One can judge from experiment, or one can blindly accept authority. To the scientific mind, experimental proof is all important and theory is merely a convenience in description, to be junked when it no longer fits. To the academic mind, authority is everything and facts are junked when they do not fit theory laid down by authority.
- Lifeline, by Robert Heinlein
Longtime readers will recall my skepticism regarding the enthusiastic pursuit of the theory of a climate that is sensitive to human CO2 emissions. A big part of that skepticism is the observation that the data is being molded to fit the theories instead of molding the theories to fit the data. That observation was effectively validated by the Climategate episode that released thousands of CRU documents along with the software they generated to "model" our climate. The programmer's notes in the software alone should be enough to convince every man and woman of science that "science" - the pursuit of theories that explain the facts - was not being conducted by the influential staff of the CRU.
I suspect that they are not unique in their approach to studying our climate.
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