Representatives Circle the Wagons to Protect Global Warming (1 Viewer)

[Gill]

The Energy and Commerce (E&C) Committee have recently been conducting hearings on global warming, and especially the veracity of pro global warming publications. Mann’s 1998/1999 paper that produced the infamous hockey stick was the focus of the hearing.

E&C asked the National Academy of Sciences to look at Mann’s paper to verify the statistical analysis he used was correct. Dr. Edward Wegman who chairs the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics was asked to conduct the study.

We all know that many of our elected representatives are abysmally ignorant, but some of the comments and questions at this hearing were astounding and many should be ashamed of their behavior.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill.: "I'm very concerned that this is being used in a way to discredit the whole notion that our country and the rest of the industrialized and developing world ought to do anything about global warming. And that's why I ask you that question, Dr. Wegman, if this does not make you somewhat uncomfortable. Can you see in any way how this is being used and does it bother you?"

Edward Wegman: "I can understand that it's your job to sort out the political ramifications of what I have said. In some sense it's not fair for you to say well, gee, you reported on some fact and that's going to be used in a bad way."

Dr. Hans von Storch, director of the Institute for Coastal Research, GKSS-Research Centre Geesthacht GmbH, Geesthacht, Germany and professor at the Meteorological Institute, University of Hamburg: "I was a bit disappointed about the comment from the lady from Illinois who said, aren't you afraid if you say this, that this would have negative implications on the policy process. I was kind of shocked. Should we really adopt what we say if that's useful for the policy process? Is that what you expect from science? If we give advice, must we first think, is it useful for something? I think that is not the way we should operate."

God forbid that science have findings that discredit popular theories.

Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-WI: "It doesn't take much more than a quick walk outside today to know that the thermometer has reached dangerously high levels and government heat alerts are abounding these days."

Somebody give this woman some BASIC information on the definition of GLOBAL climate.

Rep. Stupak: "Did anyone outside your social network peer review your report?"

Wegman: "Yes."

Rep. Stupak: "Who was that?"

Wegman: "Enders Robinson."

Rep. Stupak: "Was that the email we were talking about earlier?"

Wegman: "Pardon?"

Rep. Stupak: "Was that the email that was?"

Wegman: "Yes."

Rep. Stupak: "So when you do peer review..."

Wegman: "Let me answer the question. Enders Robinson; Grace Wahba, who is a member of the National Academy; Noel Cressie, who is at Ohio State University; Bill Wieczorek, who is at Buffalo State University, SUNY; David Banks, who is at Duke University; Fritz Scheuren, who is the immediate past president of the American Statistical Association."

Rep. Stupak: "Let me ask you this question. If you had it peer reviewed, when are peer reviews usually done? Before a report is finalized or after?"

Wegman: "We have submitted this and had feedback from..."

Rep. Stupak: "No, no, I'm talking about general, peer review. If you're going to have a peer review, don't you usually do it before you finalize a report?"

Wegman: "Yes."

Rep. Stupak: "Well, your peer review was after you finalized?"

Wegman: "No, it was before. We submitted this long before."

Rep. Stupak: "Well, when was your report finalized?"

Wegman: "I think we dated the final copy about four days ago."

Rep. Stupak: "Four days ago, so that'd be about July 15? This email sort of indicates that it's July 17 that you asked for this peer review."

Wegman: "I had feedback from Enders much earlier than that. We had asked him to send material to us for purposes of coming here."

Rep. Stupak: "Well, the email read into the record is Tuesday, July 18, so that'd be three days after you finalized your report."

Wegman: "I'm sorry?"

Rep. Stupak: "Have you seen this email?"

Wegman: "Yes, of course I have. Dr. Robinson saw our material before the 18th, before the 17th, before the 16th. He gave us feedback. We incorporated that. He gave us feedback verbally; we incorporated that because there was some interest in getting this report to the committee."

Rep. Joseph Barton, R-TX: "Would my friend from Michigan yield for one simple question on this same point?"

