Climate Audit

by Steve McIntyre

Behind the SKS Curtain

As a preamble and reprise, I think that it is reasonable for Cowtan and Way to take exception with HadCRU’s failure to estimate temperature in Arctic gridcells and to propose methods for estimating this temperature. At a time when the climate community argued that differences between the major indices and accessibility to CRU data didn’t “matter”, I thought that both mattered. One of the reasons for transparency in CRU data and methods was so that interested parties could carry out their own assessments, as Cowtan and Way have done. They have diagnosed a downward bias in recent HadCRU results. On previous occasions, I’ve observed that the community is more alert to errors that go the “wrong way” than to errors that go the “right way” and this opinion remains unchanged. As noted in my previous post, it doesn’t appear to me that their slight upward revision in temperature estimates has a material impact on the discrepancy between models and observations – a discrepancy which remains, despite efforts to spin otherwise.
In today’s post, I’ve re-examined Robert Way’s contributions to the secret SKS forum, where both he and Cowtan (Kevin C) have been long-time contributors. In my first post, I took exception to Way calling me a “conspiracy wackjob”. However, relative to the tenor of other SKS posts in which their colleagues fantasize about “ripping” out Anthony Watts’ throat and Anthony and I being perp-walked in handcuffs, Way’s language was relatively mild.
In addition, re-reading the relevant threads, other than a couple of occasions (ones to which I had taken exception), Way’s language was mostly temperate and well-removed from the conspiratorial fantasies about the “Denial Machine” that pervade too much of the SKS forum. In addition, this re-reading showed that, on numerous occasions, Way had agreed with Climate Audit critiques, sometimes in very forceful terms and usually against SKS forum opposition. Way typically accompanied these agreements with sideswipes to evidence his disdain for Climate Audit, but seldom, if ever, contradicted things that I had actually said.
I think that readers will be surprised at the degree of Way’s endorsement of the Climate Audit critique of Team paleoclimate practices.
Steig Incident
Let me start this review with Way’s surprisingly temperate remarks (General Chat/2011-02-09-Antarctic Temperature Trends.html) regarding a dispute between Real Climate and Climate Audit arising over Steig’s efforts as a reviewer to prevent publication of O’Donnell et al 2010. As CA readers will recall, Steig, as an anonymous reviewer, did everything in his power to prevent publication of O’Donnell et al 2010, requiring changes that, in my opinion, diminished the article. Ryan O’Donnell published a post at CA that was expressed more angrily than I would have written, but Ryan was pretty mad. This prompted an exchange at Real Climate, with Steig consigning even technical criticisms to the Borehole, a practice that had been criticized by skeptics on other occasions, but which was particularly virulent. Way objected to Steig’s conduct, which he described as a lesson in what “NOT to do as a scientist”:
Hey all,
There’s a feud going on pertaining to this post on RC
followed by these two by climate audit:
I’m gonna be honest, this should be a lesson on what NOT to do as a scientist. Steig is refusing to read the criticism of his criticism and is refusing to engage the authors of the paper he is criticizing. In the “Borehole” at RC you can see some examples of comments by the others that are purely technical and include no *snark* that Steig calls snark and put in the Borehole. I know how ravenous the *auditors* can get but this type of non-response is exactly what gives skeptics momentum.
Way was immediately challenged by SKS forum participants, but re-iterated his objections to Steig’s conduct. He also observed that statistically Steig was “wrong” and CA was “right”. He also (in my opinion) accurately perceived the belittling character of Steig’s initial remarks and understood and sympathized with why Ryan O’Donnell (and others) fired back:
to be clear in all this, steig is wrong. CA is right in terms of their reconstruction and their subsequent response. They included way too much snark over at CA but that doesn’t detract from them being right statistically.
Personally I think that if you are curteous and deal with the guys like Ryan O and Jeff ID properly then they will respect you. I watched the initial response and I remember thinking that some of the comments steig made in response to Ryan O were snarky and belittling. I’m not shocked they fired back, not shocked at all.
As scientists aren’t we supposed to take the high ground and just go where the facts lead us?
After a SKS forum commenter defended Steig, Way concluded the thread as follows, expressing, among thing things, a “little shock to learn that Steig et al. made the same principal component mistake that Mann et al 1998 did”. Way tempered his criticism with a sideswipe at me for being unresponsive to a question from him about temperature data:
Having read Steig’s response I don’t really know what my opinion on the whole matter is. I think realistically both of the children need a time-out. That being said Mcintyre needs to learn to call off the attack dogs. If he wants to work on “bridging” the gap between scientists and skeptics then he has to learn to not act like a child himself. I remembered I had question on something to do with temperature data way back and I sent an email to Gavin Schmidt and one to Steve Mcintyre. I got two responses: One from Gavin with some detailed instructions and two publications to look at and one from Mc stating something like “I’m too busy for this, ask someone else”
What I find interesting about that is that if I were steve Mc I would post that exchange on my blog and use it as evidence that the other side was being dismissive… really shows the hypocrisy of it all.
Nevertheless I think that O’donnell and Codon and them are probably more right than Steig statistically and I’m a little shocked to learn that Steig et al. made the same principal component mistake that Mann et al 1998 did but nevertheless the statistics in all this aren’t the lesson to be learned.
What should be taken from this little issue is that tone is very important. If Steig et al remained curteous (even with the attacks) then for those watching on the sidelines it would be obvious that the science is in good hands. To react somewhat snarky just brings us down to their level. Keep talking the science and stay away from personal stuff and you will win in the hearts and minds.
Hide the Decline
Later in March 2011, the SKS forum discussed (General Chat/2011-03-25-Lunacy continues at WUWT and Climate Audit.html) a then current CA post about other incidents (besides the IPCC TAR and WMO cover) in which Briffa had deleted adverse data to hide the decline. Julian Brimelow (Albatross) claimed that I was trying to “brain wash” people and fantasized about Anthony or me being perp-walked in handcuffs:
McIntyre is losing it and with each day and passing is showing his true (and scary) colours, not to mention his incredible desperation. I have noted that WUWT and CA are working a lot more closely now, probably in an effort to brain wash as many people as possible, and to keep the converted convinced that this is all a conspiracy– despite the shit hitting the fan all around them.
I have no idea how one deals with this– to be candid, McIntyre or Watts in handcuffs is probably the only thing that will slow things down. Note that i did not say “stop”. These guys are relentless, and have many faithful followers.
After some equally intemperate commentary by other SKS forum participants, Way commented sensibly that he did not support the deletion of adverse data and, if I was right on this point (as I was), then Briffa has some “explaining to do”:
I’m not sure what my opinion on this subject is at this point. If Steve Mc is correct then I do think that Briffa has some explaining to do. Personally I’m not a fan of the deletion of data for a figure either way… I would get blitzed by my supervisor if I did it in any document so I don’t know why the same standards shouldn’t apply.
Either way though, it just goes to show that some tree ring datasets are probably too difficult to use and other proxies like ice cores…etc… will be better for reconstructions.
The discussion then veered into a discussion of the Mann’s upside-down Tiljander. Ross and I had pointed out this problem in a short comment published in PNAS (250 words max.) Mann denied the problem, calling the (correct) criticism “bizarre”. SKS forum participant grypo, like William Connolley and others, claimed that Mann’s failure should be blamed on Ross and me for not explaining the problem clearly enough:
Had he used a better phraseology that argument may have been settled one way or another, but Mann, apparently, had no idea what he was saying and called it ‘bizarre’.
Way then observed that I was “right” on the Tiljander issue, but, as elsewhere, accompanied this concession with a sideswipe, this time calling me a “conspiracy wackjob”:
The Tiljander debate showed that Mc was right on that issue. Kaufmann had to fix his series because he also used it upside down. Didn’t make too much of a difference but Mann’s response of “Bizarre” was pretty lazy if you ask me. The original Tiljander series people even said Mann and Kaufmann used it wrong. That being said Mc is a conspiracy wackjob…
“McIntyre’s New Target”
In September 2011, I did some posts on Andrew Dessler. Grypo started an SKS Forum thread (General Chat/2011-09-29-McIntyre’s new target.html) urging a response, mostly complaining about me, but with the following backhanded compliment:
Part of Mcintyre’s magic, is his ability to take his statistical ability (whether right or wrong) and transfer that into rhetoric that the normal person can understand.
Way observed that many of the points that I bring up are “valid” and commented that I was a “tough person to target… even for the experts”, again accompanying the concession with the obligatory sideswipe, claiming that I turned an ordinary mistake into a “conspiracy” (an allegation that I reject and do not believe to be supportable by the record):
McIntyre is a tough person to target… Even for the experts. The fact of the matter is that a lot of the points he brings up are valid the challenge is that he associates them with too much skepticism. He finds a mistake and suddenly its a conspiracy whereas a normal person would call it a reasonable mistake. But I wouldn’t want to go up against that group, between them there is a lot of statistical power to manipulate and make the data say what it needs to say.
Neal King, apparently agreeing with Way’s warning about the statistical power at Climate Audit, observed that he tried to stay away from real data and statistics as much as possible – doubtless a wise precaution for an SKS participant:
Real data and statistics are a subtle subject. I try to stay away from both, as far as possible.
SKS forum participant Julian Brimelow then wondered whether there were hackers who might attack me:
Make no mistake, there is some social networking going on here behind the scenes (does that group who hack mega corporations also hack emails of people like McIntyre?).
Grypo then returned to the “problem”, again making a backhanded compliment about my supposed ability to “form narratives”:
But McIntyre’s magic is in forming narratives that permeate through to the mainstream. I agree SkS has limited ability to do anything about this. Just brainstorming here.
Way then commented that I had “brought up some very good points” about the original Stick, agreeing that the original confidence had been “vastly overstated”, and that he didn’t like to talk about “the HS stuff, because I know a lot of people who have doubts about the accuracy of the original HS”:
I don’t mean to be the pessimist of the group here but Mc brought up some very good points about the original hockeystick. The confidence affirmed to it by many on our side of the debate was vastly overstated and as has been shown in the recent literature greater variability on the centennial scale exists than was shown. The statistical methodology used by Mann did rely too much on tree rings which still are in debate over their usefulness to reconstruct temperature and particularly their ability to record low-frequency temperature variations. I’ve personally seen work that is unpublished that challenges every single one of his reconstructions because they all either understate or overstate low-frequency variations. My personal experience has been that Moberg still has the best reconstruction and his one does show greater variability. That’s why I don’t like to talk the HS stuff, because I know a lot of people who have doubts about the accuracy of the original HS.
Just like we complain about skeptics like Pielke and Christy etc letting their work be miscontrued, Mann et al stood by after their original HS and let others treat it with the confidence that they themselves couldn’t assign to it. They had just as much of a responsability to ensure their work was used to promote properly just as Christy et al do. It is a tight rope we must all walk afterall.
Pressed to explain further, Way provided a lengthy exposition forcefully stating that “the original hockey stick still used the wrong methods and these methods were defended over and over despite being wrong”.
