Email 3826, Feb 2001: In an email copied to a long list of believers and realists, the late John Daly writes "What is at issue is the uncritical zeal with which the industry siezed on the [tree-ometer] theory before its scientific value had been properly tested"

Email 3826

...The tree ring is a composite of all these variables, not merely of temperature. Therefore on the 15% of the planet covered by trees, their rings do not and cannot accurately record temperature in isolation from the other environmental variables. In my article on Greening Earth Society on the Hockey Stick, I point to other evidence which contradicts Mann's theory. The Idso's have produced more of that evidence, and a new article on Greening Earth has `unearthed' even more. Mann's theory simply does not stack up. But that was not the key issue. Anyone can put up a dud theory from time to time. What is at issue is the uncritical zeal with which the industry siezed on the theory before its scientific value had been properly tested. In one go, they tossed aside dozens of studies which confirmed the existence of the MWE and LIA as global events, and all on the basis of tree rings - a proxy which has all the deficiencies I have stated above. The worst thing I can say about any paper such as his is that it is `bad science'. Legal restraint prevents me going further. But in his case, only those restraints prevent me going *much* further.