 at 22:28
Bart, I did count to ten before submitting this. I think itâs important for people to know that there are a band of committed commenters that follow people like me and Steve Mosher around with the express purpose of disrupting blog threads. For over a year I have tried to look past their behaviour and tried to engage. No more. If you want me to abandon this thread, I will. But I am no longer going to give a free pass to people like dhogaza, Maple Leaf, Martin Vermeer and others who think they can trash talk me at Deltoid and pretend to be civilized elsewhere.

You, Lucia and Keith Kloor are talking about tribalism and norms of behaviour. Counting to ten, pretending these idiots arenât there, none of that works. Facing people who do wrong is eventually what we have to do.

No, Maple Leaf, do you really think after what you and your soulmates did to me at Deltoid that I am going to engage there? Do you think after calling me a troll, a world class liar, a fraud and an opportunist, and after giggling about it with dhogaza, that I am going to engage with you on issues, provide you with information about myself, or submit to Anna Haynesâ stalking, just so you can all make more stuff up about me?

This is your gossipy exchange with dhogaza after he finished his orgiastic venting spree: âDhogaza, You should read what Fuller and Mosher are saying over at Bart Verheggenâs place. Claiming that BAU is what will actually help us reduce emissions, not a global agreement. Yes, you did read that right.â

Donât ask me for anything, Maple Leaf. Not the time of day.

I notice you went back to Deltoid and made a pious plea for people to tone it down after I started confronting you here. How sweet."

Actually Tom, I distanced myself from their comments last night, my post today was simply to reinforce that. LOL, dhogaza is not my soul mate, I do not have the foggiest idea who he is, and the only reason I now dhogaza is a "he" is because he revealed so in one of his posts a while back. You do say some ludicrous things Tom. And I have been posting at Bart's for a while now, long before the most recent exchange or the one from a few weeks back. For a journalist, you do seem to have awful trouble getting timelines correct and for placing things in context.

Well, I didn't call him a pimp other than by analogy, as I was expanding on someone else's
comment:

When we respond to nonsense like this we prostitute ourselves

to which I said:

And in a very real sense, he's acting as our pimp ...

i.e. he makes money off of each person who visits to read or post at his site.

Something which I point out frequently in order to discourage people from putting pennies in his pocket by going there.

Dhogaza,

Yes, context is everything and something that Fuller does not seem to be able get right time after time.

That said, comment #115 was, IMO, over the top.

I have another of his posts from Bart's place stuck in moderation here.

That said, comment #115 was, IMO, over the top.

True, however. These people are dangerous, never forget that.

Little wonder that Fuller is trying to distract from:

a) misrepresentations by he and Mosher regarding their concocted IPPC breach;

b) failure of he and Mosher to correct the record (over their misrepresentation in a), in the face of Overpeck's contrary evidence (and their own lack of evidence).

Ironic that Fuller is also trying to play the martyr given what he help put honest scientist like Briffa through, during a time of serious illness.

Fuller has set his own standard.

Fuller has set his own standard.

I might be over the top, but Fuller lives in the sewer.

Seriously, I don't understand why anyone so dishonest should be treated with any semblance of respect whatsoever.

Having worked for many, many years with Brits and Canadians, I understand the tendency to treat evil people like human beings. But at times, you just need to face up to the truth and treat them as the people they are. Neville never got it. My ethnic heritage is German :)

Posted by MapleLeaf at Bart's place:

"Only a few minutes here, but this too needs to be corrected.

Fuller states "Angliss did not read our book. He did not read McIntyreâs blog. He did not read the leaked emails. And yet he slams all three."

I cannot vouch whether or not Angliss has read the book in question, but it is very clear from his analysis that Angliss did in fact read the illegally obtained emails (some of them are even posted on his site). Angliss contacted McIntyre directly (see his blog) and Angliss noted on his blog that McIntyre directed him to threads at CA, so Angliss did spend time reading material at CA. Not only that, but Angliss went the extra mile and actually contacted some of the individuals involved in the email fiasco (Fuller and Mosher have not provided proof that they tried to contact the folks at CRU and have provided conflicting accounts as to whether or not the folks at CRU were indeed contacted). So Fuller, has yet again been caught misrepresenting the facts. Additionally, unlike Fuller and Mosher, Angliss did correct an error when it was pointed out to him.

Also, why Fuller continues to insist that the emails were "leaked" is beyond me. If he knows who leaked them, then I hope that he has informed the Norfolk police working on the case.

And yes dhogaza, this is incredibly tiresome stuff."

maple Leaf [said](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/06/how_to_figure_out_what_the_sto…) "this is incredibly tiresome stuff."

Yes, it certainly is. But attempting to build the biggest mountains out of less-than-a-mole-hill is all these self-publicising characters are reduced to now.

Mapleleaf,

"Angliss contacted McIntyre directly (see his blog) and Angliss noted on his blog that McIntyre directed him to threads at CA, so Angliss did spend time reading material at CA. "

This is sophistry. Obviously Angliss read the thread he made comments on, as we all do, but this does not mean he actually read any of the other threads.

Similarly as the Norfolk police are obviously making little headway in their investigation Fuller, at this stage, is as entitled to say the emails were leaked as you are to say they were "illegally obtained"

Similarly as the Norfolk police are obviously making little headway in their investigation Fuller, at this stage, is as entitled to say the emails were leaked as you are to say they were "illegally obtained".

Bollocks, Dave Andrews.

If they were legally obtained, it would be easy to demonstrate this. It is not possible to demonstrate any legal avenue through which the emails were obtained, and the responses of the CRU amd UEA clearly indicate that they were not legally obtained, therefore the emails were illegally obtained.

On the other hand, there is no indication that leaking was a more likely, or even as likely, a method of dissemination than was hacking/theft. And as there has been no indication after more than six months to support the idea of a leak, the 'leaking' contention becomes an indefencible meme to employ.

Certainly Fuller is, at this stage, not as entitled to say the emails were leaked as we are to say that they were "illegally obtained".

The inclination to dissemblance is grafted to your soul, isn't it Andrews?

Police don't usually investigate how "legally obtained emails" were, well, obtained.

