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The Hockey Stick Illusion

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The Hockey Stick Illusion: Climategate and the Corruption of Science
AuthorA.W. Montford
LanguageEnglish
SubjectClimate change
PublisherStacey International
Publication date2010
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Pages482
ISBN978-1-906768-35-5

The Hockey Stick Illusion: Climategate and the Corruption of Science is a book written by Andrew Montford and published by Stacey International in 2010. Montford, an accountant and science publisher who publishes a blog which is sceptical of human induced climate change, provides his analysis of the history of the "hockey stick graph" of global temperatures for the last 1000 years and the controversy surrounding the research which produced the graph. The book describes the history of the graph from its inception to the beginning of the Climategate Controversy.

Since its release, the book has received a mixture of positive and negative reviews; The Guardian referred to it as "Montford's entertaining conspiracy yarn", while The Spectator described it as a "a detailed and brilliant piece of science writing" and The Sunday Telegraph described it as "Montford's book, if inevitably technical, expertly recounts a remarkable scientific detective story".

Background

According to Montford, in 2005 he followed a link from a British political blog to the Climate Audit website. While perusing the site, Montford noticed that new readers often asked if there was an introduction to the site and the story of the hockey stick controversy. In 2008, after the story of Caspar Ammann's "purported" replication of the hockey stick became public, Montford wrote his own summary of the controversy.

Montford published the summary on his Bishop Hill blog and called it Caspar and the Jesus paper. Montford states that word of his paper caused the traffic to his blog to surge from several hundred hits a day to to 30,000 in just three days. Montford adds that there was also an attempt to use his paper as a source in Misplaced Pages. After Montford saw the hockey stick graph used in a science book manuscript he was reviewing, he decided to expand his paper into book form.

Synopsis

The Hockey Stick Illusion relates the story of Michael E. Mann, Raymond S. Bradley and Malcolm K. Hughes' "hockey stick graph" starting from when it first appeared in Nature. The book describes how Steve McIntyre first became interested in the graph and his subsequent struggle to replicate the results of "MBH98" (the original 1998 study) and the refusal of Mann to release his source code and filtered dataset. It details the publication of a paper by McIntyre and Ross McKitrick in 2003 which criticized MBH98, and follows with Mann and his associates' rebuttals. The book recounts reactions to the dispute over the graph, including investigations by the National Academy of Science and Edward Wegman and hearings held on the graph before the United States House Energy Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Efforts taken by other scientists to verify Mann's work and McIntyre's and others' responses to those efforts are described.

The last chapter of the book deals with what the book calls "Climategate". Here, the author compares several e-mails to the evidence he presents in The Hockey Stick Illusion. Montford focuses on those e-mails dealing with the peer review process and how these pertained to Stephen McIntyre's efforts to obtain the data and methodology from Mann's and other paleoclimatologists' published works.

Reception

Fred Singer has wrote "This is probably the best book about the Hockey Stick. And while some of the detail may be overwhelming to the innocent reader, it does present all of the relevant facts as far as I can tell"

Writing in the Geological Society of London's magazine Geoscientist, Joe Brannan wrote that "Andrew Montford tells this detective story in exhilarating style. He has assembled an impressive case that the consensus view on recent climate history started as poor science and was corrupted when climate scientists became embroiled in IPCC politics." He ends his review with "Montford’s book ends on what is perhaps an inevitable low note, because the Hockey Team has not conceded that its temperature reconstructions are seriously flawed. However, if The Hockey Stick Illusion provokes a truly independent review of the evidence it will have served its purpose".

Writing in The Guardian, Bob Ward criticised what he called "the serious inaccuracies in book". Describing the book as an "entertaining conspiracy yarn", he highlighted what he perceived to be various omissions and selective quotations in Montford's account. He characterised the elided material as "awkward truths" that Montford had neglected to tell the reader about and commented "it would perhaps be wise to treat with some scepticism Montford's assessment of the validity of the inquiries into the hacked email messages." Following a complaint by Montford, The Guardian amended Ward's review, explaining they did not intend to imply that Montford had deliberately published information known to be false, apologized, and added a link to Montford's response. In a separate column in the Guardian, Montford responded to Ward's review by stating that Ward's criticism of the book was flawed and, in Montford's opinion, was motivated by the impending release of an investigative report written by Montford for the Global Warming Policy Foundation on the Climategate affair.

John Dawson in Quadrant magazine recommended the book. Dawson stated that the book is, "a textbook of tree ring analysis, a code-breaking adventure, an intriguing detective story, an exposé of a scientific and political travesty, and the tale of a herculean struggle between a self-funded sceptic and a publicly funded hydra, all presented in the measured style of an analytical treatise."

