The solution is for you to stop trying to pass off garbage as science

Willis Eschenbach replies to Professor Judith Curry, from the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, following part two of her series On the Credibility of Climate Research published at the Watts Up With That? blog.

As he says, she at the very least deserves credit for opening engaging climate sceptics in honest debate. (And even more credit to Watts Up With That? for allowing her to post there. Compare the space it is prepared to give to people who disagree with it, so as to foster debate, to that given by blogs such as Real Climate, where moderation means that you can't even have a comment published that challenges its house position, no matter how politely and calmly put.)

But he is not prepared to let her be absolved for the failure of the climate science community to stand up against the long standing anti-science practices of too many of its most prominent members.

Here's an excerpt from his post Judith, I love ya, but you’re way wrong …

The solution is for you to stop trying to pass off garbage as science. The solution is for you establishment climate scientists to police your own back yard. When Climategate broke, there was widespread outrage … well, widespread everywhere except in the climate science establishment. Other than a few lone voices, the silence there was deafening. Now there is another whitewash investigation, and the silence only deepens.

And you wonder why we don’t trust you? Here’s a clue. Because a whole bunch of you are guilty of egregious and repeated scientific malfeasance, and the rest of you are complicit in the crime by your silence. Your response is to stick your fingers in your ears and cover your eyes.

And you still don’t seem to get it. You approvingly quote Ralph Cicerone about the importance of transparency … Cicerone?? That’s a sick joke.

You think people made the FOI (Freedom of Information) requests because they were concerned that the people who made the datasets were the same people using them in the models. As the person who made the first FOI request to CRU, I assure you that is not true. I made the request to CRU because I was disgusted with the response of mainstream climate scientists to Phil Jone’s reply to Warwick Hughes. When Warwick made a simple scientific request for data, Jones famously said:

Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?

When I heard that, I was astounded. But in addition to being astounded, I was naive. Looking back, I was incredibly naive. I was so naive that I actually thought, “Well, Phil’s gonna get his hand slapped hard by real scientists for that kind of anti-scientific statements”. Foolish me, I thought you guys were honest scientists who would be outraged by that.

So I waited for some mainstream climate scientist to speak out against that kind of scientific malfeasance … and waited … and waited. In fact, I’m still waiting.

Read it all here http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/25/judith-i-love-ya-but-youre-way-wrong/

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