Mann’s science is mostly good and I certainly think that his papers have discussed most of the caveats. However his reconstruction failed certain statistics (can’t remember if it was r2 or RE) and even his newest reconstruction doesn’t validate past 1400 if you don’t include disputed series (which I have no idea why he’s including them at all). Lets make this clear. There is a hockey stick shape in the data, but the original hockey stick still used the wrong methods and these methods were defended over and over despite being wrong. Just because a better analysis (Wahl and Amman 2007) using the same data shows very little difference doesn’t change the fact that the technique was wrong. PCA isn’t the best choice anyways… but that’s irrelevant.
Way then reviewed an exchange at Tamino’s where Tamino’s invocation of Ian Jolliffe as a supposed authority for de-centered PCA had resulted in Jolliffe himself disowning Mann’s application of the technique, as follows:
This is where my problem lies:
From RC
“Contrary to MM’s assertions, the use of non-centered PCA is well-established in the statistical literature, and in some cases is shown to give superior results to standard, centered PCA… For specific applications of non-centered PCA to climate data, consider this presentation provided by statistical climatologist Ian Jolliffe who specializes in applications of PCA in the atmospheric sciences, having written a widely used text book on PCA. In his presentation, Jollife explains that non-centered PCA is appropriate when the reference means are chosen to have some a priori meaningful interpretation for the problem at hand. In the case of the North American ITRDB data used by MBH98, the reference means were chosen to be the 20th century calibration period climatological means. Use of non-centered PCA thus emphasized, as was desired, changes in past centuries relative to the 20th century calibration period.”
I. T. Jolliffe, Principal Component Analysis, Springer-Verlag, New York, 1986.
Comment by Dr. Jolliffe at Tamino’s
“…It has recently come to my notice that on the following website, http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/03/06/pca-part-4-non-centered-hockey-sticks/ .. , my views have been misrepresented, and I would therefore like to correct any wrong impression that has been given… In reacting to Wegman’s criticism of ‘decentred’ PCA, the author says <>
It is flattering to be recognised as a world expert, and I’d like to think that the final sentence is true, though only ‘toy’ examples were given. However there is a strong implication that I have endorsed ‘decentred PCA’. This is ‘just plain wrong’.
…(my talk)…It certainly does not endorse decentred PCA. Indeed I had not understood what MBH (Mann 1998) had done until a few months ago. Furthermore, the talk is distinctly cool about anything other than the usual column-centred version of PCA. It gives situations where uncentred or doubly-centred versions might conceivably be of use, but especially for uncentred analyses, these are fairly restricted special cases. It is said that for all these different centrings ‘it’s less clear what we are optimising and how to interpret the results’.
I can’t claim to have read more than a tiny fraction of the vast amount written on the controversy surrounding decentred PCA (life is too short), but from what I’ve seen, this quote is entirely appropriate for that technique. There are an awful lot of red herrings, and a fair amount of bluster, out there in the discussion I’ve seen, but my main concern is that I don’t know how to interpret the results when such a strange centring is used? Does anyone? What are you optimising? A peculiar mixture of means and variances? An argument I’ve seen is that the standard PCA and decentred PCA are simply different ways of describing/decomposing the data, so decentring is OK. But equally, if both are OK, why be perverse and choose the technique whose results are hard to interpret? Of course, given that the data appear to be non-stationary, it’s arguable whether you should be using any type of PCA.
I am by no means a climate change denier. My strong impressive is that the evidence rests on much much more than the hockey stick. It therefore seems crazy that the MBH hockey stick has been given such prominence and that a group of influential climate scientists have doggedly defended a piece of dubious statistics. Misrepresenting the views of an independent scientist does little for their case either. It gives ammunition to those who wish to discredit climate change research more generally.
[THIS IS THE EPITOME OF HOW I FEEL-Robert Way]
…distinguishing between the hockey stick and the MBH hockey stick is the key issue. The latter is where the problem lies because of what I deemed ‘dubious statistics’. It is this one particular paper, and in particular the defence of the technique used as recently as this year, which has caused so much grief…
The only reason I got involved is because the ‘dubious statistics’ were still being defended this year and my name was being used in support. “
Ian Jolliffe, PH.D Statistics
I. T. Jolliffe. Principal component analysis. In: Encyclopedia of Statistics in Behavioral Science, (eds. B. S.Everitt and D. C. Howell), Vol. 3, 1580-1584, Wiley, New York, 2005.
Tamino
“Dr. Jolliffe has convinced me that applying decentered PCA invalidates the selection rules which are applied when choosing which PCs to include in one’s model. But the “relevant” (hockey-stick shaped) PC would have been included anyway, applying valid selection rules to centered PCA. And the PCs which are omitted (because they’re suppressed by the method rather than the statistics) don’t seem to correlate with temperature in the calibration interval. Therefore it seems to me that the method is flawed, but the flaw has little or no impact on the final result.”
With respect to Steig,
I think he didn’t handle the whole issue well at all. He fed the fire. Truth is that his method did spill over some of the warming into places where it wasn’t. JeffID and them had their method prolly reduce the warming a bit. At the end of the day Steig really fed the fire with those posts at RC and so on… These guys really go for blood.
Neal King agreed that “Mann (and maybe Steig) are examples of how NOT to proceed”. King also ventured the question about the tree ring “divergence problem” that bothers most skeptics, commenting that he guessed that there was an answer, but “no one has ever given it to me”:
- I don’t follow all the details, but my impression is that Mann and buddies have sometimes gone out on a limb when that was unnecessary and ill-advised. My impression is that Mann, for all his technical ability, is sometimes his own worst enemy.
- Similarly, with regard to “hiding the decline” in Climategate, I am left with the impression that the real question is, Why would you believe the tree-ring proxies at earlier times when you KNOW that they didn’t work properly in the 1990s? I guess there is a good answer to that, but no one has ever given it to me.
I believe a good 50% of the game is being able to avoid booby traps. Because the science is at the edge of ignorance, mistakes WILL be made. The question is, How do you avoid putting your foot in the traps? I think Mann (and maybe Steig) are examples of how NOT to proceed.
Way then briefly discussed the post-hoc selection bias that has been discussed from time to time on blogs(recently in connection with Gergis et al), referring to Jeff Id’s discussion in connection with Mann et al 2008. Way conceded that Jeff Id was right on this points, accompanying the concessions with the usual sideswipe, this time calling Jeff a “douche”:
So responding to other stuff.
Mann 2008 CPS
“As an exercise assume you start with 1000 sets of random very noisy set of data which swings up and down by 4 degrees C and you average them. You should get a relatively flat line with wiggles of a magnitude much smaller than any of the individual peaks.
If you take the same random data, calibrate its endpoint to today’s temperature (offset it so the end matches today’s temperature) and then sort it (throw data out) so that only data which correlate to a temperature rise at the end 5% of the dataset remains. Then you average the remaining data you would get a relatively flat line with an upward spike at the end. The averaged data would have an end spike which would almost certainly be of greater magnitude than the rest of the curve”
This is from JeffIDs site and although I do think he’s a douche he does bring up a good point. Even with a hockey stick in the dataset the method will result in excluding datasets which support the hockey stick the least.
I think that the challenge in this whole debate is that Mc et al are looking to find any excuse they can to distort the truth and milk and manipulate it as best as they can. Mann et al (and Steig et al) gave them excuses to quite often. Kill them with kindness or kill them with your brilliance, don’t leave yourself open to criticism when people are watching.
They then made the sensible observation that scientists should not insist on results that they cannot back up – a point on which we are in agreement:
I think all of us here at SkS are on Mann’s side, not McI’s. Nonetheless, it is necessary, if you want to improve, to admit that it is your own side that is sometimes falling down. Insisting on results that you cannot back up 100% is “leading with the chin”. One CANNOT do that sort of thing: One must pay McI et al. the acknowledgement that they will detect that error and go for the throat.
Tom Curtis then advanced the Real Climate party line that our criticisms didn’t matter and were merely “minor points”. Way firmly rebutted them, asserting that we had got “major points correct”, making as forceful defence of our position as can be imagined:
I don’t think these are minor points. I think they get major points correct. MBH98 was not an example of someone using a technique with flaws and then as he learned better techniques he moved on… He fought like a dog to discredit and argue with those on the other side that his method was not flawed. And in the end he never admitted that the entire method was a mistake. Saying “I was wrong but when done right it gives close to the same answer” is no excuse. He never even said that but I’m just making a point. What happened was they used a brand new statistical technique that they made up and that there was no rationalization in the literature for using it. They got results which were against the traditional scientific communities view on the matters and instead of re-evaluating and checking whether the traditional statistics were valid (which they weren’t), they went on and produced another one a year later. They then let this HS be used in every way possible (including during the Kyoto protocol lead-up that resulted in canadian parliament signing the deal with many people ascribing their final belief in climate change being assured by the HS) despite knowing the stats behind it weren’t rock solid. Of course someone was going to come along and slam it. In the defense of the HS method they published things on RC like what I showed above where they clearly misrepresented the views of the foremost expert on PCA in atmospheric sciences who basically says that Mann’s stats were dubious.
Way continued:
Mcl didn’t actually provide a reconstruction. They were just showing the difference with a different set of rules applied. They didn’t have the balls to do one themselves. Either way 2 pcs was probably too few but rationalizing the 5 that would have to be kept to get the HS shaped PC is also an interesting topic.
“As the proxies are chosen for a known, physically based covariance with temperature,”
In mann 2008 the relationship with temperature in the overlapping period that was used for a cutoff was r2 > 0.1
Do you think that only having 10% of the variance in a proxy explained by temperature changes is an appropriate cutoff? I really think that’s not exactly a “physically based covariance with temperature” that I would trust.
Julian Brimelow concluded the thread observing that “one can’t hand them stuff that is easy to critique”, but, more importantly, that I needed to “go down, it is quite that simple”.
McIntyre need to go down, it is quite that simple.
Mann et al 2008
Previously, in August 2010, Cook had (Authors/2010-08-10-List of rebuttals and who’s doing what) set out a list of rebuttals, eventually leading to this page. Way withdrew his previous “dibs” on Climate’s changed before. He warned potential authors to stay away from Mann et al 2008 since “much as I hate to admit it they are right about the issue of the study failing verification statistics past 1500 for one”:
I was going to do #2 Climate’s changed before but have now decided I will stay away from it for now. I was wondering if you could remove my dibs. Also I have to tell you that you should warn those doing that particular one to stay away from Mann’s 2008 paper if they take this topic as it seems it has actually been invalidated by climate audit (as much as I hate to admit it they are right about the issue of the study failing verification statistics past 1500 for one)
At the time, we had just learned (via a sly inline comment at RC by Gavin Schmidt) that Mann had already conceded that the Mann et 2008 no-dendro reconstruction did not pass his own verification methods. Way reported this as follows:
So what this means is that Under either method (CPS or EIV) it is not possible to get a validated reconstruction to before 1500 without the use of tree rings, or the Tijlander sediments. The tijlander sediments were used incorrectly and upside down from the original published version and a corrigendum by Kaufmann et al. (who also used it upside down) was issued pertaining to this. http://climateaudit.org/2009/10/26/the-kaufman-corrigendum/
I’m not one of those climate audit junkees and I certainly disagree with how Mcintyre handles a lot of the stuff but I’ve been shown before by even climatology profs in my university time that it might be best to stick clear of Mann’s reconstructions until the dust settles (although this debate has been going on for 10 years)
Despite Way’s warning, other SKS authors used the Mann et al 2008/2009 reconstruction in the SKS article on the Medieval period.
