Is there a difference in scientific ethics between climate skeptics and scientists?

Question

Recently, the conservative/skeptic blogosphere has gone crazy because an error was identified in a paper that was going to be published in J. Climate. The paper supposedly identified a "hockey stick" in southern hemisphere temperature proxies for the last two millenia. However, an error was identified in the statistical selection criteria for the proxies used in the temperature reconstruction and the paper was withdrawn while it was still in the "in press" stage of the process (although a pre-print was available online before it was withdrawn). Now one of two things will happen with the paper, either the errors will be correctable and a revised version will go back out for peer-review before being accepted or the errors will be seen to be fatal and the paper will be permanently withdrawn. Assuming the latter is the case, which of the following scenarios would be more likely to happen if the authors were functioning as true skeptical scientists:

1. The paper is withdrawn, the authors move on to try and understand why temperature proxies do not show a hockey stick in the southern hemisphere.

2. The authors cry "foul" in blog posts and claim bias in the peer-review process and despite the acknowledged error in statistics, go on to publish an essentially unrevised version of the paper in a journal without acknowledged standards for peer-review.

Have there been any instances where climate skeptics or climate scientists have adopted tactic #2?

Answer 1

To see the 'scientists' that have adopted #2 all you have to look is to the journal Energy & Environment. IT was withdrawn while still in the press stage. Someone who was close minded and sure of their findings, meaning being unscientific, would probably have opted for #2. As it stands now the errors in the paper are going to be fixed before fully going through the peer review process. We also don;t have an idea of how the end product will look like when, and if, the errors are fixed. Another instance was when Spencer and Braswell published a peer reviewed article in a journal that did not normally publish journals in the category attempted, Wolfgang Wagner resigned, and so on.



Oh. and I forgot this one: http://www.petitionproject.org/gw_article/GWReview_OISM150.pdf



Published in... the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.



Ottawa Mike: Why do you continue insisting that it was found by a climate blogger at climate audit? Do you think that with every single error found in a journal it is immediately printed online? Get real. The only reason you believe this is because they believe it. Do you expect every scientists to keep you personally updated on how the peer review process is going for their own publications and post it online for everyone to see or do you think it more probable that someone finds it, speaks to the author, then discusses the error with them personally or the journal personally? Why do they need to keep you personally updated on the matter? And why on Earth do you think that it was found on the same day? Why could it not have been found days before and discussed at that time? I have a feeling you're lacking some common sense in this discussion because you're so entwined with attempting to cast your guy as a hero and our guy as the villain.

Answer 2

There are plenty of misunderstandings and terminology is constantly so confined. I suppose sorry for scientists of their labs and i belong to a branch of others who find Earth is big position enough to probably come to phrases with problems. Climate zones on the planet differ from each different: Tropical forest, mountain, polar, mediterranean, desolate tract, fields, boreal forest. Fields and cattle can also be grown the place it is too scorching for bushes. In sub tropical forests humidity reasons excessive progress in summer season and bushes to free leaves in winter. Cycles like these are perennial. I think what should be taken into account once we describe certain issues that I have an understanding of are a outcome of cities getting bigger and higher and maybe no longer making inhabitants no longer as pleased as they want to be.

Answer 3

"However, an error was identified in the statistical selection criteria for the proxies used in the temperature reconstruction and the paper was withdrawn while it was still in the "in press" stage of the process (although a pre-print was available online before it was withdrawn)."



You have taken some liberties here. "An error was identified". You're leaving out a lot of inconvenient detail here. The error was first pointed out by commenter JeanS at climateaudit.com here: http://climateaudit.org/2012/05/31/myles-allen-calls-for-name-and-shame/#comment-336480



A co-author of the report David Karoly wrote Steve McIntyre claiming: "...we discovered on Tuesday 5 June that the records used in the final analysis were not detrended..." and this: "We would like to thank you and the participants at the ClimateAudit blog for your scrutiny of our study, which also identified this data processing issue."



Is there not a skeptical bone in your body that the co-author of the study claims to have found the same error on exactly the same day that a blogger did?



And this is on top of your other claim: "... the paper was withdrawn while it was still in the "in press" stage of the process..." While this true it's also true that the paper was released as an early online version. And that early version stated clearly on the cover: "This is a preliminary PDF of the author-produced manuscript that has been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication." http://web.science.unsw.edu.au/~sjphipps/publications/gergis2012.pdf This caused quite a stir in the press I might add. I guess you forgot to mention that as well.



So the basic story which you so nicely glossed over is that the paper went through peer review and was accepted for publication. And a blogger at climateaudit.org found an error three weeks later, after all other climate scientists and especially the ones at realclimate.org had plenty of time to pour over the contents.



Frankly, your question is strange because I don't see anything with regard to ethics being at play here other than your own omissions.



_______________________________________________

Edit: "It is how the authors deal with the error and proceed with the paper and the research in general. Try to stick to the topic."



