Article Tags: Doug L. Hoffman
With the climate science party-line case for global warming rapidly unwinding there is growing interest by researchers from outside the climate change community in applying advanced statistical techniques to climate data. It has long been recognized that statistical acumen has been lacking among mainstream climate scientists. This dirty little secret was first publicly disclosed during Congressional hearings regarding the 2006 Wegman Report. Even newer analyses have revealed that many of the predictions made by the IPCC reports and other global warming boosters are wrong, often because inappropriate statistical techniques were applied.
The Wegman Report was the result of an ad hoc committee of independent statisticians who were asked by a congressional committee to assess the statistical information presented in the Michael Mann “Hockey Stick” papers. Dr. Edward Wegman, a prominent statistics professor at George Mason University and chairman of the National Academy of Sciences’ (NAS) Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics, headed the panel of experts who examined the use of statistics in climate science. They found the climate science community was far too insular and did not consult with experts in statistics outside of their own field.
This self imposed isolation led, in the opinion of the committee, to misuse of statistics and a peer review process that only included the close-knit circle of researchers at the center of the global warming controversy. Wegman stated in testimony before the energy and commerce committee: “I am baffled by the claim that the incorrect method doesn’t matter because the answer is correct anyway. Method Wrong + Answer Correct = Bad Science.” More on the Wegman Report can be found in Chapter 13 of The Resilient Earth.
More recently, Tom Siegfried, editor in chief of Science News, wrote an essay entitled “Odds Are, It’s Wrong.” In it he addressed the general problem of the misuse of statistics in science and medical research. While not talking speciffically about climate science, here is Siegfried’s take on the problem:
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Source: theresilientearth.com