From: JCornwall@cox.net   
      
   David Friedman wrote:   
      
   > In article ,   
   >  "J. F. Cornwall"  wrote:   
   >   
   >   
   >>David Friedman wrote:   
   >>   
   >>   
   >>>In article ,   
   >>> "J. F. Cornwall"  wrote:   
   >>>   
   >>>   
   >>>   
   >>>>The graphs themselves were interesting, but I certainly would not place   
   >>>>a great deal of reliance on seeing a small uptick in a downward trend   
   >>>>when there's such a huge amount of "noise" in the signal.  If an uptick   
   >>>>continued for several years, that would be of great interest.  One year,   
   >>>>not so much.   
   >>>>   
   >>>>I most certainly would not start calling scientists liars over it.   
   >>>   
   >>>   
   >>>I can't speak to the particular case you are looking at, but I have   
   >>>recently, in my blog, called whoever produced a public statement on   
   >>>arctic sea ice for the JPL a liar. The statement:   
   >>   
   >>That was one of the statements to which I was obliquely referring, yes,   
   >>though it's happened elsewhere as well.  Far too many people are ready   
   >>to call a scientist a liar when they have little or no evidence that   
   >>said scientist even wrote the exact words in question.   
   >   
   >   
   > I didn't specify that some named scientist was a liar. I said that   
   > whoever wrote that statement was.   
      
   (sigh) I knew I should have clarified this, in anticipation of precisely   
   the response you gave.  I am talking about a widespread tendency to call   
   the scientist(s) a liar without adequate evidence.  I am not saying that   
   you, specifically, called the scientist a liar.  I did note your   
   qualification that you were talking about the person who wrote that   
   statement.  But you are, perhaps, the only person who might make that   
   quialification.  I've not seen anyone else do so, every other person   
   jumps straight at the scientist instead.   
      
   > On the other hand, I would have a low opinion of the scientists   
   > associated with the project if they saw the statement and made no effort   
   > to get it retracted. It does have Nasa Jet Propulsion Laboratory   
   > California Institute of Technology at the top. And that's who hosts the   
   > page.   
      
   And it's a very high probability that the scientists who wrote the   
   report had absolutely nothing to do with the process of getting it on   
   the website.  The authors may not have even seen it on there.  Or if   
   they did, it may well have been just an email telling them it was   
   posted.  That's often all the notification our science folks get when   
   the publications folks get a report put online.  I doubt if NASA and   
   Caltech are all that different, given their size.   
      
   > I admit the possibility that it was written by someone who didn't bother   
   > to look at the data he claimed to be reporting on, in which case it's a   
   > falsehood but not a lie, but it doesn't strike me as very likely.   
      
   And my position is just that we don't know enough to really tell.   
      
   Jim   
      
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