There is only one goddess Gaia and Al Gore is her only prophet...

[kandrathe]

Right now, we're reading someone's comments on code, popped out of context, with no reference to the papers involved, as interpreted by someone leaning so far to the right he probably can't ride a bicycle, laced with ad hominems, for a right-wing political commentary site. At least the second link seems slightly better.

The question is the final product. What paper is this for? (Presumably one by Biffra in 1998...) Did output from code make it to publication? Did it alter the results? Is this from an interim stage, or the final product? What is meant by "fudge factor?" (I've heard it used for all sorts of things in econometrics - usually legit-so-long-as-you-say-what-you're-doing, almost always to account for something you know to be true, but can't model precisely yet.) There are many reasons why you might need to correct your data "artificially" (by manipulating it directly). Whether this use is correct or not, I have no idea - but I don't see how you get one by looking exclusively at the code. It looks like it might be a problem, but is it? Context, context, context.

-Jester

Well, from what I understand, this is trying to plot temperature from measuring tree ring data from various areas. However, it seems the science is weak, and weaker than anyone thought. Rainfall, and many other factors are also big influences in tree ring growth. The real smoking gun may be the use of this data as a source in the first place. Anyway, if I were in that clique of 42, I wouldn't be sleeping very well at night.

http://www.radicalgreenwatch.com/hq/?p=79 <-- Biffra undressed October 17th, 2009. Well before this brouhaha.