Dave Andrews: I read a number of threads at Climate Audit. Whether I read enough is a fair question, but I read more than I've posted on to date. The question is whether I read enough to have sufficient context to reasonably draw the conclusions I have. In one case, no, and I ran a correction as a result. In the other cases, however, I think I'm on pretty solid ground. More solid than your assessment at CA that my analysis didn't stand up mathematically - when it was Fuller who messed up on the issue of a random sample, not I.

Dave A., sadly Fuller does not need any help misrepresenting the facts, but might I add that you are doing a fine job as always of willfully distorting and misrepresenting the facts-- you two do make a lovely pair, maybe more so even than his current partner in crime, Steve Mosher.

Fuller made several blanket (and as it happened erroneous and misleading) statements at BV's place-- in fact that seems to happen almost every time he posts or writes something. People called him on it. And that is not the first time Fuller is guilty of mangling his facts, context and important details. Yet I imagine you think him to be a sterling journalist (he has yet to demonstrate that he even has any official credentials).

> More solid than your assessment at CA that my analysis didn't stand up mathematically...

Haven't seen Dave Andrews' assessment, but FWIW it seems at first glance that the argument (that I suspect Fuller made at S&R) that the bug database study just isn't valid when considering the leaked/stolen e-mails is ... interesting, even disregarding the non-random sample problem.

Bug databases are intended to be full of intentionally created records where creators consciously attempt to capture the pertinent and authoritative details, typically aided by structured data entry systems that in effect prompt the creator for the set of fields of interest.

E-mails, if anything, are likely to be much worse than a bug database for recording pertinent information as they are rarely - if ever - consciously and conscientiously created as an authoritative record, and they are not created in the context of structured prompts and reminders. (They may also implicitly or explicitly reference a great deal of non-email context, whereas bug databases are intended to be authoritative without reference to that type of context.)

Lotharsson - A commenter with the moniker "MrPete" made a similar claim at S&R over the last few days, and as you point out, it's flawed. I've since addressed it and plan to do the same at CA later today.

MrPete is another true believer with a self-imposed superiority complex, much like Mosher.

Much smarter than Fuller, but with a similar sense of ethics.

Arthur Smith [eviscerates](http://arthur.shumwaysmith.com/life/content/steven_mosher_even_fuller_o…) Piltdown Mosh-pit.

This is irrelevant. Angliss used the bug database case to argue, not that the e-mails are not a complete and self-contained record -- that is obvious to all but the most ideologically committed interpreters of the emails (which includes Mosher and Fuller as well as "skeptics" and denialati) -- but that one must interview the participants in order to know what they were talking about. But there's a huge difference between a bug database and emails about climate science -- climate science takes place in a public arena, so issues such as the divergence problem are well documented outside the emails, while esoteric discussions about obscure bugs are often lost to history.

P.S.

Um, did you read the S&R article?

In more specific terms, the paper found that the electronic records including the email records were missing or had incorrect data, failed to include events that were critical to solving the bug, didnât describe structural issues and problems related to group dynamics and internal company politics, and had very little explanation of why things were done.

Those are not the sorts of things for which people entering bugs into a database are prompted.

The only relevance of the bug database study to pilferedemailgate is that a deeper analysis based on more sources of context is likely to be more accurate than a shallower analysis based on fewer sources of context. Well duh.

> Um, did you read the S&R article?

Yes, some time before I posted my comment.

> Those are not the sorts of things for which people entering bugs into a database are prompted.

Um, have you ever used a bug database?

It's true that these things are not all prompted for directly - precisely because many of them are *inferred or derived* (by people with different skills to those entering the details) from other fields which *are* prompted for.

> Angliss used the bug database case to argue, not that the e-mails are not a complete and self-contained record...

And if we're picking nits, then *that* observation appears irrelevant to what I wrote.

Neither the argument that Angliss' argument about the bug database study was not relevant (as I recall it), nor my own argument, relied on arguing that either a bug database or the e-mails constituted a *complete* record. My argument was that *in comparison*, the e-mails would be expected to be **less** authoritative and complete than a typical bug database...so the fact that bug databases are shown to be *less than* fully authoritative and complete is relevant. Although as you point out, it's not *necessary* to Angliss' argument.

Oh, and I also did not argue that there's NOT a "huge difference between a bug database and climate science".

I suspect we're generally in violent agreement.

And if we're picking nits, then that observation appears irrelevant to what I wrote.

So much the worse for your ability to see.

My argument was that in comparison, the e-mails would be expected to be less authoritative and complete than a typical bug database...so the fact that bug databases are shown to be less than fully authoritative and complete is relevant.

Uh, no, it isn't because, as I noted, that isn't the issue -- the issue is whether the authors needed to be interviewed. That emails are not authoritative and complete is, as I noted, prima facie evident to any but the most committed denier. And "authoritative and complete" isn't even the relevant characteristic -- merely whether the emails provide enough context to understand what they are about (they don't, but the public record, short of interviews of the authors, does).

Oh, and I also did not argue that there's NOT a "huge difference between a bug database and climate science".

Of course you didn't, but that is an irrelevant (and really stupid) strawman. I pointed out that there is a huge difference, not because you had argued otherwise, but because the difference is relevant, and I pointed out how so.

I suspect we're generally in violent agreement.

Not on the points we're disagreeing with. Another point of disagreement -- your comments here reveal you to be quite inept at following a logically structured argument -- so inept that this post of mine is most likely lost on you and thus a waste of time and any others on this topic would be too, so I won't bother. At least you've got climate science right.

[truth machine](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/06/how_to_figure_out_what_the_sto…), I say this as someone who often has great respect for your work. From your latest comment it seems to me that you either:

a) misunderstood the limited scope of my original (and quickly dashed-off) argument - i.e. addressing one particular denialist argument on one ground, **not** discussing Angliss' entire argument or superior alternatives thereto;

b) are presuming to tell me that my topic and chosen scope for argument are themselves invalid.

In the former case it's highly amusing for you to be slagging me off for "inability to see"; in the latter you can simply fuck right off.

> ...your comments here reveal you to be quite inept at following a logically structured argument...

More precisely, *at this time* and *in this instance* I had difficulties following the response to my argument *as communicated*, in part because of the issues enumerated above. The apparent generalisation is fallacious.