Right, back on topic. The authors we alerted to an error by a blogger at climateaudit.com, decided to release an email (three days later) to McIntyre claiming they too found the error amazingly on the same day even after the paper was publicly available for three weeks, put the paper "on hold" and and have now gone back to try to figure out how to show a hockey stick without any errors. If they can't figure out how to produce a hockey stick without some undetectable statistical magic then perhaps they won't publish. The clock is ticking, they have until August to get it into the next IPCC report. Although, it would be even better if it came out before Rio.



There, does that about cover it?

Answer 4

They should do what they did last time they had a problem with proxies. Throw out only those that show an obvious flaw in calculating temperture (because they don't match actual temperatures) and ignore the fact that you are still using the same proxies even though you don't know why your calculations are not working.

Answer 5

Well I can say that's a leading question. You do know skeptics can be scientist? So I have to toss it as nonsensical and steered.



1. Best data available. (always susceptible to modification).

2. Depends on who is promoting what.

Answer 6

I would think number 1 is much more likely. Can't imagine there's much of a chance of number 2, although I'm sure it's happened more than once for something.

Answer 7

Error?

I prefer to speak in Anglo-Saxon terms and call it for what it was, a bloody lie.

The "scientists" have again been caught with their fingers in the till, when caught they cry "Error".

How many other "errors" are whizzing around?

Enough to make the gullible believe in this nonsense of AGW?

Was the South Georgia monthly temperature reading of 30 degrees Celsius an "error" or a downright lie?

Don't forget, "Peer reviewed" only means one bunch of liars agreeing with another bunch of liars.

Answer 8

It has become a long and pretty boring ploy of denier's to attack peer review and claim it doesn't work, which is a little odd as they do seem to love to crow about the very occasional papers they do manage to get published through peer review. The sad fact is they continue to demonstrate they don't really understand how peer review even works, they still seem to think that the 3-4 reviewers are the end of the process, when it is is in fact the thousands of scientists (in the same field) that read and follow and build upon papers with further papers of their own.

If you look at those few papers deniers crow about they go nowhere, they are not being cited or built upon except by the handful of other denier funded scientists.

Getting a paper published is not a guarantee it is totally correct (look at cold fusion) but the thing deniers continue to try and ignore is that for each of the few papers on climate that have been found to be incorrect there are now thousands that have not, but of course deniers ignore those.

I help prep papers for publication and they are often rejected in first draft for small errors, the scientists I work with don't start bleating about conspiracies theories or plots, they recheck their work and correct the errors, as any real scientist would.



Matt lists a number of the sad tricks deniers have tried to get their 'so called' science into peer review, Environment and Energy is now a pretty well known one, it has been pointed out here before by many of us. Another used by the likes of Lord Mockingtone is to claim something as 'published' just because a denier website like Heartland posts it, deniers have tried that one here, many times, sadly in the small print of the link it is usually not that hard to find 'where' it was published.

Answer 9

If memory serves, IPCC did accept studies which I believe they knew were late or had errors in order to meet their deadlines and to exaggerate the facts (my impression). It was in Montford's book so probably will be meaningless to you. The problem with those sorts of tactics is that they might help in the short term but in the long term they harm credibility. Facts are stuborn things and tend to find the light of day in the end.



Foul sometimes gets called on both sides with little or no justification.

Answer 10

Sceptics tend towards the truth, believers like to lie.

Answer 11

I'll answer your question w/o getting into your confussion below.



If a scientist is not inherently skeptical, then he is not worth his salt.

Answer 12

Anti-science deniers of AGW don't like the policy implications of the past century of climate science, but being too lazy and dishonest to grapple with how to temper or ameliorate those implications, instead lie about the science.



Their laughably contradictory claims ( http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php ) could only possibly make sense if the conspiracy theory to end all conspiracy theories were really true and ruling world history for many decades: a conspiracy so vast and evil that no ethical limits (only practical limits like Heartland being defunded after remarks about Hitler and Kaczinsky, etc.) applied.



DItto the unreal scenario in which crying "foul" in blog posts and claiming bias in the peer-review process is a reasonable response.



Mislabeling these lying deniers as "skeptics" or "conservative" changes nothing.



Edit: With due respect, the "additional details" remark, "Please make sure you understand the question before answering," is too ridiculous to ignore without comment. JimZ is the number 5 "top answerer" in the "global warming" category of YA, with over 1,000 "best answers." He understands VERY well what he is trying to do here. What he does not understand very well is how to be deceitfully anti-science and convincing at the same time.



http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/climate-of-denial-20110622?hpt=hp_bn11

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-mckibben/the-great-carbon-bubble_b_1259782.html



http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200602/backpage.cfm

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/timeline.htm

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.htm

... ... ...

Answer 13

Joseph Goebbel,

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”



You see your formula is old and tired. People like you are not new or clever. You pretend to be intellectual and honest when you motives and intentions reek to the high heavens with disgusting attributes. The truth is the enemy of the AGW movement. The truth is alien to you warmies and it puts you on he side of vile people.



