[dschobel]

The issue is not that a few people are making innocent mistakes, it's the organizations (the UN in this case) which are entrusted to lead research into this which are doing it.

These are the same organizations who are cited as the "scientific consensus" to deflect criticism and debate.

[Tichy]

Even so I am not convinced it is so shocking. Take the guy who dismissed questions about the melting of the glaciers. Was he involved in actually writing the report? When was the question posed to him? Perhaps it was just some inpatient moment when he was tired of silly questions, so he dismissed whatever was thrown at him. Maybe he just decided to trust his staff, and was let down. Or whatever.

Were the glaciers the main point of the report, or just a footnote? Probably there was a lot of information in it, so the people who wrote it eventually got sloppy with fact checking.

Also, isn't science about double-checking? I would have thought that melting of glaciers would be easy to measure via satellite imagery.

Errors always happen - they should be corrected, maybe even organizations and procedures should be restructured. But it isn't shocking.

Maybe I just don't have some grand illusions about science, as others seem to (still) have. But somehow the whole thing still lurches forward, just like the big corporations that seem as if nothing should ever be possible to get done.

[dschobel]

Why are you focusing on whether or not it is shocking?

It is deceptive and wrong, regardless of your emotional reaction to it.

[Tichy]

Shocking as in not such a big deal, in the greater scheme of things (this subthread was about victory hooting).

Not that I want to excuse sloppyness (was it deception, really). Maybe heads should roll. But still I am not sure why I should care much?