“What an arsehole!”
Francis Sedgemore, Saturday 5 December 2009
It will raise the temperature of the debate, if not the planet’s atmosphere. I refer to a piece on Newsnight featuring University of East Anglia environmental scientist Andrew Watson and Marc Morano, a former US Congressional aide and disciple of Rush Limbaugh who now runs the lunatic-right, anti-environmentalist website ClimateDepot.com.
Throughout the day Watson has been giving interviews, against the orders of his university bosses, backing the actions of Phil Jones and the other Norwich scientists caught up in the ClimateGate pseudo-scandal. My impression is that Watson has being doing a good job of defending his colleagues, and the climate change consensus.
On Newsnight Watson was put up against a denialist hack for whom “Bluster” is a middle name. It was an ugly confrontation, and I salute Watson for keeping his cool through the exchange, only to lose it at the end. Watson no doubt thought he was off-mic when he came out with an evident truth about his gobby debating partner:
“What an arsehole!”
Appropriate? Wise? Politic?
Who cares?
Certainly not me. I fully agree with the sentiment expressed by the good professor. As for the denialists’ reaction to Professor Watson, cue masses of hot air and faux indignation.
Next, British prime minister Gordon Brown has a pop at climate deniers, or, to use his words, “anti-science, flat-earth climate sceptics”.
Some, including a much respected regular visitor to this blog, would regard such language as counter-productive. It would indeed be an inappropriate debating tactic if we were up against a thoughtful and civilised opposition. Needless to say, we are not.
The denialists have no argument when it comes to the science, merely regurgitating in the mass media claims that were long ago shown to be unfounded. So the denialists now resort to criminal activity, and employ slander and character assassination as their primary weapons in a battle to derail political moves to a low carbon economy.
Correction
Andrew Watson in fact said:
“What an asshole!”
while feigning an American accent. And the BBC have chosen not to edit the comment out of the video now available on the Newsnight website. This despite Martha Kearney’s on-air apology in the programme for Professor Watson’s “bad language”.
Feed the writer! 
Saturday 5 December 2009 at 07:53 UTC
Watson simply put into words what any right thinking person felt about the American idiot who had been shouting at him for the previous five minutes. Morano was a rude ignorant and obnoxious man who tired to shout down Watson rather than engage with him in debate.
I think Professor watson knew his comments were likely to be on air, and fair play to him, he was bang on the money.
Saturday 5 December 2009 at 09:25 UTC
The truth is that Prof Watson handled this whole interview very badly. He was up against a guy whom he should have had for breakfast but he didn’t. The reason, frankly, is that ‘Climategate’ has finally opened up this debate and the pro looby knows the evidence does NOT support man-made global warming. As a scientist myself I can look at the statistical evidence and it’s flaky to say the least.
Saturday 5 December 2009 at 09:27 UTC
What was interesting about Watson’s outburst was that it is similar to the language used in the CRU emails when Phil Jones and his colleagues discuss inconvenient questions posed by climate sceptics. It’s a sign of frustration of course; we all do it when we can’t find answers and we just know that we should be able to.
Saturday 5 December 2009 at 10:57 UTC
Look, Watson was an idiot. He repeated the same line saying that the science was fine blah blah blah. I have a PhD in physics and have examined the science and it is full of holes.
OK, so Morano was a bit loud but then he is an American. Watson allowed himself to get annoyed. Morano was right to point out that Hulme and Monbiot and others have castigated Phil Jones. But when Watson refused to discuss the subversion of the Freedom of Information Act then he really showed that he is not an impartial scientist but a propagandist.
Any real scientist would criticize the deletion of emails and data, but he just wouldn’t comment because he knows it is damming.
Saturday 5 December 2009 at 11:35 UTC
“So the denialists now resort to criminal activity”
Just curious – how do you know it was criminal ?
Saturday 5 December 2009 at 11:52 UTC
Two things, quickly (Saturday is not a day for arsing about on the computer)…
Claims from blog commenters who do not identify themselves fully that they “have a PhD”, etc., and understand the science, are not verifiable, and should not be taken on trust. As the old adage goes, “On the Internet no-one knows you’re a dog”.
As for criminality, the University of East Anglia has said that the release of private email correspondence was the result of hacking, and Inspector Knacker is on the case.
As a journalist I will say that it can be in the public interest to use material leaked in a manner contrary to the law. That is, there is a moral defence, if not a legal one, but the leaker, and/or those who publish the leaked material, has to stand up and be counted, and take full responsibility for their actions. The hackers in this case have chosen to remain anonymous. And, from what I understand, they have also cherry-picked in their selection of material released onto the Interwebs.
This affair reeks of immorality, and it is not on the part of UEA climate scientists.
