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Two sides to the story. The NAS panel was convened primarily to examine the criticisms leveled at the climate science community of paleoclimate "reconstructors", notably Michael Mann and colleagues, but comprising a larger group of scientists, many of whom have offered alternate reconstructions. One of the key elements of the report is a concern about the reliance of the reconstructions on small amounts of real data, which is why there is a very indicative expression of doubt concerning what can be accurately ascertained prior to 1600.

The criticisms have been well-documented by Stephen McIntyre at the ClimateAudit Web site. There are currently two threads on the subject of the NAS panel report.

NAS Panel - What I’ll Be Looking For

NAS Panel Report

The climate science community of reconstructors is represented by the RealClimate Web site. This Web site was initiated in part due to the Hockey Stick controversy. Their "take" on the NAS Panel report is here:

National Academies Synthesis Report

In the RealClimate commentary, there is a very key quote from the NAS report. I repeat it here, with emphasis:

"Surface temperature reconstructions for periods prior to the industrial era are only one of multiple lines of evidence supporting the conclusion that climatic warming is occurring in response to human activities, and they are not the primary evidence."

There is certainly a lot of back-and-forth debate and discussion in these venues. From my reading, it is clear that the NAS panel made some very telling criticisms of the methodology of the Hockey Stick reconstruction, and these criticisms can probably be directed at several other reconstructions. This will definitely inspire more research.

What wouldn't be good is to interpret criticisms of the methodology of this aspect of climate research (i.e., paleoclimate reconstructions) as indicating that the entire body of data supporting the anthropogenic influence on current and future climate is unreliable or (worse) a hoax. It is reliable, and it's not a hoax.

I appreciate your attempt at interpretation of the NAS report. At present I remain skeptical of the results.

The main reason for my skepticism is due to the political nature of the issue. A position has been taken and now considerable time, energy, money and political capital has been devoted to justifying that position. Those who remain outside the politically-correct envelope and may be critical of the process are ostracized, threatened with loss of position and funding or both. This leads to compromise of the integrity of the results.

Though interested and somewhat familiar in this area myself, I do not have the time or inclination to try to perform an independent review of the results. I will leave that to others degreed in the field. However, the process has become so heated and politically controversial with possible life-style changing impacts for those of us in the first world, that any conclusions must be reviewed with great detail to determinate their probability and accuracy.