Harm is potentially done, my reputation amongst people I disagree with, not fellow 'sceptics'

at this moment, Adam apparently has claimed to you that he was smeared, this is now in the public domain, I'm concerned that this will be repeated privately. Now it is not Adam's fsult that this has been repeated publically here,and I only this hear second hand. But obvioulsy I cannot myself now contact anybody, as I percieve I risk being classified as harassing somebody.

So, what can I do. Reputation is all, if we are to talk. I completely understand why my criticisms may be uncomfortable for Cardiff and Nottingham, but I cannot tolerate them being represented as a smear. Publically or privately. Especially as I hear it second hand.

I will absolutely publically apologise for anything that could be percieved by the public as a smear.
I do not think I smeared anybody. So all I can do is to state the above publically to defend myself. I also do not wish for a story to grow legs,
Ie, scientist tries to engage with sceptics, colleagues get phonecalls that smear scientist, for example

this sort of thing is important, otherwise trust is lost

From the Ecclesiastical Uncle, an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.

dung

You are far too generous with your compliments: I am no master of words - my prose is tortured at best, and more often than not the spontaneous reaction that should be the staple of a blog but the result of a long editing process. As a schoolboy I recall writing an essay that was rightly criticized as reading like an extract from a mediaeval encyclopedia, and I doubt I’ve changed.

Weasel, well. My failure then because when I am sensible I try to make friends and influence people and if that is how what I write or say appears I have not succeeded. But I still think it is the only way to go - in my experience little has been achieved by rants, except, of course, the morale of the ranter.

War. I think that’s what we are in. Intellectual arguments as well, of course and in them, of course, it is a waste of everybody’s time to cheat. But my observations about the manipulation of parliamentarians are clearly not the latter but moves intended to win the former.

geoffchambers

Thank you. It seems you have form so I have to accept that your discussion with Adam Corner was undertaken in the spirit of pure academic research.

Geoff when we started this thread I was under the impression you didn't know who had contacted the university. If you did know it was Barry why didn't you contact him and get his side of the story? He now stands accused of "smearing" an academic, on the say so of a person who believes "denialism" is some sort of mental disease that needs special techniques in when communicating with the carriers. While it's understandable that you're peeved that this might have soured your relationship with Dr. Corner, given this is all too common a practice in warmist circles, claiming some sort of slander or tort when none had taken place, it would probably have been wiser don't you think to talk it through with Barry first?

if it is no big deal.. then there was no need to repeat it here - 'smear'

The fact that it was, in a very high profile public sceptical blog, means I absolutely must defend my reputation.. It is not just a few guys chatting here, anybody can read it.

As no evidence of any 'smear' has come to light, I hope that anyone can see that no 'smear' happened.

My point stands about Cardiff and Nottingham working with COIN and PIRC.

From the Ecclesiastical Uncle, an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.

geoffchambers

I am not sure why you did not write: Yes, I’m conducting this in the spirit of pure academic research. I’m doing it for fun because I think it’s interesting.

Does this mean that I have the totally naïve and romantic view of science common to the man in the street? Don’t answer unless you feel very exercised about this.

MartinA
No, I didn't say Corner was smeared, I quoted him as saying he felt "... a bit reluctant to run that gauntlet again, if all that happens is that I am smeared to my colleagues". This was an edited quote from a private email. (I'd written to Corner asking permission to quote his email here. Not receiving a reply after 2 days, I posted an edited version anyway).
You're right, I am trying to "smooth over problems by pretending that things are different from what they are" as you put it. My pretense consisted of rewording Corner's "smear" as "criticise" in the post you quote above. Barry is right. No evidence has come to light, so no smear happened.

(Are you English? If not, you may not know what I’m going on about).

I don't know if I'm English, I'm a Scouse. Played for the same school football team as Wayne Rooney, a few years before him when the school was run by the De La Salle brothers. I was lucky I came just after the era when they publically hanged one of the students occasionally, "pour encourager les autre". No in my day they concentrated on gratutitous violence hoping the education would follow. It does focus the mind when an entire class can be strapped because the "average" mark for the homework was too low, but I've seen it and watched Ernie Convey a boy for whom 9/10 was a complete and utter fail, strapped with the rest of us. Happy days.

