Comments on: Just Doing Their Jobs – “Robustly”

By: Phil

Phil — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 04:25:17 +0000

Re: Phil (Dec 5 20:53), Steve, I understood that. I was just trying to provide a link for the "narrow statistical definition."

By: Phil

Phil — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 01:53:52 +0000

Re: PaddikJ (Dec 5 02:22), Robust Statistics B. D. Ripley 2004 Applied Robust Statistics David J. Olive 2008 Steve; "robust" statistics is a real terminology, but this isn't what the Team is talking about. Been through this before.

By: PaddikJ

PaddikJ — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 07:22:57 +0000

I’ve noticed that the scientific literature is robust with robust, usually regarding data but also analyses, i.e., it’s part of science culture. I didn’t realize until this thread that it has a narrow statistical definition. I would guess it originated there & was quickly adapted by the at-large science community – rhetorically, it’s pretty powerful.

But in climatology it seems to have gone way beyond rhetoric – it’s most often used as an all-purpose intimidater & debate quasher:

Non-climate scientist: You seem to be getting a lot of mileage from very few data.

Climate scientist (bristling): Our data are robust, and our conclusions are robuster.

By: sHx

sHx — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 09:36:04 +0000

Now, that is funny.

By: dougie

dougie — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:21:19 +0000

Mann/Gavin’s Gambit, Steve’s counter ,Team defense (with illegal moves say’s Steve, no say’s team, we make the rules up as we go, we(and our friends in high places)own the board & most pieces, so stalemate ok?

but who has the most pawns left may decide the game.

By: David S

David S — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 22:27:13 +0000

So can I, Boris. It’s just that they got them the wrong way round. There was a clear public interest defence for not printing the Wikileaks stuff, and none for suppressing climategate, where everything from threats of physical violence to attempts to subvert the peer review process were going on at public expense.

By: pesadia

pesadia — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 20:43:40 +0000

Climategate is still a hot topic, one year on. This release of government documents will be forgotten in a couple of months.
In my opinion, climategate was and still is much more important and significant.

By: Kenneth Fritsch

Kenneth Fritsch — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 16:16:33 +0000

I guess the lesson here might be that a thinking person can decide for themselves how to interpret any leaks they may come by. I do not need the NYT, the Wiki whatever, Gavin Schmidt or the defenders of the status quo, like Boris, to spin the importance of these leaks.

Leaks seem to result in one reaction and that is embarrassment. The question to be asked is what is it that is so embarrassing and why should it be so embarrassing. I would judge that the prime consideration here by the those embarrassed is the public relations effects. That politicians are very much sensitive to PR goes without saying, but the sensitivity of scientists and their defenders would be a puzzle for me unless I assume that the efforts of these people is very much into public relations.

By: PhilH

PhilH — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 16:04:17 +0000

Come on, Boris. The NYT didn’t like the political implications of the Climategate e-mails so they didn’t print them. It is as simple as that, and you know it.

By: Ulises

Ulises — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 16:02:51 +0000

> I honestly don’t know what it really means…..

Robust statistics are less sensitive to changes in the data, violations of assumptions or, in particular, outliers in the data (see for instance
http://agoras.ua.ac.be/icors03/books.htm)

Steve: “robust statistics” is a defined technical term. However, the term “robust” in climate science is used somewhat sui generis.