Comment

The Link - Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor

387
johnnyreb5/19/2009 3:39:38 pm PDT

re: #332 Charles

Come on. That’s a ridiculous exaggeration.

First of all, the hockey stick graph was NOT a hoax; there may have been mistaken data involved — this is NOT settled yet — but calling it a “hoax” is absurd.

Second, the peer review process is absolutely NOT “corrupted.” It’s the best possible system for checking and verifying scientific theories. Are there occasional mistakes? Yes, as in any other human endeavor. But the infrequent mistakes do NOT invalidate the whole process.

Charles I disagree. The hockey stick was proven to be pulled from intentionally corrupt data. Mr. Mann was proven to be using “false” data that he knew was wrong. Nature magazine had the whole thing and they say it was false from the start. That to me is a hoax. And to have more than 25 scientists peer review the study as a legitimate scientific study is self defeating when simple random input produced the same hockey stick.

“It’s not that a single discovery can’t change the existing scientific paradigm—in fact sudden changes are more characteristic of how science progresses than are slowly evolving ideas—it is just that rarely are new paradigms so immediately embraced and exalted as was the “hockey stick.” Instead, new paradigms are typically met with skepticism and disdain as the mainstream is slow to let go of the conventional wisdom. In the case of the “hockey stick” this process was turned on its head—the “hockey stick” immediately was held up as the symbol of “mainstream” thought and anyone who did not wholly accept it was labeled as a skeptic. Additionally, the members of the mainstream often united in organized efforts to severely rebuke each any every critique of the “hockey stick,” oftentimes resorting to personal attacks against the critical party.”