(Click to massively embiggen)
For those who haven’t bumped into it yet, there was a bit of a tempest-in-a-teapot when a story came out about a 4th grade girl who had purportedly won an award from the National Science Foundation with a project titled “Disproving Global Warming”. While some good investigative sleuthing by Michael Tobis revealed it to be an elaborate hoax (involving a forged letter from an official at the National Science Foundation, as well as a plaque, trophy, and medal), it nevertheless serves as an interesting exercise in tracing the flow of news though the climate blogosphere. Tracing the story from its original source, we find that it was covered by about 40 sites of various types prior to being revealed as a hoax, though there were some early skeptics of the validity of the story. It also reveals how influential Climate Depot (who featured the story prominently) can be in spreading information.
Image updated on 6/9
I only just read the story about 2 hours ago! (I guess that’s what I get for not checking climate depot or “only in it for the gold” daily!
It doesn’t seem that anyone has figured out who originated the hoax yet. Or has anyone traced this to that source. That poor little girl must be pretty disappointed she didn’t win any chance to play astronaut for the day. Very bad way to treat a kid.
On the influence of climate depot– I think you are right it does show that influence. But it’s worth nothing that quite often Tom Nelson gets these first.
Yep, and separating out the relative impact of Climate Depot vs. Nelson in this case was tough, since Climate Depot just linked directly to Nelson without adding any content. A number of the folks I have linked to Nelson via Morano might have just read Nelson directly, but there is no easy way to figure it out (others, like the Spectator, directly reference Morano).
I thought of another thing: This story also shows that at least small media outlets don’t really fact check any better than blogs. The media outlet in SouthTexas appears to have done no checking to verify that NSF really sent the letter.
True, but in the reporters defense they were called in by the school, shown the letter and awards, etc. They probably had no idea that they were stepping into a proverbial internet minefield.
Zeke–
I don’t really mean that as a slam on the reporter so much as an observation. This episode reminds us that there isn’t some sort of heavy reflexive checking of everything at small town newspapers. I don’t think they have the budget. So, the practice is: School calls. Parents, principle, kid all think this is a prize. Let’s assume this is a prize. Write a nice local color story.
Normally that’s fine!
The reporter may not have know NSF from the Lion’s Club. Many people don’t.
Nigel Calder has an interesting essay on propaganda and climate science. His father worked on propaganda during World War II, and he ties that to the current climate wars.
http://calderup.wordpress.com/2010/06/07/tradecraft-of-propaganda/#more-1059
I am rather curious how the hoax evolved in the first place. What is particularly odd is the remark in the original news story by her father that:
““Before she sent it off, she just had to add more details, citations for her research, and the amount of hours she spent working on it,†said Julisa’s father, J.R. Castillo.”
Given that there is no actual National Science Fair to send the project to… The closest thing to it is the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, but they don’t have an elementary school division and aren’t administered by the NSF.
lucia, please do me a small favour.
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could you please add the phrase “Sceptic” to all the sources in the that graph, that claim or appear to be sceptic?
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you could also colour them in a cool sort of blue?
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ps: i don t know who created the graph, but “klimabedrag” is a blog in Denmark. it is definitely not German.
Sod, its my graph, but I can tweak it a tad.
All the sources that initially expressed skepticism in the original story already have an (S) in their box.
Here is a version with them tinted blue: http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j237/hausfath/CastilloStoryFlowchart.png
Tobis is going to end up using this kid too. Or at least trying to. If he wants to do the right thing maybe he could take a break from shaking his finger carrying on about his role in uncovering the affair and spill a little ink telling us what this kid argued in her science fair project. This is part of the story isn’t it?
Let’s not feel sorry for this kid and label her a victim until someone gets her reaction. Judging by the title of her project, “Disproving Global Warming,” I have to wonder that she might savor the fact that her little project prompted an emergency visit to her little town from a “disconcerted” climate blowhard.
