John Nielsen Gammon descends once more at 5:15 PM Feb 11 into the Antarctic abyss at Climate Audit. Interestingly his comment has not appeared there at the time of this posting so you will have to go to the linkI would be quite p***ed if, as happened here, a reviewer said he thought a particular technique was probably the best choice and then publicly criticized me for "choosing" to use it.As I interpret it, Steig's review comment was not a ringing endorsement of iridge but rather an insistence on whatever produces the "most likely" results which, later on in the paragraph, is "perhaps" iridge. I hope, had I been in O'Donnell's position, I would have been level-headed enough to realize that this was probably not a set-up but may instead have been a case of Steig not remembering that this amounted to his own insistence on iridge as a reviewer.
However, I would have been familiar enough with the review process to have not assumed that Steig saw my third set of responses. I might then have attributed to Steig the offense of not reviewing the comments and responses to make sure he wasn't criticizing me for something he himself had agreed was the best choice. And it did come off as personal criticism, through the choice of language "[they] choose to use" rather than something fairer, such as "All techniques have shortcomings. This particular one..."
Then, I probably would have taken pleasure in my public rebuttal to Steig's criticism, already having handy as a response my response to his third review. I might even have included an excerpt from an anonymous review, showing that the reviewers agreed with our choice so strongly that they insisted on it. . . .
as usual RTFR, there is more there.
And Michael Tobis sums it all upHere's my take on the Steig vs O'Donnell business: It's the same old story. A more sensitive method is obtained that extracts physical reality from data; a publication is released. Somebody nitpicks the math; with statistics this is always easy because everything is built on a prior. One can always quibble about the model. The McIntyre crowd knows how to push buttons in R and get results until they get one that excites them. That isn't statistics and it sure ain't science. . . . In the O'Donnell case, he has succeeded in adding to the arsenal of methods. Steig offers an an interpretation consistent with the totality of evidence AS IF O'DONNELL WERE SERIOUS.Lots between the dots.This constitutes an excellent test of whether O'Donnell is interested in science or in McIntyrism. The results of this test are unambiguous to say the least.
UPDATE: Eric in the comments has a word:
Folks, while I appreciate that much of the speculation being done here is of a higher quality than that being done, umm.. elsewhere.. it is still speculation.
John Nielsen Gammon, while you seem to be supporting me, which I appreicate it, it isn't very useful support.
I did not, repeat not, repeat not, "not remember that this amounted to his own insistence on iridge as a reviewer." I did NOT recommend iridge. I did NOT bring it up. I SIMPLY DID NOT THINK I COULD ARGUE WITH THE EDITOR OR THE KNUCKLE-HEADED REVIEWERS that it should not be used.
This is not complicated folks. O'Donnell and gang, not liking my criticisms of the way they used TTLS, and in particular the fact that the truncation parameter they wanted to use, suddently started using IRIDGE. This has the advantage of having a built in verification function, which means you can't see what the verification statistics are, which means that it is much easier to NOT SHOW THE BAD VERFICIATION STATISTICS I was criticizing them for. Maybe that is not why they used iridge. I don't know WHY they used IRIDGE but I did not suggest it to them nor endorse it.
GET IT?
P.S. Yes I am shouting. That's what the CAPS mean.
P.P.S. Thank you 'chris' above for your clear, rational, non-speculation.
P.P.P.S. Michael Tobis thank you. Much better. I still wonder why so many people don't sum it up in just one sentence, such as your excellent closing one:
This constitutes an excellent test of whether O'Donnell is interested in science or in McIntyrism. The results of this test are unambiguous to say the least.
P.P.P.P.S. We probably don't need a new term for McCarthyism. The original one still works pretty well. Any similarity to the name Simple J. Malarky is of course entirely coincidental.
P.P.P.P.P.S Here is another relevant cartoon.
Texas thanks you for including both hats.
ReplyDeleteBetween the dots would be here.
Hmm, that didn't work.
ReplyDeleteHere: http://is.gd/EaV2yB
Scientifically-speaking I can't see the reason for all the knicker-twisting in relation to this stuff ('ceptn' perhaps that this is mostly blogospherics and not science?)...
ReplyDeleteScientifically isn't this all pretty much win-win?
Steig et al addressed the tricky business of determining from a limited set of data whether one could meaningfully assess Antarctic temperature trends in last 50-odd years. They published a paper that indicates that an Antarctic warming signal (significant in West Antarctica) is consistent with the data for the last 50-odd years (this caused widespread anti-Steig bolgosteria as I recall)
Now O'Donnell et al have readdressed the data using different analyses and found something rather similar: a significant West Antarctic warming trend during the last 50-odd years...
