ClimateGate: The Fix is In (Best summary yet of the corruption of peer review)

This is the scandal of the century. It needs to be thoroughly investigated-and the culprits need to be brought to justice.

By Robert Tracinski

In early October, I covered a breaking story about evidence of corruption in the basic temperature records maintained by key scientific advocates of the theory of man-made global warming. Global warming “skeptics” had unearthed evidence that scientists at the Hadley Climatic Research Unit at Britain’s University of East Anglia had cherry-picked data to manufacture a “hockey stick” graph showing a dramatic-but illusory-runaway warming trend in the late 20th century.

But now newer and much broader evidence has emerged that looks like it will break that scandal wide open. Pundits have already named it “Climategate.”

A hacker-or possibly a disillusioned insider-has gathered thousands of e-mails and data from the CRU and made them available on the Web. Officials at the CRU have verified the breach of their system and acknowledged that the e-mails appear to be genuine.

Yes, this is a theft of data-but the purpose of the theft was to blow the whistle on a much bigger, more brazen crime. The CRU has already called in the police to investigate the hacker. But now someone needs to call in the cops to investigate the CRU.

Australian journalist Andrew Bolt has a good overview of the story, with a selection of incriminating e-mails that have already been discovered in the hacked data. Note that these e-mails reveal more than just what it going on at the CRU, since they involve numerous leading British and American climate scientists outside of the CRU.

These e-mails show, among many other things, private admissions of doubt or scientific weakness in the global warming theory. In acknowledging that global temperatures have actually declined for the past decade, one scientist asks, “where the heck is global warming?… The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” They still can’t account for it; see a new article in Der Spiegel: “Climatologists Baffled by Global Warming Time-Out.” I don’t know where these people got their scientific education, but where I come from, if your theory can’t predict or explain the observed facts, it’s wrong.

More seriously, in one e-mail, a prominent global warming alarmist admits to using a statistical “trick” to “hide the decline” in temperatures. Anthony Watts provides an explanation of this case in technical detail; the “trick” consists of selectively mixing two different kinds of data-temperature “proxies” from tree rings and actual thermometer measurements-in a way designed to produce a graph of global temperatures that ends the way the global warming establishment wants it to: with an upward “hockey stick” slope.

Confirming the earlier scandal about cherry-picked data, the e-mails show CRU scientists conspiring to evade legal requests, under the Freedom of Information Act, for their underlying data. It’s a basic rule of science that you don’t just get to report your results and ask other people to take you on faith. You also have to report your data and your specific method of analysis, so that others can check it and, yes, even criticize it. Yet that is precisely what the CRU scientists have refused.

But what stood out most for me was extensive evidence of the hijacking of the “peer review” process to enforce global warming dogma. Peer review is the practice of subjecting scientific papers to review by other scientists with relevant expertise before they can be published in professional journals. The idea is to weed out research with obvious flaws or weak arguments, but there is a clear danger that such a process will simply reinforce groupthink. If it is corrupted, peer review can be a mechanism for an entrenched establishment to exclude legitimate challenges by simply refusing to give critics a hearing.

And that is precisely what we find.

In response to an article challenging global warming that was published in the journal Climate Research, CRU head Phil Jones complains that the journal needs to “rid themselves of this troublesome editor“-hopefully not through the same means used by Henry II’s knights. Michael Mann replies:

I think we have to stop considering “Climate Research” as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal.

Note the circular logic employed here. Skepticism about global warming is wrong because it is not supported by scientific articles in “legitimate peer-reviewed journals.” But if a journal actually publishes such an article, then it is by definition not “legitimate.”

You can also see from these e-mails the scientists’ panic at any dissent appearing in the scientific literature. When another article by a skeptic was published in Geophysical Research Letters, Michael Mann complains, “It’s one thing to lose Climate Research. We can’t afford to lose GRL.” Another CRU scientist, Tom Wigley, suggests that they target another troublesome editor: “If you think that Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted.” That’s exactly what they did, and a later e-mail boasts that “The GRL leak may have been plugged up now w/new editorial leadership there.”

Not content to block out all dissent from scientific journals, the CRU scientists also conspired to secure friendly reviewers who could be counted on to rubber-stamp their own work. Phil Jones suggests such a list to Kevin Trenberth, with the assurance that “All of them know the sorts of things to say…without any prompting.”

So it’s no surprise when another e-mail refers to an attempt to keep inconvenient scientific findings out of a UN report: “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. K and I will keep them out somehow-even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!” Think of all of this the next time you hear someone invoke the authority of peer review-or of the UN’s IPCC reports-as backing for claims about global warming.

