Shazam. Big Dumb Breitbart has gone ahead and created a Big Whole Shitload of Big Dumb Web-Sites, just as he Big Dumb Said He Would. And oh look, for his Big Dumb Journalism site, Big Dumb Breitbart has secured the services of a Big Dumb Hack, Big Dumb John Lott (and also, presumably for free -- or cheaper -- it seems he's also acquired a Little Dumb Anchovy vaguely associated with Big Dumb John Lott, hoo-ray).
For reference, as far as Big Dumb Hacks go, Big John Lott is quite the Big Dumb Hackiest. And in this regard his Big Dumb Journalism does not disappoint, as it's pretty fucking stupid.
The Climategate scandal – where leaked emails and computer programs involve dozens of prominent scientists worldwide – has almost everything one would want in a good scandal: conspiracies, fraud, possible destruction of documents, and lots of heated exchanges.
Hmm. What I personally would want in a good scandal is Hot Dirty Fucking. (I am "old-school" in this particular fashion.) And, uh, nope, there is none of that in "Climate-Gate."
More significantly, neither is there any suggestion of conspiracies or fraud. "Possible destruction of documents," well, maybe, but uh, probably not. Anyhow the point is, "Climate-Gate" has everything you might want in a scandal, except, you know, any fucking remote hint of an actual scandal. Which makes it kind of uninteresting except to loonies who want to believe otherwise -- and presumably to whoever is conducting the investigation of the hack, which remains the only overtly, blatantly illegal act in this whole stupid nonsensical episode.
But the media has been reluctant to look into the problems and even when the controversy has been acknowledged it has been quickly dismissed as unimportant.
Because it's a poopload of unimportant boring make-pretend slanderous nothing.
And here we are, finally arrived at the Big Stupid Complaint. Lettuce Prey.
Take an in-depth analysis of Climategate provided by the Associated Press. The piece appeared in hundreds of publications, with many newspapers carrying it on the front page of their Sunday December 13 edition under the headline, “Science not faked, but not pretty.” The five AP-reporters interviewed three scientists about the emails, and concluded: “no evidence of falsification or fabrication of data, although concerns could be raised about some instances of very ‘generous interpretations,’” as the AP quoted Dr. Mark Frankel, director of scientific freedom, responsibility and law at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The AP had provided him a copy of the emails, without any other important documents.
The last sentence is fascinating. What the fuck else was the AP supposed to provide him? Is the man too mentally deficient to go look at the published work of the scientists involved and see if their fucking references and methodologies stink or else smell like daisies?
Christ. Here is a Secret. Private emails don't fucking matter. Only published research matters. The only way a scientist can commit scientific fraud is in the literature they publish about science. So, to prove a scientist has committed fraud, you need to (1) Quote what they said in a professional publication; (2) Prove they are wrong; (3) Prove they intended to deceive and didn't just make a whoopsie.
Pretty straightforward.
So, going forward, let's look for the place where Lott & Spawn cite a single statement by a climate scientist in the published literature that they believe is fraudulent, and let them show their evidence for why they believe this is so. Everything else is slander, basically. Oh gosh I wonder if they will ever get beyond slander how exciting oh gosh I hope they make it.
There is a big difference between saying that there isn’t sufficient evidence to determine if falsification of data occurred, and that there should be an investigation, and concluding, as the AP did: “Science not faked.”
This is witch hunt logic, pure and simple, and utterly disgusting. But then it gets silly!
Another bias appears in the article. No academics in the article were identified as being on the other side of the debate. The only identified critic was Steve McIntyre, who maintains Climate Audit. The AP described him as someone without expertise in the area, merely “trained in math and economics,” who had worked in “the mineral exploration industry, which produces greenhouse gases.” The obvious implication is that McIntyre’s analysis is biased and should be discounted.
Uh, but, er, that's the truth about his credentials. I agree though that McIntyre's analytic skills deserve much wider advertisement.
Not even the academics attacked in the University of East Anglia emails were interviewed: “Just the fact that I was mentioned in 38 of the emails, it would have been appropriate for him to give me a call,” Patrick Michaels, Senior Fellow in the School of Public Policy at George Mason University and a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute, told us. He also listed the names of four other academics criticized in emails who could have provided a critical perspective on the revelations in Climategate.
For a really balanced view, Lott could shove his head up his ass and try to check both balls.
Note the shift -- "Should we indict & then shoot Michael Mann for Lying about Global Warming," magically transforms to "Should not the AP have emailed a Cato Institute Hack, to be really fair," and slides back to "Crucify Michael Mann!"
There were other concerns with the piece. As for Professor Mann’s and others’ attempts to punish academic journals that published skeptical research seems defended by the AP: “That skeptical study turned out to be partly funded by the American Petroleum Institute.” However, the AP fails to bring up that Mann and others who were pushing global warming similarly received funding from organizations that support claims about man-made global warming.
Getting too bored to link to the silliness about the "peer review"; will pause only to note the fact that the lunkhead logical fallacy in the preceding is too fucking embarrassing even to bother with snarking over.
Finally, one of the reporters, Seth Borenstein, the AP science reporter who writes on global warming and the lead author on the piece being discussed here, is part of the Climategate story itself. There is a question about whether he should have rescued himself from investigating the story. The last sentence of the 1,800 word AP piece acknowledges: “The archive also includes a request from an AP reporter, one of the writers of this story, for reaction to a study, a standard step for journalists seeking quotes for their stories.” But Borenstein’s email is hardly a neutral “standard step for journalists.” Borenstein criticizes Marc Morano, a critic of man-made global warming claims, of “hyping wildly” the study that Borenstein was asking for comments on. The email looks as if Borenstein was working with others involved in Climategate to discredit critics of man-made global warming.
Hilarious -- calling Marc Morano a hysteric is only a problem in that it makes hysterics look bad. Morano is a fucking loon.
Science and voters both depend on accurate information. Research can’t be checked when organizations University of East Anglia, NASA, the British Met Office, and others are unwilling to share their data or computer programs. Unfortunately, scientists aren’t the only ones who face tough questions.
Bullshit. The data are there. Amply. There's tons of fucking data. It's not a fucking issue, any lack of data.
You know, there's a lot of scholarship out there that suggests Giordano Bruno was burned not because of what he had to say about science and math, but because of politics. Hey, that's pretty fucking comforting right about now, ain't it! How we've fucking progressed! Hot shit!