I cannot not take seriously unsubstantiated claims that the leak was due to a UEA whistleblower.
Saturday 5 December 2009 at 12:25 UTC
Totally agree with the Prof sentiments. I am getting sick and tired of hacks and non-scientist talking nonsense and telling us that 2+2=5. They are trivialising the work that many scientists are doing and allowing the septics to muscle in with no science to back it up.
By the way, lets eat less or preferably no meat. Meat production is one of the main causes of CO2 and methane build up, destroying the environment and treating sentient anaimals appalingly. However solution is hardly ever mooted or championed by politicians. Tax meat.
Saturday 5 December 2009 at 12:27 UTC
I do have a doctorate in physics but I am not going to give you my name. Up to you if you want to believe me. Unlike you I have read the emails and know and understand the science.
My scientific heros are people like Richard Feynman. Feynman would be ashamed to be in the same room as these idiots at the UEA. I wish he were alive today to tell us what he thinks of them. (Google cargo cult and Feynman if you want to guess).
Do you know that science is a hard subject. Proving causation when there are 10 different possible factors which change through time is incredibly hard. That requires great ingenuity, hard work, reams of data, integrity, self analysis. None of this was going on at UEA. The data was crap, the computer adjustments were a joke and the self-analysis was not critical. The data is so poor you can twist it easily. They knew this and basically knowingly exaggerated the warming.
I wish they had had a different “sceptic” on Newsnight. And just because he is some loud American neocon does not mean he is wrong. As I said to my wife the other day when discussing this and she said “but that’s what George Bush believed”, I said “Even a stopped clock is right twice a day”. I don’t like these necons, but nor do I like scientific conmen either.
Saturday 5 December 2009 at 12:30 UTC
I too have a doctorate in physics, and for a decade worked in upper atmosphere and space physics. In fact, for three years I worked alongside Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen in Copenhagen.
So yes, I do understand the science, and know that the practice of science is hard.
Saturday 5 December 2009 at 12:44 UTC
“Dominic”‘s comments above, and in particular his assumption that I am just an ignorant journalist with no knowledge of climate science detail, show how easy it is in the blogosphere to scan and react without giving it a second thought. I suspect that before long the political blogosphere will disappear up its own arse (or ass, for readers of a North American persuasion).
Right, now I really must get out of the house! Laters.
Saturday 5 December 2009 at 16:46 UTC
The good Professor was in no way acting against the instructions of his University. He was sent out as an honest broker to diffuse the issue and he failed miserably so to do.
I saw the outburst on newsnight and immediately contacted Morano to make sure that he was aware of the matter.
It demonstrates that these guys are totally inept when faced with a media that is not 100% supine and they have yet to adjust to the new reality where they get asked “hard” questions.
Sunday 6 December 2009 at 10:02 UTC
OK. If you do have background in physics then I withdraw my implication that you don’t understand the science.
However you must read the emails. Look at the attempts to hide the data. Look at the adjustments to the data. Ask why Phil Jones said he would rather delete the data than make it public. How can that be scientific?
We the taxpayer pay their salaries and a huge public policy decision is being made on the back of this data (and on the GISSTemp which also has problems) but at least is public.
We not only have the right to see the data, it is an imperative that it be made public for the open and transparent execution of public policy. Cap and Trade will cost all of us and we need to know that we are doing the right thing for the right reason.
As an aside, I am fully behind cutting emissions to reduce our dependency on imported energy and to make better use of the precious oil and gas reserves left.
But let’s do it for that reason. Because if the global warming that is predicted does not happen, the scientists will be hung out to dry by the politicians. After that, scientists will be treated as worse than bankers/politicians/journalists and science will be badly damaged.
Please read the emails and tell me that what you find there shocks you. It certainly shocked me.
Sunday 6 December 2009 at 17:47 UTC
“However you must read the emails.”
Must I?
I disagree that there is an obligation on me to read the hacked correspondence, but as it happens I have now read some of the messages. And I really don’t see what all the fuss is about. The Nature editorial this week pretty much sums it up.
Sunday 6 December 2009 at 22:13 UTC
Francis:
If you had read more of the emails then you might understand why what Morano was saying made Watson lose his cool and by doing so make things even worse for CRU, if that is possible.
There is a good summary of some of them here:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/11/20/climate-cuttings-33.html
It is by no means complete.
Sunday 6 December 2009 at 22:31 UTC
Francis, you may think there is nothing to be fussed about in these emails but UEA, IPCC, Penn State and quite possibly the US Congress disagree as they have all agreed to investigate the issues raised by these emails.
“Move along ,move along, nothing to see here” is simply not going to cut it as a response. The game has changed completely and the supporters of AGW are running to catch up.
