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How Bad Science Becomes Common Knowledge: Two Case Studies (solar and climate change)

By Eric Dennis -- January 17, 2012
“When we hear of vast numbers of scientists endorsing Michael Mann’s famous ‘hockey stick’ graph… What we don’t hear is that the vast, vast majority of them never sought access to the specific data and algorithms claimed to support it (much of which was actively withheld from the scientific community at large). They did not independently evaluate either Mann’s claims or the specific, technical objections raised against them by a few critics who were able to wrest those data and algorithms from Mann’s clenched fist over a period of years. Neither had the scientific media performed any independent, critical review when reporting on such issues for over a decade, most of them simply not being equipped to do so.”
To read the popular media’s account of climate science, it is a certainty that burning fossil fuels is causing an unprecedented and catastrophic warming of the planet.