Somehow what should have been a happy occurrence (a decent paper that adds weight to the conclusions of an earlier analysis) is cause to engage in another bout of hysteria directed against poor Dr. Steig..
Looking at it from outside (as a non-climate scientist), my conclusion is that we can have a little bit more confidence in the Antarctic temperature trends during the last 50-odd years. The warming trend known to be rather large in the Antarctic peninsula, can be extended (with a weaker trend) to include West Antarctica; the trends elsewhere, are less clear (and the 20-ish year trends are in poor agreement).
Surely we should be celebrating the general agreement between Steig et al (2009) and O'Donnell et al (2011). Aftr all if a broadly similar result is apparently independent of the methods of analysis, then that's a step towards the robustness that we always seek...
Just to clarify, is the first quote from J N-G?
ReplyDeleteFolks, while I appreciate that much of the speculation being done here is of a higher quality than that being done, umm.. elsewhere.. it is still speculation.
ReplyDeleteJohn Nielsen Gammon, while you seem to be supporting me, which I appreicate it, it isn't very useful support.
I did not, repeat not, repeat not, "not remember that this amounted to his own insistence on iridge as a reviewer." I did NOT recommend iridge. I did NOT bring it up. I SIMPLY DID NOT THINK I COULD ARGUE WITH THE EDITOR OR THE KNUCKLE-HEADED REVIEWERS that is should not be used.
This is not complicated folks. O'Donnell and gang, not liking my criticisms of the way they used TTLS, and in particular the fact that the truncation parameter they wanted to use, suddently started using IRIDGE. This has the advantage of having a build in verification function, which means you can't see what the verification statistics are, which means that it is much easier to NOT SHOW THE BAD VERFICIATION STATISTICS I was criticizing them for. Maybe that is not why they used iridge. I don't know WHY they used IRIDGE but I did not suggest it to them nor endorse it.
GET IT?
P.S. Yes I am shouting. That's what the CAPS mean.
P.P.S. Thank you 'chris' above for your clear, rational, non-speculation.
Eli, thanks for elevating my comment to a real post, on Rabbet Run no less!
ReplyDeleteHow about now replacing it with this, without the typos?
Folks, while I appreciate that much of the speculation being done here is of a higher quality than that being done, umm.. elsewhere.. it is still speculation.
John Nielsen Gammon, while you seem to be supporting me, which I appreicate it, it isn't very useful support.
I did not, repeat not, repeat not, "not remember that this amounted to his own insistence on iridge as a reviewer." I did NOT recommend iridge. I did NOT bring it up. I SIMPLY DID NOT THINK I COULD ARGUE WITH THE EDITOR OR THE KNUCKLE-HEADED REVIEWERS that it should not be used.
This is not complicated folks.
O'Donnell and gang, did not like my criticisms of the way they used TTLS, and in particular the fact that the truncation parameter they wanted to use didn't work (as their now non-existing table S3, of which I still have a copy, showed). Then they suddeny started using IRIDGE. This has the advantage of having a built in verification function, which means you can't see what the verification statistics are, which means that it is much easier to NOT SHOW THE BAD VERFICIATION STATISTICS I was criticizing them for. Maybe that is not why they used iridge. I don't know WHY they used IRIDGE but I did not suggest it to them nor endorse it.
GET IT?
P.S. Yes I am shouting. That's what the CAPS mean.
P.P.S. Thank you 'chris' above for your clear, rational, non-speculation.
P.P.P.S. Michael Tobis thank you. Much better. I still wonder why so many people don't sum it up in just one sentence, such as your excellent closing one:
This constitutes an excellent test of whether O'Donnell is interested in science or in McIntyrism. The results of this test are unambiguous to say the least.
P.P.P.P.S. We probably don't need a new term for McCarthyism. The original one still works pretty well. Any similarity to the name Simple J. Malarky is of course entirely coincidental.
P.P.P.P.P.S Here is another relevant cartoon.
From my perspective, O'Donnell et al are investigating ways to Hide the Incline. When even they couldn't tweak stats enough to do it, they reverted to their most-used tactic of distracting deniers, using personal attack based on stuff they made up.
ReplyDeleteLook forward to their next paper comparing the effectiveness of the above two techniques: "Bad stats vs Libel - a comparison of techniques to delay climate change mitigation" O'D et al (in preparation).
