Saturday, April 19, 2014

On Spoofing Judith Curry

It seems Judith Curry isn't at all in defense of the free speech that she claims to be.

She's only in favor of it when it attacks her scientific enemies. When the shoe is on the other foot, she reacts to it with censorship.

Yes, my post earlier tonight was a spoof.

It accused Curry of scientific fraud, for her claim (in Liu & Curry PNAS 2010) that the Southern Ocean has been warming.

Did I really mean that? Of course not.

Though I do have some concerns about that result, since my own calculation of SST trends from 60°S to the south pole from 1/3/1990 to 1/29/2014 find definite cooling (-0.082 C/decade), as did this Bob Tisdale result for the period 1980-2010. (Tisdale's graph is only a hint; I certainly don't consider blog posts of the same caliper as peer-reviewed papers, nor my own simple calculations.)

Curry's period of calculation was 1950-1999. Her paper was submitted and published in 2010, so I don't know why their data analysis stopped as of 1999.

(When I asked Curry about this on Feb 3rd, she replied that "Tisdale's data analysis is usually reliable." My question to her was motivated by this Tisdale comment on Curry's own blog.)

The rest of my comments on Curry's post of today? Total spoofing -- though I certainly have at least just as much evidence as Mark Steyn does about Michael Mann.

Naturally, Curry's syncophants fell for it. However, unlike what I expected, so did she, in just about two hours -- that's how long it took her to turn on comment moderation and start blocking my comments:


That was far easier than I ever expected -- her "defense of free speech" quickly stopped when the shoe was on the other foot.

I don't know if the lesson will get through. But it should.

10 comments:

William M. Connolley said...

Curry has blocked comments from me in the past. Does she really claim to do otherwise?

J Adler said...

Because one's approach to comment moderation must be the same as one's view of defamation law?

Anonymous said...

XKCD got it right (as usual) - you not:

http://xkcd.com/1357/

Her Blog is HERS. If you troll in her house you get thrown out. If you troll in her blog you get thrown out. Small wonder.

This has nothing to do with free speech. Behave like an asshole and wonder why you are treated like an asshole? Get real.

@whut said...

I am getting blocked by Curry as well. I think mainly because I make fun of the her "favorite scientist" -- the one that calls himself the Chief Hydrologist.

David Appell said...

face: "trolling" is simply your term for speech you don't like.

If someone advocates for a certain value, the best way to see if they're serious is to see if they themselves express that value by their actions, especially when tested.

In this case, Curry did not.

Robert Grumbine said...

Given her approvals of FOIA requests as salutary for science, you should pursue the question of what happened to 2000-present in her data analysis by way of a FOIA request for her emails since 2000.

More than a little strange to see her in twitter this weekend talking about Mann intimidating her by calling her names (both being her terms). The Judy Curry I knew in the 80s and 90s would have laughed at anyone suggesting that she could be intimidated by such, particularly coming from someone not on her grant review panels.

Anonymous said...

David, where are YOUR values expressed?
Libelious lies based on a made-up claim?

You did yourself no favour, the climate no favour, the science no favour.

You did the deniers a favour. Dont you get this?

David Appell said...

As I said, I'm satisfied that I proved my point.

Texas Scientist said...

So David, you embarrass yourself by fabricating a serious but false accusation of fraud against a respected scientist then post trolling comments at her blog to see if she will censor you? Man, you need some help and you need to get a life. I feel sorry for you.

jacob l said...

checking older data may be more helpful
I told climate explorer to consider only sea points and got a positive value if 0.0985168596 per decade using 1950 to 2014.
I realise this is a social experiment
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/igiss_temp_1200_-180-180E_-90--60N_n_5seaa.txt