Making a mess is easier than cleaning it up
A major UK paper has been forced to retract an article filled with false smears against the IPCC and climate scientists. The so-called "Amazongate" scandal was a complete beat-up (like much of the woeful mainstream coverage of climate "scandals"). Basically every claim in the article was acknowledged as false or misleading. The real scandal was not found at the IPCC, but in a media and blog world where such claims were immediately picked up and echoed on literally thousands of sites. Ironically, the accusation levelled at the scientists (making claims based on unsubstantiated sources) was actually only true of the journalists and bloggers who repeated it.
The Sunday Times only made the embarrassing retraction when one of the scientists blatantly misquoted and slandered in the article complained to the UK's Press Complaints Commission.
The sad thing is that each step of the process of complaint, investigation and correction probably used considerably more time, energy and money than the original investigation and publication. Misinformation is much, much easier to create than to clean up. Much like oil spills, I guess.
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Another good summary for those trying to get a handle on this story.
Ross Gittens on why the media nearly always blow the real story and why you should barely believe a word they say.
"Amazongate" is toast, yet the Sunday Times are circling the wagons rather than trying to figure out what went wrong.
To be fair this story is as much about Professor Lewis objecting to the Sunday Times changing the story he had given them.
Richard North who seems to have been behind the original story put out a retraction for an oversight on his part but he also demonstrated that IPCC's claims rested on a shaky foundation.
Stories can be more complicated, less clearcut than we might hope for. Time will tell who is right.
What do you mean that this story is more about Professor Lewis? More than what? More than about terrible journalism or editing? More than about the echo chamber that picked up this story and ran with it on nothing but a misplaced citation?
I'm pleased to see that North has admitted his mistake. It is refreshing to see someone willing to own up.
His further claims that the Nature paper was misrepresented in the WWF paper are rejected by the lead author of that paper, Nepstad, who has confirmed that the WWF paper was correct, though its references were incomplete.
Byron,
If you want to take me to task, take care to quote me correctly.
I didn't say more about, I said as much about. There is a difference.
I think unfortunately I've got to the point where I'm aggravating you and therefore I'll desist from posting, at least for awhile.
I have had a blog identity registered for some time answeringtheatheists.org.au - once I have got through the colloquium I've mentioned, I intend getting it up and running, then people will be able to come and annoy me, rather than the other way round.
My apologies. I was just confused by what you meant. And I still am. Did you mean to imply that Professor Lewis was wrong to object? Or that the fact that he objected somehow makes the original misrepresentation less serious?
As I said, I'm not particularly annoyed, I'm mainly confused. And I'm wondering why you're sticking up for North, who has a history of spreading misinformation. He's published books claiming (amongst other things) that passive smoking causes no harm, and that white asbestos is "chemically identical to talcum powder" (a claim criticised by the UK's Health and Safety Executive as "substantially misleading").
And he's tried to whitewash the Wikipedia entry of his co-conspirator Christopher Booker.
Not what I'd call a highly credible source.
Did you mean to imply that Professor Lewis was wrong to object?
No, not at all. I have considerable sympathy for Prof Lewis. If it had happened to me I would have been angry. All I was saying was the question of Lewis' integrity and demand for an apology was as much a part of the story as the fabrication conveyed in the newspaper report.
Or that the fact that he objected somehow makes the original misrepresentation less serious?
Not at all.
It is a hard fought contest on both sides. What is not acceptable is smearing your opponent or engaging in underhanded tactics like fabricating/spinning a story, including the deliberate massaging of your data to achieve a certain result as occurred with Mann's hockey stick or the actions exposed by climategate, which I don't think have been acknowledged or apologised for.
The people I've come to respect are Judith Curry, Roger Peikle Jnr and Mike Hulme. All three accept the agw hypothesis (about which I'm either sceptical or agnostic depending on which day it is), but are conciliatory and recognise the great uncertainties with the hypothesis.
Richard North for his part had the decency to acknowledge his mistake as soon as it was made.
