This is idiocy.
Tell us what your job in a research-led university has been. I'm guessing it wasn't academic.

Why would governments treat tax-raising as an end in itself? It's not as if HMRC officers get paid by commission. Remove that plank, and your whole batshit case collapses.

What the "leaks" show is that academics can be bitchy and backbiting. Woo hoo. That's actually a guarantor of good science: if you're looking for some way to show that other people are wrong, it forces them to tighten their arguments.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 2 Dec 2009, 10:39, 1 reply, 16 years ago)

He also seems to be completely oblivious to the point
that most climate research in this country is funded by bodies like the Natural Environment Research Council, that is, scientific funding councils who don't have a huge hidden agenda and don't really stand to benefit either way from whatever results are gleaned from studies of anthropogenic climate change.

I smell a goat.
(LongJohnBaldry, Wed 2 Dec 2009, 10:47, Reply)

I'd been thinking something similar about Goats.
The lack of imagination among deniers - "They must be in it for the money" - is staggering. Besides: if the scientific community as a whole was smart enough to manage a hoax like this for money, they'd be smart enough to make a lot more money for a lot less work some other way...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 2 Dec 2009, 11:00, Reply)

Well, quite.
It does make them look rather desperate when they have to start yelling and pointing at the one-study-in-fifty that suggested the temperatures might drop, or indeed the mudslinging we've had over an illegally-obtained, personal email...I think in terms of tactics, it almost puts them on a par with homeopaths.
(LongJohnBaldry, Wed 2 Dec 2009, 11:08, Reply)

umm
The parent body of the N.E.R.C. is the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, a ministerial department of the Government.

Its legal status is that it is a government body.

Its funding is from the the government.

It is most certainly not an independant organisation.

Edit/ and I am most certainly NOT a denier, sceptic or such. I am simply rather dissapointed that some very poor practice by the CRU has muddied the waters greatly, handing the stage to the extremists of both sides of the debate to hang out their dirty washing in public, leaving the man on the street more confused than ever.
( RadG Drinking Mojitos in the sun, Wed 2 Dec 2009, 13:15, Reply)