This scandal goes beyond scientific journals and into other media used to promote the global warming dogma. For example, RealClimate.org has been billed as an objective website at which global warming activists and skeptics can engage in an impartial debate. But in the CRU e-mails, the global warming establishment boasts that RealClimate is in their pocket.

I wanted you guys to know that you’re free to use RC in any way you think would be helpful. Gavin and I are going to be careful about what comments we screen through…. We can hold comments up in the queue and contact you about whether or not you think they should be screened through or not, and if so, any comments you’d like us to include.

[T]hink of RC as a resource that is at your disposal…. We’ll use our best discretion to make sure the skeptics don’t get to use the RC comments as a megaphone.

And anyone doubting that the mainstream media is in on it, too, should check out New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin’s toadying apologia for the CRU e-mails, masquerading as a news report.

The picture that emerges is simple. In any discussion of global warming, either in the scientific literature or in the mainstream media, the outcome is always predetermined. Just as the temperature graphs produced by the CRU are always tricked out to show an upward-sloping “hockey stick,” every discussion of global warming has to show that it is occurring and that humans are responsible. And any data or any scientific paper that tends to disprove that conclusion is smeared as “unscientific” precisely because it threatens the established dogma.

For more than a decade, we’ve been told that there is a scientific “consensus” that humans are causing global warming, that “the debate is over” and all “legitimate” scientists acknowledge the truth of global warming. Now we know what this “consensus” really means. What it means is: the fix is in.

This is an enormous case of organized scientific fraud, but it is not just scientific fraud. It is also a criminal act. Suborned by billions of taxpayer dollars devoted to climate research, dozens of prominent scientists have established a criminal racket in which they seek government money-Phil Jones has raked in a total of £13.7 million in grants from the British government-which they then use to falsify data and defraud the taxpayers. It’s the most insidious kind of fraud: a fraud in which the culprits are lauded as public heroes. Judging from this cache of e-mails, they even manage to tell themselves that their manipulation of the data is intended to protect a bigger truth and prevent it from being “confused” by inconvenient facts and uncontrolled criticism.

The damage here goes far beyond the loss of a few billions of taxpayer dollars on bogus scientific research. The real cost of this fraud is the trillions of dollars of wealth that will be destroyed if a fraudulent theory is used to justify legislation that starves the global economy of its cheapest and most abundant sources of energy.

This is the scandal of the century. It needs to be thoroughly investigated-and the culprits need to be brought to justice.

Robert Tracinski writes daily commentary at TIADaily.com. He is the editor of The Intellectual Activist and TIADaily.com.

Obama’s High Approval Ratings Won’t Last

via: realclearpolitics

When the Obama administration crashes and burns, with approval ratings that fall through the floor, political scientists can trace its demise to its first hundred days. While Americans are careful not to consign a presidency they desperately need to succeed to the dustbin of history, the fact is that this president has moved – on issue after issue – in precisely the opposite direction of what the people want him to do.

Right now, Obama’s ratings must be pleasing to his eye. Voters like him and his wife immensely and approve of his activism in the face of the economic crisis. While polls show big doubts about what he is doing, the overwhelming sense is to let him have his way and pray that it works.

But beneath this superficial support, Obama’s specific policies run afoul of the very deeply felt convictions of American voters. For example, the most recent Rasmussen Poll asked voters if they wanted an economic system of complete free enterprise or preferred more government involvement in managing the economy. By 77-19, they voted against a government role, up seven points from last month.

And in the Fox News poll – the very same survey that gave Obama a 62 percent approval rating and reported that 68 percent of voters are “satisfied” with his first hundred days – voters, by 50-38, supported a smaller government that offered fewer services over a larger government that provided more.

By 42-8, the Fox News poll (conducted on April 22-23) found that voters felt Obama had expanded government rather than contracted it (42 percent said it was the same size) and, by 46-30, reported believing that big government was more of a danger to the nation than big business. (By 50-23, they said Obama felt big business was more dangerous.)

By 62-20, they said government spending, under Obama, was “out of control.”

So if voters differ so fundamentally with the president on the very essence of his program, why do they accord him high ratings? They are like the recently married bride who took her vows 100 days ago. It would be a disaster for her life if she decides that she really doesn’t like her husband. But she keeps noticing things about him that she can’t stand. It will be a while before she walks out the door or even comes to terms with her own doubts, but it is probably inevitable that she will.

