Willis Eschenbach Deconstructed

See here for what Willis Eschenbach has to say

Willis Eschenbach gets mad at Judith Curry. I present some extracts, out of order. But they are in order of relevant points.

Willis writes:
"And you wonder why we don’t trust you? Here’s a clue. Because a whole bunch of you are guilty of egregious and repeated scientific malfeasance, and the rest of you are complicit in the crime by your silence. Your response is to stick your fingers in your ears and cover your eyes."

Willis Eschenbach also argues:
"The problem is that 71.3% of what passes as peer reviewed climate science is simply junk science, as false as the percentage cited in this sentence. The lack of trust is not a problem of perception or communication. It is a problem of lack of substance. Results are routinely exaggerated. “Scientific papers” are larded with “may” and “might” and “could possibly”. Advocacy is a common thread in climate science papers. Codes are routinely concealed, data is not archived. A concerted effort is made to marginalize and censor opposing views."

Evidentially Willis is wrong. The problem is not a lack of substance. This is clear by looking at an area of climate science which is pretty much rock solid in substance. The fact of recent co2 rise and it's human cause for example. The evidence in that case is overwhelming, the science is settled. So by Willis's logic there should be no "problem" there right?

Yet we have had the Great Global Warming Swindle and Ian Plimer telling people that volcanoes emit more co2 than man. We have Ernst Beck accusing scientists of fraud when it comes to the instrumental co2 record. We have Jaworkowsi doing what amounts to the same to ice core researchers. And we have all those denier blog posts that have the side effect of making readers lose trust in the fact co2 rise is human caused.

So this is not an issue of substance as Willis claims. Otherwise the deniers would not be spamming the entire field of climate science, including very solid areas, with their lies and distortions and accusations of fraud.

As far as I am aware, the likes of Willis Eschenbach do not actively go out of their way to correct those who make absurd co2 claims.

So to Willis I say:

And you wonder why we don’t trust you? Here’s a clue. Because a whole bunch of you are guilty of egregious and repeated scientific malfeasance, and the rest of you are complicit in the crime by your silence. Your response is to stick your fingers in your ears and cover your eyes.

and with some rewording I get:

"The problem is that 71.3% of what passes as denialist talking points is simply junk, as false as the percentage cited in this sentence. The reason we call them deniers is not a problem of perception or communication. It is a problem of their lack of substance. Minor problems and errors are routinely exaggerated in denialist blog posts. “Scientific papers” are misinterpreted, or spun so that caveats such as “may” and “might” and “could possibly” are omitted. Political advocacy is a common thread in denialist blog posts. Context is routinely concealed, the big picture is routinely ignored. A concerted effort is made to marginalize and discredit science."

I was amused to see that Willis also made a reference to "policing your own backyard" too. It's utter hypocrisy:

The solution is for you to stop trying to pass off garbage as science. The solution is for you establishment climate scientists to police your own back yard.

As I have mentioned before, they don't get a free pass because they are "just blogs".

Willis also makes two statements that leaves scientists in a lose-lose situation:

"We’re not interested in scientists who don’t mention their doubts."

but also
"“Scientific papers” are larded with “may” and “might” and “could possibly”"

That's right. No sooner as scientists mention their doubts which Willis demands of them, Willis is ready to jump on them for using caveats. Uncertainty cuts both ways, it can make known risks uncertain, but can also raise the specter of risk in the unknown. Willis seems to think only one of these is valid.

Judith isn't necessarily wasting her time, but I doubt these people will be satisfied by the truth, which is that manmade global warming is a fact despite climategate and errors in the IPCC report. They want the whole thing discredited and so muddying science is their goal.