Researchers question key global-warming study
See the latest (bottom) posts on that thread for more on this issue.
The global warming-skeptical community has followed the publication of this article with a rush of editorials. The problem is, according to an exchange of information found at this Web site over the past couple of days:
apparently McIntyre and McKitrick did their analysis on an improperly-formatted data set, and not on the actual data used for the published Mann et al. research papers. I would say that the blame for them not getting the proper data falls squarely on Dr. Mann, and the reasons for his cavalier behavior are not clear; it's certainly not only because he's at the University of Virginia. It's obvious that Mann's research and results have been the target of a number of criticisms from the skeptical community, and he may think that to reply to skeptics in the same manner that he treats fellow scientists is somehow beneath him. If he thinks that the bad press he's getting for this study will be balanced by "good press" in scientific journals, then he's living an ivory-tower existence that's out of touch with reality. He would have been far smarter to make sure that McIntyre and McKitrick got the right data and didn't find any mistakes with it, in which case I doubt these editorials praising McIntyre and McKitrick and undermining Mann would have happened; if they didn't find apparent mistakes, McIntyre and McKitrick wouldn't have had anything to publish.
Isn't there something about the best way to frustrate an enemy is to act like their friend? Maybe Mann should learn that.