Note to self; rent the Billy Wilder classic, “Ace in the Hole.”
HankHenry,
From what I can tell, she analyzed the data from her local weather station and found little modern warming. Which is a neat project, though its somewhat problematic to assume it implies anything about global temperature trends.
Zeke (Comment#45096) June 8th, 2010 at 4:19 pm
Sod, its my graph, but I can tweak it a tad.
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very good job Zeke. really cool graph, giving lots of information. you are doing a brilliant job as always.
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i am really impressed, with some people on the net really being productive and investing energy into stuff that passes on information in a much better way. you help others, and that is really cool!
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so i am actually a little embarrassed, as my comment above was just usual sarcasm. i was making fun of “sceptical” blogs, who swallowed the story with hook, line and sinker.
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i did understand, that you had marked the blogs “scpetic” of the hoax, with the open border, and was just trying to point out, that those most often were not blogs, that would label themselves (climate) “sceptics”. sorry again.
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ps: using the kid for this hoax is really a pretty evil thing to do. if anyone got an idea of anything that we could do, please post it.
There is a real story here, obviously–maybe more than one. Hope MT follows up on it. I gotta wonder how Al Gore’s name got dragged into it.
Which borders are “closed” versus “open”? They all look closed to me, some just look like double lines and others single outlines.
Zeke-
On the other hand, it’s about on the level of jr. high projects I’ve seen when I’ve run across them. It’s really difficult to have kids think up their own questions, implement ways to answer them and then have them really make sense.
Zeke–
Are you sure Mind of Dan was skeptical about the the news story being true? I read his post here: http://mind.ofdan.ca/?p=3658#more-3658
It reads to me that he disagreed with the little girls conclusions, andbut I don’t see anything to suggest he doubts she actually won a prize.
Dan writes this:
Zeke, Good data can be hard to get a hold of unless you have connections. I feel confident that this little girl did a quite competent 4th grader job with the data she had at hand. I also suspect that the parents will provide perspective to little Julisa and that this will long be remembered as a funny incident to this family.
Heh, seen yet what Ecotretas has done for Beeville at Watts Up?
Judith Curry called today for a new surface temperature data set. Read it at the glacier thread at Climate Audit.
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kim,
USHCNv2 inhom adjustments aren’t exactly new news 😛
We looked at in in-depth awhile back: http://rankexploits.com/musings/2010/a-detailed-look-at-ushcn-mimmax-temps/
Also, that post over at Anthony’s place should really compare F52 (inhom-adjusted) to TOB instead of F52 to raw. Otherwise you end up conflating two rather different things!
As far as Judy’s call for a new surface temp data set goes, I’m all for it. While there is a lot we can do with GHCN, its admittedly imperfect, and folks are actively working on alternative methods (e.g. Spencer’s ISH and Ron’s GSOD). So far they are nearly identical to GHCN raw, which is unsurprising.
Lucia,
You are right, Mind of Dan’s initial post shouldn’t necessarily be considered skeptical of the story’s validity per se. He did update it after reading the NCTimes post, but the original was more about critiquing the methodology of the study.
I’ll update it tomorrow when I have a chance.
It also reveals how influential Climate Depot (who featured the story prominently) can be in spreading information
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… spreading misinformation?
… spreading disinformation?
Ron-
Back when the planet 3.0 mailing list was readable by the public, the members used to thrash around ideas of how to get their message out. Whatever you might think of Climate Depot, Marc Morano knows how to get a message out. This story shows that he succeeds. I bet you could trace a number of other stories to Climate Depot.
I don’t know if the people on that mailing list still ponder the mysteries of how to get messages out, but if they do, studying methods that succeed might be useful.
What is that saying … a lie travels half way round the world before the truth can put its shoes on? Literally true now. Note the India Times entry.
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Those who feel constrained by honesty and truthfulness will always be slower out of the gate. Taking the time to fact check, to seek independent confirmations, to repeat the analysis yourself – always takes longer than making indefensible claims and cut&pasting the latest soundbite that seems to confirm your personal biases.