Eric, you go Pogo. Eli loves Pogo.
ReplyDeleteSo, O'Donnell, Condon, McIntyre are knucleheads or worse. The editor and other reviewers are idiots.
ReplyDeletePoor Eric, surrounded by fools, supported only by, well, rabbits...
Rabetts rule
ReplyDelete"So, O'Donnell, Condon, McIntyre are knucleheads or worse."
ReplyDeleteQuite obviously worse. Unethical is worse than knucklehead.
"The editor and other reviewers are idiots."
Actually, Tom, he said "THE EDITOR OR THE KNUCKLE-HEADED REVIEWERS".
The Editor is not included in the set of Knuckleheads.
(does this kind of misrepresentation remind you of any "Tom" in particular?)
Would it be out of order to make a recommendation to certain commenters at certain other non-scientific blogs? Along the lines of "Silflay hraka, embleer hrair!"
ReplyDeleteI'm personally just sorry that I was over-optimistic in hoping that it was mostly a misunderstanding. Apologies to Eric. Should've known better.
ReplyDeleteOn the non-science front, it's revealed the concern trolls for who they are.
Holly Stick,
ReplyDeleteFeel free, but maybe better Silflay hraka, embleer elil.
Eli & the Bunnies
Sounds good to me. Since little bits of scientific discussion sometimes do pop up amongst the filthy smears and insinuations, what I called non-scientific blogs might be more accurately called quasi-scientific or, even better, queasy-scientific blogs.
ReplyDeleteRabetts rule?
ReplyDeleteAny connection to Catch-22?
Eli,
ReplyDeleteCan you do one more thing for me? Edit that first link to point to the right cartoon:
http://i839.photobucket.com/albums/zz311/tobiagorrio/052a-1.jpg
Thanks
I won't be back for a while -- I'm taking my own advice to ignore anything that Malarky & Co say for a while. Like, oh I don't know, the next 50 years....
Steig
ReplyDeleteI still wonder why so many people don't sum it up in just one sentence
O'Donnell
that whatever was original in Steig et al 2009 was based on faulty mathematics; and that whatever was correct in Steig et al 2009 was already known
Gras (gras_albert@btinternet.com)
Gras: and that would be a lie.
ReplyDeleteEric - "I still wonder why so many people don't sum it up in just one sentence..."
ReplyDelete"Eric Steig went to great lengths to support, promote and help improve O'Donnell et al (2010) at a scientific level, but Steig's efforts have been turned against him to attack his integrity and competence which has sparked a manufactured controversy bearing scant resemblance to the now documented facts, especially when compared to how a reviewer would most likely conspire to confound the publication of a submitted paper."
Dr Derry stopped by at Lucia's. Thinking about his remarks got me to post a comment there on a problem with the peer review of O'Donnell 2010, in my opinion. In short, I believe that it was incorrect of editor Broccoli to invite Dr Steig to serve as an anonymous peer-reviewer, and it was incorrect of Dr Steig to accept. Each party should have been aware of this issue of conflict of interest, or of the appearance of CoI.
ReplyDeleteDr Steig obviously had an expert and intimate view of the O'10 manuscript. Were I in editor Broccoli's position, I would insist on hearing what he had to say before passing judgement. Had Dr Steig's review been signed, many of the subsequent problems would have been lesser, in my opinion. The comment is here.
AMac clearly has never published--it is very common that an editor gives a paper to a strong critic. However, it is the editor's job to sort out the objective points of the criticism. The reviewer is just that--a reviewer, one who critiques the science/writing and one who recommends an outcome. The editor is the one who looks at multiple reviews and decides whether a paper is publishable or not. There is no conflict of interest, only a conflict of ideas. An author also has a recourse if he doesn't think the editor is giving a fair shake--the author can submit it to another journal.
ReplyDeleteWhether or not a person reviews anonymously or not depends on their own circumstances. Some do and some don't.
The problem is that the game is being played on two levels. You can win the scientific argument and lose the PR one, or vice versa. I'm beginning to wonder if maybe scientists should stay out of the blogs. Or maybe professional scientific blogging should be left to a handful of very level-headed PR-minded individuals. Or maybe someone with those skills should act as gatekeeper and advisor.
ReplyDeleteIn this case, I think the only thing to do from a PR viewpoint is wait for an independent group to revisit the whole thing like Wahl and Ammann did for MBH99. Although I guess the impact is rather less than MBH99, so there is less incentive.
