[Dean's World] Dave Price: This Is A Scientist?

[notify at powerblogs.com]

Posted by Dave Price:
This Is A Scientist?
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1187417242.shtml


   When you're working to advance science, the appropriate response when
   someone finds an error in your data or calculations is contrition
   (best expressd by an openness to further scrutiny and re-evaluation),
   and perhaps gratitude that truth has been served. James Hansen, on the
   other hand... well, [1]read for yourself:

     The contrarians will be remembered as court jesters. There is no
     point to joust with court jesters. They will always be present.
     They will continue to entertain even if the Titanic begins to take
     on water. Their role and consequence is only as a diversion from
     what is important.
     The real deal is this: the âroyaltyâ controlling the court, the
     ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a
     difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who
     will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains
     of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil,
     automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have
     placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the
     well-being of our children. The court jesters are their jesters,
     occasionally paid for services, and more substantively supported by
     the captainsâ disinformation campaigns.
     Court jesters serve as a distraction, a distraction from usufruct.
     Usufruct is the matter that the captains wish to deny, the matter
     that they do not want their children to know about. They realize
     that if there is no âgorillaâ, then usufruct is not an important
     issue for them. So, with the help of jesters, they deny the
     existence of the gorilla. There is no danger of melting the Arctic,
     of destabilizing the West Antarctic ice sheet, of increasing
     hydrologic extremes, more droughts and stronger forest fires on one
     hand and heavier downpours and floods on the other, threats to the
     fresh water supplies of huge numbers of people in different parts
     of the globe. âWhew! It is lucky that, as our jesters show, these
     are just imaginary concerns. We captains of industry can continue
     with business-as-usual, we do not need to face the tough problem of
     how to maintain profits without destroying our legacy in our
     childrenâs eyes.â

   Hardly the model of dispassionate reason and logic; this is as polemic
   as anything written by Ann Coulter. I mean, really, calling your
   critics "jesters?"
   I didn't know much about Hansen before this incident, but this does
   not inspire confidence in his work.
   As has been noted before, if Hansen really cares about global warming
   as much as he claims, he needs to release all the GISS data and
   algorithms for public scrutiny. Someone reverse-engineered GISS' work
   to find this error, which as a programmer I can tell you is a very
   troubling harbinger, as it means it was fairly obvious. Maybe the rest
   of the GISS data is perfect, but sunlight is the best disinfectant.
   Again, if global warming really matters to Hansen, he should be doing
   everything possible to ensure the integrity of the data and
   calculations his apocalyptic rhetoric is based on; that's the
   scientific method to dispel doubt, not calling your critics names when
   they find flaws in your work. As [2]Glenn says, we'll believe this is
   a crisis when the people claiming it's a crisis start acting like it's
   a crisis.

References

   1. http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/realdeal.16aug20074.pdf
   2. http://instapundit.com/archives2/008013.php