[Matt Ridley on straw men] | The Rational Optimist…

If you try to find rebuttals of heretic climate sceptics, again and again you find yourself wading through articles attacking straw men that bear little resemblance to the sceptics' actual arguments. I have yet to read a defence of the hockey stick graph, for example, that understands, let alone does justice to, Steve McIntyre's critique before dismissing it. RealClimate is an egregious offender in this regard.

When McCain picked Palin, liberal journalists coordinated the best line of attack | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment

In the hours after Sen. John McCain announced his choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate in the last presidential race, members of an online forum called Journolist struggled to make sense of the pick. Many of them were liberal reporters, and in some cases their comments reflected a journalist’s instinct to figure out the meaning of a story.

But in many other exchanges, the Journolisters clearly had another, more partisan goal in mind: to formulate the most effective talking points in order to defeat Palin and McCain and help elect Barack Obama president. The tone was more campaign headquarters than newsroom.
...
Daniel Levy of the Century Foundation noted that Obama’s “non-official campaign” would need to work hard to discredit Palin.

Times Higher Education - Leader: Open the lab doors to the light

Climategate may yet have a positive outcome for the whole of the academy.

First, it should once and for all shatter the enduring myth of science as following a "neat and tidy linear path towards greater knowledge" and show it in all its messy, ungainly but wonderful glory.

Second, the furore should also blow away peer review's cloak of infallibility.

- Bishop Hill blog - More media

...There are tens of thousands of scientists in the United Kingdom. As far as I know, none have been convicted of research fraud in at least twenty years. That is not credible. What kind of society would we have if there were no police, judiciary, or prisons? That, in effect, is the system in place in science today.

The result is a culture of impunity. The main problems with the peer review system are consequences of that culture. There are many other consequences: bogus research is widespread.

Sincerely,
Douglas J. Keenan