Cook’s Call to Action
As a last thread in today’s review, on March 3, 2011 (Climate Misinformers/2011-03-08-Call to action – help collect quotes on skeptics), Cook called on the SKS team to collect adverse quotes from targeted skeptics, including me in a list of five targets. (This enterprise appears to have led to their Skeptics page here):
So skeptics that I suggest we focus on, assuming we launch with 12 skeptics (welcome changes):
  • Pat Michaels
  • Fred Singer
  • Steve McIntyre
  • Roger Pielke Sr
  • Freeman Dyson
  • Chris de Freitas
    • Unless you think others are more deserving of being on the list.
    Way replied that it would not be easy to locate embarrassing quotes from me, observing that others had already tried without success, again with the usual sideswipe:
    McIntyre will be hard to pin down. Many before us have tried and not proven to be terribly successful. He is of the weasely type.
    A week later, Dana Nuccitelli observed that Michaels, Pielke Sr, de Freitas and I were still outstanding targets, adding that I was the “tough one”:
    I bet Gareth could get us some good de Freitas quotes. Michaels should be easy. The tough one is McIntyre.
    Conclusion
    As noted above, except for the offensive sideswipes, Way’s language in the SKS forum is mostly temperate and a far cry from some of his bloodthirsty colleagues. While he re-assures his colleagues of his disdain for both me and Climate Audit, it is extremely hard to locate discrete points of disagreement.

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    This entry was written by Steve McIntyre, posted on Nov 20, 2013 at 4:16 PM, filed under Uncategorized and tagged cook, sks, way. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

    132 Comments

    1. Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 4:47 PM | Permalink | Reply
      May the weasely words of this blog – aka real quality and precision – continue long after SKS is forgotten.
    2. Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 4:50 PM | Permalink | Reply
      What happened was they used a brand new statistical technique that they made up and that there was no rationalization in the literature for using it. They got results which were against the traditional scientific communities view on the matters and instead of re-evaluating and checking whether the traditional statistics were valid (which they weren’t), they went on and produced another one a year later. They then let this HS be used in every way possible (including during the Kyoto protocol lead-up that resulted in canadian parliament signing the deal with many people ascribing their final belief in climate change being assured by the HS) despite knowing the stats behind it weren’t rock solid. Of course someone was going to come along and slam it. In the defense of the HS method they published things on RC like what I showed above where they clearly misrepresented the views of the foremost expert on PCA in atmospheric sciences who basically says that Mann’s stats were dubious.
      Welcome to the brotherhood, son. Would have been nice to hear from you back in the day, but I realize you’re in a field where this kind of talk can cost you.
      I’ve been shown before by even climatology profs in my university time that it might be best to stick clear of Mann’s reconstructions until the dust settles (although this debate has been going on for 10 years)
      Wise advice. But why don’t they share it with, say, the IPCC?
      • thisisnotgoodtogo
        Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 5:14 PM | Permalink | Reply
        “I realize you’re in a field where this kind of talk can cost you.”
        It would be like cutting out from a position in the Church of Scientiology.
        • Scrutineer
          Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 12:11 AM | Permalink | Reply
          The Church of Gaiantology.
          • kim
            Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 12:26 AM | Permalink
            It’s nice to Mass with Mother Gaia.
            ==========
    3. Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 4:57 PM | Permalink | Reply
      Sounds like he is trying to be honest – in a dishonest milieu.
    4. seanbrady
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 5:09 PM | Permalink | Reply
      McIntyre need to go down, it is quite that simple.
      I got chills when I read that. If anyone is “losing it and .. showing his true (and scary) colours, not to mention his incredible desperation” it’s Brimelow not McIntyre.
    5. Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 5:11 PM | Permalink | Reply
      Q: What’s the source of Way’s antagonism toward you? My supposition, based on your past behavior, Way’s past and current behavior, and Way’s lack of noting any specific egregious event between you two is that there isn’t really a good reason for antagonism. It seems that Way believes you are simply playing for the wrong team. Which, if you think about the ultimate implications of that perspective, is very sad.
      It’s interesting that Way has not only reviewed your summaries of many of these major scientific issues as well as the original authors’ methods, and he’s agreed with your findings. He’s (sort of) publicly stated his agreement and has (sort of) publicly criticized the original authors. It’s not hard to imagine that these you and he have a great deal in common and might, in other circumstances, have gotten along quite well. Way’s ideological beliefs prevent him from even acting in a civil manner when discussing Steve.
      Your summary of Way’s response also shows once again that young scientists (and their faculty) feel they cannot publicly acknowledge and call out poor science. That’s not the way science is supposed to work. Science can’t be self correcting if one view isn’t tolerated on religious grounds.
      Bruce
      • DocMartyn
        Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 8:12 PM | Permalink | Reply
        It is a pity the English language hasn’t go a word to describe someone stating privately one thing and publicly something quite different.
        A collective name for a group of people secretly working together to smear individuals and support a greater cause, would also be very handy.
        • Geoff Sherrington
          Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 10:35 PM | Permalink | Reply
          DocMartyn,
          Try “duplicity”.
        • Manniac
          Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 10:39 PM | Permalink | Reply
          It’s times like these that the Prussians come to the rescue with their flair for using several words all at once that captures the zeitgeist. Even now there is the sound of horses hooves approaching…
        • Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 12:57 AM | Permalink | Reply
          Easy. It’s called “lying.” :-)
        • kim
          Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 1:18 AM | Permalink | Reply
          English is particularly merciful to neologisms, so I propose ‘hypocritical conspirator’.
          For this one you’ll Version 2 of the decoder ring.
          ===========
        • Paul_K
          Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 2:59 AM | Permalink | Reply
          Interesting that the French word for this translates into “Versatility”.
    6. Paul Baverstock
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 5:26 PM | Permalink | Reply
      A remarkable piece of writing. I am stunned and might I suggest that this post be sent to a number of media outlets as well as the IPCC. It completely discredits the poster piece of the IPCC from the inside.
    7. igsy
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 5:35 PM | Permalink | Reply
      Gate-way?
    8. AndyL
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 5:42 PM | Permalink | Reply
      It’s interesting to compare Way’s comments above on Steig and O’Donnell with what he said on CA only yesterday, which is far more even-handed than what he apparently really believes:
      “I think that both papers were interesting contributions with Steig et al (2009) proposing a new method and O’Donnell et al (2011) trying to improve upon it. The debate over those two papers became rather silly with a lot of back and forth between the authors of their respective studies. “
    9. kim
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 6:00 PM | Permalink | Reply
      Jean S to Tamino who’d invoked Jolliffe in defense of Mann: ‘Garbage’.
      Those were the days my friends, I guess they’ll never end.
      ======================
    10. Klaus
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 6:02 PM | Permalink | Reply
      Could someone explain for non native speakers what a wackjob is? Even my dictionary fails on this word. Thanks in advance.
      • James Smyth
        Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 6:16 PM | Permalink | Reply
        Wacko. Crazy.
      • Salamano
        Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 6:39 PM | Permalink | Reply
        It’s a combination of “Wacko” and “Nut-Job” … perhaps a pithier way of getting both in ;)
      • observa
        Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 6:46 PM | Permalink | Reply
        wackjob= weasely and hard to get a handle on scientifically so don’t go there- verboten- best left untouched- hands off- not just eggonyerface- etc
    11. Robert Way
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 6:16 PM | Permalink | Reply
      Once again – I must reiterate my disdain at finding more of my private discussions placed on the internet. Including instances where I disagreed with other scientists and individuals using language that is meant for private discussions. Do you feel that it is fair to do this to a grad student? To choose to highlight examples that may someday lead to negative repercussions for an individual? This is exactly why me and Steve Mc will never get along. I don’t believe in going out of my way to try and hurt people – and if you do not think that this type of behavior will not lead to adverse affects on my life then you are being naive.
      I don’t believe in publicizing someone’s stolen correspondence (even if it were to reflect well on the person), it is simply wrong. On a previous thread Steve lectured me on “honor”, well what is honorable about this? I was a co-author on a climate paper and I had my correspondence stolen so somehow that gives you the right to publicize it and have hundreds of people read through my personal commentary?
      Perhaps I am old fashioned but I judge people not only on what they say but how they say it. If you go about things in a considerate way then people will disagree with you but they will be reasonable back – this is my view on science as well, that if you have legitimate criticisms for the approach someone is using then you can bring them up without having the words in the criticism dripping with distain. This is why I do not participate at places like Climate Audit – the commentary (Statistically) could be reasonable and worth exploring but then you have to read all kinds of insinuations – not outright statements, but rather insinuations about impropriety from scientists – about the convenience of the results.
      It would be nice for one episode – one back and forth between scientists and members here to not escalate into insinuations or inappropriate behavior (which I think most people would consider publicizing stolen correspondence to be).
      I find it ironic because in this paper Kevin and I did everything you would have liked – we made our data and code freely accessible, we answered questions and immediately responded at blogs to help people better understand what was done – we provided an SI and an update testing various assumptions in the method. We made clear that this was a first step that we wanted to use to help improve things going forward and welcomed others to “audit” the method and to find better ways.
      How has climate audit responded? By discussing my stolen private correspondence even when I asked for it to stop. It is bad enough that my family has to read online hundreds of “contrarians” trashing me – but this – this goes beyond that. I would like to bridge the gap and come to a consensus (or discussion) on methods and science but there has to be two people willing to do so in good faith.
      • Michael Jankowski
        Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 6:39 PM | Permalink | Reply
        “… I don’t believe in going out of my way to try and hurt people…”
        Really? So trying to “pin down” McIntyre and noting how difficult it is didn’t require you going out of your way and wasn’t done with the intent of damaging him?
        If you want to be judged not only on what you say but how you say it, then how shall we judge you on the quotes provided here? Boo-hoo-hooing that correspondence you thought would remain between friends didn’t turn out to be so private after all? Haven’t you heard that “character is what you do when nobody is watching?” McIntyre didn’t “have the balls” to do a reconstruction, and you didn’t “haven’t the balls” to say some of these things in public – or have it posted in public.
        Does your family really “read online hundreds of ‘contrarians’ trashing you? Seriously? Did they also get to read you trashing ‘contrarians’ as well? Did they get to read you trashing McIntyre for doing nothing more than making points you agreed with?
        You’re not old-fashioned, you’re just well off-the-mark.
      • Gerald Machnee
        Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 6:54 PM | Permalink | Reply
        If it is private, leave it off the internet, face-book, twitter, etc.
        My first recommendation is to get off the SKS weblog – solve problem one.
      • david eisenstadt
        Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 6:54 PM | Permalink | Reply
        while I understand your pique at having what you felt were private writings published…i can only add:
        1) you dont come off as too much of an arse, in fact you seem to be quite reasonable, especially when compared to the conspiracists you were communicating with,
        2) when you work with others to collect negative information about people with whom you disagree,
        3) when youre part of a cabal which acts to suppress dissent,
        3) when you use email to achieve those goals,
        you shouldnt be surprised when your writings come back to haunt you.
        maybe these guidelines will help you:
        1) dont say everything you think
        2) dont write everything you say
        3) assume that your writings will be made public at some point.
