[OT] How science is not done

On Aug 14, 8:13*pm, yourmommycalled wrote:

snip

This last point is also addressed in NOAA's response to Tony "I'm a
fool" Watts self-published mistake ridden tome. Curiously NOAA showed
that all of Watt's claims that bad surface obs biased the US
temperature trends were bogus and that there is no indication from
Watt's own data *that poor station exposure created a bias in the U.S.
temperature trends.- Hide quoted text -

What Watts and his volunteers have in fact shown
http://www.surfacestations.org/
is that the US data has serious data quality issues due to system-wide
station siting problems. Over two thirds of the sites in the USHCN
network are seriously flawed.

Station quality ratings (obtained from NOAA/NCDC) indicate that these
stations are subject to biases that will introduce errors of over 2°
C.

Class 4 (CRN4) (error = 2C) - Artificial heating sources 10 meters.

Class 5 (CRN5) (error = 5C) - Temperature sensor located next to/
above an artificial heating source, such a building, roof top, parking
lot, or concrete surface."

These measurement sites are in direct violation of NOAAs
specifications for siting that are intended to protect data quality.
They may be useful for indicating short-term trends locally, but they
violate standards intended to allow cross-comparison between distant
sites, and lack of control of long-term site changes defeats any
effort to identify meaningful trends.

Bottom line: the data is ****. It is a collection of inkblots into
which one can project whatever one wishes to visualize.

Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA

" wrote:

I suggest that the scientific process is reasonably well thought out
and managed. Much more important than whether an individual scientist
provides another scientist with some data is whether or not the
legislative decision making process is open and transparent.
snip
It is the political process that is fundamentally flawed.
Unfortunately the scientific information, data, analysis, conclusions,
plays a secondary role to the agendas of lobbyist and special interest
groups.

Absolutely.

I am arguing that if the raw data upon which scientists and
politicians base their analyses and decisions isn't made available to
the public, then legislation based on scientific evidence rests on a
weak foundation.

As you point out, the politics involved--regardless of the
availability of source data--is far more opaque.

I don't expect politicians to change. I would, however, expect
scientists--who are, hopefully, more rational than politicians--to see
the value to the legislative process and the governed of freely
available source data.
--
Dave

On Aug 15, 5:25*pm, tadchem wrote:
On the
contrary, the reluctance to share raw data is something I would expect
from frauds, cranks, and scam artists.

Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA

The temperature fluctuations between January and July ,representing
orbital points,are not understood at all,the variation in inclination
to solar radiation and the old 'tilt' towards and away from the Sun is
pretty much useless for describing the reason behind the
fluctuations.A simple planetary comparison with Uranus announces to
anyone with a decent level of intelligence that scientists have been
missing out on an additional orbital component to explain the seasons
and temperature fluctuations which are many magnitudes greater than
the current temperature spike let alone what is causing the recent
temperature fluctuations over and above the seasonal fluctuations.

How 'science works' indeed,more like how a bunch of mediocre
individuals trying to make work for themselves with a strange alliance
between guys who think astronomy is a magnifgication exercise at night
and mathematicians who have gone bananas with speculative computer
modelling.

How a bunch of mediocre freaks managed to get humanity obsessed with
pollution by turn carbon dioxide into a global temperature dial will
eventually be seen as a cautionary lesson for a race who couldn't even
get basic planetary facts straight

On Aug 15, 11:43*am, tadchem wrote:
On Aug 14, 8:13*pm, yourmommycalled wrote:

snip

This last point is also addressed in NOAA's response to Tony "I'm a
fool" Watts self-published mistake ridden tome. Curiously NOAA showed
that all of Watt's claims that bad surface obs biased the US
temperature trends were bogus and that there is no indication from
Watt's own data *that poor station exposure created a bias in the U.S..
temperature trends.- Hide quoted text -

What Watts and his volunteers have in fact shownhttp://www.surfacestations.org/
is that the US data has serious data quality issues due to system-wide
station siting problems. Over two thirds of the sites in the USHCN
network are seriously flawed.