Kevin C
Oh, and Mitch is quite right. I've been reviewer, reviewee and sub-editor. Sending papers to competitors of the author is absolutely normal, and often the best way to get a good review. Very occasionally you know a reviewer won't give you a decent review (scientists are human, and often not very people oriented too), in which case you pick someone else. But in the absence of this information you assume that the candidate will be impersonal.
ReplyDeleteThe most useful reviews on my papers have always been the most critical ones. They lead to a better paper. And I get the credit for it, not the reviewer! (Although you can always acknowledge the referees in the acknowledgements section.)
What happens if, as a sub-editor, you are wrong, and you sent out a paper to a reviewer who is being obstructive? Then you add an extra reviewer, and (sometimes) discard the unhelpful reviews. I've done that once, and had it done to me once.
Kevin C
J Bowers said...
ReplyDeleteOn the non-science front, it's revealed the concern trolls for who they are.
--as if their hypocrisy did not already glow in the dark.
Among the lukewarmist gang, Lucia in particular has behaved badly in this affair. She is first in the line of concern trolls from whom Steig deserves an apology.
-Adam R.
AMac: did you say the same thing when McIntyre reviewed Wahl & Ammann?
ReplyDelete@ Adam R
ReplyDeleteYep. The Blackboard's recent post titles:
* Eric To John Nielsen Gammon: it isn’t very useful support.
(And?)
* O’Donnell Apologizes to Steig
(....then adds more insult, but let's ignore that)
* There’s Got To Be A Better Way Forward
(Don't try to help O'Donnell et al improve their submissions?)
* In Moderation at RC: Yes? No? Whatever?
(Whatever. Definitely whatever)
* Steig the Shameless?
(Just asking, but let's post a cartoon from Josh, nice and big - Josh, you really need to sort out that amateurish lean to the right)
* Reviewer A = Rod Blagojevich of Science?
(In which Lucia's just asking again, but throws in references to testicles and then tells us in comments...)
_________________________________________________________________
lucia (Comment#68302) February 7th, 2011 at 4:30 pm
[...]
Thanks for the info. From now on, I am inclined to write ‘Erik “Rod Blagojevich” Steig’ when referring to a guy who would be the nasty reviewer...
_________________________________________________________________
Aye, so nasty he kept praising the paper to the editor for the authors to see, and recommended the lead author to National Geographic. Good job Eric didn't tell the editor the paper's crap.
AMac, you just lost a few points in my estimation. Like Kevin C said. I've also been in the roles of reviewer, author and editor, and you apparently not :-(
ReplyDeleteMartin, IEHO AMac does not have the experience but has an idealized version of peer review and what it should be. It is the difference, if you will, between theory and experiment.
ReplyDelete1) Everyone is entitled to express their opinion. Can someone (including AMAC) explain why I should give nonzero weight to his opinion on this topic?
ReplyDelete2) As per Eli, I repeat the ok'd saw, more it less:
In theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice they aren't.
(Of course good theories provide increasingly better approximations to the real world, and extend understanding in ways that even wellgrounded practice may not.
Both are important.)
Martin Vermeer,
ReplyDeleteI'm pleased to have had those points to lose in the first place. I hadn't known.
Martin, Eli, Kevin C et al -- since I choose to be pseudonymous, fair enough that you disbelieve my claims of having been both an author and a reviewer. I'd point out that others have said roughly the same. Different journals and different fields have somewhat different versions of peer-review, though I think my views are broadly applicable to the institution as a whole. In the linked exchange at Lucia's, Dr Denny seemed to find them broadly unexceptional, while disagreeing with some specifics.
Thanks for hearing me out, anyway.
Sorry, I meant Dr Derry not "Dr Denny" at 12:27pm
ReplyDeleteJohn Mashey,
> Can someone (including AMAC) explain why I should give nonzero weight to his opinion on this topic?
Zero's fine.
My response to Eric's comment is here.
ReplyDeleteAMac, you have asserted that Steig had a conflict of interest in reviewing O'Donnell et al. What exactly is this conflict? Further, if Steig was unable to balance his competing interests as you see them, how would that manifest itself?
ReplyDelete-PS-
At least things are getting clearer. The JOC editor was not a knucklehead nor a McIntyrite. FWIW I think the JOC did a stellar job and that Steig should have the option of being a reviewer. It would not be the JOC's responsibility to identify him as a reviewer. Personally, I would have identified myself in that case, but that is just me. And yes I only have one peer review paper published and there was a friggin' typo missed. (engineering paper not a scientific journal).
