Comment by sprout | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sprout | Hacker News Reader

>I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.

This guy has a lot of gall to end with that after making such flimsy allegations of fraud against an entire academic discipline. His hyperbolic screeching about the "flood of money" would better be directed at the oil industry.

That's not to say the climate change crowd is without its biases, but if he honestly thinks that they are intentionally committing fraud for love of money and prestige, he is deluded.

Personally, I think that the people he slanders are acting honestly, but I might present a more modest hypothesis:

The people who do research on the climate and on the environment have a dramatic love of forests and lakes and natural, untouched wilderness. Anyone who stands in the midst of the mountains cannot help but see why this is. These people might even be willing to lie to protect them. Money, I assure you, has nothing to do with it. But unfailing love of the natural world? Sure, there are people who would lie without hesitation to protect that. But money? Money has very little importance to people who advocate for reductions in fossil fuels, and I think Hal Lewis' focus on money shows how little he understands the people he maligns.

I don't include myself among them because I am no such researcher, but I share their values, their love of the wild things. Lewis, I'm not entirely sure what he loves. I find it difficult to believe he's really interested in science. I can't believe a rationalist would look at any of the evidence available and be so convinced of fraud.

Money has very little importance to people who advocate for reductions in fossil fuels...

Money has a great deal of importance to a scientist wishing to study forests and natural, untouched wilderness. It has even more importance to a scientist who wants to build a supercomputer to simulate (over)simplified models of the atmosphere and ocean.

As for Lewis, I suspect he loves the scientific method. Find data, generate hypothesis, expose your methods to everyone and pray that you spotted all the flaws in your argument/analysis. He expresses anger that this process has been subverted and the APS is trying to ignore it.

>Money has a great deal of importance to a scientist wishing to study forests and natural, untouched wilderness. It has even more importance to a scientist who wants to build a supercomputer to simulate (over)simplified models of the atmosphere and ocean.

It has far more importance (and much more zeroes!) to a scientist who conducts studies on behalf of Energy Industry or for Corporations in said industry.

>As for Lewis, I suspect he loves the scientific method. Find data, generate hypothesis, expose your methods to everyone and pray that you spotted all the flaws in your argument/analysis. He expresses anger that this process has been subverted and the APS is trying to ignore it.

Well, I guess the only option in that case is to proceed with his own independent study?

>scientist who wants to build a supercomputer to simulate (over)simplified models of the atmosphere and ocean

So we shall conduct experiments only when we have complete model for everything?

He makes some good points, but probably goes too far when he starts impugning the motives of others.

The APS shouldn't have dashed off such a dodgy statement about climate change without better consultation with its thousands of members (including me). And the word "incontrovertible" is too strong for just about anything in science, and shouldn't have been used.

Debate is being intentionally suppressed, data is intentionally being manipulated and obscured, sources of information go missing, trillions of dollars are being poured in by Governments to influence the outcome, and outcomes are being declared by stacked committees. Call it what you want, just don't call it science.

If you're going to throw grenades like this please also provide some specific citations that back up your position. Otherwise, it's difficult to take you seriously.

Sources of information going missing (article written before climategate): http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/228291/dog-ate-global...

(Sometime before this occurred, Mann sent emails saying they would delete data rather than respond to a FOIA request. A FOIA request occurred.)

As for suppression of debate, this APS episode is just one example of many.

Trillions? A wee bit of hyperbole, no?

yes it is

Trillions?

When was the last time you saw a climate science postdoc driving a Maybach?

Or, more substantively, does the climate science field really look like something that has endless funding? If that were the case, then they'd be limited by manpower, not money.

Colleges and universities would be going all-out to attract talent to climate science programs, in order to be able to staff lots of grants and get the fountains of government cash. Promising high school students would be treated like football stars, with no NCAA limits on gifts, in order to fill undergrad programs. Graduate programs would likewise be dangling cars and sex in front of top undergrads.

Universities would be building Taj Mahal climate science research facilities, the better to hold all those grad students and get the fat grants from the government.

I don't really see that happening.

Nor does anyone actually think climate science is "where the money is". Why would anyone waste time on HN if there were trillions of dollars, or even hundreds of billions, flowing into climate science?

Even big science projects like the National Ignition Facility that approach $10 billion only do so over the course of many years.

"but if he honestly thinks that they are intentionally committing fraud for love of money and prestige, he is deluded." It's official, sprout, the non-researcher thinks that an American Physical Society of sixty-seven years is wrong simply 'because'. Without reading the emails of climategate, sprout leads us to the truth intrinsic to himself only. Floods of money are directed to "the oil industry", often times by customers. Money is flooding scientific research by tax dollars aimed at manipulating the public. It's not like a carbon-credit market props itself up, right?

I read the emails that supposedly show fraud. There's nothing indicative that it's systemic.

Furthermore, the 'ClimateGate' emails only barely show fraud. No, I haven't read them all, but every source I saw pointed to the same exact 'trick' emails, and no one could show anything dirty in the rest.

There are two ways of reducing fossil fuel consumption: reduce demand and reduce supply. Reducing supply (by preventing drilling new wells, embargoing oil producers and bombing foreign oil wells) is currently ahead, thus the price has risen from $30ish to $80ish / bbl. Owners of existing wells have made a huge windfall. It would be surprising if they weren't heavily interested in further supply reductions.

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