Rep. Stupak: "Sure."

Rep. Barton: "Dr. Wegman, do you object to Mr. Stupak or anybody in the minority submitting your report for peer review as long as the peers are qualified in statistical analysis."

Wegman: "No, not at all."

Rep. Barton: "Thank you."

Rep. Stupak: "In doing peer reviews, do scientists who do the report, do they usually submit to people they want to peer review? Isn't that sort of an independent review?"

Wegman: "This is basically the same mechanism that was used at the National Academy. This is not a sci..."

Rep. Stupak: "Did you ask these people to do your peer review?"
Wegman: "Yes."

Rep. Stupak: "So would they be part of your social network?"

Wegman: "No. When I talk about social networks, I'm talking about people with whom I have actively collaborated in writing research papers. None of these people have actively collaborated with me in writing research papers."

Rep. Stupak: "Isn't that the same kind of social network you criticized Dr. Mann on because the people who reviewed his work were climatologists..."
Wegman: "...were the people that he had actually worked with and published papers with."

Rep. Stupak: "Well, you published papers with some of these people who peer reviewed your report?"

Wegman: "No. I just told you. No, I haven't."

Politicians are good at talking over people that are supposed to be answering their questions. Obviously Rep. Stupak was even listening to Dr. Wegman’s answers anyway.

U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash.: "Can you recite for us the first three laws of thermodynamics?"
Wegman: "Probably not."

Nobody told Rep. Inslee that Dr. Wegman is a statistician, not a physicist.

Rep. Inslee: "I hope the press gets off the story of doubt and starts to get on the story of the scientific consensus that exists in those 900 articles, and no one should report this hearing unless they say that."

Yeah, let’s control the press.

Rep. Barton: "Let me ask you something, Mr. McIntyre. Since you had the gumption to criticize Dr. Mann, how have you been received in this community. Are people patting you on the back and inviting you to their Christmas parties and saying, 'Right on, way to go, we really appreciate it'? Or are they kind of giving you the cold shoulder and asking you why the hell you did what you did?"

Stephen McIntyre (Canadian business consultant and mathematician, whose work initially uncovered the statistical problems and data errors in Mann's hockey stick studies): "I would say 'cold shoulder' would be overstating the friendliness of it. I would say that I've been reviled."

Rep. Barton: "And so your skepticism for scientific truth has not been welcomed with open arms. Is that a fair statement?"

McIntyre: "I would say it's been an uphill fight. Having said that, one finds allies in certain moments of comfort. Quite frankly I could understand why there would be some reluctance to take the claims seriously at the beginning. That's one of the reasons why I archived the source code calculations, so that people could replicate it, aside from the fact that it's something that should be done, anyway. But my position was that if anybody thinks that my results are wrong, then I'd like to know. I'd like to be the first one to know rather than the last person to know."

It’s obvious that the scientific community, especially the GW crowd, doesn’t like to be told they are wrong.

Rep. Stupak: "The majority paid for a report to independently verify the critiques to Dr. Mann's 1999 research by a statistician, but without any input from a climatologist."

Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield, R-Ky.: "The committee did not pay Mr. Wegman for this report."

Rep. Barton: "We asked to find some experts to try to replicate Dr. Mann's work. To their credit, when Wegman agreed to do it, he asked for no compensation. I don't think we've even paid him for the fax paper he's used. He picked some eminent statisticians in his field and they studied this thing. Had their report said Dr. Mann's data can be replicated, his conclusions are right on point, he is totally correct, we would have reported that. But that's not what they said."

Rep. Stupak again??? I guess he didn’t bother to find out any basics before the hearing.

Rep. Barton: "There's been some attempt to portray you as a pawn of this committee or me, personally. I am told that you voted for Vice President Gore for president in the year 2000. Is that correct?"

Wegman: "That's correct."

Barton: "So you're by no means a radical, wild-eyed, hard-core, right-wing Republican?"

Wegman: "No, sir."

Yep, Wegman is a raving neo-con.

More on the Wegman Report later.