This is about data they don’t own, that wasn’t secure, is supposedly available, but they want to keep secret.
More bad news for the University of Queensland. The Australian discussed the issue of the bizarre threatening letter that UQ sent to Brandon Shollenberger when he contacted them to let them know he’d found some data one of their employees carelessly left unprotected lying around on the web. Now the acting Pro-Vice-Chancellor is trying to do damage-control by releasing a media statement, but he’s missed the chance to say the legal threat was a parody — with that easy escape gone, he’s defending the indefendable. Brandon has already responded on his site, arguing that the VC is “highly misleading”: the names of the surveyers are not important (and are also mostly known already), but time stamps, and missing papers are still unpublished, and UQ has not explained why they ought be concealed.
The UQ Statement (quoted below) also misses the point and in so many ways.
“The following is a statement from UQ acting Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research and International) Professor Alastair McEwan.
“Recent media coverage (The Australian, 17 March 2013) has stated that The University of Queensland is trying to block climate research by stopping the release of data used in a paper published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
The data for John Cook’s paper has nothing at all to do with climate research. Cook did a sociological study on key words used in short summaries of papers published about the climate. It tells us nothing about Earth’s climate but possibly gives some insight into the biased, one-sided nature of bureaucratized climate research.
“This is not the case [that UQ is trying to block climate research].
Actually it is. UQ employs John Cook whose main job appears to be to call climate scientists petty names and generally besmirch the reputation of any climate researchers who get results he doesn’t approve of. “Christy’s Crocks” anyone? Cook has a badge for that, and a whole book about “deniers” — just get him to explain the term scientifically? Even he agrees it is inaccurate — but that doesn’t stop him using it. Cook’s main goal with the Consensus Project seems to be to promote the fallacy that science is done by consensus and that a meaningful one exists. If only he had evidence to back him up instead? The infatuation with Argument from Authority is all profoundly unscientific. The University of Queensland science faculty ought be cringing in embarrassment. If the good scientists there are not now, they will be soon.
Then there is a very odd admission — doesn’t UQ know that SkepticalScience is John Cook’s personal site, and the survey participants were volunteers? Do they “own” this research (with all its flaws) now too? Please tell me yes.
“All data relating to the “Quantifying the Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming in the Scientific Literature” paper that are of any scientific value were published on the website Skepticalscience.com in 2013.
“Only information that might be used to identify the individual research participants was withheld.
Angst over the identity of participants is a strawman
The identity of participants is not the point. Brandon Shollenberger and Richard Tol want the timestamps, the rater ID’s (in an anonymized way) and the data for 521 papers that were not included in the data files. They want to look for things like rater bias.
UQ seems to believe this has something to do with the confidentiality of volunteers, most of whom are already identified:
“This was in accordance with University ethical approval specifying that the identity of participants should remain confidential.
Does that mean UQ has an ethics policy of sending threatening legal letters to volunteers who helpfully inform them about data they (or someone else) left lying exposed in public? Is it ethical to store those details without password protection and then hope everyone who discovers them writes to UQ so UQ knows who to sic their lawyers onto?
Brandon goes into more detail of just how un-secret the “confidential” participants were:
None of the identities of the participants were keep secret from one another. Heck, people not involved in the project could post in the same forum this data was posted in! How can anyone claim it was confidential? Did everyone involved in the project, and everyone with access to that forum, all sign a confidentiality agreement? If not, the data was never kept confidential.
I’d love to know if there were such confidentiality agreements. That’s why I specifically asked the University of Queensland for them. I wanted to know what data was confidential so I could keep that in mind when considering what data I should or should not release.
John Cook refused to tell me. Later, when the University of Queensland sent me a threatening letter, they invited me to respond. I did, asking for information about these confidentiality issues. They ignored me. They were apparently willing to threaten me with a lawsuit to try to get me to shut up, but they weren’t willing to answer a simple question.
Secrecy of the surveyors was apparently never the point. So what is? It’s hard to believe the secrets of the timestamps and rater ID’s could generate worse publicity for UQ and the 97% Consensus study than what the clumsy legal threats are achieving.
Thanks to UQ for handing this one to us.
Ah, politically correct academia, the present that keeps on giving.
Pointman
350
Amen!
100
Pointman, I was a graduate in engineering from the U of Q back in around 1965. During the four years prior to that the University had gone from a total number of students of around 5,000 (day, evening and external) to around 20,000. Midway through that expansion, voters for the University Student Union was around 1,000 to 1,500; mainly the rabid, feral left. The remainder of us ignored that mob, and just got on with it. The Student Union was irrelevant. A bunch of 1960s variety “luvvies”
My memory (which, at this point, may be a bit weak) suggests that Australia’s recently disposed of Governor General was one of the “luvvies”.
