The Bishop Requested that an exchange of views between Entropic man, Paul Matthews be moved to Discussion. As I've never created a thread here and the discussion had moved on to a more interesting topic I thought that I'd put someting up here. I would say that the discussion has now evolved into a discussion on obtaining facts from the plethora of information on the internet and how to pitch it to BH readers and contributors.

Initial summary of contributions in chronological order

Entropic man

Paul Matthews

There's a whole literature out there. Why not do your own research, rather than being sarcastic about mine? All it needs is enough understanding to frame the right questions.

In the Internet era its even easier. A search engine is much easier than slogging through the library shelves, though it does have the problem that it is too easy to find what you want to hear, rather than what you need to know!

SandyS

Entropic man
Not sure about your Internet Search comment though, sometimes when researching other non-climate stuff I get swamped by irrelevant answers. Framing the question in many ways and using different search engines sometimes gets the result but a lot of sifting is usually required. That's just my experience.

Paul Matthews

EM, perhaps you are unaware that I do research for a day job. Research does not consist of typing things into google, contrary to a widely held belief.

lapogus Responding to an unrelated comment

I bet they had not read Nansen's reports from his 1893–1896 Fram expedition. Interestingly he found that the sea ice actually thickened as the melt ponds developed on the surface - the 0'C fresh water when it percolated down to the salt sea water (typically at -4C) soon froze and added a new layer of ice underneath.

Entropic man

The level of detail, complexity and uncertainty you include should be appropriate for the level of education and sophistication of ones audience. Aim too low and they get bored. Aim too high and they get lost. The result is that younger children get a simple, straightforward version, which got more complex and equivocal as they matured.

Entropic man

Lapogus

Are you sure Nansen was finding an increase in thickness? It sounds as though the same water melting at the ice surface was refreezing at the bottom, with no change in total ice quantity.

Entropic man

Sandy S, Paul Matthews

Kathleen taught me that history is very much about the quality of your information. Records from the time, written by those involved are primary sources. Secondary sources are other documents derived from them. Anything more diffuse tends towards hearsay.

Bishop Hill

EM, Paul M

Could you take this to the discussion board please.

Lapogus

EM - yes, Nansen did measure periods where the ice thickened during the summer melt. It is in the book, which is obviously beyond copyright and free to read online - http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30197 - a fantastic read if you have the time, and more of a text for winters than midsummer evenings...

The historical research is covered well by the inter change between Entropic man an Lapogus, Lapogus makes a comment, Entropic man questions its accuracy and Lapogus post a reference, all that's left is for Entropic man to read the reference and either question Lapogus' interpretation or agree it is correct.

Most historical information is already open to interpretation and even Entropic man's Meeting minutes example are open to different views on what the words meant. Different bloggers could accurately report the words and disagree about what they meant.

Entropic man said

Research, in the old days was bad enough. Now the Internet allows any idiot to put up a plausible looking website. Winnowing the wheat of useful information from the chaff is becoming harder, rather than easier. It is one reason why, despite the limitations of peer review, I prefer to get my science from the original Nature papers, rather than via the websites of Greenpeace, WUWT or BH.

This raised the question in my mind that this is like reading history written by the winners, leaving you with the impression that Richard III and MacBeth were the most evil men of their generation. In the modern world we all have access to the information, and don't have to go to the Bodleian or British Library to do research. I think Entropic man is missing something in restricting himself in this manner.

Sandy S

Plenty of grist for the mill here.

I wonder if Paul Matthews and I were at cross purposes on the word "research".

A PhD student is doing original research,in the creative sense.My response to Michael hart about the gulf stream used the lesser sense, applicable to a researcher for an MP.

This involves doing a literature search to gather information on a topic, then using that information to answer a specific question or support a case..

Most of our debates take that form.

The danger is that internet obeys Sturgeon's Law. 90% of everything is rubbish!