Comment:
"Mann is an applied physics guy who does paleoclimatology - ie. tries to divine temperature records from growth rings in trees, snail shell thicknesses buried in sediments and the like.
The thing you are thinking of is the University of East Anglia, which in an appallingly cavalier decision did something very much like that. Early in the computer age, they started storing temperatures on magnetic tape. They for various reasons decided to adjust the raw data. And, in an apallingly cavalier manner, they failed to (a) retain the raw data, (b) keep track of what modifications they made and why. Their excuse was that they didn't have the means to store both the 'corrected' and the raw data.
This wasn't malice, it was incompetence (botchery, not butchery as I like to call it). In essence they really didn't understand data retention. Many of them really don't understand stats either, so it's really not surprising they didn't recognize the ghastly blunder they were committing.
Mann's major crime is that he sucks at statistics, and he is unwilling ever to admit making a mistake. Thus, he came up with the hockey stick by accident using an inappropriate, flawed variation of PCA that he invented, and then refused to admit his mistakes when real stats guys started pointing them out."
For your reading pleasure:
"Mann is an applied physics guy who does paleoclimatology - ie. tries to divine temperature records from growth rings in trees, snail shell thicknesses buried in sediments and the like.
The thing you are thinking of is the University of East Anglia, which in an appallingly cavalier decision did something very much like that. Early in the computer age, they started storing temperatures on magnetic tape. They for various reasons decided to adjust the raw data. And, in an apallingly cavalier manner, they failed to (a) retain the raw data, (b) keep track of what modifications they made and why. Their excuse was that they didn't have the means to store both the 'corrected' and the raw data.
This wasn't malice, it was incompetence (botchery, not butchery as I like to call it). In essence they really didn't understand data retention. Many of them really don't understand stats either, so it's really not surprising they didn't recognize the ghastly blunder they were committing.
Mann's major crime is that he sucks at statistics, and he is unwilling ever to admit making a mistake. Thus, he came up with the hockey stick by accident using an inappropriate, flawed variation of PCA that he invented, and then refused to admit his mistakes when real stats guys started pointing them out."
For your reading pleasure:
*****
But T.C., how can you blog with so many Kochs in your mouth!
****
If you have noticed, my strategy in dealing with AGW was to sit back and let the truth come to me. Now, granted, it remains a rather divisive issue but it has become clearer as to how this movement has evolved as more and more people speak out challenging the 'settled science.'
As time goes on, it becomes less friendly to Suzuki, Gore and Mann.
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