For Americans to conclude that they disapprove of their president in the midst of an earth-shaking crisis is very difficult. But as Obama’s daily line moves from “I inherited this mess” to “There are faint signs of light,” the clock starts ticking. If there is no recovery for the next six months – and I don’t think there will be – Obama will inevitably become part of the problem, not part of the solution.

And then will come his heavy lifting. He has yet to raise taxes, regiment healthcare or provide amnesty for illegal immigrants. He hasn’t closed down the car companies he now runs and he has not yet forced a 50 percent hike in utility bills with his cap-and-trade legislation. These are all the goodies he has in store for us all.

Obama’s very activism these days arrogates to himself the blame for the success or failure of his policies. Their outcome will determine his outcome, and there is no way it will be positive.

Why?

• You can’t borrow as much as he will need to without raising interest rates that hurt the economy;

• The massive amount of spending will trigger runaway inflation once the economy starts to recover;

• His overhaul of the tax code (still in the planning phases) and his intervention in corporate management will create such business uncertainty that nobody will invest in anything until they see the lay of the land;

• His bank program is designed to help banks, but not to catalyze consumer lending. And his proposal for securitization of consumer loans won’t work and is just what got us into this situation.

So Mr. Obama should enjoy his poll numbers while he may.

 

Morris, a former political adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Bill Clinton, is the author of “Outrage.” To get all of Dick Morris’s and Eileen McGann’s columns for free by email, go to www.dickmorris.com.

The Ayn Rand Factor In the Santelli Revolt

Last week, in his now-famous rallying cry against the Obama administration’s march toward socialism, [CNBC financial analyst] Rick Santelli called for a “Chicago Tea Party” to protest against the rapid expansion of government.

The idea of a Boston Tea Party-inspired tax protest had already been percolating, if you will, and when Santelli gave voice to it, it emerged as a new movement. A group that calls this the “New American Tea Party” has set up a website to coordinate protests across the nation this Friday, including in Washington, DC. These protests are just the beginning, especially if the current government interventions in the economy continue to make things worse, which I fully expect them to do.

But we will need more than just a political rebellion against the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress. We will need to engage in an ideological struggle, a battle of ideas. Columnist Monica Crowley named it best early last week when she called for a “21st century Boston Tea Party” and said that we needed a “second American revolution of ideas,” “of getting back to the ideals of limited government, of constitutional parameters on government power, of individual liberty, and of the free market.”

Yet we have to ask: where is the intellectual ammunition for this battle of ideas going to come from? It is important to remember that a Republican administration started us down this plunge into socialism. In praising Rick Santelli, Roger Kimball asks a very good question: “do we really need to go back to economic kindergarten and relearn” the lessons of the failure of statism and the superiority of capitalism? The answer is that we have to go back to basics because we never quite learned the fullest, deepest, philosophical reasons for the moral and practical superiority of capitalism.

Fortunately, we know where to find the free-market ideas we need, and this source is already indirectly driving the new taxpayer revolt. It’s time to bring it fully out into the open.

In defending his stance against the bailouts, Rick Santelli referred to himself as an “Ayn Rander”—a reference to the great 20th-century novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand, who is most famous for her ideological defense of laissez-faire capitalism. Similar references seem to be lurking behind nearly every expression of resistance to big government. Rush Limbaugh—whose coining of the term “porkulus” helped galvanize the right’s resistance to the so-called “stimulus” bill—has frequently recommended Ayn Rand’s magnum opus Atlas Shrugged in recent months, as has conservative talk show host Glenn Beck.

In January, Stephen Moore caused a stir by arguing, in the Wall Street Journal, that the current crisis is turning Atlas Shrugged “from fiction to fact.” And those who are warning that increased government restrictions will cause the nation’s most productive workers to withdraw their talents have taken to calling this the “John Galt Effect,” a reference to the hero—and the main plotline—of Atlas Shrugged.

It is no coincidence that the strongest resistance to a government takeover of the economy is coming from people influenced by Ayn Rand. She has long functioned as a stiffener of resolve and as the fountainhead of pro-free-market ideas.

I have written about this at greater length, but Ayn Rand’s contribution to the philosophical defense of capitalism can be summed up in one central idea: individualism. Ayn Rand demonstrated that the ultimate source of all wealth—everything from steel mills to microchips—is the individual reasoning mind. Thus, a society that wants to prosper has to ask what is required by its thinkers and producers, the “prime movers” who originate and implement new ideas. And the first thing that is required for these thinkers to function is that they be free from coercive interference by bureaucrats, by blowhard legislators, or by federal “czars.”

