Just a quick post today (while I continue to recover from back surgery), to recommend this recent summation of hockey stick "Scientology" and the influence the hockey stick played as a political icon to register AGW with the public and the importance that its complete and utter refutation has played in stimulating a questioning of the provenance of the scientific basis for AGW in general.
The continued importance of the hockey stick as an example of scientific mis-representation is well illustrated by the ongoing cases of climate newspeak revealed here, here and here.
If it is all about the science, then the hockey stick matters because it reveals how poorly understood and/or vetted some of the science is. If its not all about the science, the hockey stick matters because it shows the shallowness of the politics of ideological environmentalism: the political case relies on the certitude of its science -- if that science is not compelling, then the logic of the dogma collapses.
As this timely reminder summarizes:
The continued importance of the hockey stick as an example of scientific mis-representation is well illustrated by the ongoing cases of climate newspeak revealed here, here and here.
If it is all about the science, then the hockey stick matters because it reveals how poorly understood and/or vetted some of the science is. If its not all about the science, the hockey stick matters because it shows the shallowness of the politics of ideological environmentalism: the political case relies on the certitude of its science -- if that science is not compelling, then the logic of the dogma collapses.
As this timely reminder summarizes:
- science is a last-resort of vacuous politics: it fails to make a persuasive case on its own terms, and so borrows authority from ’science’.