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I’ve paid no attention to Climate Depot before today. I see less reason to do so tomorrow. Now if I were a propagandist, perhaps I’d have more interest in Morano’s methods. But I’m not and I don’t.
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There seems to be a lot of belly-button gazing and tea-leaf reading about ‘how to get the message out; how to restore trust in science; how to agree to policies to reduce CO2.” My 2c: Just keep doing the science. The evidence will continue to accumulate or it won’t.
Dan (via lucia): “That deniers are promoting this shows how desperate they have become.”
No. Instead it might show that climate realists have become sloppy since the momentum shift of last year’s climategate story broke. Perhaps – for some.
I found the story linked climate depot to have too few details on it to determine any veracity. Googling the story and key names didn’t alter this fact for me.
{Zeke (Comment#45099)
June 8th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
HankHenry,
From what I can tell, she analyzed the data from her local weather station and found little modern warming. Which is a neat project, though its somewhat problematic to assume it implies anything about global temperature trends.}
Ah but Zeke, with Nick’s data on just 61 stations, we are getting mighty close to finding the perfect one station for global temps!
Maybe it is Beeville?
🙂
This link is to an article, presumably published in December last year, describing some of what the youngster did in her science project: http://www.mysoutex.com/pages/full_story_landing/push?article-Conclusion-+%E2%80%98pretty+creative%E2%80%99%20&id=5061446
I think she deserves recognition for checking the data, thinking for herself, and daring to go against the establishment position on global warming. Any one of these is commendable. All three is prizeworthy.
As others have noted, her leap from local data to global conclusions is on thin ice. But professionals have published papers with temperature reconstructions claiming global import despite being dominated by a few bristle cone trees somewhere local in the States.
I note this summary of recent temperature trends for the USA, showing a decreasing trend over the past 12 years:
http://www.c3headlines.com/2010/06/coolest-12month-period-in-twelve-years-huge-us-cooling-trend-continues-now-a-84f-declinecentury.html (using data published by NOAA: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/cag3.html)
They (first site) comment ‘The AGW hypothesis calls for global warming, which is obviously not happening in the U.S. – the case for AGW is significantly weakened by this type of empirical evidence. The climate models predicted global warming, which included all of North America.’
I wonder if the Beeville data show a broadly similar behaviour.
“It also reveals how influential Climate Depot (who featured the story prominently) can be in spreading information.”
I didn’t think that any of the blogs that picked up the story from Climate Depot are influencial at all.
But what is hillarious is the comments at Tobis blog by the usual suspects who want me to believe that it couldn’t have been… some one who really cares about the child goes to great lengths to have a trophy, plaque and medal made to make the kid feel good… then the parents call the principal, who calls the local paper, who is picked up by a press agrigator and etc
NOOOOOOOOOOOO… it was all a devious plan by Mark Morano
Ouch!
Sometimes people get carried away in their zeal to prove a point. We’ve seen a lot of this on the warmist side.
In my view, the story was just too anecdotal, something even below a weather event.
The father done it.
…….. but isn’t that what we love about the internet – the speed in which our prejudices can be relayed around the world at the click of our finger.
As ever with climate science advancing the rhetoric is deemed more important than establishing facts.
I only briefly saw this yesterday on a more obscure blog and didn’t connect that there was a national award involved. I’m still not clear; is the hoax the entire science project or just the awarding of a NSF trophy? Obviously, the false award is a story that should be investigated, to at least find the perpetrator of such a dishonorable act. However, if this 4th grader really did the project as described, it appears to me to be reasonably substantive, an educational opportunity that was taken to full advantage and that is now being lost in the hoax. As the father of a 4th grade daughter who recently participated in a local science fair (and did reasonably well, thank you), I have a strong interest in that angle of the story.
Re: Banjoman0 (Jun 9 05:59),
I think it’s just the NSF award that is the hoax. There seems to have been a science fair and did make a presentation on climate change.