Alastair McIntosh, writing in the Scottish Review of Books, criticised the book as only being able to "cut the mustard with tabloid intellectuals but not with most scientists." Noting that Montford has not made any relevant scientific contributions, he commented that the book "might serve a psychological need in those who can't face their own complicity in climate change, but at the end of the day it's exactly what it says on the box: a write-up of somebody else's blog" and criticised it as "at worst, ... a yapping terrier worrying the bull; it cripples action, potentially costing lives and livelihoods."

Christopher Booker, in The Telegraph, recommended the book three times, once as a "full account" of the IPCC's use of the hockey stick graph in its Third and Fourth Assessment Reports, and later describing it as "expertly recount a remarkable scientific detective story". He added that the book gives a "full account" of the hockey stick controversy.

Richard Joyner, a Professor at Nottingham Trent University, described The Hockey Stick Illusion as "a McCarthyite book that uses the full range of smear tactics to peddle climate change denial." In a review published by Prospect, he highlighted what he regarded as "serious flaws in Montford’s conspiracy theory", criticising what he called Montford's "use of innuendo" in constantly questioning "the actions and motives of those with whom he disagrees". Overall, Joyner concluded, "Montford’s book is not an honest contribution" to the debate on whether global warming is man-made or not.

Matt Ridley in The Spectator likened the book to a detective story and "a detailed and brilliant piece of science writing." Ridley added that it was, in his opinion, "written with grace and flair" and "deserves to win prizes."

See also

References

  1. ^ Matt Ridley (2010-02-03). "The global warming guerrillas". The Spectator (spectator.co.uk). Retrieved 2010-04-09.
  2. ^ Bob Ward. "Did climate sceptics mislead the public over the significance of the hacked emails?". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2010-08-25. Retrieved 2010-08-19. Montford's entertaining conspiracy yarn reaches two apparently devastating conclusions about the work of climate scientists, partly based on his analysis of the hacked email messages.
  3. ^ Booker, Christopher (2010-01-30). "Amazongate: new evidence of the IPCC's failures". The Sunday Telegraph. Archived from the original on 2010-08-26. Retrieved 2010-05-14. Montford's book, if inevitably technical, expertly recounts a remarkable scientific detective story.
  4. ^ Montford, Andrew (2010). "1". The Hockey Stick Illusion. Stacey International. p. 13. ISBN 1906768358.
  5. Montford, Andrew (2010). "1". The Hockey Stick Illusion. Stacey International. p. 30. ISBN 1906768358.
  6. Montford, Andrew (2010). "3". The Hockey Stick Illusion. Stacey International. p. 57. ISBN 1906768358.
  7. Montford, Andrew (2010). "6–11". The Hockey Stick Illusion. Stacey International. p. 402. ISBN 1906768358.
  8. Montford, Andrew (2010). "17". The Hockey Stick Illusion. Stacey International. p. 402. ISBN 1906768358.
  9. http://www.rightsidenews.com/2010091511627/life-and-science/energy-and-environment/book-review-the-hockey-stick-illusion-climategate-and-the-corruption-of-science.html
  10. Brannan, Joe, "The Hockey Stick Illusion - Climategate and the corruption of science", Geoscientist, August 2010.
  11. Brannan, Joe (August 2010). "The Hockey Stick Illusion - Climategate and the corruption of science" (PDF). Geoscientist. 20 (8). THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY,: 9. In 1998 a graph, which was to become famous as the 'Hockey Stick', made its debut in the pages of the prestigious journal Nature.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  12. Bob Ward. "Did climate sceptics mislead the public over the significance of the hacked emails?". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2010-08-26. Retrieved 2010-08-19. This article was amended on 20 August 2010 following a complaint from Andrew Montford to make it clear that we did not mean to imply that Andrew Montford deliberately published false information in order to support the arguments made in his book. We apologise if such a false impression was given.
  13. Glaring inaccuracies and misrepresentations by Andrew Montford at his Bishop Hill blog, Aug 19, 2010
  14. Montford, Andrew, "The hockey stick graph remains an illusion,", The Guardian, 10 September 2010, retrieved on 11 September 2010.
  15. Dawson, John, "Science: The Tree Ring Circus", Quadrant, July 29, 2010, Volume LIV Number 7-8.
  16. McIntosh, Alastair (2010). "Reviews - The Hockey Stick Illusion". Scottish Review of Books. 6 (3).
  17. Christopher Booker (2010-02-27). "A perfect storm is brewing for the IPCC". www.telegraph.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2010-08-26. Retrieved 2010-04-03.
  18. Christopher Booker (2010-07-04). "Kidnap - as sponsored by the state". The Sunday Telegraph. p. 31. Retrieved 2010-07-14.
  19. Joyner, Richard (2010-08-23). "Mean-spirited scepticism".
  20. Matt Ridley (2010-03-10). "The case against the hockey stick". Prospect (prospectmagazine.co.uk). Retrieved 2010-04-03.

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Further reading

External links

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