Do the e-mails stolen from climate researchers in England contain anything that casts doubt on the reality of global warming? Are we seeing efforts to suppress differing opinions or rather, an example of the intense debates characteristic of science? (December 6, 2009)

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It is easy to go see climate talks at Berkeley and as a social scientist I have to say that they usually make me uncomfortable.  If you go to an  astronomy or physics  talk,  nobody bats an eyelash when people  question the evidence for, say, Dark Energy.   (Criticizing the idea that speed of light sets an absolute limit on velocity definitely will encounter  resistance, but I’ve seen that done also.)  This pattern of evidence and push-back  has been going on since universities rejected scholasticism back in the 1100s.  It’s a pleasure to watch.

To an outsider, at least, the  climate  talks feel  different.  True,  speakers can  and often do criticize the evidence.  But they invariably … More >

The thousands of stolen emails and documents (http://www.filedropper.com/foi2009 (61 mb)) do not negate global warming.  Mostly they are the usual kinds of emails between collaborating or inquiring scientists, exchanging data, ideas, friendship, and criticism of other’s ideas and papers. Most are between scientists that share the idea that global warming is taking place.  However, they are all informal communications much like you might hear in conversation between scientists or any other sorts of people. Egos are commonly at stake in these conversations.     Clearly the emails are not well thought out and polished drafts of a scientific nature.    Some are straightforward discussion, others are … More >

The emails that were exposed are not trivial, and because of that, they do throw some doubt on our knowledge of the severity of human-caused global warming.  The problem is that they indicate that some of the top researchers in the field have not been following the norms of correct scientific behavior.

The comments in the email do not reflect proper respect for the key concepts of the scientific method.  The worst quote of all is the one about hiding the decline.  Had one of my graduate students said something like that, he would no longer have me as his advisor. … More >

When climate scientists, in their emails to each other, discuss ‘tricking’ the data, what they are really doing is betraying a generalized fear of complexity, and a lack of faith in the lay audience.  The public, one assumes, hates complexity: witness modern political campaigns, or your basic hollywood blockbuster. And this is America: we like football more than soccer, checkers more than Go, and The History Channel rather than history.  So I have some sympathy for climate scientists trying to square the fluidity of data with the simple narrative which states that the world is warming fast and we’ve got … More >