House committee wrong: scientists didn’t fake climate change data
Even if NOAA fabricated data, the evidence still supports climate change Donald LeRoi, NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center Climate scientists have worked hard for decades to prove climate change. Why is the US House Committee on Science, Space and Technology working so hard not to believe them? On Sunday February 5th, the U.S. House of Representatives…
By: dave-dr-gonzo
David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.
* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.
17 responses to House committee wrong: scientists didn’t fake climate change data
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Dwendt44 February 7th, 2017 at 11:49
To Climate Change deniers, any ‘change’ or ‘correction’ is proof of ‘rigged’ results and thereby show that there is no ‘warming’.
Facts don’t matter to right wing nut jobs.
Willys41 February 7th, 2017 at 12:21
There are no facts in Trumpville.
Suzanne McFly February 7th, 2017 at 20:30
And they can always find a snowball somewhere to prove that global warming is a hoax.
Mike February 7th, 2017 at 11:50
You can’t fake science …. others will eventually perform the same experiments and arrive (or not arrive) at the same conclusions … it’s called peer review.
Science it the absolute best shot at truth we have. Not politics, philosophy, or religion….
If I destroyed every book on religion, philosophy, politics, and science, in a thousand years all would reappear in a different form except the science books … they would be exactly the same because we would be discovering the only real truth the universe offers us.
William February 7th, 2017 at 12:58
The best comment I ever read on the subject. “Science doesn’t care if you believe in it or not”
bpollen February 7th, 2017 at 15:34
I heard something like that from Neil DeGrasse Tyson.
William February 8th, 2017 at 06:51
…and Beaker. Don’t forget Beaker. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4b19d6d0fb63ff5fac6023f4495892f03ae581273faf073486cc2cc3533c31a0.jpg
bpollen February 8th, 2017 at 15:52
Wow! I LOVE that picture!
Robert M. Snyder February 7th, 2017 at 14:35
“Science it the absolute best shot at truth we have. Not politics, philosophy, or religion”
I worked in a university research lab, as a computer programmer, for five years during the 1980’s. Researchers are by definition curious about the world, so they think about lots of things. Consequently, they form and express opinions about many things outside of their areas of expertise, including political issues, philosophical questions, and religion.
The best scientists strive to be objective and follow the evidence, wherever it leads, even when it conflicts with their prior assumptions. But scientists are human beings with human weaknesses and limitations. And in every field, including Science, some people are more virtuous than others.
Most scientists don’t have a lot of time or funding to pursue their own curiosity. Somebody has to provide the space, equipment, supplies, and personnel needed to conduct meaningful research. All of this costs money. The people who offer the funding, whether public or private, determine what questions will be explored. And in many fields, the competition for research funding is intense.
Many scientists are uncomfortable with the current system of research funding, and some have proposed alternative means of funding research, in order to reduce the potential for conflicts of interest.
The scientific method is indeed our best shot at gaining a true understanding of how the world works. But the process is not immune to politics. Research costs a lot of money, and wherever you find money, you will also find influence.
Mike February 8th, 2017 at 08:59
Agreed.
But the science will always be the same, whereas the arguments for and against will always be different. That’s my point.
The scientific method is destroyed by political compromise because it creates discursive dilemmas. In fact, all political choices have the potential to create a dilemma, which makes the process of using politics to review science a flawed process.
Robert M. Snyder February 8th, 2017 at 09:27
“But the science will always be the same”
I’m not sure what you mean. If you are saying that a scientific consensus is never wrong, that’s demonstrably false.
For example, there was a long-standing scientific consensus that the universe was expanding at an ever-decreasing rate, and that it would eventually collapse back in on itself. But in light of more recent findings, the consensus has changed. It is now widely believed that the universe is expanding at an ever-increasing rate.
The scientific method is designed to help people reach the most logical conclusions from the data that is available to them. But as technology advances, there is always the possibility that additional data and higher accuracy will cause a paradigm shift.
Having worked in a research lab, I can tell you that data is always messy. Whenever any quantity is repeatedly measured over time, you can think of the result as a signal. And since every measurement that is taken contains a small amount of error, scientists and engineers talk about the “signal-to-noise ratio”. There is an entire field (digital signal processing) that is concerned with extracting weak signals from strong noise.
When you are trying to measure a change in sea level to within 0.1 mm on an ocean surface that has wave heights measured in meters, you are looking for a faint signal in the presence of strong noise.
The satellites (Jason2 and Jason3) which measure sea surface height (satellite altimetry) do so by reflecting a radar signal off the ocean surface and measuring the time-of-flight, which is proportional to the total distance. These satellites are orbiting at an altitude of 1336 kilometers. At that altitude, a change in sea level of one millimeter is one part in 1.336 billion.
Personally, I’ve never been convinced that they can measure accurately to the sub-millimeter level. But when Congress is funding your satellite project, and Congress demands to know whether sea level is rising and at what rate, the NASA folks (who operate the satellites) are clearly under pressure to provide answers.
I have never been able to find published specifications on the accuracy of results provided by the Jason2 and Jason3 satellites that perform satellite altimetry.
Mike February 8th, 2017 at 14:06
…and astronomers long ago thought Canis Major was one of Orion’s hunting dogs … a gift from Zeus himself.
But the pursuit of science (truth) didn’t support that explanation so we moved on. A great amount of philosophy, religion, tradition, money and power was invested in that belief … but science proved it was fantasy. You’re kinda making my point for me…
In time, the BBT will go the way of the dinosaur.
Tell me, why select a discipline which is built upon conjecture like theoretical physics when millions of library’s around the world contain billions of pages of settled scientific argument ? … unchanged dating back thousands of years …
Yeah, we disagree on a lot of stuff, but we agree on about 99.99999% of everything else …. that’s why studying science requires years of preparation.
Willys41 February 7th, 2017 at 12:21
republicans are such pathetic losers.
Charlie Seivard February 7th, 2017 at 12:50
Those scientifically illiterate politicians could not read or understand data even it were set in their third grade reading level.
William February 7th, 2017 at 12:56
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/90e0eb101e6da1eecc2ac0ff4fa31eaccda6348436106c05c53e49458cff2a13.jpg
amersham1046 February 7th, 2017 at 13:42
GOP members of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology considers dissolving an ALKA SELTZER tablet higher science bordering upon magic
RandyBastard February 8th, 2017 at 01:08
The GOP is desperate to win the political fight over the existence of Climate Change. But even if they win and feel all good about themselves for winning the argument, they’ll still drown in the rising oceans. They will still bake to a golden brown by the rise in global temperatures. They will at some point be confronted with the reality, and I hope they take the chance to kill themselves in shame.