>> In response to Bush Basher I should point out that the Wegman Committee was appointed by the US Congress

doing what for the price of fish? you're arguing the integrity and authority of the us congress? the republican congress in the bush era? oh yes, the honesty and integrity of that congress is a beacon for all to follow.

oh, wait. why don't we look at exactly who in congress was responsible for the wegman report? oh, it's joe barton. yep, good ol' objective joe barton. you think joe might have had some influence on the precise terms of the committee?

>> and was a review of the Mann et al paper. It was in effect peer review,

which just happened to fit in with the pre-determined position of good ol' joe barton.

>> not a paper in its own right.

it was nonetheless a paper on one very specific issue and was not peer-reviewed.

>> Except that Wegman is a real statistician, whereas Mann et all aren't,

correct

>> yet the Hockey Stick is actually a statistical artifact.

no. this is where you begin with a valid (albeit contestable and contested) criticism, and you leap to a totally unsubstantiated conclusion.

this is exactly the denial mindset, that any valid criticism somehow debunks the whole scientific process. one congressional committee with a clear agenda, producing a narrow non-peer-reviewed work does not, cannot, invalidate all the work on the hockey stick. to suggest so one has to be totally ignorant of the scientific method, or a denialist loon, or both.

>> So Mann failed peer review,

no, it did not. peer review does not guarantee the correctness or reliability of any one paper, or of all that that paper contains. mann's paper acknowledged outright the limits and uncertainties in its methods.

>> except that of his friends in the climate science community.

the kind of snide, conspiratorial and empty swipe that denialists like you just love.

Wow, I haven't seen such obvious censorship in quite a while Graham.

Are you afraid of litigation from Fred Singer?

So Bugsy, do you think it is fine to defame people? Well I don't. Irrespective of whether Dr Singer might sue me or not. You all get a pretty good go at what you can publish here, as demonstrated by the rant of Bushbasher's above. Putting limits to that debate which are defined by the law is not censorship, it's called moderation.

I gather from Bushbasher's post that he also discredits the Stern Report and the Garnaut Report because neither of those is peer-reviewed and both were set-up by governments. In the heirarchy of credibility I would have thought something set-up by a parliament should have more credibility, but no doubt I'll be disabused (emphasis on the second half of the word).

Wegman criticised the Hockey Stick for two reasons - one was the algorithm used which produced a hockey stick no matter what data you put into it. This is because it gave a heavier weighting to more recent data than older data. The other was for poor selection of the datasets. A single bristle cone represented the whole of the southern hemisphere! So it was indeed an artifact of statistics. He also criticised the peer-review process for being exactly what I said it was.

I don't think it is possible to argue with Eclipse. His typical syllogism runs "X said this, X is a person of significance, therefore you are wrong" without any references to the principles underlying X's statement and whether they make sense. In some ways he is no different from Runner. They both have texts and are the sole interpreters of what the texts mean. So it is impossible to engage, unfortunately.

graham, others may fall for your bait and switch, but i won't. everything i say stands, and clearly demonstrates the denial lunacy in which you engage.

Question: Is it more defaming for a scientist to be accused of being associated with the tobacco industry or to be accused of defrauding scientific data?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=9484#151821

I have a perception of selective "moderation" here Graham.

Another question: am I allowed to have multiple OLO accounts? When I joined I was under the impression that this was against the forum rules, this has changed I take it?

GrahamY wrote:

"I don't think it is possible to argue with Eclipse. His typical syllogism runs "X said this, X is a person of significance, therefore you are wrong" without any references to the principles underlying X's statement and whether they make sense. In some ways he is no different from Runner. They both have texts and are the sole interpreters of what the texts mean. So it is impossible to engage, unfortunately."

Nice character attack there, but putting aside why on earth I'd delve into the twisted logic behind fossil fuel funded anti-science deviant blogs when they've ALREADY been REPEATEDLY debunked by the peer reviewed literature, can I just remind the list that you've again dodged the real issues by turning your attention to attacking me?

For your convenience I've copied in here (again) the matters that remain outstanding:

I'm still trying to get to the bottom of what you think all this discussion about the MWP *proves*, even if we accept the MWP the way you read it.

EG: What did this paper conclude about the extent of the MWP and what were these multi-centennial forcings?

What percentage of today's warming do they account for?

What ARE these forcings?
W
hat is their summary statement on the physics of Co2 and methane and the Radiative Forcing Equation?

Does it RULE OUT CO2 (and other anthropogenic greenhouse gases) as one of many forcings?

What importance does it assign to these factors?

What are their views on future climate trends?

It seems like you're pointing your finger screaming "LOOK AT THIS WIGGLE" called the MWP so we don't look at the overall 2000 year climate trend, and the basic physics of Co2 & methane as today's dominant drivers of the Radiative Forcing Equation.