Speaking of ineptitude, some days I have cognitive, memory and communication difficulties due to a chronic illness which indeed lead to a certain level of it. Maybe that contributed here, and/or maybe I found your particular communication more opaque and less on-point than it could have been. I am however grateful that you apparently write me off entirely on the basis of this episode ;-)

Oh, and many thanks for the condescending stamp of climate science approval. Without it I would have been just totally uncertain whether my opinions had any validity, but now I can sleep soundly at night ;-)

I guess since you've pre-innoculated yourself from any replies, you'll ignore this comment.

Lotharsson,

"memory and communication difficulties due to a chronic illness which indeed lead to a certain level of it."

Well you fooled me Lotharsson. I find your posts excellent. IMHO, your communication skills are well above average and eloquent. And heck, who doesn't have a lapse in communication skills once in a while?

> I find your posts excellent.

Thanks :-) You should have seen me before I got ill ;-)

I used to be (for example) excellent at maths, and when I was still getting worse it was quite a galling shock the day I tried to subtract two 2-digit numbers from a 3-digit number in my head and simply couldn't do it. I'm often conscious that my comprehension levels and speed are much slower than they used to be. For a while my typing accuracy was much worse than usual. I'm normally a very good speller with a decent vocabulary but went through periods where I couldn't spell some nor remember other relatively common words. And the days when I forget things (often literally) in five to ten seconds make it hard to keep enough context in my head to process a more involved argument. But all in all I feel lucky that I started out well above average :-)

Fortunately I'm seeing sloooooow health improvements, and (e.g.) most of the time my arithmetic is much better than that now, but my levels of more complex cognitive capabilities vary somewhat unpredictably from day to day.

When writing I'm not necessarily conscious of the times when I'm thinking or writing poorly - and those short term memory problems mean I can quickly forget that I meant to fix or check something. I try to double-check every comment before I hit Post as a compensatory mechanism - I'd prefer not to inflict crap on the world if I can filter it out beforehand, but I don't always succeed. (And sometimes it can be amazing and hilarious to see what I first wrote ;-)

tm is certainly correct in a limited sense - I am quite aware that some days I can't follow/process arguments that previously I would have been able to follow, and there are arguments I can no longer construct that previously I would have found fairly easy. But there are significant numbers of people who can *never* do those things at some of the higher levels of complexity, and I think your worldview needs to take into account that that is a natural state of affairs.

> And heck, who doesn't have a lapse in communication skills once in a while?

Indeed, which is why I found tm's "you are inept" comment most amusing, if only because it was fairly self-unaware. It also betrayed an apparently highly rigid, time-invariant and rather harsh worldview. tm frequently displays excellent and insightful analysis skills, but (s)he's welcome to those particular unrealistic expectations of humanity.

Anyway, perhaps we should return to the regularly scheduled topic?

192 ML,

I second your opinion of Lotharsson's comments, here and elsewhere.

193 Lotharsson,

I would never have guessed that you are suffering an illness that impairs your intellectual abilities. Can I ask whether it is something that can be treated?

I have to say that Truth Machine's recent posts have me baffled. You'd think there are more important things to get into arguments about, and people who more deserve being argued with.

An analysis of the frequencies of phrases in the stolen CRU e-mails reveals something interesting:

http://ijish.livejournal.com/12125.html

* * *

By the way, it seems the HTML near the top of each blog post is now broken:

: Deltoid" />

I hope it's not caused by anything malicious.

> Can I ask whether it is something that can be treated?

Yes, we believe - subject to additional evidence, as always.

There's also a whole bunch of other significant non-cognitive issues, and for the last few years I've been on a treatment protocol that's worked for others who have seemingly similar problems and indicators. However, they say the treatment will "take as long as it takes". After an initial period of getting even worse, the symptom levels rise and fall, i.e. lots of noise with a slow positive trend - kind of like global temperatures ;-) My progress seems to be at the slower end of the spectrum and it could be another few years before I'm mostly normal - or I could hit a rapid improvement phase Real Soon Now (fingers crossed ;-) But it's *much* better to have some idea what's going on and something to do about it than to be clueless and wondering just how bad it's going to get.

I'm noticeably better in many respects than I was during the worst periods (e.g. on the cognitive front I can generally handle two and three digit numbers in my head now, and my spelling and typing are mostly fairly decent - but vocabulary recall and short term memory can still be a problem, and overall I'm still a *long* way off being back where I was).

It's certainly had a fairly major impact (I haven't even touched on the ... er ... significant lifestyle adjustments - there are a whole bunch of things you just have to give up because you simply have no option). But there are also a lot of things to be glad for - for one thing my problems and their impact haven't been anywhere near as severe as others have experienced.

>I have to say that Truth Machine's recent posts have me baffled. You'd think there are more important things to get into arguments about, and people who more deserve being argued with.

TM's points are almost always cogent and when he argued with me I was left seeing my errors. However, TM would argue with a stone if it wouldn't give him the time of day - seems to be pathalogical. TM just loves arguing.

You'd think there are more important things to get into arguments about

There are certainly more important things to argue about than me, my style, what I choose to argue about, whether I'm "pathlogical", whether I just love arguing, etc.

"pathlogical"

Heh. I mistyped the typo that I meant to mock; that's kind of funny.

> There are certainly more important things to argue about than ... what I choose to argue about

Oh, the irony! That seemed to be the main point of your responses to my minor observation [up-thread](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/06/how_to_figure_out_what_the_sto…) consisted of.

...consisted of.

Oh, the irony!

Oh your stupidity.

The context of the stolen CRU emails

tlambert — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 12:36:32 +0000

The context of the stolen CRU emails

Earlier I noted the way McIntyre quote mined the stolen CRU emails. But would an honest analysis of the messages have found? Brian Angliss makes the case that it is impossible to understand the emails without consulting with the authors to find out what the original context was.

tlambert Thu, 06/03/2010 - 08:36

Tags

That's a fantastic report by Angliss and the folks at S&R.

So, will Mosher and Fuller finally admit that the major premise for their book is complete and utter BS?

So, will Mosher and Fuller finally admit that the major premise for their book is complete and utter BS?

Why would they? What's their incentive?

Thanks for the link, Tim.

But [what] would an honest analysis of the messages have found?

