The scandal around the leaking of documents from the Climate Research Unit in England is indeed a big deal, although not necessarily in the way some conservatives seem to think (no, the emails do not prove that the global warming is a hoax or that there’s a huge conspiracy to create a socialist global government – although they strongly suggest that the CRU scientists may have done a lot of shoddy work). David Frum’s analogy with James Watson is not particularly apt since here we have not just some unethical behavior, but serious violations of scientific procedures. Those violations have already been extensively commented on by others (in my professional opinion all results directly and indirectly based on the dumped raw data are scientifically invalid, and the IPCC scientists should now do a lot of work to excise all tainted CRU results from their materials).
However, I think there’s more to the scandal and I can’t help thinking about another analogy (albeit a very imperfect one, since the anti-global warming theory actually has a real scientific basis) – with T.D. Lysenko. Even before the scandal we could observe the following important parallels (listed in the increasing order of troublesomeness):
- Widespread use of anecdotal data (in fairness though, both sides are guilty of it in the climate debate)
- The use of the fierce urgency of now (collective farmers/polar bears are starving!) as an argument to end the scientific debate and go for action (it’s funny how the people who claim we have only a few months or a few years to save the planet never argue for short-circuiting the FDA drug approval process to save patients suffering from horrible diseases – not that we should not follow the proper scientific process in testing new drugs)
- A very convenient match between the theory and the ideology of its proponents (in fairness, some anti-global warming opposition is ideological too)
- Government(s) fully embracing one of the sides in the debate
- Questioning the motives of detractors (in both cases the opponents are denounced as “capitalist agents”) rather than addressing their arguments on the merits (in fairness, both sides are guilty of it in the climate debate)
Now, thanks to those stolen emails, we also know that just like Lysenko, the CRU scientists did some hanky-panky with their data and used “administrative” methods and bullying to deal with dissenters. They also expressed a desire to use violence against an opponent and joy at the death of another one – here they fell far short of Comrade Lysenko who got a whole bunch of his opponents executed. But I’m afraid we may yet see them catching up a bit. European politicos routinely call global warming skeptics “criminals” and “enemies of mankind”. There have been even some calls to actually criminalize global warming denial. Unfortunately, nowadays we cannot dismiss that as some overheated idle talk, since countries across Europe are in fact busy criminalizing anything that offends Muslims (some celebrities like Brigitte Bardot have already been convicted), the country preparing to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta soon, earlier this year declared an American talk show host persona non grata and physically expelled an arriving MP from a fellow EU member (who, moreover, came at the invitation of their own MPs!), Canada just recently tried to prosecute Mark Steyn for the unspeakable crime of writing a book on demographics, and humanities departments on American campuses tend to be quite intolerant, although the First Amendment so far saves us from the worst excesses in the rest of the West.
Once again, all these parallels do not prove or disprove anything, but we must be vigilant in defense of the scientific method (after all, it is one of the biggest achievements of the Western civilization that conservatives are so keen to preserve). Climate science is, unfortunately, not the only danger area. If this recent article is correct, Lysenkoism may once again strike against genetics. Some soon to be completed studies will violate a lot of PC pieties (like “race is a social construct”) and we may yet be treated to a tawdry spectacle of some segments of the religious right and secular left uniting to denounce the theory of evolution (albeit for different reasons). Furthermore, we may again see the bullying of editors and other underhanded methods (the Economist article already states that “American bioscience will prove too politically squeamish to fund such studies”), and in some countries there may well be calls for the invocation of “hate speech” laws. Conservatives should be ready to stand up for genuine science without waiting for some new leaked emails.
19 responses so far
1 sinz54 // Dec 7, 2009 at 9:07 am
All this noise about the emails should not obscure the fact that the evidence for global warming (much of it from scientists who weren’t part of these emails) is overwhelming. There’s plenty of evidence that has nothing to do with the data sets mentioned in these emails. But some of the scientists in these emails were definitely behaving unprofessionally.