ReplyDeleteAMac, Methinks somebody doesn't understand what "peer" means in science. It's actually about the same as we mean when we're tried by a jury of our peers...except maybe a wee bit more hostile, since they are in direct competition with you.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet...they are doing you a tremendous service. They're trying to catch all the stupid things you say before you say them in front of the entire community. There is absolutely no conflict of interest in having my competitor/rival/mortal enemy reviewing my paper.
> What exactly is this conflict?
ReplyDeleteTo a first approximation, O'10 was a rebuttal of S'09.
While nowhere near as wretched as they have recently become, there is a history of bad blood between the two authorship groups.
Either should have served as a red flag, ISTM.
By the same token, O'Donnell should recognize that he would be ill-suited to serve as a disinterested peer-reviewer of any S'11 rebuttal of O'10.
No, exactly not. Both found significant warming in West Antarctica (the results of both in the East are far from trustworthy).
ReplyDeleteSteig introduced a new way of combining data sets
O'Donnell introduced a better statistical method for dealing with the combined data sets.
It is much more of the case that the papers are complementary, but that does not suit the McIntyres and Ids of the world.
Eli: "Both found significant warming in West Antarctica"
ReplyDeleteHere are the numbers:
S09: 0.20 ± 0.09
RLS: 0.10 ± 0.09
E-W: 0.06 ± 0.07
(These are 95% CL bounds.)
For S09, the warming was incontrovertible, for OD10, not so much.
Still, I'd agree with you that O10 is more evolutionary than revolutionary. Steig did the original "heavy" lifting to come up with the idea of using PCs from AVHRR to infill missing ground data in the pre-AVHRR data set.
From my perspective, biggest problem with S09 is the smearing of peninsular warming onto the mainland, and there were at least two sources of error that caused this. So, errors were made, and it's not just an "improvement" but a "correction" of the other methodology to boot.
AMac, I'm not sure why you think reviewers need to be disinterested to give a useful review. I expect that when an editor assigns an adversary to review a paper he expects to get an adversarial review and that is what he is looking for. This doesn't constitute a conflict of interest. Do you think that once published Steig wouldn't go over the O'Donnell et al. paper more thoroughly than pretty much everyone else looking for errors? Do you think an editor might want to know what the response is likely to be before the article is accepted?
ReplyDelete-PS-
The main reason to include the original author in a review of a critique of a paper by that author: Nobody else knows as much intimate detail what they did originally, and few know as much about that particular issue. The reviews A-D reflect that, and only a moron couldn't guess reviewer A was Eric Steig.
ReplyDeleteSo O10 is an evolution of S09. If S09 had never been published, would the writers of O10 been capable of writing O10 by themselves?
ReplyDeleteIt looks to me like a case of dwarfs standing on a giant's shoulders, and the ungrateful little lawn ornaments poking him in the eye.
Holly: So O10 is an evolution of S09. If S09 had never been published, would the writers of O10 been capable of writing O10 by themselves?
ReplyDeleteThere's no doubt to me that O10 would never have occurred without S09 (or the future O11 for that matter).
It's more like he got mad at them for standing on his shoulder.
O'Donnellet al '10 was definitely an evolution and really only a review of statistical methods. Despite the row, O'Donnell et al '10 would have been more interesting had they left the original methods in the paper and added the Iridge with the impacts of synthetic data to all the methods including Steig's original. The results they showed with synthetic data, after the food fight, was more interesting than the original papers.
ReplyDeleteExcept, AMac, Steig didn't behave like the sort of obstructive reviewer who we very occasionally have to ditch. If he had, he would have been ditched. That option was always available to the editor.
ReplyDeleteHe could (and indeed he was invited to) flag the paper as not worthy of publication. Intead he flagged it as requiring work and went to great lengths to show how it could be improved. That's exactly the kind of behaviour you want from a good critical reviewer.
I think you might be getting muddled over one of the following points: Firstly, the difference between the strict use of the word 'critical' with its everyday usage. Secondly, the power balance between editors and reviewers.
Kevin C
Eli, you and Eric are liars, plain, simple. When you decide to get honest again, perhaps you could make an announcement as I doubt anyone but the sycophants will be reading.
ReplyDeleteI think Kevin C is more on the right on this, AMac.
ReplyDeleteIf you compare Steig's reviews, while "protect my turf" did come into play, you'd expect that from any author defending his own paper (hence the gazillion uses of the word "misleading"). My only major fault with his review, is it is my opinion that you should sign your reviews when you are responding to criticisms to your own paper. It makes the playing field more balanced, IMO, and leads to a better final product.
