Because it doesn't fit your agenda, you misread what he said? ;)

He didn't shoot the messenger. He responded with amusement to srmom's statement that The Times is "hardly a Faux News" by simply noting that The Times, like Fox News, is owned by Robert Murdoch. Nothing more.

If you falsify data and omit data that is contrary to what you wish to prove you have poisioned your own well. That is what undermines scientific research. Good grief! I have done enough research in my career to know that a good scientist tries to disprove their hypothesis. You look for all the points that are contrary to what you wish to prove and then take the data gathered both pro and con to build a statistical case for your hypothesis.

Do you not believe that there is a natural ebb and flow of temperatures throughout the epochs on Earth? I do believe there was an ice age. I do believe that there was also a time when it was exceedingly warm in the upper reaches of what is now North America and the Artic. I do not believe that man caused the ice age nor did he cause the warming during the Jurrassic period.

Are you sure there is a precipitous rise in the overall temperature of our planet? The timeframe in these "studies" are too small and do not take in all the natural variations of our climate and the effect the Sun and Sunspots have on our temperatures. You cannot focus on just 50 to 100 year timeframes and point to that as evidence that man has caused the Earth to warm. Especially if you changed or omitted data!

The messenger being Rupert Murdoch not Srmom. What does the fact that Murdoch owns the outlet where the info is presented have to do with whether the "scientists" falsified information? Because he owns Fox News and may not lean as far left as CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC and CBS therefore any info from outlets he owns is automatically called into question?

Nothing. Where did KSig RC say it did? Nowhere.

He did not criticize, dismiss or call into question what was in The Times article; he didn't talk about the contents of the article at all. He simply noted the humor (irony?) in srmom's statement that The Times was certainly not a Fox News, when both are owned by Murdoch. That is all.

This is what undermines the specific research that was falsified, yes. It is not the only thing that undermines the scientific method, as shown by your semi-conflicting "Hand of God"/"who knows there aren't benefits?" postulating.

Of course I understand the natural cycles of temperature - and I understand that you've just committed an egregious causation/correlation fallacy in your logic. Let me be clear:

Climate change in the past is NOT and will never be proof that man cannot affect the environment in meaningful negative ways.

Actually, this is awkward logic as well - while I agree that small-sample climate data is shitty because of the inherent fluctuations (high volatility, to be more accurate), you really can't see why data from the last 50 to 100 years is the most important when looking forward? Unless the last ice age was also accompanied by an Industrial Revolution and marked increase in the number of man-made CFCs and other environmental wastes pumped into the environment, it seems like there is indeed a relevant time frame.

These dipshits mishandled and, it appears in at least some cases, manipulated data to fit their own goals. That's clear and undisputed. That does not "disprove" the entire concept of man's impact on the environment - we can go through dozens upon dozens of micro and macro examples that show that human waste has literal and severe effect on the planet, flora and fauna.

I stand corrected. Thank you.

In the past nature/God or whatever you want to name it did influence climate change. Hence my reference to the "hand of God". You have to take this statement not so literally and reference maybe something unknown to man caused the climate change during these times. And are we sure that the world as we know it is at it's optimal temperature?

Not all climate change WAS caused by man so it is therefore inherent in any scientific endeavor for the data to prove the original hypothesis. This is clearly not the case. If you know in the past that man was not the reason for the climate change it is even more important for one to prove that, in this case, man is the reason for the change. One must go the extra mile to overwhelmingly gathering data to support your new hypothesis. That is good science.

The problem is that the "dipshits" were/are the ones who provided the data to the U.N. that precipitated the U.N. moving forward in their endeavors. The evidence as presented is tainted and the U.N. is simply ignoring it. This is wrong. My bottomline is you can't falsify, delete, or omit data and call an hypothesis valid. Is 50 to 100 years of data, when conflicting data has been omitted, enough for us to spend ourselves into obilivion chasing what may or may not be a false hypothesis?

The way I read that, they didn't manipulate data to fit their needs, they adjusted to account for different methods of data collection and this is not unusual in research at all.

Say you have 6 sites doing the same protocol for a new cancer drug and they rely on blood test lab data. Each of the 6 sites will have slightly different instruments which may be calibrated slightly differently so that comparing them as raw data is NOT accurate. You take a control, figure out the variation at each site and adjust the data according to the variation. The same thing is done when you get a new lab instrument. You can't compare the data from the old instrument to the data from a new instrument because there will be variation. Statisticians calculate the variance between them and compare those numbers instead. This is not sloppy, this is standard operating procedure. It *is* sloppy to dump the raw data. It's hard to believe it doesn't exist on backup tapes somewhere. THAT is sloppy and could just as soon be the fault of the IT department as the scientists. Good IT people would never let that happen.

My two cents as an IT network administrator for a biostatistics department.

