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Did you read the article to the end? The last two paragraphs (emphasis added):

If you are concerned about global warming (as I am) and think that human-created carbon dioxide may contribute (as I do), then you still should agree that we are much better off having broken the hockey stick. Misinformation can do real harm, because it distorts predictions. Suppose, for example, that future measurements in the years 2005-2015 show a clear and distinct global cooling trend. (It could happen.) If we mistakenly took the hockey stick seriously--that is, if we believed that natural fluctuations in climate are small--then we might conclude (mistakenly) that the cooling could not be just a random fluctuation on top of a long-term warming trend, since according to the hockey stick, such fluctuations are negligible. And that might lead in turn to the mistaken conclusion that global warming predictions are a lot of hooey. If, on the other hand, we reject the hockey stick, and recognize that natural fluctuations can be large, then we will not be misled by a few years of random cooling.
A phony hockey stick is more dangerous than a broken one--if we know it is broken. It is our responsibility as scientists to look at the data in an unbiased way, and draw whatever conclusions follow. When we discover a mistake, we admit it, learn from it, and perhaps discover once again the value of caution.

Not a scientist, but a skeptic. I posted the article because of the 2004 date - showing that the data was being questioned in the scientific community long before the email disclosures.

That Muller was *on board* with the global warming hypothesis lends authenticity to the debate.

e.g. the data manipulation/fraud ahd already been questioned and is not a figment of anti-warming fanatics.

If, on the other hand, we reject the hockey stick, and recognize that natural fluctuations can be large, then we will not be misled by a few years of random cooling.

OK tinfoil hat time. Is this why the letters were leaked? We have been in a cooling trend for over ten years now. It is becoming so obvious that it was getting harder and harder to deny. Since a ten year cooling could not exist in the kind of global warming defined by the hockey stick they had only two choices. Admit there was not global warming, or throw the hockey stick under the bus. But how to admit that the hockey stick, that they all had been pushing for the past 15 years, was wrong without loosing face. Leak a bunch of emails. A few university types with big pensions and tenure might get embarrassed. Of course they can't be fired and get their pension in any case so they don't actually take any real damage.

In compensation Al Gore & Co. can just say they were tricked. The mystical AGW science now says that there are big fluctuation and that a decade long cooling trend is compatible with AGW. They get to keep pimping carbon indulgences, while driving their yachts and Gulfstream jets.

Convenient isn't it. /Tinfoil Hat