Posted on 11/28/2009 7:05:01 PM PST by caveat emptor
The problem is there are too many suckers. Obama's election bears this out.
And the obvious reason (well, maybe not so obvious) they're taking this line is because they know that if the original data were made available it would become clear that they had engaged in bald-faced scientific fraud, of the variety that has gotten a number of "scientists" drummed out of their profession, and out of academia, in recent years.
By saying "the dog ate the data," they leave the fraud question open forever (they think) and thereby leave open the possibility that, given the soft-headedness of the academic community when it comes to policing it's own, they'll be able to skate by on tenure and keep their jobs (although some may be saying bye-bye to the nice office with the picture-window view of the Quad and hello to the basement room with the banging steam pipes, next door to the vibration lab).
This may or may not work. I find it very hard to believe that at least some of this data wasn't archived, or at least written down in notebooks. People make back-up copies of things. Some may mysteriously "reappear" or get "undeleted" when the charges and counter-charges start to fly.
It isn't just the money. It is also about control and the power that comes with it.
“Truth Orator wrote:
All they have to do to re-create the original data is reverse the corrections and the corrections of corrections that they used on it. As long as they are not allowed to corrupt that process the original data should result.
I noticed the same dumb comment. The emails do not show honest scientists trying to find the truth, they show true believers trying to promote global warming and stifle dissent. Even if the original data was still available, if it had ever been in the sole possession of these agenda-driven zealots, we could not trust it.
do I really have to say it???
“The dog ate my homework” didn’t work for me. I wonder if it will work for these frauds. Probably will.
The adjective "homogenized" suggests the discarding of outliers and averaging, and the reported fact that Hadley CRU used monthly averages in their models shows that this assumption is surely false: discarded outliers cannot be recovered from the "homogenized" data set any more than daily temperatures can be recovered from monthly averages.
Of course, this shows that "value-added" is a lie*, since loss of information in science is always a loss of value, leading one to wonder what other "quality control" measures besides replacing dendrochronological data with weather-station data are lurking in code folks have yet to read.
*I presume here that the University of East Anglia still has English as its official language. Perhaps in Newspeak, value is added when other scientists can't properly review the results of a Party-approved investigation. But in that case, it is still a lie, since anything said in Newspeak is, by construction, what we English speakers call a lie.
Pleas when referring to these morons use quotes (”scientists”) or refer to them as frauds.
I’m gonna call “bullsh!t” on this one. I’ve worked with a lot of data driven researchers in my career, and none of them EVER “throws” their data away. EVER! Even if they move on to other projects, the old data is still stored, if necessary, at home in a closet. Shoot, I’ve helped colleagues move cases full of punch cards and 8” (!) floppy discs out of storerooms when space became too valuable. In fact, I know several colleagues who even saved all the data their mentors generated, long after said mentor died.
If these troglodytes did ditch their “data” it was only because they knew at the time they were engaged in scientific fraud. That is literally the only plausible explanation.
There once was a school named East Anglia
Whose emails became a real tanglia
they lied about where it gets hot
but to cut this Gordian Knot
is like trying to find balls on Camille Paglia
bm
Oh, that’s good - the dawg ate their homework. Har de har har.
This is so true. No scientist ever throws out the original data if he maintains that what he did is correct. If there was a technical problem gaining the data (bad reagents, samples, or equipment) or a problem in the process or analysis, he might throw out the data, but he would also have to throw out any results he got from the data and start all over. If he thinks he’s right, he would do the experiment over again, correcting the errors and using the new data, which he would keep, to validate or invalidate his theory.
If they did ditch the data in 1980, (before Jones became Director, of course), then exactly what pre-1980 data have they been using for their models?
And where's the raw data for the 29 years since 1980? Did they throw that out also?
This really smells.
“Data? The dog ate it.”
So...they (CRU) lost much of the original data and apparently can’t recover it.
Version 2 of the database appears to have been a complete mess:
http://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/2009/11/data-horribilis-harryreadmetxt-file.html
You can view the HARRY_READ_ME.txt file here:
http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/HARRY_READ_ME.txt
It says, “You can’t imagine what this has cost me - to actually allow the operator to assign false
WMO codes!! But what else is there in such situations? Especially when dealing with a ‘Master’
database of dubious provenance (which, er, they all are and always will be).”
CRU admits to losing much of the original data. So where did version 3 come from? Not the original data since that was dumped. So did it come from the dubious version 2 data?
But in their press release CRU said version 3 fixed all the issues. If they say so.
:’D Well, not a perfect limerick, but kudos for the effort!
Much has been written in scifi books over the years about the misdeeds of science and how the masses reacted to them. Now, we have Climatgate widening, H1N1 is clearly under scrutiny as a scientific plot or misdeed. Scientist would be well counseled to think about where they are taking their fields and approach ANY project cautiously. It could well be that we are on the verge of another purge of “black” artists. The average American does not understand jack about science and when push comes to shove the “scientist” could well take the shove back with very bad consequences.
There once was a “hottie” named Al
He said he was everyone’s pal
We don’t think it strange
When he preach climate change
That the gas that he pass is most foul
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