I seem to keep coming back to
climate studies, why?
They are second to none right
now in the misuse of science and agenda driven “science meant to be used to
change our lifestyles in way most still can’t comprehend. And in spite of the growing evidence contradicting the
climate change “science”
scientific, media and political forces are still acting like there’s
nothing to see here and that critics are off their gourd. Since this involves what is supposed to be a
“hard” science instead of my usually field, the “social” sciences it make it especially egregious when this
sort of thing goes on.
Today Anthony Watts has an
interesting analysis of the issues involving tree-ring studies in general, and
the studies if Keith Biffra, which get
cited over and over again as authoritative, in particular. I’ll link it at the end of this post.
Here is the problem. Conservationism has been taken over by folks
who want to use conservation as a means to concentrate the population in urban
centers that they may be more easily controlled by a powerful government. Some of these folks actually believe we are a
cancer on the earth. In the warming of
the eighties they saw a possible way to achieve their agenda, the globe warmed
up a little. So, the plan was advanced
to convince people that we are the cause of the warming and that it is
unprecedented in history. Then people
would be inclined to give up technology freedoms and rights in the name of
restoring the climate before disaster strikes.
Unfortunately the historical
record doesn’t cooperate with the thesis they were advancing. We know from records kept world-wide in
certain civilizations that there have been warm periods and cold periods
throughout human history. We even have
names for them such as the Medieval Warming Period (MWP ) and the Maunder
Minimum (MM). But global warming theory
doesn’t allow for that.
So they started looking at so
called proxies, natural evidence which could possibly be used to infer
temperatures such as sediment cores, etc.
But those didn’t cooperate very
well either, until two men enter the arena Dr. Michael Mann and Keith Biffra. Both men purported to use tree-ring ring
dendrology to measure earth’s past temperatures. Dr. Mann came first and produced the
sensational “hockey-stick” graph which purportedly proved that temperature was
stable through the millennia until modern man started spewing carbon dioxide
gas into the atmosphere. Biffra next
appeared to duplicate Mann’s result using
trees from another area of the earth.
Mr. Watts gives an excellent summary on the problem with tree-ring
dendrology for measuring temperatures:
For many years, scientists have used tree-ring data to
try to measure temperatures from the distant past, but the idea is problematic
in and of itself. Why? Because tree-ring data reflect many variables besides
temperature. Russian tree growth, like that of trees around the world, also
reflects changes in humidity, precipitation, soil nutrients,
competition for resources from other trees and plants, animal behavior,
erosion, cloudiness, and on and on.
Watts is examining Biffra’s study in his article which is
why he mentions Russia in particular.
Mann ‘s study was debunked pretty quickly after he published it. First he used a species of tree which is
notorious for its unreliability for documenting seasonal variations because of
its growth range among other reasons.
There were other problems with his methodologies and Mann wasn’t forthcoming
in reporting all the statistical tests used or sharing his data. And one could go on.
Biffra, on the other hand, used
trees in the Yamal region of Russia for his study, a seemingly more stable choice with a
better chance of yielding reliable results. So his study was hailed for “confirming”
Mann’s and is cited to this day as authoritative proof that the historical
record is wrong and that we are driving our planet over the edge.
What Watts
then concentrates on is the sampling of the trees, that is how many trees are
included and why. That is the point of
his article. The general rule in
statistics is the larger and inclusive the sampling, the better the
picture and the more accurate with reality.
Now it’s impossible to sample and analyze the rings of every tree of the
species chosen in the Yamal region for a study.
But that’s alright as every statistician knows. Methodologies have been developed and the
appropriate statistical analysis developed over the years which yield amazingly
accurate results. That was why Ford
could crash just a few Pintos and predict almost to the person how many would
die in rear-ending crashes of that defective car. Biffra claims to have done that.
What Watts
explains is that, no, he didn’t. At
least not in the case of the trees used in the study he released. Oh, Biffra did sample many more trees, but
the results weren’t acceptable to him, so he cherry-picked the trees he finally
used for his final product to inflate the temperature record in favor of the
climate science party line. That is one
very big scientific no-no! And Watts
goes on to lay the case out quite convincingly along with some of the other
known misleading steps Biffra worked into the final product.
So we get a rather sordid
picture of just how far true-believers in
catastrophic global warming are willing to go to achieve their ends.
My dear friends and readers,
these sorts of tactics aren’t limited to the climate science community. They
are far more widespread than most people realize. Dishonesty is now endemic in academia. Science is being turned into a political tool
right before our eyes to advance agendas and smear those who aren’t onboard. Outside science academia is being harnessed
to re-write history in a way which
conforms to a certain worldview, a dangerous one. That is the point of this blog, to highlight
what is going on and warn those who come across it to the dangers posed for
us.
Question, always question
what is presented to you as “truth.”
Check the facts before deciding what you do. But most of all do your own research and be
informed.
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