You have a point about bringing everything up, I, for one, would like to get inside the head of someone with Corner's logic. I've had private email conversations with Paul Bain, he of the "deniers" fame. He was unaware that "deniers" was offensive to most sceptics (not me, I like them to call me a denier, it is a clear indication of he paucity of their arguments). Now here's a chap trying to communicate with "deniers" whose clearly never met any, or talked to any. Is that odd to you? It is to me. Not only that he explained to me that psychologists frequently loop people into a group with one name, fully aware that the people all don't think the same. I bet him he'd never labelled a group "Dick Heads", and wondered why that would be.

I think we parted friends.

They seem appalling ill-informed and lazy. I blame it on the comprehensive and Vera Brittan's daughter Shirley whatshername.

I'm with you, Skippy!
Reading through this thread, I was shocked to discover I belong to a gang - the BH gang :). Wow!!
Having worked in a university Social Sciences department half a lifetime ago, the very real social and professional isolation of Adam Corner and his associates and peer group rings loud bells for me. One of the problems that arises from working in a closed environment is that that environment can become the entire world to some who inhabit it, leading to them viewing people in other quite ordinary spheres of life as belonging to remote and unknowable cultures and belief-systems.

I've a guest post pending at WUWT that might cheer you all up.. (not about any of this, I might add)

feedback to the Doran '97% of scientists say' survey, from scientists that took part in it (in the cited paper!)

“This was a very simplistic and biased questionnaire."

('Doran Survey' participant)

“..scientific issues cannot be decided by a vote of scientists. A consensus is not, at any given time, a good predictor of where the truth actually resides..” (Doran/Zimmerman feedback)

“..The “hockey stick” graph that the IPCC so touted has, it is my understanding, been debunked as junk science..” (Doran Zimmerman feedback)

"..I'm not sure what you are trying to prove, but you will undoubtably be able to prove your pre-existing opinion with this survey! I'm sorry I even started it!..” (Doran/Zimmerman feedback)

“Climate is a very complex system with many variables including sun radiation cycles, ocean temperature, and possibly other factors that we are not even aware of.There are studies and data out there that are being overlooked by the IPCC. Ultimately, maybe we are the biggest cause or maybe we are not, but the current push of saying that human activity is the cause is interfering with an unbiased and scientific evaluation.” (Doran/Zimmerman feedback)

---

Over 80 pages of responses like this, IN the actual survey/paper, by the scientists that took part..

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/18/what-else-did-the-97-of-scientists-say/#comments

Ecclesiastical Uncle

Apologies for the slow response: I've been away.

You ask:

I would be extremely pleased of you would be good enough to peruse the above and let me know if you think my views are extreme.

Jul 15, 2012 at 12:03 PM

It all hinges on what you think matters. For me, what the 'soft social sciences' have to say to power, or you and I, is irrelevant. Likewise, fulmination about what the gravy train gets up to is irrelevant. Physics doesn't care. The physical theory says CO2 will cause warming. The observational evidence presented by 'proper' scientists supports the theory*. While we argue about greenies and politics, physics gets on with it.

***

* Public perception of climate change and the new climate dice; Hansen, Sato, Ruedy (2012)

Re: Jul 19, 2012 at 7:34 AM | Barry Woods

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/18/what-else-did-the-97-of-scientists-say/#comments

Thanks, Barry. Excellent article and a valuable future resource.

Mike Jackson

You're absolutely right, but the reverse of the coin is that while we argue "the physics" (and don't, please, try to tell me that the extent to which CO2 affects temperature is settled science) the greenies and the politicians get on with it.

Naysayers do *not* argue the physics. There is no contrarian scientific argument of substance that provides support for a low climate sensitivity. Nothing stands up to scrutiny. Consequently, arguments from the physics acknowledge the ~3C equilibrium sensitivity to 2xCO2 held by scientific consensus to be the most likely value.

At least the greenies and the politicians accept scientific mainstream position on AGW. This is considerably more constructive than fervent yet scientifically groundless contrariansim.