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Brendan DeMelle

Brendan DeMelle

Posted: November 21, 2009 03:06 PM

Climategate In Perspective, Featuring Isaac Newton

What's Your Reaction?

Climate conspriricists pounced at the opportunity yesterday to draw grandiose conclusions from the illegal hacking of private emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit. 

They wasted no time declaring global warming a vast science-wing conspiracy, orchestrated by a powerful handful of white-coats who, when not publishing in reputable peer-reviewed science journals, were (gasp) emailing each other to talk shop and vent about climate skeptic “idiots” (how un-PC).

The scandalistas say little about the fact that this breach of security and publishing of private communications is a crime, content to enjoy the opportunity to cherry-pick a few lines from these internal emails to push the skeptic theory of a sinister master plan by mainstream scientists to warn humanity that man has altered the climate in dangerous ways.

The Telegraph’s resident skeptic blogger, James Dellingpole, immediately labeled this episode “Climategate,” pondering whether this is “the final nail in the coffin of 'Anthropogenic Global Warming.’”

If James Dellingpole lived in Newton’s day, his blog (er, scroll) might have read something like this

And here are some of the “tasters” Sir Dellingpole might have pulled from Isaac Newton’s personal communications [H/T CarbonFixated]:

Conspiring to avoid public scrutiny:

There is nothing which I desire to avoid in matters of philosophy more then contentions, nor any kind of contention more then one in print: & therefore I gladly embrace your proposal of a private correspondence. What’s done before many witnesses is seldom without some further concern then that for truth: but what passes between friends in private usually deserve ye name of consultation rather then contest, & so I hope it will prove between you & me.

Newton to Hooke, 5 February 1676

Insulting dissenting scientists and equating them with holocaust deniers:

[Hooks Considerations] consist in ascribing an hypothesis to me which is not mine; in asserting an hypothesis which as to ye principal parts of it is not against me; in granting the greatest part of my discourse if explicated by that hypothesis; & in denying some things the truth of which would have appeared by an experimental examination.

Newton to Oldenburg, 11 June 1672

Manipulation of evidence:

I wrote to you on Tuesday that the last leafe of the papers you sent me should be altered because it refers to a manuscript in my private custody & not yet upon record.

Newton to Keill, May 15 1674

Knowingly publishing scientific fraud:

You need not give yourself the trouble of examining all the calculations of the Scholium. Such errors as do not depend upon wrong reasoning can be of no great consequence & may be corrected by the reader.

Newton to Cotes June 15 1710

Suppression of evidence:

Mr. Raphson has printed off four or five sheets of his History of Fluxions, but being shew’d Sr. Is. Newton (who, it seems, would rather have them write against him, than have a piece done in that manner in his favour), he got a Stop put to it, for some time at least.

Jones to Cotes, 17 September 1711

Abusing the peer review system:

…only the Germans and French have in a violent manner attack’d the Philosophy of Sr. Is. Newton, and seem resolved to stand by Cartes; Mr. Keil, as a person concerned, has undertaken to answer and defend some things, as Dr. Friend, and Dr. Mead, does (in their way) the rest: I would have sent you ye whole controversy, was not I sure that you know, those only are most capable of objecting against his writings, that least understand them; however, in a little time, you’ll see some of these in ye Philos. Transact.

Jones to Cotes, October 25 1711

Insulting their critics:

The controversy concerning Sr. Isaac’s Philosophy is a piece of news that I had not heard of unless Muys’s late book be meant. I think that Philosophy needs no defence, especially when tis attack’t by Cartesians. One Mr Green a Fellow of Clare Hall in our University seems to have nearly the same design with those German & French objectors whom you mention. His book is now in our press & is almost finished. I am told he will add an appendix in which he undertakes also to square the circle. I need not recommend his performance any further to you.

Cotes to Jones, November 11 1711

 

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04:48 PM on 12/01/2009
Illegally obtained evidence is not allowed in a court of law, and there's a reason for this. You can tamper with it.

Climate change deniers did not hack into emails from the University of East Anglia because they suspected improper collusion between climate scientists. They hacked into emails, then tampered with the evidence, to create the appearance of improper collusion between climate scientists.

The hackers are criminals, the scientists were the victims of privacy invasion and theft. And, anyone can take statements taken out of context, and reassemble them to create an alternative reality.
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02:46 PM on 12/02/2009
Ummm...the scientists have admitted the e-mails were genuine. I'm sorry this is such a big blow to your religion. If you want to see a denier, go look in the mirror.
10:31 PM on 11/29/2009
Isaan Newton also spent more type studying crazy astrology/religious stuff than he did physics.
11:53 AM on 11/28/2009
If, using Newton's work, we could not predict where the Moon would be tomorrow, who would have believed it? Using the Laws of Motion we are able to predict trajectories and orbits with great accuracy on small scales as well as large. If they only predicted trends and had to be corrected every minute due to new, unexplained data (yes, they were corrected eventually by Einstein) they would have been discarded as useless long ago.
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ReedYoung
global mean temperature, obviously INCREASING
08:01 PM on 11/24/2009
I just find it funny that the bookburning "teabaggers" say NOTHING when billions and trillions are wasted in war and oil, but yet are so willing to deny the words of thousands of scientist.

Teabaggers are the new "flat-earthers."
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02:49 PM on 12/02/2009
Less government and less spending=bookburning? That's a good one. Just because your religion has been proven false is no reason to be petty.
spmcintyre
Chance favors the prepared mind.
06:49 PM on 11/24/2009
At this point, I would say we should prosecute Al Gore and his ilk for conspiracy to defraud the world.
03:18 PM on 11/24/2009
Brendan DeMelle,

"Newton's Letters." That's the best you've got?