On this basis we would never be able to understand anything about history because we couldn't consult the original people and understand the context!

Absolute rubbish!

>*On this basis we would never be able to understand anything about history*

Reductio ad absurdum

Trying reading the link Dave.

Tom Fuller responded:

"We did provide context in our book, drawing from a variety of sources, including Climategate emails. "

...except of course the scientists involved or a complete look at the relevant studies.

Fuller/Mosher started out with a narrative, then fixed the facts to fit that narrative. Lawyers might approve, but that isn't journalism. Fuller/Mosher did not care to examine the relevant published studies (i.e. on the divergence problem) which puts "hide the decline" in context, or even seek input from the scientists involved who would be most familiar with the discussions. Doing so would not help their narrative.

There is another level of missing context that's detailed by DeepClimate's blog. Sometimes relevant portions of the email text have been deliberately removed. McIntyre and others have engaged in this behavior.

Lastly, I don't think interviews with those involved would paint a 100% clear picture, but it certainly gets us closer. If the topics of discussion are simple, then that would get us closer. Some of the topics also require some level of scientific competency to understand and an additional level of understanding of climate science.

LOL! Angliss is taking Fuller to town - and then some - in the comments over at S&R.

I'm sure I'm not the only one enjoying how Fuller is squirming over there.

Anyone else prepared for the inevitable goalpost moving from Fullersh*t?

I'm just looking forward to Fuller explaining his 'Men of Honour don't publish emails without permission' statement on this blog and how it squares with publishing an entire bloody book based on emails that were published without permission.

I'm sure it'll be entertaining, at least. And I'm equally as sure that Fuller will continue not to understand how incredibly unprincipled he is.

"Climategate", inasmuch as it ever existed, is dead. Until the police trace the hackers, that is.

Former Skeptic - I'm no-one to be trifled with. (Please excuse the gratuitous Princess Bride reference - I couldn't resist. :) )

Bud:

> I'm just looking forward to Fuller explaining his 'Men of Honour don't publish emails without permission' statement on this blog and how it squares with publishing an entire bloody book based on emails that were published without permission.

Easy: Fuller never said that he's a man of honour. Stop putting words in his mouth!

Near as I can tell (some TL;DR effect here, holy cow that is a lot of words), Angliss doesn't even address the fact that the "decline" referred to in "hide the decline" is not a decline in temperatures.

Reductio ad absurdum

Trying reading the link Dave.

Sorry, but Dave is actually right about this, at least as far as "the case that it is impossible to understand the emails without consulting with the authors to find out what the original context was"; there are all sorts of other context by which one can understand a written record. In the comments, Martin Vermeer refers to this when he writes "âplenty contextâ includes the scientific literature, and knowing first hand how research is done".

holy cow that is a lot of words

It seems to have been authored by the Department of Redundancy Department.

Angliss doesn't even address the fact that the "decline" referred to in "hide the decline" is not a decline in temperatures

Indeed. This article goes to great lengths to create a false equivalence between those who make charges against climate scientists and those who deny them, by implying that no one can conclude anything without a formal inquiry, paying no attention to the wealth of information readily available.

"S&R has concluded that the emails do not themselves contain sufficient context to understand what really happened in climate science over the last 13 years.

Many people have claimed that the emails contain all the context needed ...."

Well, duh. Did they actually name names of "many people" there? I actually would be surprised if anyone had truly been that stupid, and am guessing rhetorical excess in that last bit.

In other news, climate models are not perfect, and statistics requires doing math.

Ah, see the 6/3/10 correction re Vermeer ....

Did they actually name names of "many people" there?

Fuller stated "Some of the emails are so egregious as to need no context."

guessing rhetorical excess in that last bit

Yes, but the thesis of the article rests on it.

TruthMachine - I disagree that I created false equivalences, but given I'm the author, that's not a surprise. I went out of my way to avoid pointing out the "wealth of information readily available" because it's a double-edged sword. As I pointed out in the comments at S&R, I was writing for a smart but genuinely skeptical technical professional audience, and by NOT relying on the existence of the other information, I believe I made it harder for my target audience to ignore my points. And yes, I used some amount of repetition to drive a few key points home. I tried to keep unnecessary redundancy out of it, however, although perhaps not as successfully as I'd have liked.

Hank - yep, I do name some names, like McIntyre, Mosher, and Geoff Sherrington.

Thank you for noticing the correction, however. When I get something wrong or a judgment call turns out to be wrong, I do try to correct the record as soon and as completely as possible.

Douglas - I wasn't trying to deal with specific issues in this post. That will come later. And it was just shy of 4,000 words when it was all done. I thought about splitting it up (and shortened it by at least 1,000 words from what I had originally planned), but decided that it was best presented in a single, albeit long, post.

I disagree that I created false equivalences

You created the ones you've since struck out (good on that).

I went out of my way to avoid pointing out the "wealth of information readily available"

Then you're building a false "case that it is impossible to understand the emails without consulting with the authors to find out what the original context was".

because it's a double-edged sword

Perhaps we have different notions of what "information" is. Let me offer my favorite quote, with emphasis added:

"The desire to be right and the desire to have been right are two desires, and the sooner we separate them the better off we are. The desire to be right is the thirst for truth. On all accounts, both practical and theoretical, there is nothing but good to be said for it. The desire to have been right, on the other hand, is the pride that goeth before a fall. It stands in the way of our seeing we were wrong, and thus blocks the progress of our knowledge." W.V. Quine and J. S. Ullian, The Web of Belief

Can someone point me to a defense of the graph itself?

I suppose it's fair enough to argue that it's better to talk to the people involved to get more context, but it's doesn't seem reasonable to just ignore the fact that the stakes are high and everything is public, so people have a large incentive to offer exculpatory context if it's available.

And they actually have been, except that the extent of it is that the "decline" doesn't refer to actual temperatures and that people generally think that the tree-ring-based reconstruction only became unreliable recently (but nobody seems sure about why.)

(in the interest of full disclosure, I last searched for some kind explanation a couple of months ago and I now see that there's been lots of new discussion)

Then you're building a false "case that it is impossible to understand the emails without consulting with the authors to find out what the original context was".

