For what it’s worth, “club” pretty well describes the world of computer science peer-reviewed forums, as well. It is a good system in general, so long as you realize what it is. It focusses discussion among people who are in the club. Don’t take me wrong: it is a great system in general and it greatly helps scientific progress!

Passing peer review, though, is no Seal of Truth. It basically means that other people in the club will want to read it.

To find the best theories, one needs to hunker down and read the material. If the club members are speaking in a foreign jargon, then they just are not going to get their results out. Draw your own conclusions (it is not a simple topic!), but notice at least that “I saw it in Nature” does not cut it for science.

Isn’t that exactly what we have going on right now? A few people started making a buzz, then picked up by the MSM and the politico’s. Now AGW is a political force that “everyone” seems to have picked up on.

Maybe it’s like the honeybee who’s found the path to the trap and is sending everyone to their doom.

Right, however with an open process dissenters get to chime in too and if they make enough sense to enough people the tide can turn. Honeybee swarms don’t always find the best hive sites, but they usually do after enough scout bees advocate for one choice among several. All I’m saying is a closed process is more likely to send us to a trap because the amount of information is limited. The current AGW bandwagon has advanced quite far because of limited information that all seems to point in the same direction. Only lately have the dissenters made enough coherent noise to get a hearing.

Steve S,

I’m a very big fan of W Edwards Deming as regards statistical control of quality. It’s amazing to me that the one area where Deming’s method has yet to make any impact is in scientific research reporting. Instead we have would could be described as a naive, Boy Scout honor system which has amply demonstrated that its not up to the task.

The 2nd order draft of the “Summary for Policymakers” and “Technical Summary” of Working Group I is available to any U.S. citizens by simply submitting an email for a username and password.

You can also be a US permanent resident.

When the author’s reply sounds like what Phil Jones told Steve, alarms should start going off in the reviewer’s mind.

I don’t know about Chandras raw data as he has always refused to release it. Nothing I have read seems to make it clear exactly what he did. Anyway, making up fictitious researchers to submit results to support your own false data shows much more dedication to fraud than just making up data. When it reaches that sort of level surely there is a case for the police to be involved. Obtaining money by deception etc?

Re #39.

Very interesting, thanks for that.

but I would be surprised if the raw data is made up that this can be detected using statistcs.

Google and read about “Benford’s Law.”

Group decision-making is found in bird flocks and honeybee swarms where signals from a few cogniscenti are picked up, amplified and become the group decision. It’s going to happen with democratized science and science policy too.

Isn’t that exactly what we have going on right now? A few people started making a buzz, then picked up by the MSM and the politico’s. Now AGW is a political force that “everyone” seems to have picked up on.

Maybe it’s like the honeybee who’s found the path to the trap and is sending everyone to their doom.