It's my belief that he's wrong about ridge regularization introducing a net negative bias into the WA temperature trend, but he is right that O10 failed to address this criticism in their reply to his paper. That does seem to be an omission (perhaps not "major") to their paper, and had they heeded his criticism and addressed that criticism in the paper accordingly, the paper would have been stronger, and we probably would never have had this kerfuffle.
Beyond that: Compare the reviews. He is the only one who makes many substantive suggestions.
I would much rather have Eric as a reviewer than have somebody provide a "puff piece" review. Had the authors been more experienced with the peer review process, it's likely they would have pushed back harder too.
Amac, you and lucia seem to be looking for something, anything , on which to hoist Steig. Now it's :
ReplyDelete- 'Eric Steig is a mean old taunting meanie ona blog and boy, does that set me off!' (paraphrasing lucia). Leaving aside the publicly blogged hostility of certain 0'10 authors before and all during the review process; leaving aside the *nice* words Steig wrote about the paper when it did become available (and during review).
- 'well, in retrospect it's clear to me that Steig should have been a nonanonymous reviewer' (paraphrasing you, here). Clear to you but not clear to the editor, apparently. Or to scientific publication generally. Btw, have O'D et al ever say whether they requested Steig NOT be a reviewer? Short lists of such 'do not send for review' names is a common option. Whether to heed them is the editor's call.
- 'well, 0'10 doesn't validate the *exact language* of the *abstract* of S'09, so therefore, no validation. And btw, Tiljander'. (Paraphrasing you, at lucia's. Plus a little extra taunting). Meanwhile, a *substantial portion* of Western Antarctica indeed, is *warming significantly*; Eastern, indeed, not so much. Both papers agree there. Not good enough?
-Steven Sullivan
NYU School of Medicine
Steve Sullivan, I posted the WA reconstructed trends above.
ReplyDeleteS09 and O10 disagree with each other on WA trend at about the 90% CL. To say "both papers agree" is perhaps overstating the level of agreement.
Carrick,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the thoughtful response.
Steven Sullivan,
> 'well, in retrospect it's clear to me that Steig should have been a nonanonymous reviewer' (paraphrasing you, here). Clear to you but not clear to the editor, apparently.
That's a pretty good paraphrase (and observation). Refreshing - thanks!
Your other remarks of 12:35pm, I couldn't respond to without links and direct quotes. Paraphrasing a person one disagrees with is often surprisingly difficult.
The Steig/O'Donnell episode also points out that it is often difficult to recognize that others can hold different views without being morally or intellectually defective. If O'Donnell had been slower to anger and had thought more about this, then he might not have acted in ways that wronged Steig. Just my opinion.
It looks to me as if Steig has a serious problem if his method creates warming where there isn't any. When this was revealed it is not a surprise where Steig got angry because the revelation showed that his paper was nonsensical and of little use.
ReplyDelete"S09 and O10 disagree with each other on WA trend at about the 90% CL. To say "both papers agree" is perhaps overstating the level of agreement."
ReplyDeleteThe agreement is that both show warming in WA where no warming was thought to be happening before, not on whether or not the magnitude of the trend is in agreement.
Steig's been crystal clear about this in his commentary.
Why can't you?
VangeIV seems to be a classic disinformation post.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all the big false "if" statement suggesting no warming, whereas in fact both papers show warming in West Antarctica.
Secondly the 'it's no wonder Steig got angry because...'. Steig did not express any anger at the contents of the published O'D et al paper. (He said it was a worthwhile addition to the literature.)
Steig expressed his justifiable outrage at the vicious and wholly unjustified personal attack on him by O'Donnell, posted far and wide on the denier-chum-sphere and spread further in the tabloid press. Not only was there unjustified vilification, but the O'D et al authors allowed this vilification on their blogs with the reviewer comments and names, even though they knew well in advance per written communication, that it flouted professional ethics (as if they shouldn't have known without being explicitly told). In O'Donnell's case, O'D even made a personal commitment to Steig that he would not do this.
Given that the O'D et al authors have shown over and over again they care not a whit for ethics, I'd be surprised if they find it easy to publish in any reputable journal or find anyone willing to review their work in the future. IMO they would have to produce something that made a significant advance to science for anyone to put aside this appalling breach of ethics and common decency. (There is no evidence to show O'D et al are capable of that.)
Everyone agrees that ridge regression leads to an underestimate of warming.
ReplyDelete