Climate Depot is great as an aggregator of global warming stories. But . . . you still have to check them out.
I got the story from Climate Depot, and was rather incredulous. Some Googling convinced me there was something wrong with the story. There was no other confirming evidence. To me, it seemed more likely that a small newspaper botched the story than the National Science Foundation (and Al Gore!) gave top prize to a global warming skeptic entry.
Michael Tobis of Only In It For The Gold has rendered an invaluable service in debunking this hoax. Everyone concerned with global warming, believer, skeptic or undecided, should be grateful.
P.S. You should add a link from Climate Depot to the NC Times box, because I learned of it first from Climate Depot. I often check that site for global warming-related news.
Jon Shade, thanx for the link to the early story. If fourth graders are doing these kinds of experiments, I have a feeling that the USA is in good hands with the upcoming generation!
Climate Depot is great as an aggregator of global warming stories. But . . . you still have to check them out.
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yeah, and a garbage can is a great source of valuable goods. you just have to dig them out.
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Brad,
Thanks for the clarification! The fact that folks often link back to the original article rather than the source that they actually found it from makes things a tad more difficult to chart; for example, I suspect NC Media Watch and Climate Realists might have originally seen the story via Tom Nelson (or vis versa) rather than all of them independently stumbling across it. No easy way to know though.
Here is an updated (and slightly more speculative version) of how I think it went: http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j237/hausfath/CastilloStoryFlowchart-1.png
Also fixed Dan’s status therein.
But did she archive her data? I think not!
Zeke–
I think linking back to the original source may be especially true when the story runs at Climate Depot. Many agregators are designed to let you link to a stub of a story at the aggregator, but I don’t think Climate Depot lets you do that. If the person running the story wants to be sure his readers will find it, they need to link back to the story Marc Morano linked. Linking to Climate Depot can result in puzzlement. Hat tipping Climate Depot and providing the link to the underlying story is probably ideal– but the blogger might not think of it.
Marc’s aggregator layout funnels more readers to the original story than many aggregator.
lucia (Comment#45086) June 8th, 2010 at 3:44 pm
“This story also shows that at least small media outlets don’t really fact check any better than blogs.”
Small, large, doesn’t make a difference. AP frequently doesn’t check facts, Reuters frequently doesn’t check facts, UPI frequently doesn’t check facts.
Read any paper, see how many articles have ‘allegedly’ or ‘according to ‘.
My Mother was a newspaper editor. If an article has ‘allegedly’ or ‘according to’ in it, the news outlet hasn’t independently verified the facts.
I just went over to the main Associated Press site, out of the top 4 stories , Officials said, BP Said, Bernake said. The 4th story was obviously an ‘opinion piece’.
sod @ 8:26 I like your metaphor. Look at the nice household the skeptics have set up with consensus rejects, and the shambles of the dwellings of the alarmists. We need a whole new surface temperature data set, and according to Judy Curry, it is on its way.
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Rich (Comment#45334)
Worse than that, it isn’t in a recognized peer-reviewed forum! Fortunately for her, she was able to _use_ archived data to give her project more meaning.
And, I would lay odds that if you asked her for her data, she’d give them to you.
Irene and I arrived in Beeville believing that the reporter had screwed up the story, that “NSF” stood for some sort of “National Science Fair”, and that the child had indeed won some sort of ill-judged award for her probably earnest, probably parentally-influenced belief that she had disproved “global warming”.
When the facts emerged, we took care to discuss the matter with the principal of the school, emphasizing the possibility of damage to the child.
Therefore we could not do much to protect her, (a couple of small facts were in fact withheld) and the necessity of stopping yet another compelling but hopelessly incorrect idea about climate change from entering the public’s imagination prevailed.
As for what she in fact said, the earlier article in the (very “conservative” as US political vernacular has it) Beeville Bee-Picayune describes it in some detail, with possibly the most bombastic opening paragraphs of any local science fair reporting ever attempted.
http://is.gd/cJ4D7
The newspaper is not entirely innocent here.