When the US Congress was assembled to vote on factions of Global Warming your side had the air conditioning turned off to simulate and scare Congressmen into believing Global Warming. You now proudly beat your chest and laugh about it. Ho! Ho! Ho! We sure suckered those idiots. If your side was so upright why did you have to resort to obvious deception? Your articles are full of errors which you pass off as nothing. Those nothings have cost the world hundreds of billions of dollars in a world in which 2/3rds of the people go to bed hungry at night. Those 'innocent' nothings have cost people their lands and freedom all the while those nothings have made people like Al Gore rich and they laugh all the way to the bank. Ho! Ho! Ho! We sure suckered those idiots.



The facts are there, if you care to see. If you go on blindly pursuing and advancing AGW you are either one of the blind useful idiots that Stalin referred to or you are vile active pusher of prevarications.



Quote by John Dewey: “Scepticism: the mark and even the pose of the educated mind.”



Quote by Gerrit van der Lingen, scientist: “Being a scientist means being a skeptic.”



Yes being a true scientist means being a skeptic. Yet you scoff at and mock those true scientists as you attempt to quell there outrage when they are presented lies. True science has no room for lies. When you interject falsehoods into science it becomes politics. And that, in fact, is what the AGW movement is about. Your side readily admits it.



Quote by Club of Rome: "In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill....All these dangers are caused by human intervention....and thus the “real enemy, then, is humanity itself....believe humanity requires a common motivation, namely a common adversary in order to realize world government. It does not matter if this common enemy is “a real one or….one invented for the purpose."



Quote by Al Gore, former U.S. vice president, and large CO2 producer: "I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis."



How convenient of you to take a lie and make it into a mere 'over-representation'. If you weren't doing so much damage to the earth and its political systems your movement would be laughable.



Concerning your statement <>



Let us put it into plain English, "Just because you caught us warmies with our pants down that does not mean that we were caught with our pants down in legal terms. We went to the IPCC and they said we didn't get caught with our pants down. SO THERE!" Great argument. The IPCC which is filled with politicians rather than scientists gave you your blessing. And it turn it provided them with power and an excuse to collect monies from ignorant countries.



WOW NOW THAT'S REAL SCIENTIFIC!!!

Answer 14

The only examples of cheating the peer review process I know of are from people pushing bad science. Good science doesn't have to cheat.



These are probably the three most prominent examples of bad science cheating the peer review process, involving, respectively, climate denial, AIDS denial, and creationism.



1) If you can't get bad science published, fake it.

* "Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Petition#Covering_letter_and_attached_article

This widely circulated article was mocked up to appear to be from a recognized, peer reviewed journal, even including a publication date and volume number. The article was never published in any volume of any peer reviewed journal. It's a complete fraud, but managed to fool enough people to give climate deniers some political clout.



2) If you can't get bad science published, force someone to publish it.

* "Human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome: correlation but not causation"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS_denialism#In_the_scientific_literature

The author of an article claiming HIV is not the causative agent of AIDS, after receiving harshly negative reviews, invoked an obscure membership clause permitting publication in the journal without peer review. The same author is still playing games with the peer review process, getting rejected, sneaking it into publication somehow, then getting retracted, as you can read here:

http://denyingaids.blogspot.com/2009/08/goodbye-duesbergs-and-ruggieros.html



3) If you can't get bad science published, find an editor who's willing to cheat for you.

* "The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sternberg_peer_review_controversy

A former editor allowed this pro-creationist article to be published in his final issue as editor of the journal. He is accused of having a conflict of interest with the author, and conducting an inadequate peer review of the article. The article was immediately retracted under the journal's new editor. Discovery Institute (a creationist pseudo-science organization with no relation to the Discovery Channel) press releases and Ben Stein's "Expelled" documentary have subsequently portrayed the former editor as a victim of retaliation and harassment by the scientific mainstream.



Frequently, but less famously, bad science is submitted to journals peripheral to a controversy, for example, a creationist article in a journal on proteins, discussed below. This strategy tries to catch editors and reviewers off guard, and does result in publications from time to time, but are always followed by retractions when caught.

http://ncse.com/rncse/28/3/creationism-slips-into-peer-reviewed-journal



And, especially often in climate denial, many deniers skip the peer review process completely. There's no peer review on the Internet, so deniers are free to post complete fiction through think tanks or blogs, knowing sympathetic media outlets and politicians will find it, pick it up, and echo it as truth, for example here:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/feb/07/newt-gingrich/newt-gingrich-says-epa-plans-boost-gas-prices-25-c/

Answer 15

Ethics are generally personal not defined by groups of unrelated individuals.



Climate change really has little to do with ethics. It has to do with real climatological science which has time and time again shown to indicate man made global warming.



The ethical side of this is deniers continuing to disbelieve science and trying to convince others to believe as they do.



As to blogs, my guess is that the increase in activity is withing the denier blogs which tend to sensationalize anything they can to get a following.

Answer 16

You admit that climate skeptics are NOT scientists. Case closed they are completely wrong