However, I'm taking a break. You are a good fellow but a little too addicted in my opinion to some rather shifty "science". I think you would be better off cutting your concerns for a simpler more gentle lifestyle free from agw and letting it rest where it belongs, in Christ alone and the gospel.
You are under no compunction as far as I'm concerned to post this.
Monbiot makes an interesting contribution, including documenting more of the history of Booker's mistakes.
You are a good fellow but a little too addicted in my opinion to some rather shifty "science". I think you would be better off cutting your concerns for a simpler more gentle lifestyle free from agw and letting it rest where it belongs, in Christ alone and the gospel.
Which science is shifty and what is the evidence that it is so? Are you saying that the NAS, AAAS, Met Office, CSIRO, Royal Society and so on are all shifty organisations? Or that they have been taken over en masse by shifty science? That is the wide-eyed claim in this discussion, not my willingness to take seriously what has been established through multiple lines of evidence across a range of disciplines by thousands of experts.
As for whether I would be better off avoiding all mention of climate change, then I guess you also think we would be better off avoiding all mention of the sexual revolution of the 60s and its effects on society and simply focusing on a biblical theology of sex and marriage? Such an approach would have limited worth, as it does with ecology. I also note it is not an approach that you adopt for yourself with regard to climate change, let alone other issues. Christian ethicists are not only able, but obliged to discuss issues not directly mentioned in the scriptures in order to serve God's people in today's situation. I don't think this is particularly controversial.
What is not acceptable is smearing your opponent or engaging in underhanded tactics like fabricating/spinning a story
So why do you quote sources that have been shown to do this? I take it that smearing does not include showing the mistakes of your interlocutor, nor adjusting your estimate of their reliability in the light of experience and communicating this to others, but involves deliberately spreading false or misleading information about them in order to undermine an otherwise credible source.
including the deliberate massaging of your data to achieve a certain result as occurred with Mann's hockey stick
Proof that Mann deliberately mislead? He has been cleared of this by multiple investigations. The acknowledged problems with the statistical analyses of his original paper are widely discussed, and do not materially affect the result.
or the actions exposed by climategate, which I don't think have been acknowledged or apologised for.
Which nefarious actions do you have in mind? As I understand it, Jones has apologised for his nastiness and acknowledged his obstructionism with regard to FOI requests. What other actions were you referring to? Apologies from the press and certain bloggers for slander and gross misrepresentation?
Richard North for his part had the decency to acknowledge his mistake as soon as it was made.
He did indeed acknowledge it, which is good, as I have said. However, this doesn't make him a credible source, for the reasons mentioned above. Do you acknowledge these?
You are of course free to not answer, as you have indicated that you'd like to take a break.
BTW, Mann has been exonerated yet again, with more commentary here (amongst other places).
And in case you think that a tier-one university might engage in whitewash for the sake of an employee, read here to see how unlikely that is. Basically, a university's reputation is its lifeblood (all the more so for a top research school like in this case) and it is far, far better to deal with the fallout of the misconduct of a single employee (no matter how impressive their research credentials) than to deal with the fallout of being involved in a whitewashing operation.
Two more takes: the nontroversy.
And Monbiot has apologised to Jones.
And a good collection of links to all the previous vindications.
To put the FOI requests in context, CRU were being flooded with huge numbers of requests, ten a day during one period and nearly all from a small handful of individuals. This doesn't excuse their behaviour, but it does give some relevant context.
More details and links about FOI requests are here and here.
I realise that Yahoo Answers is a very poor source of information, but Trevor, Dana and a few others are professionals with relevant experience and their answers have more credibility than average. They nearly always provide lots of useful and relevant links in evidence.
On Fred Pearce and the Guardian.
NYT editorial.
The manufacturing of "climategate": a timeline.
Too little, too late says Rodney Tiffin, about the lack of media coverage for all the hacked email exonerations and lack of apologies from the most shrill commentators for their slander back in November and December. His short article is itself published by the SMH two weeks after the latest findings are published, neatly illustrating his very point.
Time will tell who is right.
Looks like it wasn't North, once again.
CP: Tribalism in climate science and climate journalism.
North loses two more complaints to the UK Press Complaints Commission.
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