The report was unequivocal in its backing of the scientists in terms of research integrity, though it did criticize their openness. “Their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt,” it said. In response to the assertion that CRU had withheld data, the report found that it was mostly not theirs to withhold but was easily accessible in public databases. One of the report's authors, physicist Peter Clarke of the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom, told a press briefing today that they were able to download the relevant data “in a few minutes” and then process it in the same way as CRU had done, producing similar final results. “It took a couple of days of code writing,” he said. The authors found no evidence of bias by CRU in its selection of data. Allegations of misuse of tree ring data were also put aside.
The report did criticise (as previous reports have done) the handling of FOI requests.
EoR presumes that Muir Russell will now have to be added to the deniers' List of Conspiratorial Fellows.
Yesterday EoR resisted any octopus jokes (Q: How many suckers does an octopus have? A: As many as pay the entrance fee) but he feels no such qualms today. Via Talking Squid:
On Judgement Day, all the conspiracy theorists are resurrected, and after discussing matters among themselves they send a representative to talk to the Lord. The representative goes to the Lord and asks: “Lord, we’d really like to know: who killed JFK?”
And the Lord replies: “Oh, really. It was Lee Harvey Oswald. He was acting alone. There was no conspiracy.”
The representative goes back to the crowd and they ask: “Well, what did the Lord say?”
He looks around carefully, leans forward, and whispers: “This is bigger than we thought … “
Funny, but alas - once a denier always a denier.
ReplyDeleteI would love to know if there is ANYTHING out there, anything at all, which could bring a denier around.