Except that he didn't say that, Tim did (and he was merely paraphrasing Osborn). Brian Angliss likewise was quoting Osborn and that only as being "closer to correct" than Sherrington.

Dave Andrews:

> On this basis we would never be able to understand anything about history because we couldn't consult the original people and understand the context! Absolute rubbish!

Hmm. Never talked to any historians, I take it? Context is everything. Sadly, can't always talk to the people in question, but there are plenty of other ways to get context. No historian would take historical documents on face value; it's the first thing you're taught. They make you practice a lot! And what would you think of an historian who took one sentence of a 19th century document and declared that it proved Darwin was a secret Satanist?

Oh, actually, of course - someone's already done a much better example: Newtongate.

The most remarkable thing about this is the number of hats that McIntyre can don. One minute he is lead blog climate science investigator , then voila , another hat and he's a investigator into goings on at the CRU. Then judge ,jury and executioner.

Did the exonerations receive the same coverage as the groundless accusations?

NO!

Not even close.

Climategate Coverage: Unfair & Unbalanced

#25 Bill O'Slatter

The most remarkable thing about this is the number of hats that McIntyre can don. One minute he is lead blog climate science investigator , then voila , another hat and he's a investigator into goings on at the CRU. Then judge ,jury and executioner.

You omitted McIntyre's most important position: quote-miner in-chief!

And they actually have been, except that the extent of it is that the "decline" doesn't refer to actual temperatures and that people generally think that the tree-ring-based reconstruction only became unreliable recently (but nobody seems sure about why.)

I'm not entirely sure what your question is, but the post-1960 tree ring data is strongly contradicted by the surface record, the satellite record, and every other available proxy. When you have multiple independent methods of measurement that all give you the same answer, and one method that gives you a completely different answer, you can safely conclude that it's the odd man out that's wrong.

Now, maybe that means that tree ring data shouldn't be used at all. If so, it wouldn't change anything. But McIntyre keeps alleging foul play because they cut-off the portion of the tree ring data that they knew was wrong. That's just stupid.

The problem with tree rings was known and made public on the Internet at least as early as 1999 as the following link shows:
http://www.albionmonitor.com/9908a/siberiatrees.html from 23/8/99

If only the auditors had had the wit to look before they leapt...

I'm not entirely sure what your question is

The question is this. There were three options:
1) Not include the tree ring-based reconstruction at all since it's unreliable as evidenced by its disagreement with the instrumental record
2) Include the entire tree ring-based data series, thereby drawing the reader's attention to the fact that it's unreliable
3) Truncate the tree ring-based data series, as was done, or smooth it, or something like that

So the question is, what's the defense of picking option 3?

So the question is, what's the defense of picking option 3?

They evidently have reasons to believe that it's reliable before 1960 (or whenever the cut-off was) but unreliable after. That's a judgment call that I'm not qualified to make, but to the extent that they have good reasons to believe it, it's perfectly defensible.

Dan Olner,

I would not disagree with you. I was talking about Angliss' approach, as reported by Tim, that it was impossible to understand the emails without consulting the authors so as to appreciate the context.

They evidently have reasons to believe that it's reliable before 1960 (or whenever the cut-off was) but unreliable after. That's a judgment call that I'm not qualified to make, but to the extent that they have good reasons to believe it, it's perfectly defensible.

The evidence is that they match well with the proxies they were calibrated against (none, however, span the entire time series, which is one reason they want to use the tree proxies, they're able to build a continuous 2,000 year dataset).

They also match well with about the first 2/3 of the 1880-present instrumental record.

Then they go "blooie".

So the belief - unproven at this time - is that the fact they went "blooie" after correlating well with other available data for earlier times, means that something changed that caused them to go "blooie".

The "trees aren't thermometers" claims are clearly a stretch, because the proxies in question *do* match other data for all but the data for recent decades.

WF,

20th century divergence is not evident in all boreal tree-ring series. Nonetheless, those that do show divergence since 1960, show little sign of divergence prior to 1960, neither to the instrumental record, non-divergent tree-ring series nor other regionally coherent proxies such as annular lake bed sediments going back in some cases thousands of years. This is apparent even in McIntyre's [comparison](http://climateaudit.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/rcs_merged_rev.gif) of Briffa's Yamal series and the nearby divergent Khadyta River series. If divergence was a problem in the paleo record, one would think there would be empirical evidence of it.

Brian,
By not "dealing with" the "specific issue" of what decline we are talking about, you lead your "smart but genuinely skeptical technical professional audience" down the garden path to the inference that it is a decline in temperature being discussed.

WF,

20th century divergence is not evident in all boreal tree-ring series. Nonetheless, those that do show divergence since 1960, show little sign of divergence prior to 1960, neither to the instrumental record, non-divergent tree-ring series nor other regionally coherent proxies such as annular lake bed sediments going back in some cases thousands of years. This is apparent even in McIntyre's [comparison](http://delayedoscillator.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/compare.png?w=490&…) of Briffa's Yamal series and the nearby divergent Khadyta River series. If divergence was a problem in the paleo record, one would think there would be empirical evidence of it.

Or [here](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/10/mcintyre_misunderstood_somehow…)

There is also good (but not conclusive) evidence that the divergence problem is caused by anthropogenic factors, which is further evidence that the tree ring proxies that have the divergence problem (not all of them do) are reliable prior to 1960.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Hockey-stick-divergence-problem.html

Of course, it's much easier to proclaim that "hide the decline" from an informal email a decade ago is something evil and nefarious, and omitting the full academic context of the issues is very easy to do among an unsuspecting lay audience. It's why I think that talking to the authors is important, but perhaps not absolutely necessary. An astute and careful observer can find the relevant context in the scientific research that has been done.

luminous beauty, can you point me to a reference that analyzes the divergence between the different tree ring datasets? That could justify the truncation.

The points others made (i.e., just that the series matched until they didn't) aren't convincing arguments for option 3. If all we know is that the series match until they don't, that's what the graph ought to show.

Except that he didn't say that, Tim did (and he was merely paraphrasing Osborn).

Do you have a reading comprehension problem? I never said that Angliss said that. But his whole article is about building such a case -- Aranda and Venolia's 4th level of analysis is âdirect accounts of the history by its participantsâ.

