John N-G
“But if we can’t agree on best practices, then the whole thing’s hopeless.” I agree there, but, and this is a huge issue.
We are arguing something that is plain as day. If the climate science principles can’t even agree that what was done was an error, what hope do we possibly have that they would own more complex issues? It seems to me that we are having to argue the very basics of scientific principals here, is that fact lost on you?
This call that they write a paper that outlines best practices is ludicrous. It’s akin to saying that they have to write a paper on the Scientific method! Um why would they need to do that, it’s already common knowledge.
What they are doing is arguing what the meaning of “is” is. If we can’t concede something so basic and fundamental to science (you do not, under any circumstances, publish a graph that is knowingly in error) then how are we possibly going to trust those same principles with things that aren’t nearly as cut and dry (oh say things like the use of “novel” statistics to overstate one’s case on previous temperatures or “novel” statistics that spread warming from one side of the Antarctic to the other)?