The reporter whose byline appears on that earlier story is no longer with the Bee-Picayune. My attempts to contact him have not succeeded as yet.
I have indeed benefited, so far, from this story, and the child obviously has not. So HankHenry’s accusation cuts pretty deep.
In my defense, my wife and I have been trying to weigh the ethical constraints throughout, and had a long discussion of it on the long drive back to Austin from Beeville. That doesn’t mean we did everything right, of course, but we tried. I try to live my life such that I know I tried to do the right thing when it matters, and I am blessed to be wed to someone who does the same.
Zeke, thank you. The chart is fascinating.
Regarding small vs. large media outlets, I think in this particular instance a bigger new outlet would have done a better job. Smaller news outlets tend to be staffed by reporters at an earlier stage in their careers, and more vulnerable to hoaxes. Also, reporters at big newspapers tend to accept AGW, and would naturally be more dubious of such a story. In this case, their AGW bias would be an advantage.
Michael Tobis should just ignore HankHenry’s sniping. Everyone who cares about putting facts before ideology benefited from Tobis’ reporting.
Re: Michael Tobis (Jun 9 11:56),
I think you behaved well here. I believe the fact that this was a hoax was going to come out sometime.
I assume any envelopes or packages associated with the prize were already destroyed before anyone suspected the hoax?
Lucia, thanks for your kind words.
Regarding the packaging, etc., I do not know the answer to your question and don’t intend to pursue it.
While it is important to find out who the culprit is and what the motivation is, I have already given all the information I am willing to give, which is very nearly all I have.
I will say that I think it unlikely that some important advocacy group on the climate policy stage of any stripe was behind this rather amateurish trickery. That being the case, who did it and why is really not an important issue in the grand scheme of things.
The big story here is how easily people believe things they wish were true and how hard it is for people to accept things they wish were not. There are several instances of self-delusion and of manipulation here, and they reflect on our larger predicament. I think Zeke’s work here is a good starting point.
What Irene and I achieved was to quickly settle that the story at face value was untrue, and we’re happy with that. We leave any further muckraking to others. (It’s not that I’m not curious. I’m just not motivated.)
We will see how Ms. Taylor of the “Bee-Pic” handles the story in a couple of hours when it comes out on the mysoutex.com site. I hope she will be the one to follow up on the local story.
Michael–
Sure.
But we also see some people accepting things they wish were not true as true; Scruffy Dan seemed to accept the story at face value and then explained why we should not consider the girls conclusions meaningful. I’m assuming he would have preferred the story be untrue.
We see NorthCountry times a skeptic outfit doubting the truth of the story. Brad might have preferred to believe that NSF has become willing to grant a prize to a 4th grader to disprove global warming– but he did not believe it.
Those who read the story on your private email list blogged skeptically– but it appears that they had already been presented with the notion this prize was ertzatz. Had they not learned of the story from a source already expressing doubt would all of them have immediately thought to suggest the prize was a hoax? We don’t know.
So, I’m not really sure what this story tells us about how people’s desires to believe something influences their perception of truth. Clearly, many blog before trying to figure out if the prize could possibly be real. The agregators don’t check; the just aggregate.
Lucia,
Just to clarify, the North County Times is the newspaper I write for as a reporter, and what I wrote about this was on my blog there. On the blog, I express my own opinions in a way that’s not appropriate for news articles. Also, my opinions are not necessarily those of other reporters and editors.
For me, the most important thing is to find out who was behind the hoax and to expose them.
I don’t know how you can say that? Skeptics still can’t decide if it is warming, staying the same, or cooling. And if it is, is it clouds, cosmic rays, the sun, that trace gases can’t do anything, that you can’t violate the second law of thermodynamics, that there is an iris effect, it’s the oceans. Give me something consistent, all I see is a sea of waving hands.