Ayn Rand was an individualist in the fullest sense: she regarded the unfettered individual, not just as a source of wealth, but also as an end in himself with the right to profit from and enjoy the wealth he creates, without being forced to sacrifice his happiness for the allegedly greater good of the collective. The issue, as she once put it, is not whether or not you give a dime to a beggar. The issue is whether you have a right to exist if you don’t—and whether you have to buy your life, one dime at a time, from every moocher who comes along asking for a handout. She gave the clearest and most consistent “no” to that standard of morality, and the clearest and most consistent “yes” to the moral rights of the creators and producers.

There has been some recent crowing about how the current financial crisis has discredited Ayn Rand’s defense of self-interest and the free market, as demonstrated by the defection of Alan Greenspan. In reality, the current financial crisis does not demonstrate the failure of Greenspan’s alleged pro-free-market ideas, which he actually rejected decades ago; rather, it demonstrates the failure of his presumption that a talented “maestro” can orchestrate prosperity by setting himself up as the monetary central planner of the economy.

In fact, the current crisis has vindicated Ayn Rand’s warnings. Haven’t the financial markets collapsed every time a bureaucrat comes on TV to explain how he is planning to “rescue” them? And the policies of the current administration are about to prove Ayn Rand right once again, and perhaps more fully than ever before, by demonstrating what happens when we sacrifice more and more of the nation’s productive minds to provide handouts for the beggars.

Far from facing growing rejection, Ayn Rand’s ideas are the mostly unnamed fuel giving fire and confidence to people like Rick Santelli. Even if they don’t fully accept Ayn Rand ideas, their encounter with her writings gives them the confidence to declare that they have earned their wealth and that they have a right to keep it and enjoy it.

That’s the Ayn Rand factor we are observing now—and we need more of it.

If we’re going to have an ideological Boston Tea Party, a declaration of independence from the whole theory behind state management of our lives and wealth, then Ayn Rand is the ideal philosophical hostess.

Robert Tracinski writes daily commentary at TIADaily.com. He is the editor of The Intellectual Activist and TIADaily.com.

Israel’s Fateful Elections

Tuesday’s general elections will officially end the briefest and most nonchalant electoral season Israel has ever experienced. Regrettably, the importance of these elections is inversely proportional to their lack of intensity. These are the most fateful elections Israel has ever had. The events of the past week make this point clearly.

On Monday Iran successfully launched a domestically manufactured satellite on a ballistic missile called the Safir-2 space rocket. Since the launch, experts have noted that the Safir-2 can also be used to launch conventional and nonconventional warheads. The Safir-2 has an estimated range of 2,000-3,000 kilometers. And so the successful satellite launch showed that today Iran is capable of launching missiles not only against Israel, but against southern Europe as well. Continue reading . . .

Presidential Prayers: To Whom It May Concern

How should we pray together?

Michael Newdow’s answer is: not at all. According to Newdow’s lawsuit, which will be heard by a federal judge this week, praying at an inauguration inflicts emotional distress on folks like him who should have a right to watch the swearing in without encountering others’ faith in supernatural beings or being. Plus, Newdow says, the words “so help me God” in the oath of office are unconstitutional.

Most of the rest of us understand that prayers on great public occasions are woven into the DNA of our nation. The granddaddy of all inaugural prayers took place in September 1774 at the First Continental Congress. It was a New Yorker (even back then!) who, according to John Adams, first objected to a proposal to open with prayer, saying, “We were so divided in religious sentiments — some Episcopalians, some Quakers, some Anabaptists, some Presbyterians, and some Congregationalists — that we could not join in the same act of worship.”

Then something wonderfully and distinctively American happened: “Mr. Samuel Adams arose and said that he was no bigot and could hear a prayer from any gentleman of piety and virtue who was at the same time a friend to his country.”

So the next morning America’s founding fathers bowed their heads as an Episcopal clergyman prayed fervently “for America, for the Congress, for the Province of Massachusetts Bay, and especially the town of Boston” (then under attack).

“It was enough,” said John Adams, “to melt a heart of stone. I saw the tears gush into the eyes of the old, grave, pacifist Quakers of Philadelphia.”

More than 20 years later, Ben Franklin (who was not exactly a charter member of the religious right of his day) reminded his fellow Americans at the Constitutional Convention:

“In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings?”

After all, in the days of the Declaration and war for independence, “we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered.”

“Do we imagine,” Franklin asked, “that we no longer need his assistance?”

