Once you have finished demolishing the hockey stick have a very careful look at some of the diamond plays.

I feel that another Bre-X is in the wind, it is already there but no one has cottoned onto it, or, fallow ground is being expertly prepared for Son of Bre-X.

Localising it to Australia, I make it a rule of thumb that Stock Exchange Quarterly rerports should report ” facts”. Hence if one is studying an operating mining operation, Qtr production figures for tons mined, valuable commodity recovered, and sales, (taking in account lag times for processing etc) should be easily typed into a suitabl;y designed spreadsheet.

Think of it as a matric or crosssword into which the empty cells need to be populated once mineral processing catches up etc, the usual mining and metallurgial facts which we in the mining industry accept as “normal”.

So when the “Matrix” cannot be filled completely from 2.5 years mining, one starts to wonder.

To make it simple, there are only two diamond producers in Oz.
)

I often feel like an anthropologist in the land of academics, since I’m not used to many strange customs that are second nature to academics, but quite unusual to a civilian.

I saw your interesting post about why protagonists were involved in the hockey stick debate and will try to post up my point of view. Now that I’m engaged in the debate, it obviously affects my motives, but I’m pretty objective about things and it’s a good question.

Regards, Steve

However, it strains credulity to think that the Ammann and Wahl press release had anything to do with interests in UCAR funding, or climate funding generally. (Scientists do obviously have interests and these are important to consider in climate policy, see, e.g., this paper: http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/2003.01.pdf) The release of a press release for a paper submitted but not yet reviewed, with no other “hook” than being on the very same day that you fellows are giving your own press briefing in DC gives pretty strong evidence that the press release was a preemptory political tactic in the ongoing public battle over the meaning and significance of the hockey stick.

There had been some publicity in fall 2004 after Richard Muller of Berkeley wrote a column in MIT Technology Review on our adventures with Nature. I had had phone interviews with reporters (Crok of Natuurwetenschap and Regalado of WSJ) prior to GRL acceptance – both of whom had got interested via the Muller article. Both were intrigued but wouldn’t proceed until GRL acceptance in the case of Natuurwetenschap and actual publication in the case of WSJ. Other publicity is pretty much derivative from these 3 sources.

There was also publicity in fall 2003, but this was all after publication of our first E&E article, not before.

Regards, Steve

Back on-topic, I find it quite premature and unusual to have a press release concerning a journal submission. But I must ask – didn’t the MM work get a lot of notoriety prior to publication thanks to the internet, or am I confused on the dates?

Nevertheless, I find it interesting that the jumps to claim “validation” came following a press release of a journal submission as opposed to an actual journal publication.