Hmm. Never talked to any historians, I take it? Context is everything. Sadly, can't always talk to the people in question, but there are plenty of other ways to get context.

Can't anyone here read? Andrews (it makes my skin crawl to defend him) only objected to the notion that you have to "always talk to the people in question".

Brian, By not "dealing with" the "specific issue" of what decline we are talking about, you lead your "smart but genuinely skeptical technical professional audience" down the garden path to the inference that it is a decline in temperature being discussed.

Quite so. It's understandable that people here want to like it because it puts the lie to Fuller, Mosher, et. al., but the article is really pretty crappy.

Only if the graph is about the reliability of tree ring proxies rather than about temperature.

Only if the graph is about the reliability of tree ring proxies rather than about temperature.

This makes no sense. The tree rings are proxies for temperature. How reliable the proxies are is very much relevant to a graph "about" temperature.

Actually TM makes perfect sense, within the context.

If the tree ring proxies matched other proxies in past times, and then again matched those proxies and the instrumental record for about a century - which they do - then it can be reasonably inferred that another factor has come into play when they cease to match in recent times.

It's not as if there's some big mystery and we're in the dark about massive post-war global industrialisation leading for example to atmospheric sulphur precipitating out by the mechanism of acid rain which is known to be harmful and eventually fatal to contemporary trees. Doesn't provide some sort of clue (other than to the wilfully clueless), as just one example of anthropogenic causes?

What that factor (or factors) might be in actuality is under discussion by real scientists (and certainly not McinTyres and his support machine) in the literature.
But in terms of establishing a continuous temperature record it's irrelevant.

In any case tree ring proxy-free reconstructions show a notably similar trend, which automatically leads a sensible person to deduce that protests from the denialist corner are nothing but noise and distraction from the main issue which is AGW is real and happening.

Which is pretty much the template that denialists operate under.

I didn't see MarkB's latest comment before posting mine right below. This paper seems good for what we're discussing. It doesn't to me seem to be enough justification for truncating.

Doesn't provide some sort of clue (other than to the wilfully clueless), as just one example of anthropogenic causes?

"Some sort of clue" is not justification enough for truncating the data, to my mind

But in terms of establishing a continuous temperature record it's irrelevant.

Of course it's relevant. If the factor is determined and it's determined it didn't exist prior to 1960, then we can legitimately truncate the series

In any case tree ring proxy-free reconstructions show a notably similar trend

But that's completely irrelevant to whether it's okay to truncate the series.

@32 Dave writes:

I was talking about Angliss' approach, as reported by Tim, that it was impossible to understand the emails without consulting the authors so as to appreciate the context.

I don't see the problem. Sceptics have demonstrated in spades that they haven't the faintest idea what the context of many of the emails was, and were drawing whatever completely erroneous conclusions they felt like at the time. The "trick to hide the decline" has perhaps become the most famous example, being interpreted by sceptics basically as smoking-gun evidence for a worldwide climate conspiracy when it's nothing of the sort.

I might agree that it's not necessarily impossible to understand the context, particularly if you knew about the divergence issue at the time the emails were hacked. However sceptics have certainly demonstrated no ability to understand, or even seek out the context, that's for sure. Not even after it was pointed out to them.

Many sceptics seem to be quite content in their context-proof bubble.

(I feel like I'm in an argument I don't want to be in. It seems like there is a bad argument for truncation (the correlation was good until it wasn't) and potentially some good ones, and someone ought to make all the good ones in one place)

TM writes:

>Andrews (it makes my skin crawl to defend him) only objected to the notion that you have to "always talk to the people in question".

Dave Andrews comment which I critiqued:

>*On this basis we would never be able to understand anything about history because we couldn't consult the original people and understand the context!*

Which was reduction to the absurd. Brian's article makes many interesting points, including describing a spectrum with the above at one extreme. Some points valuable some highly contestable.

But rather than accepting Dave Andrews reductio ad absurdism, I'd encourage a more nuanced critique (such as TM and others use, requiring a more specific critique). BTW Dave wants discussion on the absurd end.

I thought Angliss's bringing in the four levels of analysis made that aspect easer to contemplate and talk about.

I was also interested to see where Angliss found Mosher and Fuller making contradictions.

...and potentially some good ones...

I don't know about you, but I find "don't include the stuff that's obviously wrong" to be a strangely compelling argument. Maybe I'm weird.

pough: note that all the proxy series post 1960 are wrong* to the extent that they don't exactly coincide with the instrumental record, but they're still included in the graph

*Or at least they're more wrong than the instrumental record

re: WF
"(I feel like I'm in an argument I don't want to be in. It seems like there is a bad argument for truncation (the correlation was good until it wasn't) and potentially some good ones, and someone ought to make all the good ones in one place)"

1) The Skeptical Science page is a good start, and ti references the key D'Arrigo, et al (2007) paper.

2) Then, I'd add Mann, et al(2008) PNAS article, in which they reconstruct the last 2,000 years, using a lot more proxies, with or without tree-rings. They get pretty good results back 1300 years without tree-rings, need the tree-rings to get further back. They still think the MWP wasn't as warm as now, and the trees correlate pretty well with the other proxies until the divergence in that subset.

3) Liebig's Law is something (some, at least) farm kids learn by the time they are 10, i.e., growth is limited by the item least available. For temperature studies, people use trees in stressed areas (nearer the poles), rather than ones nearer the Equator.
Many factors are either constant, or evened out by random jiggles, allowing researchers to tease out temperature signals. Serious books get written about this, so nobody is going to boil it down in a few sentences.

4) Scientists being scientists, they aren't going to come out and say "the divergence is anthropogenic" until they are really sure which (combination of) the anthropogenic changes is affecting that subset of the Northern trees.
Given CO2 far outside historical range, polar amplification/heat-stress, possible rainfall issues, and global dimming ... there are plenty of possibilities.

But I doubt you'd knowledgeable people who think the divergence is likely to be natural. [Of course, climate anti-science folks claim everything is natural, including this...]

note that all the proxy series post 1960

All?

but they're still included in the graph

Which graph? So now the complaint is that the proxy series shouldn't have been removed and weren't?

