Thursday, March 11, 2010

Climate Scientists "Scared Shitless"


When the words "scared shitless" appear in the journal, Nature, you know that the panic in the global warming community must be severe indeed. And well it should be, given all the revelations that have occured in the wake of Climategate. This from an editorial in Nature:

Climate scientists are on the defensive, knocked off balance by a re-energized community of global-warming deniers who, by dominating the media agenda, are sowing doubts about the fundamental science. Most researchers find themselves completely out of their league in this kind of battle because it's only superficially about the science. The real goal is to stoke the angry fires of talk radio, cable news, the blogosphere and the like, all of which feed off of contrarian story lines and seldom make the time to assess facts and weigh evidence. Civility, honesty, fact and perspective are irrelevant.

Worse, the onslaught seems to be working: some polls in the United States and abroad suggest that it is eroding public confidence in climate science at a time when the fundamental understanding of the climate system, although far from complete, is stronger than ever. Ecologist Paul Ehrlich at Stanford University in California says that his climate colleagues are at a loss about how to counter the attacks. “Everyone is scared shitless, but they don't know what to do,” he says.

As to the Nature editors, if they actually believe that this is not about the science, I would imagine that their days as major journal are numbered indeed. Beyond that, though, I have several helpful suggestions for the "scared shitless" climate scientists:

1. Start acting like actual scientists.

2. Make all of your data, methodology and code available to the public upon publication of any article.

3. Stop avoiding arguments on the merits of your studies with collateral attacks on anyone who challenges your findings.

4. Stop trying to use a corrupt peer review process as a substitute for the scientific method.

5. Stop manipulating data to support your findings; and

6. Should you ever again feel the urge to say "the science is settled," by all means, go take a deep, long swig of Draino and wait until the urge passes.

5 comments:

MathewK said...

"Civility, honesty, fact and perspective are irrelevant."

Oh so it's us who are the bad guys here, after calling for some of us to be jailed, after smearing us with lies and bullshit, now all of a sudden it's us who are guilty of all this.

This is why i'm very seldom civil to these vermin, it'll never get you anywhere and at the end of it, they'll accuse you of being the very opposite anyway.

Paul_In_Houston said...

I know you all realize what's really at the bottom of their fears:

OMG!!! Our funding. OUR FUNDING!!!

Imagining some of them trying to make it in the world WE have to live in, I can almost sympathize.

Almost.

-

cdor said...

I never heard any of these bozos questioning the ratioanality of destroying our current civilization in order to save some future generation from rising sea levels by taxing the productive into oblivion. Exactly how is this tax supposed to reduce the amount of carbon or, even more importantly, create a new source of non-carbon energy? We are just supposed to keep our mouths shut while our wallets are being drained. But that is OK as long as these "scientists" continue getting their grant money. Now the tide has turned. Sunlight is exposing this whole global warming rant as a farse and one of the hugest con jobs ever attempted. They ought to be scared shitless. And we ought to be evoking Grand Juries throughout the country. Some of these frauds being "frog marched" out of a courtroom would be just fine with me.

OBloodyHell said...

Uhhh, guys:

> Ecologist Paul Ehrlich at Stanford University in California says

OMG, PAUL EHRLICH AGREES WITH THE PREDICTIONS!!!!

So what does that give it, a 100 % chance of being totally wrong, from past performance results of Ehrlich's predictions?

I mean, really, if Paul Ehrlich says the sun will rise tomorrow, there's serious reason to be concerned.

The man's an anti-prophet.

'Nuff said.

GW said...

Lol. . . well said, all.