Comments on: Ammann and Wahl – July 2005 Review

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"Climate Change" - The Lie That Won't Die - Page 52 - Political Forum — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 03:31:20 +0000

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By: Hockey Stick Controversy - Page 2 - TheEnvironmentSite.org Environment Forum

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By: Letter to Climatic Change « Climate Audit

Letter to Climatic Change « Climate Audit — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 16:48:13 +0000

[...] I was asked to review the Wahl and Amman submission in May 2005 and recently posted up my review here. The first recommendation in my review was that all Wahl and Ammann remove all arguments that [...]

By: The Knowing One

The Knowing One — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 06:56:12 +0000

To clarify my last two posts, the entire quotation was included. The way the peer-review system works, though, is with editors overseeing the detailed work, which is done by outside reviewers. So I think it is clear that the “we” in the quotation must refer to editors+reviewers, with the recalculations done by reviewers. The alternative interpretation being suggested does not seem sensible.

By: John A

John A — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 17:49:23 +0000

re: 34, 35

Whatever the merits, the problem is that there are too many papers published which are of poor quality.

In stock market terms, it’s a speculative science bubble being offered to the public and to politicians. When the bubble bursts, the promoters (science journals) will find it very hard to compete for the very small number of articles “post-crash” which are of good quality, but don’t offer eyewatering returns of sensational headlines, worrying climate forecasts of temperature rise and high pressure sales tactics for reports with even scarier headlines.

Expectations of returns from a few good articles will then revert to the long term average after a bear market of prolonged understatement and retrenchment.

At the moment, the sky’s the limit for climate modellers and multiproxy authors. Every statistical run is a potential new article to foist onto a public desperate to buy into the next rush of apocalyptic fever, although it has to be said that the number of people willing to buy these stories has reduced recently, causing some commentators to wonder whether a “top” in the bull market has been reached…

By: Paul Penrose

Paul Penrose — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 16:56:33 +0000

Re: #34
In the quote you supply, an EDITOR claims that they do not recalculate results. Since there is no context for that quote it is quite reasonable for one to assume that he is talking about himself and other editors. You then link your previous discussion about “clogging up” science with the quoted editor’s statement about “grinding to a halt”. It’s not much of a stretch to assume you are also talking about editors since you don’t further clarify that you are referring to reviewers. Therefore I find your claim that Pat was making a Straw Man argument to be unfounded.

By: The Knowing One

The Knowing One — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 08:02:03 +0000

#31 seems to suggest that I said medical science journals had high standards. I actually said that the standards of all science journals are unacceptably low (#5,8) and that those of medical journals are relatively high (please look up the definition of “relatively”).

#32 goes further and claims that I said editors themselves are supposed to recalculate statistics.

Both comments are straw men. I don’t believe that people would resort to using straw men if they had reasoned ways to rebut a point. And I didn’t think that this blog was supposed to be a forum for rhetoric.

By: Nicholas

Nicholas — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 06:48:15 +0000

Of course if raw data and source code were made available to reviewers, it would be much easier for them to check the studies more thoroughly. They could at least do a fairly quick check to see whether the method as described in the paper actually matches the method used. Then, if the data and code were also made available to “auditors” post-publication, and auditors had a forum for discussion and publishing problems found in published papers (which does not seem to be currently available in many journals) then at least flawed studies would eventually be brought to the scientific community’s attention.

Is it really so hard to ALLOW people like Steve to check the studies if they volunteer to do so?

By: Pat Frank

Pat Frank — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 06:09:27 +0000

#30-Specious argument, KO. I wrote that editors should uphold the standards of science, not, as you’d have it, that they themselves should recalculate results.

Any recalculation done is done by reviewers. Editors rely on reviewers to do their jobs, and good editors retain groups of reliable and knowledgeable reviewers.

Your comments about “might” this and “for all we know” that merely reiterate my main point about Schneider. A good editor would have informed his reviewer that a third (or fourth) reviewer had been brought in. The editor would also have allowed the prior reviewer to see the presumably conclusive analyses made by the new reviewer. Doing these things amounts to a professional obligation.

The fact that so much remains mysterious is itself an indication that Schneider failed his editorial responsibilities miserably.

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 04:09:26 +0000

RE#30: No...but there have been things in the news here and here (just a couple of MSM examples) to show that the studies in medical journals are very problematic--data being made up, poor statistical analysis--the very same types of problems that are in the paleoclimate studies. We can either have things "grind to a halt" or we can have bogus studies. Sometimes I wonder if grinding to a halt wouldn't be better.