Over the past decade, we have seen many examples of what would be categorized as” team science” when it comes to suppressing ideas that are considered inconvenient or contrary to belief systems in climate science. Over at the blog Bishop Hill, one such example was illustrated today by an academic who describes himself as a statistician, who attracted the attention of “team science” by simply doing a straightforward and honest statistical analysis on ice core data.

He and his students did an analysis on Vostok ice core data, eliminated noise and seasonal variation, did the usual tests for statistical significance, noted what they had discovered and presented it to”a noted society”. The response of the society was shocking to say the least, so much so that this statistician considered leaving academia. Here are some excerpts:

During the analysis, we noticed many interesting features, especially during the present interglacial, which seems to have a ‘seasonality’. We estimated the seasonality and proceeded to remove it, using a technique I teach in their course, in order to find the underlying trend. Having done this, we noted that not only was there underlying further seasonality and cycles, but that firstly the temperature according to the proxy record was considerably below its maximum and also secondly that the temperature was rapidly decreasing. Next we looked at the carbon dioxide content. The CO 2 data was quite sparse, and certainly not enough for a final year student to conduct any form of correlation with the temperature, which followed each other. On researching this correlation, we were surprised to learn that the change in CO 2 lags the change in temperature by between 200 and 1000 years. These findings were presented at a small conference at one of the major learned societies. … Several months afterwards, the society’s ‘newsletter’ was published. It contained a special section on the conference at which I had spoken, with a brief description of each talk, the work behind it, and with thanks offered to each speaker. I searched for my name – nothing. My presentation was ignored in its entirety.

Climate skeptics are often described by the proponents of global warming as being” anti-– science”. Yet, here we have probably the most blatant example of anti-science behavior on display.

You can read the entire article at the Bishop Hill blog here:

http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2014/6/16/on-entering-the-climate-arena.html

It is well worth your time.

It is unfortunate though, that this academic has chosen not to identify himself and to speak up to his colleagues about this treatment and behavior. Doing so is the only way to push back against this sort of censorship of science.

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