This whole thing reminds me of the Velikovsky affair from the 1950s. Velikovsky had a crank theory that planets and moons had been dislodged from their orbits in Biblical times, accounting for many of the miracles described in the Bible. And he wrote a book about it, “Worlds in Collision.” Mainstream astronomers were furious at this. They threatened to boycott the publisher’s textbooks unless the publisher stopped publishing “Worlds in Collision.” They succeeded. But Velikovsky found another publisher who wasn’t as easily intimidated. And the publicity over this campaign to silence Velikovsky made many more people curious. The result was that “Worlds in Collision” became an instant best-seller.
The morals of this story are the same as with the climate change emails:
The science is right, but the scientists can still be guilty of major breaches of professional conduct.
In a free society like America, attempting to suppress contrary ideas invariably backfires.
2 Chekote // Dec 7, 2009 at 9:52 am
Sinz
It wasn’t just e-mails that were released. It was also computer code that shows that the data was manipulated so that it looked much worse than it is. Further, there is no evidence that global warming is driven by human activity. It appears that it is caused by natural changes in the environment and it also appears that we may be entering a cooling period. The idea that the world is going to end is baseless. We have had warmer periods in the past. The polar bears survived it. We have had periods when the CO2 levels were higher than today and we still had polar ice caps. Above all, what these e-mails revealed is that the environmental movement is less about science and more to redistribute wealth from the industrial nations to poor nations.
3 franco 2 // Dec 7, 2009 at 10:07 am
Sinz,
“The CRU and its director, Dr. Phil Jones, are important because the CRU is a central point for data collection, storage, and analysis of climate data. And Dr. Jones is one of the lead authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR4 report, which is the basis for much of the current political drive for CO2 limits.” – Charlie Martin
This is not a couple of fringe scientists writing embarrassing e-mails to each other. Garbage in garbage out, and it seems there is a lot of pollution not just in the atmosphere but in climate science itself.
4 About climate science, university, global warming, nations, climate change, copenhagen | Find me About // Dec 7, 2009 at 10:30 am
[...] The scandal around the leaking of documents from the Climate Research Unit in England is indeed a big deal, although not necessarily in the way some conservatives seem to think (no, the emails do not prove that the global warming is a hoax or that …Read Original Story: Climategate: No <p></p>Conspiracy, Just <p></p>Bad Scie… [...]
5 Leonard_Wood@glic.com // Dec 7, 2009 at 10:54 am
More and more people are learning that global warming is not what it’s made up to be.
The warming is due to the incoming Planet X which is a dwarf planet (sun). This will come closest to earth in late 2012 and if you think you have global issues now………oh just wait!l
6 sinz54 // Dec 7, 2009 at 10:57 am
Chekote:
The evidence is overwhelming,
but I don’t think it’s worth discussing here,
because this isn’t a science blog,
and we don’t have scientists here who can really give us all the details.
I suggest you look at:
http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2008/07/how_to_talk_to_a_sceptic.php
and
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=seven-answers-to-climate-contrarian-nonsense
7 Leonard_Wood@glic.com // Dec 7, 2009 at 11:41 am
INCOMING PLANET= BIG TROUBLE!!!!!
8 Churl // Dec 7, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Sinz54, given that the evidence for global warming is so overwhelming, can you tell us how much has the globe has warmed?
9 Churl // Dec 7, 2009 at 12:13 pm
should be “how much has the globed warmed?
10 Chekote // Dec 7, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Sinz
The science is not overwhelming. Human contribution is negligible. Here is a biblography for you:
Human Induced Climate Change – Ian Plimer (part 1 of 5)</a)
Human Induced Climate Change – Ian Plimer (part 2 of 5)
Human Induced Climate Change – Ian Plimer (part 3 of 5)
Human Induced Climate Change – Ian Plimer (part 4 of 5)
Human Induced Climate Change – Ian Plimer (part 5 of 5)
Here is a report that deals with the information that has been released by the hackers. It goes beyond e-mails using the word “trick”:
Climategate
11 Danny_K // Dec 7, 2009 at 3:51 pm
I think this shows that the Republicans have no leadership on climate change. If even Frum’s blog is publishing essays like this comparing climatologists to communist frauds like Lysenko, then I think it’s time to stop expecting anything productive from conservatives.
But I hope you guys realize you’re really doubling down on the anti-science here; even the tobacco-loving Senators of old never attacked the oncologists for making up the linkage between cigarettes and lung cancer.