120
After a short pause for thought, two things:
1) Since the proportion of students who are of the leftard persuasion appears not to have altered much; and since Australia has done reasonably well during the 50 years since then; maybe these modern leftards will only end up being a speed bump, AND,
2) this may be my memory playing tricks on me, BUT; the previous mob of leftards seemed a little more polite. The modern ones seem to be a bunch more feral.
Sum of the differing vectors? Who knows? Or at my age, who cares?
80
Same thing, different country. While you were enrolled in Engineering at U of Q I was at University of Manitoba School of Engineering.
Enrolment was certainly gathering steam. I think in 1964 U of M was about 10,000. Engineering students didn’t have time for the University of Manitoba Student’s Union (UMSU). We didn’t have time to do any damned protesting, either. I recall an old joke: if all the girls in UMSU were laid end to end, nobody would be surprised.
You were probably like me, working you butt off between years at summer jobs. As with anything else, when you have to pay for it yourself it is a lot more valuable. The uncanny thing about the direction Hockey wants to lead tertiary education is obviously towards learning practical skills, entrepreneurship and hard work rather than lavishing money on useless degrees to support what appears in most instances to be nothing more than a lifestyle choice. If they were as busy at Uni as we were they wouldn’t have time to raise Hell at the Alarmist Bull Co. or march around like Brown Shirts.
60
Rod,
In 1965 I was going to college too. It wasn’t a big name university, I was a married man, had a job to support us and a pregnant wife. I went to school days and worked nights and I not only had no time to protest anything, the idea never even crossed my mind.
The world has change a lot since then, both within and outside of academia.
Your joke, though I never heard it said that way, is no surprise. College students always have that subject on their minds.
30
Notice that UoQ can’t even get the date of the OZ publication right – s/b May 17 not March.
40
Even the year is wrong!
20
Amazing, isn’t it? All this over the validity of a “consensus”, the very idea of which is antithetical to true science, which bows only to objective facts, not opinions. Yet “consensus” is all our “authoritative” (actually, authoritarian) universities deal in; wound that, even seriously threaten to do that, and they instantly go for one or more legal sledge hammers (the most used is that labelled “peer-review is the only avenue for serious consideration in science”–even though peer review, as it has come to be practiced among the cognoscenti, is the very thing that has forestalled the storied self-correction of science, and made an empty mockery of climate science, rendering it unfalsifiable in the minds of academics and the sheep that follow them).
280
Considering that the university concept was derived from divinity schools established by various religious sects, authoritarianism is built into the critter. It is the students’ task is to learn the sacred dogma and to be able to recite it flawlessly to their academic superiors. The *TRUTH* is wholly contained within the sacred scrolls held in secret by the particular religious sect and written in some arcane ancient language. It is especially not subject to question. Actual science and engineering are recent interlopers (within the past 200 years or so) and are considered to be subordinate studies subject who;s content is subject to the whims of the academic authorities and the sacred dogma. Why then should we be surprised that the situation still holds so strongly within our institutions of so called higher learning? That PhD, for the most part, means only Piled higher and Deeper should also be no surprise.
Lest you think I am dissing all PhD holders, I am not. As they say, some of my best friends hold PhDs. There are even PhDs who actually have done useful work and have earned their keep because of the value of their work. For the rest, count me as unimpressed.
170
The early universities were more like high schools teaching arithmetic, geometry, astronomy as well as the philosophy of Aristotle, in an arts degree. The students then went on to study other things.
One of the fathers of modern science was Roger Bacon who studied the philosophy of Aristotle at Oxford and Paris in the 13th century. He pushed the church to separate Science (Natural Philosophy) from Theology.
The development of science was slow because the guild (university) of scholars tended to distance itself from artisan guilds, but they still did do physical experiments.
41
Isaac Asimov said “a PhD candidate learns more and more about less and less until they eventually know everything about nothing”.
10
Ah, peer-review. To show you the reliability of peer-review, let me raise awareness of Diederik Stapel.
You do not need to read the full article, just the caption under the photo: “…published fabricated data in 30 peer-reviewed papers.”, to realise that peer-reviewed papers can be completely and utterly WRONG.
20
And so it goes.
John Cook would make a good comedy routine. Oh! Wait a minute. He’s already been treated to that by one of the best.