It depends on what variables were "cherry picked". There is a statistical method that allows for machine variance. Without the original data all the data is called into question. This was worse than sloppy and when you put into context the emails where they try to use statistical tricks we have a situation that calls the whole study into question.

Let's educate ourselves
 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...av=hcmoduletmv

Don't let the climate doubters fool you



By Alan I. Leshner
Wednesday, December 9, 2009; 6:48 PM

Don't be fooled about climate science. In April, 1994 -- long after scientists had clearly demonstrated the addictive quality and devastating health impacts of cigarette smoking -- seven chief executives of major tobacco companies denied the evidence, swearing under oath that nicotine was not addictive.
Now, the American public is again being subjected to those kinds of denials, this time about global climate change. While former Alaska governor Sarah Palin wrote in her Dec. 9 op-ed that she did not deny the "reality of some changes in climate," she distorted the clear scientific evidence that Earth's climate is changing, largely as a result of human behaviors. She also badly confused the concepts of daily weather changes and long-term climate trends when she wrote that "while we recognize the occurrence of these natural, cyclical environmental trends, we can't say with assurance that man's activities cause weather changes." Her statement inaccurately suggests that short-term weather fluctuations must be consistent with long-term climate patterns. And it is the long-term patterns that are a cause for concern.
Climate-change science is clear: The concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide -- derived mostly from the human activities of fossil-fuel burning and deforestation -- stands at 389 parts per million (ppm). We know from studying ancient Antarctic ice cores that this concentration is higher than it has been for at least the past 650,000 years. Exhaustive measurements tell us that atmospheric carbon dioxide is rising by 2 ppm every year and that the global temperature has increased by about 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit over the past century. Multiple lines of other evidence, including reliable thermometer readings since the 1880s, reveal a clear warming trend. The broader impacts of climate change range from rapidly melting glaciers and rising sea levels to shifts in species ranges.



Thousands of respected scientists at an array of institutions worldwide agree that major health and economic impacts are likely unless we act now to slow greenhouse gas emissions. Already, sea levels are estimated to rise by 1 to 2 meters by the end of this century. Some scientists have said that average temperatures could jump by as much as 4 degrees Fahrenheit if the atmospheric carbon dioxide level reaches 450 ppm. We may face even more dangerous impacts at 550 ppm, and above that level, devastating events. U.S. crop productivity would be affected, while European communities might suffer increased fatalities because of intensely hot summers.
Doubters insist that the earth is not warming. This is in stark contrast to the consensus of 18 of the world's most respected scientific organizations, who strongly stated in an Oct. 21 letter to the U.S. Senate that human-induced climate change is real. Still, the doubters try to leverage any remaining points of scientific uncertainty about the details of warming trends to cast doubt on the overall conclusions shared by traditionally cautious, decidedly non-radical science organizations such as the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which represents an estimated 10 million individual scientists through 262 affiliated societies. Doubters also make selective use of the evidence, noting that the warming of the late 1990s did not persist from 2001 to 2008, while ignoring the fact that the first decade of the 21st century looks like it will be the warmest decade on record.
None of these tactics changes the clear consensus of a vast majority of scientists, who agree that the Earth is warming as greenhouse gas levels rise. The public and policymakers should not be confused by a few private e-mails that are being selectively publicized and, in any case, remain irrelevant to the broad body of diverse evidence on climate change. Selected language in the messages has been interpreted by some to suggest unethical actions such as data manipulation or suppression. To be sure, investigations are appropriate whenever questions are raised regarding the transparency and rigor of the scientific process or the integrity of individual scientists. We applaud that the responsible authorities are conducting those investigations. But it is wrong to suggest that apparently stolen emails, deployed on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit, somehow refute a century of evidence based on thousands of studies.
Palin also errs by claiming that America can't afford to reduce greenhouse gases. The highly regarded Stern Commission revealed that inaction could cost us the equivalent of between 5 and 20 percent of global gross domestic product per year. In contrast, the price of slowing emissions was estimated to be 1 percent of GDP. China, meanwhile, reportedly is investing heavily in clean energy technologies.
Now, policymakers must decide whether to act on the evidence or to avoid facing one of the most crucial issues of our generation.



Alan I. Leshner is the chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and executive publisher of the journal Science.

Who cares about global warming... I mean climate change? Let's worry about more important things like 2012 and the hopeful resurgence of beanie babies in 2011. I've heard so many conflicting reports about this subject it makes my head spin. Only solution to really end "man-made" climate change is a taxation so high that it permanently alters the way we live our life, think $19 a gallon for gas or a normal monthly electric bill of $400. We need to make "life" so expensive that people can't afford to do things that pump out C02, oh and a good genocide or two (anywhere from 500-800 million people) will do wonders for the environment.