The evidence of scientists cutting corners, playing down uncertainties in their calculations and then covering their tracks by being secretive with data and suppressing dissent suggests a systemic problem of scientific sloppiness, COLLUSION and endemic conflicts of interest, but not of outright fraud. (p. 241)

Now where’s Boris, to accuse Pearce of being a whacked-out conspiracy theorist? Hey, Rattus?

Suppose you are discussing buying a used car and you ask if it is complete, to which the salesperson replies “yes”. You walk around the car and see that one hubcap is missing – no big deal to you, but shouldn’t the salesperson have seen it was missing thus known that the car is technically not complete. You open the trunk and discover the spare tire is missing, the sales person says “gosh, I didn’t know that, I haven’t had to use a spare tire in years”. Or you unwisely say something like “This is xxxxx isn’t it?” and the salesperson mumbles in a way that you take as a yes, then you see later it is not so. (A Douglas aircraft sales rep did that to me – in contrast, Boeing would fall over themselves to educate me out if they suspected I misunderstood. Guess which company is still in business?) None of those are of the nature of rolling back the odometer or advertising that the engine is the heavy duty version when it clearly is not, but by the end of the scenario I paint you are wondering about such things and others like is there sawdust in the differential to quiet it.

You see a pattern of behaviour so make a judgement for your life and move on to talk to another seller, while the shady sales person moves on to another potential sucker.

(Though a car dealer from Portland who expanded to the Seattle area retreated after several months – its reputation followed it, even physically as some of its unhappy customers from Portland journeyed up to Seattle with picket signs. Even good organization can go bad – the owner of a long-established major dealer in the Seattle area started paying less attention to the business due other interests, the key people he had in charge defrauded a disabled customer big time and eventually got caught and convicted, the state and the car maker made sure he didn’t own the dealership anymore. IOW, “sunshine”, the justice system, and the market place eliminated those who ownership problems.)

Problem is in the climate case politicians are such suckers they keep funding the sleazeballs – so far (I can hope they’ll wake up and smell the red ink as they try desperately to balance the budget without raising taxes which would be fatal to their re-election).

It’s a problem of epistemology – knowledge. Shallow people who go on appearances and shady promises seem poor at seeing the charlatans targeting them, probably because their means of acquiring knowledge are poor. Just look at the high incidence rate of politicians getting conned or bribed, a common topic in the Canadian federal government and a big court case now in B.C.). So how do politician fools get elected? V O T E R S

Tipjar roll of honour:

Australia
Canada
France
New Zealand
Norway
Spain
Switzerland
United Kingdom
U S A

For example, Real Climate blog was a ‘one thought rule them all’ environment where the resident climate experts shepherded a drooling gaggle of admirers.

Once the Climategate scandal hit the news and grew and grew as people delved into the vast cache of emails and computer codes. Real Climate suddenly enforced a policy of glasnost.

And here is the surprising part. This time most of the commenters were not the usual RC devotees and groupies but new people and new names; professionals from other walks of life, especially scientists from other disciplines (or so they declared themselves to be). The number and the quality of criticism directed at Climate Science increased tremendously.

Most laymen may not be aware that there is a rule in scientific/academic circles that one must not declare an ‘expert’ opinion outside their own areas of expertise. However since Climategate emails showed that basic principles of scientific inquiry were violated, many scientists from other fields felt obliged to speak out. Any loss of public trust would not be confined to Climatology, but would reflect badly on the science as a whole. This concern helped mobilise what would normally be an educated but passive audience into providing a fresh slice of highly critical, expert opinion. Climategate made them sit up, pay attention, stand up and speak out. Previously, it was mostly ‘citizen scientists’ who carried the load. Now, ‘scientist citizens’ are helping out.

The world of science and academia moves slowly. The real effects of the Climategate scandal won’t be felt in its first or second years but in its third and fourth years and onwards. The only book-length treatment of the event thus far have been provided by journalists and bloggers. In coming years and decades, however, the issue will be the subject of many scholarly studies, and many books and journal articles discussing all the implications of the event in all angles will fill university library shelves. This will happen regardless of whether Climate Science and its catastrophic predictions prove right or wrong.