I wish we could ignore him but that’s problematic, he needs watching.
60
John Cook missed this one,
Page 17. Death rates from extreme weather Vs increase of Co2 from 1900- 2010.
http://reason.org/files/deaths_from_extreme_weather_1900_2010.pdf
30
Now that U Queensland has claimed ownership of Skeptical Science, it is subject to Freedom of Information.
430
I cannot understand why UQ would want anything to do with Skeptical Science. It is aggressively protective of the pro-AGW slant on climate science and very few who arte not fawning acolytes of Dana Nuccitelli, john Cook et al get short shrift indeed. THe moderators there are obsessed with ensuring nothing that disagrees with their philosophy is allowed unsnipped publication. It is truly an appalling site that trashes the idea of free speech and discussion in science. with luck the entire vile edifice will be destroyed which will be a huge advance in the blogosphere of climate science. Here’s hoping the egregious Cook is eventually brought to account by UQ responding in a scientifically appropriate manner to Brandon Shollenberger and yourself.
260
Well said, Ian.
30
I don’t think they have claimed ownership of the SkS site (in fact their own web site refers to it as JC’s personal site). They have claimed ownership of the study data that was stored by SkS (and thus this would be subject to the FOI laws – although the response will be predictable – “personal info”).
What they have effectively confirmed is that Cook as lead author did the study as part of his work at UQ and that it is therefore “owned” by UQ. I assume some UQ funds found its way into the study.
The implications are twofold: the quality of it including ethics approval and compliance with those and UQ standards for research (and those of any third party funders) is something UQ is accountable for (and McEwan carries the can here); and the UQ is responsible for the protection of the personal data on SkS and is subject to independent oversight on that score (as I noted here the other day).
90
Except they attempt to protect SS , lay claim to the work of SS and seem to imply they own SS.
So Cookie Boy runs an independent site…?
Or has the University opened another door into the lying machinations of the Team ™ IPCC?
30
Yes, Richard – except when it’s not 🙂
60
Defending the indefensible is just one of the nastier traits, out of many nasty traits, which epitomises climate science as practiced today.
Perhaps it is time to advise UQ of the Rule of Holes, as they seem oblivious to it.
50
Like you trying to defend thievery?
You guys are disgusting. seriously.
250
That’s ok. you disgust us , too..
Your very presence pollutes the blog.
Reading information on an open site is not thievery.
I would have thought SkS would have wanted at least some traffic, right , John?
321
John, that would be a tad retrospective same as the missing time stamps from the alleged data.
50
And WTF were UQ doing storing UQ related data on the SkS server, easily accessible.
It doesn’t belong there.
Nothing related to science belongs on SkS.
But then, this study wasn’t related to science, either.
221
I wonder if the VC at UQ is aware that SkS is also a site where people play at photoshoping themselves and others into Nazi uniforms. If the site does have some association with UQ perhaps he might want to look into that.
240
Spot on.
10
If I’m reading, say, page 8 of a web site, and want to see if there is a page 9 even if there is no next button.. that is not hacking.
And if its on such an open web site, which actually trolls really hard for the occasional visitor, it is not theft to read it or make a copy of it.
You are just getting upset because of the continued incompetence in leaving it open on the desk.
211
If someone leaves a box of documents outside their house on the side of a public street, one can hardly call going through those documents ‘thievery’.
Or to put it more tautologically: If you make documents publicly accessible, then you are responsible for them being publicly accessible!
250
Chester;’Like you trying to defend thievery’
–
No-one’s accusing you of thievery, Chester.
What you do in your spare time is your business.
90
There is no thievery. Strawman, next!
40
First, UQ must be able to identify the fact they are in a hole. Clearly, they are unwilling to admit that and continue digging. They are not likely to change their ways until the hole they are in collapses on top of them. Sadly, that will happen shortly after they run out of other people’s money to spend.
I am reminded of NASA’s Challenger disaster. It occurred shortly after congress substantially cut NASA’a budget. After the disaster, congress give them something like 3.5 billion dollars to build a new shuttle. NASA learned the lesson: success equals less money to spend and disaster equals more money to spend. About the only thing NASA is really good at today is having disasters and spending money. Quite likely, UQ is following the same plan.
161
Once again the climate “sceptics” have resorted to thievery and, when they are confronted with the reality of their criminality, try to blame the victim.
Remember Climatgate2 and how Jo hyped it on her blog. What happened to that,
Jo?
Once again we see people involved in hair-brained conspiracy and group think self deluded into believing anything they do is justified.