      • Robert Way
        Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 6:59 PM | Permalink | Reply
        I believe a series of the comments posted in response to my own comment violate this website’s own policies. I ask why is personal abuse being tolerated against me. As an author of the paper you were discussing and whose comments you are discussing I should not be forced to sustain personal abuse by appearing here.
        Steve: I’ve been offline for a while and edit after the fact. If you identify the comments that you believe to be abusive, I will examine and snip appropriately.
        • johnfpittman
          Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 7:08 PM | Permalink | Reply
          I appreciate your efforts to post and answer questions about your work here and elsewhere.
        • david eisenstadt
          Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 7:17 PM | Permalink | Reply
          I appreciate your comments on this blog, as well as your willingness to engage with individuals who post here. On the whole, the tenor of your writings excerpted here indicate that youre a pretty reasonable guy, and I empathize with your concerns.
          im sorry that you feel that you are being abused, that was not my intent.
          but still, a reasonable expectation of privacy in emails sent to a group discussing just how they should go about discrediting those they disagreed with?
          you may expect that your emails would remain private, im just sayin that its not a reasonable expectation….
          thank you for taking the time to read and respond to what is written here.
        • Geoff Sherrington
          Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 10:42 PM | Permalink | Reply
          Robert,
          Suggest you vacate the field of “communicating the message” and immerse yourself in pure research. Warning – do not try to direct your research according to your beliefs. That is one of the biggest, most frequent no-nos we encounter.
          There are comments posted on this blog where readers are trying to do what you seek, namely comment on your work.
          You might not like the way that some comments are angled, but they are usually asked seriously on this blog. It’s a grown up word here and people are tired of saying things over and over in great detail, so a curt summary can replace a flowery salutation.
        • Robert Way
          Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 3:38 AM | Permalink | Reply
          From this comment thread I have learned that I am a coward with an incredible lack of self awareness and a lack of integrity suffering from duplicity but also am blinded by tribalism due to my position as a co-conspirator at SKS. Oh yeah and some guy down there (omnologos) compared me to an ex convict white supremacist.
          So were I to be so presumptuous as to suggest a comment to snip – I might suggest that one ;)
          • kim
            Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 3:41 AM | Permalink
            No wonder you whimper if you only learn from the negative criticism. Hey, I’m positive the glass is half full.
            =============
          • Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 3:47 AM | Permalink
            Hey Way not everybody airs their personal views only in secret forums. Another learning point.
            I’ve explained the comparison already. Feel free to play the cheating husband professing innocence and future trustworthiness. What worries me is you don’t know who Speer was.
        • Stacey
          Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 3:39 AM | Permalink | Reply
          Your comment is quite laughable considering the abusive comments you have made about Steve et al.
          Assuming you are a professional scientist then I suggest you well act professionally.
          If you were practising most professions in the uk you would either be censured or struck off for your unprofessional remarks.
      • Salamano
        Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 7:00 PM | Permalink | Reply
        This is an unfortunate side-reason for trying to cache “scientific discourse” out of FOI …
        Are scientists free then to engage in ad-hominem (er ‘lockerroom’ behavior?) as part of their ‘discourse’? Apparently so. Notice how CA (to my estimation) never used your use of these side-swipes as a reason to reject your arguments. And yet, what else would the effect of actually utterng such phrases do to readers who are trying to evaluate multiple arguments “in good faith”– or furthermore, seeking them out on their own rather than seeing what the filtered translation is from the power-brokers above them in the field? It would be naturally (and artificially) stunting.
        I’m sure many a politician (etc) brought down by ‘stolen’ ‘hacked’ correspondence and all the like would wish they could simply bemoan that they were hacked rather than its substance.
        I think the larger point remains in all this is that perhaps the embarrassment stems from a realization that young scientists feel subconscious urge to ‘play ball’ to senior scientists– to the point that even the most obvious agreement with a ‘sparring-partner’ of sorts carried with it the obligatory need to side-swipe to maintain credibility (or membership). That’s embarrassing for the science itself, because it shows manifestations of budding group-think and ideological purification (or whatever else you want to call it). Seeing it discovered that you yourself may have fell pray to those urges to which subordinates are extremely vulnerable probably is embarrassing, and maybe it would give you more peace to see your reformed and more mature present commentary paper-over such a past. Furthermore, to have someone else (your target) implicitly recognize such growth and reward it by keeping the former self under-wraps or ‘in the family’ may be a bridge too far– and not something that should be used to change the subject. Perhaps a third-party this could be more reasonable… but not your direct target.
        Perhaps what you should feel is anger more than embarrassment. Maybe frustration is a better term. As a young scientist myself I felt the urge to ‘play-along’ in various contexts, then becoming upset at myself for having said things that I wish I could take back and that years later realized in no way reinforced the saliency of my points but instead my membership in the group– which was apparently pretty important back then. Instead, one gets angry that those conditions exist, and are fomented within the younger group we’re trying to grow to become the future. They instead become ideologues and sycophants, and it can taint their work.
        Whatever it is you do feel about your words said a while back, the negative emotions perhaps (again) are pointed at the wrong target.
      • Toby White
        Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 7:30 PM | Permalink | Reply
        +1, or at least +0.8 +/- 0.1.
      • Brandon Shollenberger
        Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 8:38 PM | Permalink | Reply
        Robert Way, in this comment you repeat your insistence McIntyre is misbehaving by using “stolen” communication, noting that communication includes “language that is meant for private discussions.”You further say you don’t “believe in going out of [your] way to try and hurt people” Finally, you say:
        Perhaps I am old fashioned but I judge people not only on what they say but how they say it.
        In doing so, you ignore the responses this sort of remark from you have generated. You even ignore the fact Steve McIntyre has directly responded to much of what you say, such as here. As such, let us consider each of the points I highlighted.
        1) You freely promoted discussions of stolen documents when they were from the Heartland Institute. You now complain when people discuss other “stolen” material.
        2) The stolen material from the Heartland Institute was directly used to attack and harm it. You supported this. You now say you don’t believe in going out of your way to try to harm people.
        3) You insulted Steve McIntyre in the Skeptical Science forums where he couldn’t possibly defend himself. You went out of the way to promote negative views of a McIntyre, including the view that he’s a lunatic. You did so while discussing the criticisms he raised of various things. You now say people can discuss criticisms without “dripping with distain.”
        You say you judge people not by what the say but by how they say it. Apply that standard to yourself. Even when you acknowledged McIntyre was right on points, you went out of your way to insult him. You went out of your way to lace your supportive comments of him “with distain” in order to maintain a negative image of him – to harm him. You say:
        This is exactly why me and Steve Mc will never get along.
        But by your standards, nobody should get along with you. You’re at least as guilty as McIntyre on every point you raise.
      • Ed Barbar
        Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 9:05 PM | Permalink | Reply
        and if you do not think that this type of behavior will not lead to adverse affects on my life then you are being naive.
        No one knows the path life will take them through. How do you know. Yes, you can optimize your chances, and perhaps congratulate yourself when you think it seems to be going well, but you will never know if another path would be better, even at this juncture you are so concerned about.
        This bothers me:
        “don’t leave yourself open to criticism when people are watching. ”
        Do you feel you unfairly characterized some others work behind their back? If not, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about. If so, then what was the purpose?
        How about unfairly characterizing someone? If not, you shouldn’t worry. If so, you should stop. It’s not fair to the person.
        If you are concerned it takes a certain belief set to get along with your folks, maybe its the wrong folks.
      • Steve McIntyre
        Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 9:36 PM | Permalink | Reply
        Robert,
        I agree with Brandon Shollenberger’s comments.
        I also disagree with your assertion that my characterization of your comments was “dripping with disdain”. On the contrary. I explicitly observed that, except for a couple of occasions, you avoided the conspiratorial language of your SKS associates. Nor did I express “disdain” for your comments on paleoclimate – on the contrary, I observed that, on numerous occasions, you endorsed and/or defended critiques advanced at Climate Audit, something that I approved of, rather than disdained.
        Rather than placing you in a bad light for readers of this blog, I thought that your comments showed you in a good light, especially to readers of this blog.
        You express concern about potential “negative repercussions”. I hope that circumstances in the climate community are not so dire that a young researcher like yourself would be punished by Mann and his acolytes for the having the temerity to criticize his reconstructions on matters where the criticism is deserved. If this is the case, then this is a problem that warrants the attention of the wider society. But I submit that your primary grievance ought to be with a “community” that would even think about punishing a young researcher for having independent views.
        • Robert Way
          Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 10:09 PM | Permalink | Reply
          I did not say that your direct comments in this post have been dripping with disdain, nor would I. I was speaking reflectively on the history of exchanges with climate scientists as a whole rather than this individual case. I feel that there are a great many comments in the discussion forums of many posts that tend to be very filled with disdain towards climate scientists. Would you call that a miss-characterization – I certainly wouldn’t. I would say the same about other blogs as well – the amount of insinuations and veiled commentary about the motivations of people involved in climate science is quite high on some posts. Just like there are a great many individuals who think that anti-climate science is driven completely by fossil fuel interests.
          There is a tendency in the blogosphere for selective reading and selective choosing of evidence which only supports a particular predefined world-view. I tend to get along well with individuals who are critical of hyperbole nowmatter which side it occurs on – I do not get along with people that you find sometimes here in the comments criticizing elaborate statistical techniques employed by scientists while in the same vein cheerleading the mathturbation you see in some posts at WUWT.
          And I agree – I have defended or endorsed critiques sometimes advanced on Climate Audit. This has occurred both professionally and in private. The difference is I feel I have the right to choose which critiques I would like to make fully public and when. The hacking removed that opportunity and I feel that we all have a right to discretion if we so choose without having our personal character questioned which some people have chosen to do (and ironically sometimes by those using pseudonyms).
          • Carrick
            Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 11:00 PM | Permalink
            Robert, while I admit a bit of distress that we can’t as a group move beyond the leaked SKS files and talk about substantive science issues, I think it’s important for you to realize that anything you write that goes out to anybody besides /dev/null should always be considered public.
            I had this attitude in the 1980s when I was working on a controversial problem for my Ph.D. I never expected my emails sent to a colleague to discuss issues with the paper, and even strategies for dealing with criticisms, to be given to a third party, especially not without my consent, but they were. I learned about this when the third party to whom they had been released contacted me for “formal consent” to publish them in a book…. that he had already written.
            Of course I complied, and didn’t even correct the author on his misinterpretation of one of my emails (the point was valid regardless of the erroneous use of my email exchange to demonstrate it), nor did I mention that he had received the emails without my consent. What was the point?
          • Carrick
            Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 11:12 PM | Permalink
            And by the way I am adamant that I won’t use the word “hacked” unless it has been authoritatively demonstrated that a hacking occurred. The files are obviously “leaked”, because they were disseminated without the consent of the group (that’s what I mean by “leaked” anyway).
            Claiming that a hacking had occurred, not even in good faith making claims based on information you have seen, does not serve as a proxy here. If you are not trained in computer security, things that look like a hack to you, can turn out to be innocuous and due to “operator error”.
