It is worth noting that Rob Wilson, on the "Re-visiting the Yamal Substitution" post, criticises "blog devotees"for complaining about cherry-picking, suggesting (my emphasis)
In fact, the fatal flaw in this blog and what keeps it from being a useful tool for the palaeoclimatic and other communities is its persistent and totally unnecessary negative tone and attitude, and the assumption that our intention is faulty and biased, which keeps real discourse from taking place.
As Steve notes, no intention is necessary to skew the results. This is why (for example) medical trials require double-blind experiments; it is not because the Doctors intentionally wish to skew the trial, it happens entirely unintentionally. Blondlot did not intentionally skew the results of his experiments, nor did those who "independently" confirmed his results; he wasn't even (personally) the one making the erroneous measurements, but the bias still crept in and the results were worthless.
It seems that - rather than learning from the volumes of science history - the dendroclimatologists are determined to circle the wagons and defend bad practices, without truly understanding the criticisms being made.
November 4th, 2009 at 5:21 pm