This is the way Jo Nova is saving science is it?
263
Chester I doubt you are a scientist because you don’t seem to know that in science papers are or at least were, required to be published with sufficient detail to enable others to repeat the experiments and/or to validate (or not) the conclusions. John Clarke is clearly reluctant to divulge how he arrived at his conclusions. Why is that do you think? What does he have to hide? If all is kosher then why the reluctance to give the detail? You are attacking the wrong people in criticising those trying to get the detail of the published study so that the conclusions can be verified . iYou should be attacking those who seek to hide this detail. Ask yourself why the reluctance to give the full redacted detail? Doesn’t this reluctance raise alarm bells? If not why not?
430
Do you mean John Cook?
10
“Once again we see people involved in hair-brained conspiracy and group think self deluded into believing anything they do is justified.”
Yes, we see it too.. it is what SkS does.
192
“This is the way Jo Nova is saving science is it?”
It certainly seems to be the way the CAGW side of climate studies operates.
172
Chester, What has been stolen, and from where?
Your whole comment is an attempt at diversion (see Propaganda 101), but it won’t cut the mustard with some of the folks here.
262
John, psychologists (of whom you undoubtedly have a very high regard) would consider your rants to be ‘Projecting’.
141
Where is the theft? The UQ claimed in a letter that information was hacked. It provided no evidence in the threatening letter sent to Brandon Shollenberger, just a claim. If it was hacked, and Brandon Shollenberger is a liar, then UQ would not have totally avoided the subject in its’ latest missive. Given the damage to the University’s reputation, UQ would have countered with actual action, or at least demanding a very public apology. The latest reply is a total evasion.
201
Ah the aggressive agitating Troll Chester, yawn… I bet all the other leftie NGO groupies thought you were going to give the evil Jo Nova hell commenting on here but again….sad really if wasn’t so bloody hilarious 🙂
101
Hi Cameron
In case your not aware you maybe committing criminal defamation by inferring that Brandon or other parties on this site stole the data. Suggest you google the name Al Grassby.
40
Hi Cameron
A section from the Crimes Act:
439 Offence of criminal defamation
(1) A person must not publish matter defamatory of another living
person (the victim)—
(a) knowing the matter to be false; and
(b) with intent to cause serious harm to the victim or any other
person or being reckless as to whether such harm is caused.
Maximum penalty: 300 penalty units, imprisonment for 3 years or
both.
40
Who’s Cameron? I see a yipping Chester.
00
Prove it! If you can’t, you have made a spurious accusation. I suppose you must be devastated by the Peter Gleick Affair? You remember, the guy who taught ethics but succumbed to the old “the ends justifies the means” excuse to commit fraud and theft through false pretenses because for warmists emotionally driven zealotry trumps practicing what you preach in Climate Change fantasy Land every time??
You wrote, “once again?” Perhaps you can cite another prima facie case of skeptics “thievery?” Before that happens the next ice age will be upon us. You know, the one that Stephen Schneider, Obama’s science adviser Holdren and many of the other glory seeking grant grubbing giants of the climate science world of luminaries were warning us about? Heck, Schnieder, may he not be experiencing too much warmth where he is experiencing his final repose, took less than four years to switch from apocalyptic cooling to civilization destroying warming in about four years! Way to pivot, dude!
I am assuming you are commenting about the way the warmist cabal went into feeding frenzy mode and committed elder abuse against an aged and well respected scientists in order to maintain the status quo and protect the party line, comrade?
Since you are having difficulty in separating the truth from propaganda and may be delusional allow me to help you by reminding you that science is the search for the objective truth, not a jihad against those who resist your mission of stifling dissent and punishing those who have the courage to question the received wisdom of the High Church of Warming’s dogma.
O
Are you referring to the politicians who squelched dissent and edited the summary for policy makers in their latest assessment report for the IPCC or are you referring to the political activists masquerading as scientists in the latest propaganda piece being proffered as a national assessment of climate report in the US? You know, the one that Dear Leader Obama is using to demonstrate his mastery of propaganda and disdain for the scientific method in his unending quest for bigger government?
“This is the way Jo Nova is saving science is it?”
Petitio principii or begging the question only begins to define the fallacious illogical reasoning of this statement. It is also an ad hominem, a complex question and circular reasoning at its worst!
Do you have anything intelligent to say or are you trolling? If you do not wish to sincerely discuss the topic at hand the do us all the courtesy and please take a flying f#*@ on a rolling donut!
200
There is no thievery. Strawman.
Next!