      • Chuck L
        Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 10:42 PM | Permalink | Reply
        Dr. Way, Your paper has been treated fairly and many “deniers” have given you props for it. “Stolen” emails or not, your language is/should be embarrassing for you and is grossly intemperate. However, I can see how you are in a delicate position; disagreeing with and criticizing members of the “climate establishment” could, realistically, be detrimental to your career, a state of affairs that is unfortunate and damaging not only to climate science but to science in general.
      • Douglas Foss
        Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 10:53 PM | Permalink | Reply
        It’s a credit to you that you come by and speak. I’m turning 60 and essentially write for a living. If what is quoted in the piece above is accurately presented, you are a remarkable young person. The measure that appears in your writings, and your respect for where thinking can take you, mark you as uncommon. You say and ask, “Do you feel that it is fair to do this to a grad student? To choose to highlight examples that may someday lead to negative repercussions for an individual?” Toward the latter part of life, you will see that there are only the ideas; all the personal stuff drops away, and those who disagree with you; you find they can’t really touch you. I encourage you to read “Dune”. Fear is the mind killer, and you should never be afraid to move forward based only, even merely, on your own certainty. You have spoken, and unless you care to retract what you said as improvident or wrong, then stay with it. You will never regret a life of taking a position you think, that you feel in your heart, is right. I once had a dinner with a Navy Seal team, and the simplicity and elegance of lives devoid of fear of what others might think, or even what might happen to them individually, was truly eye opening. There was not a hint of ego at the table. Everything to them devolved to “duty” and “honor,” and they lived a life true to themselves and to those with whom they served. Follow the truth, as you discern it and can speak it. Such a course always leads to fulfillment, even if you don’t win the clapper claw hurrahs of those who prefer being a member of the pack. I understand your fear, but I also know with absolute certainty that your worth as a person is not measured by the extent to which others accept you.
      • Steve Reynolds
        Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 11:03 PM | Permalink | Reply
        Robert,
        I sympathize with your position, especially since I don’t see much wrong with your exposed comments when coming from a student.
        The real shame is that you need to fear the effect of their impact on your career, presumably because of not following the party line. The fault for that though, lies with the people that think following the party line is more important than the science.
      • DGH
        Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 11:47 PM | Permalink | Reply
        Robert,
        Do you object to this posting at SKS which is based on stolen documents and fabrications?
        DGH
      • MikeN
        Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 1:14 AM | Permalink | Reply
        >and if you do not think that this type of behavior will not lead to adverse affects on my life then you are being naive.
        I’m being naive. What effects are you suggesting?
      • geronimo
        Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 1:44 AM | Permalink | Reply
        Robert I’m not following you, perhaps you could enlighten me. Do you believe that you have anything to be ashamed of in the extracts quoted on this blog? If you do, why did you write them? Actually you don’t come across as anything other than a potentially good scientist willing to take on board criticism, and indeed eager to engage with your critics, apart that is for the name calling.
        I think, rather than ruin your reputation, Steve has done you a favour in showing your concern, even amongst the den of fanatics that comprises SkS, for the scientific truth. You have behaved admirably in handling criticism of your recent paper, and indeed have provided all the data and SI material. Well done, you may be a young undergrad, but you and you co-writer are giving lessons in science to your elders, but not betters.
        Just continue to follow this precept, there are no sides in science, so don’t take a side, follow the truth, you appear to have a problem of conscience in that you have joined a side, and a not very savoury one at that, but you want the truth to be what that side says it is and, admirably, when it isn’t your conscience pricks you. That’s good, now leave the side and join the science.
    12. Don Monfort
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 6:29 PM | Permalink | Reply
      Way suppresses his honest streak for the good of the cause.
      • kim
        Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 7:13 PM | Permalink | Reply
        Actually, he dramatically flourishes his honest streak, then quickly wraps back up in his comfort coat.
        =====================
        • Carrick
          Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 11:13 PM | Permalink | Reply
          How does one dramatically flourish one’s honest streak?
          I’d like to learn that trick.
          • kim
            Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 12:24 AM | Permalink
            Robert Way exposed himself courageously trying to bring sense to that mad crowd.
            ============
    13. pyromancer76
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 6:30 PM | Permalink | Reply
      I, too, felt a chill: “McIntyre need to go down”. At the same time, I felt deep gratitude for your courage in the face of this vicious opposition, even from someone who is forced by the evidence to agree with you.
      But, then, when you work with the truths of the scientific method and mathematics, you have their protections at your back. More power to you, Steve McIntyre, and I feel pride in “knowing you” way back when almost at the time the “battle” was enjoined. You, ever gentlemanly and persistent, kept (and keep) them honest — and vividly display their flaming dishonesty.
      I, too, hope you will send this piece far and wide. You have the gift of narrative in addition to a gifted mind. Thanks again.
    14. Manfred
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 6:38 PM | Permalink | Reply
      Is the content of that secret forum still available anywhere on the internet ?
      • thisisnotgoodtogo
        Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 10:02 PM | Permalink | Reply
        Not on “The Waybackthen Machine”.
    15. Jon P
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 6:39 PM | Permalink | Reply
      Robert,
      On the science, why would your private conversations be different from your public ones? Why do your own words offend you so much?
      Other than that, you having some sense that posting conversations on a Weblog will remain private is an astonishing admission of being very naïve with technology. Perhaps in your continued private conversation with SKS you will raise your anger/disappointment with them.
    16. pyromancer76
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 6:42 PM | Permalink | Reply
      I wish Robert Way had (and had had) the courage of his convictions, especially as a grad student. If we don’t develop scientists of courage, we won’t have any science anymore. And if one’s supervisors (lead professors) have no scientific integrity, then it is time to find others.
      “Private discussions placed on the internet”?!? Anyone of any intelligence knows that you do not put in emails anything that you aren’t ready for the world to read. It’s a simple truth born of years, now, of experience.
      I feel someone weeping.
    17. Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 6:45 PM | Permalink | Reply
      Is there any past example of good science coming from extremely partisan scientists, unable to air their actual views in public?
    18. Walter Manny
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 7:15 PM | Permalink | Reply
      Way has been guilty of nothing but doing what one must do to remain in good standing with his tribe while attempting to pursue science as it should be pursued. He has defended the indefensible (McIntyre’s work), and while the perfect would be to do so without the sideswipes, it’s understandable that the good would include those. Again, owning that and moving away from the SkS crowd would be a great step towards authenticity.
      • DocMartyn
        Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 8:20 PM | Permalink | Reply
        You do know that you can work in science even if you antagonize ones peers?
        It is more difficult and they do judge your grants on panel, but if you suck up and allow unethical practices to continue without comment, they will continue.
    19. JEM
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 7:19 PM | Permalink | Reply
      What’s the quote? “For evil to triumph, all that is necessary is for good men to say nothing”?
    20. Patrick M.
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 7:20 PM | Permalink | Reply
      Robert Way,
      I think Steve has deliberately selected quotes from you that lend balance to the other quotes that have been posted here. You seem to have a strong sense of being true to the science even when in the company of those who may not see science as the top priority. That takes guts.
      You said some things in that forum that I’m sure, being more mature as you have pointed out, you would no longer say. There’s an easy way to fix that, but it takes guts too.
      I wouldn’t have taken the time to post this if I didn’t think you were worth talking to.
      Take care,
      Patrick
    21. Maggie
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 7:25 PM | Permalink | Reply
      Robert – it is clear this to-and-fro is distressing you and that is unfortunate as a sad fact of life is that we get more timid as we get older. Fear as the determining factor in how honest you are or how you should engage with people will damage you far more than anyone else’s actions ever could.
    22. Watcher
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 7:29 PM | Permalink | Reply
      It has to be a good five or six years since I’ve been following this blog, along with Real Climate and a handful of others. Other than being old enough to remember Scientific American discussing the difficulties of teasing out a Global Cooling signal from a noisy and incomplete data set (!! Yes, that was the 70′s) I went into the “Climate Wars” without preconceptions, armed only with a few decades of experience in academic and industrial research and development work.
      What I saw when I started reading was a deep, deep divide with a level of vitriol that was simply gobsmacking. In my opinion the worst offenders were probably Tamino’s followed by WUWT or Real Climate — kind of dead heat there — with CA a distant Nth. Given the provocation Steve received over the MBH fiasco and much following I thought he was pretty restrained, and I have to admit also damn funny at the expense of some of the towering egos in the field. The attitude of supposedly eminent scientists at RC fed my scepticism of what I can only call the prevailing IPCC dogma at least as much as the considered analysis found at CA [Though I must hasten to exempt some of the RC folks, especially the ones active lately].
      That said, I understand and can appreciate Way’s concerns. If it’s one thing Climategate underscored it was that the intense back-biting evident in the blogs is part and parcel of what goes on behind the scenes. I really do have a day job and never found time or interest to look at the SkS stuff at the time. As a result I found Steve’s mining of the SkS archives extremely illuminating. For what it’s worth, I think it paints Way in a very good light, and in a “normal” field of research his attitude would be as commendable as it would be unremarkable.
      The trouble is that it’s not a “normal” field of research, as evidenced by what’s going on in Warsaw at this very moment. Huge sums of money and shifts of political power hinge on the interpretation of the science, and for that reason the behind the scenes suppression of criticism shown up by Climategate and the SkS excerpts in this thread are everybody’s concern.
      This background appears to have fuelled the self-importance and sense of entitlement of those who back the IPCC line to the point where yes, I do agree there is a very real chance that circulation of Way’s comments could cause harm to his career. This is extremely regrettable; but again as an old dog I will say it’s probably nowhere near as bleak as it may appear to him now. It never is. However, I think it’s incumbent on the responsible folks here to recognise the validity of his concern and cut the man some slack.
      • kim
        Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 7:39 PM | Permalink | Reply
        Truly, his already demonstrated honesty marks him out from much of the rest of climate science. He is fearful, but perhaps only of his strength.
        Now, about that hodgepodge of an Arctic article.
        ==========
        • michael hart
          Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 2:19 AM | Permalink | Reply
          Other Menn have probably said more heated things in such straits.
    23. John Francis
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 7:32 PM | Permalink | Reply
      I have read every word of Climate Audit for years now. Except when sorely provoked on a few occasions, I defy anyone to find Steve’s writing to be anything but courteous, principled, and topic-related, as opposed to the ad-hominems frequently used against him. Any fair-minded person can see who is the gentleman and scholar, and who is not.
      • Pat Frank
        Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 8:16 PM | Permalink | Reply
        Right on, John. I’ve been reading CA since 2003. Steve M. has invariably been acutely analytical, restrained and civil in his comments and rejoinders, and even in the face of grotesque attacks has always bent over backwards to be polite and fair; sometimes to a fault IMO.
        It’s also become quite clear that he has worked harder and more successfully than most of the practitioners in the field, to understand paleo-temperature reconstructions and the mathematics used therein.
        For all of that honesty and for his real contributions to good science, he has received a steady stream of opprobrium from AGW-consensus scientists. By that response they have shown themselves to have abandoned integrity for activism.