Or at least they're more wrong than the instrumental record

And now thermometers don't work? You seem to be playing a single note: doubt. Doubt doubt doubt doubt doubt doubt doubt doubt doubt doubt. It's getting monotonous.

Which graph? So now the complaint is that the proxy series shouldn't have been removed and weren't?

If you don't know which graph, I can't see how the rest of the conversation makes sense to you at all

John Mashey: thanks.

It seems to me, though, that there still needs to be an explicit justification for the truncation. Your 4, to my mind, argues against ti.

Tony Sidaway:

> "Climategate", inasmuch as it ever existed, is dead.

Climategate is quite dead indeed.

Alas, SwiftHack isn't that alive either (it's all BP BP BP BP BP BP in the media now).

Shorter WF:

I didn't clarify which graph I was referring to. Therefore, I was right.

It seems to me, though, that there still needs to be an explicit justification for the truncation. Your 4, to my mind, argues against ti.

The graph was supposed to be an exposition of the science, their "best, informed view".

Including data known to be wrong doesn't really make sense in that context.

As has been pointed out numerous times, the literature was and is full of discussion of the "divergence problem", the data has been included in published papers, etc etc.

"Hide the decline" presumes there's a temperature decline to be hidden. The instrumental record shows that there is not.

WF,

You asked for "[a reference ](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/06/the_context_of_the_stolen_cru.p…) that analyzes the divergence between the different tree ring datasets? That could justify the truncation." You apparently didn't catch my [links](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/06/the_context_of_the_stolen_cru.p…).

Try [this](http://delayedoscillator.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/yamal-emulation-i/) for starters. Follow the links.

>It seems to me, though, that there still needs to be an explicit justification for the truncation. Your 4, to my mind, argues against ti[sic].

Explicit justifications have been made. It seems that in your mind, hand waving subjective suppositions are a meaningful substitute for reasoned argument.

Please make a reasoned argument for _why_ any of the proffered explicit justifications, but particularly John Mashey's #4, presented are, in your mind, unsatisfactory.

If you can.

Shorter WF:

I didn't clarify which graph I was referring to. Therefore, I was right.

Oh give me a break. This isn't even that much shorter than what I said

Shorter WF:

My argument was bogus, so here's a distraction.

If you don't know which graph, I can't see how the rest of the conversation makes sense to you at all

Right... I was asking which graph because what you were describing didn't seem to match with the graph that was originally under discussion. I wouldn't mind seeing something that shows "all the proxy series post 1960 are wrong to the extent that they don't exactly coincide with the instrumental record". The graph we've been looking at doesn't seem to have the resolution to conclude that. From what I'm able to see, it looks like all the others do follow the instrumental record pretty well, but Briffa's zigs where everything else zags.

Mind you, I'm not expecting you to back up what you're claiming. I haven't really seen you respond to much directly.

dhogaza,

As has been pointed out numerous times, the literature was and is full of discussion of the "divergence problem", the data has been included in published papers, etc etc.

"Hide the decline" presumes there's a temperature decline to be hidden. The instrumental record shows that there is not.

There no dispute here

The graph was supposed to be an exposition of the science, their "best, informed view".

Including data known to be wrong doesn't really make sense in that context.

Again, all proxy data conflicts to some extent with the instrumental record, and still was included, because it did make sense: the "best, informed view" includes the correct view of the accuracy and precision of the proxies. That was the point of showing that they mostly agree with each other and with the instrumental record.

luminous,

Thanks for the links. I'm still reading them. Again, I wish someone had synthesized all of this into one document, preferrably without pough's and frank's input.

That said, I can answer your question about John Mashey's #4 right away.

If there's certainty about some new factor's influencing the rings and it's known that this factor wasn't there before, then it's appropriate to truncate the series. Otherwise, there's a possibility that the tree ring proxy isn't as good as it looks, and so the entire series should be used in order for that to be reflected in the graph

pough, the key word in "they don't exactly coincide with the instrumental record" is "exactly."

(i.e., they do of course track pretty well, but they don't coincide. That's obvious just from thinking about it, but you can see it in the graph at Scholars & Rogues)

Since there seems to have been genuine confusion, I apologize for my snipe at pough in the :48PM post. Frank's input still doesn't look good.

>If there's certainty about some new factor's influencing the rings and it's known that this factor wasn't there before, then it's appropriate to truncate the series.

Yes, yes and yes. Try again.

If there's certainty

Yes, yes and yes.

Scientists being scientists, they aren't going to come out and say "the divergence is anthropogenic"

WF,

One doesn't need to know the cause of the divergence to know it wasn't there before. __Certainly.__ Knowing it wasn't there before is sufficient evidence to conclude that whatever the cause, it is new. __Certainly.__

WF:

0) have you yet read the D'Arrigo et al article?

1) Science is filled with correlations or even simple formulae that work perfectly well across large domains ... and then breakdown at the edge of the domain, i.e., "threshold effects."

Example: Newton vs Relativity. Newton is fine for most things, but not for GPS satellites.

Example: transition from laminar flow to turbulent flow.

Example: plant growth, i.e., one may get a linear improvement in growth from increasing some factor ... up to the point where it is no longer a limiter, and then more of it is useless. Higher CO2 helps some plants grow better in some conditions, but no amount of extra CO2 will grow corn in the Sahara.

2) There is a huge difference between:
a) A long-established correlation of a subset of trees and temperature has broken down, we are mystified, we are clueless, this is amazing and shouldn't happen, and this means we know nothing about the usefulness of these tree-rings, ever...

AND
b) (D'Arrigo) ~ The relationship started breaking down circa 1960, we know a set of covarying anthropogenic effects that have by now changed Earth's atmosphere and temperature/atmosphere to be outside the usual parameters for the last 2,000 years. Because they are covarying it is nontrivial to disentangle the *relative* contributions of different effects, so more research is needed to bound teh uncertainties better. Meanwhile, here are a 100 citations showing people working on the problem.

I.e. this is the difference between a) "we know of no plausible reason" and b) "we know of several plausible reasons, and we don't yet know the relative weights."

For some reason, some people *want* to believe the scientists are in state a) on this. They aren't.