Station quality ratings (obtained from NOAA/NCDC) indicate that these
stations are subject to biases that will introduce errors of over 2°
C.

Class 4 (CRN4) (error = 2C) - Artificial heating sources 10 meters.

Class 5 (CRN5) (error = 5C) - Temperature sensor located next to/
above an artificial heating source, such a building, roof top, parking
lot, or concrete surface."

These measurement sites are in direct violation of NOAAs
specifications for siting that are intended to protect data quality.
They may be useful for indicating short-term trends locally, but they
violate standards intended to allow cross-comparison between distant
sites, and lack of control of long-term site changes defeats any
effort to identify meaningful trends.

Bottom line: the data is ****. It is a collection of inkblots into
which one can project whatever one wishes to visualize.

Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA

No Idiot watts hasn't proved anything like he claims he has at all.
NOAA used ALL of the data Watts collected. Then using WATTS OWN
CRITERIA FOR GOOD STATIONS WHICH WERE MORE STRINGENT THAN WMO/USHCN
STANDARDS, NOAA compared the temperature trends from the stations that
Watts declared good against all other stations. Hey guess what there
wasn't any difference. Watts and his clueless moron have no idea what
the standards are, have no clue what a QC or QA process is and have
been caught repeatedly using a telephoto lens to compress distances so
as to make it appear that a site is badly setup when in point of fact
it meets all standards. When a YouTube video was posted documenting,
using Watts own statements and data, just how far wrong Watts was,
Watts issued a DCMA takedown. When forced to prove there was a DCMA
violation, he mumbled something it wasn't him or it was a mistake or
or or....

translated to something easy to understand Watts is a fool

On Aug 15, 11:25*am, tadchem wrote:
On Aug 14, 12:48*pm, " wrote:



On Aug 14, 8:29*am, yourmommycalled wrote:

On Aug 14, 8:47*am, Dave Typinski wrote:

Regardless of which side of the aisle you're on with the Climate
Change neé Global Warming political debate, the CRU's attitude about
releasing source data makes their findings as factual as the Bible.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/13/cru_missing/

*****
Professor Phil Jones, the activist-scientist who maintains the data
set, has cited various reasons for refusing to release the raw data..
Most famously, Jones told an Australian climate scientist in 2004:
"Even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or
so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to
you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it."
*****

"Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try
and find something wrong with it."

Phil Jones does /not/ know how science works. *
--
Dave

The Register is not known for accuracy in reporting and has a very
anti-global warming stance. None of the statements made in the article
are accurate. The whole article is full of ****. The only accurate
part is that Jones is indeed a scientist at CRU. Calling him an
activist is a blatant attempt to discredit him. Jones does know how
science works and is/has been willing to freely provide data and
analysis tools. Why would you need a FoIA (A US law) request to get
access to data from a British institution? Answer you don't.
Particularly since you can go to the CRU website and download the raw
data, the software CRU used to process the data, the processed data
and just about anything else you could conceivably want. Why go
through a non-existent process to get the data when you simply go to
website and get it. The same thing applies to GISS data and software,
climate models from any of the modeling groups and any other data
source, modeling and analysis effort EXCEPT, and this is a very
important exception, FROM THE DENIER COMMUNITY. The process used by
scientists is very transparent, the process used by the deniers is not.

Chris L Peterson wrote:

It is important to remember that public policy is generally not based on
primary research (and probably shouldn't be, unless we get a reasonable
number of scientifically literate legislators).

Yeah, in a perfect world...

It is based on summaries
and compilations of primary research prepared by experts and recognized
by those legislators as qualified advisors. This isn't just the case for
science, either. Matters of education policy, economic policy, social
policy... you name it... are all based (if we're lucky) on secondary
studies.

Policy is based on raw data through a chain of analysis by what we
hope are qualified people.

As the governed, do we not have the right to question the findings of
those qualified people by performing our own analyses starting from
the raw data used in their chain of reasoning?