30
Just picking a nit, Jo:
… indefendable no, indefensible yes.
30
Most university administrators in Australia are failed academics.
This being the case, is it any wonder they are also incompetent administrators?
220
What does it mean to be a successful Academic in this day and age?
10
In between these UQ folk that characterise ‘The Conversation’ and the US VP stating that deniers are ‘flat earthers’, I’d say they’re all doing intellectually rather well wouldn’t you?
130
Do you mean the current US Secretary of State? He ran for VP in 2004, and lost.
60
Thanks, quite right – Sec of State.
Early in the morning rush.
10
At WUWT, turns out the names of the people were in the paper all along. Furthermore, Brandon Shallonberger has found two images at Skepticalscience showing the raters and the number of abstracts covered by date. I like to check figures. One rater that stands out is dana1981. Look at Image 2 covering 19/02/12 to 08/03/12. Dana1981’s figures are a dead straight line from 25/02 to 07/03. On 08/03 there is nothing. This must have been an oversight, as Image 3, covering 19/02/12 to 15/03/12, continues this dead straight line. In fact in 19 days dana1981 manages to go from reviewing 250 to 1100 images. That is 50 per day. This mystery reviewer seems to have some very regular habits. 🙂
230
Its good to know the reviewers were not biased in any way ! 🙂
131
I can just imagine Dana sitting there skimming through abstract.
Mentions cloud… yep climate change
Mentions water… yep climate change
Mentions coal… yep climate change
Mentions wind… yep climate change
Mentions atmosphere… yep climate change
Mentions polar bears… yep climate change
Mentions elephants… yep climate change
261
A legitimate question arising from Brendan’s latest information is; Were any of the abstracts actually ‘read’ at all, before rating. I remember a number of authors objecting to their AGW-critical papers being classified as supportive, shortly after Cook’s miscreation was published. Willie Soon, iirc, was one of these.
40
That was the smallest group. For the sample of abstracts that were rated by the authors (2143 papers), 38% gave the same rating as the abstract, 12% were rated by the Authors as less endorsing than the abstract was rated, and 50% were rated by the Authors as more endorsing than the abstract was rated.
The anonymised data is available here.
Six papers are not included, as they could not be anonymised. (Since their ratings and year were unique in the abstracts rating data published, and so the papers could be identified, and then the authors.)
00
The crucial bits of information are still missing. That is the time data for each abstract, or at least which abstracts were covered each day by each reviewer. It might show up certain inconsistencies. If I tried to average a hundred abstracts a day over 25 days, as one reviewer Ari did, or 92 (Sarah) or even 80 (Andy & Riccardo) I would suffer from inconsistencies and maybe biases as I lose focus and become a tad bored. Particularly if this was in in my spare time, as a volunteer. But then I am not possessed of the super-human powers of comprehension and unswerving insight deriving from enlightenment in “climate science“, but merely a (slightly manic) ex-beancounter.
120
There is always the possibility that they were ranked by tossing them down some stairs.
20
OR in this case accross a level floor?
00
Enough information is produced for anyone to reproduce the study. That is enough to find any inconsistencies.
00
nice that Dana Scooter can claim to be a machine-like automaton, but in public he has proved to be chaotic in mental make-up that it is impossible to imagine him rating abstracts with such monotonous regularity
40
Something I pointed out at WUWT, and have pointed out elsewhere, is the identities of all the raters were not known. Not all of the raters were given credit in the paper (either as authors or in the acknowledgement section), and not all people given credit in it performed ratings.
That said, the identity of the unknown raters is mostly unimportant. The images you linked to show the identity of 12 different raters (11 in each image, with ten overlapping). The top 12 raters were responsible for nearly all the ratings performed. That means those images tell us all the raters who really mattered. At most, the identities of raters responsible for ~5% of the ratings are unknown. That’s hardly an impressive number.
Also, the fact those images were made and posted for people to see shows Cook et al had little concern for confidentiality. If I correctly understand the user information released after Skeptical Science was hacked, over 200 people had access to those images and other information about raters at the time of the study.
130
Brandon,
This might have been at the time, but the graphs, if based upon primary results, would indicate incomplete or inconsistent record-keeping. Like with so much else in climatology (Yamal, Lew et al Frontiers paper) the real reasons for hiding behind officialdom is because of shoddy data and methodologies.
50
Perhaps UQ is worried the data might be used to associate psychopathological behaviour with identifiable reviewers 🙂
201
I believe a book is out titled “The silence of the scams”
90
Pulished by UQ Press, or UWA Press?
