The Dog Ate My Global Warming Evidence: Having Refused to Disclose Temperature Records for Years, UN's Climate Research Unit Now Claims Its Evidence of Warming Was Just Lost

As Peter Venkman said, "Back off man, I'm a scientist."

And as Dean Yeager said to Venkman: "Doctor... Venkman. The purpose of science is to serve mankind. You seem to regard science as some kind of dodge... or hustle. Your theories are the worst kind of popular tripe, your methods are sloppy, and your conclusions are highly questionable! You are a poor scientist, Dr. Venkman!"

Worth reading in full. The gist is this:

Warwick Hughes, an Australian scientist, ..politely wrote Phil Jones in early 2005, asking for the original data. Jones’s response to a fellow scientist attempting to replicate his work was, “We have 25 years or so invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”

Reread that statement, for it is breathtaking in its anti-scientific thrust. In fact, the entire purpose of replication is to “try and find something wrong.” The ultimate objective of science is to do things so well that, indeed, nothing is wrong.

Now since then, FOIA requests for the data have been filed, and an increasing number of scientists have been curious to see precisely what exactly the evidence is of the much-heralded 0.6 degree Centigrade rise in temperature this century we've heard so very much about.

The new answer?

We lost all the old data so we can't provide it to you.

You'll just have to take our word for it that it existed at one time, and when we "adjusted" it to correct for what we thought were errors, our corrections were proper and accurate.

Thanks to EdwardR.

Venkman Quote corrected.

posted by Ace at 01:06 PM

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