I offer an analogy for a):

No medical researcher in the world can predict whether a *specific* 16-year-old smoker:
a) Will eventually die of lung cancer.
b) Will eventually die of heart disease.
c) Or not.
This being the case, researchers must know nothing, and in particular, the existence of c) implies smoking might be safe, so encourage kids to smoke, many want to, and it's good for the economy.

0) More or less, but not in its entirety

Anyway, I seem to again have been drawn into arguing that the truncation was definitely improper, which is not something I even believe. In the spirit of not continuing with this, I'm not going to argue about the analogy, which I don't think is good, and am instead going to be reading the papers or doing other work or something.

Thanks, John, luminous, and MarkB for the links etc.

Which was reduction to the absurd.

The reduction to the absurd is "it is impossible to understand the emails without consulting with the authors to find out what the original context was" -- that's simply ridiculous, and Andrews' comment captured what's ridiculous about it.

This makes no sense. The tree rings are proxies for temperature. How reliable the proxies are is very much relevant to a graph "about" temperature.

Of course it is, but we have science concerning the reliability of those proxies, science that justifies the use of those proxies in the graph. The graph is not about the reliability of the proxies, it makes use of the proxies within the scientific perimeters of their reliability to show what the graph is about -- temperature. We do this all the time in science -- we build one piece of science upon another; we do not have to say everything about the underlying science when conversing about the higher level. I'm sorry if that notion of levels of context doesn't make sense to you.

Once again I make the point that this entire argument would be moot if certain sceptics had not actually consciously decided they were going to leap to conclusions on what the "trick to hide the decline" actually meant.

Sure, you don't always have to ask someone what their email context was to understand it correctly, but it sure as hell would've helped in this case.

Do sceptics show any interest whatsoever in actually clarifying such things? Nope. Not then, not now, and probably not at any time in the forseeable future.

TM, why do you think are the proxies graphed where the instrumental record is available?

> Again, I wish someone had synthesized all of this into one document, preferrably without pough's and frank's input.

Shorter WF:

I'm not reading the scientific papers, but it's other people's fault for not summarizing them for me!

> Anyway, I seem to again have been drawn into arguing that the truncation was definitely improper, which is not something I even believe. In the spirit of not continuing with this, I'm not going to argue about the analogy, which I don't think is good, and am instead going to be reading the papers or doing other work or something.

Shorter WF:

I'm arguing that there was something wrong with "hide the decline"! Even though I don't actually want to argue it! I promised to read the scientific papers on the subject! I've promised this before, but this time I'll keep my promise! I promise!

> Thanks, John, luminous, and MarkB for the links etc.

Shorter WF:

I promise to read your links. But I won't read them.

> TM, why do you think are the proxies graphed where the instrumental record is available?

Shorter WF:

Here's a dumb question. I still promise to read the papers! I promise!

Frank, how many of the papers have you read?

(the reason I'm asking is anyone who's ever read any scientific papers knows it's hard work, in my experience) And anyway, what's with the abuse? Dumb questions are the easiest to answer, so out with it

TM, why do you think are the proxies graphed where the instrumental record is available?

One point at a time. WF, why did you say that something that makes plenty of sense makes no sense?

I didnt

Shorter WF:

I assure you I'm reading the scientific papers! Even though I'm not asking any specific questions about any specific issues in the papers! Why do you hate me so much?

* * *

> Frank, how many of the papers have you read?

Mann 2008. Douglass et al. 2007. I also wrote a blog post a while back about Zhen-Shan and Xian 2007 which inactivists were using as 'proof' of a coming 'global cooling' (and while I was at it, I also skimmed through Huang et al. 1998, the paper describing Empirical Mode Decomposition).

Generally, the way I tell whether someone's read a scientific paper is to see if he can ask specific questions on the paper rather than spewing general bullcrap. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that you're in the latter group.

And my general way of seeing if someone's read and understood a scientific paper is if they're flinging feces or asking intelligent questions/answering "dumb" questions/doing something other than flinging feces.

And yet here we are, me having read .75 of a relevant paper and you flinging feces.

And the companion piece to this post is now live at S&R: link.

"it is impossible to understand the emails without consulting with the authors to find out what the original context was."

If you can not understand what "hide the decline" means "without consulting with the authors"; you might as well hand back your Phd.

What does it mean, Devil's Advocate?

I recommend Brian [Angliss's follow up](http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2010/06/08/climate-scientists-still-be…) as a good bit of research and reporting. Certainly puts Mosher and McIntyre's claims in perspective.

The decline you're being sold and have bought into Devil's Ad. is the one in the mean intelligence quotient of some of the general population.

"Ain't no other context but the first one you was told, yee haw" as they might say to the gulible.

> And my general way of seeing if someone's read and understood a scientific paper is if they're flinging feces or asking intelligent questions/answering "dumb" questions/doing something other than flinging feces.

> And yet here we are, me having read .75 of a relevant paper and you flinging feces.

Longer WF:

OK frank, so you've actually read and commented on a scientific paper. But that won't fit my talking point! So I'm ignoring it!

You ask me to show that I've understood the scientific papers I'm reading! Well, to show how much I've understood, I'll tell you that I've read .75 of a relevant paper! Look, .75! Point -- seven -- five! That sounds so scientific! Never mind what the name of the paper is, now that I've come up with an impressive sounding number you know how scientific I am!

Therefore, "hide the decline" is evidence of a Warmist Conspiracy, but I never said that.

Wow. Fuller and Mosher continue to dig themselves into a bigger hole over at S&R. I need more popcorn at this rate.

Fuller's comment (#19 over there) is hilarious given how his previous attempts at "honest discussion" panned out here and at Tobis's. What a shame.

I didnt

So you say, and yet [there it is](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/06/the_context_of_the_stolen_cru.p…). I [explained](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/06/the_context_of_the_stolen_cru.p…) how it makes sense, and you failed to rebut that. I shall waste no more time on such bad faith and dimwittedness.

Well, maybe just a little more:

TM, why do you think are the proxies graphed where the instrumental record is available?

See http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2010/06/08/climate-scientists-still-be…

Oops, #82 and #85 beat me to it. Read it and then STFU, WF.

If you can not understand what "hide the decline" means "without consulting with the authors"; you might as well hand back your Phd.

You're right; one need not consult with the authors to know that it refers to [the divergence problem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divergence_problem). That's what you meant, right?