        Robert Way had no reasonable basis to call Steve M. a “wackjob” or JeffID a “douche.” This is especially true after arguing that their critical output was fully justified as regards MBH98/99, the Tiljander sediments, and the Steig Antarctic fiasco. That is, Robert Way’s scientific evaluations contradicted his personal derogations. He should have realized that. Instead, peer approval apparently seduced him into making the casual communitarian slanders of a good-ole-boy club. From the experience of my own youthful mistakes, the only way out of that situation is to own the words and apologize for them.
        • Don Monfort
          Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 11:42 PM | Permalink | Reply
          Apologizing to Steve McIntyre would not boost a young man’s career in the climate science. He is in enough trouble, already.
          • Ian H
            Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 3:38 AM | Permalink
            Once the dust settles perhaps Way will notice that he has come out of this quite well.
            Dr Way – your paper has survived being audited on climate audit with its conclusions remaining essentially intact. That is a rare distinction and one that you should be proud of. You need not defer to the likes of Mann and his posse. After all when Mann’s papers were audited here they ended up being absolutely shredded. The verdict of this blog at least is that you are the better scientist.
            As to the unfortunate comments on SKS; I think most of us understand the social pressures on that blog that made you feel obliged to make those “sideswipes”. Understandably Steve seems a bit annoyed at you for calling him a “wackjob”. However I suspect he ultimately cares more about what you had to say about his work.
            You criticise Steve for quoting at length the comments you made on SKS. But you were involved, were you not, in a discussion on SKS where quotes from Steve that might portray him in an unfavorable light were actively being solicited. Surely turn about is fair play.
    24. Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 7:40 PM | Permalink | Reply
      Quick recap – scientist joins secret partisan forum where he repeatedly reassures the troops of his commitment to and conviction about the cause. Then gets upset when the secret forum isn’t secret any longer.
      (a) What was he thinking when he subordinated his scientific stance to looking good in the eyes of fellow partisans?
      (b) Why isn’t he mad at the incompetence among the same fellow partisans, that has caused the secret forum to be secret no longer?
      (c) When is he going to draw the most logical conclusion about the partisan forum and its participants?
      (d) When is he going to wake up to the reality of the internet, with the now-old saying about not writing anything one wouldn’t want to see printed front page news the next day?
      (e) How can we tell the impact of all the naivety displayed above on the scientific output of an author who has just been hailed on RC as the discoverer of the missing heat?
    25. Buzz Fledderjohn
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 7:49 PM | Permalink | Reply
      Steve McI… Can you please send me several years of your private emails so that I can go through and publicize what you say in your private correspondences.
      I’d be much obliged.
      • Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 7:58 PM | Permalink | Reply
        Buzz tries a very flawed argument. Way’s messages weren’t private emails, rather statements publicly available to all participants of the secret forum. Furthermore, it was a secret forum, and by making what appear to be very sincere utterances on that forum, Way implicitly trusted the forum’s managers to be clever enough to keep all the information secret, plus acknowledged the information had to be kept secret because non-participants were interested in it. He should therefore be surprised not a jot about people going through the same information when the forum’s managers were shown to be not so clever after all.
        For those who can’t read more than 11 words: secret private.
        • Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 7:59 PM | Permalink | Reply
          oops…the last bit should be “secret is different from private”
        • Buzz Fledderjohn
          Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 8:33 PM | Permalink | Reply
          Ah, I see. So, private emails aren’t secret. Is that your contention? Or are you saying that secret correspondences aren’t private?
          I actually think the argument I’m making, though rhetorical since Steve not likely to give me anything, is quite appropriate in this case. Steve believes it’s okay to trot everyone else’s private/secret (whichever way you want to define it) conversations before the public, but he’s unwilling to divulge is own.
          My question is, are Steve’s private/secret conversations on climate issues any different in tone or intent than any he presents here?
          Is Steve telling us that he would never ever act similar to those he “exposes” here?
          Inquiring minds want to know.
          • Manfred
            Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 9:10 PM | Permalink
            I think you are missing the point, which is that climate scientists say very different things in private than they do in public about important scientific issues, and that not telling that message resulted in a costly burden for (almost) everyone on the planet.
            What would be the alternative ? Wait another 10 years to speak up, hoping the dust may have settled by then ?
          • kim
            Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 12:31 AM | Permalink
            You don’t need a dustman to see what’s burnt to ashes,
            For the times, they are a changin’.
            =========
        • Geoff Sherrington
          Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 10:57 PM | Permalink | Reply
          We have a similar situation in Australia where our new Prime Minister was ambushed by publication of some hacked messages about surveillance of the Indonesian PM & wife, via Edward Snowden, courtesy of the US Government not having adequate security around its spy documents.
          It happens.
      • kim
        Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 8:00 PM | Permalink | Reply
        Circumspection such as his generally encompasses the whole ore body, public and private, that is drill holes and interstitially krigged stuff.
        =============
      • AntonyIndia
        Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 8:51 PM | Permalink | Reply
        I finally get a notion of how Lewandowsky got on his conspiracy theory hobby horse: SKS’s secret forum for one. The IPCC might be another.
    26. Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 7:55 PM | Permalink | Reply
      The extremely one-sided jaundiced view of climate science is able to be promoted by such a venue as Skepticalscience because of the Ways and the Curtises who hide their own dissenting opinions from public view.
      Cook and Marriott, both bloggers in climate land, carried out real-time harvesting of their fellow bloggers and commenters’ content for their personal publication. How many skepticalscience commenters have stepped out to defend or support people whose commenters were exploited in this manner?
      The genetically isolated walled-off community encourages polarization. This spills out into ‘moderation’ of offered comments and suspicion of motive. This is still ongoing. Such close-minded cultivation of brooding suspicion carries consequences. For instances, for all practical purposes, interaction between climate audit and skepticalscience, via the channels of openly offered blog comments, blog posts and replies, was minimal to none. What intrinsic reason was there to view McIntyre as a mortal enemy who “has to go down”?
      Would it be far off if it was inferred, that since according to Skepticalscience McIntyre “had to go down”, John Cook and his associates wrote a paper characterizing him as a conspiracy theorist?
      With Anthony Watts the story is worse. When the forum contents were leaked, Watts refused to publish them. Yet, behind the curtain, the worst invective was reserved for him, in large part owing to the fact that his website gets high traffic, and no better reason.
      • Anthony Watts
        Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 11:35 PM | Permalink | Reply
        “With Anthony Watts the story is worse. When the forum contents were leaked, Watts refused to publish them. Yet, behind the curtain, the worst invective was reserved for him, in large part owing to the fact that his website gets high traffic, and no better reason.”
        Indeed. I decided to take the high road at the time, but then I gradually realized through other interactions with members of the SkS community that they held me in contempt, even though I had refused to do what many other bloggers at the time were doing; publishing the SkS forum contents.
        Around that time, they had petitioned me to stop WUWT commenters from using the distasteful abbreviation “SS” to refer to the incongruously named “Skeptical Science” website. For obvious reasons. I agreed to do so, something that continues to this day but I also asked for a favor in return: “stop labeling people they disagreed with as ‘deniers’ on SkS” It got run up the flagpole there, and was roundly refused. They couldn’t let go of their need for a hateful label. Yet, while at the same time they were asking not to be referred to by abbreviation as “SS”, these clowns were playing dressing themselves up as Nazis with imagery like this one: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/1_herrcook.jpg This sort of behavior makes me wonder why I ever bothered to instruct my readers not to use the “SS” abbreviation.
        After all that history, I haven’t found much reason to grant any additional favors, especially since I learned that while taking the high ground and changing the way they were abbreviated in comments (enforcing SkS and not SS), they were secretly looking for Steve and I to be “perp walked” and fantasizing about “ripping” out my throat.
        It’s tribalism of the worst kind at SkS. And it got even worse with the associations with Lewandowsky where the same set of people who didn’t want to be referred to as “SS” by abbreviation, askign for exceptions in abreviation (CA, RC, and WUWT are all commonly acceptable and well used letter abbreviations, and by those examples “SS” would be too), were perfectly fine with helping get papers published on labeling climate skeptics as “moon landing deniers” without actually polling most skeptic blogs (because they knew they wouldn’t be able to use the data) and colluding to create 97% consensus claims by having a pal-review of published papers.
        Upthread, the word “duplicity” was suggested as the right word to describe this sort of behavior. Technically, that’s the right word, but I don’t think it captures the invective that we have observed. The phrase “mendacious duplicity” might be more applicable.
        Sadly, Steve has actually done something gracious here for Robert Way, yet now Robert seems too blinded by the tribalism we’ve seen on display at SkS to realize it. I’m not at all surprised though, while Robert has been reasonable and even courageous on some occasions as demonstrated by Steve’s post today, he’s caught up in the tribalism trap.
        C.S. Lewis once wrote: — ‘Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.’ I submit that SkS would have far less of an integrity problem and far less tribalism if they didn’t have that secret forum.
        • Robert Way
          Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 1:44 AM | Permalink | Reply
          All these comments about these discussions aside I find it curious that you’re criticizing me Anthony when I should be criticizing you for allowing erroneous statements about our paper to be headlined at your blog.
          In particular the David Whitehouse commentary on our paper which states
          “No infilling technique was consistently the best performer [FALSE]. The hybrid method was the best when there was no data [FALSE], in general kriging was better for the rest of the world [FALSE]. However, looking more carefully shows that the hybrid system was generally best for land whilst neither of them showed any predictive skill over Antarctica [FALSE]. It is slightly worrying that the researchers then picked the best reconstruction method for various parts of the Earth to create a mosaic of methods to represent global reality [FALSE and ?????????]…”
          If you want to critique the paper go right ahead – but it is best that you ensure the person doing the critique has not misread the paper.
          For those of you unaware the Hybrid method was overall a much better performer in the cross validation process, particularly in the presence of nearby data but also outperformed kriging for the most isolated regions. The error associated with the Hybrid method was overall much lower than both the Null and Kriging methods and I have no idea how someone reading the paper and the associated online materials could conclude that “no…technique was consistently the best…”.
          The hybrid method also performed fairly well in Antarctica during cross-validation and subsequent tests against Byrd station’s reconciled record suggest the same. Furthermore the relatively agreement with the ERA-I reanalysis leads credence to those results as Screen et al (2012) showed that system and Merra performed well for spatial reconstructions in Antarctica. Is the method perfect for Antarctica? No. And we will be further investigating the issue so that we can better estimate temperature in isolated regions. However there is no reason at all to conclude that the method showed no predictive skill over antarctica (Figure 3 will show that well). I have no idea where this claim arises “It is slightly worrying that the researchers then picked the best reconstruction method for various parts of the Earth to create a mosaic of methods to represent global reality”. That one puzzles me… ?
          Now of course this all leaves out the other headline which was
          “An ‘Uh Oh’ for Cowtan and Way? Arctic temperatures peaked before 1950, declining since” based on data that ended in 1998… I wonder what has happened in the Arctic since then… you were rightly called out on by Mosher and Zeke – though it appears Mosher’s comments have somehow disappeared… and the title has changed according to google cache…
          I think it would be worthwhile for you to both change the initial title for this story which is misleadingly labeled and also to have Whitehouse provide a correction to the statements above he made about the paper. I haven’t parsed through his discussion – nor will I when it appears he clearly misread the paper. Thank you for your help with this Anthony – I’m sure you’ll make every effort to clear those issues up ;)
          • Anthony Watts
            Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 2:36 AM | Permalink
            Robert pulls a switcheroo here, and instead of addressing the points I bring up, goes off on a distraction.