"Follow the money" and you might find a really interesting story.
07:01 AM on 11/24/2009
Scanlan's succinct comment below
is spot on...

HuffPost's valiant efforts to diffuse this
Global Warming Bombshell
with trite Historical Science Scenarios
is of course understandable
- given their readership base.

However if you spend some time looking
at the source material
you cannot help but conclude that this
story won't be kept off the Front Pages
for much longer.

Even a partial review of the emails
is highly illuminating.

Naturally the sceptics will believe a
“A miracle just happenedâ€.

Unfortunately for the AGW lobby
it is not just the email brawl that's hot.
Its the data modelling computer program code
also copiously released
into the air
that counts here.
With careful analysis over time
it is the code and how it works
that is gonna get people in trouble.

Al Gore's stock has just taken a massive hit.
What ever side your global bread
is buttered on.

“This is not a smoking gun; this is a mushroom cloud.â€

The bottom line is, as Scanlan, pointed out
Newton was never funded by tax dollars.

Neither did he make discoveries or claims
that were seen by government
to have tax dollar leverage possibilities
of the order of magnititude
envisaged for carbon based taxation...
08:46 PM on 11/23/2009
"I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report," Jones writes. "Kevin and I will keep them out somehow--even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"

Sweeeeet! :-)
02:23 AM on 11/25/2009
Do you have any idea what the papers in question are about. Let me try a non-science analogy. An article is published in say, Sports Illustrated, arguing that Babe Ruth's records should be stricken from the record books because he was in fact an Alien from Mars. Would you think that sports writers that objected and tried to organize a boycott or have the editor removed were trying to suppress the truth?

The papers in question were, to a climate scientist, just about as loony as what I proposed about Babe Ruth. You see an objection to a flawed peer review as an attempt to suppress the truth because you simply don't understand the science well enough to recognize true junk science.
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05:38 PM on 11/22/2009
"If you look at the attached plot you will see that the
land also shows the 1940s blip (as I'm sure you know).
So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 degC,
then this would be significant for the global mean -- but
we'd still have to explain the land blip.
I've chosen 0.15 here deliberately. This still leaves an
ocean blip, and i think one needs to have some form of
ocean blip to explain the land blip (via either some common
forcing, or ocean forcing land, or vice versa, or all of
these). When you look at other blips, the land blips are
1.5 to 2 times (roughly) the ocean blips -- higher sensitivity
plus thermal inertia effects. My 0.15 adjustment leaves things
consistent with this, so you can see where I am coming from.
Removing ENSO does not affect this.
It would be good to remove at least part of the 1940s blip,
but we are still left with "why the blip"."

read the emails. Start with result you want then fudge the data to match. That sounds like legitimate science.
02:08 AM on 11/25/2009
You don't understand what they are talking about. Just how do you think scientist work? Do you think some data is gathered and then some theory (model if you prefer) is created and then they present the two and everyone goes oh yes, great, next problem. Measurements need to be analyzed, they need to be understood. Structures in the data may be real or may be artifacts. It's rare for a measurement to depend on only one variable (temperature for instance) and so it's not only legitimate to manipulate the data , it's a virtual requirement in order to make sense of it. If more than one factor contributes to a measurement it's reasonable to see what happens to the data if one factor is changed. That's not manipulation to fit data to a preconceived idea, it's simply trying to understand the data. Raw data without analysis is virtually worthless. Just how would you propose that these scientists approach understanding model results and data?
11:12 AM on 11/25/2009
Just to be clear, you're stating that the science is unsettled and that the debate is not "ova" as The Goracle would say?
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danceswithtrees
03:48 PM on 11/22/2009
For mnow on when my "friends" TRY and tell me about AGW my new reaction will be "They lie"
The scientists have been exposed. AGW is nothing but a money grabbing HOAX they HAS BEEN exposed. FINALLY the "Big lie" is OVER Rover!
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lbsaltzman
Permaculture and Sustainability
11:37 AM on 11/22/2009
Since Galileo was persecuted by the Church, we have never had a period in which scientists have been subjected to more outragious attacks as is going on currently in the U.S. Between creationists and global warming deniers it is getting embaressing to be an American.
08:03 AM on 11/22/2009
The government/elites' sponsored CO2 / global warming taxation scam is being uncovered. More scientists are against that hypothesis than for it at this point. Certainly the public isn't convinced. Surprisingly and to their credit. And high priest Al Gore more clearly exposed as the charlatan (who has already made millions, perhaps a billion off of the scheme).

I, for one, hope that more of the information is revealed, hacked out, or otherwise revealed. I'd like to shake the 'hacker's' hand. Now, if only somebody can do the same to the other bastions of dis- and misinformation.
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danceswithtrees
03:49 PM on 11/22/2009
Now we need to hear from those that have had their funding cut and been called out for being on the "wring side" of this. i'll bet they have some interesting tales to tell. AGW is a HOAX! An EXPOSED HOAX!
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Pot
Sick of the plutocrats!
04:56 AM on 11/25/2009
Because of some stolen emails from a FEW scientists who equal 0.0000001% of the total amount of scientists worldwide? Yeah that makes sense. It is like saying ALL Republicans are racists because my father is a racist Republican. See the faulty logic there?
07:51 PM on 11/21/2009
Newton wasn't funded with tax dollars.
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10:45 PM on 11/21/2009
Devastating comment...
03:17 AM on 11/25/2009
Just who funded Newton?