Study: Researchers discover that they can’t stand each other

One of the shocking revelations of the Swifthacking of CRU one year ago (aka Climategate) was the fact that scientists can be downright nasty. Contrary to all previous indications, scientists are not always shy, reserved and polite, prefering the inside of a lab to any possibility of confrontation. On the heels of the discovery of …

Climategate: one year later

November 17 marked the one year anniversary of the hacking of CRU mail servers and the release of thousands of emails between climate scientists. Though irrelevant to the scientific case for anthropogenic climate change, the event was significant in the public relations sphere. I have not found the time to do a proper memorial write …

Judith Curry plants her flag

Judith Curry has become quite a blog sensation, and did so long before starting her own. I have expressed my frustration with her in the past for a seemingly reckless affinity for "hit and run" postings. I will appreciatively grant that she comments alot, and engages many conversants extensively, but she has posted many very …

GMUniversity investigating Wegman

It seems that substantial evidence compiled by John Mashey has helped lead to an investigation into Edward Wegman's possible academic misconduct in the production of his very prominent report to Congress [PDF] on the Hockeystick. See DesmogBlog for background, USA Today for the story, and Deep Climate for the details. I will only add a …

Great video on Arctic sea ice

Via a new blog started up this summer, Fool me Once (sounds like wishful thinking ;-), proprieter Alden has graciously permitted me to embed a most excellent video he has produced on arctic sea ice. He is covering a standard denialist talking point, that arctic sea ice has/is recovering, so the concepts will not be …

Expertise, Elitism and Credibility

A few random items on expertise, elitism and credibility. The first is from an interview with the late Stphen Schneider about the recent PNAS paper on the relative expertise of "convinced" and "unconvinced" climate science activists, an interesting read: About the 'elitist' part: Scientists are really stuck. It's exactly the same thing in medicine, it's …

The crumbling edifice of IPCC science

Via the amusing and insightful musings and insights of Marc Roberts: (click for slightly larger and more legible image) I think this is rather apropos given the recent retraction of one of Jonathon Leake's um, let's be kind, "dodgy" bits of journalism from the recent spate of IPCC "gates". (Cartoon seen at In It For …

Prominent climate skeptic defends Phil Jones

Roy Spencer, darling of the climate skeptic community, says he is not very organized, as Phil Jones said of himself, and that "if you asked me to find original data from 20 years ago I'd have great difficulty too. We just didn't realise in those days how important and controversial this would all become - …

Why Climate Journalism is a Rotting Carcass

Love the title of that post! Keith Kloor tries to defend journalism's role in fiascos like "Swifthack" (aka Climategate) and climate science in general but really ends up simply providing a perfect example of the problem. I urge any and all to read the comment thread, it is an excellent and fascinating one, though I …

Fighting different battles

So the blogosphere has been abuzz over a recent Q&A Keith Kloor did with Judy Curry, the lengthy comment thread is where most of the interesting stuff is. I actually wish to opine on the whole sorry mess but that will be in a later post. Her biggest beef is about what she sees as …