            Apparently he was unable to read this note at the bottom of this post:
            ================================================================
            [Note: this original post was written during my workday and making a comparison to the Cowtan and Way paper, and like sometimes happens during my day, I got interrupted, and then got off on a tangent that wasn't correct. To correct my mistake, I've republished this post sans that tangent. Later I'll get back to my original idea when I have more time. - Anthony]
            You see, unlike the SkS, I’m able to make changes and admit a mistake based on critiques. Rather than let the mistake fester, I republished the story minus my mistake and left a note about it. It is a new post, minus my erroneous tangent which also made it into the title. Zeke’s comments were never in the original post, and Mosher’s comment went out with the old post. The corrected post was republished within the hour, as per WUWT policy where it states:
            - Stories that have been posted may get edited in the first hour after they first appear. Sometimes errors or mistakes (particularly in formatting) aren’t seen until the post is published. If something doesn’t look right and the post is brand-new, try refreshing in a few minutes. Of course, after an hour if something is still wrong, don’t hesitate to leave a comment to point it out.
            So per policy, I fixed a mistake and left a public note. Has SkS ever done that? I’m not sure, but I am sure SkS has retroactively made changes to comments months later to change their meaning with no notice of any kind. How do you justify that?
            And this: “I haven’t parsed through his discussion – nor will I when it appears he clearly misread the paper.” My goodness, pronouncements from on high, no need to read it.
            As for Dr. Whitehouse, take it up with him on The GWPF where the post originates, if he issues a change, I’ll certainly follow.
            Now, once again I’ve made changes to accommodate. What are you going to do? Will it be as before – all take and no give? Seems so. Will you ever address the failings of your tribal forum here?
            Or will you go back to the secret forum that has caused you and the tribe so much trouble and join in some new condemnation behind closed doors?
          • Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 2:43 AM | Permalink
            There is an obvious desire to engage/reply to Mr Way. I am not sure it’s anything else than a waste of time though. For all we know, he has just published a post to some other secret forum, praising Anthony and David Whitehouse.
            Trust isn’t an easily exchanged currency. Trust is like the use of one’s legs: once it lost, it is usually a long journey to get it back.
    27. Walter Manny
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 7:59 PM | Permalink | Reply
      I hope most here will have the decency to let the W&C paper stand or fall on its merits and avoid the temptation to infer Mr. Way has sought to tease out data favorable to an agenda. Mr. McIntyre has gone out of his way to let us know of this young man’s imperfect courage. It’s hard to see how any responsible person would not welcome his [Way's] scientific contributions, now or in the future.
      • Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 8:04 PM | Permalink | Reply
        it’s a field that eats its young. Remember Marcott? Wagner? Gergis?
        • Watcher
          Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 8:14 PM | Permalink | Reply
          “it’s a field that eats its young. Remember Marcott? Wagner? Gergis?”
          Well said.
          • kim
            Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 12:10 AM | Permalink
            Steve dips this one by the heel, and not into Rooster Sauce.
            ============
          • michael hart
            Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 2:33 AM | Permalink
            And it may well save him later in his career, despite the Hectoring he will receive.
        • Manniac
          Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 10:59 PM | Permalink | Reply
          They forgot the rules for Intelectuals:
          1. Don’t think.
          2. If you think, then don’t speak.
          3. If you speak, then don’t write.
          4. If you write, then don’t sign.
          5. If you think, speak, write and sign, then don’t be surprised.
    28. Paul Baverstock
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 8:21 PM | Permalink | Reply
      I believe most of the comments on here have been supportive of Mr Way in telling the truth to colleagues who appeared to be quite willing to turn their eyes and ears away from tose truths. His protesting is perhaps to maintain his membership of the secret forum and defend his own “dishonest” support of the aims of that forum. His honesty in private does him much credit but to transfer that honesty to a public forum would bring much more – integrity.
    29. Political Junkie
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 8:27 PM | Permalink | Reply
      Robert Way,
      This devoted Climate Audit lurker would find it shocking and totally inexcusable to learn about Steve McIntyre participating in a secret forum, assuming privacy and making cheap shot snide comments to others about people with contrary views.
      Perhaps you should revive Michael Mann’s proposed project to get a private investigator to dig out some dirt on Steve to prove me wrong.
      -snip-
      • Buzz Fledderjohn
        Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 8:35 PM | Permalink | Reply
        Oh! Then Steve will surely be willing to show us his correspondences to prove to us all that he has never engaged in similar activities.
        • John M
          Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 9:16 PM | Permalink | Reply
          Buzz,
          Having exchanged some e-mails with Steve on how to respond to some things that had been written about him, I can assure you that he is as professional and measured in his e-mails as he is on his blog.
          I am also quite sure that folks like you would love to get a hold of his e-mails in order to “take down” folks like me and others who have corresponded with him.
        • TerryS
          Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 2:58 AM | Permalink | Reply
          Buzz, how can Steve prove a negative?
          He could publicise every email he has ever sent and you would simply claim that he has filtered out the ones that engage in similar activities.
    30. Political Junkie
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 8:44 PM | Permalink | Reply
      Oh crap, I just got snipped.
      I understand why, but if Robert Way saw what got cut, and also saw why, he’d better understand why many of us respect the integrity of the moderation policies on this site!
      • kim
        Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 12:08 AM | Permalink | Reply
        Your scalp may be scraped to the bone, but your hat has a feather in it.
        ===========
    31. Brandon Shollenberger
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 8:49 PM | Permalink | Reply
      I hadn’t remembered Robert Way was a co-author on the Skeptical Science consensus paper. Given he was fair-minded about many of the criticisms raised by Steve McIntyre, I wonder what he has said about that paper in private. It’s hard to miss the fact the entire PR campaign behind the paper (and arguably the paper itself) was based upon conflating support for the idea humans cause some amount of global warming with the idea humans have caused most global warming.
      I don’t see how he could have missed it, and if he didn’t, I don’t know how he could justify being a co-author of the paper.
    32. Brian H
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 9:07 PM | Permalink | Reply
      Way, you’d sound less curt and more courteous if you learned to spell it. \;p
    33. John Norris
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 9:20 PM | Permalink | Reply
      Robert Way: “I would like to bridge the gap and come to a consensus (or discussion) on methods and science but there has to be two people willing to do so in good faith.”
      Robert Way, I am pretty sure I read Steve McIntyre gave you an out for this in his post on the 18th.
      Steve McIntyre: “I said that he ought to withdraw the untrue remarks, presuming that an honorable person would withdraw untrue remarks voluntarily. This was not a “an implied threat or some form of blackmail”, but a simple request that someone do the right thing.”
      So go retract the bad things you said about him, apologize and he’ll move on. Everyone of your responses starts off with blaming him for the secret communications not being secret. Go back to the core issue, you insulted him. Take care of that first.
      - snip –
      You can walk back the ‘wackjob’ insult now or you can go on complaining about how the secret internet conversation turned out to be not so secret. You have the ability to bridge the gap. Turns out it is a trivial effort on your part to build that bridge.
    34. Ed Snack
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 10:07 PM | Permalink | Reply
      This surely was a cruel post, highlighting Way’s dissent from the groupthink of SKS apart from the obligatory snipes to prove his group loyalty. This is in general a very positive post from Steve on Robert, and as such deeply damaging to Robert’s future grant application viability.
    35. Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 10:20 PM | Permalink | Reply
      Mr. Way,
      I can assure you Mr. McIntyre has done you a tremendous favor. (Perhaps Steve’s paternal instinct kicked in :) ) He has taken the time to read through the postings and using your own words painted a picture of a young man who has good grasp of math, much courage and good judgment but perhaps hanging with the wrong crowd.
      You need not fear for your future. Indeed, these are the exact qualities I look for when I’m hiring.
      You need not be embarrassed that your family and colleagues may read the post. If I were your father and I think I’m old enough to be one, I would be most proud that my son spoke truth when others didn’t.
      Congratulation on publication of your paper.
      • kim
        Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Reply
        Uptwinkles.
        ======
    36. Pat Frank
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 11:03 PM | Permalink | Reply
      “Queen of Space Unicorns”
      How do I meet her? :-)
    37. miker613
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Reply
      What a remarkable post. Hate to say it, but Skeptical Science sounds like an awful place, where you can disagree in private but never out loud.
      I have to admit that I share Robert Way’s distress about publication of private correspondence, especially where it is so embarrassing and maybe harmful to him. All I can tell him is that this is the world we live in today, and no one has any defense against it. It doesn’t help some politician one bit to claim that no one had any right to his intimate whatever – his career will still be destroyed, and no news source thinks twice any more about publishing and re-publishing it. It’s news, and that’s all.
      In other words, Dr. Way, though I basically agree with you, you’re beating a dead horse. You will gain nothing by demanding that people stop re-publishing these things, as hardly anyone agrees with us.
    38. pottereaton
      Posted Nov 20, 2013 at 11:46 PM | Permalink | Reply
      I agree with Steve’s conclusion. If there is a hero in that SKS “secret” group it is Robert Way. The rest of what is written there is symptomatic of “extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds,” to quote the title of the book by Charles Mackay. Way occasionally had to add sideswipes to forfend accusations of disloyalty to the crowd, but the lion’s share of his comments is/are a credit to his integrity.
      • Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 12:44 AM | Permalink | Reply
        Hero?
        Definitely not. Coward? Most assuredly, otherwise Way would stand his ground and not add sound bite insults so he can keep his chummy chums.
        Since the first posting of C&W’s paper by Steve, Way has not faced up to legitimate criticism. It’s almost as if he’d prefer to swoon publicly about his oh so secret ‘private’ messages he placed on a public web page rather than forcefully stick to discussing his paper. That would be a heroic action.
        Own up to his ‘birds of a feather flock together’ adolescent activities and grow up, be a man, apologize to Steve and others, then ask for forgiveness. That would be a more heroic action.
        At this point, more than just Climate Audit is looking over the C&W paper. If the main defense is going to be ‘how shabby’ Way was treated for his past indelicacies, C&W 2013 will go the way of other sks research papers.
    39. Rick Bradford
      Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 12:31 AM | Permalink | Reply
      It is very telling that Way attacks the post-hoc selection bias, and urges an end to its use, saying it will help McIntyre and others ‘distort the truth’.
      What is post-hoc selection bias if it isn’t distorting the truth?
      An incredible lack of self-awareness from Way.
    40. David Young
      Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 12:32 AM | Permalink | Reply
      Richard Way, I am sympathetic with your plight. I don’t think your comments posted here are that embarrassing and generally put you in a fairly favorable light, at least in the eyes of most reasonable people. If other scientists punish you, distance yourself from them too. People like that don’t deserve your respect.
      The problem here is the extremely partisan nature of climate science and the extremes that this causes scientists to go to defend their own.
      You will find if you look at the climate blogosphere much worse examples of plain shoddy and unfair treatment, particularly of skeptics. You will do yourself and science a favor by distancing yourself from SkS and its very dishonest approach to science.