On an unrelated note, its a rather fun exercise to figure out what is wrong with today’s WUWT guest post: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/09/a-study-the-temperature-rise-has-caused-the-co2-increase-not-the-other-way-around/
You can’t cheat by reading the comments, though 😛
capri,
“For me, the most important thing is to find out who was behind the hoax and to expose them”
Okay, sounds fair, let’s start by demanding all of Tobin’s financial and phone records to see if he set it all up to get attention for his blog.
Zeke:
He’s actually right in a funny way—most of the historical warming isn’t from CO2 increase (almost none in fact prior to 1980, though the warming since 1980 cannot be explained without taking it into account), and the strongest evidence for CO2 as a threat to future climate does not come from the historical temperature record to start with…
I wish that people who are arguing against AGW would first of all try to understand the case for AGW.
And once again, we have an argument against AGW that is at odds with all the other arguments against AGW. It’s as if Anthony thinks that if you get enough arguments against AGW, they collectively disprove it through sheer weight of numbers.
We also have the case of an argument against AGW being based on the accepted temperature record, when WUWT continually tells us that you can’t trust the accepted temperature record.
bugs:
I wish the same thing of people who argue for the case.
All of the erroneous garbage floating around (on both sides) just muddies it up for everybody.
I do my best, and what I do know seems to be more than must ‘skeptics’ seem to know, for example, the post on WUWT in question.
Michael Tobis
“So HankHenry’s accusation cuts pretty deep. ” Tobis, Don’t take it to heart. It was a cheap shot. I don’t know you. I can say I have respect for anyone with more education than I, and you qualify in spades. I am sure if I actually knew you I’d appreciate better the energy and exuberance you give to the issue.
you all need to recall the studies of how the climategate story spread. And then recall that one way to defeat a network is to put false stories in it. This is classic counter network ops. been there, done that.
Like i said before, consider the father.
http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/ccoct/the_fake_science_fair_award_what_sort_of_person/c0rnotv
“Classic counter network ops”. LOL.
Sod @ 3:39 PM. Welcome to reality. We don’t understand climate regulation, but we do know enough to understand that the role of CO2 has probably been exaggerated, and exaggerated from ignorance and from desire for policy action.
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But thank you, Sod, for the revelation about the source of your passion and fervor. The certainty that marked the belief in AGW was very comforting.
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I’ve a suspicion the young lady may yet garner the prize of her choice. We need a new surface temperature data set. Judith Curry and a fourth grader in Beeville, Texas will tell you.
How about a visit to Rambling Tech for a talk with the doyenne? Understanding climate regulation is for the young to figure out. Space camp is so last century.
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Moshe, were there black ops I’m not sure of the direction. The young lady has exposed graph as compelling and explanatory as the hockey stick, and it’s not a lie.
The old surface temperature data set is dead. Long live the new surface temperature data set.
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It looks like her father, a libertarian engineer (says enough, doesn’t it), was behind it. Perhaps we should leave it at that. It’s getting too embarrassing. Poor kid.
Neven–
Let me ask what you asked Steve Bloom at Eli’s–What’s your source? That is: source pointing to evidence it was the father?
I don’t see why her father being a libertarian engineer would suggest that he faked a prize, a letter or anything else. I’m not saying he could not have, but why if we are going to use our imaginations and dream up theories, why not be a wiley and cruel socialist neighbor who hates the father’s political views, wants to create the story and later have it revealed as a hoax? Why not imagine the girl was teased mercilessly at school and a kind but misguided aunt thought faking the award would make the kid feel good, but then the whole thing went out of control?
I could dream up all sorts of possibilities. If we have zero evidence one way or the other, and there are infinite possibilities, even the one that seems most likely to an individual named Neven or one named Steve Bloom is not particularly likely to be true.
@lucia: The reason the father looks like a suspect is because he is the singular focal end point that all the ‘NSF’ contest/award communications passed through and when you trace *his own* claimed awards, a number of them look suspicious, too.
