Category Archives: Science And Society

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

The Stink Of Intellectual Corruption

12 Comments

“…is overpowering“:

The emails paint a clear picture of scientists selectively using data, and colluding with politicians to misuse scientific information.

‘Humphrey’, said to work at Defra, writes: ‘I cannot overstate the HUGE amount of political interest in the project as a message that the government can give on climate change to help them tell their story.

‘They want their story to be a very strong one and don’t want to be made to look foolish.’

Professor Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the centre of the affair, said the group findings did stand up to scrutiny.

Yet one of the newly released emails, written by Prof. Jones – who is working with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – said: ‘Any work we have done in the past is done on the back of the research grants we get – and has to be well hidden.

‘I’ve discussed this with the main funder (U.S. Dept of Energy) in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original station data.’

I wonder who at DOE that was, and if it was during the Bush administration?

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

The Problem with the Climate Data

16 Comments

Explained:

I note that over at RealClimate they are desperately trying to spin this as two-year-old turkey. However, it’s not just my case that has new information. Regarding a host of other issues, the recent emails contain much previously unrevealed evidence of the perfidy, subversion, misdirection, and malfeasance practiced by the Climategate un-indicted co-conspirators. Among many other things, they provide clear evidence of the destruction of incriminating emails. This was not just “boys will be boys”. This was the leading lights of the AGW supporting scientists, working together to deny access to publicly funded climate data, and twisting, bending and breaking the scientific norms, FOI regulations, and possibly the law in the process. And that’s just what they did in my case, that doesn’t even begin to touch their other misdeeds that they discuss in detail.

The discouraging part is that, to this day, not a person among them has admitted that they did anything incorrect in the slightest. Not one has acknowledged that they went a ways, not just a little ways, but a long ways over the line of ethics, morality, and honesty. No one has said they did a single thing wrong, no one has admitted they evaded an honest FOI request. Silence.

And silence, unfortunately, has also been the overwhelming response of the climate science community to their misdeeds. The miscreants say nothing, their supporters say nothing, they keep awarding each other honors and prizes, and they hope it will go away.

And as he notes, it’s not going to go away. It’s only going to get worse as more and more comes to light over time. Whoever is leaking this know what they’re doing, and knows the whole story.

[Update later afternoon]

Inappropriate conduct by the National Research Council? I wish I were capable of being shocked.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

Climaquiddick Redux

32 Comments

They’ve found more incriminating emails. Validating that the “exoneration” of Mann was a whitewash.

[Update a while later]

A lot more over at Yid With Lid.

[Update a few minutes later]

Ace has more, too.

These people aren’t doing science. They should be drummed out of their so-called profession.

[Late afternoon update]

The emails seem to be real. At least Mann isn’t denying them. Though certainly he’ll continue to spin.

[Bumped]

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

The Avastin Decision

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Did the FDA do the right thing?

The Wall Street Journal, and others, have denounced the FDA’s move as “a chillingly blunt assertion of regulatory power.” But my Manhattan Institute colleague Paul Howard is the guy who gets it right, in a blog post for Medical Progress Today:

If you think (as I do) that the FDA should be expanding the accelerated approval pathway and allow more drugs to get to market based on promising early studies. rather than waiting for large Phase III clinical trials that can take years to complete, you can argue that this outcome actually strengthens AA. Critics have charged that AA is sop to industry, and that companies never do the follow up studies to support AA. Avastin proves them wrong.

This is exactly the point. If you want the FDA to approve more innovative, new drugs based on promising but early clinical results, you have to give the FDA a way to revoke those approvals later on, should larger trials prove that those drugs aren’t as safe or effective as they first seemed. This is why the FDA should be congratulated for the way it has handled the Avastin breast cancer saga, and why I hope we will see the FDA handle more cases like this one, not less.

Yes, this is better than the way they’ve done it in the past, but this argument presumes that the FDA should have such regulatory power in the first place. It’s one thing to provide data on efficacy. It’s another to prevent people from making their own decisions about what drugs to use for which ailments.