Climate Science -- Amateurs vs Pros

Steve McIntyre comments on the new report out of Britain which seems to indicate that the science community may finally be coming to terms with the idea that alleged scientific findings ought to be checked and that checking is a bit difficult, if no one can look at the data or methodology.  He responds to one erroneous claim ("there is a small, but increasingly numerous body of engaged “citizen scientists” that wish to dig deeply into the scientific data relating to a particular issue. They are developing an increasingly powerful “digital voice,” though many lack formal training in their area of interest") by pointing out:

The term “citizen scientist” is not a term that I use nor one that I like. In addition, most of the core Climate Audit commenters not only have formal training in statistics, but their formal training in statistics generally substantially exceeds that of the authors being criticized. The dispute is between formally trained statisticians and statistically-amateur and sometimes incompetent real_climate_scientists.

It is good to see that the institutions are beginning to notice that they are getting their butts kicked by an Army of Davids.  It would be nice if they would acknowledge that the Davids are often smarter and better trained.  But of course, if they figured that out, they wouldn't keep making the screwups which necessitate the butt-kickings in the first place.