20
Maybe “Penguin Press” OH the irony!
60
Who published “Mills and Boon” ?
20
Eric Worrall….that was simply brilliant. Someone should write a paper about such a thing….:)
Kevin Marshall…I wonder. Can it be determined from the timestamps if said “Mystery” reviewer was doing these reviews during hours he should have been doing work for his employer? I mean, surely they would like to know if one of their employees was conducting alleged scientific research for someone else on the company dime.
10
Whilst it might be embarrassing for the individuals concerned if they were doing volunteer work whilst somebody was paying them to do something else, the reason for hiding the date and timestamp information might be due to it being incomplete. However, the graphs I point to might be a bit of fun to encourage some competition and camaraderie between the volunteers. The main information could have been collated quite separately.
10
Chester; ‘….thievery…..’
–
Climate Change and Thievery; two claims with a single motivation; GREED.
–
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/05/big-green-have-more-money-than-big-oil-but-the-media-are-blind-to-it/#more-35403
31
UQ’s climate science credentials are only matched by their ability to keep a secret!
In Queensland even the peasants strut about naked as if they are on a catwalk revealing their new clothes to the world.
Ah U. Queensland, actually believing they are wonderful one day and perfect the next!
52
quality rating 😉
From the hacked/leaked SkS Forum – The Consensus Project – Ari hits 3000 [ratings]
John Cook:
“Damn, I only find out now that I could’ve been rating all this time on the iPad? So much lost opportunity! I just did a half hour exercise on the cross trainer and knocked off 30 ratings while I exercised. I could have spent the last month of exercise racking up 1000 ratings!”
Ari Jokimäki:
“I also have had rather pleasant moments with rating; in the other day I practiced my guitar playing and rated papers at the same time. 🙂 “
100
I keep reading about those other “good” scientists whether they be at universities or at the BoM or CSIRO who one day will speak out. Can I say they have had twenty years to speak out and with a few exceptions have failed to do so. Logic says there are very few “good” scientists left. Today’s Andrew Bolt column tells us again the story of Meriam, the Christian mother imprisoned in Sudan. Andrew asks whether this atrocity can be reported without reference to Muslims. The ABC’s Waheed Aly blames all such terror and atrocities on “others”. It seems a similar affliction has pervaded the halls of academia. The problem with the “good” scientists failing to speak out about the crap that is Climate Change is our worry that they will fail to speak out about some other piece of flawed science. As for the UQ they are doing themselves untold damage by supporting the bogus research conducted by Cook et al. If they were half smart they would see the winds of change in Canberra and start looking for grant monies for research other than that related to AGW/CC.
70
Hey Chester!
Have you done your cross trainer exercising this morning?
–
John Cook:
“Damn, I only find out now that I could’ve been rating all this time on the iPad? So much lost opportunity! I just did a half hour exercise on the cross trainer and knocked off 30 ratings while I exercised. I could have spent the last month of exercise racking up 1000 ratings!”
41
Only an idiot can be unaware of the great lengths that warmists go to stifle debate, personally attack anyone who questions the orthodoxy of the official
partyclimate science line, and resist publishing their raw data that underpins their claims of the pending climate apocalypse. Isn’t saving the world a small price to pay for releasing data that was payed for with the public’s money?Apparently not!
Are these fools so deep in denial as to think that the public will not recognize their disingenuous attempt to stand on principal to protect their intellectual property rights as a campaign to hide the truth? One thing I admire about these dissembling warmists, they just keep digging no matter how deep the hole they are in gets. I suppose there is something to be said for consistency! 😉
201
Exemplifies the whole CAGW scam
Peddling like heck.. but going NOWHERE. !!
21
“CAGW scam”.
Isn’t it unfunny how Jo, having made a post a couple of weeks back claiming she was a “Luke warmer” and that the only difference between “us and them” is the climate sensitivity, yet she never ever condemns anyone on her blog that comments as a denier and a conspiracy theorist does?
So all the scientists and engineers here – why would she do that?
Theres certainly a scam underway and many have already been taken in and given money.
010
“Theres certainly a scam underway and many have already been taken in and given money.”
Yep, you just have to look at the funding Greenpeace and WWF get.
70
Being an insider, Chester knows how the system works!
30
Chester, you write like a conspiracy theorist. What’s funny about being polite and open to ideas? Richard Tol has commented above and I believe he hasn’t made any sceptical comments about the positive feedbacks. A denier solely because he is sceptical of the economic costs. Jo hasn’t had a dig at him either.
