Comments on: The Hockey Team at Daily Kos

By: TCO

TCO — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 22:10:22 +0000

The removal of the “apolotical caveat” on the RC site shows more honestly where they are coming from. I’m sure the NPR-listening middlebrows were enthused by the more open embrace of the left by the Hockey Team, that came from showing up on DKos. What do you bet they won’t bother having Tom McGuire* grill him for JustOneMinute?

*You really need to exchange links and get some of his traffic. He is a premier blog and loves you guys. Too bad, JohnA is not hep.

By: Douglas Hoyt

Douglas Hoyt — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 13:32:57 +0000

Does Gavin Schmidt’s job description allow him to run a blog during working hours? And also allow posting on Daily Kos? I think most government employees would be in trouble for such actions using government computers.

By: Steve McIntyre

Steve McIntyre — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 19:49:27 +0000

#3. You wonder why they say such stupid things. The WDCP has a perfectly adequate system for archiving data and does a good job of it when they are not frustrated. As for Mann himself, with all the publicity about MBH98, that data set is now in the public domain. But have you ever seen the data for Mann and Jones [2003] as used? (Most of the data for Jones and Mann [2004] is archived and many series presumably overlap, but not all.)

As to Gavin’s comment that the series in MBH98 “only” used publicly available data. As so often with Gavin’s apologetics, this is simply false. Many of the series were not public domain; in some cases, when there were series in the public domain, Mann used different “grey” versions; in at least one case (Gaspe), Mann “adjusted” the raw data to help his results. This last point could never have been determined merely from the public data. We only were able to identify this because Mann opened up public access to his MBH98 data directory after our 2003 article.

By: J. Sperry

J. Sperry — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 18:56:57 +0000

In addition to the specious claim that “The original criticisms of our (Mann’s) work have been completely discredited now,” I have noticed two interesting comments. First, in the Daily Kos piece, Mann admits that his hockey stick has become an icon of sorts, something I’ve heard here, but I don’t think I’ve heard it from the “team” before.

And in Gavin’s reply to Jack (the reader quoted by Steve above), he says “There is not yet a perfect system for archiving raw data – something that has very little to do with the hockeystick issue since MBH only used publically (sic) available data themselves, and it is only recently that advances in multi-proxy methodologies have made the issue more relevant in the field.” He said more on this later, appealing to another blog about the complications of archiving (which I admittedly haven’t read). I’m surprised that 21st century technology just isn’t good enough for them.

By: Francois Ouellette

Francois Ouellette — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 18:03:53 +0000

Steve,

What is your reply to the “dozen of other papers” that are said to confirm the MBH results? I keep hearing about them, yet I’ve never seen a list or anything like that. Can you comment? As for the interview, I would prefer that they discuss the actual science instead of the usual non-argument that your paper “has been discredited by everyone”. Someone who claims he is always right on everything is always suspicious to me, and I’m never comfortable with that kind of arrogance.

By: Brooks Hurd

Brooks Hurd — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 12:47:37 +0000

I read the comments on Realclimate and Daily Kos. Realclimate has the usual cheerleaders in abundance, as does Daily Kos. Missing at Realclimate are the comments which are critical of Mann et al.

Once again, Realclimate is showing what they mean by “debating the issues”. Perhaps Gavin, Mike, et al are worried that engaging in a real debate might cause some of their strident cheerleaders to begin to wonder about the emporer’s clothes.