Let’s just replay this.

You quote a blog as a source of criticism of an article, and recommend that blog to others.

That blog starts by describing the author of the article as someone that “has a habit of concealing the facts”. A click through to the article being critiqued shows comments from four people questioning if the measurement of warming temperatures is reliable, and then from two who are more confident about the measures. Perhaps not exact numerical balance, but hardly “spin” as Lambert claims.

Lambert claims the comments are derived from “the usual collection of discredited papers”, and then embarks on identifying one historic paper of his choosing from each commentator, and then another by a separate author critical of it.

In my earlier comment I noted that this was selective, and in retrospect think it’s a bit rich of him to accuse others of “concealing the facts”.

I should add that at no point does Lambert show any understanding of the substance of the points under debate, or put this in the context of the on-going development of scientific understanding that is occurring through that debate.

As you so rightly say: “If you choose to ignore the substance of the criticisms made, you cannot possibly have a balanced view of the debate. Your loss.”

It sound like neither of us should be recommending Lambert as a reliable source.

BTW I think Watt’s “Surface Temperature Records” is second rate, but I do think he makes some valid points in his response to Menne et al referenced in my early comment.

Simon, noting that there have been “replies” to criticisms, doesn’t mean those replies have merit. In particular, Watts response is negligible – especially since he has seen fit to publish a paper through the Heartland Institute claiming that there are major problems with the US temperature record. Menne et al destroys that claim — using his own data!

If you choose to ignore the substance of the criticisms made, you cannot possibly have a balanced view of the debate. Your loss.

This eloquent deconstruction of some of the Watts output still leaves me wondering just how much of Watts’ makeup is stupidity – and how much is plain evil.

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/02/15/dropouts/

I’m not sure I have much of a view on what Garth George wrote, but out of curiosity I did click through to the debunking of Leake’s article by Tim Lambert you reference (see http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/02/leakegate_scandal_gets_bigger.php).

I noted that this blog was written on 10 Feb 2010 and thought it worthwhile checking on the original articles, and whether there had been any response to the criticisms quoted by Lambert.

His first reference is to John Christie which he quotes Bonfils, Duffy and Lobell in the Journal of Climate September 2007 (abstract at http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1175%2FJCLI4247.1). A quick search turns up Christies et al’s reply in the same issue of the Journal (http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1175%2FJCLI4250.1).

He then references his critique of Ross McKitrick’s 2004 paper “A test of corrections for extraneous signals in gridded surface temperature data”, Clim Res 26:159­173 (May 25, 2004) available at http://groups.google.com/group/sci.environment/msg/0f2272d672eebebc. No mention of the subsequent Erratum to that paper or the ongoing debate culminating in McKitrick, Ross R. and Nicolas Nierenberg (2009).Correlations between Surface Temperature Trends and Socioeconomic Activity: Toward a Causal Interpretation. Submitted to International Journal of Climatology.

He then cites Menne et al’s critique of Anthony Watts’ work on weather stations (linking not to the paper but this blog http://www.skepticalscience.com/On-the-reliability-of-the-US-Surface-Temperature-Record.html), but doesn’t include any reference to Watts’ response (see http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/27/rumours-of-my-death-have-been-greatly-exaggerated/), although the skepticalscience blog does.

I guess my point is that either he isbeing selective, in which case he’s being a bit naughty, or he doesn’t really have much skill in following academic debates.

Either way I don’t think I’ll put him on my “must follow” blogs.

Somewhat nonplussed, I asked him if that meant that, instead of being a real journalist, wasn’t he just a tired old hack?

“That’s right”, he said, without turning a hair, “that’s me…”

If you want to be taken seriously on this site all you have to do is base on your opinions on credible science.

Lucky Hot Topic is here to act as the authority on all issues climate related.

Its just a pity that you use so many words to write these articles, when all you really need to say is,

“Garth George disagrees with me, therefore he is wrong”

and

“Fred Pearce is not stanchly maintaining the alarmist defense on the hacked emails, therefore he got it wrong”