Faux Science

John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article yesterday about some recent facts that have come out regarding global warming. It seems that we have been misled.

The chart below is from the article. It shows the difference between the made-up numbers and the scientific numbers:

The article explains how geologist Shaun Marcott had created his graph by changing the dates of reported temperatures to get the results he wanted.

The article quotes the Financial Post:

Stephen McIntyre of climateaudit.org began examining the details of the Marcott et al. work, and by March 16 he had made a remarkable discovery. The 73 proxies were all collected by previous researchers, of which 31 are derived from alkenones, an organic compound produced by phytoplankton that settles in layers on ocean floors, and has chemical properties that correlate to temperature. …

According to the scientists who originally published the alkenone series, the core tops varied in age from nearly the present to over a thousand years ago. Fewer than 10 of the original proxies had values for the 20th century. Had Marcott et al. used the end dates as calculated by the specialists who compiled the original data, there would have been no 20th-century uptick in their graph, as indeed was the case in Marcott’s PhD thesis. But Marcott et al. redated a number of core tops, changing the mix of proxies that contribute to the closing value, and this created the uptick at the end of their graph. Far from being a feature of the proxy data, it was an artifact of arbitrarily redating the underlying cores.

The earth routinely goes through climate cycles. As of yet, scientists do not totally understand these cycles. However, I believe that the scientific method calls for a study of the facts in order to reach a conclusion–not altering the facts to reach a desired conclusion.

Just for the record, I am not for pollution. I think we have a responsibility as residents of earth to keep things as clean as possible. I do think, however, that we have to balance the well being of the residents of earth with the price of progress. The current environmental movement may desire a clean planet, but they have lost their sense of balance.

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