Monday, April 01, 2013

Can Climateagate Mann evolve?

Sometimes students will ask me why if everything I am telling them is the truth (and it is!) do other professors and the media still propagate the myths I have just exposed?

I can think of no better example than the continued and ongoing attempts to re-assert the sky is falling, climate alarmism narrative, long after that ship has sailed (much like my efforts to avoid mixed metaphors).  In the wake of Climategate 3.0, we have yet another example of climate scientists acting badly.  

In this superb summary, Roger Pielke Jr. is careful to leave everyone's dignity intact.  He is polite, constructive and wonderfully constrained.  I admire his patience and continued belief that accidents can and persistently do happen.  Sadly, what he sees as accidental is all too easily construed as intentional malfeasance (again).

What this latest example demonstrates is how "findings" are spun, spiral into "facts" and become embedded as the dominant narrative of consensus science.  Along the way, there is an embrace of misrepresentation, the inclusion of significant impropriety and the adoption of an attitude that is especially illuminating and immoral in the post-Climategate era.

No more. No longer. Get it together and act honorably as scientists should. Embrace some ethics, work on your integrity and check you personal ideology at the door.  Enough already.  Personally I am tired of professional colleagues who should know better not doing better because they lack the will to try.

Cartoon from Josh
and a real world up date from Peter Foster who offers the insight that ...facts always need perspective. 
A sentiment heartily endorsed by this blog!