I'm sure the few of the governed and even fewer of their
representatives in the legislature would actually do so. I'm also
sure that when it comes to science-based legislation, raw data should
be made available to anyone who wished to question the findings.

Actually, the idea of legislators basing their policy on raw
scientific data is pretty scary!

Indeed. The data needs interpretation.

So, what if my interpretation doesn't agree with your interpretation?
A public debate ensues, which is how a representative government is
supposed to work, agreements made behind the closed doors to
smoke-filled rooms notwithstanding.

Absent access to source data, how can I possibly interpret for myself
what it means? And without forming my own interpretation, how can I
usefully participate in the public debate?
--
Dave

yourmommycalled wrote:

Which is why you can just download the data for free from the CRU
website, right?

Where do you see links to /raw/ data on the CRU web site?

I see a bunch of temperature anomaly datasets. That's not raw data,
it's data that's already been massaged.

I see /one/ data set of raw temps covering the period of 1961 to 1990,
and that's all.

Where's the raw data for which they calculated the temperature anomaly
datasets?
--
Dave

On Sat, 15 Aug 2009 13:23:12 -0400, Dave Typinski
wrote:

As the governed, do we not have the right to question the findings of
those qualified people by performing our own analyses starting from
the raw data used in their chain of reasoning?

The right? I'd say no... or at least, I'd echo your "in a perfect
world".

I would be very uncomfortable with policy based substantially on data
that was, for example, classified. But that's not the case here. I
haven't seen anything to suggest that the CRU data isn't available to
many qualified researchers (and I trust them more than I trust my own
analysis). And the CRU data is far from the only raw data being used. So
on the whole (in this case) the analytical process is pretty
transparent. If there's a small amount of raw data that isn't _publicly_
available, I think it's a small concern.
_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

"Chris L Peterson" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 14 Aug 2009 16:17:55 -0700 (PDT), gabydewilde
wrote:

We need our scientists to develop new solar technology, cold fusion,
better building materials. We are at a time where we need practical
things, I don't know about the future but at the moment we clearly can
not afford bull**** devices like that.

I'm happy the world doesn't work the way you'd like it to, with science
focused only on the practical. From things like CERN come the great
answers, that are at the core of all that is ultimately practical.

How good is CERN, for example, if for every one answer, which might take 20
years to find and cost billions, one million die of starvation? What
exactly has been learned from Hubble, for example, that benefits mankind in
a practical way? Yet, we spent millions on it for a few pretty pictures.
Then we wonder why we're on the verge of bankruptcy.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

On Aug 15, 10:45*am, "Michael Toms Shidt" wrote:
"Chris L Peterson" wrote in messagenews:nosb85lk0c75vd5tdre1o5l35bfc107u0k@4ax .com...

On Fri, 14 Aug 2009 16:17:55 -0700 (PDT), gabydewilde
wrote:

We need our scientists to develop new solar technology, cold fusion,
better building materials. We are at a time where we need practical
things, I don't know about the future but at the moment we clearly can
not afford bull**** devices like that.

I'm happy the world doesn't work the way you'd like it to, with science
focused only on the practical. From things like CERN come the great
answers, that are at the core of all that is ultimately practical.

How good is CERN, for example, if for every one answer, which might take 20
years to find and cost billions, one million die of starvation? *What
exactly has been learned from Hubble, for example, that benefits mankind in
a practical way? *Yet, we spent millions on it for a few pretty pictures.
Then we wonder why we're on the verge of bankruptcy.

Those millions don't starve to death because the funds used to build
CERN were "diverted" from feeding them. They starve to death because
they have more children than they can feed using their "traditional"
farming methods, and the warlords who chivvy them to "ethnically
cleanse" their neighbors out of existence so they can have Leibensraum
steal charity food shipments off the docks to buy guns with.

Hubble's current total cost is a paltry few billion. It didn't
bankrupt anyone.

You are such a Socialist tool.


Mark L. Fergerson