- Bishop Hill blog - The two cultures of science

...It's therefore very disappointing to see Beddington's point blank refusal to put even a qualitative assessment of the size of the risks in the current report.

I was reminded of Steve M's recent ruminations on the differences between the public and private sectors as regards trust - in business, if there is a loss of trust you are finished; in the public sector no such incentive to honesty exists. Ask yourself how the head of risk in a large corporate entity would be received if he were to issue a report to the main board outlining risks facing the company but failed to give any assessment of the likelihood of these events happening in practice. It's hard to see him retaining his job for long.

More Disinformation From New Scientist About Climategate

New Scientist has used the occasion of CRU’s release of CRUTEM station data in response to the ICO’s rejection of CRU excuses to disseminate further disinformation about the Climategate dossier.

Anyone can now view for themselves the raw data that was at the centre of last year’s “climategate” scandal.

The Climategate dossier is about the Hockey Stick, not the CRUTEM temperature record. CRUTEM is mentioned in only a few emails. Muir Russell’s list of common words in the emails (p 147) doesn’t list CRUTEM, but, according to this list, Yamal is mentioned 100 times. While I had an outstanding FOI request for CRUTEM data in 2009, the primary concern of Climate Audit has been with proxy reconstructions, rather than the temperature record.

Public payroll scientists align themselves with environmental pressure groups and are then surprised they are not viewed as disinterested parties | JunkScience Sidebar