Comments on: Climategate goes SERIAL: now the Russians confirm that UK climate scientists manipulated data to exaggerate global warming http://www.NoCapAndTrade.com/2009/12/climategate-goes-serial-now-the-russians-confirm-that-uk-climate-scientists-manipulated-data-to-exaggerate-global-warming/ Facts, not fiction on climate change Wed, 14 Sep 2011 19:27:42 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Reason McLucus http://www.NoCapAndTrade.com/2009/12/climategate-goes-serial-now-the-russians-confirm-that-uk-climate-scientists-manipulated-data-to-exaggerate-global-warming/comment-page-1/#comment-434 Reason McLucus Fri, 18 Dec 2009 00:05:56 +0000 http://www.NoCapAndTrade.com/?p=325#comment-434 One fact many people don't understand about scientists is that the field has historically had a strong attraction for con artists. A few centuries ago "scientists" would get financial support from wealthy nobles by claiming they were working on a way to turn lead into gold through a process called alchemy. One of the reason for the peer review process is that scientists don't trust each other to tell the truth. The fact that Phil Jones, et. al. don't want to release the details of how they arrive at their numbers should have raised a red flag a long time ago that they were lying. There is no legitimate reason for them to keep those details secret. Without knowing how they arrive at the numbers it is impossible to verify that the numbers are valid, particularly considering that they are using a computer to produce the results. The fact that a computer produces results doesn't make them more reliable because of the principle of "garbage in, garbage out" and the fact that bad soft ware can turn even good data into garbage. One fact many people don’t understand about scientists is that the field has historically had a strong attraction for con artists. A few centuries ago “scientists” would get financial support from wealthy nobles by claiming they were working on a way to turn lead into gold through a process called alchemy. One of the reason for the peer review process is that scientists don’t trust each other to tell the truth.

The fact that Phil Jones, et. al. don’t want to release the details of how they arrive at their numbers should have raised a red flag a long time ago that they were lying. There is no legitimate reason for them to keep those details secret. Without knowing how they arrive at the numbers it is impossible to verify that the numbers are valid, particularly considering that they are using a computer to produce the results. The fact that a computer produces results doesn’t make them more reliable because of the principle of “garbage in, garbage out” and the fact that bad soft ware can turn even good data into garbage.

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