While you're right; the article did mention that the statistical confidence of the Marcott blade, during temperature spike, isn't robust, it's naive to believe that the spike didn't play a major part in getting published in Science, or the media attention the article received.
In fact the authors have used the instrumental record of the last 130 years to justify the incorporation of the statistically uncertain data from the last two centuries. From this we can understand their scientific model. They know their conclusions first, and then prove their conclusions. Good science is developing hypotheses and testing them.
Comments
While you're right; the article did mention that the statistical confidence of the Marcott blade, during temperature spike, isn't robust, it's naive to believe that the spike didn't play a major part in getting published in Science, or the media attention the article received.
In fact the authors have used the instrumental record of the last 130 years to justify the incorporation of the statistically uncertain data from the last two centuries. From this we can understand their scientific model. They know their conclusions first, and then prove their conclusions. Good science is developing hypotheses and testing them.
> it's naive to believe that the spike didn't play a major part in getting published in Science, or the media attention the article received.
Yes, you're right, but now we're talking about science media.