I'm not suggesting you presented it with that intent, but that the blog writer did. They said as much in the commentary along with incendiary emotive claims of "falsified", "fake", "fraudulent". No mention of mistake. No evidence of fraud.

You yourself come across as someone with a genuine curiosity, which is why I've persisted. Yet seem sceptical mainly of government, but not so much of an entirely anonymous and unaccountable blog post. I find that surprising. Particularly when so many of the USA's "independent" voices and are shown to be industry backed.

> The system doesn't always self correct and outsiders have different incentives to government-funded scientists.

That's not in dispute, and applies to all fields. That does not imply fraud. Fraud requires additional evidence than finding an error or ten. That does not imply government funded is the least ethical or least accurate of all. How long were the major security flaws in OpenSSH? How often do we read of a zero day that turns out to have been there for ages, merely unnoticed?

Unqualified political lobbyists have different incentives too - the think tanks, PR agencies and free market institutes who shouldn't be permitted to express opinion, or spin fake alternatives, on active scientific research at all. If you want an outsider who has a vested interest to pollute our quest for knowledge, for the sake of an election or quick buck, they are it. Quite often they are committing deliberate intentional fraud.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/10/vested-i...

I'm going to once again recommend a read or watch of Merchants of Doubt, even if you remain totally unconvinced by then end of it.

Incentives generally apply more in industry where profit encourages the suppression of an inconvenient study, or to engage in fraud to pass emissions tests. The history here is also very well worn, in many industries that adopted the tobacco model, so there's no point replaying it.

I step back here. We both claim to want the same thing: More accurate science and better identification and correction of flaws. There will always be flaws and retractions - that's part of the process. Neither can we introduce rigour into hundred year old measurements if we find some issue much later. Nor can we guarantee that any endeavour involving humans remains free of intentional fraud.

Focusing on government science as constant bugbear weakens your message markedly as in my experience they also have fewer incentives to falsify than industry and politics. Particularly when it is in government interest to downplay the climate crisis as they have done for the last 40 years. Institutes and lobbyists have no incentive or even legal requirement to be truthful. Doesn't mean I find government, any government, entirely trustworthy. Even so the things they fund can be surprisingly successful, and can aim for best practice. I am sceptical of all sources, I am dismissive of political sources, and most sceptical of industry sources. You are never likely to persuade a European to adopt an ingrained US hatred and distrust of government funding in and of itself, that exceeds all other funding sources. All I can say is thankfully our continents must have had very different experiences. Yet I remain sceptical of all sources.

The old HadCrut datasets 1-4 are still available for download. Changes and corrections are documented and explained.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/crutem3/jan_2010_update....

What are that random blog's incentives? Entirely opaque - merely an about page that could be entirely fiction. No proof. No accountability. No corroboration anywhere. I see poor practice in presentation, poor practice in analysis, and I see attempt to take down pretty much the entire field from a skim through the pages - that's not healthy scepticism and correcting error, or advancing knowledge, that's a campaign. An agenda. Even if they do find genuine fault in some areas. From the example given there appears to be a real case to investigate on that particular region. Yet the presentations in the entirety lead me to expect to find cherry picking or sleight of hand, and I just haven't spotted it yet. Wouldn't surprise me in the least to discover "the author" is actually a dozen people inside CATO or Exxon.

I know how _I_ would make a case again some of the results if I felt I had found errors, and it would focus on the specific rather than keep widening to the general at every opportunity. If I were to conclude it widened to generality I would have presented compelling and extraordinary evidence covering the whole generality. I would not just presume it so and yell "fraud". I would encapsulate it to correlate with each set of historic corrections and attempt to show their validity or not. That would also aim to include no judgemental language. I would present it in the best way I could to encourage NOAA or whoever to respond, or investigate my finding to permit correction. Perhaps to discover a year or two later that my investigation prompted some improvement.

Even the takedown of Dr Andrew Wakefield, with his bullshit and actually fraudulent MMR study didn't have others immediately yelling "fraud" on an anonymous unaccountable blog. Others sought to replicate and see if the study stood scrutiny. Still others sought to find fault in his methods. Talk of fraud only came much later as preparation and case was made for him to be struck off. Interesting he is still free to promote and pollute the US with his lies and false medical claims, and earn high on the back of them.

Throwing in emotive words like "fake", "fraudulent" and all the others that imply deliberate intent with no proof of fraud whatsoever, are trying to sway the reader into political opposition. To take their "side". There is no "side". Present the errors, explain the errors, try and get them corrected and better practice in future. We're shooting for accuracy and improving the corpus of knowledge, not standing for election are we not?

Ah, there's the issue. I am now, on balance, convinced that site is not trying to correct careless mistakes, improve accuracy or advance knowledge. It's emotively trying to persuade - truth being secondary, or at best incidental. Even then, they may have found actual issues with some of the readings.

I really can say no more.