Direct quote from the email "I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie, from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline." Anything else you would like to add?
I still maintain that the scientist hid the decline out of a cynical belief that the public would interpret a dip as the end of the trend.
That's not really done in scientific papers, though. When given a choice between inaccurate proxy data and measured data, they'll use the measured data.
I'd like to ask you two questions: why did he call it a "trick?" Why was he trying to "hide the decline"?
He didn't call it a trick, he called it Mike's "Nature trick." You don't like to answer questions? What does the "Nature trick" mean, do you think? He would want to hide the decline because the decline was reflected in proxy data rather than the actual measurements. Actual measurements are always preferable as opposed to proxy data (ie. inferred data from proxy sources such as tree rings.)
you epitomize anti science religious luddite idiot...palin says man walked with dinosaurs...stupid gop nuts.
Pretty true observation. IMHO one factor is the attitude of the press which supposedly "prides itself" on presenting "both sides of the debate" - to the extent of giving equal time. Which sounds all nice and dandy and democratic. But what if one side of the debate is crackpot? And there surely is no shortage of crackpots in the world. Are all the crackpots deserving of equal time? Furthermore the name of the game is ratings and entertainment. And fostering "controversy" that is not present in the great bulk of expert opinion is good fuel for this. This is an environment in which clowns maintaining such things as C02 is only X% of the atmosphere and therefore cannot have a greenhouse effect get a hearing on an equal footing to the real science. In fact they deserve to be ridiculed and called liars. But it's all great stuff in manufacturing a mythical scientific contrarian position - which is "entertaining". At the end of the day, what has happened to truth as a fundamental objective of journalism?
I doubt that you will find this attitude in many Asian countries. In China, in particular, both science and scientists are held in respect. It probably didn't exist to nearly the same extent pre 1970 in the West either. I sometimes wonder if this anti-science stuff is a symptom (and one cause) of the long term decline of the West.