12 Chekote // Dec 7, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Danny
The anti-science is the people who have been distorting data, peer-review process in order to get grants. Do yourself a favor and check out the science. It doesn’t support the alarmist case.
13 LFC // Dec 7, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Chekote, it appears that the arguments Plimer puts forth are being beat up pretty badly by multiple people.
From the link above:
Using state-of-the-art observational datasets and results from a large archive of computer mode simulations, a consortium of scientists from 12 different institutions has resolved a long-standing conundrum in climate science – the apparent discrepancy between simulated and observed temperature trends in the tropics.
Another of Plime’s arguments were presented by a reporter to a list of climate scientists, and 7 shot it down immediately.
I think the problem with climate change denialists is that they cite evidence put forth by one person or maybe a few people, and think it’s a full counterbalance to the evidence put forth by hundreds, if not thousands, of scientists.
Another problem is the quoting of “science” coming from popular articles, internet posts, and books. Until Plimer’s views have been printed in one or more peer reviewed journals, providing for rebuttal by other climate scientists, it’s just opinion. It’s not science. Over 300 “scientific” papers were produced by the tobacco industry “proving” that cigarette smoke was not harmful. None were peer reviewed.
14 anniemargret // Dec 7, 2009 at 6:18 pm
There is propaganda from both sides of the issue. The fudging of the facts is deplorable. It is deplorable because climate change is real, and CO2 emissions are a major factor in it.
The ice is melting.
And it endangers our planet and us at our peril. No, chekote, it won’t happen in the next couple of years, but it will happen in our lifetime. I don’t have a doubt about it. All the other mishmash of propagandizing, or it is all a ‘hoax’ is nonsense to the max.
Here’s EPA’s today’s story: http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/healthday/2009/12/07/epa-greenhouse-gases-hazardous-to-your-health.html
The rates of asthma and allergies are skyrocketing in this country, and a huge increase in these in children.
15 Chekote // Dec 7, 2009 at 7:10 pm
annie
Number one, we need to review all the science before radical legislation that will cripple our economy is undertaken. The ice has melted before and I am not sure that we can do anything about it. Still, we need to be good stewarts of the planet and work towards new forms of energy. Annie please read this article written by an meteorology professor at MIT.
The Climate Science Isn’t Settled
16 Chekote // Dec 7, 2009 at 7:18 pm
LFC
What we have is computer models. That’s what is at the heart of the AGW evidence. The same computer models failed to predict the cooling we have had in the last 12 years. Now the same people who failed to predict the cooling that has occurred since 1998, are using the same models to predict increasing temperatures in 2030 or whatever. In case, we are looking at temperatures in the last 150 years. Do you know how old the earth is? 150 years represent a second in a movie. Sorry. The science IS NOT settled.
17 anniemargret // Dec 7, 2009 at 7:51 pm
chekote: certainly both your view and my view could be represented by professors and scientists who will disagree with each other. Obviously Prof Lindgren is of the doubtful kind. I am certainly not a person who can argue against scientists since I am not a scientist nor a climatologist myself. So most definitely I can respect his view.
However….here’s a link that rebuts his beliefs..and within the article cites other scientists who rebut Prof Lindgren’s conclusions. http://www.terrapass.com/blog/posts/lindzen-and-sci
So where does America go from here?
We must demand an independent panel so we can assess where America goes from here. Is it prudent to do nothing, or little? Or is it prudent to do more? In a way, there is a silver lining to the climategate cloud….now that the fudging has been shown in the light of day, perhaps now there will be more effort to stop the propagandizing from the political aisles.
It is for our children and our children’s children that we should do this…and get it right.
18 spoosmith // Dec 8, 2009 at 8:33 am
Chekote,
“It was also computer code that shows that the data was manipulated so that it looked much worse than it is. ”
Since you have obviously reviewed the raw code, could you please post a link?
19 LFC // Dec 9, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Chekote said… The same computer models failed to predict the cooling we have had in the last 12 years.
What cooling? Do you mean that because our increasingly rising temperature are still below the anomalous high temp year of 1998, they are dropping? That’s ignorance at a massive scale.
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