Here is a really nice summary of the hockey stick debate and the fallout from the report of the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce. What is clear is that science took a back seat to its politicisation both by vested interests and the media.
What happened with the hockey stick is an excellent example of 'adjective creep', which Freese refers to as the process by which the likely, but implausible, continues to be asserted.
It all confirms what Goethe wrote: 'nothing is worse than active ignorance'.