Sunday 6 December 2009 at 22:38 UTC
Well, it should tie up the suits for a while, and maybe the likes of Marc Swift-Boat Morano will get so worked up that they spontaneously combust. That would be entertaining. In the meantime, the scientists get on with their work.
Sunday 6 December 2009 at 22:58 UTC
Re the counter productive language: the focus is so much on smashing the ‘denialist’ opposition that persuading the middle ground has fallen by the wayside.
Every focus group which has ever been asked about ‘yah-boo-sucks’ debate has said they hate it, that it makes them want to wish a plague on the houses of both sides of the argument.
I go back to my point about the ‘paradoxical response’. It’s time to stop shouting louder and instead modify the message and its direction.
Sunday 6 December 2009 at 23:03 UTC
Gareth – the best political battles are fought on a number of fronts. The climate denialists have learned this lesson; it’s about time that the science community does likewise.
Monday 7 December 2009 at 00:10 UTC
Do you deny the fact that scientists who we paid for with our taxes hid data that showed that the tree ring data did not correlate well with temperature post 1960, threatened to delete the station temperature data to stop McIntyre from getting it, conspired to delete emails in order to pervert the FOI Act, attempted to pervert the peer review process etc…?
These are not the actions of good scientists. The scientists I worked with would never have countenanced such behaviour. Maybe my area was an exception and this is normal for science. If so, I am shocked and saddened about the state of science.
The Bishop Hill link provided gives a good summary with the emails linked.
Also, I expect that there may be some more surprises once people start looking at the data and the code that was released. The HARRY_READ_ME file was quite an eye opener about the integrity of the code and the irreproducibility of the numbers. As someone who has worked in industry after academia, the quality of the code and systems seems very amateurish. It’s not at all clear how the source code was controlled, how versioning was done etc… And these guys get millions of dollars in funding!
Monday 7 December 2009 at 00:54 UTC
Oh please, enough of this ‘we paid for these scientists with our taxes so we own them’ bollocks. By that reckoning the scientists also paid for themselves with their own taxes, and so own themselves. This taxpayer stuff is rhetorical bluster, and it’s neither big nor clever. I would describe it as a load of old wank.
Given the number of politically-motivated FOI requests that climate scientists have had to put up with over many years, I can sympathise with their frustration at denialists’ attempts to obstruct the practice of climate science. I reserve judgement on the question of whether any of the CRU people did naughty stuff, and am happy to leave it to investigators to decide on such matters, including the police looking for those who hacked the Norwich server. I’m sure that a peek at certain denialists’ email archives and server logs would throw up some interesting information, but I’m not personally motivated to do this.
As for code quality, I’ve worked in academia, and also within an ISO9001-certified software engineering environment where I was tasked with validating spacecraft flight dynamics software. Spotting potentially costly mistakes, in other words. Taxpayers’ money too!
In an otherwise balanced report for Newsnight, the BBC’s Susan Watts dropped the ball when she got an industrial software engineer to comment on some IDL code snippets from the CRU. Maybe this guy did find a bug, but all software, including ISO-certified stuff, will contain residual errors. The question is whether they have a significant impact on the program outputs. Scientists do let their peers check code, you know, and problems are flagged up in this way, as happened in this case.
Code written by individuals or groups of university-based researchers should not be expected to conform to the same standards as programs produced in industrial or scientific civil service institutions. Code often migrates from academic research labs to the real world, and is modified and documented as appropriate. But when you are doing cutting edge science within close-knit groups, you do not waste time ensuring that your constantly updated software routines conform to bureaucratic standards that are themselves far from failsafe.
Monday 7 December 2009 at 12:58 UTC
I never said we “own them” so don’t put words in my mouth. But we do own the work they do. They are working for public bodies funded by public money. I don’t see any reason to hide the data do you?
Sure you should reserve judgement. It’s not like you know anything about this do you? You’re only an ex-scientist who can read the emails. Yes, wait for a civil servant to tell you what to think. Now I understand.
After all, it’s not like they didn’t try to do any of the stuff that has been mentioned in the emails. Yeah, all scientists manipulate data, delete emails, rig referee reports, refuse to provide data all the time! You probably did it too when you were a scientist. Or maybe you didn’t. Come on ! Admit it, these guys behaved badly.
As for me, I do not TRUST this bunch of scientists any more. I am no longer inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. I feel conned. I used to believe in the AGW hypothesis. Now I am not so sure.
Seems to me you would prefer to trust them. I prefer to see the numbers and check them.
Tuesday 8 December 2009 at 18:00 UTC
Morano behaved like an arsehole (please note the correct spelling). Watson called him one. What’s the problem?