30
No, no conspiracy theorists to see here…
The unhinged never know when they are.
You people are being used. but you want to be.
010
“No, no conspiracy theorists to see here…”
Nope, this is not SkS.
50
Chester;
‘The unhinged never know when they are.
You people are being used. but you want to be.’
–
(‘Sorry, no data provided for you,
…It’s how we do it at Uni.of Q.’)
30
And why do you keep harping on about ‘conspiracy theorists’
Seems to be the meme of the social science band-wagon “helpers” of the CAGW scam.
Do you perhaps have something to hide? …. John Cook and UQ certainly seem to.
60
Ad hominem much? Poor thing, I suspect it’s the best you can do when all the logic and evidence is against you. But someone really should help you see that flawed logic is still flawed even when you dress it up in pretentious psycho babble.
70
Your coprolitic rantings are similar in tone, odor, and texture to the unfossilized matterial.
20
“The unhinged never know when they are.”
Well its time you learnt a bit about yourself, isn’t it.!
30
Go and see your mate Lewendowsky..
He knows about “unhinged” from his self-flagellation.
30
When half-baking any data an alarmist must always use a pinch of paranoia with a hint of delusional grandeur…
See it’s not all about everyone else after all is it?
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Some nerve to discuss conspiracy and the leaking of the CRU emails.
Ball, Tim (2014-01-17). The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science (Kindle Locations 3119-3120). Stairway Press. Kindle Edition.
“All told, Connolley created or rewrote 5,428 unique Wikipedia articles. His control over Wikipedia was greater still, however, through the role he obtained at Wikipedia as a website administrator, which allowed him to act with virtual impunity. When Connolley didn’t like the subject of a certain article, he removed it— more than 500 articles of various descriptions disappeared at his hand. When he disapproved of the arguments that others were making, he often had them barred— over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions. Acolytes whose writing conformed to Connolley’s global warming views, in contrast, were rewarded with Wikipedia’s blessings. In these ways, Connolley turned Wikipedia into the missionary wing of the global warming movement.”
Have to love the clear thinking scientific approach to the annihilation of history eh?
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Not sure what you are trying to say, here, Chester. All you have given so far is unsubstantiated name-calling and vitriol. Cogent, fact-based argument is a better way for others to listen to and understand what you are trying to say.
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here’s some data the MSM doesn’t divulge to the public:
this Monday, “Years of Living Dangerously” doesn’t even make the Top 100:
20 May: TV By The Numbers: Amanda Kondolojy: Cable News Ratings for Monday May 19
http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2014/05/20/monday-cable-ratings-nba-basketball-leads-night-love-hip-hop-monday-night-raw-t-i-tiny-more/265855/
saturation pro-CAGW coverage by the MSM, yet SPI’s Connelly can let Gelber get away with this!
19 May: SeattlePostIntelligencer Blog: Joel Connelly: Gov. Inslee links Jimi Hendrix, the Beach Boys, Nirvana and solar panels
Gov. Jay Inslee played the happy warrior, TV executive producer David Gelber (“Years of Living Dangerously”) played the angry media critic and Episcopal priest the Rev. Kathleen Patton brought Lucifer into the coal train debate, as the group Climate Solutions roused a packed breakfast at the Westin on Monday…
Gelber, who was Ed Bradley’s producer at “60 Minutes” for 25 years, touted his climate production on Showtime while lamenting the glacial pace at which the TV networks have discovered a rapidly warming world and its consequences…
Gelber was scathing on networks’ lack of climate coverage.
He noted the recent NBC piece by Ann Curry, the exiled “Today Show” co-host, titled “Our Year of Extremes,” but said such efforts get little promotion.
“They usually put those things against the Super Bowl,” he added. ”The whole emphasis is numbers (ratings). They think they can win an Emmy.”
At the same time, argued Gelber, newspapers have “let go” highly competent environmental reporters. ”Its ranks have been so thinned that the press doesn’t have people to do this story,” he said…
http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2014/05/19/jimi-hendrix-the-beach-boys-nirvana-and-solar-panels-inslee-sees-links/
ouch!
21 May: OneEarth: Jason Bittel: The Governator’s Back—and Going After Climate Change
Last week on Showtime’s climate-change miniseries, Years of Living Dangerously, Harrison Ford hit the peat swamps of Indonesia, Don Cheadle tried to reconcile religion and science in the Bible Belt, and Thomas Friedman braved the frontlines of Syria’s civil war. It was a star-studded episode, filled with human drama, high stakes, and good journalism. So, how did it stack up against other prime time premieres?