Kim:
Moshe, were there black ops I’m not sure of the direction.
I’ll just say this. When I got the climategate emails we listed ALL the possible scenerios we could come up with. The mails were a hoax, the mails were half fake, half real. The mails were authentic. The mails were authentic but a legal trap. Basically, it’s the way I was trained to operate. Consider every possibility and collect your evidence for an against. I’d do the same here. I’d try to build a case for all possibilities and lay it out systematically. The two prime suspects would be the parent ( probably with a narcissitic personality disorder ) and then black ops. If it is the father, he might try to implicate somebody else and keep the black ops meme alive. Should be interesting to watch it play out.
Benjamin Franz (Comment#45505)
I understand the sentiment, and perhaps share it, but I would point out that at this stage this sort of evidence is still circumstantial.
@Banjoman0: Yes. It is still circumstantial and only suggestive. But I can think of some possible investigative techniques to make it less so.
For example:
Most people are not aware that nearly all modern color printers print a faint id pattern on all printouts. That pattern can be used to uniquely match a printer to a printout (or with other printouts made by the same printer).
If (whomever) made the fake award used a color printer to do so, that piece of paper has the coded id of the printer on it.
Benjamin–
Your guess about the outcome of tests that could be done but have not been done is not evidence.
I think NSF said they are looking into it. If so, we’ll learn.
arrg.. comment got entered.
father with NPD is highly probable suspect.
Thanks for the support, Bradley, and thanks for the gracious apology, HH.
The father has admitted authoring the hoax: http://www.mysoutex.com/view/full_story/7901678/article-Father-says-he-is-sorry-for-science-fair-hoax?
An admission definitely clinches things. Poor kid.
Yah. I do feel pretty bad for her. No kid deserves to be put in the spotlight over someone else’s mis-deed like this or to have to deal with the aftermath of it.
But I don’t feel even the tiniest bit sorry for him. He is a serial fraud and liar.
Hey Bud; she coulda been a contendah.
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“Poor Kid.” -Lucia
I’m going to stick up for the Dad. He’s probably a pretty fun guy to have as a Dad. Maybe we could chalk it up as a father’s introduction of his kid to the phonus balonus world of plaques and honor societies. It reminds me of a story I heard once about a frugal farmer who on getting a farmer of the year plaque remarked, “If you hadn’t engraved my name in it I could have sold it back to you for use next year”. You know, it’s not like a big fat root of the institution of American consumerism isn’t deeply grounded in the practice of fooling kids at Christmas time.
Michael Tobias says above, quote:
“As for what she in fact said, the earlier article in the (very ‘conservative’ as US political vernacular has it) Beeville Bee-Picayune describes it in some detail, with possibly the most
bombastic opening paragraphs of any local science fair reporting ever attempted.”
and yet when I read the article, at http://is.gd/cJ4D7, it’s not bombastic at all. In fact it seems completely reasonable, even now, knowing that the father set up this fake award.
The writer is reporting on an elementary school science fair. He doesn’t even express an opinion about global warming. There’s an underlying mildly skeptical tone — as in skepticism about the student projects.
What in the world is wrong with this article?
“The newspaper is not entirely innocent here.”
Really? They seem innocent to me.
“First of all trying to disprove global warming by using local trends is nonsensical.”
Really.
What kind of trends does GIS/CRU/etc use?
I think a globally averaged temperature parameter is meaningless. No person/beast/thing experiences this. If averaging destroys information (as my statistics professor taught), then there are some awfully expensive / extensive data destruction exercises underway.
Matching model results to a meaningless number is an exercise in irrelevancy.
There has to be a better way.
(yeah, this doesn’t have much to do with the girl from Beeville)
Well at least I know who Zeke is.
http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2010/06/curious-climate-hoax/
I admit that I rely solely on news outlets for my posts, but not much on other blogs. You can quote blogs, but you have to check their sources.