      • sue
        Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 2:29 AM | Permalink | Reply
        It’s ROBERT Way, and I’m so impressed by his willingness to engage. Robert, you must be true and honest as a scientist at ALL times… You can do it in now and in the future and it will pay off…
    41. john robertson
      Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 1:51 AM | Permalink | Reply
      Very interesting post.
      Credit to Mr Way for engaging, thats does show flashes of courage, quite rare in the consensus delusion.
      Also it is very kind of you, Steve McIntyre to point out that young Mr Way,in past and assumed secret comments,shows himself to be a cut above the rather odious company that he then was keeping.
      The quotes you show, make it seem, the boy insults you merely as an adaptive feature, to be seen as one of the SKS crew.
      The kindness you show to the follies of youth, impresses the heck out of me.
      Richard Way, you have done very little to be ashamed of in these examples Steve McIntyre shows, as you develop confidence in your own judgement, I hope you will learn to avoid group think and stand up for integrity in science.
      Any employer who would hold being young and conflicted about the theories of climate science against you, is not worth working for.
    42. bernie1815
      Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 2:14 AM | Permalink | Reply
      Robert, I do not understand what you are trying to accomplish by harping on the repeating of some of your dubious comments. On the SkS forum you said over an extended period of time some good things i.e., scientifically accurate though unpopular and you also said some bad things, i.e., sophomoric insults, in what you took to be a semi-private conversation. You now protest that those bad things should not be made public yet again because they were said in semi-private, This strikes me as being absurdly naïve – given that the context for some of your remarks was the planning on how to “get” the target of many of your own nasty and gratuitous comments.
      As I see it, you are in an ethical and political bind or Catch-22 largely of your own making. You cannot apologize for your intemperate and groundless remarks without further alienating your SkS co-conspirators. You cannot even acknowledge the positive spin that SM and others have put on your comments without antagonizing your SkS co-conspirators. Instead you have chosen to try to bluster your way out by complaining that your comments have been made public without your permission. But in so doing you actually cause a full blown re-iteration of the bad things you said and you appear weak and duplicitous to boot.
      Perhaps now that you have found yourself in a hole that you dug for yourself, you should stop digging. Restricting yourself to answering technical questions and adding technical information is the only sensible thing to do.
      • Terry
        Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 4:37 AM | Permalink | Reply
        Best advice I have read on this entire thread. Robert, you need to focus on the stuff you are good at, not the ad-hominem stuff. Steve McI is a pretty tolerant guy and Im sure will just put it behind him and get on with the important stuff. As a soon to retire scientist I can assure you that the trvia ad-hominem stuff will long be forgotten while good science will always prevail. Move on. Im sure most others here will allow you to do just that. All the best for the PhD
    43. Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 2:24 AM | Permalink | Reply
      Mr Way may have a point. This thread allows him to bring himself into disrepute, if only because duplicity and lack of integrity is the opposite of an excuse. Whoever thinks any good of Albert Speer?
      You see, somebody like Buzz can always find refuge in ignorance and inability to understand. For example I have demonstrated him that “secret” doesn’t mean “private” because a forum of strangers cannot be considered as “private”. Yet his answer completely misses the point.
      That’s different from a person who we now know was fully aware of what was going on. Way’s intellect is way above the SkS average, that is, his behaviour is way below.
      As for motives, I find this assertion particularly revealing: I was speaking reflectively on the history of exchanges with climate scientists as a whole rather than this individual case. So Way’s Crusade has been fuelled by a desire to defend “climate scientists”, with whatever means one suspects. In other walks of life, it is not hard to imagine Eugène Terre’Blanche possessed a very good intellect too, and put it to work to “defend” people he believed to deserve defending with whatever means was necessary. And whoever thinks of any good of Eugène Terre’Blanche?
      • Robert Way
        Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 2:50 AM | Permalink | Reply
        Really? Comparing me to a white supremacist?
        • Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 2:51 AM | Permalink | Reply
          No. Comparing your behaviour to the behaviour of some other people, notorious for their behaviour. As for who is the real you, I have no idea.
          • kim
            Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 3:22 AM | Permalink
            There is a schism. Mebbe it’s just the cognitive dissonance, expressed most passionately in the younger researchers. Way’s passion(way?) is an improvement on Mann’s, ferinstance.
            ============
          • kim
            Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 3:23 AM | Permalink
            Heh, the Once and Future Dr. Way, and the Past and Present Mr. Hide.
            ===============
          • Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 3:31 AM | Permalink
            Omnologos, you already named the “other people” twice. According to Wikipedia, he really was a white supremacist… who was hacked and beaten to death. Congratulations, that’s the first actual fact I’ve learned here at Climate Audit.
            Please stop reading these comments, Robert. You deserve a break. Nothing useful can come from interacting with people who break into private servers and shamelessly dissect private communication for public entertainment.
            So do something fun instead. Sometimes I play “Just Cause 2″ on the PS3, which (even though it’s intended to be a violent game) can actually be a surprisingly serene flight simulator due to the main character’s impressively plausible parachute/grappling-hook combo. It’s hard to describe, but it’s quite fun to fly around a beautiful tropical island.
            If you like science fiction, “Existence” by David Brin is a surprisingly deep story about the struggle for survival. “Blue Remembered Earth” and “On the Steel Breeze” by Alastair Reynolds starts out slow but tells an inspiring story of humans, AI, aliens, and elephants over the next few hundred years. His other book “House of Suns” is so good that I’ve read it over a dozen times.
            Vernor Vinge wrote “Fire Upon the Deep” which is really good (the sequel was different but also pretty good). “A Deepness in the Sky” is set in the same universe, but it’s much darker.
            Obviously that’s my escape from all this unpleasantness, but I’m told that away from my computer there are supposed to be very large rooms with blue ceilings and a very bright revolving 5800K light fixture on a stubbornly rigid schedule. Supposed to be quite beautiful…
          • Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 3:38 AM | Permalink
            Dumb scientist -if you’re the kind of friends Way needs or is looking for, he’s in deep deep trouble. Paternalism isn’t a subset of friendship.
            Or on second reading, you’re a fine humorist.
          • kim
            Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 3:46 AM | Permalink
            He has seen things I wouldn’t believe.
            ============
          • Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 4:09 AM | Permalink
            Omnologos, I don’t remember exchanging more than a dozen words with Robert. I certainly don’t think he needs me. Those words were intended only as friendly advice to another scientist who’s been treated very unfairly by you, McIntyre, and many other commenters here.
            Now for the real reason I’m responding. I forgot to mention “Bowl of Heaven” by Gregory Benford and Larry Niven, which should have a sequel soon. I don’t think I’d spoil too much (because this is revealed very early) by saying that it’s about a half-Dyson sphere (a “bowl”) which actually drags its star along as it travels through the galaxy.
            I’d heard of mega-engineering projects like this before, but they worked by reflecting the sunlight in one direction, like massive solar sails. So the star travels with the bowl in front of the star. The design in this book is completely different- the star travels in front of the bowl. The more I think about it, the more plausible it seems.
            Anyone who’s interested in mere planetary climate will find the book’s descriptions of climate on a scale trillions of times larger very stimulating.
          • Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 4:30 AM | Permalink
            That’s another episode in ‘scientists say the dumbest things’ (despite their excellent readings)
          • lost in space
            Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 4:24 AM | Permalink
            Bowl of Heaven Hardcover
            by Gregory Benford (Author) , Larry Niven (Author)
            enjoyed this Amazon review:
            “How the authors can work GLOBAL WARMING HYSTERIA into a far-future inter-planetary adventure is testament to the fact that they are just another of the 90% of contemperary cookie-cutter SciFi authors that worship at the altar of self-deluding anti-American liberal foolishness. As I always say – how can you take any SciFi writer’s predictions of the future serious, if they actually believe this ludicrous global warming garbage – and that mankind is “causing it”, to boot… in other words, these “savants” couldn’t see 5 years into the future on this provable issue, on which they’ve all been proved wrong now – yet STILL INSIST on propagating this nonsense 10 years after Chrichton’s STATE OF FEAR debunked this self-serving hucksterism – so, how can they attempt to seriously look hundreds of years into the future? Answer: THEY CAN’T.
    44. Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 2:44 AM | Permalink | Reply
      I wish one could edit comments here ;)
    45. Bernd Palmer
      Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 3:12 AM | Permalink | Reply
      Robert Way, why did you feel it necessary to hide your admiration for Steve’s statistical skills by keeping it in a secret forum? What prevented you to participate actively in the discussions at CA and to maybe hone your own skills? You could probably further your reputation as a scientist and find some admirers of yourself here at CA, and find admirers not for your snarks, but for your skills.
      By howling with the wolfs you certainly gain their admiration, but what if one day you come to scientific conclusions that don’t chime in with their howling? Will you keep quiet or distort your findings to keep your place in the pack, or will you come clean?
      I also found Steve’s remarks regarding your factual remarks rather flattering.
    46. Posted Nov 21, 2013 at 4:24 AM | Permalink | Reply
      @Robert Way: You wrote
      Perhaps I am old fashioned but I judge people not only on what they say but how they say it.
      I completely agree. I also very strongly believe that people should take ownership of and responsibility for their very own words. That being the case, perhaps you would care to explain why you continue to go to such lengths to divert from your own failure to take any responsibility for your obvious disrespectful and unwarranted sideswipes at one with whose arguments you presumably agree.
      You also wrote:
      How has climate audit responded? By discussing my stolen private correspondence even when I asked for it to stop. It is bad enough that my family has to read online hundreds of “contrarians” trashing me – but this – this goes beyond that. I would like to bridge the gap and come to a consensus (or discussion) on methods and science but there has to be two people willing to do so in good faith.
      What “stolen private correspondence” are you talking about? Is this a convenient line you picked up from Mann? It certainly has echoes of such an unsubstantiated and unproven whine!
      Ever heard of the maxim, “loose lips sink ships”?! Well, whether you have or not, I suppose it’s possible that your contributions to SkS’ far from secure forum were via E-mail. But this does not in any way, shape or form magically convert such contributions into “private correspondence”.
      Furthermore, as others have noted, SkS’ lack of security does not magically render the (probably inadvertent) public disclosure of any such contributions as deserving the label of “stolen”. Gleick most definitely did steal – and went to great lengths to do so. We “contrarians”, however, do not steal.
      And neither you nor anyone else (including the Norfolk Constabulary) has provided a scintilla of evidence that any “contrarian” has done so.
      That aside, perhaps, in good faith, you’d like to substantiate your claim that “hundred of ‘contrarians’ [are] trashing [you]“. Your failure to do so would strongly suggest that you have redefined the word “trashing” merely to play the “Poor Robert” card!
      The bottom line – or the view from here, so to speak – Robert, is that if you sincerely want to engage in “good faith” dialogue, the very first step you need to walk is to take ownership of – and, more importantly, apologize for – your disrespectful, unwarranted sideswipes at Steve McIntyre and other “contrarians”.

    One Trackback

    1. By Of Conspiracies | Jay Currie on Nov 20, 2013 at 9:25 PM
      […] Like many of the other loony things the hysterics maintain, this is principally a reflection of their own behaviour. Which is confirmed by the remarks made on the open Skeptical Science Web Forum. Steve McIntyre, one of the identified targets, has a selection of the remarks on that forum. […]

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