Well, according to the Nielson Ratings, YOLD pulled in about 294,000 viewers. Sounds like a big number, but Boss Hog, a new series about a guy who hunts pigs, reeled in almost four times as many watchers at 1.1 million…
http://www.onearth.org/articles/2014/04/years-of-recapping-dangerously-schwarzenegger
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You may not be aware that Cook thanked our old friend Stephan Lewandowsky for his comments about the survey in his acknowledgements about the study. If I was doing a survey I wouldn’t be going to our friend Stephan for advice. The hole gets deeper and deeper. See the latest posting on WUWT for the acknowledgements.
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Since we’re covering legal matters; last year Australian Vaccination Network was ordered by the Administrative Decisions Tribunal to call itself something different to reflect its sceptical stance.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-11/nsw-anti-vaccination-group-changes-its-name-after-complaints/5312910
I always thought ScepticalScience sounded like a site for sceptics. Could this be a common belief?
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That has always been the operation of SkS.. LIES and DECEIT from the very start.
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Good point!
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Lewandowsky has also thanked Cook for advice about conducting survey research.
Talk about the blind leading the blind…
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The Team circle of Pal Review is complete. There is now 100% consensus in the peer-reviewed literature that both Cook and Lewandowsky know how to conduct surveys properly.
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Brandon could have used the reply made famous in Arkell vs Pressdram (the latter being the satirical magazine Private Eye’s holding company):
http://www.nasw.org/users/nbauman/arkell.htm
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Unfortunately Private Eye is far more left wing than it once was ,Peter Cook one of the main people providing finance back then and was a comedic genius,and not a bad golfer incidentally, but was exceptional at knocking back a pint or 5 ,Richard Ingrams was the original “Lord Gnome” I believe , but could be wrong , and it was purely satirical ,Auberon Waugh was in my opinion, one of the finest writers in the World when his diary covered the week. Hislop , the current Editor is an unpleasant little shit , whereas the best of Private Eye was pretty much anarchic toppling of ivory towers, the current rag is a sop to all that is unpleasant in the UK ,Sorry Ian , but you have lost the plot!
Having insulted just about every single Magnate in the world , it was almost brought to its knees by the libel action against “goldenballs” but contributions from readers kept it afloat. Scarfe was at the beginning a fabulous cartoonist (hmmm , sounds like, er…someone not so fabulous.)but has again succumbed to champagne socialism .
I seriously hate rich people pretending to be just one of the lads , it does not work, the poor people hate you!
Meantime , I shall luxuriate in the warmth of a fine Riojah, with freshly picked cherries from my estate,served by a wench with a predilection for the bizarre. (note , this is satire a la Auberon Waugh , only not as good)
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Oh the dirty, political, UQ … University of Queensland acting Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research and International) Professor Alastair McEwan … it is time that you considered your future, you are bringing the ‘university’into international disrepute. Lest we forget that UQ has form.
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Red herring, not straw man.
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‘Strawman” is not too far off. UQ is making out that what Brandon wants to publish is the identities of the raters because it is easier to put forward an argument for not allowing it.
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All this fluff over a paper that is so misleading and incorrect in its basic conclusions. Sounds like a diversion.
It might be decades by the time the ‘97%’ is corrected, by then it will be long forgotten and long ignored, except by a few true believers, discarded into the dustbin of non-reproducible results of academic non-history.
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Read through all the comments, strangely or is it oddly that a couple of truly deluded idiots are defending the university , and the foolish people who are pretending to be scientists.
Chester is particularly ill informed as to what constitutes truth, truth is what real science is seeking, the ultimate reality, there is no politically correct shades of grey in science. Truth is either right or it is not truth. Declaring a truth and then hiding behind a wall of secrecy does not give one much faith in the voracity of the spouted truth, thus one can easily assume with some confidence that it is not only not the truth, but a conscious decision to mislead and thus be fraudulent in it’s intended outcome.
Fools pretending to be scientists over the centuries have fooled the world, but truth has always managed to catch them out. The largest peer review in the history of the world is upon us, the internet never forgets, nor does it allow BS to reign supreme. Sorry Chester for now, gone are the days when those who controlled the message controlled the truth. Truth is not subjective, it either is or it is not. Forget propaganda Chester go and think about real truth, it will set you free.
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Question of the Aussies: What impact will Abbot’s new budget have on the University of Queensland? Will it affect Vice Chancellors?
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This will do untold harm to UQ. It will lose its AA status and be thought of something like the University of Southern Queensland B grade LOL
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