Watching President-elect Obama laboriously attempt to assemble the most inclusive prayer team ever (a woman, a gay bishop and a Baptist preacher — isn’t there a joke like that?), one has to feel anew our enduring need of divine assistance in holding together this war-weary and culture-war-torn great nation.

Episcopalian Bishop V. Gene Robinson, who will pray at President-elect Obama’s request on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday, has been reading through inaugural prayers in history. He is “horrified” at how “specifically and aggressively Christian they were,” according to The New York Times.

Yes, it is true that even back in 1953, Father Patrick O’Boyle prayed, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (alongside a prayer by Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver). At FDR’s 1945 inaugural, Monsignor John Ryan prayed, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost … Through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Oh, the horror of it all!

Bishop Robinson may have inadvertently relieved some folks’ minds by making it clear that his prayer “will not be a Christian prayer and I won’t be quoting Scripture or anything like that.”

Robinson is ruminating on alternatives such as praying to “the God of our many understandings,” a language he said he learned during his stint in alcohol rehab.

Perhaps in the future, taking Christian pity on the poor Michael Newdows of the world, presidential prayers can be re-addressed: To Whom It May Concern.

Found on RealClearPolitics.com

Car Czars and Other Blasts to the Past

“It looks as if we are going to have to relive all of the mistakes of the 20th century one more time — let’s hope it is one last time — before we relearn the big lesson of that century: the moral and material superiority of capitalism and the disastrous consequences of socialism in all its forms.” –Read the whole article by columnist Robert Tracinski

What Really Killed Deal in The Senate

Who’s Losing the U.S. Car Business?
After Chairman Mao’s revolution about 60 years ago, people in the U.S. played the blame game by asking, “Who lost China?” Well, following the breakdown of an arduous seven-hour Senate negotiating session on Thursday night, many are asking, “Who lost the U.S. car business?” Right after the UAW vetoed a compromise, bankruptcy-lite, Detroit-little-three rescue plan put together by Tennessee Republican Bob Corker, UAW president Ron Gettelfinger played the blame game by blasting Corker and the Republican party for “singling out” union workers to shoulder the burden of reviving the U.S. car business.

In truth, the UAW is to blame.

If Sen. Corker’s plan had prevailed, with UAW support, many believe it would have had 90 votes in the Senate. GM could have gone forward with a clean-as-a-whistle balance sheet under a three-part restructuring plan that included a $60 billion bond-refinancing cram-down, a renegotiation of the $30 billion VEBA health-care trust, and a pay-restructuring plan that would put Detroit compensation levels in line with those of foreign transplants Honda, Toyota, Nissan, and BMW.

Average compensation for the Detroit little three is $72.31. Toyota’s average wage is $47.60, Honda’s is $42.05, and Nissan’s is $41.97, for an average of $44.20. So Corker’s idea was to bring that $72 a lot closer to that $44. (Corker notably knocked out Korean carmaker Kia, which has super-low wages.) Continue reading . .

Markets, Not Economists, Will Help the Economy

“Whatever else historians will say about Washington’s response to today’s crisis, they are not apt to say the government did too little.” –columnist George Will

Three days after the president-elect announced in a radio address that he had directed his “economic team” to devise a plan “that will mean 2.5 million more jobs by January of 2011,” he told a news conference that he favored measures “that will help save or create 2.5 million jobs.” To the extent that his ambition is clear, it is notably modest.

It is, however, unclear. How will anyone calculate the number of jobs “saved”? In what sense saved? Saved from what? Saved by what? By government action, such as agriculture subsidies or other corporate welfare? What about jobs lost because of those irrational uses of finite economic resources? Should jobs “saved” by, say, protectionist policies that interfere with free trade be balanced against jobs lost when export markets are lost to retaliatory protectionism? Continue reading . .

Gratitude and the good life

Since persistent financial problems are commonly linked to depression, Krause’s work is concerned with identifying factors that might alleviate those depressive symptoms. His recent paper is a longitudinal study of the elderly, observing the role gratitude plays in their coping with financial strain, and how religion shapes a sense of gratitude . . . Continue reading . . .

The Fall of the American Automobile Industry

GM, Ford, and Chrysler, who embodied industrial excellence and manufactured much of the equipment that defeated Japan and Germany more than sixty years ago, are reduced to begging the federal government to prevent their bankruptcy. But there is little schadenfreude in the executive suites of Stuttgart and Toyota City. The inhabitants realize that the very success of the Big Three created the conditions for the American industry’s undoing, and recognize their own vulnerability. After all, Korea and China loom as formidable competition, blessed with lower labor costs.

Continue reading at RealClearPolitics.